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Rene Descartes
Rene Descartes developed a theory called dualisim, he agrees that mind and body are two different things, he challenges the theory that the mind can control the body but the body cannot control the mind. He states that the mind and the body come into contact through a small pineal gland a structure located within the brain. Although he was not always accurate, Rene Descartes strengthened the theory and brought mind and body closer -
Hermann von Helmholtz
Hermann von Helmholtz developed a method for measuring the speed of nerve impulses in a frog's leg. Helmholtz adapted his method after successful results and tried to apply it to the study of humans, he found that the stimulant took longer to respond when their toe is stimualted where-as the thigh is faster. These results allowed him to estimate the time it took for nervous impulses to reach the brain. -
Nineteenth Century Progress
Scientists were making progress in understanding mental processes through scientific processes, though philosophers believed that the "mind" was not was physical property and could not be analysed, measured or manipulated scietifically. -
Functionalism - William James
William James, is regarded as one of the most important figures in the study of psychological field, he defines psychology as a study of conciousness however he disagreed with Wundt's approach to seperating conciousness into its different elements. william James published a widely accepted two-volume textbook called Principles of Psychology, his writtings influenced many psychologists. -
Structuralism - Wilhelm Wundt
Wilhelm Wundt was a German Physiologist he studied in medicine but was rather fond of the scientific study of the human conciousness. Wilhelm tried to understand the conciousness by breaking it into parts, his research eventually led to the first school of thought in psychology which was called structuralisim. -
Psychoanalysis - Sigmund Freud
Sigmund Freud is the founder of the study of psychoanalysis, according to Freud he believes our unconcious is a part of the mind below our level of normal concious awareness. He believed this level harboured instinctive sexual and aggressive needs.According to Freud we gert a glimpse of our unconcious impulses through everyday life such as concious thoguhts, memory blocks, slips of the tongue and even the jokes we make. Freud developed psychoanalysis through theories mainly from his patients. -
Greek Philosophers - 2000 Years Ago (BC)
Greek Philosohpers Socrates, Plato and Aristotle wrote in detail about all kinds of human psychological thought processes, behaviour and human natures. They created hypothesis about memory,sleep,dreams and also about the senses such as pleasure, pain and imagination.
