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Founding Fathers of Psychology

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Founding Fathers of Psychology
Un-Official Founding Fathers of Psychology
Sarah

Psy/310
2/13/2012

Un-Official Founding Fathers of Psychology These four men that we are about to talk about are some of the, if not the most important people in psychology. One developed psychology as a school of thought and published the first book on the subject which opened the door for another to develop his theories. Years after the book came out another thinker was inspired to look into the human mind and this time with a more scientifically critical mind and approach, there was a common reason people had problem, he just was not positive what. This lead two of his students to move on and one focus on the individual versus what the majority has a problem with and made sure that treatment focused on them. The second looked more in depth into what naturally came into our subconscious and how that affected us and our development. These were the non-official founding fathers of psychology.
This man never even practiced medicine yet, after graduating from Harvard he went on to become an influential person in psychology (Stone, 2000). In addition to many other things that William James did to help with the field of psychology, especially the psychological aspects of religion he also dabbled in the use of scientific methods to investigate the mostly untouched spiritual and psychic realm. He was also the first one to fight for psychology to be recognized as a science, everyone after him has him to thank for the distinction as a science (Croce, 2010). The way he fought was just a more unorthodox way of going about it, he did not even like to be called psychologist, in fact he preferred the term philosopher (Goodwin, 2008). He eventually developed a position that would become the foundation for the functional psychologists, this was known as pragmatism. This was based on the belief that a person had control over what they do and life changes those experiences. This lead to a book that would change the way people



References: Carter, D. (2011). CARL JUNG IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY. Contemporary Review, 293(1703), 441. Chessick, R. D. (2000). Psychoanalysis at the Millennium. American Journal Of Psychotherapy, 54(3), 277. Croce, P. J. (2010). Reaching beyond Uncle William: A century of William James in theory and in life Frank, G. (2008). A response to "The relevance of Sigmund Freud for the 21st century." Goodwin, C. J. (2008). A History of Modern Psychology (3rd ed.). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley. Lafountain, R. (2009). Alfred Adler 's Place in the Field of Psychology. Washington, District of Columbia, US: APA Division 1, Society for General Psychology. Overholser, J. C. (2010). Psychotherapy that strives to encourage social interest: A simulated interview with Alfred Adler Stone, A. A. (2000). Images in psychiatry: William James, 1842-1910. The American Journal of Psychiatry, 157(10), 1583-1583

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