PSYCHOLOGY
Ever Evolving Science Including Its Definition!
The Field of Psychology apparently is newer but ever evolving since it’s birth as a legitimate child of “Philosophy”. Even before the bisection from it’s father, it was generously moving forward towards leading a recently discovered area of science into more of an experimental pedagogy of mental manifestations.
History of Psychology as a Field
There was a time when no such study subject existed. However, the fascination of man to understand the bends of mind and behaviour, its comprehension in the light of varied circumstances, led him ascend towards the inception of certain philosophies that could unravel the mystery of human behaviour; at least to a peculiarly convincing end. Thus, the field of “Mental Philosophy” was conceived. It covered the study of mind and it’s behavioral reaction as an approach of man to the world he sees, in the way he grasps it’s existence.
However, the growing predicaments in Psychology with reference to it’s father subject — Philosophy, led its breakaway. The major reason was the sheer fundamental difference between the two. While Philosophy comprised reasonings, logics and thoughts that may or may not have had practical implementation and thus less experimentation could give conclusive results, Psychology on the other hand required much of a scientific and massive experimental approach to give any conclusion at all. Also, (in my understanding) Philosophy is more of a moral driven concept while Psychology is much beyond the moral logics (its more of an applied science, including medical as well), which many Psychologists also believed. So, this may also be one of the vital reasons for the division of fields, which basically means the tift on the practicality of subjects between Philosophers and Psychologists of the earlier times.
What is Psychology?
Even though Psychology exerted itself as a divergent study, but there was still a lot of hither-thither for a very long time in defining it properly due to its debatable nature of what it must comprise as a whole.
Psychology is an ensemble of two Greek words — “PSYCHE” and “LOGOS”. While ‘logos’ clearly means ‘a study or a rational discourse’, it was the definition of the word ‘psyche’ that was indefinite and led to the four development stages of the meaningful word ‘Psychology’, finally resulting into an appropriate and wholesome explanation of this science.
First Stage of the Definition of Psychology
Initially, the word ‘psyche’ was said to mean as ‘soul’, thus Psychology meant ‘study of soul’. However, this made the field very vague, leading to the uprise of many arguable questions like, What is soul? How can we study soul? How can we use logics and experiments to understand its effects on behaviour? etc. Thus, the word psyche saw another turn of comprehension.
Second Stage of the Definition of Psychology
After rejection of the word ‘soul’, it was changed to the word ‘mind’ and so, psychology got the new definition as ‘the study of mind’. But, this denotation was also criticized since it too resulted into similar confusions and questions like, Explain mind? How it can be studied? How does it work to influence the more visible stimulus of humans or animals? etc. This criticism led to another change in it’s defined sense.
Third Stage of the Definition of Psychology
The unacceptance of the meaning of the word psyche as soul or mind led to an another very innovative sense. In the collective years of 1890–1894, a number of psychologists like William James, Wilhelm Wundt and Edward Bradford Titchener interpreted psyche as consciousness and thus defined psychology as ‘a study of consciousness’. According to these researchers cum psych doctors, the task of Psychology is to deal with the states of consciousness of man, which usually undertake the ‘process of introspection’. In the affair of consciousness, the mind remain fully aware of its surroundings and thus process the feelings and thoughts that grow into our minds. This growth of comprehended thought process stacks in our brain differently and leads to different reactions.
This explanation too was rejected on the ground of its narrow approach, as it did not compensate the processes of mind that take place subconsciously and unconsciously, both of which were also mental states affecting a person’s take on worldly as well as universal things.
Forth Stage of the Definition of Psychology
The meaning formulated in this stage is the one, reflecting advent of science and technology of modern era. Today our study of Psychology enjoys privileges of this very definition, in which the word ‘study’ was replaced by ‘science’ and the word ‘consciousness’ was replaced by ‘total behaviour’ that included both conscious and unconscious state. So, in short it became the “science of total behaviour of an organism”.
Shortly after this, the meaningful and wholesome interpretation of the word Psychology made its official debut into many books and different research materials. The modern elucidation of the term became that “Psychology is a Science which Aims to give us a Better Understanding and Control of the Behaviour of an Organism as a Whole” and therefore, is the final drafted explanation, defining the very field of mental science and acumen in the related experimental scenario.
