Psychology

History and definition

      The origin of the word Psychology goes back to the Greeks and is a combination of two words: psyche, meaning soul, spirit and logos which means treaty. Could say that Psychology is "the study of the soul."

There is a split in the very heart of this science as to what concerns to its object of study and method. The coexistence of varied and sometimes contradictory psychological models is understood in the conception that each proposes as study object. Inserted into different paradigms, psychological schools vary in their conception of health, disease, human and psychological science itself, among others.

An historical route of the birth of Psychology can begin with the Greek philosophers, among them especially Plato and Aristotle. Soon also they will mark to influence two great philosophical currents: the rationalism and the associationism.

By the nineteenth century, under the requirement to make psychology an experimental science, is founded by the hand of Wundt's first laboratory of experimental psychology in the German city of Leipzig.

Towards century XIX, under the exigency to make of psychology an experimental science, the first laboratory of experimental psychology is based of the hand of Wundt on the German city of Leipzig. From the medicine, psychology also has received historically enormous contributions that contributed to their historical route. Psychiatrists as Kraepelin and Pinel contributed in the therapeutic conception of diagnosis and at the time of the Clinical boarding.

Since the late nineteenth and early twentieth century Sigmund Freud marked a before and after following his revolutionary developments in the treatment, the research method and the conception of the unconscious. With the nascent psychoanalysis Freud drew attention to the drives, unconscious processes and psychic determinism. This exerted and continues to present a decisive influence on the development of contemporary psychology.

The twentieth and twenty-first century is characterized both by the proliferation and coexistence of various psychological schools sometimes even with opposing viewpoints. Their differences range from the theoretical paradigm and to the therapeutic and methodological.


Application areas

      Although psychology is generally associated with Clinical application and referred to the health field, there are other areas where science has proven tools to act and develop successfully. Educational, employment, business and forensic are some of the areas most prominent and distinct which also has applied this science.

Whereas Clinical psychology takes care of the processes of health and disease in subjects, pairs and/or families, the other areas use the tools of psychology to apply it in problematic the own ones of the scope where they are exerted. Educational psychology, for example, studies the behavior of the subjects and social groups in educative atmospheres, their interaction and problematic the pedagogical ones, among others. Within the workplace, they usually work in human resources, recruitment processes, training and Couching. Forensic area is located at the intersection of two sciences: psychology and law. In a general conception, the forensic term designates to the disciplines of which Justice for its operation is nourished. Forensic psychology, then is an application of psychology to the harvesting, analysis and presentation of psychological evidence for judicial intentions and to the criminology.

On the other hand, at present there has been an extension and ramification of the scopes of application. Sport, publicity and investigation of market are some of the newest areas where psychology has begun to become jumbled.


Treatments

      We have said that clinical psychology takes care of the processes of health and disease in subjects, pairs and/or families. Its application takes generally the form from a treatment being nevertheless many the variants and options within the same. By therapeutic therapy or the treatment used in diverse diseases, somatic and psychic affections or symptoms are understood that bring about malaise in an individual.

The varied offer that is presented to those who want to start a psychological therapy reflects the internal division within the very heart of this science. The way to define the object of Psychology is changing and implies of in case a position taking. Each current is framed within a certain theory and consequently proposes a particular type of therapeutic. That is to say, school is based in a certain set of paradigms that define a direction theoretical-practice. The treatment sustains in a particular conception of subject/health/disease and has different technical tools.

Since the twentieth century schools of psychology and their respective treatments became more development and dissemination are:

• Gestalt: Study the form

• Behaviorism: Study conduct

• The Cognitive Psychology: Study cognition, knowledge processes

• The systems approach: The object of study are systems

• The classical psychoanalysis (Freud): Study of the Unconscious

• Lacanian Psychoanalysis (French school): Study the unconscious as a language understood

• Psychotherapy: Taking inputs and tools of the various schools.