Psychology Has Remained A Progressive Science Due To The

The history of psychology is in infancy at the present time. Many philosophers can be credited to the development of this science. Starting in the early 18th and 19th centuries philosophers such as Rene’ Descartes and John Locke opened the world of what we know as psychology today. The British empiricists also contributed to psychology. Some of these men include David Hume and David Hartley.

Dr. Emile Krapelin, a German physician, was one of the first to separate mental disorders into different categories. “Dementia praecox” was the term Krapelin used for those patients who had some of the same symptoms that we now use to describe schizophrenia. Many people had described the basic concept of “madness” for hundreds, even thousands of years, however, Krapelin was the first to distinguish Schizophrenia as a distinguished mental disorder in the year 1887. He also was the first to distinguish between mental disorders such as Schizophrenia and depression. “Dementia praecox” was believed to be a “disease of the brain” meaning literally “early dementia.”

Ekman studied how what people felt and what they thought could be revealed just by the facial expressions people made. He wanted to see how people can look at faces and figure out what they were thinking. He studied many of the different expressions that people could make and what each of those expressions mean. He also studied the involuntary muscle movements and how they were triggered automatically when people feel certain emotions. He figured out how to read these emotions to figure out what people are thinking basically taking what humans do naturally a step farther. He became very proficient at the art of “mind reading”.

Ekman himself has contributed large amounts of innovative information in the world of psychology, but rather than look at how he contributed, let us first see who contributed and influenced his ideas throughout the many years of psychology.

Paul Ekman is the scientist who started the facial expression movement, he discovered the six basic emotions happy, sad, anger, disgust, fear and surprised in which he says are universal. He used the Facial Action Coding System which is a system to code facial expressions. Many use the FACS in test related to emotional expressions such as for kids, adults and those who have a psychological disorder. The six basic emotions and others are coded with Action Units that are muscle or muscle groups that make up what we see. For example, happy is AU 6+12 and sad is AU 1+4+15.We only know when a friend or family is sad or happy by looking at them but does having a high emotional intelligence (EI) gives one the ability to accurately distinguish the

Paul Ekman was a man of psychological influence that continues to reflect in the world of psychology today. His ideas of basic emotions, such as happiness, surprise, fear, sadness, anger, and disgust combined with contempt have not only been investigated by him, but also the psychologists following in his footsteps (Ekman 1992).

Authored by Keith E. Stanovich, How to Think Straight About Psychology is a known work of the psychology world which was published in 1986. Beginning courses in psychology use his text frequently. Stanovich primary purpose for writing the text is to bring attention to his observation that the public’s understanding of psychology is different from psychology as a modern science. Psychology as a modern science explains the underlying functions that shape human attitudes and behavior. To the people who misunderstand this, the field of psychology is not a real science, but a pseudo-science instead. How to Think Straight About Psychology describes people’s several false impressions of psychology and it gives its readers a factual understanding of the field as a modern and scientific psychology while explaining how this science works.

In 1895, Emil Kraepelin, a German psychiatrist, also identified as the founder of modern scientific psychiatry, psychopharmacology and psychiatric genetics, distinguished Depression from Schizophrenia. Psychodynamic theory was invented and psychoanalysis,

He documented the fact that they had periods of mania depression, plus he noted that they had a period of time where none of the symptoms were present. He thought of the term “manic-depressive psychosis” while he was studying and observing. This became the term used for the disorder in the 1950s, and in some places it is still used instead of bipolar disorder, the more recent term for the illness that was created in the 1980s. Kraepelin also identified the difference in manic-depressive illness from dementia praecox/schizophrenia. (Young, 2006) Kraepelin was open to new ideas contrary to popular opinion. He discussed the question and doubts about his work in his works. However, his epigones followers weren’t as flexible and ignored some of the later contributions. This caused

In the evolution of the concept of manic-depressive psychosis to its modern sense of bipolar disorders is summarized, very briefly, in the various changes undergone psychiatry. Classified in psychosis, distinguishing them from schizophrenia, it has become part of the mood disorder, closer to depressive neurosis. At the time of Kraepelin, this author included in the manic-depressive psychosis all affective psychosis. Therefore included in this heading endogenous depressions but were not associated with mania. Kraepelin developed the concept of praecox dementia, which he defined "as the subacute development of a simple peculiar condition of mental impairment that occurs in young age." (Engstrom EJ. (2006) Later, in 1957 it proposed separating

Paul Ekman was born in 1934 and at age 14 his mother committed suicide after suffering from severe bi-polar disorder. At that point, he decided he wanted to study facial expressions of emotion in order to assist other people before such tragic outcomes occurred. By the time he was 15, he had enrolled in University of Chicago and became interested in group therapy. He earned his Bachelor’s degree in 1954 and in 1958 he had earned his Ph.D. in clinical psychology at Adelphi University. His Master’s thesis was about the study of facial expressions and body movement. From 1960 to 2004 he worked at the University of California and starting in 1963 he received continual research grants from the National Institute of Mental Health for 40 years to study nonverbal behavior.

In 1985 Ekman wrote an article explaining the role of emotions that are involved in deception. When Ekman was able to understand the emotions the liars were experiencing, Ekman stated that it’s possible to predict the behaviors of a liar that differ from truth tellers. He gave an example by showing that the cues that involve fear like speech errors, faster and louder speech, and high pitch gave a greater chance of a liar being pointed out. Ekman also found that liars who felt guilt lying to someone they could trust showed certain behavioral indicators of guilt.

Clinical observation led him to the hypothesis that specific combinations of symptoms in relation to the course of psychiatric illnesses allow one to identify a particular mental disorder. Today, his concept of endogenous psychosis is regarded as Kraepelins main achievement. He differentiated between ‘dementia praecox’ and ‘manic depression’ as the two forms of psychosis. Kraepelin considered ‘dementia praecox’ as a biological illness caused by anatomical or toxic processes (Lehmann, 1997). He observed 19 cases and worked on defining the concept of paranoia, which is reflected in several editions of his famous textbook and most closely resembles the modern definition of delusional disorder. Kraepelin viewed paranoia as an uncommon, chronic condition different from dementia praecox by the presence of fixed, non-bizarre delusions, lacking deterioration over time, preserved thought process, and relatively slight involvement of effect and volition (Manschreck, 2000).

Back when I was a kid, I already fantasied much of mystery anime and films. I would always admire how these guys could draw out the answer as one by one, clues would pop out. But how does these things relate to Psychology? How does it influence me on how far do I know Psychology?

Chapter 3 During the Middle Ages some “authorities” classified abnormal behaviors into two groups, those that resulted from demonic possession and those due to natural causes. The 19th-century German psychiatrist Emil Kraepelin was the first modern theorist to develop a comprehensive model of classification based on the distinctive features, or symptoms, associated with abnormal behavior patterns (see Chapter 1). The most commonly used classification system today is largely an outgrowth and extension of Kraepelin’s work: the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), published by the American Psychiatric Association. Why is it important to classify abnormal behavior? For one thing, classification is the core of science. Without labeling and organizing patterns of abnormal behavior, researchers could not communicate their findings to one another, and progress toward understanding these disorders would come to a halt. Moreover, important decisions are made on the basis of classification. Certain psychological disorders respond better to one therapy than another or to one drug than another.