Psychology is a sprawling discipline which seeks to analyze the human
mind. Its history dates back at least to 1879, when the German
psychologist Wilhelm Wundt founded the first laboratory exclusively
devoted to psychology. The most famous psychologist is Sigmund Freud, an
Austrian who founded the field of psychoanalysis. Although Freud's
theories had a huge impact on a wide variety of areas, including
literature and film, in modern psychology most of his ideas are
considered very subjective, if not entirely false.
Sub-disciplines
of psychology include abnormal psychology, biological psychology,
cognitive psychology, comparative psychology, developmental psychology,
personality psychology, social psychology, and applied psychology. All
of these topics are taught in colleges and universities throughout the
Western world.
Psychology should be distinguished between
research psychology, which seeks to establish facts about the mind by
conducting experiments, and applied psychology, which seeks to help
people with their problems using therapy. For decades, experiments have
shown that the success rate for solving one's problems by talking to a
professional psychologist is the same as talking to a close friend, so
the efficacy of clinical psychology as a discipline can sometimes be
difficult to justify. The field suffers from a lack of scientific rigor,
and many therapists simply make up their techniques as they go along,
unsupported by the results of scientific studies. Many mental health
professionals have no science training, and the trends in this direction
appear to be getting even worse. New Age therapies of various stripes
have made strong headway into clinical psychology.
On the more
scientific side of things, since the 1980s, tools such as fMRI and PET
scans have assisted psychologists in making correlations between mental
problems and biological states. For instance, in the 1980s, it was
realized the schizophrenia was mainly due to biological factors rather
than maternal neglect or some other environmental explanation.
