If we talk about psychology in a philosophical context, we can say that psychology had begun to be studied by people in Greece, Egypt, India, Persia and china about 1000 years back.
Pierre Cabanis a French psychologist came to draw an idea that sensibility and souls were parts of a nervous system. His well-known essay called ‘Relations between the physical and moral aspects of man’ earned him popularity in his time. Because of his contribution of interpreting the mind according to his biological studies, he was confident enough to create a new discipline of psychology known as biological psychology in 1802
Followed by Wilhelm Wundt, a German psychologist, with his efforts managed to earn psychology its respected title of being an independent discipline in itself. In simple words, Wundt distinguished psychology from philosophy after which psychology was considered a science of truly independent experimental field of study. It was in the year 1879, that Psychology got its full recognition. For this enormous role, Wundt id still remembered as the father of psychology.
For many decades, work of yet Philosopher William James, was discussed and taken ideas from by the psychologists across the globe. James contributed a lot in his famous work “Principles of psychology”.
Then there came Hermann Abbingaus, who earned the courtesy to be the first psychologist to study memory expansively. Each time you hear the name Ivan Pavlov, we think of Pavlov’s dog. He is still famous for his greatest discovery and phenomena that he called ‘classical conditioning’.
Psychoanalysis
Off course, we all know Sigmund Freud, or the father of psychiatry, for his ground shaking theories, and extensive research on human mind. He pioneered the very famous theory Psychoanalysis. His approach to studying the human mind was mainly based on interpretation, clinical observations and introspection. Although his main aspects of focus were resolving mental imbalances, distress and psychopathology, this theories on sexuality and unconscious mind earned him great fame. Though most of his theories were highly criticized yet many later psychologists confessed on using his theories as the basis of their research. Similarly, Freud had a considerable influence in psychiatrist Carl Jung.
Structuralism vs. Functionalism
E. B Titchener, a student of Wundt, strongly believed in structuralism, unlike William James and John Dewey who were strong believers in functionalism. Structuralism was interested in “what is consciousness?” while functionalism was interested in “what is consciousness for? What are the purposes or functions of consciousness and basic mental processes?” [sky]
Structuralists and functionalists highly contradicted and blatantly differed on each other’s theories. Nevertheless, both schools of thought has a deep rooted impact on Psychology that spread rapidly across the globe.
Behaviorism
Now what gave this road a U-turn was an American psychologist John B. Watson who founded behaviorism. He was of the view that both structuralism and behaviorists deviated too much from the objective science. Long story cut short, James believed that behavior was not a result of internal mental processes, but rather our reactions to the stimuli. Hence he focused merely on human behavior.
Humanism
In contradiction is Watson’s behaviorism, Humanists believed in the good nature of humans and that mental processes did play a role in eliciting a certain behavior. In this regard, a lot of emphasis has been laid on our emotions, free will and subjective aspect of experiences by the humanists.
Cognitive Theory
This cognitive theory out did humanism for its more extensive focus on mental processes in the brain. This started in the 1970s and is seen as the most recent school of thought in psychology.
Cognitive theorists are of the view that Human minds grasps the information from its external environment through the senses and then processes it by organizing, remembering, manipulating and associating previously stored information to it in our minds. Cognitive theory is very much applicable and most accurate one because it can be applied to language, memory, learning, perceptual systems, mental disorders and dreams.
Today
In contemporary psychology, huge dominant movements or schools of thoughts do not exist today like they did and the way they were studied by psychologist back in time. Schools of thoughts like behaviorism, psychoanalytical, cognitive and humanism are all studied altogether by a psychologist, irrespective of their vast differences, but in way that appears to be the best movement or school of thought. We can conclude that Psychology has become much more assorted, for which reason they have been classified into several branches of psychology.