INITIALLY NOT A PSYCHOLOGIST: WILHELM WUNDT

The first part of the series - Initially Not A Psychologist ...

Wilhelm Wundt

Wilhelm Wundt is considered to be one of the most important figures in psychology. He was the first person to advocate experimentation in psychology and is credited to establish the first psychology laboratory at the University of Leipzig, Germany. He is thus known to be the founder of experimental psychology.

Introducing experiments in psychology also made it to be scientific and distinct from philosophy, which makes Wundt to be known as the founder of the new science of psychology or the father of modern psychology. Wundt, however, did not begin his career as a psychologist; he, initially, was not a psychologist.

Before being a psychologist, Wundt began his career as a physician. He studied medicine at the University of Heidelberg. While studying medicine, he developed a lot more interest in physiology and in went to the University of Berlin to study under the great physiologist, Johannes Muller, the person who had established the first laboratory of experimental physiology.

Wundt studied under Muller for only one semester, but it was good enough to inspire him to do research in physiological processes, which would, later on, eventually get him interested in psychology. He returned to the University of Heidelberg to complete his doctorate in medicine and was appointed as lecturer of physiology. From 1858 onwards, for 13 years, Wundt was involved in doing research in physiology as an assistant to the physician and physicist Hermann von Helmholtz.

While doing research in physiology, his background in medicine helped him to emphasize the physiological aspects in behavior. This is what made Wundt become interested in psychology. During this time he began to develop his ideas about psychology. He began to conceive of a field of psychology that would be an independent and experimental science.

Wundt presented his ideas about psychology in the form of a book titled, Contributions To The Theory Of Sensory Perception, which was published in sections, between 1858 and 1862. In this book, Wundt described his experiments and gave his views on the proper methods for the new psychology that he had conceived. It was in this book that Wundt used the term experimental psychology for the first time. This book is considered to be one of the first books of modern psychology.

In 1867, at the University of Heidelberg, Wundt offered the course on physiological psychology. This is the first time such a course was offered in a formal manner anywhere in the world. This could very well be considered the first formal course on psychology.

The course on physiological psychology led to the highly significant book titled Principles Of Physiological Psychology, which was published in two parts, first in 1873 and then in 1874. This book was Wundt’s systematic call for a new discipline of psychology. The book attempted to establish the whole framework of psychology as an experimental science of the mind, to be studied through its processes. Wundt advocated the creation of the field of experimental psychology, which was physiologically oriented and emphasized on basic sensory processes.

In 1875, Wundt was appointed as professor of scientific philosophy (as opposed to classical philosophy) at the University of Leipzig. Psychology was not yet established as a separate discipline, which is why he was designated as professor of scientific philosophy.

In 1879, at Leipzig, he established a laboratory to conduct his research. This is viewed to be the first laboratory dedicated exclusively for psychological research. Many see this to be the formal beginning of the new psychology or modern psychology.

In 1881, Wundt began the journal Philosophical Studies, which was the official publication of the laboratory and the new science. In the journal, he reported all the experimental studies of his laboratory. In 1906, Wundt retitled the journal as Psychological Studies.    

With the formation of a laboratory and an official journal, the new psychology that Wundt had conceived of, was firmly established and well under way. Wundt’s laboratory drew in a large number of students to Leipzig, many of who, later on, became significant contributors to the field of psychology. Wundt’s laboratory led to the formation of many psychology laboratories all over Europe and America. It served as a model for many of the new laboratories, and therefore had a major influence in the development of modern psychology.

Psychology as defined by Wundt is the analytical study of the generalized human mind, using the method of introspection. Introspection is a method of gathering data in which the individual attempts to analyse the content of their conscious mind. It is characterized by paying attention not to the whole pattern of a stimulus, but to an elemental part of a stimulus.  

According to Wundt, the purpose of psychology is to study the structure of consciousness. By the structure of consciousness, Wundt meant the relationship of a group of sensations that produces the complex experiences people think of as their conscious mental life.

Wundt’s system of psychology was about studying the contents of the mind and thus came to be known as content psychology. It also emphasized mental structures and was then called structural psychology or structuralism, which was later taken forward by Wundt’s student Edward Bradford Titchener. Structuralism, which was pioneered by Wundt, came to be known to be as the first school of thought of psychology. 

Thus, Wilhelm Wundt, who was trained in medicine and physiology, and was designated as a philosopher, introduced experimentation in psychology, went on to pioneer the first school of psychology, establish psychology as an academic discipline, and came to be known as the father of modern psychology.

GORDON ALLPORT AND SIGMUND FREUD: THE UNLIKELY CONNECTION OF PSYCHOANALYSIS WITH THE TRAIT APPROACH TO PERSONALITY

Gordon Allport

Gordon Allport is a pioneering figure in the field of personality psychology. He was one of the first psychologists to focus on the study of personality. Being an early pioneer of the study of traits, he is known as a trait psychologist.

Allport popularized the term personality with his book Personality: A Psychological Interpretation, published in 1937. Personality was not formally considered to be a part of psychology before the publication of this book. This book is considered to have the most comprehensive conceptualization of personality psychology generally and trait psychology specifically.

In 1961, Allport defined personality as the dynamic organization within the individual of those psychophysical systems that determine his/her unique adjustments to his/her environment. This is regarded as the most widely accepted definition of personality. This definition shows that, for Allport, the term personality describes individual uniqueness. As a result of Allport’s influence, personality increasingly became the term used to describe individual differences.

Allport’s interest in traits and individual differences also eventually led to the development of the now very popular Big Five model of personality. The Big Five model of personality is the most widely used approach in research in personality. Evidently, Allport is one of the most influential personality psychologists.

In his younger days, Allport was an admirer of Sigmund Freud – the father of psychoanalysis and one of the most famous figures in the last century. In 1920, at the age of twenty-two, Allport made a short visit to Vienna, the hometown of Sigmund Freud. At that time Freud’s popularity was increasing and his psychoanalysis was at its peak. He wrote a letter to Freud, expressing a desire to meet him. Freud replied back and agreed to meet him.

Sigmund Freud

When Allport met Freud, he was in complete awe of the whole environment. He was taken through large rooms that had paintings of dreams, and then was made to sit in Freud’s office. He was also in awe of Freud’s stature, who kept looking at him in silence.

Not knowing what to say, Allport narrated a small incident about a four to five year old boy he saw in the tram, on his way to Freud’s place. The boy seemed to have an obvious fear of dirt and had caught the attention of Allport. After he ended the narration, Freud asked Allport that was he the boy that he is talking about. Allport got shocked that Freud would try to find out such a deep meaning in a small, ordinary incident.

Freud believed that Allport was expressing his own unconscious inner conflicts by narrating that incident. Allport felt that Freud misinterpreted his motivation because he was accustomed to neurotic defences.

This experience, Allport later reported, made him realize that psychoanalysis plunges too much into the deep. He felt that psychoanalysis focused too greatly on unconscious forces and motives. Allport reported that the meeting with Freud taught him to look more at the surface-level and the manifest aspects of personality before probing deeply into the unconscious.

He then went on to develop a theory of personality that was very different from that of Sigmund Freud – a theory that emphasized on conscious motives and the study of mentally healthy individuals. (Allport never met Freud after that meeting again. It would have surely been very interesting to know what had happened if they had met again.) 

In his theory of personality, Allport minimized the role of the unconscious in mentally healthy adults, arguing that they function in more rational and conscious terms. He believed that only neurotic individuals are influenced by the unconscious. He also disagreed with Freud that childhood experiences play a role in conflicts in adult life, insisting that individuals are much more influenced by present experiences and by plans for the future rather than the past.

Gordon Allport

Allport also believed that the only way to understand human behavior and investigate personality is to study normal people. This was again very different from Freud as he developed his theory on the basis of studying neurotic individuals. For Allport, there is a discontinuity between normal and abnormal. He believed that psychoanalysis may be a highly effective representation of disordered or abnormal behavior, but it is of little utility in any attempt to account for normal behavior.

He argued that there are no similarities between normal and neurotic individuals, and thus there is no basis for comparing the two. He emphasized the uniqueness of each individual personality and did not propose universal laws that could be applied to everyone.

Like the discontinuity between normal and abnormal, Allport also believed in the discontinuity between childhood and adulthood. He believed that, theories, like that of psychoanalysis, which provide an adequate conceptualization of the infant or young child are not adequate as representations of adult behavior.

Allport consistently opposed extensive borrowing from the natural sciences. He believed that the mechanistic methods of study and theoretical models that have proved useful in the physical sciences may only be misleading in the study of complex human behavior. Freud, on the other hand, by emphasizing that individuals are guided only by the unconscious, had a mechanistic viewpoint of human behavior.

Further, Freud emphasized on instincts, which according to him is a driving force or impulse. For Freud instincts are sources of stimulation within the body and its goal is to remove or reduce the stimulation through some behavior. Allport, on the other hand, laid emphasis on traits. He defined trait as a neuropsychic structure having the capacity to render many stimuli functionally equivalent, and to initiate and guide equivalent forms of adaptive and expressive behavior.

Allport emphasizing on rationality, uniqueness, discontinuities, and refuting the mechanistic, natural scientific approach, marks a significant departure from Sigmund Freud’s approach. In many respects, his approach is the first non-Freudian model of personality.

It is very evident that the experience Allport had in meeting Freud played a significant role in the development of his theory of personality. Allport has openly mentioned that his meeting with Freud made him realize the limitations of psychoanalysis and gave him ideas to develop a theory of personality that was different from that of Freud.

Further, a look at Allport’s viewpoints about personality and human behavior clearly show that his perspective is very different from that of Freud, to the extent that their views are almost opposite. Freud studied neurotic individuals, emphasized on the unconscious, inner conflicts, childhood experiences, and instincts. Whereas Allport emphasized on conscious motives, present behavior, uniqueness of individuals, traits, and stressed on studying mentally healthy individuals to understand human behavior.

The marked contrast of Allport’s perspective with that of Freud evidently shows that his meeting with Freud had a huge negative impact on him. The impact was so strong that he went on to develop a theory that came to be known as one of the first non-Freudian personality theories.

That experience Allport had with Freud clearly can be seen as the one leading Allport mark the beginning of a completely new approach in understanding human behavior, which tells a lot about the significance of that one meeting between Allport and Freud. Of course he might have had other experiences after that meeting with Freud, which may have also contributed to the development of his theory of personality, but that undoubtedly played a significant role.

Allport’s meeting with Freud being a precursor to the development of his trait approach to personality raises a number of questions. What if Allport had never met Freud? What if his meeting with Freud had turned out to be a positive experience? What if Allport had not narrated that incident to Freud? What if Freud had not reacted in that way? What if the incident that Allport narrated to Freud had not even happened?

Allport was a big admirer of Freud. For him Freud was this huge personality that made him awestruck. It was an honor for Allport to meet Freud. The answer to these questions then could quite possibly be that maybe Allport would have gone on to extend the psychoanalytic tradition. Perhaps, instead being one of the pioneers in studying traits, he would have made some major contributions in psychoanalysis. Even if he would have studied traits later on, perhaps he would have associated traits in some way or the other with the psychoanalytic perspective. There could have been endless possibilities; all that can only be speculated.

The meeting of Gordon Allport with Sigmund Freud, which was initially supposed to be a very casual one, actually turned out to have a great significance in the history of psychology. It was that meeting with Freud that marked the initial thrust towards Allport developing his own theory of personality – a theory that is very different from the psychoanalytic perspective. In this respect, Allport’s trait approach to personality, in some way or the other, has a connection with Freudian psychoanalysis.

This article can also be found on the blog Life And Psychology at Gordon Allport and Sigmund Freud

INITIALLY NOT A PSYCHOLOGIST: THE SERIES

Psychology, in modern times, gradually has been developing into a highly popular field of study. Emerging out of philosophy and physiology, and initially being influenced by physics, it has now branched out into its own distinct, widespread area of learning. It is now applied in multiple disciplines and arouses a great sense curiosity even among lay persons.

It is the work of a large number of influential psychologists whose pioneering ideas have made psychology achieve a stronghold position not only academics, but even in its application. These psychologists have laid the foundation and became pillars of strength in putting forth psychology as a highly significant branch of learning in contemporary times.

Many of these psychologists initially did not belong to the field of psychology. They began their career in some other field and later on brought their ideas, experience and enthusiasm into the field of psychology, and went on to become highly influential psychologists. They were either pioneers of specific schools of thought in psychology or they carried forward the legacy of an existing thought and built their own.

This series is about such psychologists. In the coming months (and years) there will be a series of articles talking about people who were either well-established or beginners in another field of study, but then due to some reason or the other ended up becoming leading psychologists – these are psychologists who initially were not psychologists.


INITIALLY NOT A PSYCHOLOGIST: WILHELM WUNDT
INITIALLY NOT A PSYCHOLOGIST: WILLIAM JAMES
INITIALLY NOT A PSYCHOLOGIST: HERMANN EBBINGHAUS
INITIALLY NOT A PSYCHOLOGIST: FRANZ BRENTANO
INITIALLY NOT A PSYCHOLOGIST: GRANVILLE STANLEY HALL 
INITIALLY NOT A PSYCHOLOGIST: WILLIAM MCDOUGALL

INITIALLY NOT A PSYCHOLOGIST: ROBERT SESSIONS WOODWORTH

INITIALLY NOT A PSYCHOLOGIST: SIGMUND FREUD

THE INTELLECTUAL HEIR TO SIGMUND FREUD

Sigmund Freud

Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis, is known as one the most famous persons of the last century. Psychoanalysis is perhaps one of the most widely known systems of psychology. Despite having his critics, he has left behind a long lasting legacy.

Freud had a tremendous impact on twentieth-century psychology. His psychoanalysis was the first comprehensive theory of personality. According to Freud, the development of personality was determined by the unconscious adaptation of motivational principles that depended on energy forces beyond the level of self-awareness.

Psychoanalysis carried the implication of mental activity further than any other system of psychology. Unlike the other systems of psychology, psychoanalysis did not emerge from academic research; it was rather a product of the applied consequences of clinical practice. Among all the classic schools of psychology, psychoanalysis is the only one that made it an aim to improve the mental health of an individual.

Freud’s impact is further reflected by the continued influence of his psychoanalysis on art, literature, and philosophy. His writings on the unconscious have led to new interpretations of artistic expression. Consequently, literary and artistic expressions are interpreted in the light of the unconscious activities of the artist as well as the unconscious impressions of the perceiver. The influence of psychoanalysis on Western thought, as reflected in literature, philosophy, and art, significantly exceeds the impact of any other system of psychology.

This as well as some of the popular psychoanalytic terms introduced by Freud such as the unconscious mind and dream analysis have made him perhaps the most well known psychologist of all time, to the extent that many see Freud to be synonymous to the entire field of psychology.

Before introducing psychoanalysis, Freud was a practicing neurologist. In the initial phase of his career, Freud started getting patients with neurological symptoms such as paralysis, numb feelings in the hand or foot, complete or partial blindness, chronic headaches, and similar complaints with no organic pathology. Freud concluded that these symptoms were not due to biological causes, but were instead produced by intense emotional conflicts. This led Freud to change his direction from being a neurologist to establishing psychoanalysis.

According to Freud, the patients suffering from intense emotional conflict were actually suffering from hysteria, which is a diagnostic label in which a person experiences neurological symptoms that were thought to be imaginary in nature. The person, however, believes the symptoms to be real and is not malingering.

Sigmund Freud

Freud asserted that information that may cause psychological threat to an individual are hidden within the unconscious of the individual. This hidden information mainly comprises of painful childhood memories, forbidden sexual wishes, and forbidden aggressive wishes. It is these memories and wishes, according to Freud, that are hidden in the unconscious, when not resolved, cause an emotional conflict within the individual leading him/her suffering from hysteria. Freud believed that an individual being aware of these memories and wishes in the unconscious can help the individual to be treated with such psychological problems. This forms the principle assumption of psychoanalysis.

Freud along with his friend and colleague, Joseph Breuer, who was a physician, collaborated on a book called Studies on Hysteria, which was published in 1895. This is the first book written on psychoanalysis and this is also considered to be the starting date of the school of psychoanalysis. Later, Freud and Breuer separated from each other, moving in different directions. Freud, although, never looked back, and after the publication of his books The Interpretation of Dreams in 1900, and The Psychopathology of Everyday Life, published in 1901, psychoanalysis kept on flourishing.

As psychoanalysis continued to flourish and Freud’s writings gained reputation, he attracted a number of followers. During this time he started looking for someone who could become his successor; someone who he felt would take his ideas forward, make his psychoanalysis to be as popular as possible, and thus, become his intellectual heir.  

He was also keen to have discussions and further spread psychoanalysis. This led Freud to start the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society. The Vienna Psychoanalytic was a small group of people that Freud invited to discuss about psychology and neuropathology. This was also the international psychoanalytic authority of that time. One of the first members of the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society was the then young psychiatrist Alfred Adler.

Alfred Adler

Adler was one of the first followers of Sigmund Freud. In 1902, he was appointed as the first president of the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society.

After being with Freud for quite some time, Adler started developing his own ideas, which were at variance with Freud and the other members of the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society. He later, began to criticize Freud openly, especially about Freud’s emphasis on sexuality. In 1911, Adler was fervently criticized by the members of the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society, which led him to resign as the president of the society.

After a few months he terminated his association with Freud and Freudian psychoanalysis. Adler then developed his own psychoanalytic model and called it Individual Psychology, which emphasized individual’s need for self-unity, perfection and specifically designed goals. He gave importance to social urges rather than sexual urges.

Alfred Adler

Freud had begun seeing Adler as his successor, someone who he believed would help him in carrying his psychoanalysis forward. He had developed a strong association with Adler. He was highly impressed by his ideas as well as his diligence. He not only made Adler one of the first members of the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society, but he also appointed him its first president. Unfortunately for Freud, Adler developed strong disagreements with him and decided to move away, leaving Freud to look for someone else as his intellectual heir.

Apart from Adler, Freud met someone else that made him think to be his heir. That person was Carl Gustav Jung. Jung was a psychiatrist in Zurich. 

Carl Gustav Jung

In 1900, when he read Freud’s Interpretation of Dreams, right after its publication, he became highly impressed with Freud’s ideas. He began to use Freud’s ideas in his own practice. He became so highly influenced by Freud that he began to write to Freud, asking for his viewpoint about his own ideas. A regular correspondence began between the two in 1906. When they finally met in 1907, they had a meeting which lasted continuously for thirteen hours.

Freud developed a deep sense of admiration and fondness for Jung. He decided to make him his successor, what he called “his crown prince.” In 1910, Freud founded the International Psychoanalytic Association and made Jung its first president. Jung held this position till 1914.

Despite the fondness that they formed for each other, a rift began to develop between Freud and Jung. Jung began to apply psychoanalytic insights to ancient myths and legends in a search for the key to the nature of human psyche. Such independent thinking did not meet with Freud’s approval. Freud felt that associating psychoanalysis with ancient myths and legends will give it a bad name and will thus, become an impediment in spreading psychoanalysis.

Jung also differed with Freud on matters of sexuality. They both differed on matters of theory. Jung differed with Freud’s emphasis on sexuality and Freud questioned Jung’s interest in spirituality. Jung rejected Freud’s pansexualism, which became the main reason for their once intimate relationship being ruptured. It is also said that Jung made a critical analysis of Freud’s personal life that may have been another reason for the tensions between them.

Sigmund Freud (front-left) with Stanley Hall (front-center) and Carl Jung (front-right), at Clark University

Due to all the differences and tensions between the two, Freud and Jung began to move in separate ways. In early 1913, they ended their personal relationship and a few months later their business correspondence. In April 1914, Jung resigned from the post of the president of the International Psychoanalytic Association, and in August 1914, he even withdrew his name as a member. After that Freud and Jung never saw each other again.

Jung continued with his own interpretations of psychoanalysis, after moving away from Freud. He developed his own theory of psychoanalysis and his own method of psychotherapy, which came to be known as Analytical Psychology. He also redefined many Freudian concepts.

Thus, once a relationship of fondness and admiration came to a bitter end. Freud used to find Jung to be inspiring. In Jung, he saw someone who could take his psychoanalysis forward. He very evidently saw Jung as his heir. But, their disagreements with each other developed a rift that was beyond healing. The relationship between the two that started on a highly positive note ultimately got severed forever. With this, Freud’s search for his heir also became bitterly unsuccessful.

Adler and Jung moving away from Freud led to the development of three different versions of psychoanalysis. This made Freud have a lack of trust in others as far as taking forward his psychoanalysis was concerned. He decided to have a more close-knit group and became very cautious in making associations with others. He was adamant about preserving the conceptual pillars upon which psychoanalysis was based. Anyone who attempted to undermine these pillars or to replace them was no longer considered a part of the psychoanalytical enterprise.

Anna Freud

In 1918, Sigmund Freud psychoanalyzed his daughter Anna Freud, which began her serious involvement in psychoanalysis, although she had been reading her father’s work since 1910. Anna was very close to her father and was very much influenced by him. They both began working together. They attended the International Psychoanalytic Conference together, in 1920. Soon they had work and friends in common.

In 1923, when Sigmund Freud began suffering from jaw cancer he became very dependent on Anna. Anna used to take care of him and nurse him. His illness led to the formation of a secret committee that protected psychoanalysis against attacks. Anna Freud was one of the members and was given a ring as a token of trust. 

Sigmund Freud had, finally, found his successor. His search for an intellectual heir, which was bitterly unsuccessful with colleagues such as Carl Jung, ultimately succeeded with his own daughter. It was Anna Freud who actually studied children and the childhood periods about which Sigmund Freud had erected such elaborate interpretations based on the clinical recollections of adult patients.

This work convinced her that the psychoanalytic techniques proposed by her father must be modified for the analysis of children. This led to the formation of the field of psychoanalytic child psychology or child psychoanalysis, Anna Freud being one its founders.

Anna Freud with her father Sigmund Freud

Anna Freud remained one of the closest associates of Sigmund Freud, till his death. The death of Sigmund Freud, in 1939, led to a number of significant developments in Freudian psychoanalysis. The most striking of the developments in the psychoanalytic theory was the formation of the new theory of the ego, also referred to as Ego Psychology. Although Sigmund Freud regarded the ego as the executive of the total personality, he never granted it an autonomous position; it always remained subservient to the wishes of the id. After Freud’s death, some psychoanalytic theorists, in contrast to Sigmund Freud’s position, proposed a greater emphasis on the role of ego in total personality.

Anna Freud was the first of the ego psychologists. But, unlike Adler and Jung she remained faithful to the basic ideas developed by her father. Her work continued her father’s intellectual adventure. She believed that Freudian psychoanalysts were the first who had been given the key to the understanding of human behavior and its aberrations as being determined by instinctual forces arising from the unconscious mind rather than by overt factors.

In contrast to the subsequent ego psychologists, Anna Freud conceptualized the ego in a manner that was consistent with the traditional psychoanalytic view of the interrelationships of the id, ego, and superego. She provided a systematic discussion of the defensive strategies to which the ego may resort, extending her father’s treatment to include ten defense mechanisms - regression, repression, reaction formation, isolation, undoing, projection, introjection, turning against the self, reversal, and sublimation.

In order to preserve her father’s ideas, Anna Freud influenced research in Freudian psychoanalysis. She standardized the records for children with diagnostic profiles, encouraged the pooling of observations from multiple analysts, and encouraged long-term studies of development from early childhood through adolescence.

Anna Freud with Sigmund Freud

She also led the way to natural experiments in order to verify the Freudian concepts. She did careful analyses of groups of children who suffered from similar disabilities such as blindness or early traumas. This makes the common criticism that Freudian psychology has no empirical basis to be false. It is true only if empirical basis is restricted to laboratory experiments. Thus, Anna Freud is credited to giving an empirical basis to her father’s concepts making them verifiable.

Anna Freud made modifications to her father’s ideas, which led to the formation of Ego Psychology. She, however, regarded her formulations as consistent with Sigmund Freud’s emphasis on instinctual impulses. Her basic loyalty to her father’s work remained unimpaired. She devoted her life protecting her father’s legacy. Therefore, Anna Freud, not only became Sigmund Freud’s intellectual heir, she also became her father’s intellectual custodian.

This article can also be found on the blog Life And Psychology in three parts:
The Intellectual Heir To Sigmund Freud (Part I)
The Intellectual Heir To Sigmund Freud (Part II)
The Intellectual Heir To Sigmund Freud (Part III)