History of Psychology

To the general public, a “psychologist” usually does not denote a researcher, but a clinician who diagnoses and treats psychological problems. In this chapter, we discuss the roots of this distinct type of psychology. We start with Sigmund Freud and the development of psychoanalysis. Freud lived a fascinating life, and his ideas are best understood in their historical context. In particular, that context helps to make certain apparently bizarre ideas seem much more sensible. If you already have opinions about Freud and psychoanalysis, observe how they change (if at all) as your historical understanding increases. We then turn to the work of Lightner Witmer, a man far less well known than Freud, but who did nothing less than invent clinical psychology (both the term and the practice) by opening the first psychological clinic. We finish by discussing the separate histories of clinical, counseling, and school psychology; as we will see, even though Witmer influenced all of them, other external influences were important in making these specialties different from each other.