NOTE: The following is a paper that was written as a final assignment for my History and Systems of Psychology course. I am currently enrolled in a doctoral program at the University of the Rockies.
Abstract
The history of psychology is reviewed in
relation to the historical periods of pre-modernism, modernism and
post-modernism. When possible the
Eurocentric worldview posed by the course text book is contrasted with at least
one other worldview. The influence of Rene Descartes is discussed especially his
idea that man himself could be the source of truth through reasoning (Goodwin,
2008). Descartes’ duality is contrasted
with the unity of pre-modern African culture (Carroll, 2008). In the modern period Locke’s empiricism and
the idea that everything is derived from experience is contrasted with the
African concept of Ubuntu; “I am
because we are.” Four major areas of
psychology are reviewed: Gestalt psychology, Psychoanalysis, Behaviorism and
Humanistic psychology. Humanistic
theory ushers in the post-modern period and diversity enters the discussion. Changes in society and psychology are
discussed in relation to diversity.
Finally, the significant influences on this writer’s career from
teachings within African psychology and humanistic theory are discussed. As American society becomes increasingly
diverse psychologist must be prepared to accept the changes in order to remain
effective.
From the outset it must
be pointed out that the textbook being used for the course on the history of
psychology was written strictly from a Eurocentric perspective. Other perspectives or worldviews are not
mentioned. It is as if other people in
the world during the same period did not have any ideas about human psychology
worth mentioning. The people living in
what is now China, India and the many countries of South America and Africa had
ideas about their humanity and their relationship to the universe and each
other. The ethnic and cultural
composition of students in psychology is also very diverse. Yet Goodwin (2008)
saw no need to mention other philosophies in telling the story of the history
of psychology. African Americans,
Native Americans, women and others are only mentioned within the context of the
history of western psychology. Perhaps
a more accurate name for the course would have been “History and Systems of
Western Psychology.” By excluding the
word “western” it gives the impression that it is the total story of
psychology. Of course that could not be
since the ideas of this author’s ancestors from the pre-modern period were not
mentioned. The title and subsequent
content (or absence of content) provides an example of exactly what Sue (2004)
described as Ethnocentric Monoculturalism.
The “Whiteness” becomes invisible and all of the standards and
definitions are from a monocultural perspective. In this paper this writer will offer information from at least
one other human perspective as a contrast to the Eurocentric perspective
offered by Goodwin (2008). As we are
currently in the post-modern period of psychology it seems appropriate that a
more pluralistic approach be adopted that questions the authority of the
established hierarchy.
The
Pre-Modern Period (Beginnings – 1650)
Rene Descartes
(1596-1650) emerged at the end of the Pre-modern period and was classically
trained by Jesuits (Goodwin, 2008).
However, he became frustrated with the pace of his education and at 18
years old set out to have experiences of his own. Descartes sought answers to questions philosophers had been posing
for centuries. In his Discourse on Method he established a
process for determining what truth is.
One truth he identified was “I
think, therefore I am.” His ideas
focused on the individual’s ability to seek truth through reasoning. Descartes reasoned that the mind and body
were separate. He viewed the body as
mechanical and existing in space but saw the mind (soul) as non-physical and
existing outside of space. Nevertheless,
he did see the mind and body as interacting with each other (Goodwin, 2008).
Descartes’ ideas along
with others during the Renaissance such as Galileo Galilei and Sir Francis
Bacon, marked the end of the Pre-modern period characterized by the idea that
truth could only be known through revelation and the church was the ultimate
authority. Galileo’s empirical evidence
of a heliocentric universe and Bacon’s inductive approach to science set the
stage for Descartes to assert that truth could be uncovered through reason
(Goodwin, 2008). Man as an individual
using his power to reason has the potential to arrive at truth separate from an
external authority. Thus, the ideas of
these men and others ushered in the Modern period.
On the continent of
Africa the dominant philosophy during the Pre-modern period was one that did
not separate spirit or the non-material universe from the material universe
(Carol, 2008). The view was that spirit
energy is the source of all manifestation in the material universe and
continues to exist as spirit energy within material objects both animate and
inanimate. Also, all spirit energy is
interconnected and interdependent. In
African philosophy mind (soul) and body exists as one. These ideas were very similar to what had
developed in China and India during the Per-modern period. Plato, Aristotle and then Descartes believed
in an either/or, good or evil dichotomy.
African and Eastern philosophy can be described as diunital (Carroll,
2010) meaning the acknowledgement that opposites exist side by side at the same
time. Good and evil always exist together and naturally move toward
balance. Such a difference in worldview
would have produced a very different approach to answering questions in
psychology.
The Modern
Period (1650-1950)
The Modern Period was
characterized by empiricism which views knowledge as being the result of
experience (Goodwin, 2008). John Locke
is usually considered the founder of empiricism. Locke distinguished himself from Descartes and rejected the idea
of innate ideas arriving out of reason.
Locke believed that ideas are derived from experience and we begin
having experiences from the time we are born (Goodwin, 2008). Interestingly enough in Africa especially
South Africa the idea of Ubuntu
emerged (Jamison, 2010). Stated simply,
Ubuntu means “I am because we
are.” What makes us human comes from
experiences with other humans. Without
these experiences we would not know what it means to be human or how to be
human. The difference is that the focus
of Ubuntu is on experience with other
humans whom we are seen to be interdependent and interconnected with. Locke’s ideas involved experience with or
without other humans. Nevertheless,
there is certainly an overlap in the ideas.
Locke’s empiricism led
to a focus on sensory perception since it is through our senses that we
experience the world. Empiricism
combined with the scientific method resulted in detailed empirical studies of
human sensory perception. Empiricists
favored the nature side of the nature vs. nurture debate believing that
experience has a far greater influence on human performance than innate
abilities. However, rationalists such
as Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646-1716) and later Immanuel Kant (1724-1804)
argued that the ability to organize human experiences into meaningful
information required that something had to precede the experience and that
“something” would have to be innate (Goodwin, 2008). Kant argued that psychology could never become a physical science
because mental phenomena could not be observed directly or be defined and
measured with the precision of mathematics (Goodwin, 2008). Nevertheless, the scientific study of
perception continued and resulted in many new theories and concepts. Many of the studies began to establish
direct relationships between physiological structures in the brain and nervous
system with behaviors. In spite of
Kant’s doubts about psychology becoming a science, physiological research was
contributing to an improved understanding of the relationships between the
physical brain and observable behavior (Goodwin, 2008).
Wilhelm Wundt
(1832-1920) is considered the founder of experimental psychology (Goodwin,
2008). Wundt established strict
experimental procedures that focused primarily on the immediate perceptual
responses of his subjects. He made a
clear distinction between self-observation
(immediate) and internal perception (involving interpretation and memory) (Goodwin, 2008). This distinction was the main reason he
believed the controlled setting of the laboratory was limited to immediate
conscious experience of basic mental processes. Although he was very interested in studying learning, thinking,
language and the effects of culture, he felt they could not be controlled
sufficiently to be examined in the laboratory (Goodwin, 2008).
Charles Darwin
(1809-1882) released On the Origin of
Species by Means of Natural Selection or the Preservation of Favoured Races
in the Struggle for Life in 1959
(Goodwin, 2008). The initial printing
of 1250 copies sold out on the first day.
Darwin did not discuss humans in his book but applications to humans
were made by the church, other scientists and in the field of psychology. Darwin did very directly discuss humans in
subsequent books and suggested a continuity of mental processes existed between
man and other species. His theories led
to the development of comparative
psychology (Goodwin, 2008).
One of the principles
identified by Darwin was that individual members within a species varied from
each other. Francis Galton (1822-1911)
studied such individual differences in humans.
He believed that characteristics such as intelligence and scientific
aptitude were inherited (Goodwin, 2008).
Such beliefs became very wide spread among Europeans and Americans and
further justified or rationalized the mistreatment of Africans during the salve
trade. For many scientists Darwin’s
research seemed to provide scientific evidence of European superiority over
Africans.
Psychology in America
developed within this context. Even
though several debates raged in the field of psychology at the time such as
nature vs. nurture and structuralism vs. functionalism, the underlying
assumption was that white males were a superior variety of the human
species. White woman were viewed as not
having the same capacities as their male counterparts and other races were
simply viewed as being evolutionarily inferior. Thus, in America the foundation
was established for what Sue (2004) calls Ethnocentric Monoculturalism. The remainder of the Modern Period would see
this paradigm developed and supported.
Four Major
Trends in American Psychology
Four of the trends that
emerged in American Psychology during the Modern Period were Gestalt
psychology, Psychoanalysis, Behaviorism and Humanistic
psychology. Max Wertheimer, Kurt Koffka
and Wolfgang K
hler are credited with bringing Gestalt psychology to
America (Goodwin, 2008). The basic idea
of Gestalt psychology is not that the whole is simply greater than the sum of
its parts, but that the whole is something entirely different than the sum of
the parts. Gestalt psychologists put
forth that the way we perceive and interact with our environment cannot be
explained simply by understanding the components of perception. Our brains have tendencies and abilities
that help us organize the information into meaningful perceptions and those
tendencies and abilities are extremely useful in adapting to an environment,
problem solving and learning new things.
Gestalt psychologists introduced such concepts as phi phenomenon that explains why we perceive motion from still
images presented in rapid succession. Productive thinking was also a key
concept introduced by the Gestaltists. Productive thinking involves the ability
to solve a new problem by recognizing and applying elements that are already
familiar.

Psychoanalysis was
introduced to America by Sigmund Freud (1856-1939). Freud developed his theory of personality and psychoanalysis over
several decades. His basic idea was
that psychopathology could be traced back to biological drives (Goodwin,
2008). He asserted that when these
drives were frustrated in one way or another during childhood the result was
unconscious conflict. If the
unconscious conflict persisted into adulthood it would be displayed as some
sort of psychological problem. The
method to resolve the problem, therefore, was to uncover the unconscious
conflict and bring it to the attention of the patient.
Initially Freud used two
primary techniques to uncover the contents of the unconscious mind. One was free
association and the other was interpretation
of dreams. Later Freud developed
what he called metapsychology as a
general theory of human behavior and mental processes. Within metapsychology
Freud posed the idea of the structural analysis of personality. Structural analysis identifies three
components of the personality; the id,
the ego, and the superego. The id is that part of the personality that
responds directly to basic drives and seeks pleasurable experiences with little
regard to consequences or social limitations.
The superego serves as the
conscience or keeper of morality, ready to impose limitations on the id. The
ego is the objective adult that seeks
to find a healthy balance between to id and
superego. When the ego fails
or is unable to perform its function the result is mental problems or
psychopathology.
John B. Watson
(1878-1958) emerged in the United States as the founder of behaviorism
(Goodwin, 2008). Watson believed that
behavior could be changed by controlling the environment and was adept at
designing experiments to investigate and explain observed behavior of animals
in his laboratory. Watson contrasted
his approach and ideas with that of Titchener and the structuralists. In his “Behaviorist Manifesto” Watson set
out to establish psychology as a natural science with a clear set of goals,
devoid of unscientific introspection and accepting of the evolutionary model of
behavior (Goodwin, 2008).
B. F. Skinner also
believed in the idea that behavior could be changed by controlling the
environment and continued in the tradition of Watson regarding developing
rigorous research design to support the scientific nature of his concepts. Skinner’s research focused on what came
after the behavior and altering behavior by altering the consequences of the
behavior. His approach became known as
Operant Conditioning. Skinner was
concerned with what controls how the organism operates on the environment. He believed very strongly in a purely inductive
approach to research where samples of behavior are studied and the researcher
looks for patterns as opposed to always working from a theory and then testing
hypotheses based on the theory (Goodwin, 2008).
Humanistic theory and
psychology developed as an alternative to psychoanalysis and behaviorism. The humanists rejected the idea that human
behavior could be explained by repressed biological drives or conditioning from
the environment (Goodwin, 2008). The
two major figures of humanistic psychology were Abraham Maslow (1908-1970) and
Carl Rogers (1902-1987). Maslow is best
known for his hierarchy of needs and the concept of self-actualization.
Humanists believe that human thought, feeling and behavior is motivated
by a tendency to seek self-actualization. Rogers developed what became known as the therapeutic triad of genuineness, unconditional positive regard
and accurate empathy. Most of the
empirical studies involving an evaluation of these concepts found that when
they are properly employed by the therapist outcomes are better regardless of
the specific technique being used (Kerschenbaum and Jourdan, 2005). Humanistic psychology became increasingly
popular in the 1960’s and 1970’s as it ushered in the Post-modern Period.
The
Post-modern Period (1950-now): Diversity enters the Discussion
Post-modernism is
characterized by pluralism and increased openness to new ideas. The source of knowing can come from other
than the established authority.
Established authority is often questioned. Critical thinking about previous assumptions is central to the
development and progress of knowledge and understanding. Paradigm shifts are welcomed.
One of the outcomes of
post-modernist thinking is an attempt to counter the assumptions of the
Ethnocentric Monoculturalism.
Discussions about multiculturalism and culturally competent treatment
become common place. However, talking
about being more open and actually implementing real change can be two
different things (Yutrzenka et al, 1999).
In the pre- and modern periods worldviews other than a European or
Euro-American worldview were not even acknowledged as existing. Thus far in the post-modern period alternate
worldviews are acknowledged as an issue for psychologist to be aware of in
relation to clients (APA, 2003), but not yet given full legitimacy in the
academic arena regarding the methodology of research (Carroll, 2010).
If one desires to learn
about what African American psychologists have been researching and writing
about since the 1960’s there are a number of sources and journals from which a
wealth of information can be obtained.
However, conducting a search of some of the prominent names in
contemporary African American psychology comes up empty with the University of
the Rockies online library. With the
exception of a few abstracts, such names as Na’im Akbar, Wade Nobles, and Linda
James Myers netted no results when searching for full articles. Yet all have been President of the
Association of Black Psychologists (ABPsi) and all are university professors
with a long list of published works.
Within the African American community they are well known and
respected. This writer is not certain
why their articles cannot be found at the University of the Rockies online
library.
Akbar, Nobles, Myers and
others have all been involved in conducting empirical research and literature
reviews on basic questions of worldview and human psychology over the past 40
years (Jamison, 2010). This writer was
mentored early in his career by Bobby Wright (1934-1982) who received his PhD
in Psychology from the University of Chicago.
Wright developed the theory of “Mentacide” which is the systematic
destruction of Black minds by a Eurocentric dominated society (Wright,
1985). He was considered very radical
even amongst other African American scholars.
What was engaging about Dr. Wright was that he challenged his students
and employees to think for themselves and to not simply accept what was being
taught as factual by university psychology departments.
Wright’s views were
typical of many African American psychologists and scholars attempting to
answer questions relating to the impact of slavery and continued racism on
African Americans. One set of issues
related to how African American mental health has been affected and the other
side of the question attempts to explain how Eurocentricism came about and what
its impact has been on the mental health of persons of European decent. Much of what has been written on these
questions and the theories that have been developed are often too radical for
organizations like the APA to accept.
However, more moderated conceptions that put forth very similar ideas
such as Sue’s (2004) Ethnocentric Monoculturalism are accepted by the APA.
The APA (2003)
guidelines are very comprehensive and inclusive of all persons that have been
or can be marginalized by a dominant culture.
The guidelines (which are slated to be updated in 2012) also acknowledge
the fact that there is a significant faction within the United States that
seeks to reverse such programs as Affirmative Action. The APA (2003) cites evidence that such programs and efforts as
described by (Yutrzenka et al, 1999) continue to be necessary. The actions of the APA reflect a continuing
trend to support the acceptance of all segments of American society. It encourages psychologists to play an active
role in moving Multiculturalism forward.
Recently, a federal
court ruled that the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) is unconstitutional. The next step will be the Supreme
Court. Such rulings represent a
cultural shift in the United States towards more openness and fairness. However, those persons uncomfortable with
such a shift will, at least in the short term, become more intensely vocal in
their opposition. Nevertheless, it
appears that a shift is taking place in society as well as in psychological
training, education and practice.
Significant
Influences
This writer’s career as
mentioned above was influenced early on by an exposure to the “big” thinkers in
African American psychology of the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s. Individuals such as Bobby Wright, Na’im
Akbar and Wade Nobles had a lasting impact on my development as a
practitioner. As a young African
American just beginning in the study and practice of psychology they offered a
perspective that was not a part of any psychology class offered at the undergraduate
or graduate schools this writer attended.
However, Carl Rogers had an equally significant impact regarding my
views of what is important in clinical practice. If there is such a thing as a culturally universal approach,
Rogers found it. This writer has found
that the therapeutic triad of genuineness,
unconditional positive regard and accurate empathy is appropriate and
effective regardless of the race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation or
ability status of the client. My area
of specialty at the University of the Rockies is International Leadership. This writer has had an opportunity to travel
to Nigeria and spend time at a large psychiatric hospital in Lagos. In spite of my previous training and
education under Bobby Wright, as well as my personal openness, I still had to
overcome a few basic biases that could have significantly interfered with
developing healthy professional relationships with the people I worked
with. The employment of the therapeutic
triad as well as a non-directive approach with the staff at the psychiatric
hospital facilitated the release of certain biases and the gaining of very
useful insight about African culture.
As a result, this writer developed very good working relationships with
the Nigerians at the hospital.
A Final
Word
In the practice of psychology the goal is always
to provide the best possible service for clients so that the issues they are
struggling with might be resolved or at least managed more effectively. The reality of practice is that no matter
how uniform your client population seems to be, when the details of each
person’s particular story begin to unfold it becomes clear how diverse the
population actually is. Many of the
individuals here in Hawaii are grouped into several different census
categories. However, there is a very
strong “local” culture complete with a dialect and specific cultural practices
that overlaps the census categories.
Hawaii also happens to be the first state where no single ethnic group
is in the majority. In many ways Hawaii
represents the future for the rest of the United States. Psychology practitioners regardless of
ethnicity must be culturally open and ready to learn.
References
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Carroll, K.K. (2010). A
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psychology. The Journal of Pan-African
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