H I S T O RY & S C H O O L S

O F P S Y C H O L O G Y:
G E S TA LT &
P S Y C H O A N A LY S I S

NIMRAH AHMED 1
• A book of modern psychology: pages-
• Chapter12: 261-273 & 276-284
• Chapter13: 286-287, 289-290, 291-292 (Hypnosis), 296-297,
307, 309-312, don’t forget to read the contribution and
criticism 315-318
 The Developmental Timeline
Wundt in Germany- Voluntarism Titchner in US- Structuralism

Functionalism in US Watson & Skinner in US-

Behaviorism

Gestalt in Germany
This too was against Wundt’s work
• GESTALT
• While Behaviorism was gaining popularity in the US, Gestalt
began in Germany at about the same time. Both of them had the
same reason for inception, i.e., going against Wundt, but their
ideas were miles apart
• Gestalt psychologists accepted the value of consciousness while
criticizing the attempt to reduce it to atoms or elements
(Elementist Approach). Behavioral psychologists refused to
acknowledge the usefulness of the concept of consciousness for a
scientific psychology
• Gestalt school- when sensory elements are combined, the
elements form a new pattern or configuration
• Gestalt is German for form or shape
• Roots of Gestalt
• 1. Immanuel Kant
• Kant proposed that mind has the capacity to give meaning to
sensations and observation, mind is the interpreter
• Thus saying that the mind has the ability to create and organize
raw data a whole experience
• 2. Franz Brentano
• For him subject matter was experience rather than introspection
• He also went against the elementist approach
• 4. William James
• He stated that people see objects as wholes, not as bundles of
sensations
• 5. Carl Stumpf
• He was interested in music and two of his disciples went on to
create Gestalt psychology… Remember this from previous slides?
• For Stumpf, breaking experience down into its elements led to
bias, rather he focused on phenomenology
• Phenomenology- the introspection where experience as it occurs
is discussed- This is also considered as one of the influences on
Gestalt
• Beginning of the Gestalt School of Thought
• 1. Max Wertheimer (1880-1943)
• Story of going on a train
• Even when objects are static, our mind still tends to see motion
• Went to his lab and did a little research with Wolfgang Kohler
and Kurt Koffka- two very important figures of Gestalt school.
Showed light, one that was vertical and one tilted after a little
interval, where subjects reported it to be moving
• He called this the Phi Phenomenon- the illusion that two
stationary lights are moving from one place to another
• He linked it to psychology by saying that the movement exists
as it is perceived and cannot be broken down any further
• In 1912, with other important figures of
Gestalt, started the Psychological
Research journal
• Flew to the US in 1933, because of the
Nazis
• Inspired by Wertheimer- Abraham
Maslow created the concept of Self-
Actualization
Wertheimer also gave
the concept of
Perceptual
Organization- we
perceive objects as
wholes rather than
clusters. The
organization takes
place instantly where
we connect discrete
parts of the perceptual
field and connect
them
• There are 6 Perceptual Organization Principles:
• 1. Proximity
• 2. Continuity
• 3. Similarity
• 4. Closure
• 5. Simplicity
• 6. Figure/Ground
1. PROXIMITY
2. CONTINUITY
3. SIMILARITY
4. CLOSURE
5. SIMPLICITY
6. FIGURE/GROUND
• Another concept put forward, by a different psychologist was
Perceptual Constancies- perceiving objects as unchanging even as
retinal images change. The perception remains constant even when
sensory data changes
• Kurt Koffka (1886-1941)
• In 1924, Koffka wrote an article for the
American journal Psychological Bulletin
titled “Perception: An Introduction to the
Gestalt-Theorie”- From Germany
• The word perception influenced the
perception of gestalt in the US where it was
thought to be irrelevant to psychology
• Wertheimer addressed the issue in 1925,
mentioning how Gestalt deals with
cognitive activities not just perception
• 1921- wrote The Growth of the Mind
• Wolfgang Kohler (1887-1967)
• Studied the behavior of apes
• Found out that not ever behavior is
learnt through trial and error. Some
behavior is based out of a purpose or a
goal. This is similar to what Tolman
said about Purposive Behaviorism
• Wrote Mentality of Apes (1917)- and
was an advocate of the idea that apes
have problem solving abilities
• He also went to the US later in his life
• Einsicht (Aaeen-zeesht)
• This is the word Kohler came up with for Insight in German.
Meaning the spontaneous understanding of relationships
• Through his animal research he understood that when an animal
gained insight into the problem, they were able to solve it
Isomorphism:
Kohler described it as
the correspondence
between what the brain
sees and what the
conscious experience
sees, when one changes,
so does the other.
Perception does serve as
a reliable guide to the
perceived real world.
PSYCHOANALYSIS

22
• PSYCHOANALYSIS
• This automatically gets associated with Freud
• In 1895, Freud wrote the book where he introduced the new
movement
• The school came about to help people labelled as mentally ill- unlike
other schools of thoughts
• Subject matter: psychopathology or abnormal behavior, which was
neglected by other schools of thoughts and the role of the unconscious
• Method: observation
• This wasn’t the first time someone was discussing the unconscious,
but Freud claims to have found the scientific way of studying it
• What did Freud revolt against?
• The treatment of mental disorders
• Archeological findings as old as 6500BC indicates trephining
• 2000BC Through to the Dark ages when the church as
dominant- mental illness was equated to demonic possession, to
be cured using magic and prayers
• 15th century onwards- Witchcraft, where the cure was
punishment
• 18th century- Mental illness was seen as irrational behavior, and
the institutions built for them were no less than jails, or zoos
• Trephining or Trepanning
• Exorcism
• Witch Drowning (Salem Witch Trials)
• Historical Influences on Freud’s work
• Darwin's’ theory of evolution focused a lot of human beings basic
sexual instincts and talked about how it is the essence of human
beings to look for sexual gratification and self-preservation
• The concept of Catharsis emerges in the teachings of Aristotle- A
way of treating emotional difficulties by having the patient recall
and describe unconscious conflicts
• As time passed more humane treatments as compared to
those mentioned previously came about. Many individuals are
considered important figures in changing the history of
psychology
• 1. Phillippe Pinel (1745-1826)
• The French physician. Released people from chains from
institutions and took out time to listen to them. Credit goes to him
for taking and maintaining case histories
• His method helped cure many and so a more humane approach
arose in the US and Europe
• 2. Dorothea Dix (1802-1887)
• Suffered from depression herself but worked for other with
mental illness
• American civil war, worked for those who suffered trauma
• 3. Benjamin Rush (1745-1813)
• Developed the first hospital for
treatment of the emotionally
disturbed
• Believed mental illnesses were
caused by irritation to the blood
vessels in the brain and the cure
was bleeding, hot & cold baths,
vomiting or the Tranquilizer Chair
he designed
• People were changing focus now. From bodily causes, they were
moving onto psychic causes. Eg, Benjamin Rush focused on
bloodletting to restore the body equilibrium
• 4. Anton Mesmer (1734-1815)
• When psychic causes became more important, hypnosis also surfaced
• Anton, from Vienna, became known for animal magnetism
• He believed that human body contained a magnetic force and animal
magnetism can cure nervous disorders by restoring the magnetic
levels. He first treated patients using irons bars, then later claimed that
just his touch resulted in his own magnetic force curing the patient
• The reason why this comes under hypnosis is that his patients would
go into a trance-like state and feel better after waking up
• He was later labelled a quack
• 5. James Braid (1795-1860)
• A surgeon in England, popularized the trancelike state and called
it neurohypnology which later came to be known as hypnosis
• He thought this to be useful for anesthesia and thus hypnosis
gained scientific ground
• 6. Jean M Charcot (1825-1893)
• Head of a hospital in Paris for insane women, he was successful at
treating hysteria through hypnosis
• Believed hysteria to have physical causes, rather than
psychological. E.g., caused by a weak neurological system
• 7. Pierre Janet (1859-1947)
• Was a student of Charcot
• 1889, he said hysteria was a mental disorder and also choose
hypnosis as the treatment

• Hypnosis was already a common approach adopted before

Freud introduced his ideas
• Sigmund Freud (1956-1939)
• He was a mama’s boy
• In one of his dreams that he had when he was 7 years old, he
analyzed that he was sexually attracted to his mother and was
scared of his father castrating him- later known as Oedipus
complex
• He was a cocaine junkie and introduced the medical world to its
many fascinating uses however his such enthusiasm of using
cocaine other than just for medical purposes lead to heavy
criticism
• He developed the Psychoanalytic Approach as a therapy and a
theory of personality both
• Emphasis is on the unconscious motivation- the main causes of
behavior lie buried in the unconscious mind
• In therapy psychoanalysis is the practice of material brought from
the unconscious to the conscious- case is resolved in this manner
• Psychodynamic approach is a more modern view of the
personality which rejects some aspects of the Freudian theory. It
retains the importance of the unconscious mind and puts less
emphasis on childhood conflict
• The case of Anna O (Bertha Pappenheim)
• She was a client of Breuer, who was very close to Freud
• An intelligent and attractive woman, Anna O. suffered from severe
hysterical complaints that including paralysis, memory loss,
mental deterioration, nausea, and disturbances of vision and
speech. The symptoms first appeared when she was nursing her
dying father, who had always pampered her. It was said that she
felt for him a kind of passionate love
• Felt relieved after sessions- called it Chimney Sweeping or the
Talking Cure
• Developed positive transference towards Breuer
• Freud learnt a lot from Breuer and his cases. He adopted Hypnosis
with some of his patients but then later abandoned it
• It was not a long-term cure, and not a method that could be adopted
with everyone
• He went back to catharsis and developed free association- a technique
in which the patient says whatever comes to mind
• Goal was to bring to conscious awareness repressed memories and
urges through free association
• When patients would engage in free-association, most of the repressed
experiences would go back to childhood related sexual issues
• He concluded that -A person’s thoughts and behaviors emerge from
tension generated by unconscious motives and unresolved childhood
conflicts
• Some of his famous works
• Dream Analysis- a therapeutic technique involving the
interpretation of dreams to uncover unconscious conflicts. His
method includes writing down the dream and then analyzing it
• Freudian Slip- what is this?
• Resistances- during free association, when clients could not
continue to communicate anymore due to unwillingness or being
unable to talk, this was called resistance- memories that were in
conscious awareness but people were too ashamed to talk about it
• Repression- When faced with resistance, people would engage in
repression to exclude unacceptable or shameful ideas from
thoughts and memories. Throwing the unacceptable material in
the unconsious
• What is the personality made of?
• Freud explained it in terms of the unconscious motivating forces,
the conflict among those forces and the effects of those conflicts on
behavior
• Instincts- motivating force that releases mental energy. E.g.,
instinct reduces energy through behavior like eating relieves one of
hunger
• He added the life and death instinct. Life Instinct (Eros)- anything
constructive and self-preserving and contains the libido, which is
the energy maintaining life. Death Instinct (Thanatos)- anything
destructive, e.g. aggression
• Levels of Consciousness- Conscious, Preconscious/Subconscious
and Unconscious
• Later Freud revised the simple conscious-unconscious distinction
and proposed the Id, Ego, Superego, which looks something like
this
• Anxiety
• He stated that anxiety induces tension and motivates a person to reduce
it. The Ego develops defenses known as defense mechanisms- that
unconsciously distort reality and reduce anxiety
• 1. Repression: Unconscious forgetting, puts anxiety producing thoughts
and feelings into the unconscious mind
• 2. Denial: Rejecting the truth of a painful reality
• 3. Regression: Assuming childlike behaviors when facing trauma, E.g.
thumb sucking
• 4. Reaction-Formation: Behaving in ways that are exactly the opposite
of how one feels
• 5. Projection: Attributing ones own unacceptable thoughts onto others,
e.g. that person hates me when you are the one who actually hates them
• 6. Rationalization: Reasoning away or making excuses to reduce
anxiety
• 7. Displacement: Taking out an emotion on something less
threatening
• 8. Sublimation: Substitute an undesirable emotion to a more
socially acceptable one
• 9. Undoing: Neutralizing an unacceptable action with a second
one. E.g. think of fighting towards someone when they make you
angry but being extra nice when you meet them
• Psychosexual Stages
• In Freudian theory, the childhood stages of development during
which the id’s pleasure seeking energies are focused on different
parts of the body
• The stages include: oral, anal, phallic, latency, and genital
• A person can become “fixated” or stuck at a stage and as an adult
attempt to achieve pleasure as in ways that are equivalent to how
it was achieved in these stages
ORAL STAGE (BIRTH – 18 MO.)

• Mouth is associated with sexual pleasure

• Pleasure comes from chewing, biting, and sucking.
• Weaning a child can lead to fixation if not handled
correctly
• Fixation can lead to oral activities
in adulthood, e.g. smoking
ANAL STAGE (1 – 3 YEARS)
• Gratification comes from bowel and bladders
functions.
• Toilet training can lead to fixation if not handled
correctly
• Fixation can lead to anal retentive (attention to detail,
obsessively organized, perfectionist- following rigid
toilet training) or expulsive (limited self control
following lenient toilet training) behaviors in
adulthood
 PHALLIC STAGE (3 – 6 YEARS)

• Focus of pleasure shifts to the genitals

• Sexual attraction for opposite sex parent
• Boys cope with incestuous feelings toward their mother and
rival feelings toward their dad (Oedipus Complex)
• For girls it is called the Electra Complex
• Child identifies with and tries to mimic the same sex parent to learn
gender identity
OEDIPUS COMPLEX
• Boys feel hostility and jealousy towards their fathers but knows
their father is more powerful. This leads to…
• Castration Anxiety results in boys who feel their father will
punish them by castrating them.
• Resolve this through Identification – imitating and internalizing
one’s father’s values, attitudes and mannerisms. (Formation of
gender identity & superego)
• The fact that only the father can have sexual relations with the
mother becomes internalized in the boy as taboo against incest in
the boy’s superego
ELECTRA COMPLEX
• Girls also have incestuous feelings for their dad and compete
with their mother.
• The idea tat male and female genitals are different - little girl
suffer from deprivation and loss and blames her mother for
“sending her into the world insufficiently equipped” causing
her to resent her mother
• In an attempt to take her mother’s place she eventually
identifies with her mother
• Fixation can lead to excessive masculinity in males and the
need for attention or domination in females
LATENCY STAGE (5 – PUBERTY)

• Sexuality is repressed (Latent means “hidden”)

due to intense anxiety caused by Oedipus
complex/ Electra Complex
• Children participate in hobbies, school, and same-
sex friendships that strengthen their sexual
identity
GENITAL STAGE (PUBERTY ONWARDS)
• Sexual feelings re-emerge but being prohibited by the
superego are redirected toward others who resemble
the person’s opposite sex parent.
• Healthy adults find pleasure in love and work, fixated
adults have their energy tied up in earlier stages
• Psychodynamic Perspective: Neo-Freudians
• Followers of Freud’s theories but developed theories of their
own in areas where they disagreed with Freud
• Disagreed with Freud in his belief that:
1. Behavior is motivated by sexual urges
2. Personality is formed by early childhood experiences
3. Human nature and society are inherently driven by sex and
destruction.
• Meet the Neo-Freudians
• Carl Jung’s collective unconscious
• Karen Horney’s focus on security
• Erik Erikson focus social relationships
• Alfred Adler’s individual psychology
• Carl Jung
• Broke apart from Freud’s approach, his approach is known as
Analytical Psychology
• We are not merely shaped by past events, but influenced by out
future as well
• Some of the concepts he put forward include:
• Personal Unconscious- Beneath ones conscious awareness are the
memories, impulses, wishes etc. that have been forgotten or
suppressed. Can be recalled with little effort
• Collective Unconscious- Collection of all experiences of previous
generations that are a level below the personal unconscious and
unknown to the individual. Deepest level of unconscious
• Archetypes- within the collective unconscious which predispose a
person to behave a certain way as ones ancestors did. 4 types:
• 1. The Persona- different social mask one wears in different
situations
• 2. Anima archetype- feminine characteristics in men; 2. Animus
archetypes- masculine characteristics in women
• 3. Shadow archetype- the dark animalistic part of the personality.
Contains the unacceptable and immoral wishes. Similar to Id
• 4. Self- a product of integration of all aspects of the unconscious.
The balance and integration of all aspects leads to harmony
• Individuation/self actuation – harmonious integration of the
conscious and unconscious aspects of personality- of all the above
KAREN HORNEY (1885-1952)

• Agreed with Freud that childhood experiences played a major

role in development as an adult but
• Thought that the greatest influence was social relationships not
sexual ones
• Found psychoanalysis negatively biased against women.
• Women didn’t hate their mothers because men had different
genitals it was instead that they envied men’s superior status in
society.
• Instead said men have “womb envy” and compensate by
making creative achievements in their work
• Looked at anxiety related to security and social relationships,
especially parent-child relationships

• Basic anxiety— “the feeling of being isolated and helpless in a hostile

world” – happens when not treated as you should be by parents

• This will lead to hostility towards parents that is repressed

• Way to get healthy was to find genuine and consistent love

Alfred Adler (1870-1937)
Adler believed Freud stressed too much on biological and instinctual
determination

His work is clustered under Individual Psychology

We create ourselves, rather than merely being shaped by childhood

experiences

Humans are motivated primarily by social relatedness rather than sexual urges

More conscious than unconscious focus in therapy

• Adler’s contributions
• Social interest and community feeling : Individual's awareness of being part of
the human community and to individual's attitudes in dealing with the social
world
• Short-term format: Time limited therapy, such as certain amount of sessions,
and goals to be fulfilled by then
• Stressed unity of personality, people can only be understood as
integrated and complete beings
• First systemic therapist; essential to understand people within the
systems they are a part of
• Stressed choice and responsibility, feelings of inferiority as source of
creativity and motivation
• Erick Erickson Psychosocial Perspective (1963)
• Extended Freud’s theory by stressing the psychosocial aspects of development beyond
early childhood
• Described development in terms of entire lifespan
• Crisis is equivalent to a turning point in life
• We have potential to move forward or regress
• Our life is the result of choices we make at each of these stages
Believed Freud did not go far enough in explaining the ego’s place in development

Did not give enough attention to social influences through the lifespan.

Develops own Psychosocial stages

 UPDATING FREUD’S THEORY
• Most psychodynamic psychologists agree:
– Sex is not the basis of personality.

– People do not “fixate” at various stages of development.

– Much of a person’s mental life is unconscious.

– Childhood experiences shape us socially and psychologically.

– People struggle with inner conflicts and regulating their impulses,

emotions and thoughts toward what society deems acceptable.
THANK YOU