Key words on the topic: read, translate, train the pronunciation, memorize
Psychology, deep psychology, general psychology, behaviour, a scientific method, discipline, procedure, observation, assertion, philosophy, to predict, humanities, a psychiatrist, specialty fields, an experimental laboratory, behavior, counselling, individual, to characterize, to analyze, to apply, a separate science, conscious experience, approach, psychoanalysis, highly-qualified.
2. Read the text:
In fact, it’s likely we all speculate why people act as they do and how they might do in other situations, we exchange the experiences and begin to develop our own ideas about human psychology. Does it mean that everyone is a psychologist? NOT really.
Psychology is the science of behavior and mental processes and the key word here is ‘science’ which is an organized body of reliable information. The accumulation of such a body of knowledge depends on use of special procedures which constitute a scientific method.
The word ’psychology’ is made up from two Greek words ‘psyche’ meaning ‘mind’ and ‘logos’-‘word or study’. Also Psyche, in Greek mythology-the human bride of EROS, the God of Love, was forced to undergo many difficult ordeals before their marriage.
Presumably, it was a prediction of a hard way of psychology assertion as a separate discipline among other sciences.
The study of human behavior had its origins with the Greek philosophers. Empedocles stated that the cosmos consisted of 4 elements; earth, air, fire and water. Hippocrates translated these elements into four bodily humors and characterized the temperament of individuals on the basis of these humors. The giant of thinkers, Aristotle, thought that knowledge should be obtained on the basis of observations.
According to St. Thomas Aquinas, the scientific truth must be based on observation and experimentation.
The mind-body problem was a very important one for the 17th and 18th century philosophers. There appeared such theories as: occasionalism, a double-aspect theory, psychophysical parallelism and some other.
As a branch of science psychology has been defined in various ways, according to the particular method of approach.
Psychology may be defined as the scientific study of mental life and behavior of men and animals.
The formal launching of psychology as a separate science occurred in 1879 when Wilhelm Wundt opened his Psychological Institute at the University of Leipzig. W.Wundt is commonly called the founder of modern experimental psychology. He analyzed the way the mind functions by studying sensation through introspection, or self-observation. Thus, psychology achieved scientific status when it became experimental. Experimental procedure in psychology was first applied to analysis of conscious experience.
Thus, like all scientists, psychologists use the scientific method to DESCRIBE, EXPLAIN, PREDICT, CONTROL and APPLY for the SAKE of PEOPLE.
By the very nature of its vast and complex subject matter psychology occupies a strategic place between natural and social sciences and sciences and humanities. Each of the subjects has its own special relationship with psychology. That is to say, the knowledge of chemistry, physics, etc. provides a scientific groundwork for experimental psychology, but not vice versa. Modern psychology has both inspired and been inspired by the ideas of contemporary literature and also has a considerable impact on literary criticism and bibliography.
There are different subfields of professional psychological activity: physiological, social, forensic, educational, counseling, industrial, developmental, psychotherapy, etc.
In discussing careers in psychology, it’s important to distinguish among psychiatrists, psychoanalysts, and psychologists. A psychiatrist takes medical responsibility for the patient. A psychoanalyst is a psychologist or a psychiatrist who a specialized training in psychoanalytic theory and practice.
The faculty of psychology at Taurida Academy of Crimean Federal university named after V.I. Vernadsky was founded on the basis of the department of psychology in 2002. There are 3 departments: General Psychology, Deep Psychology and Pedagogy. The students are highly motivated to defend their diplomas in foreign languages and actively participate in different language activities. They are perfectly aware of that psychologists must be highly-qualified, well-trained, tolerant and widely-developed.
THE MOST SIGNIFICANT DEVELOPMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY IN THE 20th CENTURY.
To mention any single event or person seems a bit preposterous. However, there are three movements that we might find significant.
The first development was the discovery by Ivan P. Pavlov, a famous Russian physiologist of conditioning principles, which was one of the steps that gave psychology its scientific stature. When one discusses nowadays the relationship psychology might have with the neurosciences (curiously, there are still people who discuss this subject), it is relevant to remember that, at the beginning, psychology was born in physiology (and physics) laboratories .Pavlov's discovery clearly means that our mind is registered in our biology.
The second development is the subject-activity theory. It is largely the creation of Russian psychologist Sergey Z. Rubinstein (1889 - 1960) and his scientific school since 1916. From the point of view, the human mind first developed and is based on initially practical actions, that is the sensory and practical contacts of human infants with the reality at different levels of communication are primary and speech is secondary, since it is formed on the bases of those contacts.
I would also mention that Sigmund Freud, the Austrian psychiatrist, did more to shape the contemporary thinking about "the human psyche" than anybody else in the 20th century, influencing a whole range of artistic and scholarly work from philosophy to anthropology and from literature to performing arts, in addition to psychology. S. Freud showed that a purely psychological approach to treatment can be affective across a wide range of disorders, called psychoanalysis.
In fact, possibly the most notable characteristic of the 20lh century psychology is its great expansion in all directions and diversification/specialization both to understand (human) behavior and to modify it.
A new century could become the century of psychology. We recognize a growing interest in psychology throughout society as well as in individuals.
3. Answer the following questions:
a) What is the origin of the word PSYCHOLOGY?
b) Which theories explained the mind-body problem?
c) What is a scientific method?
d) Why is W.Wundt called the father of experimental psychology?
e) When did psychology get the scientific status?
f) What are the tasks of psychology as a science?
g) Which field of psychology are you interested in?
h) Describe the image of a psychologist.
i) Essential developments in the field of psychology of the 20th century are evidently traced, aren’t they?
j) Your ideas about the future of psychology.
4. Mark these statements TRUE (T) or FALSE (F):
a) Psychology is the science of mind, both human and animal behavior.
b) W.Wundt opened his experimental laboratory in Greece.
c) Psychology entirely separated from philosophy.
d) The formal launching of psychology as a separate science occurred in the late sixties of the 17th century.
e) Psychologists study behaviour simply by watching people.
f) Nowadays psychology covers an enormous range of specialty fields.
g) According to subject-activity theory, human mind is based on initially practical actions.
h) It was Anna Freud, who did more to shape the contemporary view on ‘the human psyche’.
i) The discovery of conditioning principles was one of the first steps to assign a scientific stature to psychology.
j) I. Pavlov was a well-known Russian psychologist.
UNIT 2