Mental Health: The First Schools of Thought and the Road to Freud.

When psychology broke away from physiology and philosophy, the debate began over how to describe and study human thought and behaviour. Structuralism and Functionalism were two of the earliest schools of thought, and vied for dominance before being leapfrogged by Psychoanalysis, Behaviourism and Humanism as the preferred perspectives. This is the first step down the road towards developing a timeline of modern psychology and the study of mental health.

The Birth of Structuralism

The idea of Structuralism first emerged via Wilhelm Wundt, the founder of the first psychology lab at the University of Leipzig. It was one of his students, Edward B. Tichener, who went on to name and elaborate on the idea of Structuralism.

Tichener is credited with the advent of Structuralism, which involves breaking down mental processes into their basic components, and uses a method called introspection to identify the basic stages of consciousness. While Wundt was credited with the first psychology lab, it was Tichener who was credited with the idea of Structuralism. However, the concept of structuralism did not last long after Tichener’s death.

Functionalism: Darwin and James react to Structuralism.

Charles Darwin and William James formed their own school of thought, functionalism, in reaction to structuralism, and the schools vied for dominance of the psychological landscape. William James was considered to be the father of American Psychology. His book, The Principles of Psychology, was a classic and proved to be a standard text in psychology. Many of his idea’s later became known as functionalism, which aimed to explain the mental process in a more systematic and accurate manner than structuralism.

Instead of concentrating on elements of the consciousness, functionalists concentrated on the purpose of the consciousness and behaviour, and how it helps people to live and work in certain environments. Functionalists used methods such as direct observation to study human thought. While a structuralist aimed to break down human thought into small pieces, a functionalist saw consciousness as an ever-changing and evolving process. They focused on individual differences, for it’s impossible to classify everyone in the same mould.

The Problems with Structuralism and Functionalism.

Essentially, structuralism and functionalism were not that different, as both dealt were concerned with the conscious self. However, William James said that Structuralism, ‘had plenty of school, but no thought’ whilst Wundt regarded Functionalism as merely ‘literature’.

Whilst Structuralism was one of the first schools of thought in modern psychology, introspection was not scientific enough to produce reliable results. Structuralism was also too concerned with internal processes, which could not be documented or sufficiently measured. It did, however, advance and help the state of experimental psychology and was the first school of thought to emerge.

Functionalism influenced behaviourism and applied psychology, as well as the educational landscape by John Dewey’s sentiments that children should be taught according to their level of development.

Psychoanalysis and Sigmund Freud came next, for while structuralism and functionalism focused primarily on states of human consciousness, Freud proposed the idea of the unconscious mind and the effect it has on the conscious mind. Psychoanalysis was born, and Freud’s views had a massive influence on the landscape of modern psychology and the study of mental health.