In William J. House's (2000) article The History of Psychology, the author makes a fundamental assumption about the nature of psychology where history is concerned. As House (2000) asserts, "Though psychology is relatively new as a formal academic discipline, scholars have pondered the questions that psychologists ask for thousands of years" (p. 32). This assertion reinforces my own world view that the nature of man is a developmental learning experience. House (2000) also makes the assumption that psychology has arisen from two disciplines also as old as Ancient man, including philosophy and physiology. This analysis will discuss and critique some of House's ideas regarding these assertions and the history of psychology.
House (2000) uses his chief assertion as the main organizing principle of his article. After an introduction in which he makes his assertion that psychologists focus on the same questions asked by humans for thousands of years, House (2000) divides the history of psychology into seven schools of thought or different approaches: 1) William Wundt and beginnings; 2) structuralism vs. functionalism; 3) behaviorism; 4) gestalt theory; 5) psychoanalysis; 6) humanism; and 7) cognitive theory (pp. 32-34). House (2000) seems to be a conservative in his respect for tradition, arguing that questions of free will, how the mind works, and others first documented by Ancient philosophers like Plato and Aristotle paved the foundation for psychological inquiry. He links Ancient studies of physiology and the fact that the founder of the first psychological laboratory, William Wundt, was a physiologist as no small coincidence. In this we have the two main pillars of psychological inquiry; human consciousness and the structure and processes of the brain.
Another contention about the history of psychology made by House (2000) challenges my world view. I believe that whatever theo
...