Psychology is defined as the scientific study of behavior and mental processes (Coon & Mitterer, 2010). Notions of modern psychology as the systematic study of the mind emerged in the nineteenth century out of the medical field. German physician Wilhelm Wundt is one of the founding figures modern psychology. He was the first to study human consciousness through experiments (Hergenhahn, 2005). Wundt understood human consciousness in terms of the German rationalist tradition (e.g. Kant). Moreover, he rejected both materialism, as well as empiricism as theoretical frameworks for the study of the human consciousness and instead emphasized the human will, which as he believed was reflected in attention and volition (Hergenhahn, 2005).
As a reaction to Wundt's writing and the newly founded field of psychology, the functionalist school of psychology emerged towards the end of the nineteenth century. Functionalism emphasized practical aspects of the science of psychology. Important representatives of this school of thought are William James, John Dewey, Hermann Ebbinghaus, Ivan Pavlov (Leahey, 1987). The latter is known for experiments with dogs out of which he developed the theoretical concept of classic conditioning.
Around the same time, a distinctly different branch of psychology began to emerge in Austria. Psychoanalysis founded by Sigmund Freud differs in so far from previous psychological research in that it did not emphasize experiments but instead tried to explore how the mind works and thinks. Freud formulated a set of theories and assumptions about the human mind that focused on the unconscious, sexuality, and repression as determining factors in human behavior (Benjafield, 2005). Significantly, Freud's work was not just concerned with the theory of the mind but his therapeutic method of psychoanalysis focused on treating people with various mental disorders such as neurosis, psychosis, etc. One of the underlyi...