The main directions of psychology of the twentieth century. Modern trends in psychology

The first attempts to penetrate the secrets of one's spiritual life, or psyche, from a scientific position, attempts to describe and systematize mental processes and phenomena were made in the distant past. Heraclitus, Plato, Aristotle, Socrates and many other ancient philosophers were interested in the inner world of man. And yet, as a full-fledged science, psychology took shape much later.

Having hardly emerged as a science, psychology despised integrity and hastily dispersed into many directions. The very subject of psychology (soul, consciousness), which cannot be dissected on the table, measured in mass and volume, predetermined a magnificent variety of opinions and approaches. The most famous of them we will now summarize:

Psychoanalysis- a psychological concept, part of psychotherapy and a medical research method created by Z. Freud in the process of studying the nature of hysteria. According to the scientist, the experience and knowledge of a person are determined mainly by internal irrational unconscious drives. The structure of the personality and its development are determined by events that occurred in early childhood, and the confrontation between the conscious and the unconscious can lead to mental disorders. To help a person tormented by a raging conflict between the conscious and the unconscious, it is necessary to find this underlying irritant in the unconscious, to become aware of it, and then the conflict will be resolved. Well, or at least get closer to its resolution. In the study of the unconscious, much attention is paid to the analysis of dreams and various reservations that Freud considered its manifestations.

Analytical psychology- a direction that arose already from psychoanalysis and was created by the Swiss psychiatrist K.G. Jung, who collaborated with Freud for a long time. Jung considered the main task of analytical psychology to be the interpretation of archetypal images that arise in patients. Archetypes he called certain mental structures that can be recognized in the images and motifs of dreams. For example, the scientist called “Shadow” one of these archetypes, which in a dream appears as an annoying person of the same sex as the dreamer and combines in its image everything that a person does not recognize in himself, for example, some disgusting traits of his own character. The same structures underlie the symbolism of various myths and fairy tales, which, in turn, Jung considered manifestations of the "collective unconscious".

Gestalt psychology- a direction that arose from the study of perception. In the center of her attention is the characteristic tendency of the psyche to organize experience into an intelligible whole. So, for example, when perceiving letters with "holes" (missing parts), consciousness seeks to fill the gap, and we recognize the whole letter. Or, as in the process of reproducing the flow ... with missing letters ... the consciousness seeks to fill in the missing ... and recognizes whole words and composes into a whole sentence. Gestalt psychology owes its appearance to the German psychologists Max Wertheimer, Kurt Koffke and Wolfgang Köhler, who put forward a program for studying the psyche from the point of view of integral structures - gestalts. According to scientists, the objects that make up our environment are perceived by the senses not as separate objects, but as organized forms. Perception is not reduced to the sum of sensations, and the properties of a figure are not described through the properties of parts. Gestalt itself is a structure that organizes the diversity of individual phenomena into a whole.

Behaviorism- This is a direction in the psychology of humans and animals, the science of their behavior. The founder of this direction in psychology was the American psychologist John Watson. According to behavioral scientists, consciousness is available for study only through its external manifestation - observable acts of behavior. The most important categories are the stimulus, which is understood as any impact on the body from the environment, the reaction to this stimulus and reinforcement, which for a person can also be a verbal or emotional reaction, approving or vice versa, from the people around.

cognitive psychology studies the cognitive (cognitive) processes of the human psyche. Research in this area is related to the issues of memory, attention, feelings, logical thinking, imagination, decision-making ability. Cognitive psychology is largely based on a comparison of the transformation of information in a computing device and human cognitive processes. In a word, comparing the computer and the person. The concept that represents the psyche in the form of a device with a fixed ability to convert signals has received the greatest distribution. The main role in this concept is assigned to internal cognitive schemes and the activity of the organism in the process of cognition. The human cognitive system is considered as a system that has devices for input, storage, output of information, taking into account its throughput.

Humanistic psychology calls personality as its main subject, as a unique system, while not proceeding from something predetermined, but representing it, that is, personality, as a kind of open opportunity for self-actualization, which, according to scientists of this direction, is inherent only to man. In humanistic psychology, the main subjects of analysis are: self-actualization of the personality, creativity, love, freedom, responsibility, mental health, interpersonal communication. The therapeutic factors in the work of a humanistic psychologist and psychotherapist are, first of all, the unconditional acceptance of the client, support, empathy, attention to inner experiences, stimulation of choice and decision-making.

positive psychology researches exclusively positive aspects of the human psyche. While classical psychology is mainly interested in various problems and pathologies, the focus of positive psychology is on what contributes to the achievement of happiness. (optimism, trust, forgiveness, etc.). In its formation, positive psychology relied on the achievements of humanistic psychology. The founder of this trend is the American psychologist Martin Seligman, who also formulated the main directions for future research: positive emotions and subjective feeling of happiness, positive human traits and social structures that contribute to happiness and development of people (democracy, healthy family, etc.) .

All of the above are just the most well-known areas that have significantly influenced the development of psychological science, but, of course, the list of all areas of psychology is much more extensive. Even psychologists of the same school often introduce exceptional and innovative methods into their practice, supplement, transform, and combine the core of one direction. Therefore, it would be fair to say that there are no less directions in psychology than there are psychologists themselves.

Lecture 8 Classical trends and scientific schools of psychology

At the beginning of the XX century. several schools arose at once, which offered their own approach in highlighting the subject of psychology. The direction that opened a new era in psychology was behaviorism .

The methodology of the new direction was laid down by John Watson (1878 - 1958), (Fig. 20) which was presented by him in the program article "Psychology from the point of view of the behaviorist" (1913). Some authors, with the release of this article, mark the beginning of an open crisis. As Paul Fresse noted, the article proved to be fundamental only because it marked a decisive break with previous concepts.

Psychology will have the right to be called a science if it develops an objective method. Therefore, he proclaimed the study of behavior in an objective way as the subject of behaviorism, and its goal is to serve practice. From the word "behavior" came the name of this direction (in English behavior).

This concept excluded consciousness from the subject of psychology, because it cannot be studied objectively. And nothing is revealed in observation that could be called consciousness (J. Watson).

As a student of Angell, he viewed behavior as an adaptive response. Behavior was understood as an objectively observable system of reactions of the body to external and internal stimuli, through which the individual adapts to the environment. The scheme of correlation between stimulus and reaction presented by E. Thorndike became the main one in explaining the phenomena under study. In accordance with this, the main task of behaviorism was “observation of human behavior in such a way that in each given case, with a given stimulus (or, better, situation), the behaviorist could tell in advance what the reaction will be, or, if a reaction is given, what situation this will be. the reaction is caused” (J. Watson), analysis of the structure and genesis of behavior, factors that help or hinder the formation of a connection between a stimulus and a reaction. The change in behavior was identified with the development of the psyche. This position led to the consideration of the social factor, the environment, as the leading factor in the process of genesis.

Watson's work showed that there are practically no innate acts in the psyche, all human behavior is built on several innate reflexes. New responses obtained during consolidation are called skills. Skills are formed through blind trial and error and are an unguided process. Here, one of the possible paths is presented as the only and mandatory one.

By the mid-20s. behaviorism has become widespread in America. At the same time, it became increasingly clear to researchers that the exclusion of consciousness leads to an inadequate interpretation of behavior. This was pointed out by Edward Tolman (1886 - 1959), introducing an internal variable into the scheme - a cognitive map, needs, etc. He set the so-called molar approach to the study of behavior. This marked the beginning of neobehaviourism.


A separate line in the development of behaviorism is represented by the theory of operant behaviorism by Barres Skinner (1904-1990). Keeping the two-term scheme of its analysis (stimulus - reaction), it studies only its motor side. Skinner (Fig. 21) formulates a position on three types of behavior: unconditioned reflex, conditioned reflex and operant - such reactions that are not caused by stimuli, but are released by the body. Reinforcement of the reaction becomes a means of forming new behavior.

In the 70s. behaviorism presented its concepts in a new light. There was a turn to the study of social behavior and finding factors that guide and acquire social experience and norms of behavior. Social learning theories and social behaviorism emerged. According to George Meade (1863-1931), the formation of a person occurs through the adoption of certain roles that reflect interaction with others. John Dollard (1900 - 1980) turned to the study of antisocial (aggressive) behavior, which he saw as a state of frustration. Albert Bandura (1925 - 1988) showed that one of the main reasons for the psychological characteristics of a person is associated with a tendency to imitate the behavior of other people, taking into account how favorable the results of such imitation can be for the person himself. Thus, a person is not only influenced by external conditions, he must also anticipate the consequences of his behavior through self-assessment.

Behaviorism has not lost its significance so far, despite serious criticisms. Although there have been major modifications to the provisions laid down by Watson, the basic principles have remained unchanged. The merit is the position on the need and possibility of directed training, the development of methods that carry out the learning process, the emergence of training as a method of behavior correction.

At a time when a behavioral "revolt" against the psychology of consciousness broke out in the USA, another group of young researchers in Germany rejected the old attitudes towards the consideration of consciousness. This group became the nucleus of a new scientific school called Gestalt psychology (from German Gestalt - form, structure).

The core was formed by Max Wertheimer (1880 - 1943), Wolfgang Köhler (1887 - 1967) and Kurt Koffka (1886 - 1941), who met in 1910 in Frankfurt am Main. Discussions regarding the experiments conducted by Wertheimer on the construction of images of the perception of visible movements (phi-phenomenon) led to the birth of a new direction. The results of the study of this phenomenon were presented in the article "Experimental studies of visible motion" (1912), which is considered as the beginning of this direction.

Gestalt psychology has significantly transformed the previous understanding of the structure of consciousness and higher mental processes. The main idea was that the primary data of psychology are integral structures (gestalts), which in principle cannot be derived from the components that form them. The properties of parts are determined by the structure they are part of. In accordance with this understanding of the subject, a method is also proposed. They proposed a phenomenological method that allows seeing a naive picture of the world of an observer who is not burdened by preconceived notions about its structure. To study the reactions as they are, to study the experience that has not undergone analysis, retaining its integrity.

W. Köhler (Fig. 22) holds the idea that the physical world, as well as the psychological one, is subject to the principle of gestalt. Mental images are isomorphic to physiological processes in the brain (brain fields) that arise as a result of external influences. The principle of isomorphism was considered by Gestalt psychologists as an expression of the structural unity of the world. With this position, Köhler anticipated certain provisions of the general theory of systems.

The works of Gestalt psychologists laid down new approaches to various problems - perception, thinking, needs and volitional actions, affects, personality. In solving the problems of perception and thinking, many regularities and rich phenomenological material were discovered. Discovered by Köhler and Wertheimer (Fig. 23), the phenomenon of “insight” (from the English. Insight - insight) as a restructuring of the situation, combining conditions into a certain structure corresponding to the problem situation, revealed the activity of a person in solving problems. A person does not adapt to the situation, does not make an endless search for the right solution, but actively transforms discrete events and gives them meaning.

Kurt Lewin (1890 - 1947) (Fig. 24) in understanding the causes of personality activity in the article "Intentions, Will and Needs" (1926) outlines the main provisions of field theory and dynamic theory of personality. This work is of fundamental importance, because. refers to the experimental study of areas of mental life that are most difficult to experimentally study (needs, affects, goal formation, will). The research conducted by him and his students introduced into psychology a complex of the most important concepts that characterize the behavior associated with the achievement of goals: the target structure and target levels of the individual, real and ideal goals, the level of claims, the search for success and the desire to avoid failure, etc.

Also, many representatives of this trend paid considerable attention to the problem of the mental development of the child, since they saw evidence of the correctness of their theory in the study of the development of mental functions. Within the framework of this direction, in fact, for the first time, the principle of the integrity of the study of man was revealed.

Fruitful research within this school continued until the 1930s. the social changes that took place in Germany forced scientists to leave the country. Wertheimer, Köhler, Koffka, Levin emigrated to America. Here theoretical research has not received significant progress. By the 50s. interest in Gestalt psychology subsides. However, the ideas of Gestalt psychology influenced the transformation of the original behavioral doctrine and paved the way for neobehaviorism, the development of Gestalt therapy by F. Perls, and the concept of self-development by A. Maslow.

The first theory that addressed the study of personality was psychoanalysis (deep psychology). In the development of this direction, an important role belongs to Sigmund Freud (1856-1939). This trend emerged in the early 1990s. 19th century from the medical practice of treating patients with functional mental disorders. The methods of J. Charcot and M. Bernheim, with whom he practiced, made a great impression on Freud and contributed to such an understanding of the origin of neuroses and their treatment, which formed the core of his future concept. He began to understand neurotic illnesses as the pathological functioning of "impaired" affects, strong, but delayed in the unconscious area of ​​​​experiences. In the study of these affects, he discovered one of the defense mechanisms, proposed a new method of therapy and a research method, which he called psychoanalysis. It was based on the doctrine of the unconscious.

The first version of the idea of ​​the system of mental life as having a deep structure, represented by three levels: conscious, preconscious and unconscious with censorship between them, appeared in the work The Interpretation of Dreams (1900). The birth of this direction is conditionally considered from it.

The source of assumptions about the unconscious was the study of facts that are normal manifestations of mental life, but are not amenable to conscious control (forgetfulness, typos, dreams, erroneous actions). They themselves open up to consciousness, but their causes do not. Adhering to the position of psychological determinism, Freud (Fig. 25) assumes the existence of a psychological structure, the manifestation of which are these facts. And he calls it the unconscious. The question of the content and essence of the unconscious led to the identification of drives with which our socialized consciousness cannot reconcile, forced out of consciousness as unacceptable by its nature. He considers the sexual desire (libido) to be the main of these drives and, under the influence of the events of the First World War, he adds the drive to death (mortido). They are the starting point of psychic life and the true psychic reality. Inclinations are charged with a certain amount of energy, which creates tension in the body, accompanied by displeasure, suffering. They are in constant collision, there is a conflict of oppositely directed forces:

Later, this structure was transformed by him into a personality structure and the mental sphere was divided into three formations: “I”, “Super-I”, “It”. Drives began to be considered in accordance with the principles of pleasure - sexual drives, with the principle of reality, the instinct of self-preservation - drive "I". They are united in a group of drives to life (eros).

Freud transferred this structure to the understanding of social and cultural processes in society. The events of human history, the interaction between man and nature, cultural development and the rejection of primitive experience ... are nothing more than a reflection of the dynamic conflicts between I, Id and Superego that psychoanalysis studies in the individual, the same processes repeated in more on a large scale (S. Freud).

In 1902, Freud was joined by representatives of various professions (doctors, writers, artists) who wanted to study psychoanalysis and apply it in their practice, from which new directions in the study of the unconscious emerged. Alfred Adler (1870-1937) (Fig. 26) believed that there are other, no less significant motives that can become leading in the formation of personality, one of the main ones is the desire to overcome one's own inferiority. Carl Gustav Jung (1875 - 1961) (Fig. 27) introduced the collective unconscious, introduced a more complex personality structure and its individuation, introduced mental functions and energy orientation as criteria for constructing a personality typology, expanded the understanding of libido to a diffuse creative force that manifests itself in different ways .

Later, within the framework of this direction, quite a lot of independent theories appeared, which came out with modifications of the doctrine of the unconscious in psychoanalysis. Among them are Wilhelm Reich, Otto Rank, Erich Fromm, Karen Horney, Harry Sullivan and others.

An important moment in the development of psychoanalysis was a change in the approach to psychological defense; in the concepts of Fromm, Sullivan, Horney, it was already considered in conflicts between the individual and others. Anna Freud analyzed the psychological mechanisms of the I already on the new provisions of the personality structure, singling out the I (Ego) as the main structure of the personality. Developing the ideas of Ego psychology, Erik Erikson (1901 -1980) (Fig. 28) combined the psychoanalytic approach with the ideas of humanistic psychology, into ideas about the importance of awareness and preservation of identity with oneself and with society, its integrity.

This direction has become widely known throughout the world, has influenced art, literature, medicine, anthropology and other areas of science related to man. In this direction, for the first time, the structure and stages of the formation of a personality were studied and described, the driving forces and mechanisms of personal development were revealed, and methods for diagnosing and correcting the emotional-need sphere of a person were developed.

Late 50s-early 60s. large trends that arose during the period of open crisis and subsequently underwent significant transformations - neobehaviorism, neo-Freudianism, Gestalt psychology - are beginning to lose popularity. Their internal inconsistency, the difficulties that these approaches encountered in explaining behavior and the psyche, required a revision of the initial positions, primarily the behavioral approach as a possibility of objective psychology.

The most important factor contributing to this situation was the emergence of new productive directions in the field of experimental research and theory. These are studies of cognitive activity by means of its modeling, cognitive psychology, humanistic psychology, W. Frankl's logotherapy, studies of human consciousness within the framework of brain sciences - neurophysiology, neuromorphology, neuropsychology. Human psychogenetics has become widespread. Intercultural studies are developing.

A critical attitude to the provisions of behaviorism and psychoanalysis led to the emergence in the United States of the "Third Force" - humanistic psychology . This direction declared itself in the 60s, although its main methodological provisions begin to form in the 40s. based on the school of existentialism. The main provisions of the new direction - the humanistic school of personality psychology were formulated by Gordon Allport (1897 - 1967). (Fig 29) A new understanding of the personality as an open and self-developing system was presented, the importance for developing contacts with other people. At the heart of the development of the human personality lies the need to explode the balance and, to reach new heights, the need for self-development.

Previous approaches did not give an explanation for a person's desire for self-improvement, the development of his spiritual uniqueness, the creative realization of his potential, led to the formation of humanistic psychology as an interdisciplinary direction. The leading representatives are Gordon Allport, Carl Rogers (1902-1987), Abraham Maslow (1908-1970), Rollo May.

The subject of this direction is a healthy holistic personality with its real problems, faith in kindness and one's own strengths, taking into account the reality of feelings and values, the intentions of the individual, emphasizing the uniqueness of the individual. Every person is unique. Humans, they argue, engage in acts of free choice rather than being guided by reinforcements and unconscious forces. Each individual who makes a choice has a responsibility to develop a value system that will guide him in achieving a meaningful and fulfilling life. This achievement they called self-realization, or self-actualization.

Maslow (Fig. 30) proposed a theory of motivation that became widely known as the highest need considered self-actualization. For one individual, it can be expressed in the field of art, for another in science, and for the third - in the conquest of mountain peaks. He believed that self-actualized people are the most healthy and that the study of the values ​​of these people can lead to the formation of a scientifically based universal ethical system.

This direction puts more of a practical nature, primarily in the framework of psychotherapy, as well as the problems of education. Thanks to this practical orientation, this psychology gains influence and becomes widespread. A great merit in this direction of development of humanistic psychology belongs to Carl Rogers. (Figure 31) He developed the theory of the fully functioning creative personality and its corresponding person-centered psychotherapy, known as client-centered therapy. It represented a radical departure from the theory and practice of psychoanalysis, allowing the individual to determine for himself the path to his recovery and the fullest expression of himself.

One of the most popular types of psychotherapy was logotherapy, developed by Viktor Frankl (1905 - 1997). (Fig. 32) Meaning is the basic motive of a person, because it is the search for meaning that is a sign of a truly human being. The absence or loss of meaning creates an existential vacuum. Meaning has a specific content, it is individual and constitutes the essence of existence in relation to each person. Finding meaning makes a person responsible for his life. Logotherapy was created to discover the meaning - the logos - of its existence.

Humanistic psychology for the first time paid attention not only to deviations, difficulties and negative aspects in human behavior, but also to the positive aspects of personality. She turned to a person in his uniqueness and made the subject of research the personal sphere, subjectivity, recognizing the freedom of choice. A person chooses his life path and takes responsibility for his self and his achievements in life. This direction is currently one of the most significant psychological schools. The most widespread in Europe, and since the 90s. 20th century and Russian researchers turned to human problems from the standpoint of the humanistic direction.

In the mid 60s. arises in the USA cognitive psychology , which criticizes the views of behaviorists on the denial of the role of consciousness and the internal organization of mental processes. This direction also opposed the simplified approach of behaviorists to human learning, which could not serve as a basis for improving the educational process.

In cognitive psychology, the system of cognitive reactions, which are associated with both external stimuli and internal variables, plays a decisive role. A person is presented in this concept as a system engaged in active search for information and processing of information: recoding into another form, selection of certain information for further processing, or exclusion of some information from the system.

At the origins of cognitive psychology are Jerome Bruner (b.1915), Herbert Simon (1916 - 2001). Leon Festinger (1919 - 1989) and others, the leading representatives are Ulrich Neisser (b.1928), George Miller (b.1920).

The main area of ​​research in cognitive psychology is cognitive processes - memory, psychological aspects of language and speech, perception, problem solving, thinking, attention, imagination and cognitive development. The cognitive approach has also spread to the study of the emotional and motivational spheres of the personality, as well as social psychology.

Cognitive psychology has presented quite a few explanatory models of cognitive processes, however, the person has dropped out of consideration. In this connection, cognitive psychology is forced, along with cognitive processes, to admit a special beginning, a hypothetical participant, a carrier of mental activity. At the same time, there was a reduction in the study of the psychic.

Nevertheless, cognitive psychology is quite widespread today. This direction has received special development in social psychology, where the study of social cognitions and their role in intergroup interaction is becoming increasingly important. The works of this direction contributed to the emergence of an ecological approach, one of the most common areas of modern psychology.

Modern psychology is a very branched system of knowledge. It highlights many industries that are relatively independently developing areas of scientific research.

In the 60s. In connection with brain research, interest in the problem of consciousness and its role in behavior is being revived. Studies have arisen that set themselves the task of elucidating the connection between brain structure and mental processes. Studies have appeared on the functional asymmetry of the brain in mental organization. The professional differences in the use of the hemispheres and the peculiarities of mental processes among representatives of different cultures are investigated.

At the same time, research on human psychogenetics was widely developed. In the center is the question of the ratio of genetic factors and environmental conditions in the formation of the human psyche. The most developed area of ​​psychogenetics is intellect, although perception, psychomotor, abilities, temperament and personality are also studied in order to identify the genetic conditioning of their components.

The problem of mental development in ontogenesis and a qualitative change in consciousness in the course of historical development formed the basis of the genetic approach, the founder of which is Jean Piaget (1896 - 1980). (Figure 33) As a result of his research, he came to the conclusion that mental development is the development of the intellect through which the child passes. He developed the problem of the origin of intelligence, described the mechanisms of transition from one stage to another. He enriched psychology with isolated phenomena of children's thinking. They are called "Piagetian phenomena". He showed that the intelligence of a child is different compared to an adult. This approach has many followers. Piaget's ideas about the moral development of the child received a new understanding in the theory of Lawrence Kohlberg (1927 - 1987).

The study of human development depending on socio-cultural factors determined the interest in intercultural research, which has been developed in foreign psychology since the 50s. In these studies, the task was to test the universality of mental processes, to identify the features of the cognitive activity of different cultures and peoples of Africa, the Far North (Alaska), the islands of Oceania, and Indian tribes.

The changes taking place in social conditions pose new challenges for psychology. New industries are emerging aimed at solving the problems of emigration, tolerance, terrorism, the emergence and resolution of the conflict. Applied areas are also developing: management psychology, organizational behavior, medical psychology and many others.

In the second half of the XX century. there was a movement of the "new wave", which grew out of the practice of psychotherapy, as a comprehension of the experience gained, its generalization and transfer to other specialists. The best-known "new wave" approaches are Ericksonian hypnosis, neuro-linguistic programming, positive psychotherapy, and solution-focused psychotherapy. These directions have shown that any theoretical postulates, principles, models can be changed depending on the goals, objectives, conditions, resources of the patient and the psychotherapist.

A huge variety of theoretical concepts, personality theories, methodological tools, practice-oriented areas poses methodological questions for psychologists, about understanding the specifics of psychological knowledge, the subject of psychology, correlating data obtained in various directions.

In this article, I decided to briefly describe the main trends in the psychology of the 20th century, as well as the main discoveries of psychologists representing various directions. This is such a kind of cheat sheet article that will help you put the material on the shelves and assimilate it. On the site you can find more detailed lectures in these areas, if necessary.

Behaviorism is the science of behavior and how to influence it.

Such a direction of psychological science as behaviorism appeared in 1913 after the publication psychologist articles John Watson in a renowned psychological journal. He expressed an idea that was unthinkable for that time, which gave rise to a completely new direction in the study of man, as well as new research methods, and followers, among whom were Burres Skinner, Edward Thorndike, Edward Tolman.

Behaviorists believed that consciousness does not exist, and various mental phenomena cannot be studied, i.e. subjected to objective research methods, since either it is impossible to prove that these phenomena really exist, or these phenomena are simply not available for study.

Representatives of this direction believed that behavior arises due to any environmental factors, and not due to internal factors. They came up with a formula called "stimulus-response" (S → R) . It means that any reaction (R) of the human or animal body was caused by a certain stimulus (S). Behaviorists also believed that behavior could be controlled. To do this, you need to choose the right stimuli in order to cause a certain behavior corresponding to this stimulus.

Behaviorists have done a lot of interesting, but sometimes not entirely ethical, experiments and research.
For example, J. Watson spent little Albert experiment, during which he instilled in the boy a reaction of fear in order to prove the validity of his theory.

E. Thorndike experimented on animals. For this, he specially invented "problem boxes", in which animals were placed to overcome various obstacles. Through his research, Thorndike determined that animals learn by trial and error method, and brought out laws of learning.
neobehaviorist B. Skinner developed the concept of operant learning, which includes system of rewards and punishments.


E. Tolman(also a neobehaviorist) suggested cognitive learning theory, set up several experiments on rats, as a result of which he formulated a hypothesis "cognitive maps". He also added the formula S→R additional intermediate variable (O - organism). As a result, its formula looks like this: S-O-R.

Reflexological direction

Reflexology (reflexological direction in psychology) - this is a natural-science direction in psychology, considering mental activity as a set of reflexes formed as a result of the influence of the external environment on animals or humans. This direction is part of domestic psychology.

This direction arose at the beginning of the 20th century. THEM. Sechenov considered the founder of reflexology. He substantiated the reflex nature of the psyche, discovered reflexes of the brain and central braking. Sechenov's entire theory was built on the concept of "reflex".


I.P. Pavlov created doctrine of conditioned reflexes. They arise during life, can change and disappear. Conditioned reflexes are individual, they also contribute to adaptation.
Pavlov introduced the concept "first signaling system", which forms the basis of HNI (higher nervous activity) and is reduced to a combination of various conditioned and unconditioned reflexes to direct stimuli or their traces. The second signaling system, in his opinion, is speech.

V.M. Bekhterev the doctrine of association reflexes. According to his views, the impact of two stimuli must proceed adjacent in time for the formation of a combination reflex. In his opinion, the human psyche is built on the principle of combining new experience with traces of the old. Bekhterev also studied questions individual and team.

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Gestalt psychology

Gestalt psychology - this is the direction of Western psychology of the twentieth century, which studied the psyche from the point of view of integral structures (gestalts).

Among founders in this direction allocate Max Wertheimer, Wolfgang Keller and Kurt Koffka. A significant contribution to the development of Gestalt theory was made by Kurt Levin.
Based on Gestalt psychology Friedrich Perls created a new direction of psychotherapy - gestalt therapy.

Representatives of this trend believed that the principles of the division of consciousness are incorrect, just as perception is not a simple set of feelings. Gestalt psychologists focused their attention not on separate parts of phenomena, but on their integrity. Thus, they came to the conclusion that consciousness connects all components into a single whole, forming gestalt.


Gestalt - this is the main concept of Gestalt psychology, translated from German means “structure”, “holistic configuration”, i.e. a certain organized whole, the properties of which are not reduced to the properties of its parts.

Research gestalt psychologistsallowed to open , as well as gestalt principles : proximity, continuity, similarity, simplicity, figure-ground, etc.

Gestalt psychology originates from the discovery M. Wertheimer phi phenomenon (movements of two alternately switched on light sources), which proved that perception is not reduced to the sum of individual sensations.

Further contributed K. Koffka, who studied the development of perception in children and the perception of color in children. He came to the conclusion that the combination of the figure and the background against which the object is shown plays an important role in the development of perception. He also formulated the law "transductions" , which proved that children do not perceive the colors themselves, but their relationships.


W. Keller discovered the phenomenon insight (inner insight), proving that it is inherent not only in animals, but also in people. He also introduced principle of isomorphism.

K. Levin created theory psychological field . He believed that the cause of human activity is intention, i.e. need. The objects that surround us create a psychological field in which a person lives and develops. Influencing a person, objects that have certain charges cause needs in him, and they, in turn, cause tension. Levin called this tension quasi-need . In such a situation, a person strives for relaxation, i.e. satisfaction of this need.

Psychoanalytic direction

Psychoanalysis

No other psychological trend has gained such wide popularity outside this science as Freudianism.
3. Freud named his doctrine psychoanalysis- by the name of the method he developed for the diagnosis and treatment of neuroses.
The second name is depth psychology- this direction was named after its subject of study, because. focused on the study of the deep structures of the psyche.


Freud brought to the fore vital questions that will never cease to excite people, for example, about the complexity of a person’s inner world, about the emotional conflicts he experiences, about the consequences of unsatisfied drives, about the contradictions between “desired” and “should”.

Experiments with hypnosis showed that feelings and aspirations can direct the behavior of the subject, even when they are not realized by him. Further, Freud abandoned hypnosis as a method of psychotherapy in favor of a method "free association" . He used "free association" to trace the train of thought of his patients, hidden not only from the doctor, but also from themselves.

Thus, Sigmund Freud came to some conclusions.
From a structural point of view, the psyche contains, according to Freud, three formations: "I", "Super-I" and "It" . "I" is a secondary, superficial layer of the mental apparatus, usually called consciousness.

The last two systems are localized in the layer of the primary mental process - in unconscious . "It" is the place of concentration of two groups of drives:
a) lust for life, or eros, which includes the sexual drives and the self-preservation drive of the "I";
b) death drive, to destruction - thanatosa.

Jung's Analytical Psychology

Z. Freud had a decisive influence on scientific views K.Jung. Jung, unlike Freud, argued that "not only the lowest, but also the highest in a person can be unconscious". Disagreeing with Freud, Jung believed libido generalized psychic energy, which can take various forms.

Equally important were the disagreements. in the interpretation of dreams and associations. Freud believed that symbols are substitutes for other, repressed objects and drives. In contrast, Jung was sure that only a sign consciously used by a person replaces something else, and a symbol is an independent, living, dynamic unit. The symbol does not replace anything, but reflects the psychological state that a person is experiencing at the moment.

Therefore, Jung was against the symbolic interpretation of dreams or associations developed by Freud, believing that it is necessary to follow the symbolism of a person deep into his unconscious. In short, there were many disagreements.


Jung expanded mental model Freud. Along with the individual unconscious, he postulates the presence collective unconscious . In the collective unconscious in the form archetypes recorded the entire experience of mankind. Archetypes are inherited and are universal for all members of the human race.

Jung identified two types of psychological orientation of the individual: introvertive (on the inner world) and uhextravertive (on the outside world) and created the doctrine of eight psychological types.

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Individual psychology of Adler

Alfred Adler became the founder of a new, socio-psychological direction. It was in the development of these new ideas of his that he parted company with Freud. His theory has very little to do with classical psychoanalysis and represents an integral system of personality development.

Adler denied the provisions of Freud and Jung about the dominance of individual unconscious instincts in the personality and behavior of a person, instincts that oppose a person to society and separate from him. Not innate instincts, not innate archetypes, but a sense of community with people, stimulating social contacts and orientation towards other people - this is the main force that determines human behavior and life, Adler believed.

A. Adler, generally accepting the structural model of the psyche developed by 3. Freud, replaces the extremely abstract driving forces of the personality Eros and Thanatos with more concrete ones. He suggested that a person's life is defined by struggle: Pthe need for power and dominance and the need for attachment and belonging to a social group. Central to Adler's concept was the notion « » .

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Humanistic psychology

Humanistic psychology is a direction in psychology that arose in the 20th century, the subject of which was a healthy creative personality, the goal of which is self-fulfillment, self-actualization and growth.
A. Maslow and K. Rogers are considered the founders of humanistic psychology.


From point of view Abraham Maslow Every person has an innate desire for self-actualization . Moreover, such an active desire to reveal one's abilities and inclinations, the development of personality and the potential hidden in a person is the highest human need.

True, in order for this need to manifest itself, a person must satisfy the entire hierarchy of underlying needs. Before the need of each higher level begins to "work", the needs of the lower levels must already be satisfied.

Hierarchy of needs according to Maslow:
1) physiological needs (need for food, drink, respiration, etc.);
2) the need for security (feelings of stability, order, security, lack of fear and anxiety);
3) the need for love and a sense of community, belonging to a particular group;
4) the need for respect from others and for self-respect;
5) the need for self-actualization.

Carl Rogers best known for his popular method in psychotherapy called person-centered therapy (client-centered psychotherapy).

Rogers had his own special approach to psycho-correction. He proceeded from the fact that the psychotherapist should not impose his opinion on the patient, but lead him to the right decision, which the latter makes on his own. In the process of therapy, the patient learns to trust himself, his intuition, his feelings and impulses more, he will begin to better understand himself, and therefore those around him.

Laying the main responsibility for the changes that occur during treatment not on the therapist, but on the client, Rogers points out that a person, thanks to his mind, is able to independently change the nature of his behavior, replacing undesirable actions and actions with more desirable ones.

In his opinion, we are not at all doomed to be forever dominated by the unconscious or our own childhood experiences. The identity of a person is determined by this, it is formed under the influence of our conscious assessments of what is happening.

Rogers also shared Maslow's position on the inherent self-actualization needs , believing that the main cause of neuroses is the discrepancy between who a person considers himself to be and what he wants to be.
The desire for self-actualization, according to Rogers, is main motive for human activity. Although this drive is innate, it can be helped (or hindered) by childhood experiences and learning.


Another prominent representative of humanistic psychology is Gordon Allport.
Allport's most important merit is that he was one of the first to talk about the uniqueness of each person. He argued that each person is unique and individual, as he is the bearer of a peculiar combination of qualities, needs, which Allport called trait.

These needs, or personality traits, he divided into basic and instrumental. Main features stimulate behavior and are congenital, genotypic formations, and instrumental — form behavior and are formed in the course of a person's life, i.e., they are phenotypic formations. The set of these traits makes up the core of the personality, gives it uniqueness and originality.

One of the main postulates of Allport's theory was the proposition that personality is an open and self-developing system. He proceeded from the fact that a person is primarily a social, and not a biological being, and therefore cannot develop without contacts with other people, with society.

He argued that at the heart of the development of the human personality is precisely the need to blow up the balance, to reach new heights, i.e. the need for continuous development and improvement.

existential psychology

existential psychology is a direction in psychology that arose in the 20th century and studies Problems life and death, freedom and responsibility, communication and loneliness, as well as the problem the meaning of life.

Existentialists believed that these problems perform a dynamic function in relation to a person - they encourage the development of his personality. But confronting them is painful, so people tend to defend themselves against them, which often leads to an illusory solution to the problem.

Representatives of existentialism argued that people should begin to overestimate values, try not to commit trivial, typical, devoid of originality, meaningless actions, better understand the meaning of life in the present, become free from external and internal circumstances.

Existential psychology holds the view that people are largely responsible for who they are. Existence is given precedence over essence, growth and change are considered more important than stable and immovable characteristics, the process takes precedence over the result.


A prominent representative of this direction - Viktor Frankl, author logotherapy and existential analysis, united by the common name of the Third Viennese School of Psychotherapy.

Frankl considers that the main driving force of the personality is not the need to reveal oneself (self-actualization), but the need to go beyond one's limitations, "self-transcend". This desire of man may be called will to meaning . Frankl pays special attention to the situation of meaning loss ( "existential vacuum" ) and finding meaning in hopeless situations.

Another prominent exponent of existential therapy is James Bugenthal who called his therapy life-changing .

Bugental's central position can be formulated as follows: under certain conditions, almost any action can lead the client to intensify work with subjectivity; The art of the therapist lies precisely in the ability to adequately apply the entire rich arsenal without going over to manipulation.

It was for the formation of this art of psychotherapist that Bugental described 13 main parameters of therapeutic work and developed a methodology for developing each of them.


The theoretical and ideological leader of existential psychotherapy is considered to be an outstanding American psychologist and psychotherapist Rollo May. Following C. Rogers, he made a decisive theoretical and practical contribution to the development of psychological counseling as a full-fledged specialty.

May paid special attention to the study of the phenomena of fear and anxiety, being the first to point out that high anxiety is not necessarily a sign of neurosis. He divided anxiety into normal and neurotic.

And normal anxiety a person needs, as it keeps him in a state of vigilance and responsibility. May believes that a person's awareness of freedom of choice increases his sense of responsibility, which, in turn, inevitably causes anxiety - concern for this responsibility of choice.

neurotic anxiety - this is an inadequate response to an objective threat; such anxiety implies repression and is more destructive than constructive. If normal anxiety is always felt when values ​​are threatened, then neurotic anxiety visits us if the questioned values ​​are in fact dogmas, the rejection of which will deprive our existence of the meaning.


May highlights three types of ontological guilt corresponding to hypostases of being-in-the-world.
1. Umwelt, or "environment", corresponds to guilt due to separation, prevailing in "advanced" societies, caused by the separation of man and nature.
2. The second type of guilt comes from our inability to correctly understand the world of other people (Mitwelt).
3. The third type is based on relationships with our own "I" (Eigenwelt) and is associated with our denial of our capabilities, as well as failures on the way to their realization.

Thus, May believed that the task of a psychotherapist is to help a person understand the causes of his anxiety, addictions that interfere with free development and self-improvement. Freedom is associated with flexibility, openness, readiness for change, which helps a person to realize himself and build a lifestyle adequate to his individuality.

cognitive psychology

In the mid 1960s. In the United States, another direction arose, called "cognitive psychology". It appeared as an alternative. The origins of cognitive psychology were D. Miller, J. Bruner, G. Simon, P. Lindsay, D. Norman and others.

Cognitive direction in psychology It is a trend that focuses on cognition and the activity of consciousness. In cognitivism, man is seen primarily as a conscious being. Thus, cognitive psychology has restored the role of consciousness both at the level of man and at the level of animals.


George Miller dealt with problems of verbal communication. He completely immersed himself in the study of the problems of psycholinguistics and in 1951 published a book entitled "Language and communication". Further, his interests began to shift towards a more cognitively oriented psychology.

Together with his colleague, he creates a research center for the study of thought processes at Harvard University. Miller and Bruner chose the term "cognitive" to designate the subject of their research. That's what they called the new research center - Center for Cognitive Research.

In the new Center for Cognitive Research, a wide range of topics were developed: language, processes and concept formation, thinking, and - most of which have already completely disappeared from the dictionary.

Ulrik Neisser attended a course on the psychology of communication from Miller and got acquainted with the basics of information theory. Koffka's book Principles of Gestalt Psychology also influenced its development.

In 1967, Neisser published a book entitled "Cognitive Psychology". This book was destined to "open a new field of research." This means that cognitive psychology deals with imagination, thinking and all other types of mental activity. Created


The most significant contribution to the formation of the approach was made by the Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget, who studied child psychology, focusing on the stages of cognitive development.

J. Piaget considers the development of intelligence as a form of adaptation to the environment by balancing assimilation and accommodation , assimilation of information and improvement of schemes, methods of its processing. This allows a person to survive as a biological species.

Intelligence Development , according to J. Piaget, goes through four stages.

I. Sensorimotor intelligence (0 to 2 years) manifests itself in actions: schemes of looking, grasping, circular reactions are assimilated, when the baby repeats the action, expecting that its effect will be repeated (throws the toy and waits for the sound);

II. Preoperative stage (2-7 years) - children learn speech, but in a word they combine both essential and external signs of objects. Therefore, their analogies and judgments seem unexpected and illogical: the wind blows because the trees sway; the boat floats because it is small and light, but the ship floats because it is big and strong;

III. Stage of concrete operations (7-11 years) - children begin to reason logically, they can classify concepts and give definitions, but all this is based on specific concepts and illustrative examples;

IV. Stage of formal operations (from 12 years old) - children operate with abstract concepts, categories of "what will happen if ...", understand metaphors, can take into account the thoughts of other people, their roles and ideals. This is adult intelligence.

To illustrate the cognitive theory of development, J. Piaget proposed the famous experiment to understand the phenomenon of conservation. Only children of 7-8 years old noticed the same volume in glasses of different shapes. And this has been repeated in different countries and cultures.


Leon Festinger in 1957 put forward theory of cognitive dissonance .
The cognitive dissonance is a mismatch of cognitions, a mismatch of conscious structures.
cognitions are any meaningful elements of consciousness (themes, ideas, facts, images, etc.).

People strive for internal consistency as a desired internal state. In the event of a contradiction between what a person knows, or between what he knows and what he does, a state arises in a person cognitive dissonance subjectively experienced as discomfort. It causes behavior aimed at changing it - a person seeks to achieve internal non-contradiction again.

Dissonance can occur :

    • from logical inconsistency;
    • from the discrepancy between cognitive elements and cultural patterns;
    • from the inconsistency of this cognitive element with some broader system of ideas (a communist votes for Putin);
  • from the inconsistency of this cognitive element with past experience (always violated traffic rules - and nothing; now fined).

The way out of the state of cognitive dissonance is possible as follows:

    • through a change in the behavioral elements of the cognitive structure;
    • through the change of cognitive elements related to the environment;
  • through the expansion of the cognitive structure in such a way that it includes previously excluded elements.

A person, exploring the behavior of others, trying to understand its essence and give him forecasts, builds his own system of personal constructs. concept "construct" is central to Kelly's theory. The construct consists of features, thinking and speech and is a classifier of how a person perceives himself and the world around him.

A person was interpreted by Kelly as a researcher who constantly builds his own image of reality through personal constructs and, based on this image, puts forward hypotheses about future events. Non-confirmation of these hypotheses leads to a greater or lesser restructuring of the system of constructs, which makes it possible to increase the adequacy of subsequent predictions.

Kelly developed a methodological principle "repertory grids" , with the help of which methods for diagnosing the features of the individual construction of reality were created.

J. Kelly is associated with the beginning of cognitive therapy. As a psychotherapist, Kelly worked in line with cognitive therapy , being its founder. In general terms, therapy can be defined as a comparative analysis of the features of people's perception and interpretation of external information.

Domestic psychology

A significant contribution to the development of domestic psychology of the XX century. madeL.S. Vygotsky, A.N. Leontiev, A.R. Luria, S.L. Rubinshtein and P.Ya. Galperin.Also important are all the discoveries made within the framework ofreflexological direction (Sechenov, Bekhterev, Pavlov), but they were discussed at the beginning of this article.


Cultural and historical concept of the development of the human psyche:
L.S. Vygotsky, W. Bronfenbrenner

Lev Semyonovich Vygotsky- one of the founders of Soviet psychology. He created cultural and historical concept of the socio-historical development of the human psyche , which was further developed in the general psychological theory of activity.

Vygotsky sought to determine the qualitative specifics of the human mental world, to solve the problem of the genesis of human consciousness and the mechanisms of its formation.

He discerns two levels of the human psyche : lower natural and higher social mental functions.
natural functions given to man as a natural being, are of a psychophysiological nature - these are sensory, motor, pneumonic (involuntary memorization) functions.


Vygotsky also introduced the concept of higher mental functions (thinking in concepts, rational speech, logical memory, voluntary attention, etc.) as a specifically human form of the psyche and developed the doctrine of the development of higher mental functions .HMFs are social in nature and constitute the second level of the human psyche.

Uri Bronfenbrenner- American psychologist, specialist in child psychology. Author ecological systems theory (the theory of socialization and development of the child).

According to Bronfenbrenner, the ecological environment of a child's development consists of four systems, as if nested one into the other, which are usually graphically depicted as concentric rings:

    • microsystem - the family of the child;
    • mesosystem - kindergarten, school, yard, quarter of residence;
    • exosystem - adult social organizations;
  • macrosystem - the country's cultural practices, values, customs and resources.

Psychological theory of activity: S.L. Rubinstein, A.N. Leontiev, B.G. Ananiev

activity theory or activity approach is a school of Soviet psychology founded by A.N. Leontiev and S.L. Rubinstein on the cultural-historical approach of L.S. Vygotsky.

Alexey Nikolaevich Leontiev emphasized that activity is a special unity. It includes various components: motives, goals, actions . They cannot be considered separately from each other, they form a system.

Leontiev's fundamental contribution to the development of leadership problems . This outstanding scientist not only characterized the change of leading activities in the process of child development, but also laid the foundation for studying the mechanisms of transformation of one leading activity into another.

A.N. Leontiev proposed his classification stages of development of the psyche in phylogenesis (elementary sensory psyche, perceptual psyche and the stage of intellect). Also, a special contribution by A.N. Leontiev contributed to the theory of personality.


Sergei Leonidovich Rubinshtein substantiated principle of unity of consciousness and activity , which made it possible to give an innovative interpretation of consciousness not as an inner world, cognizable by the subject only through self-observation, but as the highest level of organization of mental activity, which implies the inclusion of the individual in the context of her life connections with the objective world.

Based on the principle of the unity of consciousness and activity, Rubinstein conducted a large cycle of experimental studies of key problems of psychology, primarily those related to cognitive processes (perception and memory, speech and thinking).

Boris Gerasimovich Ananiev singled out four main concepts in the system of human knowledge: individual, subject of activity, personality and individuality.

Individual - this is a person as a single natural being, a representative of the species Homo sapiens (emphasis on the biological essence of a person).
Personality is an individual as a subject of social relations and conscious activity.

The subject of activity, in its content, it occupies an intermediate position between the concepts of "individual" and "personality". The subject of activity combines the biological principle and the social essence of a person into a single whole.

Individuality - it is a combination of mental, physiological and social characteristics of a particular person in terms of his uniqueness, originality and uniqueness.


The concept of A.R. Luria on the main structural and functional blocks of the brain

Alexander Romanovich Luria- a well-known Soviet psychologist, the founder of Russian neuropsychology, a student of L. S. Vygotsky. Luria paid special attention to the problems of cerebral localization of higher mental functions and their disorders.

The model of the functional structure of the brain proposed by A.R. Luria, characterizes the most general patterns of the brain as a whole and is the basis for explaining its integrative activity. According to this model, the whole brain can be subdivided into 3 main structural and functional blocks.

    • I block - energy, or block regulation of the level of brain activity;
    • II block - reception, processing and storage of exteroceptive (i.e., outgoing) information;
  • III block - programming, regulation and control over the course of mental activity.

Contribution to psychology P.Ya. Galperin

Pyotr Yakovlevich Galperinconsidered mental processes (from perception to thinking inclusive) as an orienting activity of the subject in problem situations. The psyche itself historically arises only in a situation of mobile life for orientation on the basis of an image and is carried out with the help of actions in terms of this image.

Behaviorism- one of the leading directions, which has become widespread in different countries and primarily in the United States. The founders of behaviorism are E. Thorndike (1874–1949) and J. Watsen (1878–1958). In this direction of psychology, the study of the subject is reduced, first of all, to the analysis of behavior, which is widely interpreted as all types of reactions of the body to environmental stimuli. At the same time, the psyche itself, consciousness, is excluded from the subject of research. The main position of behaviorism: psychology should study behavior, and not consciousness and the psyche, which cannot be observed directly. The main tasks were as follows: to learn from the situation (stimulus) to predict the behavior (reaction) of a person and, conversely, to determine or describe the stimulus that caused it by the nature of the reaction. According to behaviorism, a person has a relatively small number of innate behavioral phenomena (breathing, swallowing, etc.), over which more complex reactions are built, up to the most complex "scenarios" of behavior. The development of new adaptive reactions occurs with the help of trials carried out until one of them gives a positive result (the principle of "trial and error"). A successful variant is fixed and reproduced in the future.

Psychoanalysis, or freudianism,- a general designation of various schools that arose on the basis of the psychological teachings of S. Freud (1856–1939). Freudianism is characterized by the explanation of mental phenomena through the unconscious. Its core is the idea of ​​the eternal conflict between the conscious and the unconscious in the human psyche. According to Z. Freud, human actions are controlled by deep motives that elude consciousness. He created a method of psychoanalysis, the basis of which is the analysis of associations, dreams, slips of the tongue and reservations, etc. From the point of view of Z. Freud, the roots of a person's behavior are in his childhood. The fundamental role in the process of forming a person is given to his sexual instincts and attractions.

Gestalt psychology- one of the largest areas of foreign psychology, which arose in Germany in the first half of the 20th century. and put forward a program for studying the psyche from the point of view of its organization and dynamics in the form of special indivisible images - "gestalts". The subject of study was the patterns of formation, structuring and transformation of the mental image. The first experimental studies of Gestalt psychology were devoted to the analysis of perception and made it possible to further identify a number of phenomena in this area (for example, the figure-ground ratio1. The main representatives of this trend are M. Wertheimer, W. Keller, K. Koffka.

Humanistic psychology- the direction of foreign psychology, which has recently been rapidly developing in Russia. The main subject of humanistic psychology is the personality as a unique integral system, which is not something predetermined, but an “open possibility” of self-actualization, inherent only to man. Within the framework of humanistic psychology, a prominent place is occupied by the personality theory developed by the American psychologist A. Maslow (1908–1970). According to his theory, all needs are built into a kind of "pyramid", at the base of which lie the lower, and at the top - the highest human needs (Fig. 11. Leading representatives of this direction: G. Allport, K. Rogers, F. Barron, R. May .

genetic psychology- the doctrine developed by the Geneva psychological school of J. Piaget (1896-1980) and his followers. The subject of study is the origin and development of the child's intellect, the main task is to study the mechanisms of the child's cognitive activity. Intelligence is studied as an indicator of individual development and as a subject of action, on the basis of which mental activity arises.


Rice. one. Pyramid of needs according to A. Maslow


Individual psychology- one of the areas of psychology, developed by A. Adler (1870-1937) and based on the concept of the presence of an inferiority complex in an individual and the desire to overcome it as the main source of motivation for a person's behavior.

Psychology has come a long way of becoming. Throughout the development of psychological science, different directions have developed in parallel in it. Teachings based on materialistic views, first of all, contributed to the development of a natural-science understanding of the nature of mental phenomena and the formation of experimental psychology. In turn, thanks to idealistic philosophical views, modern psychology considers such problems as morality, ideals, personal values, etc.

Has undergone many metamorphoses and changes. Each era, each new century, each decade brought something of its own to psychology, thanks to which today there is not just psychology as an independent and self-sufficient discipline, but a psychology that has all sorts of branches and directions. In this article we will talk about the ten most popular psychological directions in our modern times. These include:

Below is a brief description of each of these areas.

NLP

It is one of the directions in practical psychology and psychotherapy, based on special techniques for modeling verbal and non-verbal human behavior, successful in any area, as well as a set of special connections between memory, eye movement and speech forms.

NLP appeared in the 60s and 70s of the last century thanks to the activities of a group of scientists: Richard Bandler, John Grinder and Frank Pucelik, who worked under the patronage of the famous anthropologist Gregory Bateson. NLP is not recognized by the academic scientific community, and many methods, according to the conclusions of the opponents of this method, cannot be scientifically substantiated. However, in our time, NLP is very popular, has a huge number of supporters and is practiced by many organizations during psychological training, as well as by various training and consulting companies.

Psychoanalysis

It is a psychological theory developed by the Austrian neurologist Sigmund Freud at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. Psychoanalysis is also considered the most effective method of treating mental disorders based on this theory. Thanks to the activities of such scientists as K.G. Jung, A. Adler, G.S. Sullivan, K. Horney, J. Lacan and E. Fromm, this direction has received the strongest development. Among the main provisions of psychoanalysis, one can single out that the behavior, experience and knowledge of a person are determined mainly by internal irrational unconscious drives; the structure of the personality and its development are determined by events that occurred in early childhood; the confrontation between the conscious and the unconscious can lead to mental disorders, etc.

In the modern interpretation, psychoanalysis consists of more than twenty different concepts of human development, and the approaches to the treatment of mental illness through psychoanalysis are as varied as the theories themselves.

Gestalt psychology

The school was founded at the beginning of the 20th century by the Czech psychologist and philosopher Max Wertheimer. The harbingers of its appearance were studies of perception, and the focus is on the desire of the psyche to organize the experience gained by a person into an understandable unit. According to the ideas of Gestalt psychology, the basic psychological data are gestalts - integral structures that do not stand out from the total number of components that form them. They have their own laws and characteristics.

Recently, Gestalt psychology has changed its position in relation to human consciousness and argues that the analysis of this consciousness should first of all be directed not to individual elements, but to integral mental images. Together with psychoanalysis and phenomenology, Gestalt psychology has become the basis of Gestalt therapy, where the main ideas are transferred from the processes of perception to the general worldview.

Hellinger arrangements

Systemic family constellations are a phenomenological method of systemic family therapy, the main important discoveries in which were made by the German philosopher, psychotherapist and theologian Bert Hellinger. The method itself is designed to correct systemic family traumas, called systemic dynamics, and eliminate their consequences.

Therapists who work with this technique have determined that many people's problems are related to family traumas that have taken place in the past, such as murders, suicides, early deaths, rapes, moves, breaks in family relationships, and so on. Hellinger constellations differ from other similar methods in that they are short-term and are used only once. In his books, Hellinger refers this technique not so much to psychotherapeutic areas as to spiritual practices.

Hypnosis

Hypnosis is called an altered state of consciousness, which is characterized by both signs of wakefulness and sleep, during which dreams can also occur. Thanks to hypnosis, two states of consciousness can coexist at the same time, which in ordinary life are mutually exclusive. The first information about hypnosis dates back to the third millennium BC - hypnosis was practiced in ancient India, Egypt, Tibet, Rome, Greece and other countries.

The idea of ​​hypnosis is based on the duality of the nature of the psyche, in which there is a conscious and unconscious. And it happens that the unconscious has more influence on the psyche than the mind. Therefore, at present, with the help of hypnosis, experienced specialists solve all kinds of problems of people that cannot be eliminated by more traditional methods.

positive psychotherapy

The method of positive psychotherapy is one of the main ones in its field. It was founded by the German neurologist and psychiatrist Nossrat Peseschkian in 1968, but was recognized by the European Association for Psychotherapy in 1996, and by the World Council for Psychotherapy only in 2008.

This psychotherapeutic technique belongs to the category of transcultural, psychodynamic psychotherapeutic techniques with a humanistic position. According to her, the most important given of human nature are abilities (both innate and acquired). And the methodology itself is built in such a way that it includes a rational and purely scientific Western approach, as well as Eastern wisdom and philosophy. In 2009, the founder of positive psychotherapy was nominated for the Nobel Prize for his achievements in physiology and medicine.

Client Centered Therapy

Client-centered therapy as a psychotherapeutic method was proposed by the American psychologist Carl Rogers as an alternative to behaviorism and psychoanalysis. Initially, the author presented a hypothesis according to which a person is able to independently change himself, and the psychotherapist performs only the role of an observer who controls the process. However, more recently, a focus has been made on improving methods that will help the specialist better understand the client's condition and changes in it during therapy. It is thanks to the main idea of ​​the method (to come to an understanding of a person's self-perception) that the method got its name. There is another important point: in client-centered therapy, the main role is given to building relationships between the patient and the therapist as a guarantee of success in treatment.

Art therapy

Art therapy is a special kind of psychological correction and psychotherapy, which is based on creativity and art. In a narrower sense, art therapy can be called treatment through fine art, the purpose of which is to influence the psycho-emotional state of a person.

The term "art treatment" itself was coined in 1938 by the British artist and therapist Adrian Hill while describing his work in medical institutions with tuberculosis patients. Then the method was applied in the United States in working with children who were taken out of Nazi concentration camps during World War II. Over time, art therapy gained more and more adherents, and in 1960 the American Art Therapeutic Association was founded in the United States.

Body Oriented Therapy

Body-Oriented Psychotherapy is a therapeutic practice that allows you to work with people's neuroses and problems through body contact. The founder of this trend is the student of Sigmund Freud, the American and Austrian psychologist Wilhelm Reich, who at one time departed from psychoanalysis and focused on the body.

This therapy is based on the concept of “muscular (characterological) armor”, according to which muscle clamps are formed as a defense against anxiety that arises in children based on sexual desires and accompanied by fear of being punished. Over time, the suppression of this fear becomes chronic, resulting in the formation of specific character traits that form this shell.

Later, Reich's ideas were continued by Ida Rolph, Gerda Boyesen, Marion Rosen and Alexander Lowen. In Russia, the Feldenkrais method is often referred to as this area of ​​psychotherapy.

coaching

Coaching is a relatively recent method of training and consulting, which differs from the traditional ones in that it does not contain hard recommendations and advice, but there is a search for a solution to problems together with the client. Coaching is also distinguished by a pronounced motivation to achieve certain goals and results in activities and everyday life.

The founders of coaching are considered to be the American coach and the creator of the concept of the inner game Timothy Galvey, the British race car driver and business coach John Whitmore and the founder of the University of Coaches and other coaching organizations Thomas J. Leonard.

The main idea of ​​coaching is to move a person from the area of ​​a problem to the area of ​​its effective solution, to allow him to see new ways and ways to maximize his potential, and to help improve things in various areas of his life.

Of course, the presented descriptions cannot contain the fullness of these psychological trends, just as they cannot reveal all their features. But our task was only to acquaint you with them, presenting a very brief description. And in what direction to develop you is already a matter of your personal choice.

We will be glad if you participate in our small vote. Please answer the question: which of the described directions seemed to you the most interesting?