Definition Of The Science Of Psychology

Is psychology a branch of biological sciences, philosophy or social sciences? The criteria on this matter overflow in both directions. Personally, and coinciding with other Mexican colleagues, I consider that Psychology is an independent science. And in the facts and in the investigative methodology it is not an individual science, but a set of sciences, disciplines and practices, which could well be called “Psychological Sciences and Psychic Behavior”; except for Psychoanalysis, which is a theory, a method and a praxis sui generis.- In this Online Psychology article we are going to offer a definition of the science of psychology to try to clarify this matter.

Tour through history

Although it is known thatPsychology originated within Greek Philosophy – and that Philosophical or Rational Psychology still persists, scientific Psychology in the 17th-18th and 19th centuries was part of Mathematics, Physics, empiricist and rationalist Philosophy, until it was incorporated as a part of Biology during the French positivism, being in the takeoff of the Social Sciences during the second half of the 19th century that became a branch of these with many reservations, in clear opposition to the nascent Freud’s psychoanalysis, predominating biologism, psychophysics, reflexology and behaviorism in the USA and in several European countries.-

In the case of Mexico, Psychology arrived as a branch of Philosophy and Biology at the same time, in a struggle with the Mexican positivism imported from A. Comte and with the influence of the so-called Dialectical Materialism. Therefore, at the beginning, Psychology remained a branch of Philosophy with biological, physical and physiological foundations, until it achieved its autonomy but was closely linked to Philosophy.

It is in the Mexican university environment that Psychology becomes a branch of Social Sciences in some universities in the country and in others it is adopted as a branch of Chemical Biological sciences, in which factors of understood values ​​and academic policies intervene. and of course, the orientation of the various psychological currents that predominated and that led the Therapeutic Methodology in the very broad field of the application of Psychology and other behavioral sciences.-

Psychology as an independent science

In my personal consideration and starting from the classification of the sciences made by the great social scientist, philosopher, epistemologist, methodologist and logician of science, Elí de Gortari, I return to the estimate that Psychology is nowadays an independent and autonomous science, but very related and directly linked to three large groups of sciences:

• the natural sciences
• the social sciences
• the Philosophical Sciences

Maintaining an indirect relationship with Technology, Mathematics and the so-called Science of Science or Meta science, which by the way are all very broad, the Psychological Sciences and Psychic Behavior sharing their own breadth and complexity that demand that the formation of new psychologists is interdisciplinary and consequently the school plan is increased in terms analogous to those of the Medical career. Taking into account that psychological health and emotional and affective stability, for example, constitute public health and mental hygiene problems, adjacent to endemic and pandemic public health problems.-

As human societies become more complex in terms of population and behaviors, behaviors, attitudes, habits, consumption, urbanization, conflict, aggressiveness and social violence, that is, in all its components and social factors, the human psyche, social consciousness and intellectual culture, as well as the sciences of social and individual behavior They also become more extensive and acquire an interdisciplinary status.

Such is the case of “Psychology” whose objects and areas of application are not conceived without prior and simultaneous knowledge of Social Psychology, some sociological branches, Social Psychiatry, Social Anthropology, Philosophy, Criminology, Medicine. Legal, and the foundations of Medical and Biological Sciences, as well as the elementary knowledge of Neurophysiology, Biochemistry and Population Geophysics.-

An independent and interdisciplinary science

In scientific and technical terms, the “Human Psyche” and its interconnection with the biophysiology of the individual and their social, cultural, technomechatronic, geographic-ecological environment; and the endless urban growth and its incursion into the increasingly deep-seated amorous masses, despite its immense complexity irreducible to mere reflections, responses and pre-behaviors, the human psyche requires that “Psychology” is a conjunction of sciences, disciplines, techniques and therapeutics. that consider the subject as an individual-mass whose subjectivity, in part, is given from its multifactorial “exteriority” and in other “parts”, it comes in its genetics, in the biological group and in its organic totality.

Hence the importance of considering Psychological Sciences and Psychic Behavior as an independent and at the same time interdisciplinary “Science” with each and every one of the sciences that make up these enormous groups of Natural, Social and Philosophical Sciences, by virtue of the fact that the human social subject goes through several stages in its history as an ideal adult male and female individual, until reaching the stage of Adults already complete the phase of decrepitude, stages, these, which have or present their own “Psyche”, contemplating the “particular psychic life” presented by the other stages of the psychosocial life of the person. individual-mass, social and human.-

The question of the large number of currents or orientations in “Psychology” and of the psychotherapies and techniques that have been developed, would be an aspect pending analysis, the same as the question of Psychoanalysis in all its aspects, which occupies a place very special next to “Psychology” and Psychiatry and Philosophy itself, and even, depending on the country in which it has been studied and practiced, since in some countries it is treated as a science or of an intermediate or totally independent discipline and in others, it is even treated as a pseudoscience.-

Therefore, I conclude by ratifying the urgent need for psychological sciences and psychic behavior acquire the rank of sciences for the present and immediate future of humanity, psychically, mentally, behaviorally and existentially healthy and free; and that the new professionals of “Psychology” be the new doctors of psychic health or “Mental Existence” and advocate that this psychic health be a matter of public mental health of the State.

This article is merely informative, at PsychologyFor we do not have the power to make a diagnosis or recommend a treatment. We invite you to go to a psychologist to treat your particular case.

If you want to read more articles similar to Definition of the science of psychology we recommend that you enter our Social Psychology category.