Emphasis given to 20th century in History & Systems Courses

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Hi--

I'm teaching History & Systems for the first time this fall--it's a graduate level course, taken predominantly by counseling and school psychology students, with some from the health sciences as well (e.g., nursing).

I have been looking over a lot of syllabi, both from the now-retired prof here, and on the web. And it seems that most courses spend between 1/3 to 1/2 of the semester to cover from about 800 bce to about 1850 ce, and the rest on the remaining 150 years or so.

As a philosopher-turned-psychologist, I was really surprised by this. I was planning on spending about 2/3 of the course covering pre-19th century happenings. All the same topics as usual it seems, both before and after the 19th century, just different amounts of depth. For example, I was thinking of spending 2-3 weeks on judaic and early christian scholars, but the syllabi i have been looking at put everything from the mystery cults up to thomas aquinas into one week. Wow!

I can see all kinds of arguments for dividing up the course this way or that, but mainly I want to know if there is some reason it would be a terribly bad idea to give greater emphasis to earlier events. I have looked at the APA accreditation guidelines and the Division 26 material, and haven't found any reason so far (e.g., requirements of the accreditation process). But being a newbie, I don't want to cause problems for the programs I serve (I am a cognitive scientist by trade, and so not in a licensing program myself).

Thanks for all information and advice, and I apologize if there is a readily available answer to this question that I missed in the archives or the APA sites. If so, just point me to it!

Cheers,

sarah

-- sarah brem (sarah.brem@asu.edu), August 13, 2004

Answers

Not much reason except tradition: (1) E.G. Boring divided up his book more or less this way (giving even *less* space to pre-Enlightenment developments) and so most everyone else does as well. (2) Students get fidgety with pre-20th-century material. It is more difficult to convince them that it matters. (3) Psychology as a *discipline* (as opposed to earlier ideas that were later re-organized into psychology) really only begins in the mid-19th-century, so one could argue that there is nothing that is "psychology," properly speaking, until then. (Indeed, this is the main reason I entitled my own book _Early Psychological Thought: Ancient Accounts of Mind and Soul_ rather than _Early Psychology:..._.)

You might look at Daniel Robinson's _Intellectual History of Psychology_ which has more high-quality material on ancient, medieval, and early-modern ideas than most anyone else. If you can find a copy, see especially the preface to the 2nd edition, in which it is claimed that almost all of the current major psychological positions were laid out by 1750 and the quarter-millennium since has been dedicated mainly to the collection of data and the development of technologies in support of one or another of these positions. A great question for classroom discussion.

-- Christopher Green (christo@yorku.ca), August 13, 2004.


Hello Sarah.

I doubt you will find much unanimity on the issue of what historical periods to emphasize in a single semester history of psychology course or even in a full-year course for that matter.

My own rationale (not yet put into practice however) for *skipping* the period between Aristotle and Bacon can be found at the top of the following webpage:

http://www.comnet.ca/~pballan/section2(210).htm

Congratulations and good luck!

Paul F. Ballantyne

-- Paul F. Ballantyne (pballan@comnet.ca), August 13, 2004.


Hi Sarah, I liked Chistopher's response to your question, but I will add some additional thoughts on the question. I have taught History & Systems for about twenty years and had a bias toward presentism or using history to better understand and deal with contemporary psychological issues. I also emphasized understanding the development and evaluation of theories in general (e.g., in science and philosophy). I liked a contextual approach that included influences on the field of psychology from outside (e.g., social, political, and economic factors, or developments in other academic fields). I wanted to leave my students with knowing the living issues in contemporay psychology and required them to learn a long list of such issues. For example, I was concerned that they know many modern issues in clinical psychology. My teaching biases were probably in part influenced by not only my interests, belief, and values, but also by my skills. A case might be made that if you have particular skills for teaching early history, then such an emphasis would be appropriate. Do what you are good at. Your background in cognitive psychology might be particular useful for teaching either ancient or modern psychology. I would however, spend at least half of the history course on psychology since the 18th century, because I think that is the expectation in graduate education. Also, since students may take less than half the courses that are offered in their program, it often leaves glaring holes in their knowledge of the most famous psychologists and theories of the last two decades. A history course that gives adequate attention to the last two decades fills many of these holes and give a common background for future psychologists. I hope this helps. Paul

-- Paul Kleinginna (pkleinginna@georgiasouthern.edu), August 14, 2004.

You'll find lots of early material with a philosophical bent in Wayne Viney & Brett King's textbook (Allyn & Bacon). I use that in a graduate course for clinical students, along with Pickren & Dewsbury's more contemporary collection published by APA.

-- Hendrika Vande Kemp (hendrika@cox.net), August 15, 2004.

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