that dream about the dinosaur and the
leotard those times that you said that
thing that you know you shouldn't have
said or even that thing you didn't even
know you were gonna say the little cogs
of your consciousness cranking away
making your life possible making society
function all of the things that you're
so glad you can do and all the ones you
wish you could stop doing excluding
other human minds your mind is the most
complicated piece of the universe that
humans currently know about the rules
that govern it are mysterious and
elusive maybe our brains just aren't
complex enough to understand themselves
but that's not going to stop us from
trying the word psychology comes from
the latin for the study of the soul and
while its formal definition has evolved
over the last several decades today we
can safely call it the science of
behavior and mental processes the term
psychology wasn't coined until around
the turn of the 16th century and a
practice that we would actually call
science today wasn't established until
the mid-1800s but of course humans have
always been curious about themselves and
what's going on up here aristotle
pondered the seed of human consciousness
and decided that it was in the heart not
the head being as we have seen quite a
lot here on crash course absolutely and
completely wrong 2 000 years ago chinese
rulers conducted the world's first
psychological exams requiring public
officials to take personality and
intelligence tests and in the late 800s
persian dr mohammed ibn zakaria al-razi
also known as razi's was one of the
first to describe mental illness and
even treated patients in what was
essentially a very early psych ward in
his baghdad hospital from the efforts of
those early thinkers up until today the
field of psychology has been all about
tackling some of the big questions how
can humans do horrible things like
commit genocide and torture other humans
and how come we know those things are
horrible do we have free will or are we
simply driven by our environment biology
and non-conscious influences what is
mental illness and what can we do about
it and what is consciousness or the
notion of self if i lose my awareness of
myself am i still human i don't know but
over the next six months these are the
questions that we're going to be
exploring together how our brains work
how they can break how they can be
healed why we behave the way we do even
when we don't want to and what it means
to be thinking and feeling and alive
[Music]
when hearing the word psychology most
people probably think of a therapist
listening to a patient unpacking the
details of his day while rick landing on
a couch maybe that therapist is wearing
glasses chewing on a cigar stroking his
whiskered chin admit it if you're
thinking about psychology you're
probably picturing freud sigmund freud
was one of the most tremendously
influential and controversial thinkers
of his time maybe of all time his
theories helped build our views on
childhood personality dreams and
sexuality and his work fueled a legacy
of both support and opposition his life
was long and spanned an important swath
of history from the american civil war
to world war ii but like most great
scientists freud developed his
revolutionary ideas by building on the
work of others and of course innovation
in the field didn't stop with him in
truth psychology is one of the most
wildly diverse sciences in terms of the
questions it proposes the methods it
applies and the different schools of
thought and disciplines it contains
perhaps more than any other science
psychology is just a big old integrative
melting pot for instance right around
freud's time there were a lot of
different schools of thought about how
the study of the human mind should be
tackled mainly there were the ideas of
structuralism functionalism and
psychoanalysis scientific psychology got
its start in 1879 in germany when
physician wilhelm vunt set up the first
psychology laboratory at the university
of leipzig just a few years after
publishing his principles of
physiological psychology considered the
first true psychology textbook hunt and
his student edward bradford titchener
took cues from chemists and physicists
and argued that if those people could
break down all matter into simple
elements or structures why couldn't they
do the same for the brain they tried to
understand the structures of
consciousness by getting patients to
look inward asking them how they felt
when they watched a sunset or smelled a
coffee or licked a kitten or whatever
titchener named this approach
structuralism but despite its rigid
sounding name it really relied so much
on introspection that it became too
subjective i mean you make sense and
feel something different than i do even
if we lick the same kitten psychologists
of course can't actually observe a
patient's inner thoughts or feelings so
ultimately the structuralist school of
thought was fairly short-lived by
contrast american physician and
philosopher william james proposed a
different set of questions focusing on
why we think and feel and smell and lick
or whatever basically he focused on the
function of behavior this approach
functionalism was inspired by charles
darwin's idea that adaptive behaviors
are conserved throughout the
evolutionary process james published his
seminal book the principles of
psychology in 1890 defining psychology
as the science of mental life just as
freud was starting to flex his big brain
sigmund freud began his medical career
at a viennese hospital but in 1886 he
started his own practice specializing in
nervous disorders during this time freud
witnessed his colleague joseph broyer
treat a patient called anna oh with a
new talking cure basically it just let
her talk about her symptoms the more she
talked and pulled up traumatic memories
the more her symptoms were reduced it
was a breakthrough and it changed freud
forever from then on freud encouraged
his patients to talk freely about
whatever came to mind to free associate
this technique provided the basis for
his career and an entire branch of
psychology in 1900 he published his book
the interpretation of dreams where he
introduced his theory of psychoanalysis
now you probably think of psychoanalysis
as a treatment the whole patient on the
couch scenario and that's definitely
part of it but freud's concept was
actually a lot more complex than that
and it was revolutionary the radical
kernel of psychoanalysis was the theory
that our personalities are shaped by
unconscious motives basically freud
suggested that we're all profoundly
affected by mental processes that we're
not even aware of now that sounds almost
obvious to us now but part of the genius
of freud's theory was that in 1900 it
wasn't obvious at all the idea that our
minds could be driven by something that
our minds themselves didn't know about
was hard to grasp as hard as like maybe
organisms evolving by natural selection
it was abstract invisible and there was
something about it that seemed
irrational the other important part of
freud's theory was that the subconscious
literally the thing below consciousness
was still discoverable even though you
weren't aware of it you could come to
understand it through a therapeutic
technique that used dreams projections
and free association to root out
repressed feelings and gain self-insight
so what freud was really saying was that
mental disorders could be healed through
talk therapy and self-discovery and this
was a really big breakthrough because
prior to this people with mental
illnesses would be confined to
sanatoriums and at best given menial
labor to do and at worst shackled to a
bed frame after the interpretation of
dreams freud went on to publish over 20
more books and countless papers with an
iconic cigar in hand all the while he
believed smoking helped him think but
also helped him get jaw cancer during
the last 16 years of his life he
underwent at least 30 painful operations
while continuing to smoke by the late
1930s the nazis had taken over austria
and freud and his jewish family narrowly
escaped to england by september 1939 the
pain in his cancerous jaw was too great
and a doctor friend assisted him in
suicide through morphine injection he
was 83. whether you love him or hate him
and make no mistake plenty of people
vehemently disagreed with him there is
no question that freud's impact on
psychology was monumental while
competing theories in the young field of
psychology either fell away or evolved
into something else psychoanalysis
remains an important concept and
practice today the next big shake-up
rolled in during the first half of the
20th century when behaviorism gained a
higher profile heavy hitters like ivan
pavlov john b watson and bf skinner were
key players here they focused on the
study of observable behavior you may
remember skinner as the dude who put
rats and pigeons and babies in boxes and
conditioned them to perform certain
behaviors right around when freud
escaped to england skinner published his
behavior of organisms ushering in the
era of behaviorism which remained all
the rage well in the 1960s the other
major force at the time was of course
freud's psychoanalysis and its many
descendants collectively known as the
psychodynamic theories these focused on
the importance of early experiences in
shaping the unconsciousness and how that
process affects our thoughts feelings
behaviors and personalities by the
mid-20th century other major forces in
psychology were also brewing schools
we'll explore later in this course
including humanist psychology which
focuses on nurturing personal growth
cognitive science and neuroscience all
of which contributed their own unique
takes on the study of mind today's
formal definition of psychology the
study of behavior and mental processes
is a nice amalgamation that pulls from
all these different schools of thought
it recognizes the need for observing and
recording behavior whether that's
screaming crying or playing air
saxophone to an imaginary audience but
it also gives credit to our mental
processes what we think and feel and
believe while we're tearing it up on our
invisible instruments because again the
point that i really want you to take
home is that psychology is an
integrative science yes folks still get
grumpy and disagree plenty but the
essence of the discipline has everything
to do with creating different ways of
asking interesting questions and
attempting to answer them through all
kinds of data gathering methods the
human mind is complicated there is no
single way to effectively crack it open
it must be pride at from all sides
harvard astronomer owen gingrich has
gazed into the distant horizons of space
and even he has acknowledged that the
human brain is by far the most complex
physical object known to us in the
entire cosmos and we all get to have one
of our very own knocking around right up
in here we here at crash course are
really excited to spend the next several
months delving into the world of
psychology how it applies to our lives
our minds and our hearts and how it
deepens our understanding of each other
our world and ourselves thanks for
watching this first lesson in crash
course psychology and i'd like to
especially thank all of our support
subscribers without whom we would
literally not be able to do this would
you like a personalized signed crash
course chemistry periodic table or even
to see yourself animated in one of our
episodes to find out about these and
other perks go to subable.com
crashcourse and thanks to our crew this
episode was written by kathleen yale and
edited by blake t pastino our psychology
consultant's dr ranjeet bhagwat our
director and editor is nicholas jenkins
the script supervisor was michael aranda
who is also our sound designer and our
graphics team is thought cafe
you