Beginnings of experimental psychology

In many cultures around this world, there is the view that humans have a soul that exists independently of the physical body. For Greek philosophers, the soul was also viewed as the seat of our reasoning abilities - what we would call our minds today. While Aristotle...

The natural sciences (physics, astronomy, chemistry, biology, and geology) developed out of philosophical speculations about the nature of reality. However, it wasn’t till the late nineteenth century that a systematic study of human thought emerged. One reason for...

Around the middle of the nineteenth century, medical science turned its attention to disorders of the central nervous system. Early neuroscientists, including Jean-Martin Charcot, examined and documented conditions, such as multiple scleroses, prompting research into...

Throughout history, mental health issues have been treated with suspicion, sometimes leading to fear. Some conditions, including depression and schizophrenia, have been blamed on supernatural forces; others, such as anxiety, have been associated with certain bodily...

In the late eighteenth century, Austrian doctor Franz Anton Mesmer developed an approach to treating illness based on the idea that disease could be caused by a disturbance in the body's natural energy flow and cured by restoring the correct flow. He believed he could...