Psychotherapy and psychiatry have both had an impact on clinical psychology. During the 1950s and 1960s, behaviorism became popular in psychology, and cognitive therapy began to replace Freudian psychoanalysis. It is the combination of these two schools of thought that dominates today’s practice of clinical psychology. Cognitive psychologists believe that people can change their thoughts and behaviors if they understand how they think. Modern forms of therapy evolved from Freud’s idea of a talking cure, but the ideas of behaviorism, cognitive and social psychology have slowly replaced his psychodynamic theory. Psychiatry, too, has been transformed by psychological theories, moving from the medical view of mental disorders as symptoms caused by physical illnesses to an appreciation of the role played by psychological factors in causing these conditions. Advances in neuroscience, meanwhile, have provided new insights into the link between brain activity and emotions.
Mind and brain
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...
