Virtually every branch of knowledge, as we know it today, came from particularly two powerful empires of the ancient past, which are the Greek and Roman Empire. Although there were other civilizations, such as the Arabs and the Mayans, that made progress in knowledge, especially mathematics, the Greeks and Romans have been more recognized for the development of other branches of knowledge. The Greeks and Romans have been known to be the promoters of the natural sciences and philosophy. Psychology stemmed from philosophy.
Unlike philosophy, however, it encompassed the techniques of the natural sciences. Psychology seemed to be the link between philosophy and the sciences back then. The main concern of the discipline of psychology in ancient times was the “[speculation of] the nature and locus of the mind, sensation and perception, memory, and learning”. There existed a strong connection between psychology and medicine, physiology, and neurology. The purpose of psychology, for the ancient physicians and philosophers, was to describe its procedures and demeanor in terms of science (e.g. medicine).
In order to understand the emergence of psychology, the advances in medicine in these ancient cultures must be discussed. That way, one can see how psychology was linked to each one of them, in one way or the other. Early Greek medicine was more of a divine matter. It was believed that the God Asclepius was the god of medicine. Priests would live at his temples and claimed they knew the ways of healing people. It was not until around 500 B. C. , a Greek physician named Alcmaeon began to dissect animals to observe their skeleton, muscles, and brain.
This was most probably the first ever to describe a phenomenon through objective observations. Through his observations, he believed that illness was due to an imbalance in the body. This idea prevailed for many centuries in the history of medicine. Hippocrates succeeded Alcmaeon and rejected the superstitious ideas of priests being the only healers. He founded a medical school and taught his students that since disease came from something natural, it must be treated by natural means. He believed that the body was able to heal itself by the power of healing of nature.
Therefore, one was not allowed to interfere with such power. Instead, in order for the body to heal, it must have harmony, and the doctor’s task was to maintain such harmony in the patient. This was one of the first approaches in where the doctor’s concern was the patient rather than the disease. Hippocrates made certain neurological discoveries. He concluded accurately that the left hemisphere of the brain controlled the right side of the body and the right hemisphere controlled the left side of the body.
In his book, The Art of Healing, he discussed about illnesses, such as paranoia, mania, melancholia, phobias, postpartum depression, and hysteria (all of these illnesses now fall in the category of psychopathology). He soon came up with a theory related to humors. According to Hippocrates, the body had four humors, which were black and yellow vile, blood, and phlegm. An excess of any of these humors would cause illnesses. He believed that the humors were mightily linked to the personality and temperament of an individual. Excessive black vile indicated a melancholic and irritable personality.
Too much yellow vile would be present in individuals who were irate, ill-tempered, and maybe manic. An overflow of phlegm was designated to those who had a dull and indifferent personality. Too much blood in an individual would explain for his/her constant happiness and optimism. In his most eminent work, De morbu sacro (Concerning the Sacred Disease) discussed about epilepsy, which was believed to occur by divine intervention. Hippocrates disapproved this idea and stated that epilepsy was “a disease caused by the brain’s disharmony and predicted that examination of the brain of an epileptic would reveal the cause of that person’s illness”.
Hippocrates was very sure that natural treatments could heal an epileptic. Although Hippocrates is often referred to as the “Father of Medicine”, he is also considered as the “Father of Psychology” for his attempts to formulate theories that involved the close relationship between physical and mental health. He gave the first theories on behavioral problems relating to the physical distress of an individual. Galen succeeded Hippocrates 600 years later. He was a physician and anatomist that served as the court physician o the Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius Antonius.
He wrote a seventeen-book treatise called De usu partium (On the Usefulness of the Parts) where he describes his theory on the structure of the human body. His sources were three and are as follows: from observations of past physicians, his experience as a surgeon for the gladiators, and his personal investigation by dissecting small apes, pigs, cattle, goats, and maybe even humans (if this was the case, then he must have done it secretly for human dissections were illegal in the Roman Empire).
On his other work, On the Passions and Errors of the Soul, he stated that diseases come about from passions, strong emotions (anger, sadness, envy, lust, fear, remorse). According to Galen, since passions were from an irrational power that refused to obey reason, self-knowledge and understanding were supposed to help in taming these passions. However, since self-love leads to egoism, the patient would have seen no flaws in himself/herself. Therefore, the doctor’s responsibility was to state to the patient his/her flaws and how to overcome them.
This was the first application of what is now known as therapy (counselor and client relationship). It may sound a bit odd, but mathematics also had a link to psychology. The Greek mathematician Pythagoras, who came up with the Pythagorean theorem, portrayed the harmonious relationship between the mathematical and physical realm, leading to its relationship to psychology as well. He stated that a string on an instrument strums at specific intervals. If the time of each interval were not equal, harmony was lost. Since Pythagoras saw that the notes on a lute were agreeable to the human ear, this caused harmony in the individual.
He related the harmony of the intervals on a string of an instrument to the harmony of an individual. Democritus, the great philosopher of Thrace, came up with a theory in which he stated that all matter was composed of tiny particles, which he called atoms, that were in constant movement without need to do so by external forces. When he tried to explain perception through his theory, he said that objects emitted atoms which the brain captured and created a sensation to the body. For instance, rectangular objects would emit rectangular atoms and sour-tasting foods would emit thin, piercing atoms.
This, however, did not explain the function of critical thinking. Zeno of Elea cleverly disproved the atomism theory of the mind by presenting paradoxes making individuals critical thinking, something, as aforementioned, that could not be explained by Democritus’ atomism theory. One philosopher that cannot leave without mention is Aristotle. He was the tutor of Alexander the Great. He was a erudite in every aspect of knowledge at the time and wrote many works of each one. He was a pedantic in biology, zoology, botany, philosophy, among others. He developed the scale of nature (scala naturae) which stated three forms of complexity.
From lower to higher, they are the nutritive (plants), the sensitive (animals), and the rational (humans). This theory is used in evolution for the reason that it can be related to the time of appearance of each kind of organism, from the most simple to the most complex. His works are still taken in consideration in today’s sciences. Three of them are used in psychology. These are his memory theory, his theory of causes, and his catharsis theory. Because of these three impressive theories, Aristotle is recognized as the ancient father of psychology.
Aristotle developed a theory based on human theory in which he stated three precepts belonging to memory: similarity, contrast, and contiguity. He also stated two other important influences which were frequency and ease. The mind, according to Aristotle, was somewhat like a blank tablet and the writer who filled the tablet with words was experience. This thought is strongly related to empiricism which was later developed in the mid-1600s by the British empiricist John Locke. It is impressive to see how Aristotle has become an influence for his theory on memory.
His theory of causes had four principle bases: material cause (e. g. the material of a thing), formal cause (e. g. the form it takes or is given), efficient cause (e. g. how the thing obtained its form), and final cause (e. g. what purpose was all this done for). The final cause embraces the definition of teleology, the philosophy that a final cause exists. When this mode of thinking is applied to matters related to psychology, with careful application, the theory of causes proves to be effective. In Aristotle’s Poetics, he declared that drama has the ability of purging an audience with several emotions.
It can make the audience delve into the drama being played. This is known as catharsis. Today, psychology uses the catharsis theory to see how the happenings around us have the effect they do. Some psychologists, however, disagree that what we see causes catharsis, but imitation. The debate is still being held. A long period of time lies between Ancient Greece and Rome and today’s society. However, the same questions formulated by the ancients are still a mystery today. It seems quite odd that after many years, man has been unable to describe what occurs around him and in him.
What has been done throughout the centuries, though, is the improvement and modification of these theories Still, it shall never be forgotten that the Ancient Greeks and Romans were the first to come up with such theories.
References Bringmann, Wolfgang G. (1997). A Pictorial History of Psychology. Quintessence Publishing Co: New York, New York. Corsini, Raymond J. (1994). Encyclopedia of Psychology. John Wiley and Sons, Inc: New York, New York. Hothersall, David. (1995). History of Psychology. 4th ed. McGraw Hill Co: New York, New York.