The Psychology Book Read Online Free PDF Page B

also: Wilhelm Wundt 32–37 ■ Sigmund Freud 92–99 ■ Carl Jung 102–07 ■
    Anna Freud 111 ■ Leon Festinger 166–67
    Thoughts and feelings contain
    energy, according to Herbart, acting
    on each other like magnets to attract
    Two ideas that
    or repel like or unlike ideas.
    cannot coexist
    comfortably repel
    each other ...
    + –
    Ideas that do
    not contradict
    + –
    each other are
    ...and one of
    Johann Friedrich
    drawn together and
    them may even be
    can coexist in
    – +
    + –
    Herbart
    pushed out of
    consciousness.
    consciousness.
    Johann Herbart was born in
    Oldenburg, Germany. He was
    tutored at home by his mother
    until he was 12, after which
    he attended the local school
    before entering the University
    Gottfried Leibniz was the first
    However, if two ideas are unalike,
    of Jena to study philosophy.
    to explore the existence of ideas
    they may continue to exist without
    He spent three years as a
    beyond awareness, calling them
    association. This causes them to
    private tutor before gaining
    petite (“small”) perceptions. As
    weaken over time, so that they
    a doctorate at Göttingen
    an example, he pointed out that
    eventually sink below the “threshold
    University, where he lectured
    we often recall having perceived
    of consciousness.” Should two ideas
    in philosophy. In 1806,
    something—such as the detail in
    directly contradict one another,
    Napoleon defeated Prussia,
    and in 1809, Herbart was
    a scene—even though we are not
    “resistance occurs” and “concepts
    offered Immanuel Kant’s chair
    aware of noticing it at the time. This
    become forces when they resist one
    of philosophy at Königsberg,
    means that we perceive things and
    another.” They repel one another
    where the Prussian king and
    store a memory of them despite the
    with an energy that propels one of
    his court were exiled. While
    fact that we are unaware of doing so.
    them beyond consciousness, into
    moving within these
    a place that Herbart referred to as
    aristocratic circles, Herbart
    Dynamic ideas
    “a state of tendency;” and we now
    met and married Mary Drake,
    According to Herbart, ideas form
    know as “the unconscious.”
    an English woman half his
    as information from the senses
    Herbart saw the unconscious
    age. In 1833, he returned
    combines. The term he used for
    as simply a kind of storage place for
    to Göttingen University,
    ideas— Vorsfellung —encompasses
    weak or opposed ideas. In positing
    following disputes with the
    thoughts, mental images, and even
    a two-part consciousness, split by a
    Prussian government, and
    emotional states. These make up
    distinct threshold, he was attempting
    remained there as Professor
    the entire content of the mind, and
    to deliver a structural solution for the
    of Philosophy until his death
    from a stroke, aged 65.
    Herbart saw them not as static
    management of ideas in a healthy
    but dynamic elements, able to move
    mind. But Sigmund Freud was to
    Key works
    and interact with one another.
    see it as a much more complex and
    Ideas, he said, can attract and
    revealing mechanism. He combined
    1808 General Practical
    combine with other ideas or feelings,
    Herbart’s concepts with his own
    Philosophy
    or repulse them, rather like magnets.
    theories of unconscious drives to
    1816 A Text-book in
    Similar ideas, such as a color and
    form the basis of the 20th-century’s
    Psychology
    tone, attract each other and combine
    most important therapeutic
    1824 Psychology as Science
    to form a more complex idea.
    approach: psychoanalysis. ■

    26
    BE THAT SELF
    WHICH ONE
    TR
    SØRE U
    N KIE L
    RK Y
    EGA A I
    R S
    D (1813–1855)
    IN CONTEXT
    APPROACH
    T he fundamental question, understanding oneself, famously
    “Who am I?” has been
    saying: “The unexamined life is not
    studied since the time
    worth living.” Søren Kierkegaard’s
    of the ancient Greeks. Socrates
    book The Sickness Unto Death
    Existentialism
    (470–399 BCE) believed the main
    (1849) offers self-analysis as