Understanding Psychology As A Science: Exploring The Mind-Body Problem And Mental Illness

According to Stanovich described psychology as the quest to understand behaviour by using the methods of science (p.3).  For him, psychology is a scientific discipline which, despite numerous image problems has not just a bright future but has already meaningfully added to the sum of human betterment. 

In your personal view, or from what you have been taught in other units: What is psychology What does or should psychology as a discipline aim to do

What is your personal view of the mind-body problem Are the mind and body separate Can the mind be studied? Do philosophical questions like this have any place in modern psychology.

What is Psychology and its aim as a scientific discipline?

According to Stanovich described psychology as the quest to understand behaviour by using the methods of science (p.3).  For him, psychology is a scientific discipline which, despite numerous image problems has not just a bright future but has already meaningfully added to the sum of human betterment.  According to Stanovich, the public understanding regarding the context of psychology is quite different from that of the subject as a modern science which clearly explains the factors and the functions that shapes the behaviour and the human attitudes. In his reading, Stanovich explained the misconceptions of many people regarding the modern and the scientific psychology.

Psychology is the study of the mind and behaviour. Is the scientific study of how people think, feels and behave? As a science, psychology applies the scientific methods to study psychological phenomena, including perception, cognition, attention, emotion (affect), intelligence, phenomenology, motivation, brain functioning, and personality.

The major goal of psychology is to predict behaviour by understanding its causes. Furthermore, is not only to understand the processes that underlay human thinking and behaviour, but apply that understanding to solve practical problems, help people, communities, and society in general so solve day to day problems and improve quality of life, improving mental health and wellbeing.

Psychology is a broad and diverse field in where some different sub-fields and specialty areas have emerged, including abnormal, Biological, clinical, cognitive, comparative, developmental, forensic, industrial, personality and social psychology.

I believe that mind and body are separated because human beings are dual in nature, owning both a physical body and psychic body. The mind is a nonphysical element and body /brain is a physical substance which is known as dualism. Most of us experience the reality of mental processes, and we also experience the reality of physical world”.  The mind is real that exists outside physical reality which enables us to have a subjective awareness, and intentionality towards the environment to perceive and responds to stimuli. There is two different ways connection among mental and physical substances, in this way the mind interacts with the body and control the body, in any case, the body can likewise impact the generally normal personality.

Szasz defined mental illness as a metaphor for human problem in living expressed as “symptoms” via somatic protolanguage. Szasz 91998)

According to Szasz Mental illness do not exists because the mind, (mental component) does not exist except as a construct, thus, cannot be legitimately be categorised as a disease. Szasz did not deny that humans have difficulties, but he preferred to conceptualise them not as mental illnesses or as diseases, but as ‘problems in living’. Szasz (1962). Nor did he negate psychiatrists a role in assisting individuals with problems.Szasz expressed his views with characteristic iconoclasm, contending that only physical illnesses are real and that mental diseases are ‘counterfeit and metaphorical illnesses’ expressed as symptoms via somatic protolanguage. (p. 34).

I think that mental illness is real but have some limitations. Our brain is complex and enigmatic; mental illness is no different. They are not external aggressors of the body like virus or bacteria, and do not necessarily absolve people responsibilities for their actions. However, they are useful metaphors of the very real suffering that people can experience.Even given its limitations, the concept of mental illness has helped to structure the mental health field for decades, helps connect people to the care they need. In life, everyone has stress and difficult emotions, and this is normal, mental illness, on the other hand, is any condition that makes it difficult to function in daily life.

The Mind-Body Problem: Perspectives and Debates

The philosophy of knowledge by the means of mere observations is generally termed as the empiricism. It is basically included in the school of the thoughts that explains the knowledge and the outcomes for the sensory experiences and the requirement of the experience for the factors of validation. It furthermore projects the role of the evidence and the experiences for the formation and the development of the ideas which argues the fact that only the knowledge of the human can have posteriori. One of the major examples lies in the fact that Hush Puppies dogs have long ears.

Furthermore in the scenario, where anytime you get yourself inside a car, you put your trust on the fact that the car will actually work and take you to your destination. Numerous engineering studies, work and rigorous testings generally takes place for the safety of the car. All these methodology is entirely based on the factors of empiricism.

According to my personal insight, the factors of psychology has changed dramatically over the last few decades. From the very basic concepts of the behaviour of the human and the animal for the improvement and the advancement of the contemporary techniques that study the human mind together with the factors such as the numerous interactions and the behavioural influences. 54 divisions or areas of interest has been formally recognized by the American Psychological Association within its organizational structure.

The important divisions include the counselling and the clinical psychology focusing mainly on the behaviour of the human and the some of the other factors of abnormalities like the mental illness, phobias and more (American Psychological Association, 2013). There has been a lot variety of the field of the psychology and each of the divisions tends to understand the basic assumptions of the factors of the doing. According to Stanovich (2010), the general field of science tends to analyse the psychology by the implementation of the theories that are applicable to all the disciplines. Each of the division of psychology focuses on some of the specific aspects of the animal and the human behavior.

Some of the methods that James could consider as per the readings and the learning materials are as follows.

Comparing the findings from several observers of introspection which was interdisciplinary with other sciences at the time. But James preferred other methods, such as empiricism, and wanted to include everybody as research subjects. 

Observation and comparative review of findings.

Experimental Method:
- acknowledged as important (didn't think was worth it for data received) especially for psychophysics (sensory processing and perception)

Comparative Method
- psychological functioning of different populations, /study psychology of different   population including animals, infants, patient samples. Etc.
- uncover meaningful variations in mental life
- Pragmatism (practical consequences, alternative methods)& Eclecticism (wide range) 

William James and Wilhelm Wundt are both the fathers of Psychology, both men were empirical scientist, whose subject is the human mind consciousness, and founded experimental psychology. Neither believes that reasoning is material which can be studied as physical matter. What Wundt calls apperception James calls consciousness, both relying on introspection, a word latent with multitudinous connotations that mucky clearness's solvent. (Preston, 2012, P.2). Wundt was the founder of structuralism and founded the first Psychology lab in Germany in 1875. However, it is argued that William James, founder of functionalism opens the first lab in America the same year. Despite of James approach is clearly less systematic and complete that Wundt’s, but takes something akin to Wundt’s “Volkerspsychilogie” as its approach.

Different Views on Mental Illness: A Discussion

Rogerian therapy, additionally referred to as person-centered therapy is employed as a tool for clients to assist themselves by maximizing their own potential. This type of therapy uses a non-authoritative approach that allows clients to take more of a lead in discussions within the method, they will discover their own solutions. Whereas, Freud's theories of depth psychoanalysis, psychoanalytic therapy uses analytic techniques to assist unleash repressed thoughts, experiences, and emotions, however it's a changed, usually briefer, and fewer intense version of early neurologist analysis. This works with the intension of releasing a person's hidden emotions and feelings and bringing them to the surface, so they can observe, analyse and understand them. (Jarvis.2000).

I believed that the classical notion of measurement may save psychologybecause in this theory all measurable attributes are quantitative. This concept of measurement derives from Book V of Euclid’s Elements (see Heath, 1908). Euclid presents a theory about ratios of magnitudes of a quantity and about relations of proportion between such ratios. As the understanding of measurement unfolded, especially during and after the scientific revolution, a close conceptual link between the concepts of quantity and measurement was forged via the concept of ratio. Hence the success of the scientific revolution in which quantitative prevailed over qualitative physic, warranted that the classical concept of measurements persisted well into the nineteenth century.

Skinner employ an operant conditioning theory, based in the method of learning that occurs through rewards and punishment behaviour. He believes that the best way to understand behaviour is to look at the causes of an action and its consequences(skinner, 1983). Whilst,   Watson employed a behaviourism approach, that refers to a psychological approach which emphasizes scientific and objective method of investigation. The approach is only concerned with observable stimulus-response behaviours, and states all behaviours are learned through interaction with the environment. Watson's thinking was significantly influenced by the earlier classical conditioning experiments of Russian psychologist Ivan Pavlov and his now infamous dogs.

According to the reading humanistic and cognitive approaches seek to address the deficiencies of behavioursim, the dominant paradigm in that era, it was shown that behaviorism was unable to explain how people understand and acquire language (Chomsky, 1959). Then, the development of Communication Theory (Shannon & Weaver, 1949) provided a method of measuring the amount of information flowing through a given system (Griffiths, 2015). Subsequently, the advent of digital computers offered psychologists both a plausible metaphor (i.e., the mind as a computational system), what Boden (1979) called “ The computational Metaphor”, and a new method (i.e., computer simulation) for the investigation of the mind. 

In the replication study of the open science platform, the percentage or the amount of the replication studies that actually turned out to be significant were limited in number. It has been reported that only thirty-six percent of replications had significant results; 47% of original effect sizes were in the 95% confidence interval of the replication effect size 39% of effects were subjectively rated to have replicated the original result; and, if no bias in original results is assumed, combining original and replication results left 68% with significant effects. Open Science Collaboration, (2015). This result were interpreted by experimental and the correlation studies over 100 replications together with the consideration of the studies published in the psychology journals. 

If the researchers found null findings, then this can either be interpreted as indicating that there is no effect present or that an effect is present, but the researchers had insufficient statistical power to detect this effect (i.e., a Type II error; see Cohen, 1988, 1992). Hence, statistical power is a critical concern when interpreting null findings. When interpreting a null finding, consider whether the research contained enough participants to detect the effect. Under this assumption I agree that the percentage of publishing psychological research is wrong, because in science a null result is a result without the expected content, that is the proposed result is absent. 

Philosophical zombie or the p zombie is the perception or the philosophy of the mind that is hypothetically created from the mind of a normal human being. These lacks certain factors like the sentience, the conscious experience and the qualia. The zombie arguments of this hypothetical creation are often used by the psychologist to solve out the mysteries and the problems related to the topic of consciousness. In this particular context, it can furthermore be stated that the human body includes the characteristics of both the physical and the non psychical characteristics. The theory of monist or dualist explains the view that both the mind and the body of the human exist as separate entities challenging the factor of  consciousness.

The long debate regarding the consideration of the subject of psychology as science or a non science has been prominent since the inception of the subject at the time of the second half of the nineteenth century. The answer to this is quite complicated since both of the science and the psychology are complex and multifaceted constructs. Though the academic constructs of the subject of psychology looks similar to the scientific discipline and contributed to the home of the science, the concept of psychology fails miserably as a science due to the lack of their scientific approaches. Furthermore the studies in psychology are difficult to measure. Hence psychology is still a young science.

References

Blackmore, S, J. (2010). Section 1 : Problem. Consciousness: an introduction. (2nd ed.). London: Higher Education, pp. 8-52.

Dennett, Daniel C. (1988) Quining Qualia. In: Marcel, A. &Bisiach, E. (eds.) Consciousness in Modern Science, Oxford University Press.

Leary, D. E. (1987). Telling likely stories: The rhetoric of the New Psychology, 1880-1920. Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences, 23(4), 315-331. doi:10.1002/1520-6696(198710)23:4<315::AID-JHBS2300230402>3.0.CO;2-V

Nagel, T. (1974). What is it like to be a bat? The Philosophical Review, Vol. 83, No. 4 (Oct., 1974), pp. 435-450.

Searle, J. R. (1980). Minds, brains, and programs. Behavioural and Brain Sciences 3 (3): 417-457.