The Historical Prospect Of Psychology

The history of psychology studied the generation and development of psychology. Leahey contended that there are two forms of psychological history: traditional history and new history. Influenced by modernism philosophy, traditional history defined the history of psychology as the generation and development of psychological thoughts and conceptions. According to traditional history, psychology had its own logic; western psychology could be generalized to every region in the world; western psychology, especially western white men psychology, took the status of hegemony; the development of psychology was promoted by great men; the rational historian, who insisted the principle of value-free and objectivism, could use their words describe the history objectively.Modernism philosophy was criticized and deconstructed by post-modernism philosophy. Based on the reflection of traditional history, new history was formed gradually. New history contended that the various psychological thoughts were generated in certain discourse backgrounds. It is the society that constructed the various psychological theories. Thus, new history defined the history of psychology as something generated and developed in various social cultures. According to new history, social culture was the root of psychology, indigenous studies of psychology emphasized; the development of psychology waspromoted by ordinary people; non-western people, female and ordinarypeople, who were neglected by traditional psychology, were all included;it insisted the diversification of history compilation, which was differentfrom the value-free principle.New history expanded the research field of psychology. However, when the social culture factors were stood out, everything was believed to be constructed by society, the internal logic of psychology was rejected, and the study of psychological history was led from one extreme to the other.In order to reveal a whole and complete view of psychologicalhistory, we should insist dialectical materialism, follow an integratedviewpoint of psychology and dialectic principles.