Psychology is the scientific study of human behavior and mental processes. It’s existed since the ancient civilizations of Egypt and Greece, mostly as a branch of philosophy, but broke out as an independent branch of scientific study in the 1870s.
The effects of psychological studies are more relevant and respected than any period in the past, and new discoveries and applications for psychology are always being uncovered by top researchers.
For example, consider the initial reaction to World War I veterans by the psychological and medical professionals of the early 20th Century. An initial theory written by physician Charles Myers in 1915 posited soldiers were experiencing
“shell shock” due to exposure to repeated concussive blasts, resulting in brain damage. When this theory was disproven, the prevailing wisdom at the time was the people suffering from
“shell shock” were simply weak or cowardly, despite the fact that some estimates suggest nearly 20 percent of surviving WWI veterans developed the condition.
There is near unanimous agreement among modern psychologists that shell shock was in fact what we commonly refer to today as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).1
Many of the primary modern applications for psychology revolve around protecting people from emotional and physical harm while providing them with the necessary mental bandwidth to handle the psychological perils many people face daily.
