Psychology has been studied for millennia, and you could say that both Socrates and Plato were brilliant psychologists. With their knowledge about the human brain and our inner thoughts, they helped heaps of people overcome their fears and understand their surroundings at a deeper level. Though it was only in the beginning of the 20th century that we really started reaching into the depths of the human brains, and it was at the early 1900s that the brilliant psychotherapists started to appear.
The father of modern psychology
The most famous of them all, the most celebrated and the most quoted, is, of course, Sigmund Freud. This Austrian mastermind is called the “Father of modern psychology”, and his books are being studied by aspiring psychologists and psychotherapist in most universities around the globe. Freud was way ahead of his time, and it is only in the 21st century that some of his more intricate theories have come to shine in a positive light after numerous scientific studies. Sigmund Freud was among the first to start interpreting dreams, and he wrote several great books made available for the public, in which he described his theories in a language understandable to the common man. Sigmund Freud started a revolution in psychology that continues to this day.
Freund’s colleague and opponent
At the same time as Freud, another man with a keen interest in the subconscious mind was developing his own theories on the subject. This man was Carl Jung, who supported Freud through most of his career but went towards a different path after colliding with the great Austrian on some theoretical quarrels. Carl Jung was more of an altruist than Freud, and believed that people were affected by their surroundings just as much, if not more, than their childhood and memories.
The theorist of the communal mind
There were of course several dozen other psychotherapists worth mentioning, but if we could only squeeze one more into this little overview, it would have to be Alfred Adler. While Jung and Freud were busy studying the subconscious of the individual, Adler was developing his theories on the communal mind. On our instincts that kept us together, those instincts that make us cooperate with each other and strive together for a common good. This gave Alfred Adler the silly reputation of being a “communist psychologist”.