ONCE UPON A TIME

A young gentleman stumbled upon a beautiful lady

IT WAS LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT

PHYSIOLOGY

or Physio as his friends called him was a man

of science

He focused on the actions of the body and the

causative factors for the body’s behaviour

He poked and prodded for answers in the

traditional way of scientists

PSYCHOLOGY

Was a quite young lady who was not as popular as physio

and so most scientists did not want to be associated with

her

She was extremely interested in studying the mind,

emotions and the reasons why people react as they do

As she was interested in these unconventional topics the

scientific community believed she used unconventional

methods though her methods were similar to theirs

THEIR DIFFERENCES UNITED THEM

They realized that differences only made them better

Physiology presented psychology with a way to see

the effects of thoughts and emotions on the body

Psychology expressed to physiology that mental also

influences the physical well-being of the body

Some time after both these youngsters joined in holy

matrimony and years after they had a child

THUS PHYSIOLO GICAL PSYCHOLOGY WAS B ORN

Also called psychophysiology or psychobiology

The child incorporated the mother’s fascination of the

mind and behaviour

By using her father’s teachings of the body the child was

able to use biology to explain behaviours.

As the child developed they noticed that there was a

relationship between the biological structures of

individuals and their behaviour & experiences

THE INFLUENCE OF UNCLE DESCARTES

Descartes viewed the world as a machine and it could only

be understood if one studied the way it was constructed.

He applied this thinking to the human body and found that

movements done by the body were involuntary and

automatic. The term coined for this was reflexes

Unlike scholars before him Descartes was the first to

acknowledge that there was a relationship between the mind

and brain.

Mind uses organs to

control the

Brain supplies

organs with information

Organs relay information to the brain

“De Homine” Descartes model of the human body that illustrated how the relationship between the mind, body and organs worked.

Provided the scientific illustrations to provide insight as it could be experimentally tested.

MIND-BODY PROBLEM?

For some it was hard to make a distinguish between the

mind and body.

The mind was not seen to be physical and part of the body.

Greek scholar Hippocrates believed the heart to be the

controller of thought and emotions

Aristotle believed however that the brain was to be the

logical entity of the body as both organs were located far

apart.

VIEWS ADDRESSING THE MIND -B ODY PROBLEM

Dualism posits that the mind and body are two

separate entities but still interact

Monism has the view that the mind is a property of

the physical nervous system

DUALISM

o Descartes dualism: The view that the mind and

body function separately, without interchange.

o Cartesian dualism argues that there is a two-

way interaction between mental and physical

substances.

MONOISM

There are two types of monoism

Materialism is the belief that nothing exists apart from

the material world (i.e. physical matter like the brain);

materialist psychologists generally agree that

consciousness (the mind) is the function of the brain.

Mental processes can be identified with purely physical

processes in the central nervous system, and that human

beings are just complicated physiological organisms, no

more than that. 

 Phenomenalism (also called Subjective

Idealism) believes that physical objects and events

are reducible to mental objects, properties, events.

Ultimately, only mental objects (i.e. the mind) exist.

Bishop Berkeley claimed that what we think of as

our body is merely the perception of mind.

THE DEBATE CTD.

The different approaches to psychology take

contrasting views to whether the mind and body are

separate or related.  Thinking (having freedom of

choice) is a mental event, yet can cause behavior to

occur (muscles move in response to a thought). 

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