| The field of psychology in Germany – which
presently has 90,000 practitioners and researchers
– was established as a humanistic subject
in the 16th century. It was subsequently institutionalized
as an independent science in the 19th
century with two distinct methodological approaches:
one experimental, one hermeneutic.
This soon gave way to the professionalization
of psychological practice, which was mainly
based on child psychology and characterology.
Competing theoretical and methodological perspectives
were predominantly introspective,
physiological and depth psychology. The perspectives
related to philosophical and spiritual
traditions that prevailed in the German language
community – particularly idealism, mysticism
and romanticism. Partially opposed to academic
psychology, popular psychology has focused
on issues of public interest – among them deviant
behaviour. A short section deals with the
involvement of psychologists in Germany,s dictatorial
regimes after 1933 and before 1989. |
