Introspection
Psychology is a very ancient science. It originated long before surgery and has a very indirect relationship to medicine. However, psychology finds practical application in pedagogy. A good psychologist, from the point of view of the layman, can and should read the thoughts of the people around him, anticipating their actions. A psychologist of the highest qualifications is indeed capable of predicting the behavior of any person and even of a society of like-minded people. One of the methods of psychological analysis is introspection, the word in translation from the Latin language means “I look into myself”. From an everyday point of view, this is reflected in the saying: "Stay in my shoes!" That is, this is such a psychology, in which introspection is used as the main method of personality research.
The founder of the direction J. Locke, a philosopher by education, in the 18th century formulated the basic concepts of introspection, which constitute two sources of human knowledge:
- Objects of the outside world;
- The activity of your own mind.
From the outside world, through analyzers of feelings, a person receives information about certain objects that cause certain associations.
Own mind perceives these objects as some kind of stimuli for thinking. A person looks at an unknown object and mentally compares it with objects known to him. The same goes for living subjects. Mental activity, according to the founder of the doctrine of introspection, includes the following processes:
- Thinking;
- Vera;
- Doubt;
- Reasoning;
- A wish;
- Motivation for action or inaction.
All this J. Locke defined in one word: reflection is a special inner feeling as an instrument of cognition. This is a special kind of attention aimed at contemplating one's own soul. In other words, introspection, when a person inspects his own consciousness. Children do not possess reflection, since their minds strive to perceive external objects in order to get to know them. Adults are also not all prone to reflection, a sense of introspection must be developed in oneself, directing attention inside one's own "I".
Introspection method
According to his own teaching, which says that the human mind is capable of inner contemplation and analysis, J. Locke deduces two fundamental statements:
- The activity of the human mind is capable of proceeding on two levels, that is, "bifurcate";
- The second level of consciousness requires training and attention, while the first is just a reflection of external factors.
Based on the possibility of doubling mental processes, the method of introspection appeared, which implies the need to study and comprehend internal experience. The psychology of consciousness adopted the following conclusions of the founder of the doctrine of introspection, J. Locke:
- To find out what is going on in a person's soul, a psychologist must conduct research on himself. Only the analogies made using the introspection method will help to understand what exactly is happening to the subject. In short, the psychologist must put himself in the place of his patient;
- Since not all people are prone to reflection, the sense of introspection requires constant training, long and incessant exercise.
The psychology of the century before last accepted the method of introspection as the only correct one, since it reflected the causal relationship of all manifestations of the psyche. The specialist perceived external stimuli only from the point of view of the subject, that is, introspection assumed psychological facts without distortions by his own consciousness. In the late nineteenth century, psychologists around the world conducted an epic experiment to test the power of introspection in a rigorous laboratory-like environment.
As a result, great questions have arisen that touch upon the colossal problems of the crisis in psychology. According to the instructions, the subjects avoided specific answers, but used terminological formulas. For example, a person could not say that he saw a red apple, but had to formulate an answer to the requirement of introspection, that is, explain his feelings based on the color scale and the perceived taste. Each subject spoke in a different way, which caused the psychologists to doubt. How can a psychology be successful if its introspection does not have uniform sensations? One sees the color red, the other thinks about the taste of the apple. Contradictions overturned the entire basis of practical psychology. In practice, it turned out that the specialist is not able to think in terms of the subject.
Modern psychology, introspection and reflection
Under current conditions, introspection is perceived as a historical stage in the development of psychological experiments. Now psychologists are doing research exactly the opposite. By analogy with the classic example of early psychology, in which introspection dominated, the same subject is taken - the red apple. But the subject must say what exactly he is holding in his hand, without going into analytical delights. This is the only way to analyze the psychological state of a person at the time of the experiment. Analytical introspection and self-observation today are different concepts. Comprehension of the facts of one's own consciousness is called monospection, and reflection is replaced by direct knowledge.
An experimental psychologist, when conducting a test task, relies on his own sophistication of the mind, and not on the intricate conclusions of the subject. Only in this respect is the method of introspection used as a tool for one's own knowledge, and the data of self-observation are nothing more than professional experience.
Psychiatrists have a slightly different opinion regarding the theory of bifurcation of consciousness, which is expressed in a clear formulation - schizophrenia. As for self-knowledge, it has nothing to do with introspection.
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