Assignment:
Discussion Topic:
Please note that there are three posts needed to successfully complete the discussion board assignment.
Post 1: Initial post addressing the discussion board topic.
- Your initial post should be at least 200 words in length.
Post 2: Response post to a classmate is due by the end of day on Tuesday.
Post 3: Response post to a second classmate or the instructor's follow-up question is due by the end of day on Tuesday.
- If no initial posts exist to allow for a response to be made, you may submit an additional initial post addressing another aspect of the unit topic.
- Feel free to post more responses to classmates as you read, reflect, and contribute to our discussion.
This unit covers many concepts covering thousands of years of history. Choose one key concept (an ancient civilization, a specific philosopher, hypnosis, etc.) and do a deeper dive to teach the group a little more about its importance to psychology today. Try to choose a topic that has not been addressed by your classmates when possible.
My Initial Post Is Below And I Need 2 Replies:
My topic of choice is hypnosis. Today, I asked my son and 2 of his friends, "What are your thoughts when I mention the word hypnosis? My son immediately said, "Oh, Mom, it's when someone gives control of their mind to someone else, and that person tells them to do silly things like 'bark like a dog' and 'sit'! It's like magic!" One of his friends agreed and said, "Yep, it's when they dangle something in front of you and tell you that you're getting sleepy, but that doesn't actually work because I tried it on my little sister because she was crying too much and nothing happened!" The other friend had no clue what it meant. Asking the boys that question made me think about my own thoughts of hypnosis when I was a child. Yes, it was the same as theirs.
As an adult, I understand that hypnosis is deeper than what I mentioned above. It can be used as a clinical intervention and hypnotherapy. It's used in areas such as sleeping issues, anxiety, and even pain management. Speaking of pain management, I dislocated my knee around age 11, and the docs had to pop it back in place. Due to my mom being against giving me anesthesia, they used a form of hypnosis. The doctors told my mom that she'd hear me scream, but I wouldn't feel the pain. As I get older and I reflect on that day, I'm convinced I may have experienced a form of hypnosedation. Sometimes, I wish I could use hypnosis as a way to recover that memory or other memories to the fullest, but I also understand that research has questioned the accuracy of memories...
People in general question hypnosis just as much as they question psychology, and for that reason alone, that's why they're both still important to this day. As long as there are questions and progress where hypnosis is concerned, there will always be a valuable area of psychological research and practice. Need Assignment Help?
Lexus's Post:
The philosopher I have chosen to focus from this unit is Galileo Galilei. He is someone who Ive read lightly about before but have a deeper understanding about now being older. His original area of expertise was in medicine and he later changed that to focus on mathematics and physics. One of his bigger contributions was fixing the telescopes effectiveness and using his findings too challenges original ideas of the universe. He discovered Jupiter had four moons which directly challenged accepted authority.
He also argued that the physical events followed consistent laws. He believed size, shape, position, and motion could be measured objectively while experiences involving the senses were more subjective. This distinction supported studying reality through measurable evidence rather than opinion. (Craig let al., 1994). Galileo frequently had tension with the traditional beliefs offered from the church and was even ordered to stop promoting his contradictory findings.
Ultimately, Galileo helped the initial shift towards the scientific based thinking in psychology. His emphasis on evidence-based experimentation and using physical laws as a way to understand the world was his way of pioneering such momentum towards this era of psychology. It encouraged later thinkers to move away from tradition and challenge the authority giving them information by studying phenomena objectively.
References:
Craig, A. M., Graham, W. A., Kagan, D., Ozment, S., & Turner, F. M. (1994). The heritage of world civilizations (3rd ed.). New York: Macmillan.
Lawson, R. B., Anderson, E. D., & Cepeda-Benito, A. (2017). A History of Psychology (2nd ed.). Taylor & Francis.
Larry's Post:
One historical figure who really caught my attention in this unit was Avicenna also known as Ibn Sina. I chose him because I knew very little about his influence before this class. What surprised me the most was how some of his ideas from more than a thousand years ago still connect with the way we understand psychology to this day. Avicenna was a Persian philosopher and physician who believed physical and mental illnesses could have natural causes. At a time when unusual behavior was sometimes connected to supernatural explanations, he emphasized observation, reasoning and medical explanations. He also recognized that emotions could affect the body. That connection feels especially relevant today because psychology does not treat the mind and body as completely separate systems. We know for example that prolonged stress can influence sleep, concentration, physical health and behavior. Another reason Avicenna is important is his role in preserving and expanding medical knowledge. His work helped keep earlier ideas alive while adding his own observations about human health and behavior. In a way that reflects what psychology still does. Researchers build on previous knowledge, test ideas and revise explanations when new evidence becomes available.
Studying Avicenna changed how I view the history of psychology. I used to associate its beginnings mainly with European thinkers, but its foundations are much broader. His contributions show that modern psychology grew from centuries of people across different cultures trying to understand the relationship between the mind, body and human behavior.