Tuesday, March 8, 2011

मानसिक स्वास्थ्य

मानसिक स्वास्थ्य

आजचे धावपळीचे जीवन, वाढती जीवघेणी स्पर्धा, वाढते ताणतणाव इ. अनेक बाबींमुळे अगदी लहान मुलांपासून वृद्धांपर्यंत सर्वांचे मानसिक स्वास्थ्य बिघडत चालले आहे.
मन म्हणजे काय असते, आपले मानसिक स्वास्थ्य योग, आयुर्वेद तसेच आधुनिक मानसशास्त्र यांची मदत घेऊन कसे टिकवता येईल याचा विचार मांडण्याचा प्रयत्न या लेखात केला आहे.

मन:
मनाची तुलना आपल्याला हवेशी करता येईल. हवा आपल्याला दिसत नाही पण जाणवते. शांत व संथ हवेमध्ये प्राणवायु असल्यामुळे ती तारक ठरते. तर गतिमान व वादळी हवेत विध्वंसक शक्ती असल्यामुळे ती मारक ठरते. त्याचप्रमाणे मनातही संहारक- संरक्षक, विध्वंसक- विधायक, प्रेरक- दाहक, बाधक- बोधक, उत्तेजक- शामक, तारक- मारक, सुप्त- स्फोटक अशा परस्परविरोधी शक्ती असतात.
मनात एकावेळी चांगली शक्ती असते आणि लगेच विरोधी शक्ती कार्यरत होऊ शकते. मनाच्या या संचाराला सीमा नाहीत. म्हणूनच बहिणाबाई मन वढाय वढाय असे म्हणतात. तसेच म्हणतात- अता होतं भुईवर मग गेलं आभाळात.
मन हे समजायला अतिशय गुढ आहे. मनाची गुढता सांगणारी एक सुंदर बोधदायक कथा आहे. ती अशी-
एक प्रसिद्ध मानसशास्त्रज्ञ होते. त्यांच्याकडे लांबून विद्यार्थी शिकायला येत. एक विद्यार्थी त्यांच्याकडे 3 वर्ष राहिला. सरांचा निरोप घेताना त्याने विचारले, सर, आज तरी सांगा मन म्हणजे नेमके काय ते. “What is mind?
सरांनी उत्तर दिले- “Mind means no matter.”
विद्यार्थ्याला समजले नाही. त्याने विचारले- “What is matter?”
सरांनी उत्तर दिले- “Matter means no mind.”
विद्यार्थी कोड्यात पडला. त्याने पुन्हा विचारले, “What is mind?”
सरांनी उत्तर दिले- “My Boy! Never Mind!!”
असे हे गुढ रहस्यमय मन.
आपण सिनेमात पाहतो. प्रियकर प्रेयसीला म्हणतो- मैने तुमको दिल दे दिया
पण शरीररचना व शरीरक्रियाशास्त्र यांच्या प्रगतीने हे सिद्ध केले की विचार व भावना ही कार्ये हृदयात होत नसून मेंदूत होत असतात. अर्थात मनाच्या व्याधी या मेंदूच्या क्रियेत होणार्‍या विकृती होत.

आधुनिक मानसशास्त्रानुसार मन-
मन हे मेंदुचे एक कार्य आहे. Working of the brain is called Mind.
मेंदुचे कार्य- (मानसिक)
बुद्धी, स्मृती, विचार प्रक्रिया, भावना, जाणीव, वर्तन, निर्णय प्रक्रिया, अंतदृष्टी आणि अवधान ही मेंदुची मानसिक कार्ये आहेत. Mind is one of the functions of the brain: Mental function include intelligence, memory, thinking, emotions, orientation, perception, behaviour, judgement, insight, attention, attitude.
आधुनिक मानसशास्त्रानुसार मनाचे तीन घटक असतात.
1)      इदम्- (Id) उपजत प्रेरणांचा संग्रह, Natural instinct or pleasure principle.
2)      अहम्- (Igo) इदम् च्या मागण्या व परम अहम् चे आदर्श यात समन्वय Reality or adjustment principle.
3)      परम अहम्- (Super Igo) आदर्श मुल्यानुसार उपजत प्रेरणांची निवड घडण संस्कारानुसार

योगशास्त्रानुसार मन-
 योगशास्त्रानुसार मन हे पारदर्शी, शुद्ध, रंगहीन व गुणरहित मानले जाते.
मन हे एखाद्या स्फटीकाप्रमाणे असते. स्फटीक मणी रंगीत वस्त्रावर ठेवल्यास तो वस्त्राप्रमाणे रंगीत दिसतो. मनदेखील ज्या विषयाशी, ज्या व्यक्तीशी, ज्या भोगाशी जोडले जाते तसे बनते.
मनाजवळ अणू उर्जेसारखी प्रचंड शक्ती असते. मनुष्याच्या उन्नतीला व अधोगतीला मनच कारणीभूत असते.

आयुर्वेद व अध्यात्मानुसार मन-
मनाची व्याख्या-
सुखादि उपलब्धि साधनम् मन: तच्च प्रति आत्मनियतत्वात अनन्तं परमाणुरूपं च नित्यं च॥ तर्कसंग्रह
सुख-दु:खादि भोगांच्या प्राप्तीचे साधन (इंद्रिय) म्हणजे मन होय. ते प्रत्येक जीवात्म्याबरोबर राहते त्यामुळे आत्म्याप्रमाणेच नित्य, अनंत, सुक्ष्म आणि परमाणुरूप असते.
पंचज्ञानेंद्रिय व पंचकर्मेंद्रियानंतर मन हे अकरावे इंद्रिय मानले आहे.

मनाची लक्षणे (एक प्रसंग):
मास्टर तुषार हा दहा वर्षाचा हुषार चुणचुणीत मुलगा होता. तो नियमित शाळेतही जात असे. परीक्षेचे दिवस जवळ आलेले होते. साहजिकच त्याच्या आईला त्याची चिंता वाटत होती. परंतु तुषारला त्याचे काही वाटत नाही. एकदा सायंकाळी दुरदर्शनची आवडती मालिका तो पाहत बसला होता. मालिका पाहताना त्याचा वेळ कसा गेला हे त्याला समजले नाही. आई त्याला आवाज देते तरी त्याचे लक्ष नव्हते. शेवटी त्याच्या पाठीवर आईचे धपाटे पडतात. तेव्हा तुषार भानावर येतो. आई म्हणते- बहिरा आहेस का रे? केव्हाची आवाज देतेय.
या प्रसंगाचे स्पष्टीकरण:
तुषार बहिरा नाही किंवा मुका नाही.
परंतु आईच्या आवाजाकडे त्याचे लक्ष नाही.
त्याने आईच्या आवाजाकडे मुद्दाम दुर्लक्ष केले नाही.
ही सगळी त्याच्या मनाची करामत आहे.
प्रत्येक व्यक्तीत मन एकच असते, सुक्ष्म असते. मन एकावेळी एकाच ज्ञानेंद्रियामार्फत ज्ञानाचा अनुभव करत असते.
तुषार मन लावून डोळ्यांनी टीव्ही पाहत होता. त्याच्या अन्य ज्ञानेंद्रियांचा मनाशी संबंध नव्हता. त्यामुळे आईने आवाज देऊनही त्याला ऐकू आले नाही त्यामुळे त्याला मार खावा लागला.
या प्रसंगाचे शास्त्रीय विवेचन:
लक्षणं मनसो ज्ञानस्याभावो भाव एव च्।
सतिह्यात्मेंद्रियार्थानां सन्निकर्षे न वर्तते॥
वैवृत्यान्मनसो ज्ञानं सान्निध्यात्त्च्यवर्तते।
अणुत्वमथ चैकत्वं द्वौगुणौ मनस: स्मृतौ॥" चरक शा.1
अर्थ: एकाच वेळी ज्ञान होणे व न होणे हे मनाचे लक्षण आहे. आत्मा, इंद्रिय व विषय या तिहींचा संयोग हा जर मनासहित असेल तर त्या व्यक्तीस त्या विशिष्ट विषयाचेच ज्ञान होते व संयोग जर मनाविरहीत असेल तर ज्ञान होणार नाही. अणुत्व व एकत्व हे मनाचे 2 गुण आहेत.

मनाची कार्ये:
मन- भारतीय संकल्पना-
'मने ज्ञाने बोधे' म्हणजे ज्याच्या साहाय्याने आपल्याला ज्ञान होते, बोध होतो ते.
'मन्यते बुध्यते अनेन इति मन:'
मनन, चिंतन, संकल्प, विकल्प करणारे ते मन.
ऋग्वेदात मनाचा उल्लेख पंचज्ञानेंद्रिये व पंचकर्मेंद्रियावर नियंत्रण ठेवणारे अंत:करण असा केला आहे.
आहे.
श्री शंकराचार्यांनी मन, बुद्धी, अहंकार व चित्त असे अंत:करण चतुष्टय मांडले आहे.
श्री गोरक्षनाथांनी सिद्ध सिद्धांत पद्धतीत मन, बुद्धी, अहंकार, चित्त व चैतन्य असे अंत:करण पंचक दिले आहे.
वशिष्ठ ऋषींनी प्रत्येक प्राण्याला दोन शरीरे आहेत- अस्थिमांसमय देहरुपी स्थूल शरीर व मनोरुपी सुक्ष्म शरीर असे प्रतिपादन केले आहे.

मनाचे 3 गुण-
सत्व- सुख देणारा, मनाचा गुण. निर्मलता, प्रसन्नता, ईश्वराकडे नेणारा गुण
रज- मनाचा दोष, कृतिशील, उत्साही, दुराग्रही, रागीट, चंचल.
तम- मनाचा दोष, भ्रांती, दुर्बोधता, अज्ञान, आळस, सुस्ती, असुरत्वाकडे नेणारा.
सांख्यांनी सर्व सृष्टी त्रिगुणात्मक असते असे सांगितले आहे.
कृतिशील रज जर सत्वाच्या पाठीमागे गेले तर ईश्वराकडे नेते आणि ते तमा मागोमाग गेले तर असुरत्वाकडे नेते.

मनाच्या 3 शक्ती-
धी- बुद्धी
धृती- धैर्य
स्मृती- स्मरणशक्ती


अंतःकरण-चतुष्ट्य :
 अंतःकरण-चतुष्ट्य हा सूक्ष्म देहाचा घटक आहे. अंतकरण-चतुष्ट्य हा शब्द म्हणजे तीन संस्कृत शब्द एकत्र येऊन बनलेला एक समास आहे. त्यामध्ये अंतः (अंतर), करण आणि चतुष्ट्य अशी तीन घटक पदे आहेत. अंतर हा शब्दाचा अर्थ आहे आत किंवा आतील. करण या शब्दाचा इंद्रिय हा अर्थ अपेक्षित आहे. चतुष्टय म्हणजे (कोणत्याही) चार गोष्टींचा-समूह. म्हणून अंतःकरण-चतुष्ट्य  म्हणजे 'आतील चार इंद्रियांचा समूह' असा अर्थ होतो. येथे 'आतील' शब्दाने काय सूचित होते हेही लक्षात घ्यावयास हवे. डोळा, कान इत्यादि पाच ज्ञानेंद्रिये ही बाहेरील शब्द, स्पर्श, इत्यादि पाच विषयांच्या संनिकर्षात येतात आणि ज्ञानाची सामग्री अंतःकरणाला पुरवितात. अंतःकरण हे कर्मेद्रियांनाही प्रेरणा देते. कर्मेंद्रिये ही सुद्धा बाह्म विषयांशी संबंधित होतात. या ज्ञानेंद्रिये व कर्मेंद्रिये यांच्याप्रमाणे अंतःकरण मात्र बाह्य विषयांशी साक्षात्पणे संबंधित
होत नाही. ते सूक्ष्म शरीरात राहून आपले कार्य करते. म्हणूनच त्याला अंतःकरण म्हणतात.
    पाच ज्ञानेंद्रियाद्वारा आलेल्या संवेदनांचे चिंतन, पृथक्करण, संयोगीकरण, निर्धारण इत्यादि करण्याचे काम अंतर इंद्रिय अथवा अंतःकरण करते. त्यामुळे त्या त्या कार्याला धरून अंतःकरणाचे कधी दोन, कधी तीन तर कधी चार भाग मानले जातात. मन, चित्त, बुद्धी आणि अहंकार असे हे चार भाग आहेत.
रामदासस्वामींनी दासबोध या ग्रंथात अंतःकरण पंचक सांगितले आहेत.
1) अंतःकरण, 2) मन, 3) चित्त, 4) बुद्धी आणि 5)अहंकार
अंतःकरण हे नाभीच्या ठिकाणी परा वाचेचे स्थानी असते
(नाभीस्थानी परा वाचा । तोची ठाव अंतःकरणाचा ॥ दास.१७.८.३).
आठवण असताना उगीचच जे निर्विकल्प स्फुरण होते, त्याला अंतःकरण म्हणतात
(निर्विकल्प जें स्फुरण । उगेच असता आठवण । तें जाणावें अंतःकरण । जाणती कळा ॥ दास. १७.८.४).
याचा अर्थ असा दिसतो की ज्ञानेंद्रियद्वारा बाह्य संवेदना येत नसताना, ज्याला स्मृतिरूप ज्ञान होते, ते अंतःकरण होय.
अंतःकरणात आठवण आल्यावर पुढे ''आहे नाही'' असे वाटते, ''करावे न करावे'' असे वाटते; हे ज्याला वाटते ते मन.
(अंतःकरण आठवलें । पुढें होय नव्हेसें गमलें । करुं न करुं ऐसें वाटलें । तेंचि मन ॥ दास. १७.८.५).
म्हणजे संकल्प आणि विकल्प करणे हे मनाचे स्वरूप आहे. (संकल्प विकल्प तेंचि मन ॥ दास.१७.८.६).
याचा भावार्थ असा : - अंतःकरणात स्मृति जागृत झाली असताना किंवा इंद्रियाच्या मार्फत संवेदना आली असताना, 'हे असे आहे, हे असे नाही', हे करावे, हे करू नये', अशी जी दोलायमान वृत्ति तिला मन म्हणतात. या वृत्तीत निश्चितपणा नसतो; ''हे'' की ''ते'' असा संदेह असतो; म्हणून मन संकल्प विकल्प करते असे म्हणतात. यासाठीच 'संकल्प-विकल्पात्मकं मनः' अशी मनाची व्याख्या संस्कृतमध्ये दिली जाते. संक्षेपाने सांगायाचे झाल्यास, निश्चितपणाच्या अभावी, संशयात असणारी द्विधा वृत्ती म्हणजे मन.
    मनाची दोलायमान स्थिती दूर होऊन जर तेथे एखादा निश्चय झाला, तर ती संशयग्रस्त द्विधा स्थिती संपते. उदा. ''अमुक गोष्ट अशी अशीच आहे'', ''ते तसेच आहे'', 'हे करायचे आहे आणि ते करायचे नाही', अशाप्रकारचा निश्चय होतो. हे निश्चय करण्याचे कार्य करणार्‍या वृत्तीला बुद्धी असे म्हणतात.
(पुढे निश्चयो तो जाण । रूप बुद्धीचे ॥ दास. १७.८.६)
म्हणजे ''एखादी गोष्ट मी करीन, दुसरी करणार नाही'', अशाप्रकारचा निश्चय करणारी बुद्धी असते.
 (करीनचि अथवा न करीं । ऐसा निश्चयोचि करी । तेचि बुद्धि हे अंतरी । विवेकें जाणावी ॥ दास. १७.८.७).
 थोडक्यात, निश्चय करते ती बुद्धी, म्हणून ''निश्चयात्मिका बुद्धिः'' अशी बुद्धीची व्याख्या संस्कृतमध्ये दिली जाते. निश्चय म्हणजेच अध्यवसाय. म्हणून ''अध्यवसायात्मिका बुद्धिः'' असेही म्हटले जाते.
    निश्चयानंतर ज्या गोष्टीचा निश्चय झाला आहे, त्या गोष्टीचे चिंतन सुरू होते. हे चिंतन करण्याचे कार्य जे करते, ते चित्त होय. (जो वस्तूचा निश्चयो केला । पुढे तेचि चिंतू लागला । ते चित्त बोलिल्या बोला । यथार्थ मानावें ॥ दास. १७.८.८).
म्हणजे निश्चित झालेल्या गोष्टीवर चिंतन करणारे चित्त होय. म्हणून चिंतन करते ते चित्त (चिंतयति इति चित्तम।), असे म्हटले जाते.
    त्यानंतर ज्या कार्याचा निश्चय झाला आहे व ज्या कार्यावर चिंतन झाले आहे, त्या कार्यावर अभिमान धारण करणारी वृत्ति निर्माण होते; तिलाच अहंकार म्हणतात. ''अमुक अमुक कार्य माझे आहे, ते मला करावयास हवे'' असा अभिमान बाळगणारे अंतरिंद्रिय म्हणजे अहंकार होय.
 (पुढे कार्याचा अभिमान धरणें । हे कार्य तो अगत्य करणें । ऐसा कार्यास प्रवर्तणें । तोचि अहंकार ॥ दास. १७.८.९).
मी मला, माझे या शब्दांनी अहंकार व्यक्त होतो. ''मी श्रीमंत आहे, मी बलवान आहे; मला द्रव्य पाहिजे आहे, मला सुंदर स्त्री पत्‍नी म्हणून हवी; माझी मोठी इस्टेट आहे, माझी मुलेबाळे आहेत;'' इत्यादि स्वरूपात अहंकार व्यक्त होत असतो.
थोडक्यात अंत:करण चतुष्टय-
मन- मन्यते अनेन इति मन:।
मनन, विचार, उलट सुलट संकल्प विकल्प करते ते मन. हे मन पंचज्ञानेंद्रियातील दुवा असते.
बुद्धी- योग्य अयोग्य यांचा निश्चय करणारी ती बुद्धी.
अहंकार- 'स्व' ची किंवा 'मी' पणाची जाणीव
चित्त- चिंतन, अनुभव करते ते चित्त. पतंजलींनी मनाला चित्त असे म्हटले आहे.
योगाची व्याख्या 'योग: चित्तवृत्ती निरोध:' अशी त्यांनी सांगितली आहे.
चित्ताचे 5 प्रकार-
मूढ- आळशी, निरूत्साही
क्षिप्त- चंचल, अस्थिर
विक्षिप्त- भोगासाठी प्रयत्नशील
एकाग्र- स्थिर, निश्चयी, एका दिशेने प्रयत्नशील.
निरूद्ध- सर्व वृत्तींचा लोप झालेली स्थिती- समाधी अवस्था

मनाच्या रचनेचे तीन स्तर-
जागृत मन, सुप्त मन, अर्धजागृत मन
जागृत मन- (conscious) व्यावहारीक स्तर, जाणीवेच्या एकूण क्षेत्रापैकी 1/10 भाग
अर्धजागृत मन- (preconscious) सुप्त मनाचा भाग, यातील स्मृती आठवता येतात.
सुप्त मन (अचेतन स्तर) (unconscious)- जाणीवेपलिकडील क्षेत्र- 9/10 भाग, यातील स्मृती व ठसे आठवत नाहीत. निरोगी व मनोविकारग्रस्त दोन्हींमध्ये प्रभावी. व्यक्तिमत्वातील दाबलेल्या दडपलेल्या आवश्यकता या भागात जातात व नंतर मनोविकारांना जन्म देतात.

भारतीय तत्वज्ञानानुसार मनाच्या 4 अवस्था-
1)      जागृती- पंचेंद्रियांद्वारा ज्ञान
2)      स्वप्न- अर्धचेतन अवस्था, स्मृती आठवतात.
3)      सुषुप्ति- सुप्त अवस्था, गाढ निद्रा, स्मृती आठवत नाहीत.
4)      तुरीयावस्था- दिव्यचेतन अवस्था

मन:स्वास्थ्य :
जागतिक आरोग्य संघटनेनुसार स्वास्थ्य म्हणजे केवळ रोग नसणे नसून शरीर व मनाची सुस्थिती असणे होय. यापैकी मनाची सुस्थिती असणे म्हणजेच मानसिक स्वास्थ्य होय.
बदलते वातावरण, वेगवेगळ्या समस्या यामधून मार्ग काढून ही सुस्थिती राखता येते.
मानसिक दृष्टया स्वस्थ व्यक्तींचा भावनात्मक, सृजनात्मक, बौद्धिक व आध्यात्मिक विकास होतो व ते व्यक्ती आपल्या क्षमतांचा वापर समाज व मानवकल्याणासाठी करू शकतात.

मन:स्वास्थ्या ची भारतीय संकल्पना:
भारतीय धारणेनुसार मानसिक दृष्टीने संतुलित व्यक्तिमत्व हे अंतरंगात व बाहेरच्या विश्वाशी सुसंवाद साधत असते.
भगवद्गीतेमध्ये हीच गोष्ट स्थितप्रज्ञ लक्षणांमध्ये सांगितली आहे-
दु:खेष्वनुद्विग्नमना: सुखेषु विगतस्पृह:।
वीतराग भय क्रोध: स्थितधीर्मुनिरूच्यते॥
य: सर्वत्रानभिस्नेहस्तत्तत्प्राप्य शुभाशुभम्।
नाभिनन्दति न द्वेष्टि तस्य प्रज्ञा प्रतिष्ठिता॥  - गीता 2.56,57
जो दु:खामुळे उद्विग्न होत नाही, आनंदातही बेभान होत नाही, भय, मोह, क्रोध यांनी विचलित होत नाही, स्नेहपाशात गुरफटत नाही, शुभाशुभ कुठल्याही गोष्टीमुळे हुरळत नाही आणि द्वेषही करत नाही तो व्यक्ती स्थितप्रज्ञ असतो.
भारतीय चिंतनात स्वस्थ मन हे जीवनाचे अंतिम ध्येय गाठण्याचे एक साधन आहे. व्यक्तीच्या परीपूर्ण विकासाचे एक माध्यम आहे, चैतन्याच्या प्रकटीकरणाचे उपकरण आहे.

आधुनिक मानसशास्त्रात अमेरिकन मानसिक स्वास्थ्य संघटनेने मानसिक स्वास्थ्याचे काही निकष सांगितलेले आहेत.
‌‌- भावनात्मक स्थैर्य
-         चारित्र्यातली परिपक्वता
-         जीवनात होणार्‍या आघातापासून स्वत:ला लवकरात लवकर सावरण्याची क्षमता
-         दूरदृष्टी
-         अन्य व्यक्तीवर प्रेम करण्याची व सौहार्दपूर्ण संबंध स्थापित करण्याची क्षमता
-         नैसर्गिक गरजा स्वत:ला किंवा इतरांना न दुखावता पूर्ण करण्याची क्षमता
-         प्रभावी सद्सद्विवेक बुद्धी असणे
आधुनिक मानसशास्त्राप्रमाणे स्वस्थ मन हे यशस्वी जीवनासाठी व निरोगी व्यक्तीमत्वासाठी आवश्यक मानले आहे. आहे. म्हणून भारतीय दृष्टीकोन हा अधिक व्यापक, सखोल व मूलगामी आहे.

मन:स्वास्थ्य कसे बिघडते?
पाच ज्ञानेंद्रिये व पाच कर्मेंद्रिये यांच्यावर नियंत्रण ठेवणारे अकरावे इंद्रिय मन असते. आयुर्वेदानुसार मनाचा सत्व गुण कमी झाला आणि रज व तम हे दोष वाढले तर धी, धृती व स्मृती या मानसशक्ती दुर्बल होतात. मनाचा अनिष्ट इंद्रिय विषयांशी संयोग होतो.(असात्म्य इंद्रियार्थ संयोग)
  आणि शारीरिक व मानसिक व्याधी होतात. उदा. उन्माद, अपस्मार, मुर्च्छा, मोह इ.
धी- योग्य अयोग्य निर्णय घेऊन प्रेरणा देणारी शक्ती
धृती- धैर्य (धी च्या निर्णयाप्रमाणे आचरण करण्याची तयारी)
स्मृती- याच आचरणात सातत्य राहण्यासाठी त्याचे स्मरण राहणे.
धी, धृती व स्मृती यांचा भ्रंश झाल्यास मन:स्वास्थ्य कसे बिघडते हे खालील उदाहरणावरून लक्षात येईल.
एखाद्या व्यक्तीला व्यसन कसे जडते याचा विचार केल्यास सुरुवातीला त्याच्या मित्रांनी दिलेल्या प्रलोभनामुळे त्याची धी भ्रंश होते. बुद्धीने योग्य निर्णय जरी दिला तरी तात्पुरते बरे वाटणार्‍या आकर्षणामुळे निर्णय अंमलात आणण्याचे धैर्य नसते त्यामुळे धृती भ्रंश होतो. त्याचे व्यसन चालूच राहिल्यामुळे जरी शरीरावर दुष्परिणाम झाले तरी पूर्वीच्या दुष्परिणामांची विस्मृती होते आणि स्मृतिभ्रंश होतो. अशा रितीने धी, धृती आणि स्मृतीभ्रंश झाल्याने प्रज्ञापराध घडतो आणि मन:स्वास्थ्य बिघडते.
मन:स्वास्थ्य का बिघडते?- गीता
ध्यायतो विषयात्पुंस: संगस्तेषूपजायते।
संगात्संजायते काम: कामात्क्रोधोभिजायते॥
क्रोधात्भवती संमोह: संमोहात्स्मृतिविभ्रम:।
स्मृतिभ्रंशाद् बुद्धिनाशो, बुद्धिनाशात्प्रणश्यति॥ गीता 2.62,63
विषयांचा विचार, आसक्ती, कामना यात विघ्न आले तर क्रोध निर्माण होतो. क्रोधामुळे अविवेक निर्माण होऊन स्मरणशक्ती भ्रष्ट होते. त्यामुळे बुद्धीनाश होतो आणि जीवनाचा सर्वनाश होतो.

मन:स्वास्थ्य का व कसे बिघडते? (योगशास्त्रानुसार)
आपले अंत:करण आकाश, वायू, तेज, आप आणि पृथ्वी या पंचमहाभूतांच्या सत्वांशापासून उत्पन्न होतात. आपल्या अंत:करणाच्या पाच वृत्ती असतात- प्रमाण, विपर्यय, विकल्प, निद्रा व स्मृती.
या वृती मनुष्याला विषयांकडे खेचून नेतात. या वृत्तींमुळे पंचक्लेश निर्माण होतात- अविद्या, अस्मिता, राग, द्वेष आणि अभिनिवेश. हे क्लेश निर्माण झाल्यामुळे आपले मन:स्वास्थ्य बिघडते. यावर उपायही योगशास्त्रात वर्णित आहेत.
पतंजलींनी मनोविकारांना 'चित्तविक्षेप' असे नाव दिले.
हे चित्तविक्षेप 9 प्रकारचे असतात- व्याधि, स्त्यान, संशय, प्रमाद, आलस्य, अविरति, भ्रांतिदर्शन, अलब्धभुमिकत्व आणि अनवस्थितत्व.
या मानसिक चित्तविक्षेपामुळे शारीरिक परिणामही दिसतात. याला 'विक्षेपसहभूव' असे म्हटले आहे. (विक्षेपाचे साथीदार) हे विक्षेपसहभूव चार प्रकारचे असतात- दु:ख, दौर्मनस्य, अंगमेजयत्व, श्वास-प्रश्वास.
हे 9 प्रकारचे चित्तविक्षेप व 4 प्रकारचे विक्षेपसहभूव दूर करण्यासाठी उपाय सांगितला आहे-
"तत्प्रतिषेधार्थमेक-तत्वाभ्यास:।" यो.सू. 1-32
तसेच "मैत्रीकरूणामुदितापेक्षाणी सुख दु:ख पुण्यापुण्यविषयानां भावनात्श्चित्त्प्रसादनम्।"
या 13 प्रकारांना दूर करून ध्यान-समाधि अवस्था प्राप्त करून मन एकाग्र करण्याचा विधी सविस्तर सांगितला आहे.
मैत्री- जे सुखी व्यक्ती आहेत, जे संकटकाळात मदतीस येतात, जे आपल्यापेक्षा ज्ञानाने, भक्तीने, सत्कर्मामध्ये श्रेष्ठ आहेत अशांशी मैत्री करावी.
करूणा- जे दु:खी आहेत, जे आपल्यापेक्षा ज्ञानाने, भक्तीने, सत्कर्माने कमी आहेत अशांना करूणा दाखवावी.
मुदिता- मुद् म्हणजे आनंद. दुसर्‍याच्या आनंदात आपला आनंद मानावा. अनेकजण आनंदित होतील असे कृत्य करावे.
उपेक्षा- जे पापी, दुष्ट व्यक्ती आहेत त्यांचा द्वेषही करू नये तसेच त्यांच्याशी मैत्रीही करू नये तर त्यांच्याकडे दुर्लक्ष करावे.
वरील सर्व मन प्रसन्न करण्याचे उपाय आहेत.

मन:स्वास्थ्य का व कसे बिघडते? (आधुनिक मानसशास्त्रानुसार)

सिगमंड फ्राईड- 
बालपणी दडपल्या गेलेल्या इच्छाआकांक्षा, व्यक्तीगत जीवनमुल्ये व प्रेमपूर्ण संबंधातील अडथळे यामुळे मनोविकार होतात.
एकदा भारतीय मानसशास्त्रज्ञ फ्राईड यांना भेटायला गेले व त्यांना म्हणाले- आपण एवढया मानसोपचार पद्धतींचा शोध लावलात. परंतू मानसरोग होऊ नये म्हणून काय करता येईल?
त्यावेळी फ्राईड म्हणाले- असा उपाय माझ्या शास्त्रात नाही तो तुमच्या पातंजलसुत्रामध्ये आहे.
या प्रसंगातून भारतीय तत्वज्ञानाची श्रेष्ठता प्रत्ययास येते.

एरिकसन-
एरिकसनच्या सिद्धांतानुसार मानवी विकासाच्या प्रक्रियेत अडथळे आल्यामुळे मनोविकार निर्माण होतात.

मॅस्लो-
शारीरिक गरजा, सुरक्षितता, प्रेमपूर्ण सामाजिक संबंध, आत्मसन्मानाची ईच्छा, स्वत:च्या क्षमतांची अभिव्यक्ती या मुलभूत आवश्यकतांची पूर्ती ना झाल्याने वा अपयशाने मनोविकार होतात.

जैविक (Biological) व बाह्य (Environmental) अशा दोन वर्गातल्या मनोविकार उद्भवण्यामागील कारणांचा समावेश आजचे मानसशास्त्र करते.
जैविक कारणे-
-         अनुवांशिकता, नैसर्गिक बदल (पौगंडावस्था, रजोनिवृती)
-         मेंदूचे विकार, आघात, जंतुसंसर्ग.
-         जैवरासायनिक, चयापचयात्मक, अंत:स्त्रावी ग्रंथीजन्य.
-         औषधींचे दुष्परिणाम, रासयनिक पदार्थ, मद्य.
-         मानसिक ताण- बालवयातील, शिक्षणातील, कौटुंबिक, व्यावसायिक, सामाजिक, लैंगिक, आर्थिक, धार्मिक, राजकीय स्थलांतरामुळे निर्माण झालेले.
बाह्य कारणे-
-         भौतिक वातावरण
-         पर्यावरण
-         सामाजिक, सांस्कृतिक कारणे
-         मानसशास्त्रीय कारणे
-         परिस्थितीजन्य कारणे

मन:स्वास्थ्य बिघडल्यास आयुर्वेद उपचार-
आयुर्वेदाने मनोविकार होऊ नये व झाल्यास काय उपाययोजना करावी याचे सविस्तर विवेचन दिले आहे.
मनोविकार होऊ नये म्हणून-
1)      मानसिक वेगांचे धारण करावे- उदा. लोभ, क्रोध, शोक, मोह, मद, मत्सर, अहंकार, द्वेष इ.
2)      असत्य भाषण, चोरी, हिंसा, परीग्रह यांचा त्याग करावा.
3)      सद् वृत्त पालन करावे. यामुळे सत्वगुणाची वाढ होते आणि रज व तम हे मनाचे दोष कमी होतात. यालाच आचार रसायन असे म्हटले आहे.

मनोविकार झाल्यावर चिकित्सा-
1)      दैवव्यपाश्रय चिकित्सा- यम, नियम, मंत्र, औषधी धारण, रत्न धारण, चांगले कर्म, दान, यज्ञ, प्रायश्चित्त, उपवास, तीर्थाटन इ.
2)      युक्तिव्यपाश्रय चिकित्सा- औषधी, आहार, पंचकर्म, पथ्यापथ्य, आसने, प्राणायाम, षटकर्म उदा. त्राटक, कपालभाती इ.
3)      सत्वावजय चिकित्सा- शवासन, ॐ कार ध्यान, दीर्घ श्वसन, योगनिद्रा, प्रत्याहार, धारणा, ध्यान, यम, नियम इ.

योगसाधनेतून मन:स्वास्थ्य-
अष्टांग योगापैकी यम, नियम, आसन व प्राणायाम यामुळे मन शुद्ध होते. धारणा, ध्यान व समाधी यामुळे मन समाधीस्थ होते. ते ईश्वराशी तादात्म्य पावते.
योगाची व्याख्या सांगताना 'चित्तवृत्ती निरोध' अशी सांगितली आहे. या चित्तवृत्तींचा निरोध केल्याने मन:स्वास्थ्य प्राप्त होते.
याशिवाय काही आसने, प्राणायाम मन:स्वास्थ्यासाठी उपयोगी ठरतात-
शशांकासन, शवासन, हस्तपादासन, वीरासन, सिद्धासन, शीतली प्राणायाम इ.
हठयोग, राजयोग, भक्तीयोग, ज्ञानयोग, मंत्रयोग इ. अनेक योगमार्गांनी चंचल मन स्थिर होते.

काही मनोविकारात योगसाधनेमुळे विशेष लाभ होतो.
अतिचिंता (Anxiety), उद्विग्नता (Depression), नैराश्य (Frustration), निद्रानाश (Insomnia), तापटपणा, चिडखोरपणा, अकारण भिती (Phobia), द्विधा मन:स्थिती(Indecisiveness), विचित्र मन:स्थिती (Schizophrenia) इ. आजारांमध्ये सिद्धासन, शीर्षासन, सर्वांगासन, शांभवी, उन्मनी मुद्रा, साक्षीभावना, भ्रामरी, उज्जायी, मुर्च्छा प्राणायाम, प्राणधारणा, त्राटक, योगनिद्रा, प्रत्याहार, नादानुसंधान, ॐ कार जप इ. योगप्रकारांमुळे खूप लाभ होतो.

कपालभातीमुळे सुक्ष्म मल दूर होतात.
अंत:करणादि सुक्ष्म इंद्रियांशी संलग्न असलेले व रज, तम गुणांना बलवान करणारे वासना, लोभ, मोह, अहंकार, क्रोध, मद, मत्सर, ईर्षा, द्वेष, घृणा, तिरस्कार, असुया, हेवा इ. सुक्ष्म मळ दूर करते.

हठयोगप्रदीपिकेत म्हटले आहे-
चले वाते चलं चित्तं निश्चले निश्चलं भवेत्।
योगी स्थाणुत्वमाप्नोति ततो वायुं निरोधयेत्॥
प्राणवायु चंचल, अस्थिर असेल तर चित्तही चंचल, अस्थिर असते. प्राणायामाच्या साहाय्याने वायुनिरोध केल्यास चित्त स्थिर होते व योगी एकाग्र अवस्थेत जातो. त्याला स्थाणुत्व प्राप्ती होते.

आपले मन प्रसन्न असेल तर आपले आरोग्य चांगले राहते. मन चंचल, अस्थिर असल्यास आपली कार्यक्षमता कमी होते. म्हणुन योगशास्त्रात मन प्रसन्न ठेवण्याची गुरुकिल्ली असलेले खालील उपाय सांगितले आहेत- एकांतवास, लघुभोजन, मौन, निराशा, करणावरोध व असो:संयमन.

मनाचे नियंत्रण
मनुष्याची सर्वात मोठी समस्या मन आहे. शरीर नाही. शरीराला जेवढे आजार होतात त्यामध्ये 80% आजारात मनाचा सहभाग निश्चित असतो. काही आजारात तर तो 100% असतो. गीतेमध्ये अर्जुनाने कृष्णाला म्हणतो- चंचलं हि मन: कृष्ण:।

चंचलता हा मनाचा स्वभाव आहे. मनाचे स्थिर, निश्चल होणे अवघड आहे. मनाची एकाग्रता तर अजून अवघड आहे.
संत कबीरदास म्हणतात- 'मै उन संतन का दास जिन्होंने मन मार लिया।'
ज्यांनी मनाला वश करून घेतले ते देव होतात. राम व कृष्णांनी मनाला वश करून घेतले होते.
मनाला वश करणे योगाचे, भक्तिचे, मानवी जीवनाचे लक्ष्य मानले जाते.
मन एकटे काही करू शकत नाही. ते विद्युतशक्तीसारखे असते. विद्युत आहे परंतू बल्ब नाही किंवा तार नाही तर काही फायदा नाही. त्याचप्रमाणे मन आहे पण त्याच्या अभिव्यक्तीसाठी इंद्रिये नाहीत तर ज्ञान नाही. पंचज्ञानेंद्रिय व पंचकर्मेंद्रिय यांच्या माध्यमातून मनाची अभिव्यक्ती होते, म्हणून इंद्रियांना मनाचे उपकरण मानतात. या इंद्रियांना व्यस्त ठेवण्यासाठी कर्मयोग सांगीतला आहे.
वेदातही इंद्रियांचे कार्य चांगले राहावे म्हणून देवाला प्रार्थना केलेली आहे.
'ॐ भद्रं कर्णेभि: श्रुणुयाम देवा: भद्रं पश्येमाक्षभिर्यजत्रा:'   
माझ्या कानाला चांगले ऐकू दे, माझ्या डोळ्यांना चांगले दिसू दे. त्यांना कर्मरत राहू दे.
वातावरणात ज्याप्रमाणे हवेचा दाब कमी जास्त झाल्याचे आपण ऐकतो त्याचप्रमाणे आपल्या मनावरही दबाव, दडपणे दैनंदिन व्यवहारात येत असतात. असे दबाव आले की आपल्या मनात वेगवेगळे विचार येतात. हा दबाव खूप दिवस राहिला की मनोरोग होतात.
मन:शक्ती जगातील सर्वात मोठी शक्ती आहे. ऋषीमुनींनी, शास्त्रज्ञांनी जे काही चमत्कार दाखवले ते मनशक्तीच्या जोरावरच दाखविले.
या मनाला रोखणे अवघड आहे. मनाला रोखले तर मनुष्य पागल होतो आणि मनाला जास्त मुक्त सोडले तरी ते विषय विलासात गुरफटून पागल बनते. मनाच्या नियंत्रणाचा उत्कृष्ट उपाय म्हणजे सारखे कामात व्यस्त राहणे, कर्मयोग करीत राहणे.
आपल्या मनावर आपले नियंत्रण राहिल्यास मन:स्वास्थ्य चांगले राहते व मनुष्य निरोगी राहतो.
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27 comments:


  1. The profound, ecstatic state of nothingness I achieved while floating naked in a sensory deprivation tank.

    By Seth Stevenson|Posted Wednesday, May 15, 2013, at 5:20 AM
    lllustration by Robert Neubecker.
    Sensory deprivation is as close as you can get to a drug-induced experience without the drugs.

    lllustration by Robert Neubecker

    How did I end up naked in a stranger’s apartment—floating in a saltwater tub, surrounded by darkness and silence—realizing that for the first time in my life I had achieved total mindfulness?

    Let’s begin our story in 1961, when Peter Suedfeld was a first-year psychology graduate student at Princeton. Another scholar in the department was running a “sensory deprivation” study that offered $20 to volunteer subjects. Suedfeld wanted the cash, so he agreed to be shut inside a pitch-black, soundproofed room for 24 hours, with only a bit of sustenance and a toilet to keep him company.

    He couldn’t handle it. “I was nervous, and I got itchy and jumpy,” he says now. So he left early. He wasn’t the only one. Many subjects panicked, and some even reported they’d had hallucinations.
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    Though (or perhaps because) he’d gotten spooked, Suedfeld became intrigued by isolation chambers. Sensory deprivation was a sexy field of study in the ’50s and ’60s, and Suedfeld began to organize chamber experiments of his own. Soon enough, he became aware of another isolation technique. A man named John C. Lilly—first at the Naval Institute, later at the National Institute of Mental Health—had pioneered the use of an immersion water tank. In early trials, the subject was completely submerged, wearing a breathing mask, with an air hose connected to a pump. In a later iteration, the subject simply floated in saltwater, on his back, in a coffin-like tank that was completely dark and silent.

    Lilly became a cultish, Timothy Leary-like figure as his experiments grew more outlandish. He made attempts to communicate with animals (later dramatized in the Mike Nichols film The Day of the Dolphin) and became famously fond of entering his flotation tanks only after he’d dosed himself with powerful hallucinogens (later dramatized in the Ken Russell film Altered States). Suedfeld met Lilly and was impressed with his tanks—but not his methods. “He started out as a straight scientist,” says Suedfeld. “But he got into taking drugs and thought he’d made contact with some sphere of consciousness beyond the normal. Thought he’d had conversations with Shakespeare and such. We didn’t see eye to eye on how the tanks should be used. I always ran standard experiments with control groups and data and objective tests.”

    I had long ago seen Altered States, in which William Hurt devolves into a glowing, primordial beast after he indulges in a little too much tank time. But until I read a trend story about floating in the Wall Street Journal this February, I’d never realized it was possible to float in a non-scientific setting. Nor had it occurred to me that anyone would want to. I was suddenly intrigued: What could sensory deprivation do for me?

    There are only a few places to float in New York City. I first tried La Casa, a day spa near Union Square, which features a tank in large part because co-owner Jane Goldman loves to float. On a weekday morning, I climbed the stairs to La Casa, took off all my clothes, and, after showering, stepped into a large tub inside an enclosed chamber. I slid the blackout door closed behind me, eased down into the water, and touched a button that switched off the lights. I was floating in total darkness and silence. The saturation of Epsom salts in the water made me unnaturally buoyant—my face, stomach, and knees an archipelago of islands amid the tub’s ocean.



    ...and I am Sid Harth

    ReplyDelete
  2. For what must have been the first 15 minutes, I wondered what I was doing there. I thought about my plans for that evening, stories I was working on, whether there was any food in the fridge back at my apartment. I felt bored. I felt silly. Like Peter Suedfeld in that chamber in Princeton, I even got jumpy. I had a brief urge to stand up, water dripping everywhere, and walk out.

    Then a transformation began. If you’ve ever taken psychedelic mushrooms (and come on, who hasn’t?) you might recall a certain feeling that arises as the drugs take hold. “Something is happening, something is happening,” your body says to your brain, with mild urgency. I got a feeling akin to that while floating. My brain went a little haywire. When the storm passed, I found myself in a new and unfamiliar state of mind.

    * * *

    Suedfeld’s studies have, over the years, shown that tank sessions can be used to treat autonomic nervous system problems like chronic pain, high blood pressure, and motion disorders. They can improve perceptual and motor skills in athletes, and creativity in artists. Suedfeld also claims that the tank shifts our brain’s focus from its dominant to its nondominant hemisphere, which has various benefits. “But God only knows why hemisphere balance is affected,” says Suedfeld. “We can’t yet fit a brain scanner in a tank, or get the scanner wet for that matter.”

    For a tank newbie like me, not looking to cure physical disorders or win an Olympic medal, the more intriguing aspects of floating include 1) its possibly imagined, Lilly-esque potential to reveal hidden layers of consciousness within, and 2) its proven capacity to chill people out. Suedfeld happily acknowledges point two. “Anything related to psychological stress,” says Suedfeld, “whether it’s chronic tension headaches, insomnia, things with no known physical cause … after several floats, they really seem to improve.”

    It’s the meditative, relaxing qualities of floating—even non-hallucinogen-enhanced floating—that eventually moved the practice beyond academia and into retail. Glenn Perry is perhaps the forefather of recreational tank use. Perry was a computer programmer in 1972 when he read Lilly’s book The Center of the Cyclone and, soon after, saw an ad for a Lilly-backed floating workshop. “The first time I floated,” says Perry, “I got out and I found that time had changed and my senses were totally different. I instantly knew I had to build my own tank. By the end of the week, I decided to build tanks not just for myself but for other people. John gave me the name Samadhi—which is a Sanskrit word meaning the state in which a meditator becomes one with the object of meditation.”

    After trying out several models, Perry settled on a tank that used 10-inch-deep water saturated with Epsom salts. He and his wife Lee opened a float center in Beverly Hills in 1979, renting out their five tanks largely to entertainment industry types. Michael Crichton came in to float when he had writer’s block. Eventually, Crichton bought a tank of his own.

    Between the Perrys’ float center, John Lilly’s 1977 book on the joys of floating titled The Deep Self, and the 1980 release of Altered States, flotation entered the popular consciousness. A November 1981 New York Times trend story was titled “Relaxation Tanks: A Market Develops.” It quoted representatives from Samadhi and other tank companies, noting that the industry was raking in $4 million a year on sales and rentals. It reported that new float centers were opening across the country. It also listed a few notable private tank owners: Robin Williams, Yoko Ono, and the training staffs of the Dallas Cowboys and the Philadelphia Eagles. One happy “tanker” the Times spoke to described the practice as “a self-development kind of thing that allows you to get in tune with yourself.”

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  3. In the mid-1980s, the AIDS scare changed everything. People were frightened of contracting HIV from infected water in float tank centers. The business dried up. New Agers switched to yoga. Even the academic work fell out of favor. “Radical students began to equate isolation studies with torture and brainwashing,” says Suedfeld. “People got hassled out of the field.” By the time John Lilly died in 2001, it seemed that floating was over and done.

    Turns out it was unsinkable. The February story in the Journal that caught my eye—titled “Float Centers Gaining Steam”—is pretty much a wormhole straight back to that Times trend piece from 30 years before. It notes a new wave of tank enthusiasm, crediting comedian Joe Rogan (a float tank evangelist) and stressed out, chillaxation-hungry Bay Area techies for spreading the word. Further evidence of floating’s resurgence: a float center in Portland, Ore., has inaugurated an annual float conference. Peter Suedfeld—who, after receiving his Ph.D. from Princeton, headed the psychology departments at Rutgers and the University of British Columbia and ran tank studies for years in his own labs—was a featured speaker.

    And now I’m part of the movement. Once I’d settled into my first tank session at La Casa, I understood why all these people get jazzed about floating. For the first time in my waking life, I had zero thoughts. It was a mental quietude I’d never known existed.

    * * *

    “We had a Zen master who visited my lab once,” says Suedfeld, “and he asked to go in the tank for an hour. Most of his life he had meditated every day for four or five hours or more. And he thought the depth of meditation he reached in the tank was on par with a level he reached maybe once a year in his normal meditation environment—which was not exactly the middle of Times Square. He was amazed.”

    The water and air in the float chamber are skin temperature, the darkness is identical with eyes open or closed, and there is no sound—thus there is no external input. In turn, my brain decelerated until its output also slowed, and then stopped. I was suspended in a place with no space, or time, or purpose. Once in a while, some quotidian thought would begin to surface at the edges—did I respond to that email?—and then bounce around in the lonely void of my skull for a moment or two. But it would soon melt away as my brain realized it didn’t care. Back to the void.

    When my one-hour La Casa session ended with a gentle tapping on the wall—the prearranged signal from the spa—I emerged in a profound daze. I spoke slowly and quietly, like a smooth-jazz DJ, to the person at the spa desk who inquired how my session had gone. I felt more rested than if I’d slept for 16 hours on a pile of tranquilized chinchillas. Outside, colors were saturated; sounds were vivid.

    I had to try this again, as soon as possible. For my second session, I went to Blue Light Floatation, on 25th Street in Chelsea. This turned out to be a loft apartment belonging to a tank owner named Sam Zeiger. But the setup was not nearly as weird as you might imagine: Zeiger cordons off a private area in which you float, shower, and change.

    Having floated before, my transition happened more quickly this time. It took just a few minutes before I felt my brain and my body slowing, my restless thoughts fading out. If I chose to, I could purposefully focus on one idea at a time, roll it around in isolation, examine some part of my life with no distractions. Or I could just revel in the strangely exhilarating emptiness. At one point, I nodded off in the tank. The only way I knew this was that my limbs lightly spasmed—making a small splash—in that way limbs do when you’re at the edge of sleep. There was no clear line between consciousness and unconsciousness. (I had no fear of drowning, as my buoyancy was such that it would be nearly impossible to roll over accidentally.)

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  4. Afterward, as Zeiger handed me a cup of herbal tea, he recounted his own conversion story. “My first time was supposed to be a one-hour session,” he told me, “but the guy forgot about me and left me in the tank for several hours. I had a life-altering experience. I can’t describe it to you now in a way that wouldn’t devalue its meaning.” Zeiger eventually felt compelled to get his own tank and install it in his apartment. Floating in this tank—and maintaining the tank in perfect order, and renting the tank out to other people for $80 an hour—is now his full-time passion.

    I went back to La Casa for a final tank session and I knew, as I emerged, that I was hooked. (Disclosure: La Casa gave me my two sessions on the house; Slate paid for the one in Zeiger’s apartment.) This is the closest you will ever come to having a drug-like experience without taking drugs. Though you will have no crazy hallucinations (at least, I didn’t have any—your hallucinatory mileage may vary), you will understand your brain in an entirely new way.

    Consider: Right now there are dozens of thoughts pinballing through your mind. When’s lunch? This monitor is too bright. Should I ask her on a second date? My crotch itches. What is the person in the next cubicle saying on the phone? I should be more assertive. I’ll get a burrito at lunch. Am I a good person? These thoughts are all occurring more or less simultaneously. There is a cacophony—a noisy din—in your head. The absence of the din is a genuine revelation. I highly recommend you find that out for yourself.

    Peter Suedfeld is now using his accrued wisdom about isolation to consult with NASA and the Canadian Space Agency regarding the effects of long-duration space flight in confined, monotonous environments. Glenn Perry still sells his Samadhi tanks, and says sales are on the rise—you can buy your own starting at about $8,900. The annual float conference is running again this August (motto: “Looking Forward to a Whole Lot More Nothing”).

    As for me, I plan to climb back in a tank at least three or four times a year. Just thinking about the feeling I get from floating makes me crave it. I’m not sure I can fully explain why—but I’d love to ponder that question while buoyed by a tub full of warm, salty water.

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  5. Psychology is an academic and applied discipline that involves the scientific study of mental functions and behaviors.[1][2] Psychology has the immediate goal of understanding individuals and groups by both establishing general principles and researching specific cases,[3][4] and by many accounts it ultimately aims to benefit society.[5][6] In this field, a professional practitioner or researcher is called a psychologist and can be classified as a social, behavioral, or cognitive scientist. Psychologists attempt to understand the role of mental functions in individual and social behavior, while also exploring the physiological and neurobiological processes that underlie certain cognitive functions and behaviors.

    Psychologists explore concepts such as perception, cognition, attention, emotion, phenomenology, motivation, brain functioning, personality, behavior, and interpersonal relationships. Psychologists of diverse stripes also consider the unconscious mind.[7] Psychologists employ empirical methods to infer causal and correlational relationships between psychosocial variables. In addition, or in opposition, to employing empirical and deductive methods, some—especially clinical and counseling psychologists—at times rely upon symbolic interpretation and other inductive techniques. Psychology has been described as a "hub science",[8] with psychological findings linking to research and perspectives from the social sciences, natural sciences, medicine, and the humanities, such as philosophy.

    While psychological knowledge is often applied to the assessment and treatment of mental health problems, it is also directed towards understanding and solving problems in many different spheres of human activity. The majority of psychologists are involved in some kind of therapeutic role, practicing in clinical, counseling, or school settings. Many do scientific research on a wide range of topics related to mental processes and behavior, and typically work in university psychology departments or teach in other academic settings (e.g., medical schools, hospitals). Some are employed in industrial and organizational settings, or in other areas[9] such as human development and aging, sports, health, and the media, as well as in forensic investigation and other aspects of law.

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  6. Etymology

    The word psychology literally means, "study of the soul" (ψυχή, psukhē, meaning "breath", "spirit", or "soul"; and -λογος -logos, translated as "study of" or "research"[10]).[11] The Latin word psychologia was first used by the Croatian humanist and Latinist Marko Marulić in his book, Psichiologia de ratione animae humanae in the late 15th century or early 16th century.[12] The earliest known reference to the word psychology in English was by Steven Blankaart in 1694 in The Physical Dictionary which refers to "Anatomy, which treats of the Body, and Psychology, which treats of the Soul."[13]
    History

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  7. History
    Main article: History of psychology
    Wilhelm Wundt (seated) with colleagues in his psychological laboratory, the first of its kind. Wundt is credited with setting up psychology as a field of scientific inquiry independent of the disciplines philosophy and biology.

    The study of psychology in a philosophical context dates back to the ancient civilizations of Egypt, Greece, China, India, and Persia. Historians point to the writings of ancient Greek philosophers, such as Thales, Plato, and Aristotle (especially in his De Anima treatise),[14] as the first significant body of work in the West to be rich in psychological thought.[15] As early as the 4th century BC, Greek physician Hippocrates theorized that mental disorders were of a physical, rather than divine, nature.[16]
    Structuralism
    Main article: Structuralism (psychology)

    German physician Wilhelm Wundt is credited with introducing psychological discovery into a laboratory setting. Known as the "father of experimental psychology",[17] he founded the first psychological laboratory, at Leipzig University, in 1879.[17] Wundt focused on breaking down mental processes into the most basic components, motivated in part by an analogy to recent advances in chemistry, and its successful investigation of the elements and structure of material. Although Wundt, himself, was not a structuralist, his student Edward Titchener, a major figure in early American psychology, was a structuralist thinker opposed to functionalist approaches.
    Functionalism
    Main article: Functional psychology

    Functionalism formed as a reaction to the theories of the structuralist school of thought and was heavily influenced by the work of the American philosopher, scientist, and psychologist William James. James felt that psychology should have practical value, and that psychologists should find out how the mind can function to a person's benefit. In his book, Principles of Psychology,[18] published in 1890, he laid the foundations for many of the questions that psychologists would explore for years to come. Other major functionalist thinkers included John Dewey and Harvey Carr.

    Other 19th-century contributors to the field include the German psychologist Hermann Ebbinghaus, a pioneer in the experimental study of memory, who developed quantitative models of learning and forgetting at the University of Berlin,[19] and the Russian-Soviet physiologist Ivan Pavlov, who discovered in dogs a learning process that was later termed "classical conditioning" and applied to human beings.[20]

    Starting in the 1950s, the experimental techniques set forth by Wundt, James, Ebbinghaus, and others would be reiterated as experimental psychology became increasingly cognitivist—concerned with information and its processing—and, eventually, constituted a part of the wider cognitive science.[21] In its early years, this development was seen as a "revolution",[21] as it both responded to and reacted against strains of thought, including psychodynamics and behaviorism, that had developed in the meantime.

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  8. Psychoanalysis
    Main article: Psychoanalysis

    From the 1890s until his death in 1939, the Austrian physician Sigmund Freud developed psychoanalysis, which comprised a method of investigating the mind and interpreting experience; a systematized set of theories about human behavior; and a form of psychotherapy to treat psychological or emotional distress, especially unconscious conflict.[22] Freud's psychoanalytic theory was largely based on interpretive methods, introspection and clinical observations. It became very well known, largely because it tackled subjects such as sexuality, repression, and the unconscious mind as general aspects of psychological development. These were largely considered taboo subjects at the time, and Freud provided a catalyst for them to be openly discussed in polite society. Clinically, Freud helped to pioneer the method of free association and a therapeutic interest in dream interpretation.[23][24]
    Group photo 1909 in front of Clark University. Front row: Sigmund Freud, G. Stanley Hall, Carl Jung; back row: Abraham A. Brill, Ernest Jones, Sándor Ferenczi.

    Freud had a significant influence on Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung, whose analytical psychology became an alternative form of depth psychology. Other well-known psychoanalytic scholars of the mid-20th century included psychoanalysts, psychologists, psychiatrists, and philosophers. Among these thinkers were Erik Erikson, Melanie Klein, D.W. Winnicott, Karen Horney, Erich Fromm, John Bowlby, and Sigmund Freud's daughter, Anna Freud. Throughout the 20th century, psychoanalysis evolved into diverse schools of thought, most of which may be classed as Neo-Freudian.[25]

    Psychoanalytic theory and therapy were criticized by psychologists such as Hans Eysenck, and by philosophers including Karl Popper. Popper, a philosopher of science, argued that psychoanalysis had been misrepresented as a scientific discipline,[26] whereas Eysenck said that psychoanalytic tenets had been contradicted by experimental data. By the end of 20th century, psychology departments in American universities had become scientifically oriented, marginalizing Freudian theory and dismissing it as a "desiccated and dead" historical artifact.[27] Meanwhile, however, researchers in the emerging field of neuro-psychoanalysis defended some of Freud's ideas on scientific grounds,[28] while scholars of the humanities maintained that Freud was not a "scientist at all, but ... an interpreter."

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  9. Behaviorism
    Main article: Behaviorism
    Skinner's teaching machine, a mechanical invention to automate the task of programmed instruction.

    In the United States, behaviorism became the dominant school of thought during the 1950s. Behaviorism is a discipline that was established in the early 20th century by John B. Watson, and embraced and extended by Edward Thorndike, Clark L. Hull, Edward C. Tolman, and later B.F. Skinner. Theories of learning emphasized the ways in which people might be predisposed, or conditioned, by their environments to behave in certain ways.

    Classical conditioning was an early behaviorist model. It posited that behavioral tendencies are determined by immediate associations between various environmental stimuli and the degree of pleasure or pain that follows. Behavioral patterns, then, were understood to consist of organisms' conditioned responses to the stimuli in their environment. The stimuli were held to exert influence in proportion to their prior repetition or to the previous intensity of their associated pain or pleasure. Much research consisted of laboratory-based animal experimentation, which was increasing in popularity as physiology grew more sophisticated.

    Skinner's behaviorism shared with its predecessors a philosophical inclination toward positivism and determinism.[29] He believed that the contents of the mind were not open to scientific scrutiny and that scientific psychology should emphasize the study of observable behavior. He focused on behavior–environment relations and analyzed overt and covert (i.e., private) behavior as a function of the organism interacting with its environment.[30] Behaviorists usually rejected or deemphasized dualistic explanations such as "mind" or "consciousness"; and, in lieu of probing an "unconscious mind" that underlies unawareness, they spoke of the "contingency-shaped behaviors" in which unawareness becomes outwardly manifest.[29]

    Notable incidents in the history of behaviorism are John B. Watson's Little Albert experiment which applied classical conditioning to the developing human child, and the clarification of the difference between classical conditioning and operant (or instrumental) conditioning, first by Miller and Kanorski and then by Skinner.[31][32] Skinner's version of behaviorism emphasized operant conditioning, through which behaviors are strengthened or weakened by their consequences.

    Linguist Noam Chomsky's critique of the behaviorist model of language acquisition is widely regarded as a key factor in the decline of behaviorism's prominence.[33] Martin Seligman and colleagues discovered that the conditioning of dogs led to outcomes ("learned helplessness") that opposed the predictions of behaviorism.[34][35] But Skinner's behaviorism did not die, perhaps in part because it generated successful practical applications.[33] The fall of behaviorism as an overarching model in psychology, however, gave way to a new dominant paradigm: cognitive approaches.[36]

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  10. Humanism
    Main article: Humanistic psychology
    Psychologist Abraham Maslow in 1943 posited that humans have a hierarchy of needs, and it makes sense to fulfill the basic needs first (food, water etc.) before higher-order needs can be met.[37]

    Humanistic psychology was developed in the 1950s in reaction to both behaviorism and psychoanalysis.[38] By using phenomenology, intersubjectivity, and first-person categories, the humanistic approach sought to glimpse the whole person—not just the fragmented parts of the personality or cognitive functioning.[39] Humanism focused on fundamentally and uniquely human issues, such as individual free will, personal growth, self-actualization, self-identity, death, aloneness, freedom, and meaning. The humanistic approach was distinguished by its emphasis on subjective meaning, rejection of determinism, and concern for positive growth rather than pathology.[citation needed] Some of the founders of the humanistic school of thought were American psychologists Abraham Maslow, who formulated a hierarchy of human needs, and Carl Rogers, who created and developed client-centered therapy. Later, positive psychology opened up humanistic themes to scientific modes of exploration.
    Gestalt
    Main article: Gestalt psychology

    Wolfgang Kohler, Max Wertheimer and Kurt Koffka co-founded the school of Gestalt psychology. This approach is based upon the idea that individuals experience things as unified wholes. This approach to psychology began in Germany and Austria during the late 19th century in response to the molecular approach of structuralism. Rather than breaking down thoughts and behavior to their smallest element, the Gestalt position maintains that the whole of experience is important, and the whole is different than the sum of its parts.

    Gestalt psychology should not be confused with the Gestalt therapy of Fritz Perls, which is only peripherally linked to Gestalt psychology.

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  11. Existentialism
    Main articles: Existentialism and Existential therapy

    In the 1950s and 1960s, largely influenced by the work of German philosopher Martin Heidegger and Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard, psychoanalytically trained American psychologist Rollo May pioneered an existential branch of psychology, which included existential psychotherapy, a method of therapy that operates on the belief that inner conflict within a person is due to that individual's confrontation with the givens of existence.

    Existential psychologists differed from others often classified as humanistic in their comparatively neutral view of human nature and in their relatively positive assessment of anxiety.[40] Existential psychologists emphasized the humanistic themes of death, free will, and meaning, suggesting that meaning can be shaped by myths, or narrative patterns,[41] and that it can be encouraged by an acceptance of the free will requisite to an authentic, albeit often anxious, regard for death and other future prospects.

    Austrian existential psychiatrist and Holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl drew evidence of meaning's therapeutic power from reflections garnered from his own internment,[42] and he created a variation of existential psychotherapy called logotherapy, a type of existentialist analysis that focuses on a will to meaning (in one's life), as opposed to Adler's Nietzschean doctrine of will to power or Freud's will to pleasure.[43]

    In addition to May and Frankl, Swiss psychoanalyst Ludwig Binswanger and American psychologist George Kelly may be said to belong to the existential school.[44]
    Cognitivism

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  12. Cognitivism
    Main articles: Cognitivism (psychology) and Cognitive psychology
    Baddeley's model of working memory

    Cognitive psychology is the branch of psychology that studies mental processes including problem solving, perception, memory, and learning. As part of the larger field of cognitive science, this branch of psychology is related to other disciplines including neuroscience, philosophy, and linguistics.

    Noam Chomsky helped to launch a "cognitive revolution" in psychology when he criticized the behaviorists' notions of "stimulus", "response", and "reinforcement". Chomsky argued that such ideas—which Skinner had borrowed from animal experiments in the laboratory—could be applied to complex human behavior, most notably language acquisition, in only a superficial and vague manner. The postulation that humans are born with the instinct or "innate facility" for acquiring language posed a challenge to the behaviorist position that all behavior, including language, is contingent upon learning and reinforcement.[45] Social learning theorists, such as Albert Bandura, argued that the child's environment could make contributions of its own to the behaviors of an observant subject.[46]
    The Müller-Lyer illusion. Psychologists make inferences about mental processes from shared phenomena such as optical illusions.

    Meanwhile, accumulating technology helped to renew interest and belief in the mental states and representations—i.e., the cognition—that had fallen out of favor with behaviorists. English neuroscientist Charles Sherrington and Canadian psychologist Donald O. Hebb used experimental methods to link psychological phenomena with the structure and function of the brain. With the rise of computer science and artificial intelligence, analogies were drawn between the processing of information by humans and information processing by machines. Research in cognition had proven practical since World War II, when it aided in the understanding of weapons operation.[47] By the late 20th century, though, cognitivism had become the dominant paradigm of psychology, and cognitive psychology emerged as a popular branch.

    Assuming both that the covert mind should be studied, and that the scientific method should be used to study it, cognitive psychologists set such concepts as subliminal processing and implicit memory in place of the psychoanalytic unconscious mind or the behavioristic contingency-shaped behaviors. Elements of behaviorism and cognitive psychology were synthesized to form the basis of cognitive behavioral therapy, a form of psychotherapy modified from techniques developed by American psychologist Albert Ellis and American psychiatrist Aaron T. Beck. Cognitive psychology was subsumed along with other disciplines, such as philosophy of mind, computer science, and neuroscience, under the cover discipline of cognitive science.


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  13. Subfields
    Main article: Subfields of psychology
    Further information: Outline of psychology and List of psychology disciplines

    Psychology encompasses a vast domain and includes many different approaches to the study of mental processes and behavior.
    Biological
    Main articles: Biological psychology, Neuropsychology, Physiological psychology, and Cognitive neuroscience
    MRI depicting the human brain. The arrow indicates the position of the hypothalamus.

    Biological psychology or behavioral neuroscience is the study of the biological substrates of behavior and mental processes. There are different specialties within behavioral neuroscience. For example, physiological psychologists use animal models, typically rats, to study the neural, genetic, and cellular mechanisms that underlie specific behaviors such as learning and memory and fear responses.[48] Cognitive neuroscientists investigate the neural correlates of psychological processes in humans using neural imaging tools, and neuropsychologists conduct psychological assessments to determine, for instance, specific aspects and extent of cognitive deficit caused by brain damage or disease.
    Clinical
    Clinical psychologists work with individuals, children, families, couples, or small groups.
    Main articles: Clinical psychology and Counseling psychology

    Clinical psychology includes the study and application of psychology for the purpose of understanding, preventing, and relieving psychologically based distress or dysfunction and to promote subjective well-being and personal development. Central to its practice are psychological assessment and psychotherapy, although clinical psychologists may also engage in research, teaching, consultation, forensic testimony, and program development and administration.[49] Some clinical psychologists may focus on the clinical management of patients with brain injury—this area is known as clinical neuropsychology. In many countries, clinical psychology is a regulated mental health profession.

    The work performed by clinical psychologists tends to be influenced by various therapeutic approaches, all of which involve a formal relationship between professional and client (usually an individual, couple, family, or small group). The various therapeutic approaches and practices are associated with different theoretical perspectives and employ different procedures intended to form a therapeutic alliance, explore the nature of psychological problems, and encourage new ways of thinking, feeling, or behaving. Four major theoretical perspectives are psychodynamic, cognitive behavioral, existential–humanistic, and systems or family therapy. There has been a growing movement to integrate the various therapeutic approaches, especially with an increased understanding of issues regarding culture, gender, spirituality, and sexual orientation. With the advent of more robust research findings regarding psychotherapy, there is evidence that most of the major therapies are about of equal effectiveness, with the key common element being a strong therapeutic alliance.[50][51] Because of this, more training programs and psychologists are now adopting an eclectic therapeutic orientation.[52][53][54][55][56]

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  14. Cognitive
    Main article: Cognitive psychology

    Green Red Blue
    Purple Blue Purple

    Blue Purple Red
    Green Purple Green

    The Stroop effect refers to the fact that naming the color of the first set of words is easier and quicker than the second.

    Cognitive psychology studies cognition, the mental processes underlying mental activity. Perception, attention, reasoning, thinking, problem solving, memory, learning, language, and emotion are areas of research. Classical cognitive psychology is associated with a school of thought known as cognitivism, whose adherents argue for an information processing model of mental function, informed by functionalism and experimental psychology.

    On a broader level, cognitive science is an interdisciplinary enterprise of cognitive psychologists, cognitive neuroscientists, researchers in artificial intelligence, linguists, human–computer interaction, computational neuroscience, logicians and social scientists. Computational models are sometimes used to simulate phenomena of interest. Computational models provide a tool for studying the functional organization of the mind whereas neuroscience provides measures of brain activity.
    Comparative
    The common chimpanzee can use tools. This chimpanzee is using a stick in order to get food.
    Main articles: Comparative psychology and Animal cognition

    Comparative psychology refers to the scientific study of the behavior and mental processes of non-human animals, especially as these relate to the phylogenetic history, adaptive significance, and development of behavior. Research in this area addresses many different issues, uses many different methods, and explores the behavior of many different species, from insects to primates. It is closely related to other disciplines that study animal behavior such as ethology.[57] Research in comparative psychology sometimes appears to shed light on human behavior, but some attempts to connect the two have been quite controversial, for example the Sociobiology of E. O. Wilson.[58] Animal models are often used to study neural processes related to human behavior, e.g. in cognitive neuroscience.
    Developmental
    Main article: Developmental psychology
    A baby with a book

    Mainly focusing on the development of the human mind through the life span, developmental psychology seeks to understand how people come to perceive, understand, and act within the world and how these processes change as they age. This may focus on cognitive, affective, moral, social, or neural development. Researchers who study children use a number of unique research methods to make observations in natural settings or to engage them in experimental tasks. Such tasks often resemble specially designed games and activities that are both enjoyable for the child and scientifically useful, and researchers have even devised clever methods to study the mental processes of infants. In addition to studying children, developmental psychologists also study aging and processes throughout the life span, especially at other times of rapid change (such as adolescence and old age). Developmental psychologists draw on the full range of psychological theories to inform their research.

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  15. Educational and school
    Main articles: Educational psychology and School psychology
    An example of an item from a cognitive abilities test used in educational psychology.

    Educational psychology is the study of how humans learn in educational settings, the effectiveness of educational interventions, the psychology of teaching, and the social psychology of schools as organizations. The work of child psychologists such as Lev Vygotsky, Jean Piaget, Bernard Luskin, and Jerome Bruner has been influential in creating teaching methods and educational practices. Educational psychology is often included in teacher education programs in places such as North America, Australia, and New Zealand.

    School psychology combines principles from educational psychology and clinical psychology to understand and treat students with learning disabilities; to foster the intellectual growth of gifted students; to facilitate prosocial behaviors in adolescents; and otherwise to promote safe, supportive, and effective learning environments. School psychologists are trained in educational and behavioral assessment, intervention, prevention, and consultation, and many have extensive training in research.[59]
    Evolutionary
    Main article: Evolutionary psychology

    Evolutionary psychology examines psychological traits—such as memory, perception, or language—from a modern evolutionary perspective. It seeks to identify which human psychological traits are evolved adaptations, that is, the functional products of natural selection or sexual selection. Evolutionary psychologists suggest that psychological adaptations evolved to solve recurrent problems in human ancestral environments. By focusing on the evolution of psychological traits and their adaptive functions, it offers complementary explanations for the mostly proximate or developmental explanations developed by other areas of psychology (that is, it focuses mostly on ultimate or "why?" questions, rather than proximate or "how?" questions).

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  16. Industrial–organizational
    Main article: Industrial and organizational psychology

    Industrial and organizational psychology (I–O) applies psychological concepts and methods to optimize human potential in the workplace. Personnel psychology, a subfield of I–O psychology, applies the methods and principles of psychology in selecting and evaluating workers. I–O psychology's other subfield, organizational psychology, examines the effects of work environments and management styles on worker motivation, job satisfaction, and productivity.[60]
    Personality
    Main article: Personality psychology

    Personality psychology is concerned with enduring patterns of behavior, thought, and emotion—commonly referred to as personality—in individuals. Theories of personality vary across different psychological schools and orientations. They carry different assumptions about such issues as the role of the unconscious and the importance of childhood experience. According to Freud, personality is based on the dynamic interactions of the id, ego, and super-ego.[61] Trait theorists, in contrast, attempt to analyze personality in terms of a discrete number of key traits by the statistical method of factor analysis. The number of proposed traits has varied widely. An early model, proposed by Hans Eysenck, suggested that there are three traits which comprise human personality: extraversion–introversion, neuroticism, and psychoticism. Raymond Cattell proposed a theory of 16 personality factors. Dimensional models of personality are receiving increasing support, and some version of dimensional assessment will be included in the forthcoming DSM-V.
    Social
    Main article: Social psychology
    See also: Social psychology (sociology)
    Social psychology studies the nature and causes of social behavior.

    Social psychology is the study of how humans think about each other and how they relate to each other. Social psychologists study such topics as the influence of others on an individual's behavior (e.g. conformity, persuasion), and the formation of beliefs, attitudes, and stereotypes about other people. Social cognition fuses elements of social and cognitive psychology in order to understand how people process, remember, or distort social information. The study of group dynamics reveals information about the nature and potential optimization of leadership, communication, and other phenomena that emerge at least at the microsocial level. In recent years, many social psychologists have become increasingly interested in implicit measures, mediational models, and the interaction of both person and social variables in accounting for behavior. The study of human society is therefore a potentially valuable source of information about the causes of psychiatric disorder. Some of the sociological concepts applied to psychiatric disorders are the social role, sick role, social class, life event, culture, migration, social, and total institution.[62]
    Positive
    Main article: Positive psychology

    Positive psychology derives from Maslow's humanistic psychology. Positive psychology is a discipline that utilizes evidence-based scientific methods to study factors that contribute to human happiness and strength. Different from clinical psychology, positive psychology is concerned with improving the mental well-being of healthy clients. Positive psychological interventions now have received tentative support for their beneficial effects on clients. In 2010 Clinical Psychological Review published a special issue devoted to positive psychological interventions, such as gratitude journaling and the physical expression of gratitude. There is, however, a need for further research on the effects of interventions. Positive psychological interventions have been limited in scope, but their effects are thought to be superior to that of placebos, especially with regard to helping people with body image problems.

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  17. Research methods
    Main article: Psychological research

    Psychology tends to be eclectic, drawing on knowledge from other fields to help explain and understand psychological phenomena. Additionally, psychologists make extensive use of the three modes of inference that were identified by C. S. Peirce: deduction, induction, and abduction (hypothesis generation). While often employing deductive–nomological reasoning, they also rely on inductive reasoning to generate explanations. For example, evolutionary psychologists attempt to explain psychological traits—such as memory, perception, or language—as adaptations, that is, as the functional products of natural selection or sexual selection.

    Psychologists may conduct basic research aiming for further understanding in a particular area of interest in psychology, or conduct applied research to solve problems in the clinic, workplace or other areas. Masters level clinical programs aim to train students in both research methods and evidence-based practice. Professional associations have established guidelines for ethics, training, research methodology and professional practice. In addition, depending on the country, state or region, psychological services and the title "psychologist" may be governed by statute and psychologists who offer services to the public are usually required to be licensed.
    Qualitative and quantitative research

    Research in most areas of psychology is conducted in accord with the standards of the scientific method. Psychological researchers seek the emergence of theoretically interesting categories and hypotheses from data, using qualitative or quantitative methods (or both).

    Qualitative psychological research methods include interviews, first-hand observation, and participant observation. Creswell (2003) identifies five main possibilities for qualitative research, including narrative, phenomenology, ethnography, case study, and grounded theory. Qualitative researchers[63] sometimes aim to enrich interpretations or critiques of symbols, subjective experiences, or social structures. Similar hermeneutic and critical aims have also been served by "quantitative methods", as in Erich Fromm's study of Nazi voting[citation needed] or Stanley Milgram's studies of obedience to authority.

    Quantitative psychological research lends itself to the statistical testing of hypotheses. Quantitatively oriented research designs include the experiment, quasi-experiment, cross-sectional study, case-control study, and longitudinal study. The measurement and operationalization of important constructs is an essential part of these research designs. Statistical methods include the Pearson product–moment correlation coefficient, the analysis of variance, multiple linear regression, logistic regression, structural equation modeling, and hierarchical linear modeling.

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  18. Controlled experiments
    Main article: Experiment
    Flowchart of four phases (enrollment, intervention allocation, follow-up, and data analysis) of a parallel randomized trial of two groups, modified from the CONSORT 2010 Statement[64]

    Experimental psychological research is conducted in a laboratory under controlled conditions. This method of research relies on the application of the scientific method to understand behavior. Experimenters use several types of measurements, including rate of response, reaction time, and various psychometric measurements. Experiments are designed to test specific hypotheses (deductive approach) or evaluate functional relationships (inductive approach). A true experiment with random allocation of subjects to conditions allows researchers to infer causal relationships between different aspects of behavior and the environment. In an experiment, one or more variables of interest are controlled by the experimenter (independent variable) and another variable is measured in response to different conditions (dependent variable). Experiments are one of the primary research methods in many areas of psychology, particularly cognitive/psychonomics, mathematical psychology, psychophysiology and biological psychology/cognitive neuroscience.

    Experiments on humans have been put under some controls, namely informed and voluntary consent. After World War II, the Nuremberg Code was established because of Nazi abuses of experimental subjects. Later, most countries (and scientific journals) adopted the Declaration of Helsinki. In the U.S., the National Institutes of Health established the Institutional Review Board in 1966, and in 1974 adopted the National Research Act (HR 7724). All of these measures encouraged researchers to obtain informed consent from human participants in experimental studies. A number of influential studies led to the establishment of this rule; such studies included the MIT and Fernald School radioisotope studies, the Thalidomide tragedy, the Willowbrook hepatitis study, and Stanley Milgram's studies of obedience to authority.

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  19. Survey questionnaires
    Main article: Statistical survey

    Statistical surveys are used in psychology for measuring attitudes and traits, monitoring changes in mood, checking the validity of experimental manipulations, and for a wide variety of other psychological topics. Most commonly, psychologists use paper-and-pencil surveys. However, surveys are also conducted over the phone or through e-mail. Increasingly, web-based surveys are being used in research. Similar methodology is also used in applied setting, such as clinical assessment and personnel assessment.
    Longitudinal studies

    Longitudinal studies are often used in psychology to study developmental trends across the life span, and in sociology to study life events throughout lifetimes or generations. The reason for this is that unlike cross-sectional studies, longitudinal studies track the same people, and therefore the differences observed in those people are less likely to be the result of cultural differences across generations. Because of this benefit, longitudinal studies make observing changes more accurate and they are applied in various other fields.

    Because most longitudinal studies are observational, in the sense that they observe the state of the world without manipulating it, it has been argued that they may have less power to detect causal relationships than do experiments. They also suffer methodological limitations such as from selective attrition because people with similar characteristics may be more likely to drop out of the study making it difficult to analyze.

    Some longitudinal studies are experiments, called repeated-measures experiments. Psychologists often use the crossover design to reduce the influence of confounding covariates and to reduce the number of subjects.
    Observation in natural settings
    Phineas P. Gage survived an accident in which a large iron rod was driven completely through his head, destroying much of his brain's left frontal lobe, and is remembered for that injury's reported effects on his personality and behavior.[65]
    Main article: Naturalistic observation

    Just as Jane Goodall studied chimpanzee social and family life by careful observation of chimpanzee behavior in the field, psychologists conduct observational studies of ongoing human social, professional, and family life. Sometimes the participants are aware they are being observed, and other times the participants do not know they are being observed. Strict ethical guidelines must be followed when covert observation is being carried out.
    Qualitative and descriptive research
    Artificial neural network with two layers, an interconnected group of nodes, akin to the vast network of neurons in the human brain.
    Main article: Qualitative research

    Research designed to answer questions about the current state of affairs such as the thoughts, feelings, and behaviors of individuals is known as descriptive research. Descriptive research can be qualitative or quantitative in orientation. Qualitative research is descriptive research that is focused on observing and describing events as they occur, with the goal of capturing all of the richness of everyday behavior and with the hope of discovering and understanding phenomena that might have been missed if only more cursory examinations have been made.
    Neuropsychological methods
    Main article: Neuropsychology
    A rat undergoing a Morris water navigation test used in behavioral neuroscience to study the role of the hippocampus in spatial learning and memory.

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  20. Neuropsychological methods
    Main article: Neuropsychology
    A rat undergoing a Morris water navigation test used in behavioral neuroscience to study the role of the hippocampus in spatial learning and memory.

    Neuropsychological research methods are employed in studies that examine the relation of mental activity and behavior to the structure and function of the brain. These methods include testing (e.g., the various Wechsler scales, Wisconsin Card Sorting Test), functional neuroimaging, and transcranial magnetic stimulation.
    Computational modeling
    The experimenter (E) orders the teacher (T), the subject of the experiment, to give what the latter believes are painful electric shocks to a learner (L), who is actually an actor and confederate. The subject believes that for each wrong answer, the learner was receiving actual electric shocks, though in reality there were no such punishments. Being separated from the subject, the confederate set up a tape recorder integrated with the electro-shock generator, which played pre-recorded sounds for each shock level etc.[66]

    Computational modeling[67] is a tool often used in mathematical psychology and cognitive psychology to simulate a particular behavior using a computer. This method has several advantages. Since modern computers process information extremely quickly, many simulations can be run in a short time, allowing for a great deal of statistical power. Modeling also allows psychologists to visualize hypotheses about the functional organization of mental events that couldn't be directly observed in a human.

    Several different types of modeling are used to study behavior. Connectionism uses neural networks to simulate the brain. Another method is symbolic modeling, which represents many different mental objects using variables and rules. Other types of modeling include dynamic systems and stochastic modeling.
    Animal studies
    Main articles: Comparative psychology and Animal cognition

    Animal experiments aid in investigating many aspects of human psychology, including perception, emotion, learning, memory, and thought, to name a few. In the 1890s, Russian physiologist Ivan Pavlov famously used dogs to demonstrate classical conditioning. Non-human primates, cats, dogs, pigeons, rats, and other rodents are often used in psychological experiments. Ideally, controlled experiments introduce only one independent variable at a time, in order to ascertain its unique effects upon dependent variables. These conditions are approximated best in laboratory settings. In contrast, human environments and genetic backgrounds vary so widely, and depend upon so many factors, that it is difficult to control important variables for human subjects. Of course, there are pitfalls in generalizing findings from animal studies to humans through animal models.[68]

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  21. Criticism
    Theory

    Criticisms of psychological research often come from perceptions that it is a "soft" science. Philosopher of science Thomas Kuhn's 1962 critique[69] implied psychology overall was in a pre-paradigm state, lacking the agreement on overarching theory found in mature sciences such as chemistry and physics.

    Because some areas of psychology rely on research methods such as surveys and questionnaires, critics have asserted that psychology is not an objective science. Other concepts that psychologists are interested in, such as personality, thinking, and emotion, cannot be directly measured[70] and are often inferred from subjective self-reports, which may be problematic.[71][72]

    Some critics view statistical hypothesis testing as misplaced. Research[which?] has documented that many psychologists confuse statistical significance with practical importance. Statistically significant but practically unimportant results are common with large samples.[73] Some psychologists have responded with an increased use of effect size statistics, rather than sole reliance on the Fisherian p < .05 significance criterion (whereby an observed difference is deemed "statistically significant" if an effect of that size or larger would occur with 5% -or less- probability in independent replications, assuming the truth of the null-hypothesis of no difference between the treatments).[citation needed] False positive conclusions, often resulting from the pressure to publish or the author's own confirmation bias, are an inherent hazard in the field, requiring a certain degree of skepticism on the part of readers.[74]

    Sometimes the debate comes from within psychology, for example between laboratory-oriented researchers and practitioners such as clinicians. In recent years, and particularly in the U.S., there has been increasing debate about the nature of therapeutic effectiveness and about the relevance of empirically examining psychotherapeutic strategies.[75]

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  22. Practice

    Some observers perceive a gap between scientific theory and its application—in particular, the application of unsupported or unsound clinical practices.[76] Critics say there has been an increase in the number of mental health training programs that do not instill scientific competence.[77] One skeptic asserts that practices, such as "facilitated communication for infantile autism"; memory-recovery techniques including body work; and other therapies, such as rebirthing and reparenting, may be dubious or even dangerous, despite their popularity.[78] In 1984, Allen Neuringer made a similar point[vague] regarding the experimental analysis of behavior.[79]
    Ethical standards

    Current ethical standards of psychology would not permit some studies to be conducted today. These human studies would violate the Ethics Code of the American Psychological Association, the Canadian Code of Conduct for Research Involving Humans, and the Belmont Report. Current ethical guidelines state that using non-human animals for scientific purposes is only acceptable when the harm (physical or psychological) done to animals is outweighed by the benefits of the research.[80] Keeping this in mind, psychologists can use on animals research techniques that could not be used on humans.

    An experiment by Stanley Milgram raised questions about the ethics of scientific experimentation because of the extreme emotional stress suffered by the participants. It measured the willingness of study participants to obey an authority figure who instructed them to perform acts that conflicted with their personal conscience.[81]

    Harry Harlow drew condemnation for his "pit of despair" experiments on rhesus macaque monkeys at the University of Wisconsin–Madison in the 1970s.[82] The aim of the research was to produce an animal model of clinical depression. Harlow also devised what he called a "rape rack", to which the female isolates were tied in normal monkey mating posture.[83] In 1974, American literary critic Wayne C. Booth wrote that, "Harry Harlow and his colleagues go on torturing their nonhuman primates decade after decade, invariably proving what we all knew in advance—that social creatures can be destroyed by destroying their social ties." He writes that Harlow made no mention of the criticism of the morality of his work.[84]

    University psychology departments have ethics committees dedicated to the rights and well-being of research subjects. Researchers in psychology must gain approval of their research projects before conducting any experiment to protect the interests of human participants and laboratory animals.[85]
    Systemic bias

    In 1959 statistician Theodore Sterling examined the results of psychological studies and discovered that 97% of them supported their initial hypotheses, implying a possible publication bias.[86][87][88] Similarly, Fanelli (2010)[89] found that 91.5% of psychiatry/psychology studies confirmed the effects they were looking for, and concluded that the odds of this happening (a positive result) was around five times higher than in fields such as space- or geosciences. Fanelli argues that this is because researchers in "softer" sciences have fewer constraints to their conscious and unconscious biases.

    In 2010, a group of researchers reported a systemic bias in psychology studies towards WEIRD ("western, educated, industrialized, rich and democratic") subjects.[90] Although only 1/8 people worldwide fall into the WEIRD classification, the researchers claimed that 60–90% of psychology studies are performed on WEIRD subjects. The article gave examples of results that differ significantly between WEIRD subjects and tribal cultures, including the Müller-Lyer illusion.

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  23. The Father of Modern Psychology

    Wilhelm Wundt is the man most commonly identified as the father of psychology. Why Wundt? Other people such as Hermann von Helmholtz, Gustav Fechner and ErnstWeber were involved in early scientific psychology research, so why are they not credited as father of psychology?

    Because Wundt's formation of the world's first experimental psychology lab is usually noted at the official start of psychology as a separate and distinct science. By establishing a lab that utilized scientific methods to study the human mind and behavior, Wundt took psychology from a mixture of philosophy and biology and made it a unique field of study.

    In addition to making psychology a separate science, Wundt also had a number of students who went to become influential psychologists themselves. Edward B. Titchener was responsible for establishing the school of thought known as structuralism, James McKeen Cattell became the first professor of psychology in the United States and G. Stanley Hall established the first experimental psychology lab in the U.S.
    Other Thinkers Also Considered "Fathers of Psychology"

    A number of other influential thinkers can also claim to be "Fathers of Psychology" in some way or another. The following are just a few of these individuals who are noted in specific areas of psychology:

    William James: The Father of American Psychology; he helped establish psychology in the U.S. and his book, The Principles of Psychology, became an instant classic.

    Sigmund Freud: The Father of Psychoanalysis; his theories and work established psychoanalysis as a major school of thought in psychology.

    Hugo Münsterberg: The Father of Applied Psychology; he was an early pioneer of several applied areas including clinical, forensic and industrial-organizational psychology.

    John Bowlby: The Father of Attachment Theory; he developed the theory of attachment.

    Kurt Lewin: The Father of Social Psychology; his work pioneered the use of scientific methods to study social behavior.

    Edward Thorndike: The Father of Modern Educational Psychology; his research on the learning process helped establish the foundation for educational psychology.

    Jean Piaget: The Father of Developmental Psychology; his theory of cognitive development revolutionized how research thought about children's intellectual growth.

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  24. Ulric Neisser: The Father of Modern Cognitive Psychology; the cognitive movement in psychology received a major boost from the publication of his 1967 book, Cognitive Psychology.

    Lightner Witmer: The Father of Modern Clinical Psychology; he founded the world's first journal devoted to clinical psychology, The Psychological Clinic, in 1907.

    Gordon Allport: The Father of Personality Psychology; he was one of the first psychologists to study personality.

    Obviously, not everyone is going to agree with these generalized titles. A few people might suggest that Freud is the father of psychology, since he is perhaps one of its most "known" figures. Others might suggest that Aristotle is the true father of psychology, since he is responsible for the theoretical and philosophical framework that contributed to psychology's earliest beginnings. Still others might argue that those earliest researchers such as Helmholtz and Fechner deserve credit as the founders of psychology.

    No matter which side of the argument you are on, one thing that is easy to agree on is that all of these individuals had an important influence on the growth and development of psychology. While the theories of each individual are not necessarily as influential today, all of these psychologists were important in their own time and had a major impact on how psychology evolved into what it is today.

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  25. 10 Influential Thinkers in Psychology

    The following list provides an overview of 10 psychologists from this ranking survey. These individuals are not only some of the best-known thinkers in psychology, they also played an important role in psychology's history and made important contributions to our understanding of human behavior. This list is not an attempt to identify who was the most influential or which school of thought was best. Instead, this list offers a glimpse of some of the theoretical outlooks that have influenced not only psychology, but also the larger culture in which we live
    1. B. F. Skinner
    "B. F. Skinner"Public Domain
    In the 2002 study ranking the 99 most eminent psychologists of the 20th century, B.F. Skinner topped the list. Skinner's staunch behaviorism made him a dominating force in psychology and therapy techniques based on his theories are still used extensively today, including behavior modification and token economies.
    2. Sigmund Freud
    "Sigmund Freud"Public Domain
    When people think of psychology, many tend to think of Freud. His work supported the belief that not all mental illnesses have physiological causes and he also offered evidence that cultural differences have an impact on psychology and behavior. His work and writings contributed to our understanding of personality, clinical psychology, human development, and abnormal psychology.
    3. Albert Bandura
    Bandura's work is considered part of the cognitive revolution in psychology that began in the late 1960s. His social learning theory stressed the importance of observational learning, imitation, and modeling. "Learning would be exceedingly laborious, not to mention hazardous, if people had to rely solely on the effects of their own actions to inform them what to do," Bandura explained in his 1977 book Social Learning Theory.
    4. Jean Piaget
    "Jean Piaget"Roland Zumbühl
    Jean Piaget's work had a profound influence on psychology, especially our understanding children's intellectual development. His research contributed to the growth of developmental psychology, cognitive psychology, genetic epistemology, and education reform. Albert Einstein once described Piaget's observations on children's intellectual growth and thought processes as a discovery "so simple that only a genius could have thought of it."
    5. Carl Rogers
    "Carl Rogers"Public Domain
    Carl Rogers placed emphasis on human potential, which had an enormous influence on both psychology and education. He became one of the major humanist thinkers and an eponymous influence in therapy with his "Rogerian therapy." As described by his daughter Natalie Rogers, he was "a model for compassion and democratic ideals in his own life, and in his work as an educator, writer, and therapist."

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  26. 6. William James
    "William James"Public Domain
    Psychologist and philosopher William James is often referred to as the father of American psychology. His 1200-page text, The Principles of Psychology, became a classic on the subject and his teachings and writings helped establish psychology as a science. In addition, James contributed to functionalism, pragmatism, and influenced many students of psychology during his 35-year teaching career.
    7. Erik Erikson
    "Erik Erikson"Public Domain
    Erik Erikson's stage theory of psychosocial development helped create interest and research on human development through the lifespan. An ego psychologist who studied with Anna Freud, Erikson expanded psychoanalytic theory by exploring development throughout the life, including events of childhood, adulthood and old age.
    8. Ivan Pavlov
    "Ivan Pavlov"Public Domain
    Ivan Pavlov was a Russian physiologist whose research on conditioned reflexes influenced the rise of behaviorism in psychology. Pavlov's experimental methods helped move psychology away from introspection and subjective assessments to objective measurement of behavior.
    9. Kurt Lewin
    "Kurt Lewin"Public Domain
    Lewin is known as the father of modern social psychology because of his pioneering work that utilized scientific methods and experimentation to look as social behavior. Lewin was a seminal theorist whose enduring impact on psychology makes him one of the preeminent psychologists of the 20th-century.
    10. Reader's Choice
    Following the examples of Eugene Garfield's 1977 ranking list and Haggbloom's 2002 ranking, the final position on this list has been left blank in order to allow "the reader's best case for a psychologist who should have made the list" (Haggbloom, 2002).

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  27. Objectivism
    युक्तियुक्तं वचो ग्राह्यं बालादपि शुकादपि ।
    अयुक्तमपि न ग्राह्यं साक्षादपि बृहस्पतेः ॥
    Words conjoined with reason should be perceived from a child as well as a parrot. Those devoid of reason should not be grasped, even coming from Śrī Bṛhaspati himself. (Guru of the Gods)
    Another variation of the Subhāṣitā,
    युक्तियुक्तं वचो ग्राह्यं बालादपि शुकादपि ।
    युक्तिहीनं वचस्त्याज्यं वृद्धादपि शुकादपि ॥
    Whatever is consistent with right objective reasoning should be accepted even if it comes from a boy or a parrot, and whatever is not, should be rejected even if it comes from an old man or the great sage Śrī Śuka himself.
    Old and New
    पुराणमित्येव न साधु सर्वं न चापि काव्यं नवमित्यवद्यम्।
    सन्तः परीक्ष्यान्यतरद्भजन्ते मूढः परप्रत्ययनेयबुद्धिः॥
    Everything is not good simply because it is old; nor a poem should be condemned simply because it is new; the wise resort to the one or the other after (proper) examination; (only) a fool has his mind led by the judgement of another.

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