Psychology Tutor: Mentor (PSI) Psycho-Social Incarnation

I thought today for the AP Psychology Exam Prep post that I would upload a qirky vid created by Dr Larry Pfaff of Spring Arbor University. It covers the reasoning behind why we as psychologists need to know our past~ basically, so we can navigate our future.

The video touches on some key points to help understand why it is important to explore the roots of our scientific discipline. I think that writing a summary review of the clip, as I am doing here, is one way to critically reflect on the message of the video and to put it into perspective with my own thoughts. This process, as you can imagine, is a great way to practice writing an open-answer essay question, which in turn, is a fantastic way to organise one’s knowledge on a topic and to identify gaps in understanding or to raise challenging quesitons about how to apply what one knows at this point in time, about the history of psychology.

Personally, I found the argument that most uni/colleges offer a course in the hisotyr of psych a weak argument to justify its inclusion in curriculum. However, having not recevied such a course when I was an undergrad, I can see how a chunk of information was left out of my education that would have helped me to link theories with research methods and applications in daily life.

I liked how the Professor in the clip pointed to wider socio-cultural events in the development of schools of thought in psychology across time; it is critical that we not forget that we are all embeded in our culture of the time and that social values and technology as well as the economic and physical environment, all play a part in how we interpret the world we live in and come up with explanations for it.

The robotic nature of the characters and their voices was a little distracting, but I am keen to try the software myself to see how I can tailor it for enhanving the learning of undergards in psych.

The video points out that psychology grew from two other sciences, physiology and philosophy, and this to me is something amazing about our history. These two scientific disciplines are like the extremes of a continuum, one grounded in the physical and observable the other quite ephemeral and intangible, yet so so useful in aiding one to navigate the world as a critical thinker.

I think that is what I find the most exciting and liberating about studying psychology as a life long learner (LLL); the fact that I can continually use my mind to create the change in my world that I want to see, and that mind-body-spirit overlap and interact to enable and empower me to be the best that I can be, to be the person that I want to be.

Now that I have graduated and am  an online Tutor:Mentor for psychology, I get to indulge my curiousness about psychology through helping undergraduates achieve their academic, career and personal goals. I see great value in learning about our history in psychology, like most learning it is an ongoing process. Understanding the schools of thought within our science is eye-opening in that it makes sense how theoriests chose to investgiate their theories. It gives me insight as to how I can create my own theoires about life, my being, my studies and career and how I can test them,  share them and contribute to this global community in a positive and meaningful way.

What did you think of the video? How relevant do you think the history of psychology to be, to your academic goals?