Emil Kraepelin

Emil Kraepelin 1855-1925 Emil Kraepelin was a psychiatrist who studied the description and classification of mental disorders, leading to what we now call the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, published by the American Psychiatric Association. He believed that if symptom clusters could be identified then research could more easily begin the work of…

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Carl Jung

Carl Jung 1875 – 1961 Born in Kesswil, Switzerland, Carl Jung was trained as a psychiatrist after receiving his M.D. from Basel University.  He then began research on psychoanalytic techniques and theories such as word association and began correspondence with Sigmund Freud in 1906.  The two men met a year later and eventually presented seminars…

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William James

William James 1842 – 1910 William James was born in New York City. His family lived in several countries affording James a multicultural education, including schools in the U.S., England, France, Switzerland, and Germany. He became fluent in five languages by the time he earned his M.D. in 1869. The publication of his first work,…

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Harry Harlow

Harry Harlow 1905-1981 Harry Harlow was born in Fairfield, Iowa and was educated in the field of Ethology, or the study of primates. He spent his entire professional career teaching at the University of Wisconsin from 1930-1974. His focus of research was on the learning abilities in primates and he observed the phenomenon of ‘learning…

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Sigmund Freud

Sigmund Freud 1856-1939 Sigmund Freud was born in the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1856.  His family moved to Vienna when he was four, where he spent the majority of his life.  Although his family was Jewish, Freud considered himself an atheist.  Rumor has it that he was his mother’s favorite of the seven children.  As the…

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Hans Eysenck

Hans Eysenck 1916-1997 Hans Eysenck is probably best known as a controversialist. He has received acclaim and criticism from colleagues and seems to strive more from the latter. Born the son of German film and stage celebrities, he was encouraged to pursue acting as a career. After graduating from high school, however, he left Germany…

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Albert Ellis

Albert Ellis 1913 – Ellis was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and received his Ph.D. in psychology from Columbia University.  He taught for several years at Rutgers and then entered private practice in 1950. He is best known for the development of Rational-Emotive Therapy (RET), which contradicts the Freudian view of mental illness and states emotions…

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Erik Erikson

Erik Erikson 1902-1994 Erik Erikson was born in Frankfurt, Germany and studied psychology under Anna Freud (Sigmund Freud’s daughter) at the Vienna Psychoanalytic Institute.  He moved to the United States and became a U.S. citizen in 1939 where he taught at several major universities including Harvard, Yale, and the University of California at Berkley. He…

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Herman Ebbinghaus

Herman Ebbinghaus 1850 – 1909 Hermann Ebbinghaus was born in Bremen, Germany.  He received his education, including a Ph.D. from the University of Bonn.  In 1880 he published his first paper on memory and began his nearly 30 years of teaching and publishing in the field of human memory.  Although the first to apply experimental…

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Alfred Binet

Alfred Binet 1857 – 1911 Alfred Binet was both a psychologist and a lawyer.  His greatest accomplishment in the field of psychology lead to what we now call the Intelligence Quotient or IQ.  As a member of the French commission investigating educational concerns, developed a test to measure the ‘mental age’ (MA) of children entering…

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