Who were the first people to develop a true “understanding” of the human psyche? It should come as no surprise that, although they were far more focused on death, the ancient Egyptians were the first to realize we all had brains during our lives. They were also the first to discover that, although those same brains suffered from frequent problems, they were somewhat useful.
1600 BC – In Ancient Egypt, the Edwin Smith Papyrus is one of the first texts to record medical trauma, most notably providing an outline and description of the brain, along with remedies to nearly 50 different medical conditions.
550 BC – The first comprehensive theory of the human psyche, deemed the “psuche” is developed by ancient Greek philosophers. This theory begins the use of terms such as nous, logistikon and thumos. Most important are theories developed by the Greek philosophers Pythagoras, Aristotle (De Anima) and Plato (The Republic).
c.21 BC to 61 AD – The Dead Sea Scrolls include notes that divide the nature of humans into two temperaments.
705 – What is recognized as the first insane asylum and psychiatric hospital is built in Baghdad, Iraq by Islamic medieval fundamentalists.
762 – The House of Wisdom, a palace library, is built by the ruling Abbasid dynasty in the Islamic empire. By many accounts, nearly all of the early texts on counseling would have been lost if not for this library, and the companion library known as the House of Knowledge – built later in 1004.
c.800 – The first instances of organized psychotherapy being performed on patients is recorded by Islamic physicians studying in Fez, Morocco.
c.850 – Al-Kindi, a Muslim living in the Arab world, is the first philosopher to develop the idea of music therapy in a total of 15 treatises. Unfortunately, his first treatment, an attempt to cure a young quadriplegic boy by using music therapy, is unsuccessful.
c.900 – Ibn Sirin writes “Dreams and Interpretations,” one of the first (and most comprehensive) books on the interpretation of dreams. Broken up into 59 chapters, this book deals with dreams about diverse topics such as seeing God, bodily excrement and Hell.
c. 910 – Ahmed ibn Sahl al-Balkhi is one of the first physicians to establish a recorded link between illnesses of the body and illnesses of the mind. According to the International Medical Journal, he remarks that “if the nafs (or psyche) gets sick, the body may also find no joy in life and may eventually develop a physical illness.”
c.1010 – Ibn al-Haytham, an Iraqi scientist, publishes his “Book of Optics.” In this book, al-Haytham publishes studies on the visual perception of the brain, experiments on reaction time and early research into perception of color.
1020 – Avicenna publishes “The Book of Healing,” one of the first comprehensive guides to philosophical and scientific medicine. His next book, “The Canon of Medicine” is published in 1025 and continues to be used as a textbook at universities like Louvain and Montpellier until around 1650.
c.1120 – Ibn Zuhr, a Muslim physician, provides the first of many accurate descriptions of disorders related to the brain and nervous system, including meningitis and rabies. Interestingly, Ibn Zuhr also develops the first modern anesthesia technique and performs hundreds of surgeries after soaking sponges in narcotics and placing them over the patient’s face.
1202 – The first complete Latin translation of the Hindu-Arabic numeral system is presented by Fibonacci in the midst of the great push for Latin translations of Arabic medical texts that had begun in the mid-12th century.
c.1520 – Marko Marulic is cited as the first person to use the term “psychology.” However, the instance where he uses the term “Psichiologia de ratione animae humanae,” does not survive and is only referenced by his contemporary, Franjo Bozicevic-Natalis in “Vita Marci Maruli Spalatensis.”
1590 – Rudolf Gockel is the first verified person to use the term “psychology” in his book “Psychologia hoc est de hominis perfectione, anima, ortu,” published in Marburg, Germany.