Wilhelm Maximilian Wundt (1832–1920), Foto: Institut für Psychologie, Universität Leipzig FOUNDER OF MODERN-DAY PSYCHOLOGY
BACKGROUND OF PSYCHOLOGY
Here are a few books - and there are many more - that demonstrate that the psychology that Professor Wundt developed in Germany was used by Hitler and then from the article below we can see that this type of psychology came to America. That basically is what we have today.
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In the history of the academic institutionalization of psychology in Germany the National Socialist period is part of the phase of its establishment as an independent discipline. In Germany this was largely a matter of setting up new professorships in the universities. These usually bring institutes, personnel, budgets, libraries, and so forth in their wake.
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The objective of this article is to familiarise mental health professionals and lay readers with the rather colourful and disdainful history of psychiatry, particularly the political abuses of mental health legislation. The debate about legislative changes (including legislation for ‘dangerous severe personality disorder’ in the UK) often seems arcane and unnecessary until set in the context of these historical abuses of the mental health system.
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The Significance of Dehumanization: Nazi Ideology and Its Psychological Consequences
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/21567689.2018.1425144
Note that a racist anthropology was at the core of Nazi ideology. National Socialism regarded itself as a political revolution which realized a new image of the human. This claim was accompanied by a massive ideological dehumanization of other groups of people. The devaluation of these groups often was expressed by identifying them with animal life forms.
Psychology in the Aftermath of the Second World War
Most of the psychologists who emigrated to Allied countries (mainly America) had already done so in the 30s when the Nazis came to power. A number of psychologists actually returned to Germany after the war, where they returned to their old posts.
Psychiatrists were hit the hardest by prosecutions because of their participation in the eugenics program but even they were given plenty of leniencies. A number of German psychiatrists who had participated in the involuntary sterilization and euthanasia were actually absolved of guilt because the courts ruled that they believed that their program was legally constituted.(14) Even psychologists who were known to have committed crimes were forgiven if they helped rebuild Germany.
For example, Dr Elizabeth Hecker, a pioneer of child and adolescent psychiatry in Germany, directed an adolescent psychiatric clinic during the Third Reich. This clinic was one of the first to be dedicated solely to adolescent psychiatry. Delinquent and ‘abnormal’ children there were tested and any who performed below standards in intelligence or behavior tests were sent to a “special department” where they would be studied, examined and usually killed. Despite this, Hecker was never punished and was appointed an honorary member of the German Association of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry because of her postwar work.(8) Many others, such as Ernst Rüdin, continue to be quoted and referred to in modern medical papers without any reference to the context of their work (in psychology in Nazi Germany).(10) 16 In other branches of science (especially rocketry and nuclear physics), many scientists were able to escape conviction by joining Allied countries. (1) 17 The DPO (psychology"
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This link h as been removed. However, I leave the article for you to read.
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