And while its formal definition has evolved over the last several decades, today we can safely call it the science of behavior and mental processes. The term 'psychology' wasn't coined until around the turn of the sixteenth century, and the practice that we would actually call science today wasn't established until the mid-1800s. But of course, humans have always been curious about themselves and what's going on up here. Aristotle pondered the seed of human consciousness and decided that it was in the heart, not the head -- being, as we have seen quite a lot here on Crash Course, absolutely and completely wrong. Two thousand years ago, Chinese rulers conducted the world's first psychological exams, requiring public officials to take personality and intelligence tests.

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And in the late 800s, Persian doctor Muhammad ibn Zakariya al-Rhazes, also known as Rhazes, was one of the first to describe mental illness, and even treated patients in what was essentially a very early psych ward in his Baghdad hospital. From the efforts of those early thinkers up until today, the field of psychology has been all about tackling some of the big questions: How can humans do horrible things like commit genocide and torture other humans, and how come we know those things are horrible? Do we have free will, or are we simply driven by our environment, biology, and non-conscious influences? What is mental illness, and what can we do about it? And what is consciousness? Or the notion of self? If I lose my awareness of myself, am I still human? I DON'T KNOW! But over the next 6 months, these are the questions that we're gonna be exploring together: how our brains work, how they can break, how they can be healed, why we behave the way we do, even when we don't want to, and what it means to be thinking and feeling and alive. [Intro] When hearing the word psychology, most people probably think of a therapist listening to a patient unpacking the details of his day while reclining on a couch. Maybe that therapist is wearing glasses, chewing on a cigar, stroking his whiskered chin.

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Admit it! If you're thinking about psychology, you're probably picturing Freud. Sigmund Freud was one of the most tremendously influential and controversial thinkers of his time, maybe of all time. His theories helped build our views on childhood, personality, dreams and sexuality. And his work fueled a legacy of both support and opposition. His life was long and spanned an important swath of history from the American Civil War to World War II.