Main areas Different schools and systems of psychology represent approaches to psychological problems, which are often based on different philosophies of consciousness. Functional psychology Functionalism treats the psyche as derived from the activity of external stimuli, deprived of its essential autonomy, denying free will, which influenced behaviourism later on; one of the founders of functionalism was James, also close to pragmatism, where human action is put before questions and doubts about the nature of the world and man himself. Psychoanalysis Freud`s doctrine, called Metapsychology, was to give the human self greater freedom from instinctive and irrational desires in a dialogue with a psychologist through analysis of the unconscious. Later the psychoanalytic movement split, part of it treating psychoanalysis as a practice of working with archetypes (analytical psychology), part criticising the social limitations of the unconscious (Freudo-Marxism), and later Lacan`s structural psychoanalysis, which interpreted the unconscious as a language. Phenomenological psychology Edmund Husserl rejected the physicalism of most of the psychological teachings of his time and began to understand consciousness as the only reality accessible to reliable cognition. His disciple Heidegger added to this the assertion of the fundamental finitude of man and the threat of a loss of authenticity in the technical world, and thus laid the foundation for existential psychology. Structuralism The recognised creator of psychology as a science, W. Wundt described the primordial structures of the psyche that determine perception and behaviour, but faced the problem of the impossibility of direct access to these structures and the vagueness of their description. Half a century later his ideas, combined with Sossur`s semiotics, strongly influenced the general humanities of structuralism and the post-structuralism and post-modernism that emerged from it, where structures were treated as linguistic invariants. References Further reading J. Stacy Adams. 1976. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology. Academic Press, 1976 , 9780120152094. Leonard Berkowitz. 1972. Social psychology. Scott Foresman & Co, 1972. Ned Block. 1980. Readings in Philosophy of Psychology, Volume 1. Harvard University Press, 1980. , 9780674748767. Stuart C. Brown, Royal Institute of Philosophy. 1974. Macmillan, 1974. Original from the University of Michigan Joseph Margolis. 2008. Philosophy of Psychology. Prentice-Hall foundations of philosophy series. Prentice-Hall, 1984. , 9780136643265. Ken Richardson. 2008. Understanding psychology. Open University Press, 1988. , 9780335098422. George Botterill, Peter Carruthers. 1999. The Philosophy of Psychology. Cambridge University Press. , 9780521559157. Craig Steven Titus. 2009. Philosophical Psychology: Psychology, Emotions, and Freedom. CUA Press. , 9780977310364. Jose