Ancient Greek philosophers, Plato, Aristotle, and Socrates began thinking about these questions thousands of years ago. Hippocrates, the 'father of medicine', in the 5th century BC developed a personality typology that categorizes our temperament based on the dominance of bodily fluids in a person into four different types, as he believed that the body and soul are connected:

• sanguine (blood): warm, cheerful, lively temperament

• melancholic (black bile): dark, oppressive, gloomy temperament

• choleric (yellow bile): hot, quick, active temperament

• phlegmatic (phlegm): slow, cool temperament

'Conversation' or field of science?

Later on, the development of natural sciences greatly advanced the formation of scientific psychology, which from this point on is regarded as a separate field from philosophy. The beginning of modern psychology as a science in Europe is dated to 1879 when Wilhelm Wundt established the first laboratory dedicated exclusively to psychological research at the University of Leipzig. In America, a bit later, in 1890, the first book was published by a psychology professor, and in 1892 the American Psychological Association was founded.

The Hungarian Psychoanalytic Society was founded by Sándor Ferenczi on May 19, 1913, a neurologist who followed the works of Freud and Jung. The editor-in-chief of Nyugat was a member of the society, thus many articles on psychological topics were published in the newspaper even back then. This brings us to today, where psychology not only plays a central role in the daily life of research centers but is crucial in many areas of everyday life.