The field of psychology in Germany – which presently has 90,000 practitioners and researchers – was established as a humanistic subject in the 16th century. It was subsequently institutionalized as an independent science in the 19th century with two distinct methodological approaches: one experimental, one hermeneutic. This soon gave way to the professionalization of psychological practice, which was mainly based on child psychology and characterology. Competing theoretical and methodological perspectives were predominantly introspective, physiological and depth psychology. The perspectives related to philosophical and spiritual traditions that prevailed in the German language community – particularly idealism, mysticism and romanticism. Partially opposed to academic psychology, popular psychology has focused on issues of public interest – among them deviant behaviour. A short section deals with the involvement of psychologists in Germany,s dictatorial regimes after 1933 and before 1989., Wolfgang Schönpflug., and Obsahuje seznam literatury