Psychological evaluation
Modern "Psychological evaluation" has been around for roughly 200 years, with roots that stem as far back as 2200 B.C. It started in China, and many psychologists throughout Europe worked to develop methods of testing into the 1900s. The first tests focused on aptitude. Eventually scientists tried to gauge mental processes in patients with brain damage, then children with special needs.
Buddhism and psychology
The establishment of Buddhism predates the field of psychology by over two millennia; thus, any assessment of Buddhism in terms of psychology is necessarily a modern invention. One of the first such assessments occurred when British Indologists started translating Buddhist texts from Pali and Sanskrit. The modern growth of Buddhism in the West and particularly the development of Buddhist modernism worldwide has led to the comparing and contrasting of European psychology and psychiatry with Buddhist theory and practice. According to Austrian psychologist Gerald Virtbauer, the contact of Buddhism and European Psychology has generally followed three main approaches:The earliest Buddhist writings are preserved in three-part collections called "Tipitaka" (Pali; Skt. "Tripitaka"). The first part, the Sutta Pitaka contains a series of discourses attributed to the Buddha containing much psychological material.