The Evolution of Psychological Theory: A Critical History of Concepts and Presuppositions / Edition 2

by Richard Lowry

Overview

First published in 1982. Is there any point to studying the historical development of psychological theory, apart from the antiquarian interest of finding out who said what, when? This book is offered in the belief that there is. It is that such a study can provide valuable background for a critical, analytical, and—in the healthy, liberating sense of the term—skeptical understanding of the psychological conceptions and presuppositions of the present. This has been the author’s aim throughout, and it has determined both the selection of materials and the manner in which they are presented. Although the book is not a textbook in the conventional sense of the term (i.e., a comprehensive summary of everything a student needs to know), it was written with students in mind, and could be read with profit by students in a number of areas of psychological study.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780202251356
Publisher:	Transaction Publishers
Publication date:	10/31/1982
Edition description:	2nd ed
Pages:	256
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.70(d)
Lexile:	1360L (what's this?)

About the Author

Deane H. Shapiro, Jr. is professor emeritus of psychiatry and human behavior, School of Medicine at the University of California, Irvine. He is internationally recognized as one of the world's foremost authorities on the clinical, therapeutic and medical health care applications of meditation and his research and writing on meditation and self-control have been requested by universities and medical schools throughout the world.

Roger N. Walsh is a psychiatrist on the Faculty of the School of Medicine at the University of California at Irvine. He is the author of Toward an Ecology of Brain and Beyond Ego: Readings in Transpersonal Psychology. His research interests include Asian philosophies and religions, ecology, meditation, and transpersonal psychology.

Table of Contents

Introduction PART L THE NEW BEGINNINGS: 1650-1800 1. The Seventeenth Century 2. Mental Mechanism 3. Physiological Mechanism 4. The New Image of Human Nature PART II. THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 5. The New German Mechanism 6. Psychophysics and the New Psychology 7. The Impact of Darwin 8. William James PART III. THE THRESHOLD OF THE PRESENT 9. Psychoanalysis I: Sources 10. Psychoanalysis II: The General Theory 11. Gestalt Theory: The New Physicalism 1890-1912 12. Behaviorism I: The Advent of the Behaviorists 13. Behaviorism II: The Full Flowering 14. Epilogue: Ideals and Over-Beliefs