A History of Ideas in American Psychology

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Ernest Keen

ISBN: 0-275-97205-4

ISBN-13: 978-0-275-97205-9

DOI:

288 pages

Praeger Publishers

Publication: 9/30/2001

List Price: $102.95 (UK Sterling Price: £71.95)

Availability: Print on demand

Media Type: Hardcover

Trim Size: 6 1/8 x 9 1/4

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Description: This history of ideas in American psychology divides 11 decades into three periods, marked out by specific themes central to psychologists over the years. Initially, the legacy of mind-body dualism challenged scientists to make coherent a single universe of mental and physical phenomena, but efforts were hampered by languages that embody mental, physical, and metaphysical commitments. This struggle began with James, whose work remains enormously relevant, is exacerbated by Titchener, whose mentalism provokes a reaction by Watson, whose physicalistic bias provoked a vastly expanded realm opened by Gestalt.

The second period, from Freud to Skinner, shifted the focus from mind and body to experimental and clinical settings for the acquisition and application of psychological knowledge. Tolman, Hebb, Rogers, Hull, Piaget, and Skinner each sought to create a psychology that could bridge these two settings, often reducing one to the other, but often inventing ideas for psychology that vastly changed the earlier preoccupation with mind-body dualism. In the third period, feminists, phenomenologists, and post modern thinkers recentered psychology. The cultural acceptance of psychology as a point of view on virtually any issue led to a proliferation of diversity even greater than in the second period. The integration of psychology into employment roles in most segments of society made psychology more diverse and less unified than ever. An important resource for all scholars, students, and researchers involved with the history of ideas and American psychology.

Table of Contents:

The Mind and The Body: Wundt to Gestalt
Introduction to Part I
The Nineteenth Century
The Psychology of William James
The Psychology of E. B. Titchener
American Psychology of 1910
The Psychology of John Watson
Koehler's Gestalt Psychology
Clinic and Laboratory: Freud to Skinner
Completing the First Century: Introduction to Part II
Freud's Psychoanalysis
The Synthesis of E. C. Tolman
Clark Hull, Carl Rogers, and the 1960s
The Psychology of D. O. Hebb
The Cognitive Psychology of Jean Piaget
The Psychology of B. F. Skinner
Specialization and Fragmentation
Introduction to Part III
Phenomenological Psychology
Feminist Psychology
Postmodern Psychology
Some Conclusions
Bibliography
Index

About the Author: ERNEST KEEN is Professor Emeritus of Psychology at Bucknell University. Professor Keen has published widely in the field, among his earlier books from Praeger are Drugs, Therapy, and Professional Power (1998), Chemicals for the Mind (2000), and Ultimacy and Triviality in Psychotherapy (2000).

LCC Class: 150


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