A History of Psychology

I thought that the basic characters in research psychology got a decent biography, but the history of psychoTHERAPY was given short shrift. A good reference. There's a lot at the beginning about pre-psychology philosophy, including our friends Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, and many of the Renaissance thinkers as well as Enlightenment philosophers. Interesting, but I'm not sure that I fully absorbed much of the material.

Thomas Leahey's History of Psychology has long been the preferred text for the graduate-level history of psychology course at the Graduate Faculty of Political and Social Science at the New School University in New York. The reasons are its intellectual depth and challenge (appropriate for graduate students) that exceeds other texts; its unsurpassed attentiveness to a wide range of historical scholarship; its emphasis on a strong externalist (contextual) analysis of the history of psychology (especially appropriate here at The New School); and its suitability for separating the serious scholars among the graduate students from those who are not that committed to the intellectual life. The course this book serves plays a strong role in determining which students will continue on in the Ph.D. program. As with any history book for this huge and diverse field scholars will be able to argue about an emphasis or interpretation or omission here and there. But there is no more intellectually spirited writing at the high-end of the currently in press history-of-psychology texts than is found in this book. Some students cave in under the challenge of the book. The truly bright, interested, and motivated students, however, really shine when they study it.

Leaheys book is by far my preference of the history of psych textbooks (I've also examined Brennan's and Kendler's books). I use the book for personal reading and to give a sense of history and develppment to other courses. His book is especially notable for considering a wide variety of psychological ideas, and its consideration of the interaction of cultures, societies, and psychology. the only reason I give it four stars is because it's not quite as exciting as a novel and I want to see certain sections expanded - (eg. the intellectual-cultural roots of founding psychologists in Germany and Vienna) - but the bibliographies are especially meaty for a textbook.