Beneath the Mask: An Introduction to Theories of Personality

This book is excellent. It is very well written and provides interesting and exciting information. I have really enjoyed learning how the theories that we work from today come from the theorists own life expereinces. It is fascinating. I highly reccommend this book for those who really want to understand what is behind a theory and know the person behind the theory.

I have likened most psychology and counseling texts as being about as exciting to read as a Chilton's car repair manual. Human beings are such wonderfully complex and fascinating of all of creation; so much so that one would think that the study thereof would be more engrossing and absorbing than what it actually is (in the classroom, that is). Enter "Behind The Mask," one of the most thorough, comprehensive and insightful books I have ever read on human nature. Unlike many of my other texts, this one is a "keeper." Scholarly without pedantry, entertaining at times, thought-provoking at others, this book should be required reading in any mental health related profession. This is the kind of book that one will refer back to repeatedly (this book is a lot like Yalom's in this regard)as there will always be something "to chew on."

This updated book contains some of the most absorbing and insightful summaries of personality theories I have read. The section on Erikson epitomizes his work in a way I have not seen elsewhere. The chapter on Maslow is a balanced view of the strengths and limitations of his theory. The chapter on evolutionary psychology is a clear summary and introduction to this field.

This text is the most readable on this topic. It draws one in to a deeper understanding of the different theories. It is a real improvement on the earlier edition, which also was very good.

It has been thirteen years since I had to buy the Third Edition of Beneath the Mask for a theory of personality class in psychology graduate school in 1987. The book is now apparently in the Sixth Edition. And it is the only textbook I have ever kept over the years.Usually textbooks are so dry. We hate them. They are poorly written in most cases, since they are written usually by dry experts and academicians in the field than by individuals whose strengths were in writing. We pine as students to read original authors. Well, although this book discusses the greatest theoreticians of personality in the history of psychology and psychiatry, its author IS original and writes very well indeed.This is a book like no other. It provides great detail into the ideas of each clinician discussed, and makes a fascinating use of psychobiography as well, trying to connect the views of the thinkers being discussed in terms of their lives and childhood issues, much as a therapist would do, which provides a wonderful layer of interpretative and clinically conceptual chocolate to the pie above the usual descriptive body.The biography section arms anybody interested in selected theoreticians to the original sources.Why have I kept this book over the years, besides for the reasons already given for why it is so good? Because as a clinician I find myself often rechecking which thinker believed in what, the type of historical information often forgotten years after school, years of client after client. It allows me also to recall with greater clarity the nature of the clinician's theory, such as the detailed discussion of types of psychological defenses in the discussion of Anna Freud, the Ericksonian life cycle crises, or the types of perspectives in dyadic relationships which fascinated R.D. Laing. This textbook has thus been essential when supervising practicum students into clinical theory, or just to satisfy my own curiosity.This book is so rich it is hard to do justice to it in these few words. But it is likely that like me you will find yourself carrying it around with you from each office you occupy throughout your psychological career, long after you have completed your studies, and long after the hundreds of other books I was made to read were donated to the local thrift store. That, to me, is the most powerful measure in my estimation of what made this excellent textbook succeed.Dr. Vogel, Psychologist, 2000