Wade E. Pickren

This book shows various ideas regarding our brain and mind have are shaped. Pickren shows the circumstances that created the psychological concept including its meaning and importance. Many times, there are references to how the past psychological views influenced out current perspectives. The development of the ideas by the various individuals is a focus of this book.

Many explanations held by the past are wrong, but they helped point out problems and alternatives which future generations took. The evolution of ideas, although not central to this book, is marvelously laid out. From trying to separate mind and body, to the physiological response of how the mind can help or harm the body. Pickren points out that other fields impacted psychology, such as economics. The rise of artificial intelligence is also shown.

Most of this book is about the psychological reasoning which were developed in the late 19th to late 20th century. In some cases, the author explains that a particular view was shared by a different culture before but not in the particular manner, which points out a much bigger problem that the book is about mostly western psychology. Each psychological theory is presented with its history and explanation of what it entails, but at times, the theory itself is barely presented. This book is great survey of psychological concepts and resource for how to obtain a better understanding of the concepts.… (mehr)