In The Mystery of Personality: A History of Psychodynamic Theories,
acclaimed professor and historian Eugene Taylor synthesizes the field's
first century and a half into a rich, highly readable account. Taylor
situates the dynamic school in its catalytic place in history,
re-evaluating misunderstood figures and events, re-creating the heady
milieu of discovery as the concept of "mental science" dawns across
Europe, revisiting the widening rift between clinical and experimental
study (or the couch and the lab) as early psychology matured into
legitimate science.
Gradual but vital evolutions form the heart of this chronicle: the ebb
and flow of analytic theory and practice, the shift from doctor-centered
to client-centered therapy, the movement from exclusionary to
multidisciplinary, the evolving role of the therapist. And as can be
expected from the author, there is special emphasis on the sublime in
psychology: the philosophy/psychology fusion of the New England
transcendentalists, the battle between spiritualism and science in 1880s
America, and early versions of today's spiritually-attuned therapies.
Pivotal concepts and key individuals covered are:
- Charcot, Janet, and the origins of dynamic personality theory in the
so-called French, Swiss, English, and American psychotherapeutic axis.
- Person and personality: William James's "radical empiricism"
- The rise of psychoanalysis: Freud, the Freudians, and the
Neo-Freudians
- Adler and Jung, who were never "students" of Freud: Toward, within,
and beyond the self
- Murray, Allport, and Lewin at Harvard in the 30s
- Culture and personality, pastoral counseling, and Gestalt Psychology
in New York in the '40s and '50s
- An Existential-humanistic and Transpersonally oriented depth
psychology in the 60s
- The current era: "science confronts itself", as neuroscience enters
the picture.
Students of psychology and its history will find in this inspiring
narrative both possibilities for further study and a new appreciation of
their own work. The Mystery of Personality: A History of Psychodynamic
Theories is a stimulating course conducted by a master teacher.
