Historical Dimensions of Psychological Discourse

This book challenges the popular and scholarly concepts of psychological reality throughout history.

Carl F. Graumann (Edited by), Kenneth J. Gergen (Edited by)

9780521034760, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 14 December 2006

296 pages
23.4 x 15.5 x 1.5 cm, 0.42 kg

"Provocative." Psychological Reports

In this volume, prominent American and European scholars explore the historical shaping of psychological discourse. Speaking from several disciplinary standpoints, attention is directed to the ideological, intellectual, political, economic and literary forces that enter into the cultural construction of mental life. In its explorations, the volume not only challenges the reality of the taken for granted world of everyday life, but raises fundamental questions concerning the potential of psychological science to establish historically independent knowledge of mental process. Contributions to the volume treat a variety of subjects, including the emotions, cognition, the concept of child development, psychotherapy, gender differences and knowledge. Additional chapters represent first-hand accounts of historical change in psychological movements.

List of contributors
1. Psychological discourse in historical context: an introduction Kenneth J. Gergen and Carl F. Graumann
Part I. Disciplining Psychological Discourse: 2. The practice of psychological discourse Kurt Danziger
3. From tools to theories: discovery in cognitive psychology Gerd Gigerenzer
4. Metaphor and monophony in the twentieth-century psychology of emotions Kenneth J. Gergen
5. Psyche and her descendants Carl F. Graumann
Part II. History as Culture Critique: 6. Power and subjectivity: critical history and psychology Nikolas Rose
7. Cultural politics by other means: gender and politics in some Americans psychologies of emotions Catherine Lutz
8. Principles of selves: the rhetoric of introductory textbooks in American psychology Jill G. Morawski
Part III. Early Antecedents: 9. The naturalized female intellect Lorraine Daston
10. Sources of redemption in psychoanalytic developmental psychology Suzanne R. Kirschner
11. The historic vicissitudes of mental diseases: their character and treatment Harry F. M. Peeters
12. Women as mothers and the making of the European mind Brigitte Niestroj-Kutzner
Part IV. Lived History: 13. Emancipation - a failed project? Remarks on the discourse of radical critique Irmingard Staeuble
14. The transcendental alarm William Kessen
Author index
Subject index.

Subject Areas: Psychology [JM]