Linnea Mavrides, Psy.D.
History and Systems of Psychology
LIU-Post, Spring & Fall 2014

“Progress, far from consisting in change, depends on retentiveness. When change is absolute there remains no being to improve and no direction is set for possible improvement: and when experience is not retained, as among savages, infancy is perpetual. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

--George Santayana, The Life of Reason, Vol. 1: Reason in Common Sense (1905)


Course Books:

Hothersall, D. (2004). History of Psychology – Fourth Edition. New York: McGraw Hill. 

Other suggested (not required) texts:

Benjamin, L.  (2007).  A History of Psychology in Letters – Second Edition.  Malden, MA: Blackwell. 

Guthrie, R. (2004).  Even the Rat Was White: A Historical View of Psychology (2nd Ed.). Boston, MA: Allyn and Bacon. 

Whitaker, R.  (2010).  Anatomy of an epidemic: Magic bullets, psychiatric drugs, and the astonishing rise of mental illness in America.  New York: Crown. 

Ronson, J. (2011).  The psychopath test: A journey through the madness industry.  New York: Riverhead.

Hornstein, G. (2009).  Agnes's jacket: A psychologist's search for the meanings of madness.  New York: Rodale.


Web Links

  1. Jaynes, J.  The Study of the History of Psychology. http://www.julianjaynes.org/pdf/jaynes_history.pdf
  2. Daniels, V. (1997). Psychology in Greek philosophy. http://www.sonoma.edu/users/d/daniels/Greeks.html
  3. Boeree, G. (2000). The Ancient Greeks, Part One: The Pre-Socratics http://webspace.ship.edu/cgboer/greeks.html

  4. Green, C. (1999). Classics in the History of Psychology.

    http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/suggestions.htm

  5. The History of Psychology: Primary source E-texts.

    http://www.usca.edu/psychology/history/ancient.html

  6. Museum of the History of Psychological Instrumentation: http://chss.montclair.edu/psychology/museum/museum.html

  7. The Postulates of a Structural Psychology by E. B. Titchener (1898) http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Titchener/structuralism.htm

  8. Gestalt Psychology http://webspace.ship.edu/cgboer/gestalt.html
  9.  Jean Piaget: http://www.muskingum.edu/~psych/psycweb/history/piaget.htm
  10. The Origin and Development of Psychoanalysis.   By Sigmund Freud (1910)—Five lectures http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Freud/Origin/index.htm
  11. Buzan, D.S.  (2004).  “I was not a lab rat.”  The Guardian, 11 Mar 2004. 

    http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2004/mar/12/highereducation.uk

  12. The History of Cognitive Psychology:

    http://muskingum.edu/~psych/psycweb/history/cognitiv.htm

  13. Carl Rogers: Pioneer of Transpersonal Psychology: http://www.itp.edu/about/carl_rogers.php