50 Psychology Classics (60 page)

Key work from the pioneers of intelligence testing.

8
John Bradshaw
Homecoming: Reclaiming and Championing Your Inner Child
(1990)

Practical application of Erikson's stages of human development, showing how adult hang-ups have their roots in earlier turning points not being properly brought to a conclusion. By reclaiming your “inner child,” you can move on as an adult.

9
John Bowlby
Attachment
(1969)

The first in a trilogy exploring the mother–child relationship that established “attachment behavior” as an area of psychology.

10
Joseph Breuer & Sigmund Freud
Studies on Hysteria
(1895)

A book of case studies that was a precursor to psychoanalysis. Its theory that bizarre hysterical symptoms often result from suppressed painful memories was later disowned by Freud.

11
Jerome Bruner
Acts of Meaning: Four Lectures on Mind and Culture
(1990)

A founder of cognitive psychology argues for a model of the mind based on the creation of meaning rather than computational processing.

12
Mary Whiton Calkins
An Introduction to Psychology
(1901)

Worked with William James and was the first female president of the American Psychological Association (1905), yet was denied a PhD by Harvard University. Considered psychology to be the “science of the self.”

13
Antonio Damasio
Descartes' Error: Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain
(1994)

Prominent brain researcher's theory that debunks the separation of mind and body and shows how emotions form a vital part of rational judgment and decision making.

14
Hermann Ebbinghaus
Memory: A Contribution to Experimental Psychology
(1885)

Account of first ever experimental lab work into learning and memory, setting a high standard for future research.

15
Leon Festinger
Theory of Cognitive Dissonance
(1957)

Famous theory of how people try to maintain consistency in their beliefs, even when what they believe has been shown to be wrong.

16
Eric Fromm
Escape from Freedom
(1941)

Influential study on people's willingness to submit to fascist regimes, written before the full horror of Nazism became apparent.

17
William Glasser
Reality Therapy: A New Approach to Psychiatry
(1965)

Alternative approach to mental illness, resting on the idea that mental health means an acceptance of responsibility for one's life.

18
Dennis Greenberger & Christine Padesky
Mind Over Mood: Change How You Feel by Changing the Way You Think
(1995)

Popular work of powerful cognitive therapy techniques, not just for depressives.

19
Robert D. Hare
Without Conscience: The Disturbing World of the Psychopaths Among Us
(1993)

By the world's foremost sociopathic researcher, showing how sociopaths are aware of the difference between right and wrong yet have no guilt or remorse.

20
Richard Herrnstein & Charles Murray
The Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life
(1994)

Caused storm of controversy in its contention that IQ differs according to race. Was wrapped within a broader theory that intelligence, rather than class background, has become the new predictor of economic success.

21
Eric Kandel
In Search of Memory: The Emergence of a New Science of Mind
(2006)

Nobel Prize-winning neuroscientist's compelling account of his 30 years' work to discover how nerve cells in the brain store memories. Interwoven with personal memories of Vienna under the Nazis and his family's escape to America.

22
David Keirsey & Marilyn Bates
Please Understand Me: Character and Temperament Types
(1978)

Bestselling personality typing work in the Jung/Briggs Myers tradition, which includes a “temperament sorter” to determine your type.

23
Joseph Le Doux
The Emotional Brain: The Mysterious Underpinnings of Emotional Life
(1996)

Leading neuroscientist's overview of how the emotional centers and circuits in the brain evolved to ensure our survival.

24
Harriet Lerner
The Dance of Anger: A Woman's Guide to Changing the Patterns of Intimate Relationships
(1985)

Popular work from an expert in female psychology that addresses the taboo of women's anger, its real sources, and its role in relationships.

25
Daniel J. Levinson
The Season's of a Man's Life
(1978)

In its day, groundbreaking work on the male adult life cycle that further developed Erik Erikson's theories. Levinson was a strong influence on Gail Sheehy (see p 260).

26
Kurt Lewin
Field Theory in Social Science
(1951)

Known as the father of social psychology, Lewin's field theory held that human behavior was the result of a combination between interactions with others (group dynamics) and inner characteristics.

27
Elizabeth Loftus
Eyewitness Testimony
(1979)

Forensic psychologist's attack on the reliability of eyewitness accounts in criminal trials. Also well known for her challenge to the validity of repressed memory syndrome.

28
Konrad Lorenz
On Aggression
(1963)

Nobel Prize winner's famous study of the “killer instinct” in humans, and the devastating results of our combination of irrationality and intelligence.

29
Rollo May
Love and Will
(1969)

Existential psychologist's powerful bestseller on the idea that love (or “Eros”) and sex are two different drives. Love motivates our highest achievements, and the opposite of love is not hate but apathy.

30
Douglas McGregor
The Human Side of Enterprise
(1960)

Psychologist McGregor became a business guru through his categories of management styles into “Theory X” (directive control by bosses) and “Theory Y” (employees left to motivate themselves). Inspired by Abraham Maslow's humanistic psychology.

31
Hugo Munsterberg
Psychology and Crime
(1908)

German-born founder of experimental psychology invited to work at Harvard with William James. Was a pioneer in industrial psychology (the behavior of people in the work environment), criminal behavior, and film theory.

32
Richard Nesbitt
The Geography of Thought: How Asians and Westerners Think Differently… and Why
(2003)

Leading psychologist's surprising contention that Asian and Western people think differently, challenging assumptions of universal behavior.

33
Sylvia Plath
The Bell Jar
(1963)

Plath's brilliant fictional (and autobiographical) account of a young woman's mental breakdown remains compelling reading.

34
Otto Rank
The Trauma of Birth
(1924)

By one of Freud's original inner circle, describes the separation anxiety felt after birth and how people spend their life trying to recreate the original maternal connection.

35
Wilhelm Reich
Character Analysis
(1933)

Controversial Austrian psychoanalyst's theory that a person's overall character could be analyzed as opposed to specific neuroses, dreams, or mental associations. Also contended that repressed psychosexual energy could take on physical expression in the muscles and organs (“body armor”).

36
Flora Rheta Schreiber
Sybil
(1973)

Compelling true story of a woman with 16 personalities and her fight to become an integrated person. Sold millions of copies and scored a mention on television show
Frasier
.

37
Hermann Rorschach
Psychodiagnostics: A Diagnostic Text Based on Perception
(1921)

Presents the results of the Swiss psychiatrist's psychoanalysis of 400 mental patients and normal subjects, based on his famous ink blot test.

38
Thomas Szasz
The Myth of Mental Illness
(1960)

Famous critique of psychiatry, suggesting that mental illness is in fact usually “problems in living.” Linking modern psychiatric diagnoses to the Inquisition, Szasz argued against any type of coercive treatment.

39
Virginia Satir
Peoplemaking
(1972)

Family systems therapist's influential exploration of family dynamics.

40
Andrew Solomon
The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression
(2001)

Award-winning journey into all facets of depressive illness. Suggests depression will never be eradicated but rather is part of the human condition.

41
Harry Stack Sullivan
Interpersonal Theory of Psychiatry
(1953)

Maverick American psychiatrist's explanation of how the “self-system” or personality is formed by our interpersonal relationships, as opposed to the Freudian inner self.

42
Deborah Tannen
You Just Don't Understand: Women and Men in Conversation
(1990)

No. 1 bestseller by a linguistics professor on why communication can be so difficult between the genders. The first book to bring the subject to a wide audience.

43
Lewis Terman
The Measurement of Intelligence
(1916)

Pioneering cognitive psychologist and inventor of the Stanford-Binet IQ Test (an adaptation of the Binet-Simon test), who believed intelligence was inherited. Also did early work on gifted children.

44
Edward Lee Thorndike
Animal Intelligence
(1911)

American psychological pioneer who demonstrated how all animals learn, using his famous cats in puzzle boxes.

45
Edward B. Titchener
Experimental Psychology
(four volumes, 1901–05)

Major work of a student of Wilhelm Wundt who helped found the first psychology laboratory in America, at Cornell University.

46
John B. Watson
Behaviorism
(1924)

A readable book that established the behaviorist school of psychology.

47
Max Wertheimer
Productive Thinking
(1945)

German-American Gestalt psychologist's contribution to the art of thinking; specifically, seeing the underlying structure of the problem and taking account of anomalies.

48
Robert Wright
The Moral Animal: Why We Are the Way We Are
(1995)

Influential work of evolutionary psychology that reveals the genetic strategies behind human behaviors, including monogamy, altruism, sibling rivalry, and office politics.

49
Wilhelm Wundt
Principles of Physiological Psychology
(1873–74)

The book that made Wundt the dominant figure in the new science of psychology. Translated into English by Edward Titchener in 1904.

50
Irvin D Yalom
Love's Executioner: and Other Tales of Psychotherapy
(1989)

Frank exploration of the relationship between psychotherapist and patient, with fascinating case histories.

William James
The Principles of Psychology
(1890)

Sigmund Freud
The Interpretation of Dreams
(1900)

Jean Piaget
The Language and Thought of the Child
(1923)

Alfred Adler
Understanding Human Nature
(1927)

Ivan Pavlov
Conditioned Reflexes: An Investigation of the Physiological Activity of the Cerebral Cortex
(1927)

Anna Freud
The Ego and the Mechanisms of Defence
(1936)

Karen Horney
Our Inner Conflicts: A Constructive Theory of Neurosis
(1945)

Hans Eysenck
Dimensions of Personality
(1947)

Eric Hoffer
The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements
(1951)

Fritz Perls
Gestalt Therapy: Excitement and Growth in the Human Personality
(1951)

Alfred Kinsey
Sexual Behavior in the Human Female
(1953)

Melanie Klein
Envy and Gratitude
(1957)

Erik Erikson
Young Man Luther: A Study in Psychoanalysis and History
(1958)

Harry Harlow
The Nature of Love
(1958)

R. D. Laing
The Divided Self: A Study of Sanity and Madness
(1960)

Albert Ellis & Robert A. Harper
A Guide to Rational Living
(1961)

Carl Rogers
On Becoming a Person: A Therapist's View of Psychotherapy
(1961)

Eric Berne
Games People Play: The Psychology of Human Relationships
(1964)

Thomas A. Harris
I'm OK—You're OK
(1967)

Carl Jung
The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious
(1968)

Nathaniel Branden
The Psychology of Self-Esteem
(1969)

Viktor Frankl
The Will to Meaning: Foundations and Applications of Logotherapy
(1969)

Edward de Bono
Lateral Thinking: Creativity Step by Step
(1970)