Psychology History

What do shamans, Freud, rats, TikTok, and your mother all have in common? They’ve all shaped how we try to make sense of the human mind. Psychology 101 is the crash course you never got. A sharp, irreverent walk through the strange saga of how humans have studied humans. From ancient soul-healing rituals to modern therapy apps, this book traces the rise of psychology across twelve iconic chapters. You’ll meet the gods of the field (Freud, Jung, Skinner, Maslow), the ghosts they chased (trauma, shadow, madness), and the machines that took over (algorithms, feeds, and digital brains).

The field of psychology is concerned with the study of the mind, behavior, and feelings, and it contributes to a better understanding of how individuals perceive, feel, and interact with their surroundings. It seeks to bridge the gap that exists between scientific knowledge and the human experience to achieve the goal of gaining a greater understanding of the conscious and unconscious factors that form persons and civilizations.

This pioneering account sets out to understand the structure of the human brain - the place where mind meets matter. Until recently, the left hemisphere of our brain has been seen as the "rational" side, the superior partner to the right. But is this distinction true? Drawing on a vast body of experimental research, Iain McGilchrist argues while our left brain makes for a wonderful servant, it is a very poor master.

Sigmund Freud founded the psychoanalytic school of psychology and was particularly well known for his focus on the unconscious mind. Freud believed that the interpretation of dreams were sources of insight in unconscious desires and the unconscious mind. In Dream Psychology we have an exploration of Freud's theories on the interpretation of dreams, and through this book listeners will gain a better understanding of the theories that made Sigmund Freud such an important figure in the world of psychology.

At a time when many people around the world are living into their 10th decade, the longest longitudinal study of human development ever undertaken offers some welcome news for the new old age: Our lives continue to evolve in our later years and often become more fulfilling than before. Begun in 1938, the Grant Study of Adult Development charted the physical and emotional health of over 200 men, starting with their undergraduate days. The now-classic Adaptation to Life reported on the men's lives up to age 55 and helped us understand adult maturation.

Totalitarianism is not a coincidence and does not form in a vacuum. It arises from a collective psychosis that has followed a predictable script throughout history. In The Psychology of Totalitarianism, world-renowned Professor of Clinical Psychology Mattias Desmet deconstructs the societal conditions that allow this collective psychosis to take hold. By looking at our current situation and identifying the phenomenon of “mass formation”—a type of collective hypnosis—he clearly illustrates how close we are to surrendering to totalitarian regimes.

In his landmark best seller The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell redefined how we understand the world around us. Now, in Blink, he revolutionizes the way we understand the world within. Blink is a book about how we think without thinking, about choices that seem to be made in an instant, in the blink of an eye, that actually aren't as simple as they seem. Why are some people brilliant decision makers, while others are consistently inept?

Mescaline, LSD, and psilocybin mushrooms. There’s been a lot of discussion in the medical world lately about the potential benefits of these and other drugs for certain medical conditions, such as anxiety and depression. As we consider the place of psychedelics in the future, we can draw insight and guidance from the history of how psychedelics have been described, sought after, applied, and prohibited over the centuries. Erika Dyck, professor of history at the University of Saskatchewan, introduces you to the world of hallucinogens.

What really drives our decisions? Where do language and memory come from? Why do our minds sometimes seem to work against us? Psychologists have long attempted to answer these questions, seeking to understand human behavior, feelings, and thoughts. But how to explore something so elusive?

Following a remarkable epoch of greater dispersion of wealth and opportunity, we are inexorably returning towards a more feudal era marked by greater concentration of wealth and property, reduced upward mobility, demographic stagnation, and increased dogmatism. If the last 70 years saw a massive expansion of the middle class, not only in America but in much of the developed world, today that class is declining and a new, more hierarchical society is emerging. The new class structure resembles that of Medieval times.

Why has there been such an explosion of discussion about sex in the West since the 17th century? Here, one of France's greatest intellectuals explores the evolving social, economic, and political forces that have shaped our attitudes toward sex. In a book that is at once controversial and seductive, Michel Foucault describes how we are in the process of making a science of sex which is devoted to the analysis of desire, rather than the increase of pleasure.

Faced with the ceaseless stream of news about war, crime, and terrorism, one could easily think we live in the most violent age ever seen. Yet as New York Times bestselling author Steven Pinker shows in this startling and engaging new work, just the opposite is true: violence has been diminishing for millennia and we may be living in the most peaceful time in our species's existence.

The science of emotion is in the midst of a revolution on par with the discovery of relativity in physics and natural selection in biology. Leading the charge is psychologist and neuroscientist Lisa Feldman Barrett, whose research overturns the long-standing belief that emotions are automatic, universal, and hardwired in different brain regions. Instead, Barrett shows, we construct each instance of emotion through a unique interplay of brain, body, and culture.

On October 20, 1973, in San Francisco, a White couple strolling down Telegraph Hill was set upon and butchered by four young Black men. Thus began a reign of terror that lasted six months and left 15 Whites dead and the entire city in a state of panic. The perpetrators wanted nothing less than a race war.

Explore the power of the underdog in Malcolm Gladwell's dazzling examination of success, motivation, and the role of adversity in shaping our lives, from the best-selling author of The Bomber Mafia. Three thousand years ago on a battlefield in ancient Palestine, a shepherd boy felled a mighty warrior with nothing more than a stone and a sling, and ever since then the names of David and Goliath have stood for battles between underdogs and giants. David's victory was improbable and miraculous. He shouldn't have won. Or should he have?

If there is one belief that has united the left and the right, psychologists and philosophers, ancient thinkers and modern ones, it is the tacit assumption that humans are bad. It's a notion that drives newspaper headlines and guides the laws that shape our lives. From Machiavelli to Hobbes, Freud to Pinker, the roots of this belief have sunk deep into Western thought. Human beings, we're taught, are by nature selfish and governed primarily by self-interest.

In The Blank Slate, Steven Pinker, one of the world's leading experts on language and the mind, explores the idea of human nature and its moral, emotional, and political colorings. With characteristic wit, lucidity, and insight, Pinker argues that the dogma that the mind has no innate traits, denies our common humanity and our individual preferences, replaces objective analyses of social problems with feel-good slogans, and distorts our understanding of politics, violence, parenting, and the arts.

Based on the popular research project Whores of Yore, and written with her distinctive humor and wit, A Curious History of Sex draws upon Dr. Kate Lister's extensive knowledge of sex history. From medieval impotence tests to 20th-century testicle thefts, from the erotic frescoes of Pompeii, to modern-day sex-doll brothels, Kate unashamedly roots around in the pants of history, debunking myths, challenging stereotypes, and generally getting her hands dirty.

In The Trip to Echo Spring, Olivia Laing examines the link between creativity and alcohol through the work and lives of six of America's finest writers: F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, Tennessee Williams, John Berryman, John Cheever, and Raymond Carver. All six of these men were alcoholics, and the subject of drinking surfaces in some of their finest work, from Cat on a Hot Tin Roof to A Moveable Feast.

Are human beings immortal? Are apples conscious? Do our legal systems make assumptions about free will that are just plain wrong? Of all the terrific books on quantum physics—from Stephen Hawking to Brian Greene—the questions they never seem to satisfy are the implications of the science. We know that quantum physics is real—our phones and computers wouldn’t work if the science wasn’t right. But what does it all mean?