(Part 2) Best history of psychology books according to redditors

Sure, the attitudes toward the mentally disabled or mentally ill are different depending on culture. (I'm just talking about European norms in this thread.) Asia, South Asia, the Middle East all have their own historical trends.

In Europe, the mentally ill or disabled could be viewed as either closer to God (because, as you mention, they are less burdened by worldly concerns or their physical frailty will result in a sooner reckoning with their creator) or further from God (because they are being punished for sins, they are possessed by demons, they have unbalanced humors, etc.) How people were viewed varied by region, by century, and according to how much (if any) economic or political power they wielded. (Mentally ill baker? Trepanning for you. Mentally ill Czar? You're just eccentric and too beautiful for this world.)

"Mental illness" is a broad term even today, and in the Middle Ages would not only include everything from organic behavioral disorders (autism, schizophrenia) to severe mental retardation, but also medical conditions like epilepsy, brain tumors and stroke.

Anyway, if you're functional (maybe you have Tourette syndrome or a little cataplexy or manageable OCD), people will just think you're really weird but you'll likely manage to get by with some family help. That situation is probably analogous to our armless medieval peasant. (If you're a violent paranoid or a full-blown schizophrenic, however, things will not go well for you in the Middle Ages.)

Further reading: Porter, Roy Madness: A Brief History

It has always been common sense that women are "mad not bad", unlike men, who are indeed "bad". From Sympathy over-rides justice for killer moms:

> In 1922, the British Parliament was forced to redefine the crime of infanticide as less than murder because it was virtually impossible to get a jury to convict a mother of murder.
>
>As Patricia Pearson notes in her book When She Was Bad, "The point was to rid the courts of the necessity of imposing murder sentences, since juries had been refusing to convict women when the penalty was execution. For instance, following 5,000 coroner's inquests into child deaths held annually in Britain in the mid-19th century, only 39 convictions for child murder resulted, and none of those women was executed.
>
>Similarly, in Canada, when a mandatory death penalty applied to the murder of children, courts regularly returned "not guilty" verdicts in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary."

I am working on a thesis on medicine's theories on insanity, or madness. While the definitions of madness are of course varied across times and cultures, it is usually differentiated from mental handicaps as such, whether displayed as learning difficulties or lower intelligence, although they were seen as connected. While most of my literature handles the treatment of insanity, I was able to spot an essay on the subject.

Of course limiting the question to ancient times, I also have to limit it to ancient Greek and Roman societies mostly, which is usually where the continuum of medical history begins. And I'll say something about the medical opinions on this, even if that doesn't directly tell us about how they were dealt with.

Traditionally, mental deficiencies were seen as someone being too slow or too fast compared to a mean, or someone with a sound mind. The earliest such definition can be found from Empedocles, from 5th century BC. Bringing in a material explanation through the classical elements or humors, Hippocrates' (or rather accredited to him) On Regimen describes the mind or the psyche of consisting of two elements, water and fire, where if water predominates, the mind is too slow and if the fire, then too fast.

Developing to the hippocratic tradition and thence to Galen's theories, the slower forms of this mental handicap, amentia(mindlessness), stultia(foolishness) and fatuitas(stupidity) were seen to correspond with coldness and humidity, which of the four humors signifies phlegm, which corresponds with water. The lack of animal spirits, which was thought to be connected with mental activity, was a connected cause. This actually connects these distempers with melancholy in this classical nosology, and the overtly quick mind with mania, which sometimes was used in the same sense as madness. Platon in Theaetetus describes the mind as a wax tablet, where in the case of a slower person, it was too hard and sensations did not leave a distinct mark on it. There is scant mention of such conditions being congenital, however. While for example hypotonia and hydrocephalus were known to be connected to the weakness of infants in the writings of Soranus in later antiquity, it seems these were not realized to be connected to mental difficulties. Aretaeus of Cappadocia was the first to mark some mental conditions as uncurable.

It might be that the slow connection between uncurability and mental handicaps was a result of it not being seen as a problem as such; that is that there was no legal grey area which would have facilitated a more strict opinion on the matter. In later eras, the judgment of someone being an idiot was closely connected to an individuals ability to take care of themselves or manage their lives, so a legal definition was needed so that possible conflicts on interests could be resolved. If anyone has ancient laws connected to this, I would be interested.

But mostly in ancient times many mentally handicapped individuals would not have been necessarily excluded, even though they obviously would have been at the responsibility of family and never able to participate as free citizens. In many cases, one can imagine that they would have been as useful a pair of hands as anyone else, even if they needed looking after. According to my secondary source, from which I couldn't find the reference(which means it's from a secondary source as well, probably), that there is paleopathological evidence of prehistoric people having kept with them congenitally disabled people, some of which had intellectual disabilities as well, which would mean that they were not necessarily as heavy a burden as to have been abandoned always. While infanticide has occurred in history and for example Athenians had a practice of amphidromia five days after birth to decide whether the newborn was strong enough, it seems that since ancient medicine did not connect infant weakness with mental disabilities that many would have grown into childhood and adulthood as well.

I apologize for the less than concise answer. Since I couldn't get my hands on an article mentioned below, the sources had to remain scarce and I indulged in some conjencture as well. Porter seems to dominate in the literature, but he's made good general reference works and pops up everywhere related to history of medicine and science.

Sources:

"Mental Retardation, Social section part 1," CF Goodey, A History of Clinical Psychiatry - The Origin and History of Psychiatric Disorders, eds. German E. Berrios and Roy Porter, Athlone Press 1995


Roy Porter, Madness - A Brief History, Oxford 2002


Roy Porter, Greatest Benefit to Mankind - A Medical History Of Humanity From Antiquity To The Present, Fontana Press 1997


I found this article, which seems to hit the nail on the head, but I could find no access through EBSCO or PubMed and the my UNI has no deal with the publisher, but if any one can get to it, it would be nice:

Intellectual and Physical Disabilities in Prehistory and Early Civilization, Gershon Berkson and Steven J. Taylor, Mental Retardation June 2004, Vol. 42, No. 3, pp. 195-208.

Try this one:
"Bedlam: London & Its Mad"
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Bedlam-London-Its-Catharine-Arnold/dp/1847390005

The Ghost Hunters by Deborah Blum https://www.amazon.com/Ghost-Hunters-William-Search-Scientific/dp/0143038958

It’s all about the scientific search for ghosts around the turn of the century.

This may not be what you are looking for, but Idiot’s Guides: Psychology (Fifth Edition) and Big Ideas: The Little Book of Psychology were both insanely helpful in getting through Intro to Psych and Human Growth and Development, and I reference them frequently!

Mythic Thinking, possibly.

Spending $1.5 million a year for participants to "magnify their calling" is a scam.

The psychology involved is called "crowd psychology" or the "crowd effect" and the Wikipedia entry on such is HERE or you can study Gustave le Bon's book "The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind" first published in 1895, and you can buy it in English HERE.

The size of the scam is irrelevant. It's still a scam.

Freud and Beyond is also a great resource for non-experts who want to learn about the varying schools of psychoanalytic thought.

I am not familiar with "The Story of Philosophy" so I am not sure what is most similar, but my undergraduate history of psych textbook was "A Brief History of Modern Psychology" by Ludy T. Benjamin Jr. (lastest edition here-- https://www.amazon.com/Brief-History-Modern-Psychology/dp/1118206770/ref=sr_1_2?keywords=a+brief+history+of+psychology&qid=1556658138&s=gateway&sr=8-2 ) and my graduate level history of psych textbook was "A History of Modern Psychology in Context" by Wade Pickren and Alexandra Rutherford (here-- https://www.amazon.com/History-Modern-Psychology-Context/dp/0470276096/ref=sr_1_3?keywords=pickren+psychology&qid=1556658105&s=gateway&sr=8-3 ; FWIW you may be able to track down a free pdf.) The former is very much a broad overview and the latter is much more in depth.

> Yes, you're done because you lost and have no argument to stand on.

What argument did you think you had? Because its quite obvious you were no where close to winning anything.

For anyone who is not a right wing troll looking to burn karma while bashing others for a political agenda, you will find that:

• Ridiculous things have been classified as "mental illness in the past, such as "Hysteria" where female patients would need to see a doctor to be stimulated to orgasm. Suggest that now and it would be you would be cited with a mental illness. So there is clear basis to challenge questionable notions.
  
  
• In 1952, the American Psychiatric Association listed homosexuality in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM) as a sociopathic personality disturbance. A comprehensive study of homosexuality in 1962 justified inclusion of the disorder as a pathological hidden fear of the opposite sex that was caused by traumatic parent-child relationships. This view was widely influential in the medical profession.[11] In 1956, however, Evelyn Hooker performed a study that compared the happiness and well-adjusted nature of self-identified homosexual men with heterosexual men and found no difference.[12]
  
  
• It was through experiment that predated events you cite by more than a decade that lead to reevaluating the inclusion of homosexuality in the DSM. Her (Evelyn Hooker's) studies contributed to a change in the attitudes of the psychological community towards homosexuality and to the American Psychiatric Association's decision to remove homosexuality from its handbook of disorders in 1973.
  
  
• Your position, promoted by groups such as the Traditional Values Coalition is actually bullying of its own kind by misrepresenting information such as the book by Ronald Bayer book - Homosexuality and American Psychiatry People like those from the TVC are likely to be partly responsible for the mindset that allows the bulling of many individuals over sexual orientation.
  
  
• Despite the fact that there was cause to re-evaluate the DSM position, individuals like Charles Socarides claimed that the rejection of his findings was not due to their non-factual basis but due to the corruption of psychiatric science with politics assuming preeminence over truth. (Bayer, p. 114) And to this day, more than 30 years later, Charles Socarides still hasn't produced any data to support his homophobic theories. He also hasn't been able to "convert" his son, either.
  
  
• Simply stating as you seem to suggest that scientists are human, and humans are susceptible to non-scientific reasoning, therefore if there is any question of influence leads to the conclusion the science is false, is a logical fallacy. The scientific method exists for a reason, and if you are able to challenge the position based on science, please do so. Otherwise you are making wildly unsubstantiated claims based on faulty circumstantial evidence at best.
  
  
• Simply declaring "PC dogma" or "bullying" or any subjective positions you want to take up is by no means proof by any stretch of the imagination, nor does it preclude any re-examination of the science on its own merit simply because it evolves. Otherwise there wouldn't be a numbered DSM because we would magically know everything already. /s
  
  Again, as listed above: "more than 30 years later, Charles Socarides still hasn't produced any data to support his homophobic theories."
  
  So where is your "science" on the matter? Judges' decision: Argument goes to mapReGuice.
  
  I would also suggest that the person in question would be far more qualified to be a teach that you would be based on observation.
  
  > We don't decide whether something is, or is not, a mental illness by bullying people and then forcing a vote on the issue.
  
  We also don't discard science just because you have a political axe to grind. Sorry.
  
  Happy Trollin'

This book gives a good historical and theoretical overview of Psychology (all its various subfields) both within North America and the rest of the world.

I don't think you realize how big a question you are asking. It's not only incredibly difficult to answer, but fiercely political.

Ideas about what has been the important new results and methods of the last few decades and what will in time prove to be dead-end fads or flat out mistakes obviously informs what research to pursue further. Different research groups champion different programs, justified by different answers to your question and crucially, they compete for funding.

Don't expect an unbiased, cold-blooded rational answer from anyone.

That said, the last chapter of A History of the Brain: From Stone Age surgery to modern neuroscience surveys the last 5 decades. You'll probably enjoy the rest of the book too.

F.W.H. Meyers (of the Society for Psychical Research in England) did the first cross-correspondence experiment.

Essentially, it set out to test the theory that the "ghost" being channeled by the psychic was merely her subconscious creating a fictitious personality. Meyers put it to the test by having three different psychics on three different continents. He would then ask a coded question. (Meyers was a Latin and Greek scholar, so most of his questions were written in Greek and alluded to obscure poems from Antiquity--most never translated into English and unknown to the English-speaking world.) The answer to the question he asked would then NOT be given to a single psychic. It would be broken up into three different fragments so that each psychic would only have a nonsensical tidbit. Only by assembling all the pieces could the investigator retrieve a coherent message.

Long story short: It worked.

Over and over and over again.

It was tried multiple times under triple-blind conditions. None of the psychics knew each other, or had any contact or communication. None of the psychics spoke Latin or Greek. And none had contact with Meyers.

Yet coherent messages and answers came back. Greatly implying that a single intelligence was dictating the messages and communicating with the psychics. In other words, he wasn't a figment of a single psychic's imagination. It was one coherent personality.

(There are many fascinating examples of legitimate research. Like the decades-long studies of Leonora Piper. Or the Duke University studies. Yet none of this evidence is ever mentioned by professional debunkers--because it's so hard to refute. They pretend it just doesn't exist. And they're banking on their fans not reading.) For a great write-up, see Deborah Blum's book "Ghost Hunters". She's a science writer, who's had columns in the New York Times, Science Magazine, Discover, etc. As someone with science degrees and a science background, she looked into Meyers' cross-correspondence study (as well as William James' investigation of Leonora Piper) and she came away impressed. See the book here: http://www.amazon.com/Ghost-Hunters-William-Search-Scientific-ebook/dp/B0024CEZPS/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1417551898&sr=8-1&keywords=ghost+hunters+blum

Here's a place to start: http://www.amazon.com/Memory-Wars-Freuds-Legacy-Dispute/dp/0940322048/

But it's game over at this point. Anywhere you start will invariable get you to the lack of any scientific basis for Freud's theories, and the fact that he misrepresented and outright fabricated patient data.

https://www.amazon.com/Psychology-Book-Ideas-Simply-Explained/dp/1465458565

I'm currently reading an excellent book called Freud's Answer which details Freud's historical background (fin de siècle Vienna) and the context in which his writing was considered scientific - romantic soul psychology, a la von Hartmann. Fascinating stuff.

There's a really interesting book called Muses, Madmen, and Prophets that sort of tackles what you're getting at.

Freud and Beyond: A History of Modern Psychoanalytic Thought Updated Edition
by Stephen A. Mitchell (Author), Margaret J. Black (Author)

https://smile.amazon.com/Freud-Beyond-History-Psychoanalytic-Thought/dp/0465098819/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1JSX83K8KA9PV&keywords=freud+and+beyond&qid=1564567352&s=gateway&sprefix=freud+and+bey%2Caps%2C137&sr=8-1

Ghost Hunters by Deborah Blum is my favorite book on any paranormal subject:

http://www.amazon.com/Ghost-Hunters-William-Search-Scientific/dp/0143038958

From seance to science: a history of the profession of psychology in America is a quick and easy read.

>So you wouldn't think Turing was forced into treatment, right?

Not by mental health professionals - necessarily so, given that homosexuality was not viewed (officially) as a mental disorder until after Turing was legally sentenced to 'treatment'.

>We've assumed for the sake of argument that Szasz only argued for the immorality of its classification, but you'd need to argue that Szasz did only argue for the immorality of its classification. Furthermore, you would need to argue that his work 'wasn't much help'. Both are empirical claims, and you haven't given any citations over his effectiveness or scope of writing.

I've supported the first claim by pointing out that I can't recall any of his studies or experiments on the topic. I can't prove a negative; if you think I'm wrong, you need to provide me with an example.

As for the argument that his ethical and legal arguments weren't much help, this has been supported by my arguments pointing out that a scientific conclusion cannot be overturned by philosophical arguments (at least, it cannot correctly be overturned). This is just necessarily true, but I'd be interested in seeing any arguments against it if you can think of any.

>You've said that several times already, but you haven't given any citations supporting such a claim. What was this scientific evidence that pointed to homosexuality being a mental disorder? Was this evidence misread, as evidence frequently is within science?

Of course I've said it "several times already" but the comment you're quoting was me quoting my earlier argument to disprove the claim that I had simply asserted my position instead of arguing it.

As for evidence, I don't know of any online resources offhand, but this book is quite decent: Homosexuality and American Psychiatry - it even mentions Szasz, but doesn't mention any studies or experiments he did.

If there was no evidence pointing it in one direction, then why did the DSM board wait for substantial scientific evidence to overturn the decision? How could the evidence from Kinsey, Hooker, etc, overturn a bigoted political belief? Surely all they'd need to change their decision was a petition or protest.

>I, on the other hand, hoped to cut off such an attempt preemptively by arguing that empirical evidence in general--not just in this instance--does not point to any scientific theories; rather, it is we who choose which theories fit the evidence ('luminiferous aether' and 'phrenology' being but two examples). Evidence is interpreted in light of theory.

We're not talking about theories though, we're talking about scientific conclusions. A mental disorder is not a "theory" (at least in no formal sense), and is instead simply a conclusion of the question that basically consists of: is it a condition (or set of conditions) that results in distress or difficulties functioning in the individual? Using scientific evidence, they reached the conclusion that homosexuality met this criteria. The problem, again, was that it was shitty scientific evidence, not that none existed at all or that it was an "interpretation".

>Second, what scientific evidence lead to homosexuality's reclassification or removal from the DSM? Could scientific evidence lead to its reclassification or removal?

The scientific evidence was gathered primarily, as I've mentioned, by people like Alfred Kinsey and Evelyn Hooker. They investigated the gay community and went out into the real world to meet them and assess how well they were functioning in their daily lives. From this information, they discovered that the original data was biased and unrepresentative, and that the homosexual population as a whole was largely well-adjusted and "normal". This led to the conclusion that the people who originally resulted in it being deemed a mental disorder were experiencing mental difficulties that were not caused by their sexual orientation.

>Would you accept, then, that if the scientific evidence were flawed (as you state), then people were being downtrodden by being classified as having a mental disorder and being forced into treatment? If not, why include this sentence? I do not see how 'scientific evidence' was necessary for them to be consider downtrodden.

Yes if it was flawed then they would be justified in feeling downtrodden. The important distinction is that describing a factual relationship cannot be an example of oppression. Deaf people are not "downtrodden" by it being classified as a disability, but if there was severe bigotry in society that resulted in a non-scientific consensus being reached to conclude that, for example, left-handedness was a disability (i.e. it wasn't based on fact or evidence) then those people would be downtrodden.

>You've said many 'if' sentences, ones that I either found to be hinging on unstated assumptions about the nature of evidence or the historical record, and then no continuation of the dialectic on the nature of evidence or the historical record. I don't think that sort of argumentative tactic is arguing; I think it's deflecting.

There have been no assumptions, I've backed up everything I've said. The fact that you think my substantial arguments are an example of "deflecting" is mind boggling. The irrelevant example of Turing is a demonstration of deflecting (i.e. how is a legal decision, before homosexuality was deemed to be a mental disorder, an example of mental health professionals forcing treatment onto somebody?) - my arguments are not.