Psychology's Grand Theorists How Personal Experiences Shape

217 Pages·2004·11.7 MB·English

by  Amy P. Demorest

PSYCHOLOGY'S GRAND THEORISTS
How Personal Experiences Shaped
Professional Ideas
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PSYCHOLOGY'S GRAND THEORISTS
How Personal Experiences Shaped
Professional Ideas
Amy Demorest
Amherst College
LAWRENCE ERLBAUM ASSOCIATES, PUBLISHERS
2005 Mahwah, New Jersey London
Senior Editor: Debra Riegert
Editorial Assistant: Kerry Breen
Cover Design: Kathryn Houghtaling Lacey
Textbook Production Manager: Paul Smolenski
Full-Service Compositor: TechBooks
Text and Cover Printer: Sheridan Books, Inc.
Cover art by Robert T. Sweeney, depicting Sigmund Freud, B. F. Skinner,
and Carl Rogers.
This book was typeset in 10/12 pt. Times, Italic, Bold, and Bold Italic.
The heads were typeset in Americana, Americana Italic, and Americana Bold.
Copyright © 2005 by Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in
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other means, without prior written permission of the publisher.
Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc., Publishers
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Demorest, Amy.
Psychology's grand theorists: how personal experiences shaped professional
ideas / Amy Demorest.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-8058-5107-0 (alk. paper)—ISBN 0-8058-5108-9 (pbk.: alk. paper)
1. Psychologists—Biography. 2. Psychologists—Psychology. 3. Psychology—
History. 4. Freud, Sigmund, 1856-1939. 5. Skinner, B. F. (Burrhus Frederic),
1904-1990 6. Rogers, Carl R. (Carl Ransom), 1902-1987 I. Title.
BF109.A1D45 2004
150.19—dc22 2004007577
Books published by Lawrence Erlbaum Associates are printed
on acid-free paper, and their bindings are chosen for
strength and durability.
Printed in the United States of America
1 0 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
To My Father
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Contents
Preface ix
I . Introduction 01
Method of Analysis 07
Notes 18
References 18
2. The Psychodynamic Approach: Sigmund Freud 20
Work 25
Early Case Study 25
The Theory 31
A Return to the Irma Dream 37
Life 43
Childhod 4
Childhood Patterns Revisited in Adulthood 50
Adulthod 62
Conclusion 6
Sugested Readings 69
Notes 70
3. The Behavioral Approach: B. F. Skinner 73
Work 78
Early Case Study 80
The Theory 85
Life 94
Childhod 94
Young Adulthood 104
Adulthood 114
Conclusion 120
Suggested Readings 122
Notes 123
vii
Viii CONTENTS
4* The Phenomenological Approach: Carl Rogers 125
Work 129
Early Case Study 130
The Theory 140
Life 146
Childhood 146
Young Adulthood 150
Adulthood 158
Rogers and Skinner 161
Conclusion 165
Suggested Readings 168
Notes 169
5. Conclusion 172
Scientific Validity 179
The Study of Lives 187
Notes 191
References 191
Author Index 195
Subject Index 19
Preface
I first had the idea of writing this book when I was in my senior year
as an undergraduate at Williams College. I had just read Robert
Heilbroner's book, The Worldly Philosophers (1972), for a class on
the history of economic thought. In his book, Heilbroner brings
the field of economics to life by showing how the theories of the
major economists emerged from the particular social contexts in
which they lived. As a psychology major, I thought that the field
of psychology could use a book like this. But whereas economic
theory makes claims about social systems, and so an analysis of the
theorists' social contexts is in order, psychological theory makes
claims about individual people, and so here an analysis of the
theorists' personal lives is called for.
This idea was elaborated in the following years as I pursued
further studies in psychology. The most significant influence was
my graduate work with Irving Alexander. Irving himself explored
relationships between the works and the lives of psychological the-
orists in a class he taught. The class was not taught to my cohort,
but I heard others talk of it when he returned to it the follow-
ing year. Most importantly, in another class and in my thesis work
with him, I learned from Irving a method for extracting themes
from narrative material, whether that material was autobiograph-
ical writing explicitly about the author's life story, or professional
writing ostensibly irrelevant to the author's private life. I was also
able to see how Irving employed this method in an analysis of the
theorist Carl Jung, when he read aloud to a number of his graduate
students a talk he was to give at an upcoming American Psycholog-
ical Association meeting. He would later publish this paper and
others on Sigmund Freud and Harry Stack Sullivan, along with a
paper on his method, in his book Personology (1990). Anyone who
has read that book will immediately see that my debt to Irving is
IX