The Comprehensive History of Psychology

This book is intended for students of undergraduate and post-graduate classes. My major reason for writing it is my dissatisfaction with other texts available in the field, which I discovered through teaching the course for many years. The texts written in this field by foreign writers don't fully cater the needs of our students of Indian Universities. Moreover, none of these texts mention about the position of psychology in India. Instead, they concentrate only upon Western positions. The students and many teachers, too, remain in dark about the status of psychology in India. With the publication of The Comprehensive History of Psychology this darkness will no longer remain in the minds of Indian students and teachers because a separate chapter on An Overview of Psychology in India has been added, apart from elsewhere discussion of the works of Indian psychologists. This book differs from others in the field in several ways :

• The text is shorter than many other so it can be easily handled by undergraduate and post-graduate students even in one-semester where so provided.

• I have selected only important systems and theories that are often found in other texts. Therefore, I have gone into the greater depth and detail. The advantage of this will be that students will gain indepth knowledge of those systems and theories rather than a little knowledge of each of the different theories and concepts.

• In discussing each system I have placed much emphasis upon the historical antecedents, which in itself, is unique. This will help the students in understanding those background factors that have led to the emergence of the different system.

The book has been written in twenty chapters. The first chapter in introductory and briefly introduces the different systems of psychology. Chapters second and third examine the status of Psychology before Wilhelm Wundt. The fourth chapter is exclusively devoted to the contributions of Wilhelm Wundt, the father of Experimental Psychology. From Chapter fifth to eighteenth different classical systems and modern psychologies have been lucidly presented. The chapter nineteenth intends to predict where the psychology is going and what its position is today. The tag chapter is exclusively devoted to the work of Indian psychologists in an overall perspective. At the end of each chapter, Know Yourself has been appended for healthy mental exercise of the students.

I am grateful to a number of people for their helpful suggestions and constructive criticisms. In fact, some students as well as teachers had shown very enthusiastic interest in reading the manuscript and pointing out the errors. I feel highly indebted to all those people.

Like all textbook writers, I owe a great debt to my wife, Kumud Rani, for extending gracious assistance through all phases of manuscript preparation. I am also indebted to Dr. Alpana Sen Gupta, Research Associate in Psychology for carefully supervising the typing of the manuscript. Finally, I am grateful to Publishers Motilal Banarsidass, Publishers Pvt. Ltd., Delhi, in general and Shri Kamla Shankar Singh, Motilal Banarsidass, Patna in particular who took pains in bringing the book before you at right time. Wherever errors have occurred and brought to my attention, they have been corrected. However, the final responsibility to any such errors remains with me. If you find any such error, provide a feedback for which I am eagerly and earnestly waiting.

**Contents and Sample Pages**