Humanistic Psychology - John Cohen

First published in 1958, Humanistic Psychology opens with a consideration of the many different ways in which a system of psychology can be built. Professor Cohen takes an entirely different view from that which suggests that a knowledge of the brain will eventually tell us all we need to know about the mind. The qualities of human experience are peculiar to themselves and cannot be reduced only to the activities of the central nervous system.

Psychology, it is then suggested, must begin with the meaning of experience from the ‘inside’. This meaning can be deciphered only in terms of the past which has shaped our minds and of the future which we envisage as beckoning us. Four fundamental themes are chosen to illustrate this conception of psychology: first, the successive stages of emotional and social maturation through which every normal child passes between birth and puberty; second, the personal and social significance of sensory experience; third, the individuality of thought and its social qualities. The fourth theme embraces three topics of more general interest- work and play, illness, and literature.

Humanistic Psychology is intended to be an introductory text for the general reader as well As for professional students of psychology, psychiatry, philosophy and the social sciences.