Best of
Psychology

1951

The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements


Eric Hoffer - 1951
    The True Believer -- the first and most famous of his books -- was made into a bestseller when President Eisenhower cited it during one of the earliest television press conferences. Completely relevant and essential for understanding the world today, The True Believer is a visionary, highly provocative look into the mind of the fanatic and a penetrating study of how an individual becomes one.

Aion


C.G. Jung - 1951
    The central theme of the volume is the symbolic representation of the psychic totality through the concept of the Self, whose traditional historical equivalent is the figure of Christ. Jung demonstrates his thesis by an investigation of the Allegoria Christi, especially the fish symbol, but also of Gnostic and alchemical symbolism, which he treats as phenomena of cultural assimilation. The first four chapters, on the ego, the shadow, and the anima and animus, provide a valuable summation of these key concepts in Jung's system of psychology.

The Wisdom of Insecurity: A Message for an Age of Anxiety


Alan W. Watts - 1951
    The Wisdom of Insecurity underlines the importance of our search for stability in an age where human life seems particularly vulnerable and uncertain. Watts argues our insecurity is the consequence of trying to be secure and that, ironically, salvation and sanity lie in the recognition that we have no way of saving ourselves.

Client-Centered Therapy: Its Current Practice, Implications and Theory


Carl R. Rogers - 1951
    Presenting the non-directive and related points of view in counselling and therapy, Rogers gives a clear exposition of procedures by which individuals who are being counselled may be assisted in achieving for themselves new and more effective personality adjustments.

The Psychology of Man's Possible Evolution


P.D. Ouspensky - 1951
    Describes how a man must work simultaneously on his knowledge and his being to find inner unity.

Gestalt Therapy: Excitement and Growth in the Human Personality


Frederick Salomon Perls - 1951
    Employing the wide-ranging techniques of the Gestalt approach to heighten sensory perception and motoric behaviour and to deepen the capacity to enjoy interpersonal relationships, it is a practical insight into one of the most important psychotherapeutic techniques. Starting with the premise that experience begins at the contact boundary it examines the nature of that experience and the various obstacles that can stand in the way of growth.Gestalt therapy is explained in detail, with its basis in the methods of psychotherapy from Freud to the present outlined. First published in 1951, Gestalt Therapy has remained constantly in print ever since and is regarded as one of the most important studies of self-awareness available.

Esoteric Psychology


Alice A. Bailey - 1951
    They also relate the circumstance of a human psychology to world conditions and to future possibilities.

The Supreme Doctrine: Psychological Studies in Zen Thought


Hubert Benoît - 1951
    Statistical normality is perfectly compatible with a high degree of folly and wickedness. In so far as he is a psychotherapist, the Oriental philosopher tries to help statistically normal individuals to become normal in the other, more fundamental sense of the word. This process of intellectual and psycho-physical adjustment to the Nature of Things is the «supreme doctrine"­ of Zen Buddhism, which Dr Benoit discusses in the light of Western psychological theory and Western psychiatric practise. This is a book that should be read by everyone who aspires to know who he is and what he can do to acquire such self-knowledge. From the Foreword by Aldous Huxley The Supreme Doctrine is a cogent statement of what Zen thought had to offer the practising Western psychiatrist. This is a book which assuredly still speaks for itself. T. H. Barrett, SOAS, University of London