| Abstract: | ![]()
Reviews 4 books on the topic of psychoanalytic theory in abnormal psychology texts. The purpose of this review is to encourage this process by evaluating some of the resources available for academic psychologists to teach psychoanalysis to undergraduate psychology students. The reviewer reviews several texts commonly employed in teaching undergraduate abnormal psychology and psychopathology courses, with the aim of evaluating the extent to which they accurately reflect the breadth and complexity of psychoanalytic thought as it applies to these areas of inquiry. The books reviewed here were chosen on the basis of two criteria: (a) They are popular, widely used undergraduate abnormal psychology texts; and (b) they represent a range of perspectives on psychoanalysis, with some books written from a psychodynamic perspective, and others generally opposed to the psychoanalytic view. Each text is reviewed in three general areas. First, the reviewer evaluates the extent to which each thoroughly and accurately discusses basic psychoanalytic theory as it presents various models of mental functioning. Treatment of key psychoanalytic concepts such as ego development and defenses, compromise formation, symptom substitution, fixation and regression, and the psychosexual stages is evaluated, as is the extent to which each work attempts to integrate the object-relations perspective into its discussion. Second, the reviewer reviews each text's presentation of the psychodynamic model for selected areas of psychopathology (e.g., depression, schizophrenia, addiction and addictive behaviors, character pathology, and sexual disorders). Finally, the extent to which each work discusses the relationship of basic psychoanalytic theory to the use of projective tests such as the Rorschach and the Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) is considered, as is each text's treatment of psychoanalytic concepts underlying the development of the medical model and the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-III, 1980). (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved) |
