Review of Normalizing the ideal: Psychology, schooling, and the family in postwar Canada.

Reviews the book, Normalizing the ideal: Psychology, schooling, and the family in postwar Canada by Mona Gleason (1999). The history of psychology in Canada has not received the attention it deserves. This book is a bold attempt to sketch the development of the discipline and its influence on child-rearing practices and education in post-war Canada. Unfortunately, the author appears to have been guided by a theoretical perspective that can best be characterized as an uninspiring blend of Michel Foucault, Christopher Lasch, and reductionist 1970s feminist scholarship. Gleason's portrayal of the development of psychology, is inadequate on several counts. First, throughout the book, psychology is presented as a monolithic discipline characterized by complete consensus, theoretical unity, and a single-minded purpose of influencing society. Second, Gleason claims that psychologists forced their definitions of normalcy upon an unsuspecting and innocent population by intruding into previously private realms and extending the tentacles of its expertise in building up a professional tyranny. Third, Gleason frequently criticizes psychology for reinforcing and reproducing the social status quo and presenting the ideal family in terms of white, middleclass, heterosexual, and patriarchal ideals. Fourth, she seems to condemn psychologists for inflicting their ideas on an unsuspecting population because they were driven by ulterior motives such as self-aggrandizement and an attempt to increase their own professional power. Gleason's is the first book to provide an overview of the influence of psychology on Canadian society after World War II. Her analysis would have gained from investigating and highlighting the different and at times mutually exclusive ideas, motives, and theories of Canadian psychologists instead of assuming their uniformity. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)