Theorists and Theories

Last update: 7 June 2011,
by Maureen Bell

As I'm often asked to provide information on theories of personality or therapeutic methods I thought a list of links to readings and biographical information would be useful.

Lists of books and journal articles relating to individual theories or theorists can be found on my bibliographies and reading lists page.

For additional sites covering nursing theorists and philosophical schools see my nursing page

There are many journals which may contain aticles of interest in this area. A selection is listed below. You'll find them in the e-Journals A-Z list at the top right of this page.

American Imago
American Journal of Psychoanalysis
Attachment and Human Development
International Forum of Psychoanalysis
International Journal of Applied Psychoanalytic Studies
International Journal of Psycho-analysis
Journal of Jungian Scholarly Studies
Journal of Social Work Theory & Practice
Journal of the American Psychonalytic Association
Journal of Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology
Psychoanalytic Dialogues
Psychoanalytic Inquiry
Psychoanalytic Psychology
Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy
Psychoanalytic Social Work

About Sandplay: How Sandplay Therapy Works
Produced by Sandplay Therapists of America, this site provides a number of articles that describe some of the components and applications of sandplay therapy.

Attachment Research and Theory at Stony Brook
From the Department of Psychology at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, a collection of resources, including online articles, relating to attachment theory in the Bowlby - Ainsworth tradition.

Behaviorism [Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy]
A discussion of psychological and philosophical behaviourism.

British Psychoanalytical Society:(BPAS) Articles and Papers by members and guests of the British Psychoanalytical Society

The C.G. Jung Page
This page includes an extensive list of links to the full text of articles, interviews, and reviews.

Classic Theories of Child Development
Margaret Mahler, Sigmund Freud & Erik Erikson A Hypertext Overview. This is a brief hypertext tutorial that summarises the key stages in child development according to the three theorists: Margaret Mahler, Sigmund Freud and Erik Erikson. The tutorial includes a month by month look at development that lists the things a child might do at different ages according to the three theories.

Classics in the History of Psychology
Developed by Christopher D. Green (York University, Toronto, Ontario) Classics in the History of Psychology makes available the full texts of a number of historically significant public domain documents from the scholarly literature of psychology and allied disciplines on the World Wide Web. For example A. H. Maslow (1943) A Theory of Human Motivation. The site also contains links to relevant works posted at other sites.

Emile Durkheim -- History of Psychology
Links to a wide range of resources from the Department of psychology at the University of Dayton.

Erich Fromm -- History of Psychology
Links to a wide range of resources from the Department of psychology at the University of Dayton.

Explore Transpersonal Psychology
This site is maintained by Michael Daniels, from the Consciousness & Transpersonal Psychology Research Unit, Liverpool John Moores University.

The Gestalt Therapy Page
This page is a joint project sponsored by The Gestalt Journal and the International Gestalt Therapy Association and contains the full text of a selection of classic gestalt therapy papers.

Great Ideas in Personality
This site is maintained by G. Scott Acton, who has a Ph.D. in the psychology of personality, and works at the Langley Porter Psychiatric Institute, University of California at San Francisco. It's an interesting collection of writings on subjects ranging from attachment theory to personality disorders.

Gregory Bateson
From the Towards an Ecology of Mind web site, this section deals with Gregory Bateson, anthropologist and social scientist, and his works.

Health Report - 19 November 2007 - Attachment theory
Transcript from Radio National's Health Report, with Norman Swan.

Humanistic Psychology: From Maslow to the 21st Century
A summary of the history of humanistic psychology, from the Association for Humanistic Psychology. Also at this site is a Humanistic Psychology Bibliography .

Humberto Maturana
From the Towards an Ecology of Mind web site, this section deals with Humberto Maturana, biologist and cybernetician, and his work.

Internationale Erich-Fromm-Gesellschaft e.V.
A web site devoted to the life and work of Erich Fromm.

Melanie Klein I and II
Two introductory lectures on Klein given by Professor Robert M.Young in a series on ‘Psychoanalytic Pioneers’ sponsored by CONFER and given at the Tavistock Centre in London on 18 and 25 January 2000.

Michel Foucault, info.
A collection of resources on Michel Foucault, including the full text of lectures and interviews.

Mindfulness
This is the web site of Dr Chris Walsh, a psychiatrist working in private practice in North Carlton (Melbourne, Australia). It includes guided mindfulness soundtracks.

For lists of books and journal articles on mindfulness see my reading lists page.

narrativeapproaches.com!
A site produced by therapists Jennifer Freeman, David Epston, and Dean Lobovits.

Narrative Psychology: Internet and Resource Guide
This guide, edited by Vincent W. Hevern of the Psychology Department at LeMoyne College, provides a broad set of bibliographical and Internet-based resources for use in the study of narrative psychology.

Narrative Therapy Gateway - Dulwich Centre Website
This site contains information on Dulwich Centre and Michael White's methods.

New York Freudian Society, Psychoanalytic Training Institute: Freud Abstracts
Abstracts of the Standard Edition of the Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud.

Object Relations Theory and Therapy
This site is maintained by Dr Thomas Klee, a licensed psychologist and Associate Professor in the Department of Professional Psychology at Chestnut Hill College in Philadelphia.

Official Abraham Maslow Publications Site
A large classified list of publications by and about Maslow.

PEP Web
This site provides access to PEP LiteratureSearch, a free search of both the PEP (Psychoanalytic Electronic Publishing) archive of psychoanalytic literature and the current content of the PEP journals. The Archive contains over 50,000 articles from 1920.

Personality Theories
This page is produced by Dr C. George Boeree of the Psychology Department of Shippensburg University. It is an electronic textbook which he created for the students of his undergraduate and graduate courses in Personality Theories. He also has a page An Introduction to Buddhism

R.D. Laing Bibliography
From the web site of the Society for Langian Studies.

Ronnie D. Laing
From the Towards an Ecology of Mind web site, this section deals with radical psychiatrist R. D. Laing and his works.

Salman Akhtar on the trauma of dislocation
This is a video of a lecture given by Salman Akhtar Jefferson Medical College professor, proposing that psychoanalysts need to pay special attention to their immigrant patients. Akhtar suggests that the immigration experience creates disruptions that are too often ignored in therapy and that the objects and landscapes that are left behind have a more significant impact on the immigrant's psychological well being than has generally been recognized.

Sandor Ferenczi -- History of Psychology
Links to a wide range of resources from the Department of psychology at the University of Dayton.

Self Psychology Page
The Self Psychology Page is dedicated to discussion, information, and communication regarding Heinz Kohut's psychology of the self and contemporary developments.

Sigmund Freud Archives
Dedicated to collecting, conserving, collating and making available for scholarly use all of Sigmund Freud's psychoanalytic and personal papers, his correspondence, photos, records, memorabilia, etc.

Sigmund Freud [Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy]
The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy is a non-profit organization run by the editors.

Sigmund Freud: Conflict & Culture (Library of Congress Exhibition)
Freud's theories have long inspired most heated debate, and this exhibition, which examines Freud's life and his key ideas and their effect upon the twentieth century, is well worth looking at.

Sigmund Freud: Selected Bibliography
From the Sigmund Freud Museum in Vienna, a chronological list of selected publications.

The Thomas S. Szasz Cybercenter for Liberty and Responsibility
Thomas Szasz is a critic of the moral and scientific foundations of psychiatry. His article, The Myth of Mental Illness, published in the American Psychologist in 1960, set out some of the arguments with which he is most associated.

Thomas Szasz speaks (Part 1 of 2)
All In The Mind - 4 April 2009

Thomas Szasz speaks (Part 2 of 2)
All In The Mind - 11 April 2009

Thomas Szasz: psychiatrists respond
All In The Mind - 18 April 2009

The Tidal Model The Discovery of Mental Health
This model was developed by Dr Phil Barker, who was a psychiatric nurse for almost 35 years and was the UK's first Professor of Psychiatric Nursing Practice in the Department of Neuroscience and Psychiatry, at the University of Newcastle, England. He offers a (free) psychotherapy service, to individuals, families and groups and is Visiting Professor at Trinity College, Dublin Ireland and Teeside University, England and has been Assistant Editor for the Journal of Psychiatric and Mental Health Nursing for the past ten years.

Whatever Happened to Human Nature?
A collection of essays by Dr. Robert Young, Professor of Psychotherapy and Psychoanalytic Studies at the University of Sheffield, covering human nature. He brings together the fields of psychoanalysis, Darwinism, ideology and postmodernism in an attempt to understand human nature.

Writings on Mindfulness
From the Centre for Mindfulness Research and Practice, located at the University of Wales, Bangor. There is full text here for a range of documents including some theses on mindfulness.