This is the only book to provide the lay person with a 'readable' history of psychotherapy and psychoanalysis. It provides a valuable introduction to the key figures (from Freud to Beck) and explains their most important ideas. It also illustrates how psychotherapy has influenced our understanding of the mind and how it works, particularly in the area we refer to as 'mental illness'.Unlike other books available, this one explores the 'character' of major figures in psychology as well as their ideas. Links are made throughout, showing how historical and cultural events (for example, the holocaust and invention of the computer) have influenced ideas about the mind, and vice versa.
