Dalrymple presents this book for the layperson on disturbing psychological research that questions the ability of any consistent morality to be applied within persons, between persons, or at the social level, as well as the equal tendency for psychological findings to be used as moral excuses. The book takes a history of psychology approach at first, moving from intuitive conceptions of introspective knowledge to the traditions of Freudian psychoanalysis, behaviorism, and neuropsychological inference from studies of accidental brain damage. The middle of the book examines how modern psychology impacts the court system, popular exhortations to positive thinking and self-esteem, and the growing psychosocial model emphasizing integrated sociological understanding of individual pathology--particularly focusing on the current discourse on addiction as brain disease. The author ends by stressing how a physical science of psychology, interpreted in a certain way, gives troubling license for individuals to absolve themselves of responsibilities for problems in which, in fact, individual effort is a key component of recovery. Annotation ©2015 Ringgold, Inc., Portland, OR (protoview.com) - (Book News)
<div>In <I>Admirable Evasions</I>, Theodore Dalrymple explains why human self-understanding has not been bettered by the false promises of the different schools of psychological thought. Most psychological explanations of human behavior are not only ludicrously inadequate oversimplifications, argues Dalrymple, they are socially harmful in that they allow those who believe in them to evade personal responsibility for their actions and to put the blame on a multitude of scapegoats: on their childhood, their genes, their neurochemistry, even on evolutionary pressures.<BR><BR>Dalrymple reveals how the fashionable schools of psychoanalysis, behaviorism, modern neuroscience, and evolutionary psychology all prevent the kind of honest self-examination that is necessary to the formation of human character. Instead, they promote self-obsession without self-examination, and the gross overuse of medicines that affect the mind.<BR><BR><I>Admirable Evasions</I> also considers metaphysical objections to the assumptions of psychology, and suggests that literature is a far more illuminating window into the human condition than psychology could ever hope to be.<BR></div> - (Perseus Publishing)