I am a high school psychology teacher. I am looking for a list of persons who have been major contributors in the field of psychology ( hopefully with a brief bio sketch). I want to use this list for my students to choose one of the persons on which to do more indepth research. I would like for the list to include person who have written books such as I'M OK, YOU'RE OK.

-- Christie Early Wiggs (atlasallen@aol.com), November 25, 2001

Answers

Hi Christie, I think you might have some difficulty constructing such a list from this site. A lot of folks might consider I'm OK, You're OK - not representitive of the science of psychology, at best, and mis-information about psychology at worst. If you are interested in self help books, "The Authoritive Guide to Self-Help Books" by Santrock, Minnett and Campbell, The Guilford Press. Just a suggestion, you might direct an inquiry to the American Psychological Association; I think they have material that addresses high school psychology, and they should be glad to pass it along. Also, you could pick up a Psyc 101 text and get some ideas from there. Look at a developmental text that teachers and ed. psych majors use, and I think a history of psychology text would be a good bet for ideas. Good luck, David

-- david Clark (doclark@yorku.ca), November 25, 2001.

As David said above, I do not think you'll find many academic psychologists who would consider Eric Berne to be a "major contributor" to the field. His books are mostly regarded as having been closer to "pop" psychology than to psychological scholarship. That having been said, his "transactional analysis" is a kind of diluted version of Fritz Perls' "Gestalt Therapy", which is more reputable in some quarters, though not all. There is a great deal of information available in books and on the web on Gestalt Therapy and on Perls himself. Try http://www.gestalt.org/

Note, it is important not to confuse Gestalt *Therapy* with Gestalt *Theory*, which was a highly reputable scientific theory of perception and learning that was developed in the first half of the 20th century by Wertheimer, Kohler, Koffka, and others, and from which Perls adopted the name in order to lend his own program more credibility.

-- Christopher Green (cgreen@chass.utoronto.ca), November 26, 2001.

The link below provides information on APA membership for high school teachers.

http://www.apa.org/membership/teachers.html

the link below is for the Society for the Teaching of Psychology, which is APA's Division 2

http://teachpsych.lemoyne.edu

As for the biggest names in psychology, Leonard Zusne's Names in the History of Psychology (Hemisphere, 1975) provides brief biographical sketches of 526 'great psychologists.'

-- Hendrika Vande Kemp (hendrika@earthlink.net), November 27, 2001.

Christie - the high school students I myself have worked with, always showed an intense interest when introduced to the writings of R.D. Laing and Carl Jung. Also, Pierro Ferrucci just published a new book on parent-child relationships - I haven't read it yet, but knowing him, it'll be fantastic and way ahead of its time.

-- visualize me (visualizeme@webtv.net), November 27, 2001.