Performing Psychology: A Postmodern Culture of the Mind

by Holzman,Lois; Holzman,Lois

• ISBN13: 9780415922050
• ISBN10: 0415922054
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Nonspecific Binding
• Copyright: 1999-05-04
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

Performing Psychologyconsists of essays and stage plays by and about Fred Newman, the controversial American philosopher, psychotherapist, playwright and political activist for whom psychology, social action, human development and performance are one. The reader is invited into dialogues currently taking place among psychologists, philosophers, artists, and community activists on such topics as: the nature of human subjectivity; the relationship of theater to human development; the status of traditional science in a postmodern world; the process of therapy and diagnosis; and the re-initiation of creativity and growth. Arguing that both psychological activity and its study are essentially performance, Newman and his colleagues expose the myths of mainstream psychology and the limitations of its postmodern challengers. More than an academic critique,Performing Psychologyoffers a new methodology for understanding human life.

Table of Contents

Foreword	p. 1
Introduction	p. 5
Life Upon the Wicked Stage	p. 33
Life As Performance (Can You Practice Psychology If There's Nothing That's "Really" Going On?)	p. 49
Diagnosis: The Human Cost of the Rage to Order	p. 73
Beyond Narrative to Performed Conversation ("In the Beginning" Comes Much Later)	p. 87
A Therapeutic Deconstruction of the Illusion of Self	p. 111
Science Can Do Better than Sokal: A Commentary on the So-called Science Wars	p. 133
The Story of Truth (A Whodunit) or Philosophie dans la Theatre	p. 143
Twenty-Two Weeks of Pointless Conversation	p. 157
What Is to Be Dead? (Philosophical Scenes)	p. 197
Contributors	p. 225
Index	p. 227
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