PSYCHOLOGY FOR CONTEMPORARY LIVING

The publishers list this as a ""comprehensive view of modern psychology,"" and certainly it is comprehensive insofar as the author relentlessly bangs away at the main concerns of applied psychology. Part I deals with the individual--motivation, development, personality, life cycle. Part II takes on the individual and society--group, social structures and cultures. Part III presents psychology in education, guidance, industry, politics, etc. In a wind-up sternly punctuated with italicized terms of reference, the author pleads for constructive behavior as the end product of guidelines gleaned from psychological knowledge. Self-realization in creative dedication to others; releasing our best potentials is the goal. Dr. Buhler throughout takes cognizance of the main schools of theory from Freud to the existentialists, but somehow--having been pulverized by the oversimplifying attempt to prepackage this for the layman--the immediacy and the pertinence is lost, in spite of the case histories. This is translated from the German.