Rethinking Psychology

by Jonathan A. Smith (Editor), Rom Harré (Editor), Luk van Langenhove (Editor)

In recent years, a range of perspectives across psychology have challenged the experimental, positivist and cognitivist orientation that has dominated the field for so long. This critique of the mainstream has come out of a broad spectrum of theoretical influences, from phenomenology and symbolic interactionism to cultural and feminist approaches, and also takes in the new emphasis on discourse. Rethinking Psychology overviews these developments. The outstanding international contributors have produced a coherent and wide-ranging guide to the key strands of theory, showing how they feed into the debate about the creation of a new psychology.

Genres: Psychology

256 pages, Hardcover

First published November 13, 1995

About the author

Jonathan Alan Smith is a psychologist currently based at Birkbeck, University of London. He has been very prominent in promoting qualitative research within social psychology and health psychology. In particular, he has developed and promoted a particular approach known as interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA).

Smith achieved a DPhil in Psychology from the University of Oxford and then held lectureships at Keele and Sheffield Universities. He has at least 160 publications to his name.