Vladimir Mikhailovitch Bekhterev was a pioneering Russian neurologist, psychiatrist, and psychologist. A highly esteemed rival of Ivan Pavlov, his achievements in the areas of personality, clinical psychology, and political and social psychology were recognized and acclaimed throughout the world. Publication of the complete text of Collective Reflexology brings to the English-speaking world this brilliant scientist's final theoretical statements on how reflexological principles, which he had been developing over a quarter century, can be extended far beyond analysis of the individual personality. Bekhterev's work grows out of his interest in group psychology and suggestion. This concept of the reflex is much broader than Pavlov's. It is applicable to every variety of life. Bekhterev compared his own analyses to those of other European thinkers such as Comte, LeBon, and Sorokin. Such analyses strained against the official Marxist-Leninist doctrines of the era. Bekhterev died in 1927, allegedly of poisoning by Stalin's henchman. As with many scientists during the Soviet era, his legacy was suppressed. In the normal course of events his name would have been as well known as that of Freud, Pavlov or, more lately, B.F. Skinner. This first publication of Bekhterev's great work in English fills a void in the fields of psychology, sociology, and the history of science. V.M. Bekhterev was director of the Military Medical Academy in St. Petersburg and founded there its Psychoneurological Institute. Among his many books are Suggestion: Its Role in Social Life (available from Transaction) and The Subject Matter and Goals of Social Psychology. Lloyd H. Strickland is professor of psychology at Carleton University. He is the author of numerous journal articles and editor of Directions in Soviet Social Psychology and Soviet and Western Perspectives in Social Psychology. "Bekhterev (1857-1927) is a formidable figure, and his work continues to deserve careful study."-Canadian Psychology

V M Bekhterev's Collective Reflexology Part 1

"Individuals who live in groups hold common beliefs which define their reality, not only as persons, but also as group members. This reality becomes especially important when group members become aware that they share beliefs and are convinced that these beliefs characterize them as a group. In this case common beliefs become group beliefs." With this statement, Dr. Bar-Tal begins his far-reaching analysis of beliefs as a group phenomenon. Group beliefs are shown to have important behavioral, cognitive, and affective implications for group members and the group as a whole. They may contribute to the behavioral direction a group takes, coordinate group activities, determine the intensity and involvement of group members, and influence the way group members affect the leaders. This book introduces and articulates the implications of a new concept of group beliefs, shedding new light on the structure and processes of groups, focusing on such phenomena as group formation, subgrouping, splits, mergence and group disintegration. By taking an interdisciplinary approach, this integrative conception opens new avenues to the study and understanding of group behavior.

Sex in Public examines the ideological poetics and the rhetoric of power in the Soviet Union during the 1920s, a period of anxiety over the historical legitimacy of Soviet ideology and Bolshevik power. Drawing on a wide range of soruces—Party Congress transcripts, the classics of early Soviet literature, sex education pamphlets, the cinema, crime reports, and early Soviet ventures into popular science—the author seeks to explain the period's preoccupation with crime, disease, and, especially, sex. Using strategies of reading developed by literary scholars, he devotes special care to exploring the role of narrative in authoritative political texts. The book breaks new ground in its attention to the ideological importance of the female body during this important formative stage of Bolshevik rule. Sex in Public provides a fundamentally new history of the New Economic Policy and offers important revisionist readings of many of the fundamental cultural products of the early Soviet period. Perhaps most important, it serves as a model for the sort of interdisciplinary work that is possible when historians take literary and ideology theory seriously and when ideology theorists seek to conform to the standards of documentary rigor traditionally demanded by historians. It thus becomes a study that can be read as both positivistic and postmodern. Eric Naiman is Associate Professor of Russian and Comparative Literature at the University of California, Berkeley. Originally published in 1997. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Vladimir Mikhailovitch Bekhterev was a pioneering Russian neurologist, psychiatrist, and psychologist. A highly esteemed rival of Ivan Pavlov, his achievements in the areas of personality, clinical psychology, and political and social psychology were recognized and acclaimed throughout the world. However, when his version of reflexological doctrine ran afoul of official Soviet ideology in the 1920s his work was banned and his influence suppressed through the dispersal of his many colleagues and disciples. Bekhterev himself died in 1927 under mysterious circumstances. This translation of Suggestion and Its Role in Social Life is a significant instance of intellectual and cultural restoration. It marks a starting point of Bekhterev's lifelong endeavor to relate his clinical observations and philosophy of science to problems of the social world. Bekhterev's investigation reviews and explains the many conflicting positions in the social and scientific thought concerning the nature and power of suggestion. He takes pains to differentiate the process from persuasion and hypnosis, and discusses suggestion and autosuggestion in the waking state, examining their effectiveness on feeling, thought, and behavior. He then discusses the destructive consequences of the process—violent crime, suicide, witchcraft, and devil-possession hysteria— in a wide variety of contexts important in the Russia, Europe and North America of the period. Bekhterev presents a structural model of the mind, including both conscious and unconscious realms, and the phenomena of suggestion without awareness; in doing so he anticipated much present-day work on preconscious influence. Suggestion and Its Role in Social Life is a landmark study in collective psychological research that may lead to revisions in histories of social psychology. It will be read by psychologists, sociologists, and social historians.

Offering a fresh, accessible, and global approach to the history of psychology, the fully revised Second Edition of Eric B. Shiraev’s A History of Psychology: A Global Perspective, provides a thorough view of psychology’s progressive and evolving role in society and how its interaction with culture has developed throughout history, from ancient times through the Middle Ages and the modern period to the current millennium. Taking an inclusive approach, the text addresses contemporary and classic themes and theories with discussion of psychology′s development in cultures and countries all too often neglected in overviews of the field. High-interest topics, including the validity of psychological knowledge and volunteerism, offer readers the opportunity to apply the history of psychology to their own lives.