Christian Books

Wednesday, October 12, 2011

Freud and the Post-Freudians by J. A. C. Brown




Who might this book interest? Generally, this book would interest the educated layperson, Christian or not, who desires to know more about Freud and the psychological developments after Freud beginning with Adler, Jung, Ferenczi, and Rank, and working up to Horney, Fromm, and Sullivan. Specifically, Christians who are interested in the relationship of psychology and religion would benefit from this work. The author does discuss or mention the various theorists’ view of religion in addition to their views of humanity and psychological issues.

My Rating: 7 out of 10

Quick Summary: While I normally like to include some information about the author, finding information on J. A. C. Brown has proven a difficult endeavor. From what I could find, Brown was born in Scotland in 1911 and earned a medical degree from the University of Edinburgh. Also, he specialized in psychiatry and worked with the military, and later, with mental hospitals, and prisons. While initially holding that mental illness was a biological and individual issue, he came to view them as social problems. He died in 1964 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_A.C._Brown).

Succinctly, J. A. C. Brown provides a solid, critical examination of Freud and the Post-Freudians up until the 1950s. While this book is older (it was last revised in 1964), it still continues to give valuable insight into Freud and those who followed after him. While it provides a very useful explanation and examination of its time period, this work does not address many of the important theorists since that time such as: Carl Rogers, Albert Ellis, Aaron Beck, etc. Yet, I would suggest that this book is a very good introductory work on modern psychology.