Masters of the Mind: Exploring the Story of Mental Illness from Ancient Times to the New Millennium
This book is a comprehensive survey of theories about the workings of our minds. Theodore Millon, a well-respected psychologist and prolific writer, has divided his enterprise into seven kinds of "stories": philosophical, humanitarian, neuroscientific, psychoanalytic, psychoscientific, sociocultural, and "personologic." He covers the history of each subject area, often beginning with ancient Greece or Egypt, and writes with an encyclopedic knowledge of all subsequent time periods. These histories are followed by his commentary and reflections. A striking feature of the book, as suggested by the title, is the inclusion of capsule biographies of the many people who have contributed to this field. Nearly 90 portraits, drawn by Millon or his daughter, accompany the biographies. Millon knows many contemporary experts in psychology, and his descriptions of most of them are often personal and highly complimentary. These descriptions, along with the portraits, make the book pleasant and accessible. Millon's steadily cheerful tone is tempered by his gloom in the last few pages, which concern the post-9/11 world. Millon's professional interests lie in the area of the taxonomy of personality disorders, and studies of personality take up a fair amount of this book. He also describes multiple schools of psychotherapy. Readers with a medical background may be disappointed that there is relatively little information about the disorders of the mind that occupy so much clinical time, such as substance abuse and dementia. Perhaps this lack reflects the relative youth of these fields. Readers familiar with the fields covered in this survey will not find anything particularly controversial or provocative. The breadth of the book does not allow Millon to go into detail on any topic, and he is too generous and appreciative a scholar to stir up controversy by deriding anyone's theories. His division of the subject into seven rather arbitrarily defined areas and his historical coverage of each topic mean that there is a certain amount of repetition. Who are the "masters of the mind"? At the risk of being invidious, but to help clarify the scope of this book and Millon's interests, here is a rough count of who merits the most pages or references in the index: Sigmund Freud is far ahead of the pack; following him, in chronological order, are Hippocrates, Philippe Pinel, Charles Darwin, Ivan Pavlov, Emil Kraepelin, Alfred Adler, Carl Jung, and Carl Rogers. Are we making much progress in understanding ourselves? What determines our behavior -- genetics, learning, or experience? How do these various factors interact? People interested in a warm and remarkably well informed historical discussion of these questions will enjoy this book.Frances R. Frankenburg, M.D.Copyright © 2005 Massachusetts Medical Society. All rights reserved. The New England Journal of Medicine is a registered trademark of the MMS.