7 books for the first acquaintance with psychology. Choice of Dmitry Leontiev

Igor Kon (1928–2011) is an outstanding Russian scientist, a man of profound erudition. He was a sociologist, philosopher, anthropologist, historian, wrote many books on sexology, developmental psychology, culture of relationships. But Cohn’s central scientific project for many years was personality theory.

In Search of Yourself is his first and main book on this subject. It is written in an accessible language and gives a broad interdisciplinary picture of the development of ideas about the individual in human culture and civilization. It covers both the history of the emergence of this phenomenon and the formation of personality in the course of individual development. No subsequent work on self-awareness has yet surpassed this book.

2. Birth to School: The Thinking Parent’s First Book

Ekaterina Patyaeva, Meaning, 2014

Prohibit or punish, let the situation take its course or insist on their own – parents face these and many other situations of choice every day.

Psychologist Ekaterina Patyaeva is convinced that, firstly, understanding the patterns of child development (which this book is largely devoted to), and secondly, the willingness to adhere to this type of upbringing, which will allow the child to become an independent person, will help to find the right approach to business.

The author talks about the features of each age stage and advises what specific steps parents need to take in a given life situation. The advantage of the book is the combination of deep scientific knowledge of the author with rich practical experience.

3. “Grandmaster of Communication: An Illustrated Guide to Psychological Mastery”

Sergey Deryabo, Vitold Yasvin, Meaning, 1996

All the main patterns of interpersonal relationships are presented in pictures and witty illustrations by Mikhail Pupin.

The book of social psychologists, doctors of psychological sciences Sergey Deryabo and Vitold Yasvin will help you better understand the interlocutor and master very useful communication skills. For example, the ability to express one’s critical opinion so that it does not offend another person. Or formulate your request in such a way as not to be refused.

One of the chapters is devoted to the art of listening to the interlocutor, since the best storyteller, as you know, is a good listener. The book went through several editions and has not lost its relevance.

4. “Man and Situation: Lessons from Social Psychology”

Lee Ross, Richard Nisbett, Aspect-Press, 1999

The best book on what influences our actions beyond our intentions and decisions. Its authors are Richard Nisbett, social psychologist, emeritus professor at the University of Michigan (USA), and Lee Ross, professor of psychology at Stanford University, USA, one of the founders of the Stanford Center for the Study of Conflict and Negotiation.

They debunk the myth that our actions are determined by the forces within us and reveal the influence of situations on our actions. In addition, the authors are convinced that it is difficult, and most often impossible, to predict a person’s behavior in a specific new situation based on observations of his actions in other situations or on the basis of knowledge about his traits.

And this position of theirs defies common sense, the habitual beliefs inherent in all of us as intuitive psychologists. The book is written in good language and is based on the rich results of the psychological research of personality in recent decades.

5. “13 dialogues about psychology”

Elena Sokolova, Meaning, 2013

Psychologist Elena Sokolova writes about the problems that scientific psychology has had and continues to deal with. In an accessible popular form, it unfolds the history of psychological science as the history of the main ideas about the human psyche from Antiquity to the present day.

Among the topics that the author considers are the problems of empirical psychology of consciousness, “objective” and activity approaches, questions of the meaning of life, a psychophysiological problem and ways to solve it… The form of the dialogues in which the material is presented helps to show different points of view on the solution of the same Problems.

6. “Saying “Yes!” to Life: A Psychologist in a Concentration Camp”

Victor Frankl, Alpina Non-Fiction, 2013

An autobiographical book with a special story. The Austrian philosopher and psychiatrist Viktor Frankl completed the book in 1945 in his homeland, where he returned after four years of Nazi concentration camps.

On the eve of the war, he completed the development of his theory of the desire for meaning as the main driving force of behavior and personality development. And in the concentration camp, this theory received an unprecedented test of life and confirmation – according to Frankl’s observations, the greatest chances of survival were not for those who were distinguished by good health, but for those who were distinguished by a strong spirit and motivation.

The book was published in millions of copies, translated into 30 languages, the greatest thinkers of the XNUMXth century called it one of the most important documents of the human spirit.

7. “To have” or “to be”

Erich Fromm, Neoclassic, 2015

One of the most famous books of the outstanding thinker of the XNUMXth century, in which he diagnoses Western society: the desire for possession has replaced the desire for being in it. Possession and being are seen as two alternative (but not equivalent) strategies of life.

The very question “to have or to be” is rhetorical for Fromm: as he convincingly shows, the desire to possess emasculates the main content of the multicolored process of human life and mortifies the personality.

But in general, I would recommend reading all the books of Erich Fromm. He understood better than anyone all the dilemmas and alternatives of a person sandwiched between biological programs, social pressures and the possibility of free self-determination.