This Article Abstract Free Full Text (Free PDF) Free Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Similar articles in ISI Web of Science Alert me to new issues of the journal Add to Saved Citations Download to citation manager Request Permissions Request Reprints Add to My Marked Citations Citing Articles Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Articles by Mills, J. A. Search for Related Content Social Bookmarking                   What's this?

Literary Realism and Psychology

A Response to Moghaddam’s Proposal

University of Saskatchewan

Moghaddam has suggested that psychologists could profit from the study of fiction. Although agreeing with Moghaddam in general, I feel it necessary to specify, fairly closely, the type of fiction which might be susceptible to psychological analysis. I choose literary realism, as defined by Wellek, as a possible area for fruitful analysis. Having discounted the difficulties possibly besetting such an analysis, I give some examples of the ways in which the study of the works of those working in the literary realist tradition could enlarge and enhance our understanding of psychological processes. Ultimately, however, I conclude that, in order to benefit fully from such a study, psychology would have to undergo a conceptual transformation since the two areas into which, ostensibly, literary knowledge could be incorporated (personality theory and the practice and theory of psychotherapy) are not constituted in such a way that such incorporation is possible.

Key Words: fiction • literary realism • personality • psychology • psychotherapy

References

• Alter, R., in collaboration with Cosman, C. (1979). Stendhal: A biography. London: Allen & Unwin .
• Alter, R. (1982). The art of biblical narrative. London: Allen & Unwin .
• Aveline, M. (1996). The training and supervision of individual therapists. In W. Dryden (Ed.), Handbook of individual therapy (pp. 365-394). London: Sage .
• Barlow, D. H. (Ed.). (2001). Clinical handbook of psychological disorders (3rd ed.). New York: Guilford .
• Binding, P. (2004, 17 September). Friends in the north . Times Literary Supplement, pp. 14-15 .
• Bloom, H. (1994). The Western canon: The books and school of the ages. New York: Harcourt Brace .
• Brown, T. A., O’Leary, T. A., & Barlow, D. H. (2001). Generalized anxiety disorder. In D. H. Barlow (Ed.), Clinical handbook of psychological disorders (pp. 154-208). New York: Guilford .
• Buie, D. H., & Adler, G. A. (1982). Definitive treatment of the borderline personality . International Journal of Psychoanalytic Therapy, 9, 51-87 .
• Burnham, W. H. (1924). The normal mind: An introduction to mental hygiene and the hygiene of school instruction. New York: Appleton .
• Calvino, I. (1981). If on a winter’s night a traveler (W. Weaver, Trans.). Toronto: Lestern & Orpen Dennys . (Original work published 1979.)
• Chamberlain, L. (2000). The secret artist: A close reading of Sigmund Freud. London: Seven Stories Press .
• Danziger, K. (1990). Constructing the subject: Historical origins of psychological research. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press .
• Danziger, K. (1997). Naming the mind: How psychology found its language. London: Sage .
• de Rivera, J., & Sarbin, T. R. (1998). Believed in imaginings: The narrative construction of reality. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association .
• Eliot, G. (2000). Daniel Deronda. New York: Knopf . (Original work published 1874-1876.)
• Flaubert, G. (1978). Madame Bovary (J. Lewis May, Trans.). Norwalk, CT: Easton Press . (Original work published 1857.)
• Gillies, L. A. (2001). Inter-personal therapy for depression and other disorders. In D. H. Barlow (Ed.), Clinical handbook of psychological disorders (3rd ed., pp. 309-331). New York: Guilford .
• Heaney, S. (Trans.). (2000). Beowulf: A new verse translation. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux .
• Jacobson, D. (2005). All for love. London: Hamish Hamilton .
• James, H. (1970). The art of fiction. In Partial portraits (pp. 375-408). Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press . (Original work published 1884.)
• Kottler, J. A. (1993). On being a therapist (rev. ed.). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass .
• Levin, H. (1963). The gates of horn: A study of five French realists. New York: Oxford University Press .
• Luhrmann, T. M. (2000). Of two minds: The growing disorder in American psychiatry. New York: Knopf .
• Mankell, H. (2003). The return of the dancing master (L. Thompson, Trans.). New York: Vintage . (Original work published in 2000.)
• McEwan, I. (2005a). Saturday. Toronto: Knopf .
• McEwan, I. (2005b). Interview with Charlie Rose. Public Broadcasting System, Boston .
• Mills, J. A. (1992). Operationism, scientism, and the rhetoric of power. In C. W. Tolman (Ed.), Positivism in psychology: Historical and contemporary problems (pp. 67-82). New York: Springer-Verlag .
• Mills, J. A. (1998). Control: A history of behavioral psychology. New York: New York University Press .
• Moghaddam, F. M. (2004). From ‘psychology in literature’ to ‘psychology is literature’: An exploration of boundaries and relationships . Theory & Psychology, 14, 505-525 .[Abstract]
• Rankin, I. (2004). A question of blood. London: Orion .
• Ricoeur, P. (1981). Hermeneutics and the human sciences (J. B. Thompson, Trans. and Ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press .
• Ricoeur, P. (2005). Memory, history, forgetting. (K. Blamey & D. Pellauer, Trans.). Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press .
• Sabo, A. N. (2000). Psychotherapy at the start of a new century. In A. N. Sabo & L. Havens (Eds.), The real world guide to psychotherapy practice (pp. 1-16). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press .
• Sarbin, T. R. (Ed.). (1986a). The storied nature of human conduct. New York: Praeger .
• Sarbin, T. R. (1986b). The narrative as a root metaphor for psychology. In T. R. Sarbin (Ed.), The storied nature of human conduct (pp. 3-21). New York: Praeger .
• Shea, C.M. (1980). The ideology of mental health and the emergence of the therapeutic liberal state. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
• Simpson, H. (2004, 24 December). Times Literary Supplement, p. 7-7 .Wives for sale: A review of W. Greenslade (Ed.), Thomas Hardy’s ‘facts’ notebook: A critical edition. London: Ashgate .
• Stendhal. (1950). Lucien Leuwen (L. Varèse, Trans.). New York: New Directions .
• Stendhal. (1964). La chartreuse de Parme (M. Crouzet, Ed.). Paris: Garnier/Flammarion. (Original work published 1839.)
• Stendhal. (1972). Le rouge et le noir: Chronique du XIXe sièle (B. Didier, Ed.). Paris: Gallimard. (Original work published 1827.)
• Storr, A. (1990). The art of psychotherapy (2nd ed.). London: Heinemann .
• Trevor, W. (1971). Miss Gomez and the brethren. London: Penguin
• Trevor, W. (1992). My house in Umbria. In Two lives (pp. 223-375). London: Penguin .
• Wellek, R. (1963). Concepts of criticism (S. G. Nichols, Ed.). Hew Haven, CT: Yale University Press .
• Wellek, R. (1973). Realism in literature. In P. P. Wiener (Ed.), Dictionary of the history of ideas: Studies of selected pivotal ideas (Vol. III, pp. 51-56). New York: Scribner’s .
• Williams, R. (1971). The English novel from Dickens to Lawrence. London: Chatto & Windus .

CiteULike

Connotea

Del.icio.us

Digg

Reddit

Technorati

This Article Abstract Free Full Text (Free PDF) Free Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Similar articles in ISI Web of Science Alert me to new issues of the journal Add to Saved Citations Download to citation manager Request Permissions Request Reprints Add to My Marked Citations Citing Articles Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Articles by Mills, J. A. Search for Related Content Social Bookmarking                   What's this?