Psychology as Metaphor

The view that the study of rhetoric and metaphor is crucial to understanding psychological discourse is explored in this lucidly argued book. The author scrutinizes a wide range of traditional psychological theory including neuropsychology and memory, childhood development, the IQ debate, accounts of emotion and descriptions of the mind to show how rhetorical strategies and the deployment of metaphor are central to the work of creating a convincing theoretical account.

The book explores the distinction between philosophy and rhetoric and offers an interdisciplinary analysis of theories of metaphor and language while pointing to future directions for research. Its theoretical breadth is matched by its wide-ranging treatment of key thinkers from Darwin, James and Freud, through Watson, Lashley, Piaget, Vygotsky, Skinner and Burt to writers in contemporary psychology such as Kamin, Eysenck, Rumelhart and Shallice.