How Southerners thought about the mind and its ills before psychology -- The promise of the child and the limits of progress -- The troubled personalities of the South -- In the Southern borderland of mind and soul -- The short life of Southern psychology
Summary
In the American South at the turn of the twentieth century, the legal segregation of the races and psychological sciences focused on selfhood emerged simultaneously. The two developments presented conflicting views of human nature. American psychiatry and psychology were optimistic about personality growth guided by the new mental sciences. Segregation, in contrast, placed racial traits said to be natural and fixed at the forefront of identity. In a society built on racial differences, raising questions about human potential, as psychology did, was unsettling. The introduction of psychological
Bibliography
Includes bibliographical references (pages 189-286) and index