Selfless is a memoir, reflecting on identity, social class, mobility, education, and on psychology itself; how psychology as a discipline is conducted, how it prioritises objects of study, how it uncovers psychological truths about the world.
Geoffrey Beattie takes the reader on a journey through his early life in working-class Belfast, his Ph.D. at Trinity College Cambridge and subsequent academic and professional career, to explore fundamental issues within psychology about social class and social identity. Beattie discusses the difficulties inherent in this process of education and change, and how social background affects how you view academic work and the subject matter of one’s discipline. This book movingly details a life and how it is changed by the processes of education, the psychological pressures when abandoning those close to you, the dissonance within and how it feels and operates. The book takes a critical look at psychology from the other side, and examines the process of becoming ‘selfless’, meaning having little sense of self rather than being overly concerned with the wishes and needs of others.
Showing how our early experiences and their influence continues throughout life, Beattie’s emotionally engaging, entertaining, and witty text offers general readers, students, and academics fresh insights into psychology, adaptation and personal change.
- ISBN10 0367614839
- ISBN13 9780367614836
- Publish Date 30 December 2020 (first published 29 December 2020)
- Publish Status Active
- Publish Country GB
- Publisher Taylor & Francis Ltd
- Imprint Routledge
- Format Paperback
- Pages 234
- Language English