Maps of the Mind: Charts and Concepts of the Mind and Its Labyrinths [Hardcover]

Charles Hampden-Turner (Author)

Product Details

• Hardcover: 224 pages
• Publisher: Scribner; First edition. edition (January 1, 1981)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0025477404
• ISBN-13: 978-0025477407
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.8 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #454,038 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A brilliant condensation of various theories of the mind., August 28, 1998

By 

BBlair (Washington State) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Maps of the Mind: Charts and Concepts of the Mind and its Labyrinths (Paperback)

Maps of the Mind is an excellent review volume that integrates and condenses many different perspectives concerning the nature of the human mind. Using the metaphor of a map, the author organizes the work of several prestigious authors and theorists into 9 different levels, from the mechanistic and physiological to the paradigmatic and mythological. Probing, entertaining, and thought provoking, Maps of the Mind will provide you with a sophisticated and breathtaking vista on the intricacies of the human psyche.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Contents:, April 3, 2004

By 

Judy Smith "judylynnsbooks" (jamestown, ky United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Maps of the Mind: Charts and Concepts of the Mind and Its Labyrinths (Hardcover)

This book, essentially collates, combines, and compares theories of how the human mind works, finding parallels, offering interpretations, and finding intersections of ideas. Beginning with historical and religious ideas, it differentiates among more than 50 main concepts including those of Freud, Jung, Fromm, Marx, Erikson, Piaget, Maslow, Russell, Buber, Chomsky, and Marcuse. It's an amazing trip through explanations of "us," and serves as an introduction to concepts of cybernetics and feedback in mental and information systems.

10 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Great Mind at Work, April 23, 2005

By 

Herbert L Calhoun "paulocal" (Falls Church, VA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Maps of the Mind: Charts and Concepts of the Mind and Its Labyrinths (Hardcover)

This book is the best example of a fine mind at work that I know of. Although I first read it in the 1980s, it still is current and continues to convey complex and timeless knowledge about the mind in an understandable, non-polemic, yet in an eclectic and fresh way.

The volume is dense but segmented into bite-sized frames with diagrams and pictures that intentionally take the content out into the third dimension and makes it less formidable. And although it is segmented into bite-sized frames, the reader's appetite for learning about the concepts of psychology -- from Gregory Bateson, Freud, Rollo May to Ernest Becker and Otto Rank -- will be more than satisfied.

The leitmotif of the volume is the idea of connectedness. There are three messages: Humanity is about wholeness; survival of the planet is about wholeness; and living a rich and full life is about self-knowledge and wholeness.

It covers the waterfront of what we knew about human psychology and the mind up to the 1980s. And although the frontiers of psychology have moved ahead somewhat, the book was so far ahead of its times that even 25 years later it remains fresh and current.

It is an academic tour de force that leaves a deep impression on the reader and is a book that has been an invaluable companion to me in my writings. Ten stars.