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मनात

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Introduction to psychology in an interesting way....

590 pages, Hardcover

First published January 28, 2012

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Displaying 1 - 30 of 31 reviews
Profile Image for Guttu.
182 reviews36 followers
July 5, 2020
मानसशास्त्र हा असा विषय आहे ज्याच्यावर एवढी वर्षे दुर्लक्ष होत होते. पण जसजसा काळ बदलला, जीवनशैली बदलली तसे याला महत्त्व मिळत गेले. मला मानसशास्त्राविषयी खूपच ओढ. लोकांच्या नकळत त्यांचे बोलणे, त्यांचे हावभाव यांचे निरीक्षण करत असतो. एवढं असूनही या विषयावर कधी वाचन केले नाही.

मनात हे पुस्तक सामान्य माणसाला मानसशास्त्राची माहिती देण्यासाठी लिहिले गेले. मानसशास्त्राचे वेगवेगळे पैलू यात मांडले आहेत. भाषा रंजक ठेवण्याचा लेखकाने अत्यंत प्रामाणिक प्रयत्न केला आहे. पण सुरुवातीच्या काही प्रकरणानंतर तोचतोचपणा जाणवतो. प्रत्येक प्रकरण एकाच साच्यात घालून तयार केले आहे असे वाटते. मधल्या पानांत तर मानसशास्त्र सोडून मानसशास्त्रज्ञांच्या जीवनाविषयी जास्त पाने खर्च केली आहेत. यामुळे सुरुवातीला आपले लक्ष वेधून घेणारे हे पुस्तक नंतर नंतर कंटाळवाणे होऊ लागते. असे असूनही या पुस्तकात मानसशास्त्राविषयी प्रचंड माहिती दिली आहे. जवळपास या विषयाचा संपूर्ण इतिहास संक्षिप्त स्वरूपात मांडला आहे.

ज्यांना मानसशास्त्राची आवड आहे त्यांच्यासाठी हे पुस्तक एक पर्वणीच. बाकीच्यांना हे कंटाळवाणे वाटण्याची संभावना आहे. वाचायचं ठरवलंच तर हळूहळू वाचा. कारण यात घेण्यासारखे खूप काही आहे.
Profile Image for Devi Keluskar.
50 reviews4 followers
March 14, 2023
सर्वांनी आवर्जून वाचावे असेच हे पुस्तक आहे. तुमचे आवडते genre नसले तरी ज्ञान वाढवण्यासाठी हे पुस्तक प्रत्येकाने वाचावे.
Psychology हे फिल्ड खूप मोठं, खोल आणि किचकट आहे. पण लेखकाने ह्या पुस्तकात गोष्टीरूपी आणि विविध उदाहरणं देऊन ते इतक छान सोप्या भाषेत लिहला आहे की psychology चा background नसणाऱ्या किंवा एकदम नवीन असणाऱ्या माणसाला पण मानसशास्त्र नीट कळेल. पुस्तकात psychologist, mental disorders व therapy techniques ह्या बद्दल माहिती दिली आहे.
मी counselling, mental disorders , special children ह्यांना अगदी जवळून बघितला आहे आणि हाताळले पण आहे. त्यापैकी 99% लोकांना मानसशास्त्र हा काय प्रकार आहे हेच माहीत नसायचा आणि ते सोप्प्या पद्धतीत समजावणे पण कठीणच. त्यामुळे मला हे पुस्तक अजून सुंदर वाटलं कारण सामान्य माणसाला जर psychology काय हे समजावून द्यायचा असेल तर लेखकाने जी शैली वापरली आहे ती वापरता अली तर उत्तमच. प्रत्येकाने जरूर वाचावे असे.
Profile Image for Pradnya.
325 reviews106 followers
March 13, 2018
Every field of science has vast history of centuries efforts taken by several people. The journey is colossal. And so is this book. It's an interesting journey of how psychology is evolved as a science. From the times when the heart was believed as the think-tank and no one paid attention to the brains as a master of body, when the mental disorders were considered as a curse from previous life and were dealer brutally to the era of emotional quotient, the author takes us to the every significant achievement in the field.

The book starts with interesting prologue where author talks of his encounters with psychology and the making of Alfred Hitchcock's movie, psycho. While studying technology in IIT Mumbai he met many artists, singers, read a lots of books and held discussions with a group of other distinguished colleges. Frantz Fanon's question "if the people in colonies are treated with very inhuman, cruel ways and like that of animals then on what basis laws and ethics are applied to them?” - was something that set my expectations. He muses about the cruelty of Nazi soldiers and how they were under their superiors' orders. The Obedience theory psychologist proved later on.

The seeds of psychology are found in all three early civilizations. Hippocrates, Democrates, Socrates, Plato covered some theories about how human think and feel. Some of the theories (Like Plato's belief that feelings traverse through blood vessels, or Aristotle's concept of heart as a center of feelings) are ruled out. However the concept of storing memories in brains, or Hippocrates's argument of mind being master of feelings and all actions did actually proved with time. Vedant, and Buddha also talked about human mind and its nature. However it took 18th century to realize that any mental disorder is not a fault or sin of the patient but a disease and it can be treated. Earlier the mental hospitals did not exist and the patients were kept in prisons where they were treated with contempt and cruelty.
Then came Phrenology (to measure intelligence shape and size of skull) and after a few years dismissed due to lack of any proof between intelligence and the structure of skull. Meanwhile medical science took over and surgeons like Wernike and Broka discovered the centers of speech production and comprehension. There's a very interesting story about Broka. He was humanitarian and active in social welfare. He founded a group named Free thinkers which scared the French government. They believed that like Socrates, he was misguiding youngsters and hence the police started spying on him and attended all his lectures on Mythology, physiology, medical science, psychology. Once the police got bored and asked him permission to go out and requested him not to give provocative lectures meanwhile. Broka, in turn, chided them to do their duty!

The author thus talks of interesting hypnotism, psychoanalysis, behaviorism theory, Gestalt (mind and body coordination) theory, development psychology, and humanistic theory. With every step, he not only describes the evolution, studies, experiments but also gives the generous details of eccentricity of the each psychologist, their life, struggles and impact on the future development. The experiments were also quite weird. In one case they built a prison in Stanford university and found 24 volunteers. It was supposed to be carried out for 15 days but mere four days people were found behaving like in real prison, the guards dominant and bullying, the prisoners full of guilt and submissive. Everyone was shocked by the results and the experiment was called off on sixth day. Victor Frankel's ( Writer of man's search for meaning) being caught by Nazis and his story of counseling in the death camps is very moving.
Then there are Bystander Effect, social loafing ( Everybody's work is nobody's work), obedience, mass hysteria (witch burning in 16th century) and bandwagon effect, Henz's dilemma of ethics, Maslow's hierarchy of needs, learned helplessness, and conditioning.

The book also gives the simplified account of the complexity of neurons, Dendrites, and synapse and their function to accumulate, store, spread thoughts. Though it is academic part it's no less interesting than the case studies and psychology experiments. There's also history of IQ and its part in world war decisions, how intelligence and idiot savant differ, importance of emotional quotient and social and ecological intelligence. How a book on psychology can be complete without talking of feelings? The scientists tried to measure the intensity of feelings by monitoring body reactions. How the memories are stored, amnesia, different states of sleep in humans, dreams, language and the unsuccessful results of teaching a chimpanzee to speak, illusion, vision and perception of depth and movement in man and animals. Talking of amnesia, there's story of Agatha Christie being disappeared for a few days and found after a frantic search in a hotel living under the false identity. She was said to be under attack of amnesia.

There's a separate section about personality tests. The basic and evolved human traits, especially the Issac's traits, and the transactional analysis (Parent - Adult - Child). Eric bern, the father of transactional analysis stated the theory that every human being goes through the parent adult child roles while dealing with others and though they change the roles, there's a dominant role in each person.

Many creative geniuses were found to be neurotic and few of them even committed suicide. It includes stories of Robert Schumann, Virginia Woolf, Van Gogh. Including Sylvia Plath and Hemingway in the list, I am sure we have lost a many budding artist with huge potential to this trap of depression and such disorders. While reading story of John Nash, I was moved even though I was familiar with the story.

The mental disorders like schizophrenia, depression, OCD, phobias, anxiety and stress.
There's a personal story about the author's son who was diagnosed with autism and how he struggled to accept it and then take initiative to open first autist school in india.
The book ends with an impressive epilogue stating how materialism and modern lifestyle is impacting human mind and pushing us towards the dark caves of mental disorders. There's statistics of suicide, people with mental disorders, and projections which is scary.

Throughout the book there are references to the books, right from 1984 or Brave new world to Freuds's essays, Fear of freedom, I'm ok - you're ok, The sane society and a lot like that. I have created a separate shelf named AGs recommendation on goodread for them.
Also I got some movies recommendations including Blow hot blow cold, psycho, the castaway, Girl intercepted, the hours, rain man,sweethearts.
It includes all the major contributors and I cannot keep track of all of them but few of them were writers and now I've a bit elongated "to-read" list.
It's one of those books that make some change in our daily lives and is entertaining all the same.
30 reviews
April 13, 2023
One of the most fascinating books about Psychology, Psychologists and the development of this field. 10/10 Would recommend even if Psychology isn't one of your major subjects
Achyut Godbole's books are a treasure trove for any inquisitive mind who delves into Marathi reading
Profile Image for In.
157 reviews1 follower
April 16, 2019
अच्युत गोडबोलेंच मनात हे पुस्तक अगदी प्रत्येकाने नक्की वाचावं असं आहे. मोठं आहे, जड आहे पण तरीही उत्कंठावर्धक आहे. मानसशास्त्राच्या उगमापासून आत्तापर्यंतचा संपूर्ण प्रवास लेखकाने तपशीलात मांडलेला आहे. फ्रॉइड पासून एरिक फ्रॉम पर्यंत अनेक मानसशास्त्रज्ञांची ओळख, त्यांच्या कार्याची ओळख ह्या पुस्तकातून होते.

अनेकदा आपल्याला काही विषयांबद्दल कुतूहल असतं आणि अश्या विषयांची व्याप्ती प्रचंडच असल्याने कुठे सुरुवात करावी हा प्रश्न भेडसावत राहतो. आपसूकच इच्छा असूनही त्या वाटेला जाता येत नाही. मानसशास्त्राबद्दल असं कुतुहूल असणाऱ्यांसाठी हे पुस्तक नक्कीच एक योग्य सुरुवात ठरेल यात शंका नाही.

आजकाल आपल्याला एखाद्या पुस्तकातून काय मिळेल हा पहिला प्रश्न पडतो. त्यातून ते ५००+ पानांचं, नॉन फिक्शन प्रकारचं पुस्तक असेल तर तेवढा वेळ खर्च करावा का हा अजून एक प्रश्न. असा प्रश्न पडला असेल तर माझ्या मते पुस्तक घेऊन प्रथम त्यातील समारोपाचा भाग वाचावा. एका दीर्घ निबंधातून संपूर्ण पुस्तका���ी गरज समजायला नक्कीच मदत होईल. त्या नंतर अखेरचीच काही प्रकरणं वाचून आजच्या मानसशास्त्रातल्या आणि समाजस्वास्थ्यातल्या अनेक गोष्टींची जाणीव होईल. आणि त्यानंतर तुम्हाला कुतूहल वाटलंच तर मात्र सुरुवातीपासून हे पुस्तक नक्की वाचाव.

अनेक पुस्तकांचे संदर्भ घेऊन, वेगवेगळ्या शाखांचा अभ्यास करून लेखकाने पुस्तक परिपूर्ण करण्याचा प्रयत्न केला आहे. त्याच बरोबर, ह्या ज्ञानशाखेतील काहीही माहिती नसणाऱ्यांसाठी सुद्धा पुस्तक समजण्यायोग्य राखण्यात लेखकाला नक्कीच यश आलेलं आहे. ह्याचं संपूर्ण श्रेय त्यांच्या ओघवत्या लेखनशैलीला जातं.

मनात ही मानसशास्त्राची उत्कंठावर्धक रम्य सफर नक्की अनुभवावी अशीच आहे.
Profile Image for Pranjal.
49 reviews26 followers
October 24, 2013
First of all, other than Freud's Psychological research, this was my first book that I read on Psychology. I think it is one of the best books out there. The complete subject is based on facts and history. There are scientific evidences, anecdotes and life stories of successful psychologists and psychiatrists in this book. Its also something that can be a light-read. The approach of Mr. Godbole to write a book on such a serious subject in a way that it can be understood by everyone and moreover they will enjoy reading it, is most singular. Reading his autobiography 'Musafir', his acumen and struggle to win is self-evident. I recommend this book to everyone and especially to the ones with interest in Psychology. The epilogue is something that makes you realize the condition of the world today. It is something that the author wants us to be aware of and expects from at least the few of us to change it. Hope we do.
Profile Image for Aniket Patil.
525 reviews22 followers
October 3, 2017
this book made me like psychology. what a fantastic piece of writing and collection of different psychologists. gives different level of joy, a mental one.
6 reviews
June 3, 2017
Good collection of facts. Can't help but think where is the originality though? Author read 87 books on psychology and provided a nice summary (550+ pages)! Still a good read for lazy readers who may not read all those books themselves 🙂
Profile Image for Mayur Kale.
1 review1 follower
February 5, 2020
The book is average. I read many good reviews about it. But there is nothing original in it. Author just collected data from scientist and their inventions and just consolidated it.
Very much hyped book.
4 reviews1 follower
February 27, 2020
From somewhere I got the recommendation that this is a good book to start if I am interested to know about psychology so as I have read it I would like to do the same. Good book if you want to know how study of psychology evolved.
Profile Image for Aditya Halbe.
13 reviews
July 7, 2023
it felt like reading Wikipedia. I do love reading books by Achyut sir but I was expecting bit more from it . Too much details to scientist’s life and details but book does give bunch of information on different aspects on psychology
Profile Image for Sahil.
42 reviews
July 8, 2020
Tremendous insight to the Human Brain
Profile Image for Jagdish Ghuge.
7 reviews72 followers
July 11, 2020
My first book on psychology. Author has summarized knowledge from so many books, kept it interesting. My favorite sections were about the failed scientific experiments, and psychology has many.
7 reviews
October 4, 2022
Nice start for psychology study or if you wanted to understand the thrill of psychology it is good option.
Profile Image for Parag Kale.
11 reviews
January 16, 2015
Amazing read for anyone having even a bit of interest in mind science, psychology etc
Its a very interesting and brief of how the world of psychology has evolved over decades.
This book is filled with stories and (mind boggling)experiments of many amazing people who have tried to explore our unknown and vast "mind".
This book has enriched me. Surprised me by the fact that to what not extent people experiment, experiment and experiment to dig deep into anything they are interested in.
I guess any age group can read this book, its simple and enriching.
Profile Image for Rohit Kadam.
48 reviews
May 20, 2022
थोड़े मोठे आणी जाड पुस्तक आहे, पण खरोखरंच खूप माहिती मिळते. अगदी मानस शास्त्राच्या उगमा पासून आता पर्यंतचा इतिहास लेखकांनी ह्यात मांडला आहे. मानस शास्त्राची खूप सारी पुस्तक वाचण्यापेक्षा हे एक पुस्तक वाचने सोप्पे आहे.
1 review
July 20, 2016
मी सध्या हे पुस्तक वाचत आहे, अच्युत गोडबोलेंची स्तुती करावी तितकी थोडी , एखादा विषय घेतला की त्याची कुंडलीच मांडतात ( असे ते स्वतःच म्हणतात ) . अगदी सोप्या भाषेत ते मानसशास्त्राचा इतिहास मांडत आहे.
Profile Image for Suraj Jagtap.
6 reviews
January 23, 2021
This book is really good work of all the psychological aspects, if someone wants to know about human mind and psychology you should give a shot.It opens up your mind to see the world differently.
5 reviews
Read
July 21, 2018
Never knew psychology could be this interesting!
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