Once again we have made changes to improve the readability of the book, make it useful and more current, without losing the emphasis that we have maintained since the first edition. We present students with a book that encourages and supports them in using themselves as the primary touchstone for each theory. Each chapter gives them opportunities to validate their insights through direct experience and, by observing their own reactions, come to their own conclusions about the utility and value of each theory. Each chapter still focuses on the strong aspects of the theory and the reasons why it is still in wide use, rather than its limitations. We intend that students be able to test and retest the validity or utility of these theories against their own life experience and common sense. We also know that most of the students who use this text will not go on to do graduate work or become professional psychologists. Those that do have told us that this book served them well as a reference in their further training, while those who do not go on tell us that their understanding of the issues raised here have enriched their lives. For teachers and authors, it doesn't get much better than that.

While expert proponents of each theory have been able to point us to areas where their theory has been successfully applied, all of them acknowledge that the research about their theory, while valuable and exciting, is not definitive enough to allow them to say that an opposing viewpoint could not be valid. Thus we have included research data only when it clarifies the theory under discussion. We wish that we could have included additional theorists whose work has moved the field forward, but for reasons of space and our inclusion of areas beyond the scope of many other texts, we could not. We have, however, included in our teaching guide several minichapters on theories and theorists not included here (sent to us by brilliant teachers whose expertise exceeded our own). Instructors can copy and distribute them in classes as they choose. New to the Fifth Edition We have to tell you the truth. Very few of the theorists in this book have written original material since our last edition. Therefore, we took this occasion to look at the text itself.

We went through every line of every chapter asking two questions: How could this be stated more clearly? Is this line or section really necessary? Every chapter was improved and shortened. Most chapters, even after our subsequent additions, are no longer than they were before. Not totally surprising, we found errors that had eluded our own four revisions plus four editors suggestions plus four proofreaders detailed scrutiny. Please let us know what else we missed. New Pedagogy Web Sites.Since our students have become used to the Web, we have been able to offer far more challenging assignments. Students are able to follow more specialized interests, even with limited access to conventional academic libraries. They soon discover that there is a wonderful quirkiness to some web sites that never could have gotten past an academic press.

In addition, there are an ever growing number of professors world-wide, who post their own ways of working with each of our theorists. Students are no longer limited to either our views nor the views of their instructor. We have included enough web sites for each theory to give students an easy opening set of choices. Please send us your own favorite web sites if we have overlooked them. Contact us at either rfrager@earthlink.net or Jfadiman@aol.com. New Chapter.

We have taken the chapter on George Kelly's personal construct psychology and cognitive psychology and made each one a separate chapter. The new Kelly chapter was written by three of the country's most widely known practitioners and researchers in personal construct psychology: Franz Epting of the Univ.