sychology and Freud's psychoanalytic theory, it is difficult to see how psychology can be a unified discipline when none of these approaches even agree on the proper subject of study, let alone methodology. Similarly, the current five major theoretical perspectives (Skinner's behaviorism/operant conditioning, neo-Freudian psychoanalysis, Ellis' cognitive therapy, Maslow and Rogers' humanistic psychology, and biological psychology) also display such wildly different, if not mutually exclusive, basic assumptions that it is, again, hard to find any common ground among them.
While each approach has its own unique value, I feel that the sheer number and variety of theories detracts from the overall credibility of the field. There is a subtle implication that, in psychology, it is acceptable to make things up as you go along. For instance, medical doctors may have different specialty areas, areas but they all have had the same basic training and share most of the same assumptions about the nature of disease, proper diagnosis, research methods, and treatment techniques. However, psychologists have different specialty areas and different training; and they tend to disagree about the nature of the pathology, diagnosis, methodology, and treatment. I believe that, overall, this great diversity does more harm to the field than good. At least a semblance of professional consensus adds a great deal to a field's respectability and perceived legitimacy.
In Chapter Four, "States of Consciousness," Lahey discusses the various states on human awareness, including directed consciousness, flowing consciousness (a drifting, unfocussed state which I was dismayed to learn we spend most of our waking hours in), daydreaming, divided consciousness, and the four sleep states of hypnagogic consciousness, light sleep, deep sleep, and REM or dream sleep.
I think that the question of why we dream is a very interesting one indeed. Freud viewed dreams a...