What are some great introductory psychology books?

[Odyssey2077]

I don't want to tell you my life story so i'll make things simple.

I want to read some good introductory psychology books before I consider going into college to become a clinical psychologist.

I was thinking about getting Hergenhahn's An Introduction to the History of Psychology, but if you guys can come up with anything better let me know.

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[Justanothergrad]

This will not likely be the best use of your time to increase preparedness for grad applicantions and you think about the field. I encourage you to read the forum about steps and look at the WAMC thread to see what prepares people. Shadow folks or perform informational interviews to see what you want to do (clinical psych varies a lot) in action.

 

[AcronymAllergy]

If part of the idea is to find out if you actually want to do what a psychologist does before committing to the career path, the American Psychological Association (www.apa.org) has introductory career information available on their website. And as was mentioned above, talking with practicing psychologists across various settings is another viable option.

An intro psych book can help give a broad overview of major topics in the field and help you to see if some of these broad themes are interesting to you. However, as it's often spread across multiple sub-disciplines (e.g., clinical/counseling, school, cognitive, bio, social), it can't really give a good idea of the types of things people are actually actively researching right now. But there may be a few non-textbook texts out there that provide a decent snapshot of the practice of psychology; unfortunately, I can't think of any at the moment.

 

[deleted343839]

I don't want to tell you my life story so i'll make things simple.

I want to read some good introductory psychology books before I consider going into college to become a clinical psychologist.

I was thinking about getting Hergenhahn's An Introduction to the History of Psychology, but if you guys can come up with anything better let me know.

Have you enrolled in college before? If you are planning to go to college no matter what, you should take introductory psychology in your first semester. It's a common course for a lot of majors and won't lock you into any particular degree path.

If you might not otherwise go to college, consider first taking a psychology course or two at a local community college or even through a platform like Coursera. This won't teach you a whole lot about what a clinical psychologist does but it will probably give you a better feel for the field than you would get studying completely on your own.