This authoritative volume, written by two well-known psychologist-philosophers, presents a model of the person and its implications for psychological theory and practice. Professors Ramakrishna Rao and Anand Paranjpe draw the contours of Indian psychology, describe the methods of study, explain crucial concepts, and discuss the central ideas and their application, illustrating them with insightful case studies and judicious reviews of available research data and existing scholarly literature.
The main theme is organized around the thesis that psychology is the study of the person and that the person is a unique composite of body, mind and consciousness. The goal of the person is self-realization. Self-realization consists in the realization of one’s true self as distinct from the manifest ego and it is facilitated by cultivating consciousness. Cultivating consciousness leads to a kind of psycho-spiritual symbiosis resulting in personal transformation, altruistic value orientation and flowering of the hidden human potential.
K. Ramakrishna Rao is Chancellor and Chairman of the Center for Gandhian Studies, GITAM University. He is also a National Fellow of the Indian Council of Social Sciences Research and Honorary Distinguished Professor of Psychology at Andhra University. His previous academic positions include Chairman, Indian Council of Philosophical Research, Executive Director Foundation for Research on the Nature of Man (USA), Vice-Chancellor and Professor of Psychology, Andhra University. Prof. Rao published 24 books and nearly 300 research papers and reports. His recent books include Consciousness Studies: Cross-Cultural Perspectives (Macfarland), Gandhi and Applied Spirituality (Indian Council of Philosophical Research), Cognitive Anomalies, Consciousness and Yoga (Matrix Publishers and the Centre for the Studies of Civilizations) and Cultivating Consciousness: An East-West Journey (DK Printworld). He has edited the Journal of Indian Psychology and the Journal of Parapsychology and served as the President of the Indian Academy of Applied Psychology and Parapsychological Association (USA).
Anand C. Paranjpe is Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Humanities, Simon Fraser University, Canada. After completion of his doctorate at Pune University in India, he did post-doctoral research under the direction of Prof. Erik H. Erikson at Harvard University. He started teaching at Simon Fraser University in 1967 and retired from there in 2001. His main publications include In Search of Identity (Macmillan, India & Wiley Interscience, 1975), Theoretical Psychology: The meeting of East and West (Plenum, 1984), Asian Contributions to Psychology (co-edited with David Ho & R.W. Reiber, Praeger, 1988), Self and Identity in Modern Psychology and Indian Thought (Plenum, 1998), and the Handbook of Indian Psychology (co-edited with K. Ramakrishna Rao & Ajit Dalal, Cambridge UP, India, 2008).
