The American Psychological Association (APA) is proud to
offer the second edition of its critically acclaimed and best-
selling APA Dictionary of
... [Show More] Psychology. The first edition, copy-
right 2007, included some 25,000 entries. That corpus
was vetted by nearly 100 experts in the field of psychology
and labored over for almost a decade by APA Reference
staff and associated lexicographers. The first edition re-
flected current dimensions of the field as a whole, with en-
tries ranging from the fundamental mainstays to those
representative of the evolving language of a diversely ori-
ented and porous field, including numerous topical over-
laps in the other social, behavioral, and health sciences.
This characterization of coverage remains true in the sec-
ond edition.
APA collaborated intensively on the first edition with
Market House Books Ltd (MHB), a British firm with, to
date, 45 years’ experience in creating reference books for
both British and American markets. Broadly, APA Refer-
ence staff managed the dictionary’s conceptual and edito-
rial development, and MHB staff handled its administra-
tion, copyediting, and composition. (For an extensive
history of the first edition process, the interested reader
may consult its preface.) This professionally and personally
rewarding collaboration continued with the preparation of
the second edition.
As with the parent edition, the second edition is in-
tended for psychologists, graduate and undergraduate psy-
chology students, practitioners and researchers in allied
mental health professions (e.g., psychiatrists, nurses, and
social workers), and all thoughtful readers who are curious
about mental health issues; psychological history and the-
ories; and, perhaps most important, psychological assess-
ment, diagnosis, and therapy. In order to engage such a
broad audience and fulfill its varied expectations, every ef-
fort has been made to present the dictionary’s entries in a
clear, jargon-free style that should enable them to be un-
derstood not only by experts but also by readers who lack
specialized knowledg [Show Less]