Prescott Lecky

Prescott Lecky (1892-1941) was a lecturer of Psychology at Columbia University from 1924 to 1934. At a time when American psychology was dominated by behaviorism, he developed the concept of self-help as a method in psychotherapy of the self in the 1920s. His concepts influenced Maxwell Maltz in his writing of the classic self help book, Psycho-Cybernetics.Lecky stressed the defense mechanism of resistance as an individual's method of regulating his self-concept. [cite web
url=http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/abstract/112458736/ABSTRACT?CRETRY=1&SRETRY=0
title=Wiley InterScience: Journal: Abstract - Prescott lecky's concept of resistance and his personality
publisher=www3.interscience.wiley.com
accessdate=2008-03-14
last= Ansbacher
first=Heinz L.]

Lecky's self-consistency theory, that self-consistency is a primary motivating force in human behavior. Lecky's theory concerned the organization of ideas of the self and the self's overall need for a "master" motive that serves to maintain for the self a consistency in ideas. Self-consistency theory remains relevant to contemporary personality and clinical psychologists. [cite web|url=http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1452769|title=Prescott Lecky: pioneer in consistency theory and ... [J Clin Psychol. 1992] - PubMed Result|publisher=www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov|accessdate=2008-03-14|last=Stevens|first=M.J.] He was well known as a psychologist and counseled John F. Kennedy when he was having trouble at Choate preparatory school. [cite web|url=http://books.google.com/books?id=fxzd__gA_I4C&pg=PA74&lpg=PA74&dq=prescott+lecky&source=web&ots=b063M02F8C&sig=I6ZKOCRbsJgkPgOf_8tD74iaH3A&hl=en#PPA74,M1
title=John F. Kennedy: A Biography - Google Book Search|publisher=books.google.com|accessdate=2008-03-14|last=O'Brian
first=Michael]

His students gathered together his ideas and posthumously published them as "Self Consistency: a theory of personality" in 1945. [cite web|url=http://books.google.com/books?id=JI4NLEJn0KkC&pg=PA168&lpg=PA168&dq=prescott+lecky&source=web&ots=3vuPQbZzzn&sig=TFAlN7YfHCIsl-GnBz8Z3CS3I_Q&hl=en
title=The Concept of Self in Medicine and ... - Google Book Search|publisher=books.google.com|accessdate=2008-03-14
last=Prescott|first=Anne P.]

ee also

*Self-concept

Footnotes