Leahey, T. H. (2004). A history of psychology: Main currents in psychological thought (6th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall.
I stumbled across Leahey's text book on the history of psychology after a couple of years of teaching the History and Systems of Psychology in a couple of different undergraduate and graduate programs. I don't know how I missed it for so long. This book really answered many of my frustrations with the typical History and Systems text book. It should be pointed out that this is a better graduate level text book in many ways. There are other books which don't rely as heavily on an understanding of philosophy which may be more appropriate at the undergraduate level.
What impressed me most about Leahey's text is the hard look at the underlying philosophical and moral issues related to the field of psychology. Where the book is weak comparatively is in providing a thorough analysis of the different psychological theories. However, I'm not sure this is a weakness. Most of the students who take the History and Systems of psychology are going to also take a class in personality theory, which will provide a better overview of the theories. History and Systems is a course which I believe should not be a mere overview of the same theories covered in other classes. I would suggest a 3-tiered approach in which HIstory and Systems provides the foundation. Allow me to take a few paragraphs to address this approach.
Tier 1: This is the History and Systems Course and should provide the philosophical foundations for correctly understanding psychological systems. It will focus less on the details of particular psychological theories and more on the foundations which these theories are build upon. Unfortunately, to many students being trained in psychology have lost interest in the history and foundations of psychological thought. Many schools have followed suit by not requiring students to learn much of this information. The result is often psychologists who have never learned to think deeply and critically about what they have learned. In my view, too much of psychology has become based on the accumulation of knowledge while ignoring the important epistemological question of how do we know what we know?! Leahey's text does not make it easy for students to get away with this.
At its best, History and Systems will help students to better understand the personality theories by helping them to think about the issues impacting the development and evolution of the theories. In other words, it should help them better understand what they learn in Personality Theory courses.
Tier 2: This tier is the personality theories course or its equivalent. It is vitally important that learning at this level involve both the origins of the theory (preferably in the original sources) and the evolution of the theory. When students have a better comprehension of the philosophical foundations, they will be able to understand these theories and why the changes occurred at a deeper level. It is not necessary for the History and Systems course to occur prior to the Personality Theories course for this to occur. What is most important is that students are able to connect this information and think integratively about it.
Tier 3: The final tier focuses on the therapy approaches and techniques which evolve from an understanding of the underlying philosophical issues and the personality theories. Too often today students are taught these techniques and processes without have thought about the preceding two tiers. This leads to a detached pragmatism in which therapists often don't understand why they are doing what they are doing (because they don't know how they know what they know). All they know is research supports that this leads to someone feeling better at least some of the time.
Leahey's book is one of the best History and Systems text books to really prepare individuals for a broad understanding of the theories and techniques of psychotherapy. However, if this is not your approach to understanding the relationship between theory and practice, it may not be the best text book for your course.