Introduction to Psychology: Exploring and Understanding Human Behaviour

Dr Peter Marshall is a polymath among authors, who has made significant contributions, in equal proportions, to the arts, sciences and manufactures. A distinguished psychologist and former examiner in the subject for a major Oxford and Cambridge examinations board, he is the author of 26 books on psychology and related subjects which are published all over the world in more than 20 languages. At the same time he is also an acclaimed expert on accounting and finance and his textbooks have been accredited and endorsed by all the principal institutes on the subject. In 1992 his novel - The Berries on Mulvy Island, was shortlisted for the Welsh Arts Council's Annual Literary Prize and was chosen as book of the Week on BBC Wales Primetime Programme. It attracted favourable reviews, not least from the Cambridge News Literary Reviewer. The author was invited to hold a book signing event at the prestigious Foyles of Charring Cross and the ideas contained in the book have been noted by subsequent reviewers to have inspired other writers in the same genre. This cross boundary nature has resulted in interesting new insights being brought into the knowledge areas - ways of thinking that have not traditionally been featured. An example is the way his understanding of cerebral hemisphericity enabled him to spot a flaw in the traditional methods of teaching accounting and the remedy thereto. The paradigm bounded nature of knowledge areas tends to blinker scholars in their endeavours to develop the knowledge, but having a foot in all the camps has served to free this writer from such limitations. Memory An expert on Human Memory, he hosted the Annual Great Memory Show in the 1990s, where performers would demonstrate amazing feats of memory in front of television cameras. He also invigilated in several Guinness Record attempts in the subject, many of which set new records. The Great Memory Show ran in parallel to Tony Buzan's Mind Sports Olympiad, but not in competition. The purposes underlying both were different. The Mind Sports Olympiad was competition orientated the laudable motive being to urge better and better performance to demonstrate the potential of memory training. The real motive behind the Great Memory Show was to attract a pool of outstanding memory performers together in the same place and screen out from them subjects for memory research at London University. Most memory research seeks out people with poor or damaged memories, but the other end the scale is just as important, as it is by rare or extreme cases that new understanding is found. It was this end of the spectrum that the research in which Dr Marshall was involved focused. The trouble was that people with naturally superior memory quality (as opposed to trained memory quality) are as difficult to find as needles in haystacks and after searching among the various populations where they would most likely turn up - Oxbridge history scholars, taxi drivers, Mensa members - and finding very few he hit upon the idea of rather than looking for them let them look for us. And that was the motive behind The Great Memory Show. Memory performers would get their day of fame and the research project would get its data. This was also the real motive behind Dr Marshall's involvement in Guinness Record attempts in the subject. It often screened out people with outstanding natural memory quality, such as Chreighton Carvello, who, in an event invigilated by Dr Marshall, in Notting Hill in 2003, set a record for recalling 19 digits after 1 second exposure. These were the people Dr Marshall needed in his research. Gifted Children. Dr Marshall's Doctoral thesis was on the psychological development of gifted children growing up - their experiences, their education and their problems. It is still, to this day, the most comprehensive and rigorous study on the subject. In November 1988 he was appointed Research Director for The Mensa Foundation for Gifted Children, a position that he held for several years until being succeeded in office by Carol Voderman. In this regard he has acted as consultant to Local authorites, such as Cumbria County Council and Blackburn, Hyndurn and Ribble Valley Health Authority and Schools such as Thorncliffe Grammar in Barrow in Furness. His common sense, hard facts or nothing, approach, which perhaps owes something to having one foot in the world of accountancy, has led him to debunk some of the myths about the experiences of gifted children and fostered a sensible approach to the subject, putting the child's welfare and happiness first. Hypnotherapy Dr Marshall is also an accomplished hypnotist and psychotherapist and the former Principal of The London School of Hypnotherapy and Psychology. Hypnotherapy is about making new memories albeit of a special kind and his expertise in this subject has played a useful role in understanding and practicing this craft. In the 1990s Peter, who owns the domain name harleystreethypnotist, played a significant part in the national drive to help people quit smoking by a nationwide, mass hypnosis tour. Accountancy Dr Marshall is also a graduate in accountancy and law and has been writing textbooks on accounting since 1989. His most popular book is now in its 9th edition and is the favourite of both of the professional institutes, who recommend it for students and practitioners. You only have to look on the Bookkeepers Forum website to see this for yourselves and the crest, accreditations and endorsements on the top of the books say it all. What better recommendation can you have than that? (www.masteringbook-keeping.com for more details). Dr Marshall, an Irish national, has travelled extensively and lived in various countries and was also Foreign Correspondent for The Daily Mail for a while.