The essays in Psychology and Its Allied Disciplines are formally organ-
ized into three volumes associated with different knowledge domains.
Volume I treats Psychology and the Humanities, including art, linguistics,
literature, music, philosophy, and religion. Volume II treats Psychology
and the Social Sciences, including anthropology, behavior therapy,
economics, education, environmental disciplines, history, political science,
and sociology. Volume III treats Psychology and the Natural Sciences, in-
cluding biology, engineering, genetics, mathematics, medicine, phar-
macology, and physics. These three volumes are preceded by brief introduc-
tory observations and commentary on the two major orientations to
knowledge in psychology, on early interdisciplinary integration and later
fragmentation of modern psychology, on the statuses of psychology
amongst intellectual domains, on the variety of styles of association be-
tween psychology and affiliated disciplines, and, finally, on mutual con-
tributions between psychology and other related disciplines.

Several words can be shared about the selection and style of essays includ-
ed in this collection. Even though connections between psychology and
twenty-one related disciplines are documented across these three volumes,
psychology is allied to even more; the decision to omit some connections--
notably between psychology and law--was not active but regrettable. Addi-
tionally, contemporary psychology is sophisticated, so that some essays
which appear here are different from ones originally solicited--psychology
and pharmacology rather than chemistry is a notable example. Further,
psychology is pluralistically related to different disciplines, requiring ra-
tional, informed, and commonsensical decisions about what relational
aspect(s) to highlight; in one case, psychology's relation to the academic in-
stitution not its social cognate is emphasized--thus, psychology and
political science rather than politics--but in another case just the opposite
decision is appropriate--thus, psychology and religion rather than
theology. Finally, some contributors to these volumes identify themselves
principally with psychology while others identity with the "other"
discipline; all of the contributors are prominent figures, doubly
knowledgeable as they work at the intersection of intellectual fields. It is
fortunate for this endeavor that a group of outstanding scholars could be
enlisted to summarize, examine, interpret, and evaluate psychology's rela-
tions to their allied discipline.

Psychology and Its Allied Disciplines encompass three collections of
essays that attempt to place psychology in perspective relative to its intellec-
tual neighbors specifically and to domains of knowledge generally. As a
whole, these volumes fit the theme of their parent series, Crosscurrents in
Contemporary Psychology, in that they are devoted to examination of a
supradisciplinary issue that traditionally distinguishes subdisciplines of
psychology.

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