Podstrony
|
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
what was being reported. An outsider might easily get the impression
from reading the psychoanalytic literature that some standardized, gen-
erally accepted procedure existed for both inference and evidence. In-
stead, exactly the opposite has been true. Clinical material in the hands
of one analyst can lead to totally different findings in the hands of
another. (Peterfreund, 1986, p. 128)
PSYCHOANALYSIS
The Issues of Inference and Evidence in
Psychoanalysis
The analytic process the means by which we arrive at psychoanalytic
understanding has been largely neglected and is poorly understood,
and there has been comparatively little interest in the issues of inference
and evidence. Indeed, psychoanalysts as a group have not recognized
the importance of being bound by scientific constraints. They do not
seem to understand that a possibility is only that a possibility and
that innumerable ways may exist to explain the same data. Psychoana-
lysts all too often do not seem to distinguish hypotheses from facts, nor
184 PSYCHOLOGICAL TESTING
do they seem to understand that hypotheses must be tested in some way,
that criteria for evidence must exist, and that any given test for any
hypothesis must allow for the full range of substantiation/refutation.
(Peterfreund, 1986, p. 129)
PSYCHOLOGICAL TESTING
Clinical Testing and Its Complex
Psychological Structure
The clinical testing situation has a complex psychological structure. It is
not an impersonal getting-together of two people in order that one, with
the help of a little rapport, may obtain some objective test responses
from the other. The [disturbed] . . . patient is in some acute or chronic
life crisis. He cannot but bring many hopes, fears, assumptions, demands
and expectations into the test situation. He cannot but respond intensely
to certain real as well as fantasied attributes of that situation. Being hu-
man and having to make a living facts often ignored the tester too
brings hopes, fears, assumptions, demands and expectations into the test
situation. She too responds personally and often intensely to what goes
on in reality and in fantasy in that situation, however well she may
conceal her personal response from the patient, from herself, and from
her colleagues. (Schafer, 1954, p. 6)
PSYCHOLOGY
The Knowledge of Ourselves
We come therefore now to that knowledge whereunto the ancient oracle
directeth us, which is the knowledge of ourselves; which deserveth the more
accurate handling, by how much it toucheth us more nearly. This knowl-
edge, as it is the end and term of natural philosophy in the intention of
man, so notwithstanding it is but a portion of natural philosophy in the
PSYCHOLOGY 185
continent of nature. . . . [W]e proceed to human philosophy or Humanity,
which hath two parts: the one considereth man segregate, or distribu-
tively; the other congregate, or in society. So as Human philosophy is
either Simple and Particular, or Conjugate and Civil. Humanity Partic-
ular consisteth of the same parts whereof man consisteth; that is, of
knowledges which respect the Body, and of knowledges that respect the
Mind. . . how the one discloseth the other and how the one worketh upon the
other . . . [:] the one is honored with the inquiry of Aristotle, and the other
of Hippocrates. (Bacon, 1878, pp. 236 237)
PSYCHOLOGY
As a Science, Psychology Is Distinct
The claims of Psychology to rank as a distinct science are . . . not smaller
but greater than those of any other science. If its phenomena are contem-
plated objectively, merely as nervo-muscular adjustments by which the
higher organisms from moment to moment adapt their actions to envi-
roning co-existences and sequences, its degree of specialty, even then,
entitles it to a separate place. The moment the element of feeling, or
consciousness, is used to interpret nervo-muscular adjustments as thus
exhibited in the living beings around, objective Psychology acquires an
additional, and quite exceptional, distinction. (Spencer, 1896, p. 141)
PSYCHOLOGY
Psychology Can Never Be an Exact Natural
Science
Kant once declared that psychology was incapable of ever raising itself
to the rank of an exact natural science. The reasons that he gives . . . have
often been repeated in later times. In the first place, Kant says, psychol-
ogy cannot become an exact science because mathematics is inapplicable
186 PSYCHOLOGY
to the phenomena of the internal sense; the pure internal perception, in
which mental phenomena must be constructed, time, has but one di-
mension. In the second place, however, it cannot even become an ex-
perimental science, because in it the manifold of internal observation
cannot be arbitrarily varied, still less, another thinking subject be sub-
mitted to one s experiments, comformably to the end in view; moreover,
the very fact of observation means alteration of the observed object.
(Wundt, 1904, p. 6)
PSYCHOLOGY
How a Mathematical Psychology May Be
Realized in Practice
It is [Gustav] Fechner s service to have found and followed the true way;
to have shown us how a mathematical psychology may, within certain
limits, be realized in practice. . . . He was the first to show how Herbart s
idea of an exact psychology might be turned to practical account.
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
zanotowane.pldoc.pisz.plpdf.pisz.plkskarol.keep.pl
|
