Science and art are two different approaches.
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The two main approaches in psychology in general and practical psychology in particular are the natural science and the humanitarian approach.
You can say more simply: Science and Art.
Scientifically oriented psychology is a strict, masculine approach. Science is based on facts, striving for precise definitions, clear indicators and observable signs so that any statement can be tested and the magnitude of what is discussed can be measured.
If the researcher starts talking about «psychic energy», he will be asked in what units it is measured and by what. If the concept of «collective unconscious» is introduced, it is necessary to define what is meant by the unconscious and propose a procedure that clearly demonstrates that in such and such a situation we are dealing with the collective unconscious, and not something else. “The test results showed. Expert opinions testify…” is the language of science.
Art believes in the individual, science believes in technology. The scientific approach is not applied to what is unique, inimitable and exists fundamentally in one copy — why? If only one unique person can make something, it is an art, but not a science. Science is created so that what one can do can be repeated by another trained specialist using the technology found.
Art believes in revelation, science prefers the reproducibility of predictions. In a humanitarian approach, it is often enough to explain what happened — if everyone has calmed down, that is enough. A scientifically oriented specialist is looking for patterns and algorithms that allow us to confidently say under what conditions we will get the result we need next time. Science is the reproducibility of results.
The scientific approach is always based on logic, certifying the truth of our constructions. In science, logic is obligatory, and logic must be consistent. Where logic is replaced by miracles and Higher powers, science ends. The scientific approach is more often adequate to that which itself has a rigid certainty, which in this sense is a thing and is deprived of freedom. A logical language can only describe that which itself has logic from within.
The consequence of this is that in a scientifically oriented approach, everything potentially free is considered as still not free. A person in the consideration of the natural-scientific approach is rather a biocomputer. Rather, a thing, an object described by schemes and determined by causal relationships. Not free, not alive.
The humanitarian approach, the approach of art, is a flexible and free approach. The language actively uses polysemantic metaphors, light associations, free analogies, it is rather not a tool for work, but a language of communication between free living people with live, free and spontaneous people who now understand each other. The humanist will allow himself rigor and science when he likes it, and will leave this excessive rigor when his soul asks for something else. If two people in communication between themselves choose a fairy tale or a prayer, because their feelings respond to it — this is their right, this may be part of psychological work, but this is a humanitarian approach, not a scientific one.
The humanitarian approach is a feminine approach, a flexible approach that allows any arbitrariness in order to achieve a situational goal. More often it is adequate to that which itself is devoid of rigid certainty, which cannot be called a thing, which carries in itself a beating life and freedom.
The consequence of this: for the humanist, even things are seen rather as living beings. From a humanitarian point of view, even every car is already a boy or a girl, it has its own character, its own habits, loves something, but cannot stand something. He is sentient and alive. With a humanitarian approach, I am free to choose how to comprehend my actions, how to understand myself, imagine my life, feel my being in the world. We make up arbitrary stories about ourselves, about others and life in general, and as far as these stories are determined by our freedom, and not set by external reasons, this is a humanitarian approach.
Most non-medical psychotherapy exists in the space of a humanitarian approach, or more precisely, lives in the space of fairy tales, metaphors and direct suggestions. A client comes to a psychotherapist with problems that he created for himself, in his reality. The psychotherapist, in response to this, offers him a different reality, a new fairy tale with other entities, for persuasiveness creates a new problem there (with which he knows how to work better), solves this problem and by this fact convinces the client that now his problem is gone. The good storyteller supplanted the bad storyteller, and there was neither science nor logic in this work. It was the art of suggestion.
In reality, most of the concepts used in practical psychology are difficult to define precisely and do not always have clear observable features. The watershed of approaches is that humanitarianly oriented psychologists do not need scientific character, they do not care about the strictness of concepts and verification procedures, while scientifically oriented psychologists strive for scientific character, they try to agree on a clear scope of concepts used and find clear observable signs of than it says.
What will we choose to work with?
Dear fellow psychologists, start with a scientific approach, but be guided by the best examples of literature. Talented artists as psychologists work deeper and brighter than qualified scientific psychologists.
“It is true that, compared to the giants of literature, the psychologists involved in depicting and explaining the personality look sterile and sometimes a little stupid. Only a pedant would prefer the raw set of facts that psychology offers for consideration of the individual mental life to the magnificent and unforgettable portraits that are created by famous writers, playwrights or biographers. Artists create; psychologists only collect. In one case — the unity of images, the internal consistency even in the finest details. In another case, there is a pile of badly consistent data, ”writes G. Allport.
On the other hand, the training of a psychologist must begin with science, with a good strict scientific school, since the humanitarian approach gives too much room for stupidity and fraud. “In literature, one can find, for example, that the obedience of a certain character is explained by the fact that “lackey blood flows in his veins”, the ardor of another by the fact that he has a “hot head”, and the intellectuality of the third by “the height of his massive forehead”. The psychologist would be torn to pieces if he allowed himself such fantastic statements about causes and effects ”- from the same place. A humanitarian approach is like driving without rules. When a master is driving, you will get real pleasure from the trip. In another situation, you will get into an accident. The humanitarian approach is fine as long as it doesn’t descend to the near worldly psychology.
The humanitarian approach gives more opportunities, the scientific one gives more reliability. The best improvisation is the one that is prepared in advance, the best free creativity is born on a scientific basis. The work of a specialist psychologist may at one time look like shamanism and magic, but a real specialist will always be able to decompose his work into those details that are logical and definable. Specialists should be able to use concepts that are defined and have (or may have) observable features. Specialists must think and speak in such a way that there is coherence and logic in their thoughts and conclusions.
However, in the scientific approach, we value not only the certainty of concepts and logic. The scientific approach is an orientation to the human mind, and, going beyond the scientific approach, one cannot go beyond the limits of reasonableness. If, after the work of a psychologist, the employees of my company begin to make decisions, focusing instead of on data on their intuition and the help of the Higher Forces, the psychologist was wrong. An experienced specialist is free to go beyond the scientific approach, but he must understand all the dangers of this.
In the process of psychotherapeutic work, you gave the woman the idea that your suggestions would help her remotely, that is, even in your absence — yes, this is a beautiful move, and it helped the woman a lot. Are you ready for the fact that suddenly she feels that you began to remotely give her not positive, but negative suggestions? And she will come to the door of your apartment at night, demanding that you stop spoiling her?
Helping the client is important, but no less important is HOW you did it, how you did it, what suggestions you gave the client. It is important to think about the long-term consequences of our work. Humanitarian liberated psychologists, who have no obligations to science, today spread a wild number of myths: every boy wanted or wants the death of his father (Oedipus complex), “restraint of anger and aggression is harmful”, “splashing out anger frees from aggression”, “there are no bad emotions” , generic field theory in constellations, and so on. In order not to cause such harm to culture, specific people and the authority of psychological science, the free flight of humanitarian thought must still be verified by scientific research.
What is not restrained by science soon becomes contrary to ethics.