Abstract
We are now in a position to address one of the key issues in this book and offer up a solution to the problem of psychology. Recall that my intellectual journey began with a realization that the fragmentation in psychotherapy represented a huge problem that was preventing the advancement of the profession. Yet as I probed deeply into questions of psychotherapy integration, my attention shifted as I realized a unified approach to psychotherapy depended on a coherent conception of psychology. It was out of pursuing the question of “What is psychology?” that the unified theory ultimately emerged. This chapter and the next apply the unified theory to solving the problem of psychology and fostering the move toward developing a unified approach to psychotherapy.
A well-defined subject matter, a shared language, and conceptual agreements about the fundamentals are key elements that constitute a mature science. The physical and biological sciences have reached maturity. The psychological sciences have not. Instead, students of psychology are given choices to be or not to be radical behaviorists, cognitive psychologists, evolutionary psychologists, social constructivists, feminists, physiological psychologists, or psychodynamic psychologists, among others. The lack of a shared, general understanding has had unfortunate consequences. Paradigms are defined against one another and epistemological differences justify the dismissal of insights gleaned from other approaches. The result has been a fragmented field and a gulf between the natural and social sciences.
This analysis suggests that the fragmentation that currently characterizes the field of psychology is unnecessary and a coherent unified theory of psychology is possible. With it, the truth stands a genuine chance of emerging.
G. R. Henriques (2003a, pp. 177–178)
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Henriques, G. (2011). Defining Psychology. In: A New Unified Theory of Psychology. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-0058-5_7
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