Friday, July 12, 2013

What Are the Conceptual Problems in Psychology and Psychoanalysis?

"The confusion and barrenness of psychology is not to be explained by calling it a young science....For in psychology there are experimental methods and conceptual confusion....
The existence of experimental methods make us think we have the means of solving the problems which trouble us; though problem and methods pass one another by." Ludwig Wittgenstein


The Boston Descriptive Psychology Study Group wants to work on conceptual problems in Psychology, Neuroscience and Psychoanalysis for fall projects. Can you help identify some issues for us?  We meet as a bi weekly tutorial and discussion group. We try to build non theoretical platforms that can be used to compare theories and to translate concepts into practice. We make use of Descriptive Psychology in sorting out the formal or logical structure of our subject matter. An example of this can be found in the entry on Empathy and the Problem of Definition.  If you'd like to know "What is Descriptive Psychology?"  click the link.

Please visit our FACEBOOK site for a collection of basic resources and discussion.

1 comment:

  1. Paschal (Pat) Aucoin, Ph.D.July 24, 2013 at 10:14 AM

    Consider the case of two persons who are in close contact for a relatively long time, e.g., two siblings who are growing up together. Each has the other in his/her dramaturgical model. Each strives to increase, or at least avoid decreasing, his/her behavior potential over the time spent together. Examples could be created which reflect possible behavioral influences between the two. For example, one could excel at playing the piano; the other may choose to excel at something different rather than competing. A basis of games could be used; recall Ossorio's second choice for a behavioral model was based upon games.

    Just as there is a parametric analysis for persons, there is one for communities (see Jeffrey and Putman, 'The Irrationality Illusion', p. 30). Currentle we are seeing cases whereby communities, or subsets of communities, display disorderly behavior, sometimes leading to chaos. Using notions from the on-going SDP study of resilience of persons to stress, we can try to characterize the contributing factors leading to chaos in communities. The effect of instant communication owing to social media will need to be taken into account.

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