From Philosophy to Psychotherapy: A Phenomenological Model for Psychology, Psychiatry, and Psychoanalysis 9781442675094

Table of contents :
Contents
Tables, Charts, Figures, and Diagrams
Acknowledgments
1.‘Know Thy Philosophical Self’
Part I. Ontology: The Groundwork and Foundation
2. Ontology (Level A): The Question of Reality
3. Ontology (Level B): Our Basic Position or Relation to Reality
Part II. General Epistemology: The Framework and Infrastructure
4. General Epistemology (Level C): The Question of Knowledge in General
5. Validity (Level D): How Do We Validate or Assign Truth-Value to What We Know?
Part III. Field-Specific Epistemology: The Basic Layout and Design
6. Field-Specific Epistemology (Level E): The Nature and Limits of Knowledge within a Specific Field or Discipline
7. Field-Specific Validity (Level F): How Do We Validate What We Know in ‘the Psychotherapy Situation’?
Part IV. Psychology: The ‘Finished’ Living and Working Areas
8. Psychology (Level G), Part One: The General Context of Human Experience
9. Psychology (Level G), Part Two: Psychotherapy and Encounters in the Purple Zone
10. Psychology (Level G), Part Three: The Beams-of-Light-through- Time Model Applied to a Clinical Case, and a New Approach to the Mental Status Examination
11. Psychology (Level G), Part Four: Examining Our Philosophical Differences in the Psychological Field
Philosophy is Unavoidable
Glossary
Notes
References
Index

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FROM PHILOSOPHY TO PSYCHOTHERAPY A Phenomenological Model for Psychology, Psychiatry, and Psychoanalysis

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From Philosophy to Psychotherapy A Phenomenological Model for

Psychology, Psychiatry, and Psychoanalysis

Edwin L. Hersch

UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO PRESS Toronto Buffalo London

www.utppublishing.com © University of Toronto Press Incorporated 2003 Toronto Buffalo London Printed in Canada ISBN 0-8020-8734-5 (S)

Printed on acid-free paper

National Library of Canada Cataloguing in Publication Hersch, Edwin L. From philosophy to psychotherapy: a phenomenological model for psychology, psychiatry and psychoanalysis / Edwin L. Hersch. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-8020-8734-5 1. Phenomenological psychology. 2. Psychotherapy - Philosophy. 3. Phenomenology. I. Title. RC437.5.H47 2003

150.19'2

C2002-905971-2

This book has been published with the help of a grant from the Humanities and Social Sciences Federation of Canada, using funds provided by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. The University of Toronto Press acknowledges the financial assistance to its publishing program of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council. University of Toronto Press acknowledges the financial support for its publishing activities of the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program (BPIDP).

To Ann, Michael, Steven, and Robert and to all those who love philosophy and psychotherapy

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Contents

Acknowledgments xv 1 'Know Thy Philosophical Self' 3 The Need to Know Thy Philosophical Self 3 The Hierarchical Method of Theory Analysis and Theory Development 11 Parti ONTOLOGY: THE GROUNDWORK AND FOUNDATION 21 2 Ontology (Level A): The Question of Reality 23 Realism and Relativism 23 Why I Have Chosen Ontology as Our Starting Point: Cartesian and Non-Cartesian Points of View 23 The Question of Reality 27 Clinical Interlude 30 Clarifying Some Philosophical Terminology 34 The Ontological Level A Position to Be Adopted in This Work 37 3 Ontology (Level B): Our Basic Position or Relation to Reality 39 Two Major Paradigms: Cartesian Dualism versus 'Being-in-the-World' 39 The Old Paradigm 39 Phenomenology and the Beginnings of a New Paradigm 46

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PART II GENERAL EPISTEMOLOGY: THE FRAMEWORK AND INFRASTRUCTURE 61 4 General Epistemology (Level C): The Question of Knowledge in General 63 Section I: Beginnings of the 'Beams-of-Light-through-Time' Model 63 Beginnings of a General Epistemology Based on a Non-Dualistic Model 68 Questions of Relativism Reconsidered 70 A Non-Dualistic Model of Human Experience 73 The Beam-of-Light Model 74 Section II: The Phenomenology of Human Experience: Implications for the General Epistemology of the New Paradigm 80 5 Validity (Level D): How Do We Validate or Assign Truth-Value to What We Know? 92 Correspondence 94 Coherence 100 Pragmatics 102 Toward a More Integrative General Theory of Validity 104 An Example of a Hermeneutic Truth That Is Not Entirely Relativistic 105 PART HI FIELD-SPECIFIC EPISTEMOLOGY: THE BASIC LAYOUT AND DESIGN 117 6 Field-Specific Epistemology (Level E): The Nature and Limits of Knowledge within a Specific Field or Discipline 119 Section I: The Concept of a Field-Specific Epistemological Level of Inquiry, Its Utility, and Its Philosophical Grounding Positions 119 Section II: The Beams-of-Light-through-Time Model Extended to the Two-Person Situation, the Concept of 'The Purple Zone/ and the Philosophical Anatomy of 'the Psychotherapy Situation' 133

Contents ix

'Major Effects' in 'the Philosophical Anatomy of the Psychotherapy Situation': Areas 'A/ 'B,' and 'AB' 137 Portions of the Purple Zone (Areas 'x/ 'y/ and 'z') 140 Summary of the Definitions and Limits of 'the Interactional Field/ 'Purple Zone/ or 'Intersubjective Space/ from the Perspectives of Various Levels of Theoretical Inquiry 142 Implications of This Interactional Purple Zone Model of the Psychotherapy Situation in Terms of the Philosophical Positions Examined in Section I of This Chapter 143 Comparison and Contrasts with the Set of Philosophical Assumptions Central to Position 1: The 'Realist-Dualist-ObjectivistCorrespondence' Position 143 Comparison and Contrasts with the Set of Philosophical Assumptions Central to Position 2: The 'Realist-Dualist-SubjectivistCoherence' Position 147 Comparison and Contrasts with the Set of Philosophical Assumptions Central to Position 3: The 'Realist-Non-Dualistic-Co-constitutional-Hermeneutic' Position 150 7 Field-Specific Validity (Level F): How Do We Validate What We Know in 'the Psychotherapy Situation'? 152 Case 157 The Search for an Appropriate Set of Validation Criteria Applicable to the Field of Psychotherapy: A Convergence of Theories, or an Integration of Them 165 The Hermeneutic Circle Revisited: The Hermeneutic Spiral 168 Practical Reasoning, Wisdom, and Living with an Epistemology of Uncertainty 169 PART IV PSYCHOLOGY: THE 'FINISHED' LIVING AND WORKING AREAS 173 Level G: How Do People Feel, Think, Behave, and Interact? In What Context? And How Can We Help Them Psychotherapeutically? 175 8 Psychology (Level G), Part One: The General Context of Human Experience 177 Issues of Consistency

177

x Contents Further Development of the Beams-of-Light-through-Time Model 180 The Primacy of Care 181 The Primacy of Temporality 184 Our Epistemological Situation and the Concept of 'Horizons' Revisited 185 The Primacy of Emotion 186 The Primacy of Imagination 189 Imagination, Psychopathology, and the Centrality of the Experiential 189 Temporality and Motivation 194 Physics, Philosophy and 'Forces': Other Notions of Time and Space and Possible Implications for a Different Way of Looking at 'Drives,' 'Forces,' and Motivation in Psychology 199 Einstein's Theory of Gravity and Motivational Forces: Can 'Cares' Be Seen as Bending the Metaphoric Landscape of Our Phenomenological World(s) Much as 'Masses' Do in the World of Physics? 203 The Five-Plus Dimensional Beams-of-Light-through-Time Model 204 Multidimensional World Restructuring by the Cares of Everyday Life: Jeff's World 207 Chapter Summary 212 9 Psychology (Level G), Part Two: Psychotherapy and Encounters in the Purple Zone 215 (A) Essential Elements of a Phenomenological Psychology Based on the Beams-of-Light-through-Time Model 215 (B) Dichotomous Thinking and Its Discontents: A Reinterpretation of Some Central Themes, Concepts, Constructs, and Phenomena in the Theory and Practice of Psychotherapy as Seen from the Perspective of the Beams-of-Light-throughTime Model 227 Transference' and 'Counter-Transference' 227 Conflict and Defence 242 'Internal Representation' and Representationalism 248 Consciousness and Unconsciousness, or Levels of Awareness and Reflectivity 252 Mind versus Body Issues 256 Summary 261

Contents xi 10 Psychology (Level G), Part Three: The Beams-of-Light-throughTime Model Applied to a Clinical Case, and a New Approach to the Mental Status Examination 264 Previous Phenomenological and Existential Psychological Literature, and the Philosophy-Psychotherapy Interface 264 Bad Faith and Authenticity 268 Two Views of the Mental Status Examination: A Traditional One Contrasted with a Beams-of-Light-through-Time Based Version 278 Case Example: J.T. 279 Summary 295 11 Psychology (Level G), Part Four: Examining Our Philosophical Differences in the Psychological Field 297 A Means of Philosophical Clarification, Classification, and Comparison of Major Contemporary Psychological Theories and Models 297 Primarily Psychoanalytic or Psychoanalytically Derived Theories 299 The Classical Psychoanalytic Model of Sigmund Freud 299 Object Relations Theory 306 Kohut and Self Psychology: A Less Objectivist Approach 311 Intersubjectivity Theory 314 Constructionism, Constructivism, Narrativism 319 Primarily Non-Psychoanalytic Psychological Theories 324 Behaviourism 324 Cognitive Psychotherapy 325 Biological Psychiatry 330 The Beams-of-Light-through-Time Model 337 Claiming the Middle Ground: Concluding Reflections on the Objectivism-Subjectivism Debate 341 12 Philosophy Is Unavoidable 345 The Interplay of Theory and Practice 348 From Reflection to Perception: Learning to Look at the World Anew 349

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Glossary 351 Notes 367 References 375 Index 383

Tables, Charts, Figures, and Diagrams

Table 1.1. The hierarchy of levels of theoretical inquiry and their questions 18 Figure 1.1. The hierarchy of levels of theoretical inquiry 19 Ontology: The Groundwork and Foundation 21 Figure 3.1. Schematic illustration of the dualistic or 's R o' model 40 Figure 3.2. Schematic comparison of two paradigms 57 General Epistemology: The Framework and Infrastructure 61 Figure 4.1. The Beam-of-Light model 75 Field-Specific Epistemology: The Basic Layout and Design 117 Figure 6.1. The philosophical anatomy of the psychotherapy situation: The convergence of two 'Beams-of-Light-throughTime' facing page 134 Psychology: The 'Finished' Living and Working Areas 173 Chart 11.1. The hierarchy of levels of theoretical inquiry and their questions 299 Chart 11.2. Classical psychoanalysis (Freud) 305 Chart 11.3. Object relations theory (composite) 311 Chart 11.4. Self psychology (Kohut) 315 Chart 11.5. Intersubjectivity theory (Stolorow and Atwood) 320 Chart 11.6. Constructionism/constructivism (composite) 323 Chart 11.7. Ontological relativism 323 Chart 11.8. Behaviourism (Skinner) 326 Chart 11.9. Cognitive psychotherapy (Beck) 330 Chart 11.10. Biological psychiatry (composite) 336 Chart 11.11. Beams-of-Light-through-Time model (Hersch) 340

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Acknowledgments

This book has taken shape over a number of years and in several locations. There are many to thank who have helped me in various ways over the course of its development. These include various individuals, groups, family members, friends, organizations, and institutions, as well as inspirational writers whom I have never met. My good friend Thomas Langan in particular (Professor Emeritus of Philosophy, University of Toronto) has played several important roles for me over the past twenty-odd years. At first he was one of my most inspirational and encouraging teachers as I took his courses on Heidegger in the early 1970s. Tom taught with an enthusiasm and a breadth of knowledge that brought home a difficult subject matter in an exciting and personally engaging way, one that went well beyond the text. In fact, so much was transmitted in those seminars that in later years I have sometimes been guilty of misattributing to Heidegger some great ideas that could more accurately be ascribed to Tom. About a dozen years later, after my travels had taken me to several other cities, academic departments, and degree programs, I returned to Toronto and we resumed our philosophical discussions. In the years that followed he allowed me to join him in his university seminars as an invited discussant (and participant) along with his graduate and upper-level undergraduate students in philosophy. An avid writer himself, he encouraged me to write - at first papers, and then this book - on more philosophical or interdisciplinary topics. In recent years the two of us have spent many evenings reading and commenting on drafts of each other's work. Tom has been kind enough to review each chapter of this

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Acknowledgments

book in its various forms and stages, and has provided valuable feedback to me over the past seven years. For all of this and for the friendship he and his wife, Janine Langan, have always offered me and my family, many hearty thanks. More within the psychotherapeutic community, in recent years my key source of intellectual stimulation and encouragement has been a group of clinicians/writers/philosophers - all of them wonderful friends. We have met twice a year for 'think tank' weekends at our various homes across North America to discuss philosophy and psychoanalysis/psychotherapy. My intellectual and emotional debt to this group is profound, and I would like to thank each of them individually for their feedback, their encouragement, their support, their friendship, and their wisdom over the years. They are (alphabetically) Doris Brothers, Elizabeth Corpt, Lynne Jacobs, Donna Orange, Mike Reison, and Max Sucharov. I'd also like to thank Francesca von Broembsen for bringing this group together and for her early contributions and suggestions regarding this work. Two other study groups in which I participate also deserve thanks for their support, their feedback, and their efforts to keep me up to date with so many aspects of our broad field throughout the years of this project. They are the 'North Toronto Psychiatry Study Group' and the 'Group for the Shady of Interdisciplinary Approaches to the Mind.' Each of these groups consists of varying types of psychiatrists - mainly in private practices - who meet regularly in the Toronto area for discussions of current topics and/or books. The memberships of these two groups have fluctuated over the years, so I will not list the members individually, but many thanks to all of my colleagues who have participated in them. For contributing to my scholarly development I must thank York University, whose courses in humanities and social sciences introduced me as a seventeen-year-old to luminary intellectual heroes such as Plato, Nietzsche, and Freud. These thinkers enthralled me so much that I abandoned my plans to pursue an MBA and switched to philosophy and psychology. The University of Toronto has been my academic home on at least three different occasions: as an undergraduate, some years later as a medical student, and later again as a final-year resident in psychiatry. I am not at present formally connected with that university, yet I still feel an emotional bond to it, and I keep coming back to it, so I am especially pleased that the University of Toronto Press is publishing this book.

Acknowledgments xvii

The Master's program in Phenomenological Psychology at Duquesne University certainly had no equal in the mid-1970s, when I was enrolled there. It provided a unique environment for thinking and for discussing much of the material that eventually developed into the present book. At Duquesne in the 1970s and at the University of California, San Francisco, in the 1980s, I particularly benefited from the wonderful discussions that went on among the students. I will always remember those discussions and appreciate their quality, so I must thank my fellow graduate students at Duquesne and my fellow residents in psychiatry at UCSF. Besides thanking the various teachers, colleagues, and students at each of the above-mentioned institutions, I'd also like to thank some of my colleagues at the London Psychiatric Hospital, where in the late 1970s I worked as a very young member of the psychology department under the kind and thoughtful supervision of psychologist Marg Howe. Especially important was the encouragement, support, and mentorship extended to me by Dr Harold Merskey (Director of Education and Research there, and Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Western Ontario) and the late Dr V.A. Krai (also of UWO at the time). Both these men co-authored some of my first published papers; and later, they helped convince me that going back to school to do medicine and psychiatry might be worth the long haul. While attending medical school back in Toronto in the early 1980s, I was fortunate enough to work as a student member of the Consultation/Liaison Team of the Psychiatry Department at Sunnybrook Medical Centre, under Dr Ron Billings. This enabled me to stay in contact with my field of interest, which helped me maintain my sanity (somewhat) through those early years of medical school. I also came to cherish the friendships I made with my fellow students of those years, Dr Bob Kassel and his wife Marion in particular. In my years of private practice, it has often been my patients who have inspired me most. For obvious reasons, they must remain anonymous. I count myself lucky to have worked with a group of sometimes extraordinary individuals who have had the courage to battle long and hard with problems that have haunted and hampered them for years. And they have continued to do the difficult work of psychotherapy in an effort to achieve levels of personal growth far beyond those of superficial or temporary relief of symptoms. I thank them here for their efforts, for the pleasure of working with them, and for all they have taught me.

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In terms of those writers whom I never met but who inspired me, there are many, but it pretty much goes without saying that this book would not have been possible without them. Some of my favourites include the great philosophers, from the times of Plato and Aristotle to those of Sartre and Merleau-Ponty and beyond; the great literary figures like Dostoevsky and Tolstoy, Hugo and Camus; the great scientist-thinkers like Einstein and Heisenberg; and of course William Shakespeare, whose works are still an incomparable source of inspiration to me. In the psychotherapeutic field, I still find the pioneering work of Sigmund Freud to be a great source of food for thought (and certainly for argument as well). Likewise, the works of later psychoanalytic thinkers - the self psychologists and the intersubjectivists in particular. I also wish to thank the staff of the University of Toronto Press for their help in preparing this book - especially Virgil Duff and those readers and editors who reviewed my manuscript and offered helpful suggestions. Last but not least I wish to thank my family and friends, who have been with me throughout the entire process: my wife Ann, who has had to bear with years and years of my spouting out words like 'epistemological' and 'ontological' when 'computer operating systems' or even 'let's go camping' would have been more to her taste; 'the boys' (my three sons), Michael, Steven, and Robert Hersch, who gave me enough time off from driving them to or coaching them in baseball games to finish this book; 'the girls/ my sisters Randi and Maxine Hersch, and their husbands, Aran Kwinta and Stan Dinoff, and their children; and my parents, Sylvia and Seymour Hersch, who have always been there for me both literally and figuratively. (Mom always loved writing and took so much joy in seeing me write too; dad, among other things, drove me through a snowstorm all the way to Pittsburgh when I was nineteen years old to apply to Duquesne's Masters program just in time.) Finally, two couples, Harold Rosenberg and Cindy Kliaman, and Drs Mark and Elizabeth Schenkel, my closest friends, who have been around me for almost as long as the rest of the family.

FROM PHILOSOPHY TO PSYCHOTHERAPY A Phenomenological Model for Psychology, Psychiatry, and Psychoanalysis

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CHAPTER 1

'Know Thy Philosophical Self

The Need to Know Thy Philosophical Self As psychological theorists and therapists, we often find ourselves bumping into some very significant philosophical issues. Indeed, if we are not doing so we are probably missing out on a lot! While different psychological theories and psychotherapeutic approaches may be founded on different sets of philosophical presuppositions, I will be arguing in this work that all such theories rest on some epistemological and ontological assumptions whether these are explicitly acknowledged or not. All theory, theorizing, and clinical practice takes place within the particular meaning-filled, value-laden, personal, sociocultural, and historical context of a given theorist/practitioner. Furthermore, each of us operates - it can't be avoided - from within a particular community (e.g., a professional community, or the overlapping of several of these) and from within a certain scientific tradition or set of traditions. Out of these, we may then develop our own more individualized understandings. Each of these communities, approaches, and broad theories embodies a 'collective wisdom' or a set of 'collective beliefs' attributable to the efforts of many, both past and present. That being said, every 'micro-culture' encompasses a complex set of basic and not-so-basic assumptions, attitudes, values, and presuppositions that are inherent and often essential to them. The problem is that not all of these assumptions, attitudes, values,

4 From Philosophy to Psychotherapy

and presuppositions will be readily apparent to us. More often than not, the philosophical assumptions underlying our psychological1 approaches and theories are treated superficially when they are not overlooked entirely. In the literature of psychology and psychotherapy, these important presuppositions are most often maintained at only the most vague, imprecise, merely implicit, or unconscious levels of our awareness. Sometimes they are outright disavowed, as in the case of the 'generally atheoretical approach/2 Yet these hidden assumptions profoundly influence how the psychologist's, psychiatrist's, or psychoanalyst's understanding of a particular case or issue will be framed, organized, or structured. In trying to form an empathic understanding of a given patient's experience and emotional context, psychotherapists have long accepted the crucial importance of appreciating a person's life history and life situation. But we tend to be far more reluctant to reflect on our own no less situated position with respect to our own activities of psychological theorizing and practising. Oh, some of us are quite conscientious about this in terms of looking at our own psychological issues - of 'countertransference/ and so on. Yet most of us are far less careful when we find ourselves on philosophical ground, which is less familiar to us. In this respect, it often seems as if we in the psychological fields have been waiting for philosophers or someone else to come along and help us 'make our philosophical unconscious more conscious,' while we've played the role of the 'highly resistant patient.' But, to paraphrase the words of the ancient oracle at Delphi,3 the task of coming to 'know thy philosophical self is an important one for all types of theorists and clinicians throughout 'the broad psychological field.'4 Indeed, much of this book will focus on how we can become better at recognizing and explicating our sometimes insufficiently acknowledged philosophical presuppositions (i.e., our philosophical context). I will also be demonstrating the utility of doing so from a practical and clinical psychological perspective. The busy clinician may well ask here: 'Why do we in the psychological/psychiatric field need to get involved in this?' 'Why not leave philosophy to the philosophers?' and 'Why would a psychotherapistclinician devote a whole book to it?' Below are four of the key answers to these questions, and my reasons for pursuing this topic: 1. Philosophical issues such as those of consciousness, knowledge, validity, meaning, subjectivity, objectivity, values, morality, and reality are so

'Know Thy Philosophical Self

5

intrinsic to the field of psychology that we seek to understand, that we should not ignore them, take them for granted, or leave them entirely to others to decipher. 2. Some philosophical issues - for example, of ontology and epistemology - are so important to our understanding of the human condition that the underlying positions we take on them necessarily have profound implications for our psychological theories and practices. So we can't afford to be unaware of these issues. 3. A better appreciation of the philosophical underpinnings of our psychological theories will help us develop some different - and better- psychological/psychotherapeutic models and approaches. I hope to demonstrate this. 4. In my own practice I have found some of the insights of the phenomenological philosophers in particular to be enormously useful when it comes to appreciating clinical phenomena and in understanding the people who come to me for help. Before entering clinical practice, I studied the works of the phenomenologists in the disciplines of philosophy and psychology, and I have no doubt that these have deeply influenced my own thinking (despite substantial subsequent training in a variety of more traditionally psychological, psychiatric, psychoanalytic, and psychotherapeutic approaches). I often find myself referring to or appealing to ideas and concepts found mainly in a difficult philosophical literature that is largely unavailable to most clinicians. I feel that the time has come for me to clarify my own philosophical presuppositions on such matters and how they influence my clinical work, and to try to make some of this 'potential gold mine of insights' more accessible to my psychotherapist colleagues. The Purpose of This Book

This book has three objectives: First, to approach psychological theory in a new way based largely on the premises of phenomenological philosophy. This approach will involve carefully and systematically examining a series of philosophical issues or questions that are crucial and inescapable because they underlie all psychological theorizing. The goal here is to develop a broadly based psychological model that is well grounded both philosophically and psychologically. I believe this approach will result in something of substantial clinical relevance, especially in terms of improving our understandings and practices in the field of psychotherapy.

6 From Philosophy to Psychotherapy

I will be taking the reader on a journey through the new model's development. This journey will start with the deeply philosophical roots of what I call the 'Beams-of-Light-through-Time model' and develop that model into a different way of looking at the general structure and context of human experience. After this we will venture deeper into the realm of 'praxis' and a set of new understandings of a variety of clinical phenomena encountered in the psychotherapy situation. Some significant reinterpretations of traditional psychotherapeutic concepts will be seen to follow from this model. Finally, I will show how such a model can be applied in the practice of psychotherapy, and how it can offer us some significant advantages or alternatives to previous models. Second, to demonstrate, for all theorists, clinicians, and students of psychology, the importance and relevance - indeed, the inevitability of dealing with philosophy and its issues. To this end, I will be presenting a palatable introduction to some of the philosophical issues most relevant to these people in their own work. I will discuss complex philosophical matters in such a way as to make them as accessible, interesting, understandable, and 'user friendly' as possible to those who are not professional philosophers. As a corollary, I will be trying to demonstrate for this same audience the importance, relevance, and clinical significance of philosophical 'self-knowledge,' and to provide some systematic means for undertaking a pursuit of that knowledge. As we proceed along this journey, I will be encouraging readers to look at their own thinking and perhaps their own tacit philosophical assumptions. Third, to present a method for psychological thinkers to approach systematically the fundamental philosophical questions and issues that underlie all psychological theories. To this end, I will present a framework for organizing, explicating, and critically evaluating these essential philosophical questions and our theories about them. I will be calling this approach the 'Hierarchy of Levels of Theoretical (or Philosophical) Inquiry Method.' Toward the end of this book, I will examine and compare several major contemporary psychological theories by utilizing this method. Included will be 'hierarchical sketches' of such theories as those of Classical Psychoanalysis, Object Relations Theory, Self Psychology, mtersubjectivity Theory, Constructionism, Behaviourism, Cognitive Psychotherapy, and Biological Psychiatry. The newly developed Beams-of-Light-through-Time model will also be presented in this manner, to allow for ready comparison.

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Throughout this book I will be arguing that without a systematic, comprehensive, and rigorous approach to dealing with the very relevant philosophical matters that underlie our psychological theories, we in the psychological field tend to adopt positions on those matters that remain at only an implicit level of our awareness. Learning to reflect carefully on our philosophical assumptions - and I hope this book will show you a way to - should therefore help us to better 'know our philosophical selves/ and 'make our philosophical unconscious more conscious.' Organization of the Book In this opening chapter I introduce the hierarchical method and describe its various philosophical questions, along with the levels of inquiry at which they are seen to apply. The remaining chapters are organized so that each is dedicated to a particular level of inquiry. The ten chapters that follow fall into four main sections. The first of these deals with the bottom-most layers of the hierarchy (i.e., the most fundamental ones), referred to as the ontological level of inquiry. The three sections after that deal with the following: general epistemology, field-specific epistemology, and psychology. Each of the first three sections has two chapters devoted to it. The final one has four chapters. In the early chapters I will be building up a new psychological model on a foundation of phenomenological philosophy. By chapter 8, the first chapter of the last section, the new model will be sufficiently developed that it can be described as a general psychological model pertaining to 'the general context of human experience.' In chapter 9 I will apply the model more directly and specifically to the theory and practice of psychotherapy; this will involve a re-examination of some of that field's central concepts, as well as more extensive use of case material. Chapter 10 introduces some concepts taken from the philosophical literature, such as the notions of 'bad faith' and 'authenticity'; these may also prove useful in psychotherapeutic work. Chapter 10 goes on to illustrate an application of the new model through a longer case study, one that for comparative purposes has been conceptualized in both the traditional manner and the newly developed one. Chapter 11 presents a series of 'hierarchical sketches' that try to summarize and characterize the overall philosophical stances of a variety of major contemporary psychological theories in accordance with the hierarchical framework used throughout this book. This way of proceeding should allow the

8 From Philosophy to Psychotherapy

reader to make ready comparisons among the philosophical positions adopted by these various psychological approaches; it should further demonstrate how one can extend such work to other theories as well, including one's own. Throughout the book I will keep in mind the clinical relevance of such issues, especially to the realm of psychotherapy. Case material will be used to illustrate various points, especially as we proceed farther up the hierarchy toward the most obviously psychological levels. In developing this new psychological model I will be emphasizing the works of the twentieth-century phenomenological philosophers. That is partly because their approach has been enormously useful for me in some ways, but also because their approach would benefit (I think) from the sort of structured development I mean to offer in this work. That being said, I believe that the methodological approach I employ in this book - including its hierarchy of philosophical issues and questions - would apply equally well to any general philosophical approach. My approach is in no way meant to be restricted to a phenomenological perspective or school of thought. A Few Maxims, Hypotheses, or Basic Assumptions Next I propose the following statements as maxims - or, if you prefer, basic assumptions. In the spirit of this manuscript, it is important for me to state them as such as early and as clearly as possible. Of course, I must also acknowledge their status as merely my 'working hypotheses' (i.e., as ideas that may require further refinement, development, or revision in the future, as opposed to 'the final word' on anything); this is in keeping with the philosophical positions that I will elaborate later in this project. The propositions are as follows: • Philosophy is unavoidable, as we always operate from within a context of beliefs, presuppositions, and background understandings, which I will here call one's philosophy. The portion of that overall philosophy which pertains to a given professional or academic subject matter I then call one's theory (whether or not it is well articulated). In this sense the state of 'having a theory,' or of having a given set of presuppositions and so on, should not be seen as either bad or good in itself. Rather it is inescapable. Thus: • Practice without theory is not just blind (as Kant argued5) but impossible. • Practice without acknowledged or conscious theory is blind (or at least has significant blind spots).

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• Good psychotherapeutic practice is best grounded in good psychological theory (whether or not that theory is explicitly known to or acknowledged by the practitioner). • Good psychological theory is best when it is consistent with, or well grounded in, good philosophical theory (again, whether or not these theories are explicitly known to or acknowledged by the practitioner). • Good philosophical theory is best when it is most clear, explicit, conscious, and acknowledged. I certainly do not wish to argue that psychological practitioners cannot do good work without some level of philosophical sophistication. The parenthetic phrases above about 'whether or not the theories in question are well articulated, explicitly known, or acknowledged by their adherents' are meant to acknowledge that a great deal of excellent psychological work does get done even in the absence of much philosophical awareness on the part of clinicians and theorists. My argument, however, is that each of these clinicians and theorists does indeed have an underlying theory, too, and if it seems to be working well it is probably a pretty good one, though poorly articulated. My hypothesis is that its clear articulation would make those theories that much more open to conscious, thoughtful consideration, rigorous reflection, and further development, and ultimately help their adherents become even better at what they do. In sum, I am arguing that achieving a good, explicit grasp of one's overall, broadly defined theory (including its fundamental philosophical assumptions) should be a very desirable goal for most psychological practitioners and theorists, even if they seem to have been able to manage reasonably well without it. Some Methodological Considerations Some of psychology's difficulty in dealing with philosophical matters seems to be methodological in nature. I must point out that notwithstanding the general criticisms made earlier about the philosophical naivete or neglect often apparent in our field, some psychological theorists, especially in recent years, have made valiant efforts to venture into more traditionally philosophical domains. Terms such as epistemology, hermeneutics, historical versus narrative truth, relativism, objectivism, constructionism, postmodernism, deconstruction, and so on are appearing more and more often in the psychological literature (especially in the psychoanalytic field). Yet some of the most fundamental issues - for

10 From Philosophy to Psychotherapy

instance, those of ontology - still tend to be left out of even these otherwise sophisticated epistemological discussions. It seems that in any truly broad-based psychological theory, a variety of important philosophical and psychological questions or issues are being addressed, more or less simultaneously, at several different levels of theoretical inquiry. Yet very few systematic or comprehensive attempts have been made to look at the complex, interwoven relationships among them in a detailed or rigorous manner. This has been a serious methodological problem in our field. This sometimes leaves one with the impression that psychologists are merely dabbling around the visible surface of a sort of 'philosophical iceberg/ and lack an appreciation of it as a more substantial albeit largely submerged whole. By levels of theoretical inquiry/ I mean that different kinds of questions asked or positions taken can occur at different levels of abstraction, of generality, and perhaps of logical priority or fundamentality. For example, an argument which states that 'being exists independently of us' is far more abstract than the idea of 'being here for your appointment'; and a statement such as 'all men are emotional' is more general than one which states that 'you (a man) are emotional.' Yet these pairs of thoughts can occur simultaneously on different levels of discussion without a problem. Questions of logical priority, or of fundamentality, also arise often in our discussions and may be of great significance in maintaining the consistency of our theories. Consider, for example, the two questions of (a) whether other people exist, and (b) how one can best understand them. Here, statement (a) has a strong claim to logical priority over statement (b). For it would make little sense to address (b), given a negative response to (a). So it seems that a position must be taken with regard to (a) before (b) can be meaningfully addressed. The case of a clinician beginning a discussion at 'how we can best understand other people' is thus an example of how we sometimes take a stand on certain underlying philosophical issues without reflecting on them much. Here we are assuming that the clinician has implicitly taken the position with respect to question (a), that 'yes, other people do exist' (otherwise he or she would be unlikely to bother trying to understand them). Throughout this work I will be assuming the value of logical consistency and of avoiding self-contradiction. A few people may object to this, and as this project involves trying to make our biases and assumptions as explicit as possible, the positive valuing of logical consistency is hereby acknowledged as one of my own.

'Know Thy Philosophical Self

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For example, if one wishes to assert at the same time that 'all men are emotional' and also that 'you (a man) are not/ the problem of inconsistency arises. Put another way, there will then be a lack of internal coherence to the set of arguments, theories, and positions taken as a whole. This is something that most people, including me, clearly want to avoid. But how can we even hope to consider whether our arguments are consistent with one another if we don't make stronger efforts to explicate our positions on a manifold of levels more clearly? It is this that leads us to my next proposition I propose that a (relatively) systematic approach or framework for looking at the underlying philosophical grounding of our psychological theories could be of significant help in the further development, evaluation, and comparison of those theories. It could also help clarify the inconsistencies, omissions, and inadequacies of particular theories. Such a framework or approach would try to be as comprehensive as feasible, and would be organized in such a way that those questions which are seen as being the most general and fundamental, and as having the strongest claim to logical priority over others, would be dealt with first. Such a framework, organized according to these defined 'levels of theoretical inquiry/ could also help us clarify some of our confusing situations or arguments in which various levels of inquiry are being inadvertently mixed together in a given discussion. Of course, in keeping with the view that all such methodological attempts are (of necessity) culturally and historically bounded or situated tasks that can never be totally completed, this hierarchy too would ultimately have to be flexible, open-ended, and open to revision. But for the time being it could be a valuable organizational tool and a useful heuristic device that would help us explicate our philosophical presuppositions and increase our reflective awareness of them. That is, it could be of significant benefit in the aforementioned task of trying to better 'know thy philosophical self.' The Hierarchical Method of Theory Analysis and Theory Development In accordance with the above considerations, I have developed the following systematic and hierarchically organized approach to psychological theorizing and its philosophical underpinnings. Following are a few general points and hypotheses pertaining to it: 1.1 have constructed a hierarchy of levels of theoretical inquiry, organized

12 From Philosophy to Psychotherapy

according to the types of philosophical questions addressed at each particular level. In keeping with the earlier example, in which the clinician at least implicitly adopted the stance that he believed in the existence of other people, I propose that with regard to the most basic or fundamental of these levels, one must always take some position. That is, we take some stand on these questions whether we recognize it or not. 2. Such basic positions may be seen as foundational to certain stances taken on subsequent, 'higher' levels of inquiry. This is not meant in the sense of 'foundationalfsm' (the Cartesian6 idea that one can find 'solid, objective, pure and absolute, rock-bottom Truths' on which to build 'objectivistic' systems - the spirit of which runs completely contrary to the thrust of this work, which rejects all attempts at foundationalism as naive, misguided, and impossible). Rather, the term foundational is use here in the sense of 'providing the conditions that make it possible for later positions to be taken in combination with these, so that they continue to meet the requirements of coherency of the total argument that is, so that the various parts of one's overall theory can be logically consistent with one another.' However, this use of the term does not ascribe any degree of certainty or absoluteness to such points of view, even though those points of view may be seen as foundation/?/ to particular other, higher-level positions. Furthermore, to suggest that some levels of the hierarchy may be foundational to others is not to suggest any kind of reductionism, whereby one's higher-level positions can simply be deduced from one's lower ones. Certain foundational or 'grounding' positions taken up by a theory at its more fundamental levels can be seen as describing some 'necessary' conditions as to which possible stances it can then adopt coherently at its higher levels. But these grounding positions cannot be described as 'sufficient' conditions or as 'determinants' of those to be taken on subsequent levels. 3. In clarifying this hierarchical structure and the types of questions addressed at each of its levels of inquiry, and by then examining the positions a given theory takes on each of those levels, we are providing a useful methodological approach to aid theory analysis and theory development - one that ultimately should benefit practice as well. 4. Omissions of clear positions taken on fundamental levels, inconsistencies between positions taken at different levels, and/or the mixing up of levels of inquiry within a given argument, lead to increased conceptual confusion and inadequacies in our psychological theories.

'Know Thy Philosophical Self

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Thus I am proposing here a hierarchical approach to theory analysis as a means to increase the internal consistency or coherence of a given set of arguments - arguments which, though occurring at different levels of inquiry, may all be seen as aspects of a single, broad-based, comprehensive, and multilayered psychological theory. The Building Metaphor

The basic metaphor underlying this hierarchical approach, and underlying as well the suggestion that some levels of inquiry are indeed foundational to others, is one that compares the construction of a psychological theory with that of building a house. I will be using this metaphor throughout the book. As if I were constructing a house, I will be building my psychological theory from the bottom up. In this regard, the first section of the book, 'Ontology/ can be likened to the 'foundation and basement' of our psychological edifice. The next one, 'General Epistemology/ can be likened to its 'framework and infrastructure.' The third one, 'Field-Specific Epistemology/ can be seen as akin to the 'basic layout and design' of the house, and the fourth section, 'Psychology' proper, can be likened to the (relatively) 'finished areas' of the various floors, where we actively live. Of course, the metaphor breaks down in the sense that our theories must be openended and are never completely 'finished'; even so, most home owners would probably maintain the same thing about their dwellings! In keeping with this approach, the various levels of this hierarchy will be described from the bottom up, that is, from what are perceived to be the most fundamental or foundational levels upward toward the most 'founded' or 'grounded' ones. Similarly, those issues dealt with at the lowest levels of the hierarchy will tend to be the most general or most abstract ones; the more specific and applied ones will be nearer the top. A Caveat

All metaphorically 'structural' heuristic devices, and all 'spatial' or conceptual models, should perhaps carry a warning label on them such as: 'Danger! Do Not Reify!7 Excessive Usage Can Lead to Objectivistic Reductionism!'8 Still, like properly prescribed medications, such devices can serve a useful purpose when taken carefully and in moderation. With that caveat, I now begin to describe the hierarchy that I will use in the rest of this book.

14 From Philosophy to Psychotherapy The Hierarchy of Levels of Theoretical Inquiry, and Their Questions

Probably the most basic or general questions one can ask either in philosophy proper, or in psychology, or in any other science, have to do with issues about Reality - questions such as, 'What, if anything, is Real, or really Real?' For instance, if we were to take the position that nothing at all is really Real, it would then become very difficult to argue convincingly for any subsequent point whatsoever. For the whole idea of 'science/ or any other source of 'expertise/ would then be a concept of highly dubious validity, if not an outright contradiction. If indeed 'nothing at all is Real/ how can I claim the reality (or truth) of this, that, or any other statement? There are certainly problems with such a stance problems that would reverberate through all of the higher levels of theorizing on this hierarchy. Questions such as, 'Is anything really Real?' are thus seen as fundamental, extremely important, and indeed inevitable ones, regarding which we must always take some stance (again, either explicitly or implicitly). It is in this sense that I claimed earlier that philosophy (or at least some philosophical issues and questions) is unavoidable. At the same time, 'philosophzzfng/ or the overt and critical reflection on philosophical issues, is all too avoidable! Indeed, though not at all recommended here, this sort of unreflective course is often the norm. In the absence of critical reflection or of the self-awareness involved in actively and consciously or conscientiously choosing a particular philosophical position, we still take stands on such issues. When one proceeds along the course of one's everyday life, one acts in accordance with the unspoken assumption that some Reality exists. One need not reflect on this assumption to believe it; and we assert our belief in it through our actions (e.g., why would we go to work, write, or teach or eat for that matter - if we really believed nothing exists?). Indeed, it's highly questionable whether anyone can actually live in a manner consistent with the opposite assumption - that is, that no Reality really exists. Yet it remains easy to (a) write a phrase such as 'no Reality really exists/ and (b) not overtly address or reflect on the question of the existence of Reality. It follows that in our daily life, we probably all make the often overlooked fundamental assumption that 'some Reality exists/ and we behave accordingly. When philosophers more formally reflect on questions to do with Reality - its basic nature or existence - and our basic position with respect to it, they are said to be dealing with issues of ontology (from

'Know Thy Philosophical Self

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the Greek ontos - Being, and 'logos' - the study of). I will maintain here that the study of Being (or of Reality - the terms are used interchangeably here) is the most fundamental of levels for us to address in our hierarchy. The question, 'Do we believe any Reality at all exists?' is probably not a very controversial one in most circles (especially not in those which adopt 'internal coherence or logical consistency' as a value, as I do throughout this work). That being said, the question, 'What is our precise position or relation to such Reality?' has occupied philosophers for millennia. The question, 'Is there any Reality independent or partially independent of us?' has been central to such discussions. So we will take as the starting point for our hierarchy this question: Ts there any Reality independent or partially independent of us?' I see this question as the most fundamental of those on which we must always take some stand, and on which all of our other, higher-level questions will rely. So we place it at the very foundation of our hierarchy of levels of theoretical inquiry. The question, 'Does any absolute Truth exist?' is seen here as another variant on the same basic Reality question. Questions like these constitute the issues at the root of what I will later refer to as the ontological level of theoretical inquiry. For our purposes, I will break the ontological level into two parts: Level A, which deals with the basic question, Ts there any Reality independent or partially independent of us?' and Level B, in which we address the still ontological, but subsequent, question, 'What is our position or relation to that Reality?' (if we do assume it exists on Level A). Level B asks, for instance, 'Are we originally separated or apart from such Reality, or is the very essence of our Being relational in this respect from the outset?' We will see that some philosophical traditions take up very different stances than others on this still quite fundamental level. Later I will argue that two varying positions taken at Level B have enormous implications for the types of epistemological and psychological level theories one subsequently adopts. Level C: Next above the ontological levels (A and B) is the general epistemological level of inquiry, Level C. The questions of a general epistemology - 'What is our access to truth or knowledge?' 'Where is truth to be found in our paradigm?' 'How or from what is it constituted?' and so on - are addressed on this level, which deals with the nature of human knowing in general. Level D: Based on the stances adopted on Level C and still within the

16 From Philosophy to Psychotherapy

realm of epistemology are the questions of validity (or general validity) - that is, questions such as, 'Given our general epistemological position (on Level C), how do we validate our knowledge?' 'How do we know something is true?' 'What criteria do we use to assess its truth value?' Again, these are discussed from the standpoint of the position and limits of human beings in general. Level E: The next major level of inquiry as we move upward on the hierarchy can be termed the field-specific (or discipline-specific) epistemological level. At this level, our questions no longer take the form of what human beings can know in general. Rather, they are cast as, for example, 'Given our general epistemological and ontological positions taken below, what can we know or hope to know or learn within a given particular field, discipline, or setting? For example, what can we know from within the psychotherapeutic dialogue?' Assertions on this level may include specific-field delimiting statements, or positions that attempt to define the proper limits (or 'horizons') of possible knowledge thought most appropriate to a given field. Level F: The field-specific epistemological level (E) positions mentioned above provide a basis for field-specific (or discipline-specific) theories of validity on Level F. These will in turn be used in assessing the appropriateness of particular methodologies for the given field or discipline. Level G: Only after implicitly or explicitly addressing all of these previous levels do we come to what will here be called the psychological level of inquiry proper, or Level G. At this level of inquiry, our questions about how people feel, behave, think, interact, and so on are raised, and our various insights, theories, and differing emphases are debated as we attempt to better understand and help them. Undoubtedly there are sublevels within this complex one. For the moment, our sociocultural influences, value systems, and historical contexts are all considered as part of this level. This is not meant in any way to diminish the importance of, or to blur the distinctions between, any of these factors. For purposes of this work, the key point is that all these psychological level G issues remain as 'founded' (in the sense defined earlier) on all the previously described levels. So it is probably best that discussions of them should not merely occur in isolation from their philosophical underpinnings. For as important as the theoretical, clinical, and methodological controversies and differing emphases are within this level, changes of positions occurring at lower levels of this

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hierarchy would even more profoundly 'rock the foundation' of all that rest upon them. Such changes can be likened to a theoretical earthquake that necessitates a great deal of subsequent rebuilding. If we again consider the house metaphor here, this becomes more obvious. Small shifts in the foundation of a building can cause major damage and skewing on any or all of the layers above. And the higher the floor, the greater the sway that will result. Thus, analogously for our conceptual 'house/ the lower the level of our hierarchy at which a suggested change in position is expected to apply, the more 'revolutionary' or 'paradigm-shifting' (in Thomas Kuhn's [1962] terms) its effects will likely be. The Hierarchy of Levels of Theoretical Inquiry and Their Questions to be used throughout the rest of this book is illustrated in Table 1.1. A more graphic illustration of the Hierarchy of Levels of Inquiry, more in keeping with the house metaphor, is provided in Figure 1.1. Two Addenda

A Note on Values and Ethics. With regard to the above hierarchy, it should be noted that beliefs and values will always be present throughout all of these levels. So beliefs and values (including those on ethical matters) can best be seen as a particular dimension inherent in all of our theories and reflections, and would not be well served by being seen as a separate level of inquiry, as was the case with the other levels mentioned. The ubiquitous presence of beliefs and values is of course acknowledged. An example already alluded to is that of 'coherence/ or internal logical consistency, which has been adopted as a value throughout this work, and is taken to apply at all levels of inquiry. On Holism. One possible negative consequence of delineating such a hierarchical schema is that it could lead us away from the basically integrated character of our experience. Clinicians especially do not proceed sequentially upward from level to level in their thinking. In real life we think, perceive, feel, and understand on many levels at the same time. Also, this schematic description is in no way meant to exaggerate an imaginary separation between theory and practice. That would be an unfortunate misreading of the intent of such an approach. Let us keep in mind the hierarchy's primarily explicatory and heuristic purposes and not lose sight of the fact that even the metaphor of a

18 From Philosophy to Psychotherapy TABLE 1.1 The hierarchy of levels of theoretical inquiry and their questions The bottom levels are the most 'foundational' to the others; i.e., positions on Level A form the 'grounding' or the conditions for the possibilities of positions on Level B; those of B ground C, etc. In order of which are the most fundamental, the chart should be read from the bottom level up: from A to G. Thus, e.g., psychological level G insights and theories are seen as resting on a whole series of positions taken up on each of the supporting levels (A through F). PSYCHOLOGICAL

G) How do people feel, think, behave, interact, etc.? How can we best help them psychotherapeutically?

FIELD-SPECIFIC EPISTEMOLOGICAL

F) How do we validate knowledge appropriately in this given field? What methodological approaches are appropriate to it? E) What can we know or hope to learn within this given field or discipline? What are the limits or boundaries to the above?

GENERAL EPISTEMOLOGICAL

D) How do we validate our knowledge? How do we know it is true? What criteria do we use to assess its truth value? C) What is our access to truth or knowledge in general? Where is truth to be found? How or from what is it constituted?

ONTOLOGICAL

B) What is our position or relation to that Reality (if we do assume it exists on Level A)? A) Is there any Reality independent or partially independent of us? Does any absolute Truth exist?

house refers to a structure that functions primarily as an integrated whole. This hierarchical approach has been designed only as a method of theory development and theory analysis, not as a technique of psychoanalysis! Without further ado, let us now proceed to the main substance of this book, beginning with Section I: 'Ontology.'

'Know Thy Philosophical Self Figure 1.1 The Hierarchy of Levels of Theoretical Inquiry

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PARTI Ontology: The Groundwork and Foundation

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CHAPTER 2

ONTOLOGY (LEVEL A): The Question of Reality

Realism and Relativism Throughout this work I will be maintaining that the most fundamental of our foundational philosophical assumptions - which nevertheless must remain assumptions - are those dealing with the issues described in our hierarchy as belonging to the ontological level(s) of inquiry. It is here that the most bottom-line philosophical questions are raised: 'Is there any such thing as Reality or Being that is independent or partially independent of us?' 'Is there any Absolute (or Universal) Truth (or Truths)?' 'What is the nature of our human type of Being?' 'What is our position or relation to that Reality which is distinct from us (if we assume such Reality to exist)?' Why I Have Chosen Ontology as Our Starting Point: Cartesian and Non-Cartesian Points of View The intimately related questions of epistemology deal with the nature of human knowledge, knowing, access to truth, and perhaps types of Truth (or truths). At least in organizational terms, I will be treating those questions in this work as subsequent to the basic questions of ontology. This ordering is not universally accepted in philosophical circles, and some would have it the other way around (i.e., that epistemology should come before ontology). I will argue, however, that this latter view mostly reflects a particular trend in epistemology that has been called the 'Cartesian' approach (after Descartes). Though it has

24 Part I: Ontology

occupied a quite dominant position in Western philosophy over the past three-and-a-half centuries and has been (perhaps less reflectively) adopted even more diligently by traditional psychological theories, the Cartesian point of view has been heavily criticized in recent decades, especially as it relates to the psychological field. Within this particular trend, the starting point for philosophy - as well as for any science - is Descartes's famous 'Cogito'1 - the thinking, doubting, immaterial Subject that begins with its own isolated existence and proceeds to try to know a world of external, material (or extended-in-space) objects. These latter are initially seen as quite apart and as radically distinct from 'the thinking I/ For Descartes, 'I think' even precedes '(therefore) I am.' The Cartesian perspective assumes that knowing or knowledge is our primary way of relating to or havi access to any possible external Reality. From this standpoint, epistemology, with its questions about 'what one can really know/ is the domain of the most primary and foundational of our philosophical considerations - it even precedes issues of ontology (dealing with what exists). Let us now try to briefly clarify these statements and their relevance to this project, by looking back at how this position was developed. Descartes's Project

Rene Descartes (1596-1650), who is considered by most to be the father of modern Western philosophy, reached his position of 'the Cogito' while searching for absolute, bedrock certainties. Cogito is Latin for 'I think,' and Descartes saw the fact that one is thinking as the one observation about which no one could have any doubt. Descartes wanted to philosophize in a new way for his time. He wanted to pursue his subject matter in a clear, serious, rigorous, systematic, and scientific way free of superstition, dogma, unsubstantiated opinion, prejudice, and the 'political or religious correctness2 of his day. In this task he let himself be guided by his chosen method of systematic doubt. Through this method of rejecting the certainty of existence of any external object (or Reality) that could possibly be doubted experientially, he arrived at his foundational indubitable Cogito. This Cogito, however, found itself quite isolated, since in this manner all of its objects - indeed, the rest of dubious, external reality - had been dismissed as uncertain, and therefore not of the bedrock, absolutely foundational type of object or knowledge Descartes was seeking. Descartes was trying to build a 'pure' and definite science or philoso-

Level A: The Question of Reality 25

phy on only such incontestable and incontrovertible objects or propositions. This absolutist approach has come to be known as foundationalism (see chapter 1). Clinicians in the psychological field may well hear echoes here of the (perhaps naive) quests for certainty seen in some twentieth-century psychological theories of the extreme objectivist, absolutist, or positivistic variety. For example, radical behaviourism's early attempts to eliminate all that cannot be observed and measured betrayed a similar sceptical attitude (even though Descartes's own concept of 'innate ideas' was among the first casualties of that particular purge). Several problems arise from Descartes's positions. His efforts were quite heroic and did much to open the modern era of Western philosophy, yet he too made many assumptions (as we 'post-Cartesians' insist we all must do). And some of these assumptions are far from explicit. For instance, isn't it a big assumption to maintain that our ability to doubt an object somehow must reflect or say something about the reality of the object, or about the object's ontological status (as being real or not)? It seems that there is an implied ontological theory here that 'to be real is to be capable of being known, or perhaps known with certainty.' In Cartesian thinking, it is precisely this tacit ontological argument that brings the epistemological issue of knowing so much to the forefront of our considerations. A central assumption in Cartesian epistemology (and Cartesian psychology) is that our primary relationship to Being (i.e., to any external Reality or object) is one of knowing an object - that is, of somehow cognitively or rationally grasping it 'within us.' Indeed, the whole of what we will later refer to as 'representational thinking,' from Descartes to its more recent psychological iterations (e.g., in cognitive psychology and the object relations theories of psychoanalysis), rests heavily on such assumptions. (This will be discussed in later chapters.) The presuppositions inherent in Cartesian psychology maintain that an individual starts out as an isolated Cogito, which then somehow comes to know (and thereby form its first connection with) an external object that is at first radically or ontologically distinct and separate. Somehow, the 'knowing Cogito' then manages to associate this worldly object with an inner representation or image of it; that is said to correspond with this bit of external Being. But how (and why) exactly this comes about remains a bit of a mystery. The explanations of this to which Descartes himself resorted involved his concept of 'innate ideas,' which were 'pure and distinct' and

26 Part I: Ontology

inserted in our minds by God either at or before birth. Supposedly, these pure ideas enabled us to rationally grasp what we recognized in common with them in the outside world. But again, it is hard to understand how this would actually work. Even so, though they have generally discarded the concept of 'innate ideas/ modern psychotherapists and psychological theorists readily recognize concepts such as 'internalization/ 'inner objects/ and 'internal representations' as fitting in well with or reflecting such a model. Indeed, it is from such Cartesian epistemological models that these psychological notions have been derived. The trouble is, the Cartesian philosophical model may well have outlived its usefulness in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries! If so, it would be wise to revise any psychological concepts that still heavily rely on it. A Non-Cartesian Starting Point

So as not to get too far ahead of ourselves in our reflections on Descartes, let it suffice to say for now that in this work I have adopted the position that ontology belongs first in our consideration (i.e., as coming even before epistemology, in opposition to the above-mentioned trend inspired by Descartes). I offer the following reasons why: • There seem to be some ontological assumptions underlying even basic epistemological theories such as those of Descartes. • Certain modern philosophers whose writings I will discuss as the source of very important further insights (e.g., Martin Heidegger) have argued strongly against the notion that knowledge or cognitive knowing is indeed our primary or fundamental relationship to Being or external Reality. • The radical separation of subject and object on which Cartesianbased epistemologies traditionally begin is itself one of those implicit ontological assumptions, presuppositions, or theories about the particular nature of our (human) form of Being and about our basic position or relation with respect to Reality (see chapter 3). My approach can thus be seen as beginning in a rather 'non-Cartesian' way, in that it does not take the Cogito and the problem of knowledge as its starting point. I will discuss this more later; for now, let us return to the basic questions of ontology, while acknowledging that in practice they will be closely linked to the issues of epistemology.

Level A: The Question of Reality 27 The Question of Reality

Often, the stickiest issues in philosophy - especially in ontology - are also those which encounter the most resistance to being discussed carefully and reflectively by clinicians and practitioners in the psychological field (as well as by those in many other applied fields in the natural and the social sciences). Why is this? Why is there so much aversion to or simplistic dismissal of the issues that may be the most relevant of all when it comes to grasping not only our subject matter but also ourselves, the very nature of our understanding, and what makes understanding possible? Is it because, in our pragmatic-empirical, 'just the facts/ 'how to fix it' culture, we cannot handle questions that have no clear, easy, and precise answers? Is it because we in the psychological field are so insecure about our 'scientific' status that we don't dare address philosophical issues for fear of being labelled 'soft,' 'fuzzy,' or worst of all, 'non-scientific' (with the implied loss of academic status, not to mention grant money)? Are we afraid we'll get caught up in some form of ideology, dogmatism, religiosity, or mysticism - in other words, that we'll lose our critical judgment? Or is it that we're so afraid these issues will turn out to be important in terms of our underlying world views that, consciously or not, we carefully avoid upsetting the apple cart of our meaning systems? Certainly, if any of the above are even part of what's going on here, then it is fair to say that psychologically based fears are inhibiting our inquiries into these matters. If this is the case, the clinical terms of resistance and defence are quite applicable. Ironically, this is precisely the sort of situation we as psychotherapists routinely try to alleviate with our patients. In a very real sense, one can look upon the challenge of examining one's own philosophical presuppositions as a sort of making our 'philosophical/theoretical unconscious' more conscious to us - a psychological task that perhaps comes complete with its own 'dynamic resistance.' As with the latter process, that which is most current, obvious, and of immediate concern is best understood in terms of its broader, personalmeaningful context, which includes all manner of underlying (or previous) assumptions, 'schemas/ 'organizing principals/ 'transferences/ 'theories/ 'natural faiths/3 'historical backgrounds/ and so on. So let us not shy away from the task of uncovering these. In philosophical terms, we'd be less likely to speak of 'making our unconscious conscious'; rather, we would refer to the process of mak-

28 Part I: Ontology

ing our presuppositions, assumptions, and prejudices - along with their logical structure, interrelationships, and development - more explicit and open to questioning. The Problem of Relativism

Probably the first philosophical question on which we must take some stand is this: 'Is there any such thing as Reality or Truth existing or capable of existing independently or at least partially independently of us?' In common language, the question is often framed this way: 'Is everything "merely subjective," or is there a Reality that extends beyond our minds and imaginings?' In psychological terms this could be phrased as follows: 'Is everything merely my "projection" and nothing more?' Related questions include whether there is any absolute or Universal Truth that remains real and true across all times, places, and situations. The issues that are being raised here - especially by the latter of these questions - bring us to what is known in philosophy as the fundamental problem of 'relativism.' Essentially, relativism is the perspective that all truths are entirely relative to who sees them and /or to the viewer's particular ideas and circumstances at the time (including the historical and cultural context as well as personal-motivational goals, values, and projects). Relativism denies the existence of any universal or absolute truth that transcends all the particulars of a given instance, that is always and necessarily true across all possible conditions of time, place, person, situation, and context. This has been an important and difficult problem in philosophy since at least the time of Plato (more than 2,300 years ago). In the dialogue Theaetetus, Plato has Socrates discuss Protagoras' famous assertion that 'man is the measure of all things.'4 Here, the question of whether all truths and 'goods' (or assertions of value, or 'goodness') are merely relative to human standards was raised in one of its earliest recorded versions. The question of relativism can also arise at various levels of philosophical inquiry (in accordance with our hierarchy), so we must specify carefully the level at which we are making our relativistic claims. For example, a position of relativism adopted at ontological level A (i.e., dealing with the nature or existence of Reality) would amount to a claim that no such universal truths or realities beyond or independent of us exist at all. In contrast, a relativistic claim taken up on one of

Level A: The Question of Reality 29

the subsequent, epistemological levels of the hierarchy (i.e., dealing with what we can know, or our access to truth as opposed to whether it exists or not) might maintain only that we cannot have complete access to or full knowledge of such truths; this does not necessarily deny the possibility of their existence. I will defer discussion of the latter of these levels to later chapters. The point I emphasize here is that it matters greatly at which level we are discussing issues such as relativism. In the following chapters I will show that the consequences of taking up a position of relativism on an ontological level are quite different from (and more radical than) the consequences of taking one up at the level of general epistemology, or the level of a field-specific epistemology. For argument's sake, what happens if we take up at ontological level A a position of extreme relativism - that is, if we assert that there is no Reality or Truth beyond ourselves, and that all there is is my 'imagination/ 'idea,' or 'projection/ as it were? The first objection here might be the well-known criticism of relativism - that it involves the following paradox or contradiction: 'How can one assert the truth of a statement saying "there is no truth"?' Furthermore, the ontological relativist could here be seen as 'arguing for the null hypothesis' (i.e., trying to prove the non-existence of something based simply on the fact that it has not yet been observed or proven). This of course is seen as a faulty sort of reasoning, a faux pas that is totally unacceptable in modern empirical science. But even if we were somehow to sidestep these objections, what would a relativism on an ontological level mean to the tasks of science, education, knowledge, and study in general? If all truth is just in my mind, why write? And for whom would I be writing? For that matter, why read, study, or argue anything? If there's no such thing as Reality or Truth, there can be no real basis for any form of validity (or truthvalue) as such. All propositions or statements would then be of equal (zero) truth value. This is very much an 'anything goes' position. But from within such a framework, 'science' would then be an absurdity, and 'knowledge' an impossibility, and any attempts at 'education' or study would be mere folly. This reductio ad absurdum argument about ontological relativism is enough for this author to reject that position as untenable. It might be an arguable position for some, but it is hard to imagine anyone 'living it out' consistently. Some authors have in fact argued that 'everything is meaningless and absurd and merely subjective/ but it seems not to be a

30 Part I: Ontology

position that most people can hold on to sincerely for long (except perhaps in the depths of severe depression and despair). There would certainly be no point to writing from that standpoint. It seems that one has to believe in the possibility of science - or at least that some form of (albeit limited) knowledge is possible - before one can bother to write or read a 'non-fiction' book. Clinical Interlude This may be a good time for us to take a brief 'clinical interlude' and put on our clinicians' hats again. Leaving aside philosophers and certain flamboyant writers (who may take pride in their radicality, unconventionality, or plain outrageousness), it is possible that ontologically relativistic claims are encountered most often by psychiatrists. Patients we consider psychotic and delusional often bring up such issues, both for themselves and for those treating them. A psychotic patient may present saying that 'nothing is real, everything is meaningless, it's all an illusion, a trick, or a dream/ and will not be easily convinced otherwise. A troublesome corollary to this is that with these claims he or she will further claim - in a sense rightly, or at least consistently - that you, 'the doctor/staff/expert/ therefore have no real expertise, authority, or privileged position knowledgewise in comparison with him or her. This may lead to a refusal of treatment - something that those of us who believe in some reality beyond ourselves will insist can lead to very undesirable and unchosen, but very real, consequences to both the patient and others. A different take on these questions comes up when, for instance, a paranoid patient is seen who doesn't deny the existence of all reality, but unfortunately does deny your (i.e., the clinician's) view of reality in favour of another that he believes whole-heartedly to be true. Accompanying this scenario may be a very elaborate explanation as to why he or she (the patient, not the doctor) is the one with privileged access to such truths or special knowledge. For example, this sort of patient may claim that the hospital you are both in is really a secret prison and that the hospital staff around are really disguised agents who are part of a government conspiracy. The patient may go on to explain how he or she knows the real truth or enjoys a privileged access to it that you don't by virtue of a special radio receiver planted in his or her brain by the resistance movement. Here, the clinician will probably be in the more sceptical position, in contrast to the patient's apparent certainty about the true condition of reality.

Level A: The Question of Reality 31

If we are not 'philosophically careful' in cases like this, we as clinicians may inadvertently trap ourselves by going too far in wellmeaning attempts to be democratic, pluralistic, and empathetic with respect to the patient's own experiential world. For instance, while trying to understand and form some alliance with the patient, we could find ourselves asserting that 'all realities are equally valid.' A response like this could move us perilously close to a 'therefore, anything goes/ position, one that could prove untenable on closer inspection. We must take care not to unreflectively adopt a position of extreme relativism, for doing so could severely undermine our efforts, our credibility, and our authority. Clearly, in situations like these the philosophical positions we adopt are important if we are to establish what terms like 'psychosis,' 'delusion,' 'psychopathology,' and 'mental illness' really mean to us, and perhaps preserve our own sanity. Let us consider the first of the above cases, the one in which the patient maintains that 'nothing is real.' Descartes (and other philosophers) raised questions about whether the information we gain through our senses might be merely a set of unreal, illusory impressions that we are led to erroneously believe as the result of either some mischievous trick or a dream-state. But the philosopher raises these questions in a sceptical way, as provocative hypotheses, whereas 'psychotic' patients (in order to accurately qualify for that label) present to us with a sincere belief in their claims about the 'unreality of the world about them.' The psychotic does not share the philosopher's doubts. We are not talking here about non-psychotic patients, who present with feelings of 'derealization' or 'depersonalization' but who retain their sense that these feelings do not - or at least may not - reflect the true state of the world. Indeed, those people are still troubled by the incongruence of these experiences with others they still have. In contrast, patients with 'nihilistic delusions,' as are sometimes seen in psychotic depressions, will be quite convinced of the meaningless and (perhaps) unreality of things. Their pain is about how hopeless it all feels to them, not about any incongruence. Unfortunately, it feels all too congruent (in its negativity) to them; their crisis is not one of what to believe. And it is precisely such conviction that makes it so hard for us to deal with them in any ways that involve trying to 'convince' them otherwise. One positive thing that may come of this, however, is that their conviction may force us to take a closer look at our convictions and at the nature of our own bases for holding them. In such circumstances, how is it that we come to believe we know

32 Part I: Ontology

something they don't? What underlying philosophical assumptions must we make in order to support such a claim? If we begin with a relativistic stance taken at this ontological level - that is, one that denies any reality or truth which stands as at least partly independent of us how can we possibly claim any privileged position or reasonable knowledge at all with respect to the patient's separate experience? Even if we were for the moment to set aside the solipsistic dilemma that such an 'antirealist' position entails,5 and concede their separate existence from us, on what basis could we then possibly claim that our reality (or perception thereof) is 'better/ 'more accurate,' 'more informed,' or 'more real' than theirs? For to do so would be to appeal to some concept of an 'outside/ 'third-party/ or external source of truth or validation as a means of making such judgments. But of course, such external realities are precisely what are denied in this framework. We would then be left at best with the position of telling our patients that their worlds are indeed as hopeless as they seem to them but our world is not, and then perhaps offering some help in changing theirs. But supposing they refuse (as is the norm in such cases)? What then? From a consistent ontologically relativist standpoint, we should then probably go our separate ways and mind our own business. If all beliefs are of equal validity, it would seem to be immoral and unethical to force either our treatments or our beliefs on a patient. From an ontologically realist perspective, however, doing nothing would be seen as a clear case of neglect, if nothing is what was done by the emergency room psychiatrist sent to assess this patient (who no doubt was brought in by concerned relatives or friends). Furthermore, in such a case, allegations of negligence would likely be supported by the laws of the land (as usually defined in terms of the standards of care in the community). So our philosophical perspectives here certainly are important in terms of courses of action and consequences for the clinician. What about for the patient? It is extremely unlikely that a psychotic depression with nihilistic delusions (or any other psychosis presenting similarly) will simply go away of its own accord with little harm done. Nor for that matter will such patients tend to be significantly helped by talking or psychotherapy alone. The 'standard of care in the community' will generally require us to start treating the patient immediately with antipsychotic drugs. Patients like these usually present as psychiatric emergencies, and as requiring urgent psychiatric care. Patients like these may do a great deal of harm simply by acting in

Level A: The Question of Reality 33

accordance with their nihilistic beliefs. They may stop eating, they may conclude that suicide is their most reasonable course of action, and they may decide to take others with them! Even the most ardent defenders of 'rational suicide' will tend to agree that these people are not being 'rational.' Even if they seem to be with respect to their own lives, they cannot possibly justify taking the lives of others on such a basis. In fact, I'm not even sure that the whole of the previous sentence could be convincingly argued from a position of relativism at an ontological level - perhaps only the latter part without the former. Even without such catastrophic consequences, these cases are invariably connected with much pain and suffering for the patients. If they do not seek help, it is generally because they do not see it as forthcoming or possible, or they simply lack the energy to try. It is not because they are content with their situation. When one speaks with those who have subsequently emerged from such a state, they tend to talk of it as a hellish condition, and they are profoundly grateful for the help they received to escape it. The clinical literature offers many reports of patients who initially (in their psychotic states) would not or could not consent to treatment but once treated were quite glad to have received it. Several of the above points may come to mind when we consider clinical and legislative issues such as involuntary treatment. Whether or not one supports that practice, and whether or not a particular case matches the community's particular criteria for it, is not the issue at hand. But an important point can be made here: any convincing argument for something like involuntary treatment would seem to be contingent on one's having taken up a realistic stance at the ontological level of inquiry. Otherwise, that practice would seem to lack any potential basis for justification, as no one could ever claim the authority to know what was good for someone else, let alone to impose it on them. As mentioned before, the ontologically relativist clinician might be able to offer some sort of treatment, but only on a voluntary basis (if he or she wants to be consistent with those premises). However, the hindsight argument that an extensive clinical literature offers us about these cases strongly suggests that most often, the 'respectful and unimposing' approach offered by the 'relativist clinicians' would actually do the patient a great disservice in the long run. Undoubtedly, involuntary treatment is a complicated and perhaps multilevelled issue. The ontological arguments are merely one part of it, yet they do seem an important part, and not one to be left out of the discussion.

34 Part I: Ontology

With respect to the second of the two cases mentioned earlier, regarding the paranoid patient who does not deny the existence of reality as such6 but merely insists that his or her view of reality is 'right' and yours is 'wrong/ the level of philosophical inquiry in question seems to be different and less basic than in the case above just discussed. In the 'paranoid' case, the clinician's disagreement with the patient seems to be more epistemic and less ontological. That is, this issue is more about who holds the most valid knowledge about the world rather than about whether the world (as beyond ourselves) even exists or is itself a valid concept. This too is, of course, a very important philosophical question. But I will defer further discussion of that one to those later chapters in which we will direct our attention mainly toward epistemological issues. I make one more point regarding definitions before we move on from this clinical interlude. In the traditional psychodynamic literature, psychotic states have often been distinguished from 'neurotic' ones by the notion that psychotic patients show a lack of ability to differentiate between inner and outer stimuli. This applies to the contents of delusions, but even more particularly to hallucinations. A more biological approach might describe hallucinations as 'false perceptions.' Psychodynamic approaches have understood them rather as mistaken interpretations of perceptual experiences whereby, say, an internally originating sound or voice is misattributed as originating from a source beyond or outside the individual who hears it. I will discuss these phenomena in more detail later in this book. I point out here that this latter understanding of psychosis also presumes an ontologically realist position. For without that, there could be no question of distinguishing 'inner' from 'outer' sources in such a manner, since there would be no such thing as 'outer'! This sort of understanding of psychosis and hallucinations would thus be quite incompatible with an ontologically relativist position. Here again, we see how a psychological level understanding can rest on an unstated philosophical assumption. Clarifying Some Philosophical Terminology Many 'outsiders' find philosophy very difficult to read because it uses common terms in often highly idiosyncratic ways. So next I will clarify some of the terms used in the formal discipline of philosophy. Often in philosophy, the problem of relativism is dealt with on an epistemological level, where a position of relativism is seen as in

Level A: The Question of Reality 35

opposition to objectivism (which includes a belief in an absolute or objective truth inherent in objects independent of us). At an ontological level of discussion, however, the more common oppositional term is realism, which is often seen as in opposition to either idealism or antirealism. Returning to our initial question, we find the basic question of realism to be this: 'Is there any Reality independent or partially independent of us?' Realism is defined here as that philosophical position which maintains, 'Yes, there does exist at least some Reality or some form of Truth that exists at least partially independently of us, or of its being known by us.' In contrast, idealism is here used in the sense of that philosophical position which maintains that all of (at least human) Reality exists only as an idea in some form of 'mind.' One might argue that this idealist position still sounds more epistemological, than ontological, and indeed it seems to favour the former over the latter in importance. Therefore, the term antirealism will be taken up here as the more specific position, denoting a denial of realism at an ontological level. That is, antirealism takes up the position that no Reality exists even partially independent of us (without any direct appeal to any particular concept of mind). The problems most often associated with the term idealism (and with its related term, subjectivism, with which we will deal later), include the dilemma of solipsism - that is, the view that no one else exists. From within an idealist framework, it becomes extremely difficult and perhaps impossible to logically solve the 'problem of other minds' (let alone the problem of other things). The antirealist position defined above certainly may have its solipsism problems too, but the problem of relativism is the one it raises most quickly and directly. If there are no Realities (and therefore no Truths) beyond us, the concepts of an Absolute, Objective, or Universal Truth certainly get harder to grasp, and may be incompatible with any antirealist position. Some see the above philosophical terms as more confusing than the questions they relate to (again, not an unfamiliar situation for those well versed in psychological theory). This is likely due in part to the extreme complexity and high levels of abstraction involved in their subject matter. There is also the delicate business of postulating answers to these difficult questions so that one can accept the problems inherently involved in choosing philosophical positions. Some authors use the above terms with elements of degree attached

36 Part I: Ontology

to them (e.g., 'moderate realism'). In discussing matters on the ontological level A, however, I suggest that we confine our definitions to the more extreme ones noted earlier. Adding qualifying degrees could just add to our confusion; often, these 'moderate' positions refer to issues or positions more proper to subsequent levels of inquiry. If a Tree Falls in a Forest and No One Is Around to Hear It...

The significance of distinguishing among our various levels of philosophical inquiry is again brought to mind with this old philosophical question: 'If a tree falls in the forest and no one hears it, does it make a sound?' From an ontological level perspective, the question seems odd. While it is meant to address the question of idealism (likely on an epistemological level), it seems to assume the ontologically realist propositions that a tree can (a) exist, and (b) fall, when no one is around - that is, before we even get to the question about sound! Even Bishop George Berkeley (1685-1753), the philosopher who is described in The Oxford Companion to Philosophy as 'the first Idealist proper' (p. 387) had quite a struggle with this question. Eventually he had to resort to a sort of eighteenth-century version of the deus ex machina to solve the dilemma. He did so by invoking the 'always-hearing' (and seeing) presence of God to allow for the falling tree's sound (and indeed its existence) when no one was around. As the 'presumably not entirely dependent on us' figure of God is here brought in, we again seem thrust toward an ontologically realist position, even by no less an idealist than Berkeley. The psychologist-reader might here be tempted to object and say, 'Well, perhaps idealism or antirealism or extreme relativism on this ontological level is silly, but what has this to do with psychology or psychotherapy?' Surprisingly, the answer may be, 'Quite a bit!' Varying forms of idealism and/or relativism - some implicit, others more explicitly stated - are alive and well or even thriving in psychological theory today. A number of contemporary psychological/psychoanalytic theories - fictionalism, narrative truth, constructionism, and constructivism, and sometimes intersubjectivity theory - unashamedly adopt some variation of those positions. And at some level of inquiry, these theories certainly make some very strong points on these matters. But at which level of inquiry are these claims being made? The answer to this question is often not spelled out clearly in such writings. Yet we can now see that explicatory task as absolutely critical to our appraisal of the validity, feasibility, consistency, or truth of such theo-

Level A: The Question of Reality 37

ries. Thus it seems that ignoring the philosophical dimension in appraising a psychological theory may well be akin to ignoring a patient's personal history in doing a psychotherapy assessment: it can be done, but it is probably very unwise if not outright irresponsible. The Ontological Level A Position to Be Adopted in This Work Let us now return to the ontological level A position to be assumed in this work. The philosophical position that I will adopt at this, the most basic level of our hierarchy, and on which my theory development will rest, is one of ontological realism. This basically maintains that there exists a Reality or some form of Truth that is not merely or entirely dependent on us. I have had to choose some position on this level, and I have considered and rejected the ontologically relativist alternative described earlier as untenable and inconsistent with a number of my other premises, so I will be taking up this clearly realist stance. To some, this position may seem simplistic or self-evident, yet many psychological theories have been either criticized or praised for being relativisms (sometimes unwittingly). I have argued that this would likely make them untenable if that relativism can indeed be shown to be present in them at the ontological level A. But as we will see later, relativism at less fundamental levels of inquiry is a far more defensible position. For instance, it may be quite possible to argue that truths established solely within the psychotherapy dialogue are always limited, always relative to that context. But this would be an example of what I will refer to in the third section as a 'field or discipline-specific epistemological level E' statement, delimiting the accessibility of truth within a particular field/discipline or context, not a statement as to whether any independent truth itself exists (the ontological level A issue). Thus it behooves a psychological theory with relativistic elements in it to clarify the precise nature and level of inquiry at which such relativism properly applies. Indeed, that was an important part of my rationale for using the hierarchical method in this work. I hope this approach will allow us to be clearer about the exact position (i.e., level) and implications of such statements and assumptions. To summarize: In starting this chapter at the very bottom of our hierarchy of assumptions, I have assigned priority to establishing that something exists or z's at least possible before addressing how to get to know it or how much of it we can know. Put another way, ontology is

38 Part I: Ontology

seen here as prior to and as providing the foundations for epistemology. This is why we must begin by taking a position on the ontological level A. Given the choice between ontological realism and ontological antirealism, idealism, or relativism, I begin this work by taking up the realism (or realist) position at this level. The next important questions for us to address concern our basic, initial, or primary 'position' or relatedness with regard to that 'at least partly independent of us' Reality (now that we've assumed it exists), and our potential access to it. This brings us to our next level of inquiry, ontological level B, in which we will consider our most basic relationship or relatedness to such Reality (or to 'Being/ as some philosophers prefer to put it). That is the topic of the next chapter.

CHAPTER 3

ONTOLOGY (LEVEL B): Our Basic Position or Relation to Reality

Two Major Paradigms: Cartesian Dualism Versus 'Being-in-the-World" Having taken up a realist position on ontological level A, I will now proceed to the next level, to what I've called ontological level B. At this subsequent but still ontological level, I will address questions such as these: 'What is our position or relation to this Reality (having already assumed that some reality beyond our mere projections exists)?' 'What, then, is the nature of our peculiarly human reality or of our human type of Be-ing?' I will argue that differing assumptions made at this level, while each tenable, will result in radically different paradigms, which in turn will have profound implications for all subsequent (higher) levels of inquiry, including the psychological one. Furthermore, I will argue that the currently dominant paradigm for much of the broad psychological field is known only implicitly by most of its adherents, and while it is firmly rooted in our language and culture, it might still best be rejected in favour of a new one (which I will offer). The term 'paradigm' is used here in the sense of a very basic or fundamental model or framework from within which we conceptualize and operate. This usage is meant to conform to the one elaborated by Thomas Kuhn (1962) in his master work in the philosophy of science, 'The Structure of Scientific Revolutions.' The Old Paradigm The dominant ontological paradigm in psychological and medical think-

40 Part I: Ontology Figure 3.1 Schematic Illustration of the dualistic or 's R o' Model The old paradigm (based on Cartesian dualism)

Legend S = Subject R = Relation O = Object || = Ontological barrier between different types of Being

ing in modern Western culture seems to be what I will refer to as the 's R o' model. This model posits a thinking subject's' that is primordially apart and distinct from a thought-of or external object 'o/ with a very puzzling relational action 'R' somehow happening between them and thus connecting them. This is illustrated schematically in Figure 3.1. Here, the subject's relatedness to the objects of the world is seen as a 'secondary' phenomenon in that's' and 'o' are originally conceived of as apart from each other. In this Cartesian dualistic model, our first and primary connection to or relationship with objects is then seen to be one of knowing. Knowing, or the cognitive apprehension of an object by the knowing subject, is thereby seen as the prototypical or fundamental form of human relatedness to Reality. The branch of philosophy devoted to the study of 'knowing' or 'knowledge' (in Greek, episteme) is called epistemology. Although traces of similar thinking can be found in classical Greek philosophy, the modern version of this model is best exemplified by Descartes. In his work, the subject and the object are qualitatively different 'forms of Being/ which are radically split off from each other. Descartes' ontology1 partitions 'Being' (or Reality) into two major realms, that of res cogitans or 'thinking substance/ such as the immaterial 'Cogito' or subject, and that of res extensa, or the material and extended world of objects (or things). Furthermore, Descartes sees humans as having two

Level B: Our Basic Position or Relation to Reality 41

major aspects, each belonging to one of these realms: our 'minds' or 'souls' are of the immaterial sort of Being, whereas our bodies are of the material sort. Thus, for Descartes, there are ontological separations (by virtue of the separate types of Being involved); these are found both between one's self (as Cogito or subject) and the (extended) world, and between the mind (or 'mental') and bodily (material) aspects within one's self. The philosophical positions that assume these qualitative ontological divisions, chasms, or 'splits' have become known as those of 'dualism' or 'Cartesian dualism/ Doubting Descartes, or Further 'Meditations' on Cartesian Thinking

Several important arguments against Descartes's seventeenth-century approach have been raised in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. One fundamental objection - which has been especially well raised by the phenomenological philosophers - has been that Descartes begins with the assumption (an ontological one) that the Cogito starts out as an isolated thinking-being (res cogitans) standing apart from and ontologically separated from an external reality of objects of a completely different type (res extensa). But this assumption leaves us in an epistemological quandary: How then is knowledge possible? How can the Cogito somehow jump this ontological gap in order to know an object belonging to an entirely different order of Being/Reality? A parallel question arises with regard to that other great Cartesian dichotomy, the one between mind and body. How can the Cogito control the body? Again, it is a mystery how the ontological gap between mind and body can be leaped. Surely Descartes's own postulated bridge between these two realms of Being (via the pineal gland) strikes us as naive from the perspective of our era. Yet thinking as psychological clinicians, these discussions quickly remind us of the phenomenon of 'conversion/ in which we very similarly theorize that emotional (or mental) conflicts can somehow be converted into somatic (or bodily) ones. Just what sort of 'converter' or 'transformer' is at work here? The pineal gland routing is long gone from our modern theories, yet the mystery remains. Can we really afford to shrug our shoulders and say, 'Well, the theory doesn't matter here, clinical experience shows that conversion phenomena exist'? Shouldn't we be at least a little concerned when our clinical terminology and its theory of origin reflect a process that ultimately relies on some kind of magical conversion? Despite many attempts by more recent scholars to tackle

42 Part I: Ontology

the problem of how the mind and the brain can affect each other, it seems that something of that magical quality often remains - albeit couched in the far more sophisticated languages of neurophysiology and psychoanalysis. In the case of the subject versus object gap (Cogito as separated from res extensa), we don't even have a pineal gland to which we can appeal. But knowledge, ideas, and internal mental representations seem to take its place as Cartesian-style mediators. Yet this mediation seems to occur in no less 'magical' a way than mind-body 'conversion' in Cartesian or Cartesian-based models (including to some extent the classical Freudian one on which this term was originally based). Thus the dualistic model and its inherent ontological assumptions leave us having to deal with some very important unresolved problems. Though much recent philosophical work and some psychotherapeutic theorizing have emphasized the folly of Cartesian dualism, it can also be argued that the s R o model still prevails in psychological thinking today. At the grassroots level in our field, that paradigm seems not yet to have shifted. One problem has been the unavailability of clear and accessible alternatives at this ontological level of discussion. Another has been the general lack of awareness that there are various levels of inquiry involved here or that there even is an ontological-level question that one must answer one way or another. However, there are also several issues of language in play. And if there is one thing that English, French, and German philosophers can all agree on these days, it is that language has enormous philosophical significance. Language Issues The persistence of the s R o model in our languages is a multilevelled phenomenon as well. This model is deeply embedded in our day-today speech, and is a severe impediment to moving beyond this paradigm. The same model is also extremely embedded to our field's technical language (see section 3). Perhaps most importantly, this model is reflected in - or, more likely, is a reflection of - the very structure or grammar of many modern Western languages. For instance, the English language appears to work in a particular grammatical manner in which the 'subject' is seen as distinct from an 'object,' to which it may then be connected by a 'predicate' (which relates one to the other). On the surface, this seems quite similar to the structuring assumed by the s R o ontological model. Yet though a noun

Level B: Our Basic Position or Relation to Reality 43

(either a subject or an object) can be isolated from a sentence and still keep its meaning, a person (a living, experiencing 'subject') cannot be similarly extricated from his or her world (as the s R o model would imply). Thus, our grammar and syntax may be predisposing us toward an inadequately representative or inappropriate model of our basic relatedness to Reality. Twentieth-century philosophers as diverse as Ludwig Wittgenstein, Martin Heidegger, and Paul Ricoeur have argued (in different ways) that we don't just play with language but 'language plays with us.' So we must be cognizant of the subtle but sometimes pervasive ways that language, influences our thinking. The embeddedness of many current psychological theories in the s R o model, with its dualistic language, will be illustrated throughout this book. What Is It That Is Actually Implied by a Dualistic Model's Being Taken Up or Assumed on Ontological Level B?

The crucial assertion/assumption inherent in the s R o model is that the whole of Being (or the realm of 'what really is') is essentially a divided realm, with its heterogeneous, isolated parts seen as primary and the relations between them - indeed, the phenomenon of relatedness itself - as only secondary. This view is analogous to one in physics and chemistry: we start with a 'primary' set of atoms or distinct elements, which are then 'secondarily' connected to form molecules and more complex compounds. In Cartesian terms, the elements are 'mind/ or 'the Cogito' (res mensa), and 'matter/ the external or physical world (res extensa). These are the two distinct primary forms of Being, and they exist as it were self-sufficiently, or as self-contained entities apart from each other. Yet in practical matters, one certainly gets the impression that these two qualitatively different types of Being routinely interact in some way. But from within the s R o model we are still hard pressed to explain how such interactions are possible (especially as Descartes's contention that God has placed clear and distinct ideas in our minds holds little sway in our century). Furthermore, a whole host of problems at various higher levels of inquiry have sprung directly from the s R o model. These include important questions such as these: 'How does a mind (or the "subject") come to know the world (or an "object")?' (a general epistemological level C question); 'How can a therapist come to know his or her patient?' (a field-specific epistemological

44 Part I: Ontology

level E question); and 'How does a "mental conflict or symptom" get "converted" into a physical one?' (a psychological level G question). Of central importance here is that each of these questions can be seen as resting on the more fundamental ontological level B assumption that indeed there are two separate forms of Being which (at least theoretically) may begin as quite apart from each other, and which then must be somehow connected. Dualism and Scientism in the Psychological Fields

Dualism is, of course, quite prevalent in the psychological literature. Besides the subject-versus-object division noted earlier, several other 'splits' and dichotomies or dualities are often found or implied in many modern psychological writings. Examples: mind versus body, emotion versus reason; imagination versus perception; subjectivity versus objectivity. In this list the 'former' terms are often seen not only as qualitatively distinct from the 'latter' ones, but also (in some psychological circles) as generally inferior. This reflects not only dualistic leanings but also a tendency by some to associate particular systems of values with these dualities. One troublesome manifestation of this has been the trend toward endorsing (sometimes only tacitly) a set of values that prejudice us toward what has been called 'scientism.' Scientism involves a sort of blind allegiance or ideological commitment to the 'scientific.' 'Scientific data' and 'scientific methods' as seen either as a source of 'pure (absolute and objective) truth' or as the sole means of access to 'all that is or can be really true,' or as both. Furthermore, when such generally materialistic prejudices take shape, they usually do so without much clarification as to what 'scientific' in this sense really means. They may appeal to 'common sense' or 'self evidence' (as unscientific as that sounds), or they may invoke some very crassly positivistic standards. In any case, this tendency - which has been widely criticized in the more recent psychological literature for its failure to deal adequately with the experiential dimensions of our lives is one to be wary of, especially in regard to a subtype of the dualistic model that seems to overvalue the 'o'-side of the s R o dichotomy at the expense of the 's'-side (see chapter 4). But where does the 'atomistic' initial separateness theory or assumption originate? And more importantly, what is the evidence for it? What, indeed, is its scientific (as opposed to scientistic) status?

Level B: Our Basic Position or Relation to Reality 45 Rationalism and Empiricism

Two of the main competing traditions in modern Western philosophy, especially in terms of epistemological questions (i.e., concerning the nature of knowledge), are rationalism and empiricism. In a rationalist approach, true knowledge is seen as requiring some mediation 'from within'; in an empiricist approach, the origins of true knowledge are ascribed more directly to the 'data' we receive through our senses. For the rationalist, then, raw sensory experiences must be aided by 'internal' powers or sources such as our ideas, or reason, or rationality itself. Descartes is generally seen as one of the founders of rationalism, and he would not have had trouble with an approach that states we can know the structure of external reality by virtue of our rational (though internal) ideas about it. From that standpoint, perhaps we can understand the atomistic assumptions of the s R o ontological model as a sort of 'rationalistic' abstraction in which the 's R o-like/ 'subject-predicate-object' structure of our language and ideas gets 'read into' the external world, as if this structure of our reasoning were necessarily reflective or revealing of the true structure of all reality. Such a point of view could be consistent with a rationalist philosophy; however, critics of this approach argue that it amounts to reification - that is, the misattribution of an external, 'objective/ ontological reality to one of our habitual but merely conceptual constructs. I am inclined to agree with this criticism. Yet when we turn away from the rationalist tradition toward its old adversary, the empiricist tradition, we find that the latter too has long been tightly linked to atomistic and dualistic thinking at the ontological level. And, perhaps ironically, the empiricist tradition has tended not to turn upon its own assumptions in this regard with its characteristic rigor. For example, what is the empirical evidence for dualism? Is there any? Does it - or could it possibly - fit with our experience? Or are empirical methods ill adapted to tackle such questions? These ontological questions are often overlooked in empiricist writings in favour of epistemological concerns. These authors may have tacitly presumed the s R o model as readily as their rationalist counterparts. It seems that the s R o model has been subtly embraced by these two rival traditions in modern philosophy. So, if we want to find a more explicit and viable alternative to that model, we will probably have to turn our attention elsewhere, toward a more radically or fundamen-

46 Part I: Ontology

tally different philosophical approach. Put another way, I contend that in order to adequately address our ontological level B questions about the nature of our basic relationship or relatedness to reality, we will have to consider a philosophical approach quite radically different from the ones provided by traditional rationalism and empiricism. Since both these traditions seem to embrace 's R o dualism' (at least implicitly) in their fundamental assumptions, neither seems an adequate starting point from which to critique that position. We can't evaluate s R o dualism meaningfully while locked within its system, language, assumptions, and methods. So in this book I will be offering an alternative approach - one that begins from a very different and somewhat recent philosophical perspective known as phenomenology. Phenomenology and the Beginnings of a New Paradigm Phenomenology as a philosophical approach was developed by European continental philosophers in the early twentieth century. Today the term generally refers to the body of work largely begun by Edmund Husserl and further elaborated and developed by philosophers such as Martin Heidegger, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Maurice Merleau-Ponty. Some psychologists and psychiatrists - notably Karl Jaspers - have also made significant contributions to this field. Husserl2

Husserl's project (somewhat in parallel with Descartes's initial approach of systematic doubt) sought to tear the philosophers of his day (and later our day) away from the morass of presuppositions, assumptions, and prejudices in which they tended to find themselves. Descartes emphasized systematic doubt; Husserl took the opposite route - that is, he began by 'suspending his doubts' as far as humanly possible. In essence, he added Descartes's doubts (especially his doubting propositions as to the existential or ontological status of his objects) to Descartes's own list of prejudices to be 'bracketed off (in Husserl's terms epoche) from our immediate considerations. In this new, phenomenological form of investigation, the idea was to describe phenomena precisely as they appear to the human consciousness. Such descriptions were to be as experientially accurate and as 'free of judgments' (including those about the supposed real nature or form of objects) as possible. For Husserl, the ultimate object of such an investigation was to get at

Level B: Our Basic Position or Relation to Reality 47

the essential or basic structures of consciousness (or experience) in order to understand their nature (or essence) more precisely, in their purest and most general forms - that is, as prior or transcendent to the particulars of any given act of consciousness. His great goal was to lay bare - somewhat like Descartes, but in an entirely new way - the universal ways in which consciousness operates. To this end, he embarked on a method that involved systematically suspending (or 'bracketing off) for the time being, as much as possible, all of our judgments and theories about our subject matter - even those as to whether our objects exist - in order to try to return 'to the things themselves.' By 'things/ he would up mostly meaning our experiences of things, or 'phenomena/ From this beginning he set out to explicate the basic structures of human experience in general (hence the term phenomenology). Thus, in the phenomenological method there is an initial process of trying as hard as possible to describe our human experiences 'in precisely the ways they appear or are experienced or felt by us/ How phenomena appear to us is given precedence over the more theory-andassumption-laden judgments regarding what we supposedly 'know them' to 'really be.' For example, phenomenologically, the Earth seems to be a fairly flat big place with a much smaller sun sometimes seen above it, sometimes not. However, Husserlian phenomenology does not stop here. The next step, which Husserl called 'the reduction/ involves a process of critical reflection on these descriptive findings. The aim of these various reflective researches is to gain more understanding of the basic structures, elements, relationships, and meanings seen as essential or necessary to the very possibility of our being able to experience such phenomena as those in question. A basic structure of experience that has been well elaborated phenomenologically, and that is also of enormous psychological and psychological-theory-building significance, is that of 'intentionality.' This phenomenon was elaborated in its modern philosophical sense in the late nineteenth century, mainly by Franz Brentano (who incidentally counted both Sigmund Freud and Edmund Husserl among his students). It was further developed by Husserl. Intentionality refers to 'the structure or property of consciousness such that it always exists as consciousness of something, that it always stretches toward and implies an object of consciousness/3 Three points about the preceding terminology need to be made:

48 Part I: Ontology

• 'Intentionality' is used here in its traditional philosophical sense, to refer to the general property of the directedness of consciousness, or to its vectorial quality; consciousness is seen as always stretching toward something (its object). This does not quite reflect the common psychological usage of the word 'intentions/ which refers more to one's specific and particular motivations or will at a given time. • 'Consciousness' is used here in the traditional philosophical se (not in the psychodynamic sense), and refers roughly to 'the experiencing human' in general. • 'Object' is used here in the grammatical sense (as in subject-predicateobject), and thus can refer to a person, place, thing, or even an idea, fantasy, or image. It is not used here in the more restrictive psychological sense (as referring mainly to people, as with the term 'object relations'). From this ubiquitously noted phenomenon of 'the intentionality of human experiencing,' Husserl saw the basic structure of all experience as having this intentional quality as part of its essential form - that is, as being always, a priori, directional, or vectorial. Therefore, in some sense, he also saw human experience as inherently relational (i.e., as always, necessarily, related to an object). This basic structure of experience would then, of course, be seen as present in all manner of psychological experiences, including psychodynamically 'conscious' and 'unconscious' thoughts, desires, and emotions. You will see later that the consequences of this point are quite important to our psychological level G theorizing. An intentionality-based model cannot be consistent with certain concepts of affects, thoughts, and desires that have been offered in the psychological literature (e.g., ones that see these as capable of being 'free-floating' at times and without objects). But more on that later. We return to our present level's main concern - the nature of our primary relatedness to the world around us. Husserl's line of thinking about intentionality may be highly relevant for us here. For one major consequence of these phenomenological investigations that repeatedly describe the intentionality of human experience is that the 'separateness assumption/ which is the central tenet of the s R o model, now comes to be seen as more and more dubious and farther from our actual experience of the world. For if the form of relatedness known as intentionality is indeed part of the primary and essential structure of consciousness (or human experience), then the s R o model's assumptions

Level B: Our Basic Position or Relation to Reality 49

of primary separateness, and even of the possibility of such an autonomous, isolated state of separateness, must be incorrect! Undoubtedly these are difficult concepts to grasp, and probably our linguistic and cultural-philosophical-traditional prejudices make them even more so, but ultimately this may come down to the view that human experience can be conceived of as either primarily relational in its very essence, or as a more self-sufficient and 'atomlike' entity for which relatedness is optional rather than necessary. At this point we can even rephrase the key question this way: 'Is dis-connectedness ever possible?' Husserl himself continued to struggle with this dilemma throughout his writings. Many would argue that he never really overcame dualism, eventually opting for a subjectivist position within it. His student, Martin Heidegger, took some very bold further steps in this respect, and did come up with a model that it seems does reject its dualistic predecessors and that presents us with a real alternative to the s R o model - or at least provides the basis for one. Before turning our attention to Heidegger, let us as modern psychological thinkers note that Husserl's work not only elaborated the concept of intentionality for us, but also began a phenomenological tradition in which there has been a distinct turning of our attention to the phenomena of experience itself, with a renewed interest in and valuing of 'lived experience/ precisely as experienced and lived out. To the things [or phenomena] themselves'4 was Husserl's motto: Away from the constructs and judgments of abstract theories! And back to the experiential as a legitimate source of 'data' suitable for academic or scientific investigation! Clinicians at the beginning of the twenty-first century may find something of very current and important clinical significance here (coming as it does from a contemporary of Sigmund Freud's), especially in the context of our own recently renewed emphasis on 'experience-near' concepts and models in psychology and psychotherapy. Heidegger The early work5 of Martin Heidegger extends the phenomenological project in an even more radical way. In his major work Being and Time (1927), he argues that the fundamental task of philosophy is to attend to 'the Being question.' But this question can only be raised by a particular type of Being (Man, whom he calls Dasein or Being-there), who is the sort

50 Part I: Ontology

of Being that as a feature of its type of being raises such questions! His attention is thus turned toward the phenomenological elaboration of the basic structures or form of our sort of 'Being': We must lay bare a fundamental structure in Dasein [Man's being]: Beingin-the-world ... this structure is something 'a priori': it is not pieced together, but is primordially and constantly a whole ... The whole of this structure always comes first; but if we keep this constantly in view, these items, as phenomena, will be made to stand out.' (65)

Heidegger's broader philosophical argument is cumbersome and somewhat obscure to non-philosophers - and to many philosophers as well! Even so, his Existential Analytic of Dasein - his phenomenological study of the basic structures of human experience - is extremely useful to psychological thinkers. Using his own version of the descriptive/reflective method developed by Husserl, he presents a radically different description of the ontological nature of human being and the nature or structure of our basic position or relatedness to Reality and the world around us. That is, he addresses the central question of ontological level B directly, and offers an answer very different from that of his more dualistic predecessors. Heidegger's basic thesis is that Man is a completely different sort of Being than are 'things/ so the language and categories we use to describe 'things' (seienden) are completely inappropriate and misleading when applied to man (Dasein). Man can never be described properly as a thing - or even as an autonomous 'subject-thing' - in relation to an object. Man is better described as the relatedness-to-a-world itself. According to Heidegger, man as either a pure 'subject' or a 'defined thing' cannot exist, since the nature of Man is precisely to be incomplete or in a process of becoming. Man finds itself always and only out there in the world, already related to its context. This is why Heidegger no longer speaks of Man but rather of Dasein (German for 'Being-there'), of the Being who only finds itself as 'out there/ always already in a world, toward which it extends and projects itself. Also, this Dasein finds itself always already within time - that is, with a past history and a present situation and context, from which it is always in the process of projecting itself forward toward future possibilities; and always already having many 'concerns' and 'cares/ This 'necessarily incomplete'-ness, which is inherent to our type of Being, is part of Heidegger's relational, process understanding of our

Level B: Our Basic Position or Relation to Reality 51

form of existence. He sees our distinctly human mode of Being as not at all like that of a static, complete, or self-sufficient 'thing/ but rather as an openness toward Being. This openness, which we don't just have but actually and essentially are, is the precondition for any of Being (Sein) show itself. That is, we are the medium or the means through which any aspects of Being (or Reality, including its 'thing-objects') can possibly present themselves as such, or be revealed or distinguished. Heidegger's conceptualization of Man's sort of Being, or Da-Sein, is perhaps better understood by recognizing that in his case the term 'Being' is closer (at least in English) to the active verb sense of the word, than to the more static noun sense, which fit better with its usage by earlier philosophers. That is, Dasein is better described as the active 'process of disclosing (verb) a world' rather than as a particular thing or object (noun) within the world. In the next chapter I will use the metaphor of a 'beam of light' to clarify this point. Heidegger's phenomenological description of the basic structure of human experience concludes that our 'worldedness' is absolutely primary and is the essential characteristic of our Being. Thus, any understanding of human reality must begin with the appreciation that all human experience occurs only within an already-present structure of 'Being-in-the-World.' In applying the tern 'Dasein' (or Man), Heidegger is already presupposing both 'world' and 'time.' In this sense, Being-inthe-World is an irreducible relational unit or system that can only be understood as a whole. So to postulate the separateness of its parts (as in the dualistic or s R o model) to embrace a misguided abstraction that leads to an absurdity which is inconsistent with our phenomenological experience. Heidegger found man's very Being to be primordially and inextricably in relation to his or her 'world' of meanings, via meaningful objects and projects. Furthermore, he found that our primordial perceptions of the world (in which we are always already related) were not experienced in the form of the decontextualized or abstracted entities (or 'present at hand' things-in-themselves), as suggested by the cognitive or scientific knowledge model of our primary relationship with the objects of the world. We don't initially comprehend objects as clear and distinct things - as it were, in a 'scientific' manner. Rather, phenomenologically speaking, our primary perceptions of the world and its objects are organized in terms of their 'ready-to-hand'6 instrumental qualities, in accordance with a prereflective sense of what might be pragmatically usable for us. That is, we initially see the world as a

52 Part I: Ontology

world of 'equipment/7 in terms of its perceived possible usefulness to us in the light of our desires and projects. Only later, on reflection, do we begin to piece out this world of equipment into distinct and discernible specific present-at-hand objects. Our more scientific sort of 'knowledge' of things 'as they are (relatively) independent of us or of our concerns' is thus only a secondary process - that is, the later result of acts of reflection; it is not how we initially perceive our world. Our initial experience of objects as merely aspects of the total equipment context that is our world is very much a function of our concerns and goals at the time we perceive those objects. Our immediate world experience is thus continuously and prereflectively (i.e., automatically, 'unconsciously/ and before we stop to reflect or think about it) structured, organized, and reorganized along functional and interpretive lines. According to Heidegger, our needs, wants, and goals serve to partly organize and shape our very experience and perceptions of the world in our most primary encounters with it. Put another way, our initial encounters with objects are not ones of isolated subjects looking at 'objective' objects in a 'knowing' way; rather, they are ones of our relating to a prereflectively structured, already existing world of personally 'meaningfully interpreted' equipment, as already organized in terms of our (future-oriented) projects. The specific objects that may subsequently become known as such can only arise out of this initial experiential field; in a sense, then, they are each available within it for the subsequent processes of reflective demarcation. In Being and Time (p. 86), Heidegger describes knowledge as a founded mode (i.e., a secondary mode). Here he is pointing out that our supposed 'knowing' relationship to the world - which would position us as (relatively) independent and separate subjects over and against an (artificially and only relatively) independent object, which would then become 'known' in its 'present at-hand' (independent, or 'objective') properties (as in the s R o relationship) - is merely a secondary abstraction, that is, a reflective position we might eventually choose to take up, but never our immediate mode of experience. Heidegger acknowledges that such a reflective position may well be a useful one to adopt for certain purposes (e.g., for purposes of studying or manipulating the thing-objects of natural science). But this should neither hide nor ignore the fact that it is not our initial, 'natural/ or immediate way of relating to the world. The point of crucial significance here is that our knowledge can never be 'pure/ 'purely objective/

Level B: Our Basic Position or Relation to Reality 53 or completely free of the 'prejudices' inherent in our initial, prereflective interpretations of our world as a system of 'meaning-ful' objects of varying 'significances' organized in accordance with our 'cares' of the moment. As we will see, this position has enormous implications for both our clinical work - think for instance how this may affect concepts such as 'therapist neutrality/ 'abstinence/ and 'disengaged perspectives' - and for the philosophies of science that guide them. So from this perspective the best that scientific approaches, or the project of cognitive knowledge in general, can achieve is inherently limited, not only by the finite positioning of our spatial and temporal perspectives, but also ontologically by the sort of caring, relational, becoming, interpretive, incomplete-on-its-own, type of Being that Dasein is. Heidegger tries to capture the temporal, process nature of Dasein with his term 'existence' (or 'ek-sistence/ a 'standing out from' the moment in time - just as Dasein, as Being-there, was seen as a 'standing out from' in space). Existence here doesn't just mean that one simply is (e.g., as a thing might exist); rather, it refers to the peculiarly active, continuous-but-necessarily-incomplete process in time mode of Being that human beings are. That is, only human beings are seen to ek-sist in this way. Dasein is not a thinglike 'subject' or 'soul' or any sort of defined entity; it is an existence, a process of becoming. Thus it is fundamentally temporal (i.e., in time); and thus the title of Heidegger's greatest work, 'Being and Time.' Accordingly, science must acknowledge its limits by making its prejudices and assumptions as explicit as possible - while not denying the inevitability of holding some. The position of the genuine scientist is thus similar to the one in Husserl's phenomenology. Descartes's foundationalist project of building a science based on pure, objective certainties is clearly rejected by Heidegger (and his followers) as misguided and indeed impossible. We return to the issue of our primary relatedness to the world - the key concern of ontological level B in our hierarchy. The whole idea of an initial separateness of an isolated subject from isolated objects is completely unacceptable to, and logically inconsistent with, the Heideggerian perspective. From this perspective the problem of 'how an "s" ever comes to relate with an "o"' is a 'false problem.' That is, its even being posed as a problem is strictly the result of one's starting with the unnatural and misguided abstractions and assumptions of the s R o model and then trying to fit the natural or experiential world into this

54 Part I: Ontology

inappropriate model! If the irreducible wholeness and relatedness of Being-in-the-World is indeed primary (as Heidegger maintains - for instance, in the extract a few pages back), there is no 'problem' here. Furthermore, Heidegger defines the structure of human existence (or our way of Being) not only as 'Being-in-the-World' or Dasein but also as 'care.' He describes 'care as the Being of Dasein' (225). His 'existential analytic' of the various dimensions or essential aspects of Dasein's Being becomes known as the elucidation of 'the structural manif oldness of care' (241). It is extremely significant to the psychological field if indeed our worlds, their objects, and our primary perceptions thereof are 'motivationally organized' in terms of their instrumentality or usefulness to us as a field of equipment for the projects we care about. For if indeed the nature of our Being is 'care,' the whole of the multidimensional, basic 'care structure' must be primordially present in all acts of human experience (including those of perception). Later I will show that this care structure always includes at least some element of emotion, imagination, embodiment, future-directed temporality, and pragmatic reasoning, each of these an inextricable aspect of our Being-in-the-World (and all of these necessary preconditions for instrumentality). Obviously, All these features are of great psychological import. Later in this book I will deal with each of these central elements of the care structure (see the third section, dealing with the psychological level G). So according to this Heideggerian model, humans are ontologically (i.e., fundamentally and irreducibly) intentional-relational, emotional (caring), and imaginative (projecting) in their way of being, from their first experiences to their last. It is a central thesis of this work that if we follow through with such a phenomenologically-based model and further develop it to higher levels of inquiry, we will find that this ontological-level point has profound implications for psychological theorizing. We will find that many of our truisms are logically inconsistent with a model of human experience that is primordially and irreducibly relational, emotional, embodied, future-oriented, instrumental, and so on. For instance, psychological concepts like the 'isolated mind,' 'pure, objective facts,' and the 'purely rational man' will not fare well under such an approach. Neither will certain reductionistic, building block, or epiphenomenal theories of the mind, including some seemingly naive models of 'artificial intelligence' (which postulate that emotions could conceivably be 'added on' to a non-emotional, cognitive intelligence). Neither will

Level B: Our Basic Position or Relation to Reality 55

cognitivistic or rationalistic theories, which suggest that 'pure reason' or 'pure cognitive knowing' is dualistically distinct from and opposed to some sort of 'raw emotion/ of which it must somehow cleanse itself. The shift in understandings here, though possibly subtle at first glance, may well be the basis for a true paradigm shift, not merely in the recent lay sense of coming up with a new approach at an already fairly high level of inquiry, but in Kuhn's fundamental-level sense of the term. Shifts like these shake up our bedrock understandings of common phenomena and force us to come to new (presumably deeper) understandings, however uncomfortable these may make us. An analogous situation comes to mind in the field of physics: the shift from the Newtonian 'absolute time and space' perspective to an Einsteinian 'relativity of time and space' perspective. Newton's approach works well enough in most everyday situations; even so, the Einsteinian paradigm shift has forced us to reinterpret even commonplace measurements as 'non-absolute' and as containing their own portion of relativistic variation. In parallel with this, twentieth-century phenomenological philosophy has moved us away from more absolute and independent concepts (such as the absolute object, the pure fact, the isolated 'I/ 'pure reason/ and perhaps 'pure memory') toward more contextual, relational, and relativistic understandings of human phenomena. Perspectivalism in the art of the early twentieth century may be another example of this trend. Consider, for instance, Picasso's superimposing of multiple perspectives of a certain facial part like an eye or a nose on the same face or figure. I contend that even as the average man on the street continues to think of time and space in more or less Newtonian terms, much of psychological theory and clinical practice is still operating in basically Cartesian terms, especially at its more foundational levels. Or in Kuhn's terms: 'normal science' in our field hasn't made the paradigm shift yet although the recent and somewhat dramatic shift in thinking toward more relational and systems-oriented models on the psychological level suggests that this shifting has begun. What exactly is the paradigm shift I am describing or proposing here based on the above phenomenological, philosophical understandings of man? And at what level of philosophical inquiry does this shift occur? To take the second question first, the level where I propose this shift and at which a choice of position must be made is ontological level B - that is, the level of describing our basic relatedness to, or position with respect to, the world.

56 Part I: Ontology

The Cartesian or dualistic ontological level B paradigm of our primary relationship to the world has been schematically represented as the s R o model (review Figure 3.1). If this is illustrated as:

the newer, phenomenologically based paradigm to be represented in a similar manner would look something like this:

where 'sR' is the Subject in a vectorlike Relatedness toward an 'o' (Object or world), but in which the Relatedness is primary and therefore the whole is emphasized as prior to the individual parts. Thus, in the new model, following Heidegger, the Being or basic structure of Human Being, Dasein, or 'consciousness' (in the philosophical sense of the source of human perception and experience), is not identified with the 's' of the s R o model; rather, it is better described by the 'R' or at least 'sR' in the model. The fundamental, necessary, and irreducible 'Being-in-the-World' system as one characterized by its primary interrelatedness, and the insufficiency of either the 's' or the 'o' to stand alone here, are the critical differences. The positions of these two disparate paradigms are schematically compared in Figure 3.2. A very important objection may be raised here again. Does this move toward emphasizing the contextual and relational qualities of our existence push us invariably toward ontological relativism (which I decided in the previous chapter was an untenable position)? The argument goes like this: If by 'the world' (as in the phrase Being-in-the-World) we really mean 'our world/ in which we notice, delineate, and interpret objects primordially in terms of our projections of ourselves and our motives onto or into the world, then is not everything subjective and relative (i.e., merely a function of our projections)? Are we then lapsing into

Level B: Our Basic Position or Relation to Reality 57 Figure 3.2 Schematic comparison of two paradigms The old paradigm (based on Cartesian dualism)

Legend S = Subject R = Relation O = Object I = Ontological barrier between different types of Being The new paradigm (based on phenomenological philosophy)

Legend sR= 'subject'-in-a-vectorlike-directional-Relation with an ... o = object or world d> = the whole is primary in this model

some sort of idealism? I consider the following a successful reply to this concern First, with respect to charges of subjectivism (or philosophical idealism), on close examination the model is not consistent with subjectivism at all. Since we are starting with the notion of intentionality - that consciousness is always consciousness of something - as well as with the premise that Dasein's Being is irreducibly relational, how can we possibly maintain the subjectivistic assertion that nothing but consciousness or the subject really exists? Indeed, subjectivism is precisely a form of atomistic or 'isolated mind' theory8 (in which the

58 Part I: Ontology

subject is primary and capable of standing alone), the likes of which the ontologically relational model rejects as impossible from the outset. As I discuss in later chapters on epistemology, subjectivism is basically an odd form of the s R o type of model at the extreme where the 'o' or object side of the relationship equation is deemed to equal zero (in terms of its actual contribution to the truth value of our experiences), or to simply not exist. In that respect, it can alternatively be seen as an 's' alone model - which again seems untenable - but it is certainly not compatible with the relational one proposed above. Regarding relativism the objection is probably a little stronger. In a purely or ontologically relativistic model or system, one would actually expect a relational structure as well. If all our experiences of objects involve elements of our goals and cares as organizational features, there must be at least a relativistic component to all perceived objects. That is fundamental to this model. But to jump from this to the assertion that therefore there can be no 'object-ive' or even partially independent-of-us component arising from the inherent 'Being-in-itself' of the object is not warranted. That would indeed be a position of ontological relativism, but it is not necessary. Following contemporary philosopher Thomas Langan, the assumption that if we can't have complete Truth then we can't have any (not-merely-and-entirely-subjective) Truth is a fallacy of faulty logic.9 In this book I may disagree wholeheartedly with 'objectivism' (especially at its ideological extreme), but I do not intend to dispense with all forms of (albeit limited) 'objeciivity.' They are not the same. What one can still have - which remains consistent with both the position of ontological realism I have adopted at level A and the ontologically relational position postulating our primary relatedness to the/our world suggested at level B - is a stance in which our human mode of Being is fundamentally an openness or a relatedness to a world that is always 'co-constituted.' By the term co-constituted I mean to that in each individual act of perception there is a combination or interaction in play that includes: a our perspectival, contextual, and situated interpretation and organization of a world of objects (which are nevertheless partially independent of us and thus not infinitely malleable in terms of our projections and desires), such that those objects are also b partially revealed and apprehended by us in accordance with their inherent qualities (or such aspects thereof as we can see from our given perspective at a given moment).

Level B: Our Basic Position or Relation to Reality 59

Thus the philosophical usage of the term resistance is here preserved. (Resistance here refers to the 'giveness' quality of objects such that they are 'unyielding' in certain ways to our will or our projections (in the psychological sense.) The objects in our world still maintain some resistance to us even though there is always an interpretive component to our perceptions of them as well. It is in this sense that we can describe our experiences as co-constituted by this combination of sources, which seemingly originate - to lapse into dualistic language again for a moment - from both within and without. I believe this sort of approach may be the key to building a workable epistemology on this alternative ontological paradigm - one that will ultimately bear new and valuable fruit at the applied psychological levels. To recapitulate in terms of the basic question of this level of inquiry: The basic question of ontological level B is, 'What is our fundamental or primary position or relation to Reality?' (a Reality that we have presumed to exist as per the realist assumption asserted at level A). Two paradigms have been presented that offer differing answers to this question. The first of these, based largely on Cartesian philosophy, suggests that our basic relationship to the world is a dualistic one in which an initially isolated subject, or Cogito, is ontologically separated from its objects, which are considered to belong to essentially different realms of Being (res cogitans versus res extensa). However, the latter realm can become 'known' to the former through a somewhat puzzling relationship between them - which can nevertheless somehow exist that connects them as it were secondarily. I have described this conception of man's primary position with respect to Reality as the s R o or dualistic model, in which Man is in the position of the 's' or subject, who stands apart from and in opposition to his or her 'o/ or object(s) of the world. The second ontological paradigm is based on phenomenological philosophy (mainly from the early work of Heidegger). It suggests that the separateness of subject and object is not primary, that such a primary separatedness idea is an illusion based on faulty assumptions, and that our primary position in relation to Reality is that of Being-in-the-World, in which the nature of our Being itself is one of initial and fundamental openness to or relatedness to our world. It is an irreducibly holistic position in which man can only be understood as a relatedness-toBeing and never as an isolated subject (s). I have described this model, derived from phenomenological sources, as the (sR^o) model, in which the basic position of Man with respect to Reality or the world is

60 Part I: Ontology

seen as more akin to the 'R' or at least the 'sR' in the above schema, but certainly not as the 's' alone (as in the Cartesian dualistic model). This latter position can be further described as taking up an ontologically relational position at level B of our hierarchy. In contrast, the Cartesian model takes up a position here of ontological separateness (i.e., what relatedness between the realms of Being does occur does so only secondarily and epistemologically, as mediated through knowledge). The differing consequences of our choices between these two positions will be examined throughout the rest of this work. The position I will be taking up at this level of inquiry, and that I will be developing further in later chapters, is of course the ontologically relational, one. From the ontological stances I have taken up at these two ontological levels of our hierarchy, I am assuming that the 'external world of Being' can and does exist at least partially independently of our perception (a realist's position). Aspects of that reality can indeed be revealed or apprehended through human perceptions or understandings, though never in a total (complete) or 'pure' (uninterpreted) way. As we delve further into the details of this position, we will find ourselves moving on to the important ensuing epistemological levels of questions as well (recall from the introduction that the various levels of the hierarchy are of course, in practice, in a dialogical relationship with one another and that the distinctions between levels are not meant to be taken as too absolute). I have begun to outline the rudiments of 'perspectival realist'10 or 'coconstitutional' epistemological position, in which the realities of human experience or known reality can be described as 'both given and made' (as psychoanalyst-philosopher Donna Orange [1995] puts it). This understanding fits with my model at levels A and B and is neither an ontologically relativist nor an ontologically subjectivist position. It will be discussed more in the next chapter, as we move from questions of ontology to those of general epistemology.

Part II General Epistemology: The Framework and Infrastructure

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CHAPTER 4

GENERAL EPISTEMOLOGY (LEVEL C): The Question of Knowledge in General

SECTION I: Beginnings of the 'Beams-of-Light-through-Time' Model The questions of epistemology - the study of knowledge or truth though still often seen as 'abstract/ 'theoretical/ or too philosophical by many clinicians, are nevertheless generally much more familiar to us than those of ontology. Indeed, as more psychological theorists get into philosophical questioning, more attention has been focused of late on epistemological questions. Although this is a very positive and important development in our theorizing, it has not always been done with sufficient depth or clarity to be most helpful. The basic premise of this work is that the 'higher level of inquiry' questions (such as those of epistemology) always rest on a set of assumptions or positions taken with respect to the more foundational or 'lower level of inquiry' ones (such as those of ontology). Many psychological theorists have recently been addressing epistemological issues, and this is to their credit. However, when they do not also address the ontological ones, it often means they are adopting a popular ontological position rather inexplicitly, uncritically, and if you like, blindly or 'unconsciously.' Within a long and broad cultural tradition (or paradigm) of looking at such issues in one particular way, one cannot easily fault these psychological theorists for not being as radical in their analyses as some of their professional philosopher brethren. Nevertheless, there are important consequences to not doing so, so a more radical or rigorous philosophical approach (regardless of who takes it) may be very helpful.

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Different Ontological Paradigms Give Way to Different Epistemological Questions In the previous chapter I described two different paradigms with regard to the ontological nature of human reality and its basic connectedness or disconnectedness to its/the 'world' in general. When we look closely, we find that when questions of knowledge or of our possible knowing relationship to the objects of the world are raised (the questions of epistemology), they are raised in very different ways by these two different ontological paradigms. For instance, when we begin with the s R o paradigm based on an ontological assumption of the primary separateness of subject and object, the traditional questions of epistemology readily arise - for example, 'How does this separate "s" come to "know" this independent "o"?' and 'From which side (the "s" side or the "o" side) does "real knowledge" or "Truth" come?' In this model, the 'knowing' relationship - where an 's' comes to know an 'o' - is seen as our primary relationship to the world (and its objects). In the second case, the CsR^Hj) or Being-in-the-world-based paradigm, the above epistemological questions make no sense. They cannot, because they rest firmly on what would be seen here as the false assumption of the primary (or even potential) isolation or separateness of subject and object. Furthermore, in this latter model the knowing relationship, or the 'scientific,' present-at-hand understanding of the objects of our world, is not seen as our primary way of relating to objects at all. In this approach, knowledge and scientific abstraction are seen as secondary or 'founded' modes - as often useful ways of relating to our world, but not as our initial, most natural ways. Thus, the 'How does an "s" ever come to know an "o"' question is seen as a false problem that must give way to questions such as these: 'What are the different possible modes and types of Being-in-the-World relationships?' 'How does truth emerge, or how is it found, created, or constituted in that irreducibly relational, interactional, and interdependent system or matrix?' These latter become the central questions for a general epistemology consistent with a non-dualistic paradigm. In recent centuries, most of Western philosophy - and certainly most of our philosophy of science (especially natural science and medical science) - has been dominated by the first of the above two models (the s R o one). So that way of thinking now occupies a sort of 'default position' for us (as will any dominant paradigm at a given time). That is, the Cartesian dualistic position remains the most likely to be adopted

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uncritically and without even recognizing that one is indeed taking up a position. In clinical terms, this situation is analogous to 'transference': a basic stance is adopted toward the world (or other people) unconsciously and prereflectively. In philosophical terms, it is taken naively (at first) to simply reflect 'reality' or 'the way things just are.' Only through painstaking efforts at reflection may the inherent biases, 'unconscious assumptions,' 'organizing principles,' 'schemas,' and so on be revealed to the individual whose perceptions have been so inconspicuously influenced by them. The Forced-Choice Aspect ofDualistic Models: Objectivism versus Subjectivism

I will now take up the ontological assumptions of the s R o model to see where they lead us in terms of some of the classic epistemological dilemmas and positions in philosophy, which recently have drawn the attention of psychological theorists as well. The dualism that is so central to the s R o model has important epistemological consequences. When questions about the nature and origins of 'Truth' or 'real knowledge' are raised from within that framework, its dichotomous ontological approach tends to similarly structure the ensuing epistemological issues. That is, on the basis of this model one seems to have a forced choice on one's hands with regard to the origin of true knowledge: it is seen as coming from either the subject-side or the object-side of the s R o split. In the either/or dichotomy of this model, philosophers have basically had to choose one or the other side of the Cartesian dualistic fence as the 'genuine source' or 'locus of truth' for 'real knowledge.' Thus, they are traditionally seen as taking up one of two basic (and competing) positions: one favours the object as the genuine source or locus of truth, and the other favours the subject in similar fashion. I will now examine these positions in more detail. At this point, some readers may find it helpful to review Figure 3.1 for a diagrammatic reminder of the s R o model and its ontological cleft. Objectivism

The first of the epistemological positions stemming from the s R o paradigm assumes that 'real Truth' exists or originates only on the object-side of the s R o split - that is, pure and objective truths or 'facts'

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exist solely in the external or object world. A further assumption that can be made on this basis is that these 'object-ive' truths are at least potentially accessible to us through a form of (pure) knowledge of them, but that 'subject-ive' factors (i.e., those originating from the subject-side of the ontological split) are often present as well, and distort these truths, and provide a somewhat independent or distinct source of un-truth to our experiences. This has come to be known as an objectivist (or object-ivist) position. Subjectivism The second and opposite position is that 'real Truth' originates and resides only on the subject-side of the s R o split. In other words, all knowledge and all truths really come from the subject and its projections and imaginings, and the objective or external world is all an illusion. This has come to be known as the subjectivist (or subject-ivis position. Most hard-nosed scientific types today would strongly favour the first of these two positions. That being said, there are many formidable thinkers on both sides of this debate, which continues. Extensions of this debate into the realm of psychological theory include arguments such as those over 'narrative truth' versus 'historical truth.'1 Each of the two major positions has its characteristic terminologies, constructs, derivative methodological approaches, theories of validity, and serious philosophical problems and limitations. The position that 'the truth is on the object side (or is constituted solely by or from within the object)' is known as objectivism. Its constructs include those of 'scientific' or 'purely objective' facts. Its methods tend to lean heavily toward the concrete, the measurable, the observable, and the 'empirical' (i.e., acquired through observations made through the senses). Its dominant theory of validity is the 'correspondence theory of truth' (see chapter 5). Predictably, the major weaknesses of objectivism lie mainly in its failure to adequately appreciate the richness, importance, and meanmgfulness of the more 'subject-ive' elements of human life (which it tends to devalue). Obviously, this creates problems in fields like psychotherapy, in which the subjective elements are often the very stuff we are most interested in. In the twentieth century, naively objectivistic approaches suffered much criticism in many fields, from the more obviously interpretive humanities and social sciences to the seemingly 'hardest' of the natural sciences, physics.

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An awareness of the importance of observers/scientists/researchers and their perspectives/frames of reference/paradigms in the structuring and even the creative formation of 'data' has taken great strides forward in recent years. This awareness - in acknowledging the crucial significance of the context of an experiment for the interpretation of its findings - represents a major challenge to traditional objectivist models. The extreme of objectivism, known as positivism (roughly a position of 'If you can't kick it or measure it, it doesn't exist') - which was, for instance, reflected in our field in the inflexible radical behaviourism of a few decades back - is generally no longer considered acceptable in modern philosophical circles, having been dismissed as oversimplistic by today's standards. Yet it may still prevail implicitly in less sophisticated popular culture. From within the Cartesian dualistic dichotomy, the only alternative to objectivism is the opposite position - that 'truth is to be found on the subject side of the s R o split (or is constituted solely by or from within the subject).' This position is also fraught with difficulties and seems even less generally accepted in our society. These theories are known collectively as the school of idealism, or subjectivism. They focus more on personal experience and personal meanings, and they tend to rely on more interpretive-hermeneutic or descriptive-experiential methods. The criticisms to which idealist or subjectivist positions must always answer include charges of relativism (review chapter 2), and of solipsism (the sceptical belief that no one else exists). The term 'idealist' has little to do with either the lay or psychological sense of the term, as in having high standards or ideals. Rather, it refers to an epistemological position wherein the world as we know it does not exist as an external object (of whose independent nature we can apprehend); rather, it consists only of the individual's ideas or projections (in the psychological sense of this term). When one grows frustrated with the inadequacies of objectivist positions because of their lack of appreciation of many of the most personally (and emotionally) meaningful aspects of life, one is often tempted to 'hop the Cartesian fence' over to the subjectivists; indeed, in recent decades many psychological theorists and clinicians implicitly or explicitly have done this. On careful reflection, however, subjectivism yields some very untenable positions and contradictions in that it tends to throw out all objectivity completely, or at least leaves it with no defensible philosophical grounding. This situation is more than just unpalatable to our scientific tastes; it probably implies a position of

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ontological relativism - one I've earlier described as a practical absurdity for 'theoreticians' of any sort. Does one really need go to such extremes? Do we really have to adopt one of these two extreme positions, in which there is either pure objectivity or no objectivity at all? Aren't we sort of 'throwing the baby out with the bath water' in our 'hop over the Cartesian fence' from the objectivist to the subjectivist side (or vice versa)? To get past these issues, I believe we will have to abandon the dualistic framework in which they inevitably arise. Dualism implies an either/or dichotomy in which one must choose one extreme or the other. Furthermore, I do not believe one can have it both ways in this model and successfully (i.e., consistently or without contradictions) 'sit on the Cartesian fence' about these issues, as some writers have tried. It seems that to truly escape the 'objectivism versus subjectivism' dilemma, we first have to step back (or down a level in the hierarchy) and choose a non-dichotomous ontological model on which to build a non-dualistic general epistemology as well. Contemporary philosopher Richard Bernstein, in the title to his 1983 book, refers to such efforts as attempts to move 'Beyond Objectivism and Relativism' - a direction I will try to take in the following sections. Beginnings of a General Epistemology Based on a Non-Dualistic Model If indeed we can abandon the 'old's R o dualistic paradigm and instead begin with the second or 'new' ontological model, the Being-in-theWorld, relational, CsR^o) paradigm (see Figure 3.2), an essentially interactional or co-constitutional general theory of knowledge or Truth may be possible. When no original split between subject and object is postulated (i.e., when there is no primarily split-off and isolated subject to begin with), there is no gap to be healed, and we don't have to trouble ourselves with the artificial question of 'how to connect the subject and object through knowledge/ since they're already connected. Epistemology can then become more an analysis of the features, structures, modes, and elements involved in our already-given relatedness to our world. Legitimate questions that can be raised here include the following: 'What sort of stance to our world is implied in what we call knowing?' 'Are there then different types of knowing?' 'Which stances, approaches, or modes of being will yield which sorts of information, knowledge or

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truth?' The elaboration of our 'access' to reality, knowledge, or truth, and how the truths of human reality are constituted, remain central to the general epistemological level of inquiry, even from within this alternative ontological paradigm. A general epistemological model based on this 'new' paradigm must deny both subjectivist and objectivist solutions to our epistemological problems, since each of those approaches ignores or fails to appreciate the inherently interactional relatedness of our Being-in-the-World. On the other hand, when we begin with our irreducible connectedness within a world, we see that the truths of human experience are necessarily interactional. Truth can then be conceived of as 'co-constituted' through the experiencing human's selective, interpretive, and meaningfully contextualized structuring and revealing of particular aspects of the world (which nevertheless is at least partially independent of and pre-existent to us). As I have adopted a realist position on ontological level A, I am maintaining that some external Reality or Being does exist beyond - or at least partly independent of - our perception of it. However, an object or truth can only be seen or experienced from within our particular perspective, and only in the aspects which are accessible from that perspective. As such, the truths of human experience will always be partial and limited, never purely objective and complete (as in objectivism). But neither will they be merely subjective (as in subjectivism). The world of human experience is thus the interpretively, meaningfully, and care-fully structured phenomenological world, as is implied by the term Being-in-the- World (review the section on Heidegger in the previous chapter). And its truths - unlike the positions held in the dualistic model - cannot be solely constituted by either the object-side of the Cartesian split or the subject-side of it. Rather, the truths of human experience are co-constituted precisely by the interaction of such inextricably related elements as compose a Being-in-the-World system. Keep in mind here that in this model it is the experiential whole that comes first; its distinguishable elements are elaborated secondarily and abstractly. In this newer model we are not just 'in the system' (as would, for instance, be the isolated subject in the s R o model or the Cartesian Cogito); rather, 'we are a world-structuring and inherently worlded system.' Our way of existing is precisely as such a system, and as I will elaborate when adding the temporal dimension to the above spatial metaphors, it is also a process.

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In this non-dualistic paradigm, neither the so-called subjective nor the objective 'components' can ever be completely eliminated, ignored, teased out, or reduced to the other in any given human experience. The particular truth elaborated will always be incomplete, since it is limited by the particular perspective of the person experiencing it (spatially, temporally, culturally, ideationally, motivationally, emotionally, historically, etc.), as well as by the particular aspects or properties of the object, which are more or less hidden in that particular relational experience. But neither will it be arbitrary, purely voluntary, or mere projection, since the 'unyieldingness' of Reality also contributes to our experiences. This is what I mean by a co-constitutional model, in which the truths of human experience are constituted as it were from both the subject and object sides (if we retain such terminology for purposes of comparison or for historical continuity). In fact, it is precisely in the interaction or relationship between these 'elements' that the truths of human experience emerge or are constituted. When we recall that we are here falling back on an ontological position of systemic wholeness or relatedness, the awkwardness of the 'subject-side versus object-side' language may indeed be seen as unwanted and outmoded. However, such terminology is very hard to abandon completely because it is so embedded in our culture, in our constructs, and in our philosophical and psychological theoretical traditions. We must take care not to slip into too dualistic-sounding language and metaphors as we proceed, but we must also concede that some of these metaphors are unavoidable, bound as we are within our own culturally and historically limited perspective. Epistemological models similar to this one have been described as 'perspectivalist' or as 'perspectival realisms' by other authors (e.g., Wallace 1988, Orange 1992, 1995, Langan 1992, 1996). In these, too, a Reality that is not merely subjective is admitted (in principle), though in practice it can only be apprehended partially in any given perception. Questions of Relativism Reconsidered At this epistemological level of inquiry, questions of relativism arise yet again. Even if one takes up a Realist position on ontological level A, is not the above model conceding relativism at the general epistemological level C? That is, in terms of the nature of all human experience, including all knowledge. Does the above model imply that the truths of

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human experience are all just relative? I contend that it doesn't, but it is a good question, because it forces us to think our positions through again in order to make a convincing argument. Significantly in our field, charges of relativism at the general epistemological level have been levelled in recent years against a variety of psychological theories that have stressed hermeneutic approaches and/ or the importance of either 'subjectivity' or 'intersubjectivity.' But if the epistemological claims of such theorists can be more clearly situated as limited in application to only the less general and higher levels of our hierarchy, this may not present an insurmountable problem. I will address this topic specifically in chapter 6, when I examine claims regarding what we can know within a specific field, discipline, or situation (e.g., in the psychotherapy situation). At this point, we are still at the broader level of looking at what human beings in general (in all situations) can know, and how. Hermeneutics and the Concept of an Incomplete but Evolving, Non-Relativistic Truth

I contend that as long as one begins with an ontologically realist position, one can develop a position of some degree of epistemologicallevel realism as well, without having to resort to the extremes of objectivism. Just because a given perception or experience of an object or truth is partial and incomplete does not mean there is no truth to it. Furthermore, it does not mean that one cannot gain more truth or more knowledge of that object or truth by examining it repeatedly, or from different angles, or by getting other people's views on it. Within a perspectivalist model, such a deepening of understanding or learning is indeed possible (not to mention desirable). Nowhere in this model is it argued that one perspective is just as good as another. That would be a gross misunderstanding of the position advanced here, and would indeed be one of relativism. Of course, these issues do point us toward further important work to be done (at the next level of inquiry) regarding theories of validity (i.e., theories developing criteria for evaluating the quality, credibility, accuracy, or likely 'staying power' of the particular bit of knowledge or truth held in any given statement, opinion, or theory). But first we have to establish that based on the model presented, a theory of validity can possibly (and logically consistently) be developed. Examples of the idea that one can provide more truth about a real

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object by examining it from various perspectives (even while admitting the impossibility of obtaining the absolute, certain, or complete truth of it) can be taken from many diverse fields of study and practice. Consider the field of art, and the cubist paintings of Pablo Picasso, in which multiple depictions of, say, an eye or a nose seen from various angles are superimposed on one face. Picasso was obviously rejecting the 'photographic' approach of artistic realism, and we can interpret these pictures as arguments that to really know or show a face well, one must include various perspectives. In the field of architecture this is even more obvious; a competent architect would, of course, never be satisfied with presenting only one elevation of a proposed building. And anyone who has read a book or seen a play or a movie more than once knows that no two readings/viewings are exactly the same and that one can generally understand more the second time through. As psychotherapists, we certainly can develop a better and deeper understanding of our patients as we see them more. Often 'the same old stories' are returned to and reinterpreted by therapist and patient alike in ways that presumably increase the amount of truth or understanding. Of course, we recognize that we can never get 'the whole, final truth/ This principle is quite central to some of the 'hermeneutic' approaches to psychology, psychotherapy, and psychoanalysis. The term 'hermeneutics' (from the Greek hermeneuein, 'to interpret') originally had to do with a methodology of text interpretation. Nineteenth-century philosopher Wilhem Dilthey then extended its use to a variety of human phenomena and deemed it an appropriate methodology for the humanities and social sciences. The goal for these studies was seen as one of increasing our 'understanding.' In a good article on hermeneutics and its use in psychiatry, James Phillips (1996: 61) quotes Dilthey: 'The [natural] sciences explain nature, the human studies understand expressions of life.' In the English-speaking academic world, the social sciences - where psychology is usually parked - occupy a curiously ambivalent position, somewhere in between the humanities and the natural sciences. Those who see it as more of a natural science tend to embrace the more objectivist approaches of that group; those who consider that approach ill suited to our particular subject matter tend to sympathize much more with hermeneutic approaches. But these divisional distinctions must not be taken too rigidly, and can be seriously challenged by philosophers of science and practitioners and theorists in any of these

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areas. In any case, several authors have recently advocated the use of hermeneutic methods, as being quite appropriate to the task of understanding what we experience in the context of psychotherapy or psychoanalysis.2 The 'hermeneutic circle' (which is perhaps better described as more of a spiral), in which a progressively deeper understanding of a 'text' is developed or evolves through continued study of the same text, stories, or themes from a series of progressively more comprehensive or knowledgeable perspectives, is a useful metaphor for the psychotherapy process. This need not entail an extreme relativistic position in which all perspectives, being equally incomplete, are necessarily of equal (and very little?) truth value. In other words, perspectivalism (or hermeneutics) need not necessarily entail an extreme or ontological relativism. At the general epistemological level, this non-dualistically-based, coconstitutional general epistemological model would adopt the axiom that the truths of human experience must be understood as never complete, always situated. They might then be seen as 'somewhat relativistic' in the sense that they are necessarily relative to one's given spatial, temporal, and meaning-filled/care-filled perspective. However, as co-constituted truths, they are also never completely subjective or without any objective truth value. Furthermore, the apparent 'amounts' of truth value they contain (even if this is, in principle, not precisely quantifiable) vary in non-random and non-equal ways, unlike what one would traditionally associate with the term relativism. Taken in this context, the term relativism doesn't exactly fit here, but it is not quite as obviously unacceptable or absurd here as it was at an ontological level. I argue later that it finds more of a reasonable place for itself at the field-specific epistemological level. This 'co-constitutional' concept may still seem too abstract and difficult a notion to grasp at this point. To better illustrate it and to put it in a more applicable form, especially for psychological theory, I now present a metaphoric model of it as a heuristic device. A Non-Dualistic Model of Human Experience A metaphoric model of human experience and its knowing relation to its world is presented below to illustrate the truly interactional blending of elements involved in the emergence of human truths. There is always the danger that such quasi-spatial models will be 'reified' or

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taken too literally. So remember that the following model is meant as an illustrative metaphor - as a heuristic device that may prove helpful for a time, rather than as "the facts' of a new sort of objectivism. The following model is based on the non-dualistic ontological paradigm discussed in chapter 3. It introduces the 'Beam-of-Light' metaphor, which I will develop in later chapters. The Beam-of-Light Model My intentional, relational, co-constitutional metaphor for our general epistemological situation is this: Let us think of human perception, understanding, or experience as a beam of light that always shines on a world. This beam of light is always enlightening/illuminating some object or, more precisely, a particular field of view in which we may designate one or more particular objects. These, however, are always appreciated as being but a portion of a whole world. The light itself has an elaborate and somewhat malleable or changing quality, for its apparent source or point of origin at any given moment will be that of one's spatial-bodily position as well as one's temporal or personalhistorical 'position.' What precisely will be seen in this situation can only be a function of (a) the directional and qualitative properties of the light beam itself (metaphorically, what angle it comes from, how wide the diameter of its field, the intensity and colour of the light, obstacles in its path, etc.) and (b) the properties of the particular aspects of the object(s) made visible by the light being shone on them from that particular angle in that particular way. In any act of perception the combination of these properties will be experienced all at once - that is, as an inseparable or indivisible whole that emerges from their interaction. What is in fact seen or experienced - or 'known' in this prereflective, not purely cognitive sense - can then be understood as co-constituted precisely through the interaction of the above factors: Nothing can be seen of the object without the light, and the light, to be seen, must illuminate something. As such, the relationship between the light and its object(s) seems irreducible, as is the relationship between the experiencing human and his or her world in the Being-in-the-World based paradigm described earlier.

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Thus, in this model, the realm of human experience, human consciousness, or the 'objects of human knowledge' is defined in terms of relational, 'enlightening' phenomena such as that of a 'beam-of-lightshining-on-a-world/ Any of our subsequent understandings of human psychology will take this as their starting point. That being the case, such understandings will have to include some acknowledgment of the fundamentally interactional quality to human experience (in general), in which neither of these two necessary components (the light and its object, or human experience and one's world) can be neglected. Again, 'the isolated mind' (or isolated 'subject') and the 'completely objective fact' will have no place here. The Beam-of-Light model is illustrated in Figure 4.1 as follows: Figure 4.1 The Beam-of-Light Model

The sR (subject-in-relation) illuminates a portion or an aspect of its o (object, or world) The relatedness quality of the CsR—Hj) , or the Beam-of-Light that is human experience or perception, in its perspectival illumination of its world, is of primary importance to our model. The sort of 'Consciousness'3 with which we are now dealing is conceived here as less akin to Descartes's isolated Cogito than to Heidegger's concept of Dasein, or Being-in-the-World.

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The area of the world that is seen or illuminated by such human perceptions extends to a limit that Husserl and Heidegger called the 'horizon' (i.e., of our experience). Remember that these horizons are not merely spatial (that's just metaphorical). In actual experiences they refer, rather, to the horizons of our scope of meanings and of our various interpretive opennesses toward our world at a given time. Thus the horizon of any given perception will depend on the many spatial, temporal, historical, cultural, and motivational factors that make up our existential situation at a given point in time. But there is always a horizon (perhaps several concurrent horizons, distinguished by their varying purposes or types, as I discuss later). That is to say, we can only see a limited amount of the world from any given perspective, and we are always coming at it from some particular perspective. Our horizons, understood as such, are multidimensional; they change and evolve as we and our situations do, but they remain finite. It follows that the 'unbiased view' is an impossibility. Furthermore, our 'temporality' (i.e., the way our experience is structured in accordance with the various dimensions or ekstases of time the past, present, and future) is at least as critical as our spatial positioning to the structuring of our phenomenological or experiential world. So the spatial metaphor of the Beam-of-Light must be extended into the temporal dimension as well. To be more precise, though this model is spatially drawn, it really is meant to refer to a Beam of Light that not only enlightens a certain 'landscape' of one's world but also opens up a certain 'time-scape.' That is, our experiential reaching out toward the meaningful objects and projects of our phenomenological world extends to a limit or horizon defined in both temporal and spatial terms. Accordingly, as I elaborate this model I will refer to it as the 'Beams-ofLight-Through-Time' model rather than the 'Beam of Light' model. So please try to imagine my illustrations as referring (metaphorically) to more dimensions than can be drawn on a page. This multidimensional idea may seem quite daunting at this point, but later I will try to bring it down to earth so as to show its usefulness for psychological practitioners. Please bear with me until chapter 8, when I illustrate the concept with a case study. A Few Words on Light Metaphors

Various authors have used light metaphors to describe the human condition in other contexts, so I feel I should point out some of the

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qualities this model does not share with them. The Beams-of-LightThrough-Time model, with its emphasis on temporality, is obviously not a static model. The active, 'enlightening' quality of human experience should also not be confused with far more passive models of perception as found, for instance, in Sigmund Freud's descriptions of the 'system Perceptual-consciousness/ In the New Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis (1933), Freud described this system as 'the outermost superficial portion of the mental apparatus,' which functions as the 'receptive' 'sense organ of the entire apparatus.'4 This could be conceived of in visual terms as something of a light receptor receiving stimuli from the 'outside' world. But in that sense the 'light' would merely be revealing o/an object (i.e., a pre-existing and complete-in-itself part of an external world). Ideally, in that model, the rather passive light should contribute nothing of itself to what becomes known about the object, so that an accurate internal representation of it can be made. In contrast, my model emphasizes human experience as the relational and interactional Beam of Light itself, not as the separated internal ego or subject behind the perceptual apparatus, with that apparatus merely reporting about the purely external world it finds outside. Freud's model of the ego here more accurately fits with an isolated 's' (or subject) concept, based on an 's R o' ontological model underlying it. The truly interactional feature I am emphasizing in my model is also not captured in the many descriptions found in psychotherapeutic literature and in everyday speech that refer to interpersonal processes as situations in which two distinct visions of a common object take place. Those descriptions do acknowledge the presence of differing perspectives that are concurrently active in an interpersonal situation; however, the respective points of view they refer to are still very distinct from each other, and their co-presence seems merely 'additive' rather than one in which their interaction itself is a source of new or emergent phenomena (see chapters 6, 7, and 8, which discuss the concept of 'the Purple Zone'). Also, the 'light' of the Beams-of-Light-Through-Time model allows for the seeing of something both real and immediate; it is not a matter of only seeing 'shadows' (as in Plato's metaphor of the cave5), or mere 'reflections' or 'representations' of objects, as in various other schools of thought. Furthermore, the 'source' of this light is human experience, so it should not be confused with 'Divine Light' metaphors either. Finally, it should not be confused with the terms and beliefs of the philosophical era known as the Enlightenment, which might be seen as the source

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of 'the Light of Reason/ Although reason is undoubtedly part of our experiential, interpretive structuring of our world(s), it is hardly the only part, and its contribution seems to me to have been grossly overestimated by the great thinkers of that era. Many of them seemed to believe that a 'purity of reason' and 'access to an unbiased, objective truth' were indeed within the realm of human possibility. I don't agree. Some Key Features of the Beams-of-Light-through-Time Model

The Beams-of-Light-Through-Time model is best understood as one that is consistent with and illustrative of a general epistemological understanding that sees the basic structure of human experience as including the following properties: • It is relational and intrinsically interactional, and does not involve merely the simple addition of separable, isolated parts. • It is temporal, historical, and dynamic rather than a static, timeless, or 'snapshot' approach. • It implies a continuous process involving the active structuring and restructuring of the phenomenological world, not merely the passive revealing of it. • It is direct and immediate in showing real objects, not mere representations of them. • It includes, but is not limited to, reason as one of its component interpretive factors. In terms of realism, this model is clearly realist at an ontological level, in that the world is seen to exist at least in part independently of our ideas. In the diagram, this is indicated by the fact the (o), the object or world, includes portions that aren't illuminated by us (i.e., that aren't experienced in a given perception, since they are beyond our horizon at that point in time) but that exist even so, outside the range of that given experience. Yes, this is assumed, not perceived or known, as it is by definition beyond the limits of our knowledge in that particular perception. But this doesn't mean these other aspects cannot be known. Indeed, we can know those other aspects by adjusting our perspective so as to move or widen our horizons. It is only 'everything' or 'the whole truth all at once' that cannot be known. The experiential or phenomenological world present in any given perception or experience extends precisely to its horizon and no farther.

Level C: The Question of Knowledge in General 79 As we remember that the horizon is not just a spatial metaphor, we also remember that its scope and limits are set not only by our embodied physical perspective but also by our life-historical experiences and understandings, by our current 'cares' and motivations, and by our future-oriented projects. This multidimensional position in which one always finds oneself has been referred to in the philosophical literature as one's 'existential situation.' Human experience is always 'situated' that is, situated in one's history, one's culture, one's loves, one's fears, one's cares, one's body, and so on. In that sense, one's experiences are always contextual. From this perspective it is reasonable to conceive of the significant negatives present in a given person's situation - ignorance, illness, lack of opportunity, and so on - as 'horizon-narrowing' factors. Thus education and learning, understanding and insight, and a variety of medical treatments including psychotherapy can be seen as efforts to widen an individual's experiential horizons (and, it follows, his or her possibilities). Put another way, these things can be described as attempts to improve a person's existential situation by either adding positive or removing negative elements in such a way as to increase the overall amount of freedom available to that person (an increase in one's range of possibilities can be viewed as an increase in freedom). Recap to This Point At an ontological level (i.e., in terms of 'what really exists'), this model rejects any form of subjectivism, as there is no isolated subject without an object/world. Idealism is likewise rejected, as there are aspects of the object that exist independently of my perception of them. Considering all this, and considering also that some perspectives are 'better' than others because they provide 'wider horizons' (i.e., that one perspective can yield 'more truth' than another), we can reject ontological relativism, which holds that all perspectives are of equal value. At an epistemological level (i.e., in terms of 'what we can possibly know'), this model also rejects objectivism (i.e., extreme epistemological realism), since the Beams-of-Light-Through-Time model does not allow for the objectivists' greatly prized 'pure, uninterpreted or unbiased facts' to exist in human experience. To be experienced here always means to be seen in the light of our perspective and current situation with all its inherent biases and limitations. In terms of epistemology (i.e., in terms of what we can know, as within the range of our possible

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experience), this can be described as a sort of 'relativism' only in the sense that what we know is always limited or 'relative' to the situation/ position of the knower. This still does not assume that all perspectives are equally valid. A better term for this would probably be the aforementioned perspectival realism (as used by Orange, Wallace, and others). The means and criteria for assessing how one decides which horizon is wider, or which offers a greater amount of truth, or which better accounts for the 'data' gathered from various sources and perspectives, is the topic of the next chapter. For now, remember that with the concept of the expanded or widened horizon, the possibility of a theory of (non-relativistic) validity is at least conceivable. In terms of the quest for 'the locus of truth' (i.e., 'from where is truth constituted?'), the answer that arises from this new paradigm is quite different from those which have traditionally been offered on the basis of the s R o model. In the Beams-of-Light-through-Time model, truth is not constituted solely on the subject-side of the s R o dichotomy, nor solely on the object-side. Rather, truth - perhaps better put as 'the truths of human experience' - is inherently interactional. That is, truths are co-constituted by the sR's situated, perspectival illumination of a portion or aspect of its 'o' (object, or world.) Such truths are there understood to be irreducibly relational phenomena. This model of truth seems to be moving beyond dichotomies like 'objectivism versus subjectivism' and 'objectivism versus relativism.' Much of this model relies on phenomenological philosophy, so I will now look at some of that work again. Some of the notions elaborated by Heidegger in Being and Time and by other phenomenological philosophers have significant implications for us, both philosophically and psychologically. SECTION II: The Phenomenology of Human Experience: Implications for the General Epistemology of the New Paradigm When we consider the Beams-of-Light-through-Time model, we can readily see that this metaphoric light beam can have conceptually distinct qualities relating to colour, intensity, scope of horizon, and so on, though these do not exist in isolation from each other. Similarly, human experience, or Being-in-the-World, has its distinct but interdependent qualities or aspects.

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One of Heidegger's main tasks in Being and Time was to establish some of the universally present dimensions to human experiencing. To some extent, he was following a philosophical tradition that included Husserl's efforts to map out the basic structures of consciousness, and perhaps even Kant's earlier (1781) attempts to define 'the categories of the understanding.' Yet Heidegger's goals were different from those of his predecessors: his interest in the phenomenology of human experience (which he referred to as his 'existential analytic of Dasein') was based not so much on an interest in human psychology or epistemology for its own sake, but was rather on his hope of finding answers to the 'Being-question.' Recall that Man or Dasein's main significance for Heidegger lay in the notion that Dasein is the creature who brings the Being-question to light - in fact the only creature to do so. So it stood to reason for him that to better understand Being, one had better first learn to understand something of Man (as the type of being upon whom all awareness of Being depends). As psychological thinkers, we are of course very interested in understanding the phenomenological features of human experience in their own right and for their own sake, whether or not we choose to look further at the questions of Being that so occupied Heidegger. That is precisely why I find the 'existential analytic' studies of Heidegger and later phenomenological and existential philosophers (such as Sartre and Merleau-Ponty) so relevant (and inspiring) for psychological theorizing. The relational and temporal models offered by these philosophers yield a dynamically changing vision of human reality that is far different from the ones put forward by their dualistic s R o counterparts, whose models tend to be far more static. The Magnetic Field Metaphor

To use another illustrative metaphor, let us recall the familiar old science experiment with the iron filings and a magnet. As many will recall from grade school, we were told to spread iron filings on a sheet of paper and then place a bar magnet in various positions below the paper and watch how the filings aligned themselves. This was meant to demonstrate the magnetic field. The particulars of the field were seen to vary with the position of the magnet, though the field's general shape (or the general pattern or structure of the field) always remained roughly the same. The relational model of human experience can be understood simi-

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larly. The particulars of our experiential (or phenomenological) world at any given moment are structured or organized by our present positions in time, space, and personal history. Although our position is always changing somewhat, the somewhat fluid field structure will nevertheless retain some basics to its shape. 'The field' here is analogous to 'the truths of human experience.' The particular patterns that emerge are always partly a function of our Beam of Light's point of origin. Yet we must also acknowledge two other points: (a) the fact that the filings are iron and not plastic is essential to the creation of the field pattern we see; and (b) the basic shape of the magnetic field is quite independent of our seeing its pattern (or of whether the magnet is present or not). The field's general pattern will persist across a variety of positions, magnets, and boxes of iron filings. These latter aspects of the situation reflect the more realistic (or ontologically realist) elements in our approach. This reminds us that even such a perspectivalist stance does not consider the objects of the world as completely subjective, or as merely arbitrary functions of our perception, our will, or our cares alone. Thus the model is again one of a co-constituted truth - a truth that blends both objective and subjective elements. Temporality and Imaginative Anticipation as Aspects of Our General Epistemology

The above picture still requires the dimension of time to more accurately illustrate the views of Heidegger, Sartre, and other existential philosophers. They see human Being not only as relational and positional in space, but also as fundamentally existing in time. Indeed, these thinkers see this as perhaps the essential feature of human reality: that it is temporal. We are always moving forward in time. All of our experiences are seen from the perspective of our constantly moving toward an anticipated future (or set of anticipated possibilities for the future) from a given but continuously reinterpreted past. This applies to all momentary perceptions, experiences, and reflections. We are here defined in highly dynamic, fluid, constantly changing, developing, and 'becoming' terms. We can never be mere static essences (the way one might perceive a rock), because each of us is constantly moving forward in time and our perceptions are always being structured and restructured accordingly. Our perspectives and our meanings, cares, and concerns are ever-changing. In the metaphoric models, both the Beam-of-Light and the Magnet

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should be seen as constantly moving forward and looking forward in time, in such a way that 'the field of enlightenment/ or the field of the iron filings, is constantly being altered, at least slightly around the edges, as it is pulled forward with us toward the future. For as we move forward in time, the horizon of possibilities is always being altered somewhat (of necessity), since our anticipations and imaginings of 'what might be if ../ are constantly changing and developing. We are constantly re-evaluating and reinterpreting not only our past but also our future, in its immediate and more distant aspects. For this reason, our present perceptions at any given moment are filled with fluidly flowing clusters of imaginative anticipations of the future, often including several parallel possibilities regarding the outcome of particular acts or events. And our very perception (in the present) is at least partly structured by these cares and anticipations of the future (e.g., by what we are seeking and wanting at a given moment) in light of our interpretive understandings of our past experiences. Thus the three temporal ekstases or dimensions of our temporality (or 'time as it is lived out') are dynamically and inextricably intertwined with one another. Thus the fluid, becoming, changing nature of human existence. In terms of the magnetic field metaphor, it's as if the magnet is always moving in such a way that the field is always restructuring itself, though it always maintains its basic form. To further complicate the system (but make it more realistic), it's as if there were a multitude of magnets of varying proximity involved, each affecting in its own way the ever-changing field to a greater or lesser degree (analogously to our having a multitude of cares and projects at any one time contributing to the restructuring of our experiential field or 'phenomenological world'). The centrality of temporality in the structure of our experience explains why the Beam of Light metaphor in our model must give way to the more temporally dynamic 'Beams-of-Light-through-Time' version. Exist-encz and Existentialism This directional-temporal quality of human living is crucial to what the phenomenological philosophers have meant by the term 'existence.' This term is meant to capture the 'process of becoming' nature of our lives, as opposed to any static or 'complete at any moment' picture of human life. This is central to what Sartre (1947) was talking about in his famous but often misunderstood definition of existentialism as the

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doctrine that 'existence precedes essence/ We live in time (and a finite time at that, in which an endpoint, death, is in some way expected), and we are always in a process of becoming. The phrase 'I exist' is used as an active verb here. It means that 'I am a living process of existence.' In accordance with this view, it is only secondarily, and by reflection and abstraction, that we can describe 'essences' (i.e., static, non-changing, complete descriptions) of ourselves or of our objects, and such descriptions generally only belong to the past (i.e., to what has already been, not what currently is or what will be). Thus, existence or (prereflective) living comes first. Essences, for Sartre, are merely 'postgame summaries/ after-the-fact reflective abstractions rather than the lived-out stuff of life. This is very different from the position of the s R o model, in which the individual is 'the subject,' an essence, a static or complete 'thing' that in theory could be described in his or her totality at a given moment. This thing then interacts with other things of the world (e.g., in coming to know them). Such a subject-thing could therefore be studied and potentially understood (as Freud [1927] apparently believed6); it would also be a suitable object for scientific investigation in a manner similar to those used to study other things of the world. Heidegger's fundamental point in Being and Time is that by virtue of our temporal, caring, actively world-restructuring, always interpretive, Bemg-revealing, relational nature, we are not the same sort of beings as non-living, non-conscious things. We are not essences; we are existences. Only things can be properly described as essences in this sense. For our cares and projects reorganize our worlds continuously, and since these same cares and projects at least partially define who we are, even such a concept as that of one's 'true self must be seen as something still in the process of developing, not as something that can be completely defined or 'found' as a whole. As noted in the ontology chapters, the idea that our primary interpretations of the world are those of the world as an 'equipment-context' for our projects strongly suggests that our opennesses to the world and its possibilities are quite motivationally biased from the outset. As our projects rapidly change, so do our worlds. We only find ourselves in our projects, cares, and worlds; it follows that we are always changing, becoming, developing beings. Our metaphoric light beams and magnets are always on the move, and so are we. So there is very little in human experience that is static, complete, or definite. So any effort to describe human living in terms most appropriate to things (which have

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no cares, projects, or sense of history or the future) is, according to most phenomenologists, hopelessly misguided and doomed to fail. To anticipate later chapters, in terms of psychological theorizing, the most basic criticisms levelled by existentialists and phenomenologists against many prominent psychological theories (which tend to be dualistic and objectivistic) is that they tend to describe people as if they were things and thus miss right from square one the continuously changing, interpretive, meaningful, and meaning-creating nature of human existence. Having gone off in the wrong direction so early in their course (i.e., at the ontological or the general epistemological levels), they then find themselves hard-pressed to reincorporate meaning-filled themes into their psychological edifice. And they cannot succeed at this without revamping the entire epistemological foundation on which their theories are based. Various forms of existentialism face their own fair share of problems, including again those familiar charges of relativism, or in some cases Voluntarism' (i.e., the extent of what is truly Voluntary' may be exaggerated).7 Another serious criticism relates to 'ethical relativism' (or relativism with regard to matters of ethics - a subject that extends far beyond the scope of this book). But as was shown with the iron filings example, just because the magnet and the filings are always moving and changing does not mean there are no relatively stable configurations or features of the familiar pattern. Similarly, our phenomenal worlds, though in flux 'at the edges' at all times, still retain enough continuity that they can easily be recognized under all but the most extreme circumstances. Thus, psychological concepts such as 'the self and 'the personality' are not incompatible with this approach; they simply need to be appreciated as somewhat fluid, evolving, and continuously developing phenomena, rather than as fixed, immutable essences. Because this is an ontologically realist model and an epistemologically co-constitutional one rather than an idealist or subjectivist one, some element of the imperviousness of the objects of the world to our will (or our cares and projects) will always be present as a limiting factor for us, regardless of how we interpret or reorganize our experience. For that reason, we are here spared any dreaded relativistic visions of an amorphous state of infinite malleability, or perhaps one of an untenable voluntarism. Let us now reflect more on Heidegger's 'existential analytic of Dasein/ and consider what sort of general epistemological situation it suggests. Two of the fundamental qualities of the Being-in-the-world structure

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are (a) the irreducible relatedness of our existence, and the fieldlike character of our world, and (b) the always temporal, future-orientedbecoming, process aspect to our existence. Equally fundamental to our understanding the nature of human existence is the aspect of 'care/ Indeed, the title Heidegger gives to chapter 7 of Being in Time is 'Care as the Being of Dasein.' Heidegger does not use the term 'care' in the positive, evaluative, or colloquial sense, as in, 'She's a nice "caring" person.' Cares in his sense may be good, bad, mixtures, or hard to tell - that is not the point here. The point is that care is always there, always part of the human condition and part of every human experience. This means that humans are never truly indifferent - they always experience the world from a standpoint filled with various cares (or concerns, wants, values, etc.). The world is always interpreted in human experiencing, and it is interpreted in terms of our cares. Such cares reflect our understandings, wants, meanings, values, and significances (both past, learned ones and newly created ones) and our projects (i.e., our anticipations of future possibilities and our hopes and fears about them). Heidegger describes the temporality of human existence as of being in a state of 'thrown projection.' By this he means we always have a relatively unalterable, unchosen, given set of past experiences ('our throwness') which form a present situation from which to start in any moment, and from which point we then 'pro-ject'8 (literally, 'throw ourselves forward') toward the future. Thus, in any perception we anticipate and envision our future possibilities in our acts of interpreting, restructuring, and experiencing our world. The particulars of which sorts of future possibilities are most important and influential in any given perception (i.e., what becomes foreground rather than background) are reflective precisely of our cares at that moment. Recall that Heidegger describes our world-as-we-relate-to-it populated not by the objects of scientific knowledge, but rather by 'equipment' - by things seen in the light of our particular projects (reflecting our cares) at any given time. Thus when one is hungry the world appears mainly in terms of 'food-objects' either seen as present or sensed as missing. When one needs a hammer, a nearby rock is seen as a potential hammering tool before it is noticed as a potential addition to one's rock garden, and so on. Our projects and goals help structure our perceptions. But care is also clearly an emotional term. And obviously, the projection in time of anticipated future possibilities requires that elements of imagination, planning, and to some degree creativity be present as

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well. 'Understanding' and 'interpreting' were once considered mainly cognitive terms; the great writings of the existential phenomenologists share the conviction that intensely personal and affective elements are also intimately involved in the 'construction' of phenomena. It seems that emotion, imagination, planning, creativity, and cognition are all equally primordial and necessary and essential; that is, they are all present in every act of human experience. So they must each be accounted for in the general epistemology of this paradigm. These elements are all necessary for human experience, including human knowledge. Put another way, their collective presence plays a vital role in defining the limits and contours of our general epistemological horizons. If these various interwined features of human experience are always present on such fundamental levels as ontology and general epistemology, this has profound implications for psychological theory. For instance, theories that radically separate emotion and affect from reason and cognition, or that postulate pure forms of either or each, are quite inconsistent with the above premises. This is bad news for those who theorize that human memory can (ever) be devoid of an emotional component, or be purely cognitive, like the ill-named 'memory' of computers, which indeed has very little in common with human remembering. Similarly, the dichotomy of 'real versus imaginary (or "true versus false") perceptions' can be seen as another inappropriate and misleading disjunction, since I have just described all acts of perception as involving a blending of both real (or relatively independent of me) and imaginary (or my imaginative anticipations of what is not yet, but might become) elements.9 Yet this particular distinction remains integral to many of our textbook definitions of clinical phenomena such as hallucinations (as 'false or imaginary perceptions'), delusions (as 'false beliefs'), and more recently 'false memories.'10 It is not that the clinical phenomena in question don't exist. But such naive, all-or-none objectivistic characterizations of them only obscure the complexity of the difficult validity questions involved in assessing the relative truth values of these particular co-constituted truths, which perhaps dwell at the extremes of human experience. But more on this later. We may yet find that many well-known dichotomies and dualisms, so prevalent in psychological theory, may simply not hold up to close experiential or phenomenological inspection. A final important one worth mentioning here is 'mind versus body' dualism. The Beams-ofLight-through-Time model sees this one as the result of another abstract and unnecessary split - one that arises in its naively dualistic

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form only as a consequence of Descartes's radical ontological distinction between res extensa and res cogitans. Body, being extended, could not possibly be one with or even on the same plane as Mind (being nonextended); thus the dichotomy. But if human reality is seen primordially not as an isolated (mental or thinking) subject, which must then somehow connect with extended objects, but rather as an always embodied relational existence, then mind/body dualism is not such a problem to begin with. Embodiment or physicality is one more aspect of our being; indeed, all of our perceptions are embodied. Clinicians know very well that our body states are important structuring factors in our projects, meanings, communications, spatial positionings, and so on that go into both the constitution and the expression of our 'situation.' This situation, in turn, is continuously restructuring and being restructured by our perceptions. The French phenomenologist Maurice Merleau-Ponty (1945) has written extensively and illuminatingly on this topic, which he refers to as 'the lived body.' A Recap of Some of the Key General Features of Human Experience as Taken from Phenomenological Philosophy

The particular Beam-of-Light-through-Time that is human experience in this model will always possess, as a minimum, the following structural or formal qualities: • 'Relatedness to a world.' Human reality is always experienced as occurring in the context of an ongoing relationship to a field of meaningful objects. This phenomenological world, or the world as it is experienced, is constantly being organized and reorganized, patterned and repatterned in a fieldlike manner in accordance with our concerns or cares of the moment. Such a phenomenological world is also always of finite extent, that extent being limited to its given horizon (or set of horizons along various dimensions). • 'Situatedness in time.' Human reality is always heading toward and anticipating the future in terms of possibilities, goals, hopes, projects, and so on. These goals are always experienced within a broader, temporal context. That is to say, even our most futuredirected projects can only be understood against the background of, or in the light of, one's past experiences and interpretations of one's present position. • 'Interpretiveness/ Our perception of our situation is always interp

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tive, whether we are focusing on the past, present, or future or on all of these in combination. This interpretation is always carried out in the light of our prior understandings and our cares, concerns, and values. These interpretations (i.e., the interpretive structuring or organization of our perceptual experiences) are always present, although they may occur at different levels of reflective awareness. That is, one doesn't have to be aware of making them, or deliberately trying to make them, for them to be happening. They occur at both prereflective and more reflective, conscious, and deliberately reasoned out levels of awareness - sometimes at multiple levels simultaneously. • 'Emotion.' The caring and anticipatory qualities of human experiencing necessarily involve some element of emotion, imagination, anticipation, and creativity. These things are part of every act of perception (even if only in rudimentary form). • 'Lived body.' The lived body is a key element of the situation from which we view the world. Human perception is phenomenologically experienced as always coming from within an embodied perspective. Even in the special case of dissociative, 'disembodied' experiences, the experiences are still described in positional terms (e.g., as in 'looking down at my body'). In such cases one's sense of embodiment is, however, experienced as feeling peculiar in type; one's usual mode of embodiment is experienced as conspicuously altered, absent, or missing. • 'The social world.' Phenomenologically, the world tends to be experienced as a social one - that is, as peopled with others. Part of this sense ofMitsein (or 'Being-with-Others' - both Heidegger's terms) is acknowledged in the assertion that all of human experience necessarily has an interpersonal, cultural, and historical context. I haven't discussed this last feature at length, but most phenomenological and existential writers have regarded it as integral to the universal structure of human experience. This concept - Mitsein or 'Being-with-Others' - is one aspect of the care structure that has been taken up and developed much more extensively and understandingly by philosophers other than Heidegger. This is especially the case with the French phenomenologists. However, the writings of existential philosophers such as Martin Buber (see 7 and Thou [1923], which actually predates Being and Time) have also contributed greatly to our appreciation of these interpersonal phenomena. Obviously, each of the above dimensions of human experience is of

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great interest and importance for us in the psychological field, perhaps especially with regard to the theory and practice of psychotherapy. Each will be a major ingredient in the development of a general psychology based on this paradigm. So I will be discussing each in that context in greater detail later on, especially in chapters 8 and 9. For now, regarding these omnipresent features - our cares, our world, and our temporality -1 wish mainly to emphasize that each substantially contributes to the establishment of our general human epistemological horizon - that is, to the limits of human experience and knowledge in general. Put another way, the range of our knowledge and even of our possible experiences is necessarily limited to this realm of relational, situated, temporal, interpreted, care-laden, imaginative, emotional, embodied, Being-with-others truths. To conclude this lengthy discussion, I review, from the perspective of this new model, the traditional epistemological questions: 'What is our access to truth or knowledge? Where is truth to be found? From what is it constituted?' We as humans do have some direct access to some kind of truth or knowledge, but that knowledge is always partial, perspectival, situated-in-time, and limited. Regarding 'where truth is to be found,' I reject the solutions to the Cartesian (or s R o) dilemma offered by 'the object-side as the locus of truth' position of objectivism and 'the subjectside as the locus of truth' position of subjectivism/idealism. Instead, I highlight 'the interaction' itself as the most identifiable point of origin for the truths of human experience. Similarly, regarding 'what (human) truth, knowledge, or experience is constituted from,' I contend that these may be best understood as co-constituted by the interaction or relationship between (to try to use the more traditional epistemological terms here) the relatively subjective and relatively objective elements. Our closer look at the phenomenological structure of human experience further suggests that such experiences are complex and multidimensional phenomena that feature several necessary components. Indeed, I may have gotten more than I bargained for in turning to the works of the phenomenologists in my efforts to develop ontological and epistemological positions that I can live with better than those offered by the old s R o paradigm. On the other hand, if it is found to hold true that even on such a basic level as the general epistemological one such traditionally psychological issues as caring, emotion, imagination, interpretation, anticipation, and embodiment are intrinsically and inextricably involved in the very fabric of the general conditions for the possibility of human knowledge

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or experience, then the intertwining of philosophy and psychology will be more evident than ever. It will then become much harder to argue coherently that either philosophers or psychological thinkers can afford to entirely ignore the work or subject matter of their colleagues in the other of these disciplines. Ontologically, things or further aspects of things may exist beyond the limits of our necessarily incomplete and only partial (i.e., situated) knowledge; yet epistemologically there seem to be structural limitations to the sorts of truths and the types of truths that are accessible in human experience. We are finite creatures in more ways than one! How, then, can we make the best of our limited but not insignificant potential knowledge of our world and its objects, and arrive at better understandings of ourselves in ways that more adequately account for our human complexities, for our 'situated existences'? In answering this question, we will likely find ourselves following the phenomenologists in resisting the temptation to use oversimplifying methodologies such as would require us to cram our self-and-other-/zwmfln understandings misguidedly into the terminology and categories best reserved for non-living 'things/ In the next chapter we will turn our attention to the difficult questions of validity, and to what precisely that term means for this view of the world as one of admittedly and necessarily limited knowledge.

CHAPTER 5

VALIDITY (LEVEL D): How Do We Validate or Assign Truth-Value to What We Know?

In this chapter I will stay within the broad epistemological domain that concerns itself with the nature of knowledge, but I will focus on this question: 'How do we validate or assign truth value to what we know?' I will look at this question with respect to any sort of knowledge at all - that is, as applying to human knowledge in general. In chapter 7 I will continue this discussion with reference to the validation of knowledge within the confines of a more specific field of study or practical discipline. To clinically situate the ensuing discussion, and to highlight the psychological relevance of the traditionally philosophical matters that follow, let us return to the case of the paranoid patient introduced in chapter 2. In that chapter I introduced two psychotic patients. The one with a sense of the unreality of the world was discussed at the time, with reference to ontology; I deferred discussion of the second patient the one who did not deny the existence of all reality, but who did deny the validity of the clinician's (and most other people's) view of the truth of his situation. That patient's disagreement with the staff was considered more epistemic (or epistemological), and thus belongs more to the present chapter. Essentially, the philosophical dilemma the clinician faces in dealing with this and similar paranoid patients is that the patient is convinced that his or her view of 'the way things really are' is correct or accurate; the clinician feels similarly about his or her own point of view; and their two views contradict each other. The validity question comes up not only when we ask 'who's right and who's

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wrong/ but also when we try to assess the quality and convincingness of the arguments and/or evidence presented as justifying one or the other of these alternative propositions. The patient believed that the hospital was really a secret prison, the staff of which were part of a government conspiracy. He also claimed to have privileged access to this truth (via a radio receiver planted in his brain) that was unavailable to the unfortunately duped clinician. He thus could easily justify ignoring the pitiful claims of his unenlightened physician. Furthermore, the patient did not waver on any of this - he felt certain of the truth of his claims. To seriously contest or refute claims like this, either to the satisfaction of the patient or to our own, we will need a convincing theory of truth or validity that provides reasonable criteria for making judgments on these matters. So let us briefly discuss some of the more prominent theories of validity in the philosophical literature. Below I present three general theories to validity that I consider important: the 'correspondence' theory, the 'coherence' theory, and the 'pragmatic' or 'consequential' theory. These theories represent broadly based approaches to questions of validity. Each tends to rely mainly on it own particular set of validation criteria, to which it routinely refers. These sets of validating criteria include factors such as intersubjective agreement, logical consistency, and appeals to empirical, statistical, or other forms of 'data' as are defined and judged as proper, relevant, and useful by the overriding theory. Each of these broad theories of validity at this level - level D of our hierarchy - will be seen to be grounded in a particular set of level C, B, and A positions. For example, the correspondence theory of validity will be seen as tightly coupled with 'objectivism' on epistemological level C, which presumes a Cartesian dualistic position at ontological level B and a realist one at ontological level A. I will also be discussing the relative strengths and weaknesses and the logical compatibilities or incompatibilities of these theories with regard to positions taken at prior levels of inquiry. None of these theories, however, will be found to be quite appropriate and adequate on its own to fit in with the co-constitutional model I proposed in the previous chapter in terms of fulfilling that model's need for a suitable set of validation procedures and criteria. So I will also explore the rudiments of a theory of validity that would be more consistent with a phenomenologically-based approach. This approach

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to validation will be described as more hermeneutic, and perhaps also as drawing to varying degrees from several of the validation criteria favoured by each of the aforementioned main theories of validity. The correspondence theory of truth (or validity) assesses the validity or truth of a statement, claim, construct, proposition, or hypothesis as in direct proportion to its 'correspondence to the facts/ These 'facts' are seen (especially in the extreme form of this theory) as fully determined by the intrinsic nature or structure of an external and totally independent object or objective reality. Our claims, ideas, representations, and so on are then compared with these 'facts/ and the former are deemed to be true precisely to the extent that they are found to match with the latter. In contrast, the coherence theory of truth does not appeal to a reality beyond our ideas. According to coherence theory, a statement is true to the extent that it coheres with (or fits with, or is consistent with) other statements that we believe to be true. The pragmatic theory of truth or validation appeals less to objective facts and ideal types, and less to factors of consistency, than to the consequences of believing a particular idea or proposition. Thus, a hypothesis is deemed true to the extent that it is seen to (or is judged to) work in practice. Correspondence The correspondence theory of truth (or validity) relies on our ability to compare our ideas with a set of independent, objective realities. Supposedly, these realities can be apprehended by us (or are revealed to us) empirically (i.e., through our senses alone) in a purportedly 'pure' or 'theory-free' and purely receptive or passive way. The familiar metaphor from the seventeenth-century English philosopher John Locke (1690), a founder of empiricism, was that the environment makes impressions on us through the senses as if our minds were a 'blank slate' or 'white paper/ He maintained that there must be a correspondence between our ideas and external things (which are the same with or without us). This is the position of what is known as radical empiricism, which is an extreme objectivist position (i.e., truth comes entirely from the object-side of the Cartesian split). The validation of all statements and propositions or of theories and models themselves rests on the degree to which these can be shown to match with or correspond to an external, independent or objective reality.

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Yet there is something vague and probably tautological in this 'just the facts, ma'am' approach. What is valid or true is what matches with the facts. What is factual is what is valid, true, and objective. What is objective is that which is independent of us. Yet to be known it must be revealed to or observed by someone. The assumption is then made that this someone can, empirically, through their senses alone (not using any reasoning, judgment, theory, or intuition), apprehend this objective truth in a pure form. Why? What, for instance, is the 'empirical evidence' for that assumption? Is there any, or is an inexplicit, philosophical prejudice being asserted in denial of the universal presence of precisely such prejudices? How ironic that there should be so little empirical evidence for empiricism per se! Putting this objection aside for the moment, the empiricist's model presumes that after one observes (or passively receives) pure realities (through the senses), one must then somehow come to represent them either to others or 'internally,' since the human world (which is filled with emotional or 'passionate' influences) will rapidly contaminate such purity with its subjective biases. So a certain process of translation and somewhat distorted representation (literally, 're-presentation') must occur for us to converse about or even remember (or hold 'inside' our minds or brains) our images, ideas, understandings, and conceptualizations of these originally external pure facts. The Cartesian splits of subject and object, mind and matter may be seen here as providing the foundation for this inner versus outer dichotomy. The mental, subjective, inner world is seen as in opposition to an external, physical, objective world. Although in ontological terms this is little more than a restatement of the Cartesian dualist position, on the epistemological level it gives rise to what has become a major problem in psychological theory - the problem of representation. Related to this is also the issue of mediated versus immediate or direct knowledge. In the empiricist model a whole series of mediated images or ideas must be postulated in acknowledgment of the fact (or theory) that the human world (and certainly any postulated internal world) is filled with all sorts of subjective prejudices and motivational distortions. We must then somehow form a picture or representation world within us (or within our culture, in such venues as art and language) that allows us to live and converse. Thus we are truly seen as living in Plato's cave, that is, in a world of only mediated images, shadows on the wall, mere representations of the 'real Reality' or objects beyond us.1 For direct access to the objective world (the original presentation of Reality) is not

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the same as re-presenting a stored and rehashed or subsequently interpreted and thus 'tainted' version of that world. This is the basis of the correspondence theory of truth. Once we assume that our ideas or memories (not being original, simple, purely sensory experiences) can only be a sort of translated or mediated knowledge (or representation) of the 'really Real/ an appeal to some correspondence with that 'really Real' original object, or sensory experience thereof, seems to make sense. Truth or validity can then be clearly defined as that in our representation world which matches or corresponds with the Real external world (i.e., to the extent to which it can be purged of its subjective distortions). Thus the correspondence theory of validity. But what a lot of assumptions this 'theory-free' approach makes! Hidden in here is the assumption that the world must be divided between the external/objective and internal/subjective elements. Why so? It's also confusing when we have presuppositions about purely apprehended empirical observations, but there is nowhere to put those observations in the human world (as its 'internal' and interpersonal aspects are rife with 'subjective' contaminating elements, which require a process for producing mediated, representative forms of these originally purely empirical experiences). Also, empiricism seems to place an awful lot of faith in the reliability of sensory experience alone. Thus to invalidate such misleading sensory experiences as mirages, let alone hallucinations, we must appeal to the correspondence theory, in which these experiences are deemed not to correspond with the underlying objective reality. But such judgments cannot be made by empirical sensory experiences alone. Theory, reasoning, inductive logic and generalization all enter into such judgments. Furthermore, the 'unprovability' by empirical observation alone even of such prized concepts of inductive reasoning as 'causation' has been demonstrated repeatedly by sceptical philosophers, beginning with David Hume in the eighteenth century.2 Paranoid patients, though they certainly believe in their own points of view regardless of how implausible they seem to us, are usually very talented sceptics themselves when it comes to assessing the claims of the rest of us. In considering our above-mentioned patient, the clinician will likely find this case quite exasperating if she (we'll assume) resorts to trying to 'prove' or demonstrate her position to the patient through empirical evidence and by appealing to a correspondence theory of truth. The patient, not unlike a modern Rene Descartes, will quite correctly bombard her with a series of 'how do you know that you are

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not deluded, dreaming, or otherwise mistaken' questions, to which she, being 'philosophically challenged,' may have no good response. The paranoid patient will sometimes rightly point out that 'just because you, the clinician, think your view corresponds accurately to external reality doesn't mean that it necessarily does, or that you have special or privileged access to it that the patient does not (regardless of your professional training).' An old psychiatric tale comes to mind. A frustrated and concerned man brings his distraught-looking brother in to see a psychiatrist. The two brothers, Joe and Bob, sit down side by side across from the psychiatrist, who is seated behind a large desk. Joe explains to the psychiatrist that Bob seems to be delusional, insisting that there is no point in doing anything at all because 'he is already dead.' In the ensuing interview, Bob tells the psychiatrist, 'That's right. I'm dead ... I know it for sure.' He finds it odd that other people would either question that 'fact' or have the audacity to think they might know more about his being alive or not than he himself does. In a bored-sounding monotone, Bob rejects suggestions that his ability to walk and talk in any way contradicts his deadness. He will not eat, though, saying, There's no point to eating once you're dead,' and this particularly worries Joe. When asked how he knows he's dead, Bob replies that 'all his feelings have stopped, as has his heart, and his blood has ceased to flow.' At this point, his increasingly irritated brother asks him: 'Do dead men bleed?' Bob calmly replies: 'Nope. Dead men do not bleed.' Joe asks again: 'Are you absolutely sure? Dead men never bleed, right?' Bob reiterates that dead men do not bleed. Joe reaches into his pocket for something and then suddenly - to the shock and surprise of both Bob and the psychiatrist - with one hand holds Bob's hand down on the desk while with the other he jabs his pen knife into it. Both Bob and the psychiatrist look at each other, Bob with wide-eyed horror while the psychiatrist quietly wonders which of these two brothers is the crazier one. Bob looks down at his hand as the blood begins to well up and spread across it. Joe angrily tells him: There, you see the blood. Dead men don't bleed, right? You said so yourself. Now do you still think you're dead?' Another moment of silence, and then Bob, looking astonished, calmly tells the psychiatrist: 'I never would've believed it. Dead men do bleed!' This anecdote demonstrates that in the presence of certain strongly held beliefs and convictions, an appeal to empirical evidence will often be subverted by a re-interpretation of the 'data' so as to render them

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harmless to the central premise. Here, Bob accommodated himself to the new data by abandoning his minor premise - 'dead men don't bleed' - in order to preserve his major one - that 'he is dead.' One could argue here that to some degree Bob was appealing to a correspondence theory of truth: his bleeding hand didn't match with his idea that dead men don't bleed, so he rejected that idea as untrue. This of course would be of little consolation to Joe, whose assault was geared toward empirically demonstrating to Bob that he was alive. Furthermore, Bob's adjustment of one of his assumptions seems to have involved something besides correspondence criteria. Bob very much wanted his argument to be coherent; otherwise he could have simply embraced the paradox of his bleeding without changing any of his premises. Before leaving this story (and perhaps dismissing it as a bad joke), it is worth recalling some classic social psychological studies such as those of Festinger and colleagues (1956) in When Prophesy Fails. Similar accounts of patients adjusting a few minor premises for the sake of 'cognitive consistency' with another, far more outlandish one abound in the literature. This appeal to the objective facts is now beginning to sound more and more like an appeal to 'the facts as we believe them to be' - which is actually more of a coherence or consistency based argument. It can be argued that especially in the 'post-quantum theory' world, in which (following Heisenberg's uncertainty principle) 'the unobserved particle in itself is allotted no place, the 'pure empirical fact' - the pure experience that seemingly is prior to all subjective subsequent distortion - is best seen as a 'metaphysical fantasy'! One important philosopher whose views are greatly at odds with the correspondence theory of truth is Hans Georg Gadamer. Gadamer's name is most often associated with hermeneutics rather than phenomenology, but he acknowledges a heavy debt to the latter, in particular to the work of Heidegger (with whom he studied and with whom he had some strong disagreements as well). In his major work, Truth and Method (1960), Gadamer contends that truth itself is very much a created, interactive, and emergent process; this runs directly counter to the static, passive/receptive, 'truth is located solely in the object' point of view implied in correspondence theory. He argues that all human experience (including perception itself) is really an interpretive act, or a dialogue; furthermore, that dialogue takes place in the context of a 'partially-already-present-but-continuously-developing,' evolving, or changing Understanding. A premise of Eastern philosophy is that 'one

Level D: How Do We Validate or Assign Truth-Value? 99 can never step into the same river twice'; similarly, Gadamer contends that in each act of perception a new interpretation is formed, a new human interactional experience is created, and thus a new existent truth emerges. This is not to say that prior truths are in any way lost or erased; rather, something new - some new experience from a new perspective is created and added to our overall understanding. Furthermore, this is not merely an additive process in the mathematical sense, because new understandings necessarily involve some reinterpretation and reorganization of what was there before. Recall here our 'field of iron filings' metaphor, in which the magnets were being slowly and steadily moved around, and in which additional magnets were continually being added, thus further reorganizing and complicating the structure of the magnetic field or system as a whole. In the language of systems theory, Gadamer clearly perceives the human world as an 'open system' to which new elements and factors are constantly being added. Those new elements and factors represent our new experiences, interpretations, and understandings. In Truth and Method, Gadamer begins in the realm of art and aesthetics, an area in which the interpretive, hermeneutic approach is more readily accepted; but then he makes it quite clear that his is not only a theory of aesthetics but also a general epistemology. That is, his conclusions are not meant to be limited to our interpretations of art; they are to apply to the general structure of all human experience (or truth). He contends that this hermeneutic approach to truth questions - with its assertion that each perception involves the creation of a new interpretive experience - is not simply a matter of (proper) method. For the general structure of experience or truth is prior to and foundational to the questions of methodology and validation - questions with which much of the philosophy of science seems to be preoccupied. In terms of this book, Gadamer's argument is that questions of method and validity (level D) will always depend on an underlying general theory of the nature and limits of human knowledge or truth (level C). It follows that the search for truth cannot be merely a matter of choosing the right method. Whether a question or approach is appropriate and valid will always depend on what theory of knowledge underlies it. For instance, a method based on the idea that 'objective data' can be checked by systematically purging them of 'subjective distortions' and then grouping them into accurate representational models, which we can then compare to see whether they match with a known, objective,

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external, and unchanging Reality or standard, might make sense in the presence of an objectivist epistemology and a correspondence theory of validity. But the same method would be quite inconsistent with a concept of truth as a non-static, evolving, and emergent process developing in an unmediated but co-constituted way, as is proposed both by Gadamer and the Beams-of-Light-through-Time model. Let us now turn to our attention to another general theory of validity, the coherence theory of truth. Coherence As I mentioned earlier, the coherence theory of truth does not appeal to a 'Reality beyond' with which to match our ideas. Rather, a statement is judged to be true to the extent it coheres with, fits in with, or is consistent with other statements we believe to be true. In many ways this is a much more humble sort of theory than the correspondence one. Instead of insisting on a sort of privileged access to the gold standard of absolute truths to compare with, the coherence theory merely insists that our new propositions be consistent with our old, previously accepted ones. This latter requirement seems eminently acceptable, yet the theory still seems to be lacking something. If all truth value need only fit in with our other beliefs, then all truths are somewhat groundless. The problems of relativism arise again. Once again we are reminded of the clinical example of a paranoid delusional system. Why do we call a 'delusion' a delusion? Some paranoid systems contain obvious inconsistencies, but others present as closed systems of beliefs which, from within themselves, explain everything with no apparent internal inconsistencies or contradictions. To some degree this was the case with the previously discussed patient with the paranoid conspiracy theory. Our claim that the beliefs of such people are delusional is often based not on their internal inconsistencies, but rather on information from outside the system - for example, our beliefs, experiences, and understandings. So we must sometimes ask ourselves whether our judgments are actually based on arguments of inconsistency (or lack of coherence). Perhaps it is simply that the delusional patient's experience and explanations don't correspond with ours. At this point, the arguments often become epistemological and/or political; whichever they are, they pivot on the question of whether we, the clinicians or experts, enjoy some privileged access to the truth(s) of the given situation that the delusional patient does not. Approaches to

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this question can be reasonable or unreasonable (as in, 'because I'm the doctor, that's why'), and can involve a variety of validation methods. Let us consider a paranoid patient who believes he is being persecuted by 'demons' (rather than by government agents). Here we might argue that the patient's reasoning is faulty - that he is being inconsistent when he maintains both that he must protect his family and that he must also leave them starving and unprotected while he goes off to fight these demons (an argument appealing to coherence theory criteria). We could also argue that his belief in demons does not match the view of the world most of us hold these days - that such demons are mere fictions or mistaken beliefs which don't hold up to careful 'comparison with the facts' (an argument based on correspondence theory criteria). Furthermore, we might argue that this patient's cluster of beliefs and behaviours does match the cluster of symptoms we've grouped together as a syndrome known as a delusional disorder. This is still a correspondence criteria argument, but of a different sort. This time the referent to which the patient's presentation is compared is to a man-made construct, rather than to an absolute or external reality (even though sometimes such constructs as paranoid schizophrenia do tend to get reified and treated as if they were purely external, unchanging, 'objective' realities.) With regard to such diagnostic or nosological issues, there is a wide spectrum of beliefs in the field regarding the ontological status of many of our diagnostic entities. At one extreme edge of the spectrum (sometimes called the extreme 'right' side of it), one hears arguments that such syndromes are not just man-defined clusters of symptoms but rather specific illnesses or diseases of definite and discrete external type and (presumably) cause. But then we have to ask ourselves why and how our diagnoses of these 'objective' entities can change so much over time. For example, consider the 'sometime-diagnostic category' of homosexuality. In classical Greece, homosexual behaviour was not considered especially abnormal or 'pathological.' Yet for much of the twentieth century, it was seen as a specific psychiatric disorder. More recently, its seeming 'intrinsically psychopathological character' has been reevaluated, and was effectively 'eliminated by a vote.' Since then it is no longer viewed as an illness in itself. Here, it is not the sexual orientation in question that has changed in quality over time so much as our society's judgments about it. This raises important questions about how we use correspondence criteria. Certainly, this situation raises an appropriate correspondence

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question: whether this particular person's actions, desires, feelings, symptoms(?), and so on do or do not match with the cluster of these that has been described earlier and agreed upon as warranting a particular label (which may or may not represent a clinical or pathological entity). But this sort of correspondence is only a matching with a syndromatic description that we've agreed on as perhaps a 'working hypothesis/ but not necessarily as an absolute external reality. It is a correspondence with an epistemological-level construct or belief, not with an ontological-level independent reality. So the argument here is really a coherence one - that is, it is based on what we observe as fitting in with or being consistent with some other (previously agreed on in this case) beliefs of ours (and/or those of our colleagues). So the fact that this person's presentation fits in well with a certain pre-established label may validate our use of that label as accurately describing this person, but it tells us little about the further significance of the label itself (e.g., its predictive value, if any). At the other end (the so-called 'left' side) of the spectrum are those who argue against the validity of applying any fixed patterns to such clinical entities. Some proponents of this view dismiss even diagnoses such as schizophrenia, declaring that they represent politically motivated constructs geared toward repressing of certain non-conformist ideas. But this view finds itself hard-pressed to explain why, in almost every society and culture in the world, symptoms and even types of delusions and hallucinations tend to cluster in strikingly routine ways and at quite uniform rates. This extreme stance also finds itself with no clear basis for supporting a diagnosis of delusional disorder at any time. Yet the clinical phenomenon still apparently remains. These debates echo the objectivism versus relativism arguments I noted earlier. So when a theory of validation consistent with past premises is required, the objectivist camp will likely subscribe more heavily to a correspondence theory of truth, whereas those in the relativist (or subjectivist or idealist) camp will likely favour the criteria of a coherence theory. Especially with regard to psychiatric diagnostic classification, we often hear appeals being made to a third general theory of validity, the pragmatic theory of truth. Pragmatics The pragmatic theory of truth or validation appeals not so much to either matching with objective factors and ideal types (correspondence)

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or to factors of internal or logical consistency (coherence). Rather, it appeals mainly to the consequences or practical problems either created by or remedied by a particular idea or by the actions it implies. In effect, a condition is deemed to be a disorder if it causes pain and suffering or generally messes up someone's life. Similarly, a treatment is deemed 'good and true' by and large if it works (or seems to work), or if it does more good than harm. This approach certainly fits in with our culture's tendency to prefer pragmatic and immediately demonstrable results. Even so, we must bear in mind that it inevitably relies on certain judgments as to 'what works.' And with respect to these judgments we can argue that they (a) can only be made in hindsight, and (b) reflect or depend on all sorts of other judgments - for example, judgments regarding how we should measure 'what works,' the types of questions we ask (or omit), our social values, norms, and ideals, and the theories of validity we use. The idea of relying on the 'cash value' of our theories (as William James, the American psychologist and proponent of the pragmatic theory of truth, put it in his 1907 book Pragmatism) may appeal to us greatly, yet the particular cash value of a theory will vary widely with market conditions at the time of sale (not the least of which is the issue of who is the buyer)! Certainly, questions regarding whether or how much a given condition is 'messing up someone's life' can generate intense debate among staff, patient, family, the law, and society at large when actual, particular cases are examined. Similarly, the utility of a treatment will depend on when, how, for what purpose, and generally in what context it is being used. In short, pragmatics alone doesn't really provide a grounding for a truth that is not relative (despite the strong realist sentiments of most pragmatists). At the same time, however, pragmatic approaches do not contradict either correspondence or coherence theories, and they may provide powerful evidence to support an argument based on either of these. The pragmatic approach strongly emphasizes a form of 'intersubjective agreement' as a central criterion for validation purposes. C.S. Peirce, the American philosopher to whom the initial development of pragmatism as a particular philosophy is largely attributed, defined 'truth as the ultimate outcome of inquiry by a 'community of investigators,' an outcome of 'settled' 'habits of action.'3 This intersubjective criterion, with its emphasis on a community of 'investigators' or 'inquirers' (i.e., implying that the hard work of careful analysis and scholarship are important too), is often important when it comes to validating any broad or general approach. But following, for

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instance, Kuhn's work on paradigm shifts and scientific revolutions, and after considering clinical phenomena such as mass hysteria and mass delusions and sociopolitical phenomena such as racial supremacism and other ideologically homogeneous, closed-minded 'we're good, they're bad' group claims, it is easy to see that even a wide degree of intersubjective agreement is certainly no guarantee of truth. Toward a More Integrative General Theory of Validity From all this, we may have to conclude that none of the three broad approaches or general theories of validity is really complete or sufficient in itself for our purposes. In practice, we may need to combine them in some way. The coherence and pragmatic theories seem to lack grounding, and seem not to provide for any independent - or at least partially independent, reality beyond their own propositions or judgments. On their own, the relativism criticisms are very difficult for these theories to answer. It is not surprising that coherence arguments are most often associated with the epistemologically subjectivist or idealist schools. Correspondence theory proposes an independent grounding, but largely without any stronger basis of argument than that we believe it to be so. If one starts with objectivism and concludes with the same, little is gained. And one might argue that much of the correspondence theory of truth is really a tautological restatement of the objectivist point of view. Having failed to find a general theory of validity that fits in satisfactorily with the co-constitutional epistemology I've been developing in earlier chapters, we may have to look for some sort of hybrid theory that combines various of the elements found in the three we have discussed so far. For this we will need something that grants some degree of at-leastpartially-independent-of-our-observation status to the object/world/ Reality (the realist component) as borrowed from correspondence theory, but that does not rely on the extreme objectivistic assumption that human beings may have access to pure and uninterpreted facts (a premise I believe to be incorrect). Furthermore, the criteria of consistency (from coherence theory) and of the importance of consequences (from the pragmatic theory) will undoubtedly be of immense importance in a newer, perhaps more integrated theory of validity. Other common validation criteria, such as Peirce's 'intersubjective consensus

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of a community of investigators/ the test of time, probabilistic studies, and adequate criticism of and acknowledgments of the limitations of each of our specific methods and instruments of investigation, will likely also find important places in such a theory. Undoubtedly, this area requires much further work. At this point I am merely trying to sketch out some of the general direction it might take. An Example of a Hermeneutic Truth That Is Not Entirely Relativistic The coherence and pragmatic theories both have been criticized for sounding too relativistic and for being without any firm and fixed objective reality. The work of Gadamer and others on hermeneutics has faced the same criticisms - perhaps not entirely justly. Below I attempt to validate a new hypothesis from the aesthetic realm of art history. This isn't as off-track as it first looks, for it will help illustrate how an approach can be taken that is in keeping with my co-constitutional epistemological stance (and perhaps with a hermeneutical method). This approach need not throw out all concepts of truth or objectivity (and thus need not be simply added to the relativistic group) while dispensing with objectivism per se. I hope this example will also help show how often, and in how complex ways, questions of validity and of approaches to validation arise in practice. A few years back, a medical student was thumbing through an art book while taking a break from his studies.4 He chanced on an apparent correspondence between the shapes in the neuroanatomy text he was studying and the outline of God's figure in Michelangelo's famous Sistine Chapel ceiling painting of God reaching out to Adam (presumably giving him the gift of Life). He began to compare the coronal section hemispheric diagram of the brain from his neuroanatomy book with the one in the art book, side by side. In re-examining Michelangelo's famous scene (or his book's replication of it), he was clearly looking at it in a new light and from a very new perspective. It can be said that a new human perception/understanding/interpretation/experience was emerging or being created. At the very least, the emergent truth that the figure of God and its outline in the aforementioned painting can and has been seen (by at least that one person) as representing the human brain was thereby added to the collection of extant truths. In 1990 this student, now Dr Frank Meshberger, published his findings in the Journal of the American Medical Association in an article titled 'An Interpretation of Michaelangelo's

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Creation of Adam Based on Neuroanatomy.'5 In that article he pointed out some eleven neuroanatomical landmarks that seem to have been cleverly worked into the outline of God's form and garments (the general shape of the sulcus and the fissure of Silvius, God's swirling green robe as the path of the vertebral artery, a bifid angel's foot roughly depicting where the pituitary gland would be, and so on).6 Dr Meshberger did not think all of this could be just coincidental. Eventually the significance of this was discussed with and by art historians, who on further research concluded that Michelangelo may indeed have had access to brain autopsies (even though this was very rare at the time), and that indeed he may have meant something important by it. It could be that Michelangelo wanted to show God's unique gift to man as being man's brain - perhaps symbolizing Rationality, Reason, or the Intellect - in addition to the gift of Life itself. That idea would have been quite religiously and politically dangerous at the time, which perhaps explains the artist's subtlety. In any case, it offers a very new perspective on one of the most studied paintings of all time. It also raises many of the questions of epistemology, hermeneutics, and theories of validity that I've been discussing. Several approaches to validation are utilized in this example. To begin with, the student compares the two pictures to see how well they correspond with each other. Here as well, multiple levels of representation are involved. We will likely assume that the neuroanatomic diagram in his text is a reasonably accurate representation of a real brain in coronal section, and likewise that the art book offers a decently accurate reproduction of Michelangelo's original in the Sistine Chapel (i.e., they match the originals to an acceptable degree). Of course, the originals in this case are also representations, since 'the human brain' is an idealized, 'fictional' entity induced from many observations of the general properties common to a long series of particular, actual, individual brains, while the painting is an artistic impression with various symbolic meanings perhaps intended by the artist but to which we were not made privy. When Dr Meshberger wanted to lend credibility to his association between an aspect of the painting and the shape of a brain, he tried to establish that this connection had some basis 'in fact' beyond his own subjective impression. To do this he first appealed to validating criteria such as the precision of the correspondence (how exactly certain parts of the pictures match each other) and the number of details that corresponded (how many points of neuroanatomy are seemingly faithfully

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copied into the artistic rendition). We are making here a more implicit assumption - that the brain anatomy came first and the painting mimicked it, and not vice versa. Although this may seem obvious at first, on closer examination we see it relies on coherence or internal-consistency validation criteria, as it would likely be inconsistent (but not inconceivable) for someone of our modern scientific culture to argue that the shape of the brain is now made in such a way as to correspond with Michelangelo's painting. Similarly, even if we found ourselves impressed with the degree of correspondence demonstrated here, we would still not likely be inclined to argue in this day and age that Michelangelo must have been blindly inspired by God (or alternatively bewitched by some devil for that matter) into unwittingly drawing this shape without ever having seen a human brain exposed in that manner. We instead would likely assume that he must have seen brain autopsies first. We would then begin searching for historical data consistent with such a hypothesis (thereby using coherence criteria). Yet in Michelangelo's day or earlier, the divine or more 'magical' argument would probably have had more credence than it does now, as then it would have fit in better (coherence) - or at least less badly - with other prevailing beliefs of that time and place. This is not to say that everything is all relative or culturally-historically relative; even so, certainly some of our assessments of truth value always are. If nothing else it seems to be becoming clearer that our broad, cultural-historical belief systems (including our present ones, which emphasize natural science) tend to point us in certain directions as to where and how we will seek validation (or to which particular sorts of criteria we will appeal), and very definitely away from others (either by outright disavowal/denial or by 'neglectfully overlooking' them). If for instance we hypothesize that (a) Michelangelo really meant to depict the brain here as an important part of his message, and (b) no one noticed this for almost five hundred years, it is safe to assume that this was 'neglectfully overlooked' for so long not because neuroanatomy has just been discovered, but because we were all prejudicially guided by a prevailing belief that attending autopsies was probably not a pastime of this great artist. In other words, the association was systematically overlooked. Like in a Sherlock Holmes story, the clues were right in front of us all along, but our information-seeking projects were organized in such a way that this especially meaningful cluster of associations was most unlikely to be seen. And lest we get too smug

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and dismiss this by saying, 'Well, that's the way it is with art/ on closer inspection one could likewise say that the same applies to all of our more 'scientific' pursuits as well. The types of observations and answers we can obtain in any information-seeking or hypothesis-testing pursuit are always limited by a horizon whose boundaries are defined by the types and structures of the questions we are asking. And those questions always reflect the foundational understandings and beliefs that ground them. More simply put, to some degree we tend to find only what we are looking for, and necessarily miss much else. This is not merely poor methodology, it is part of the nature of 'method' itself. For something to be foreground (i.e., to be studied or focused on), the rest must be background. It isn't possible to focus on everything at once - then there would be no focus, just overwhelming 'noise.' Below I offer an example from the psychological literature of finding basically what we are looking for: A study of the effectiveness of cognitive therapy on depression is conducted by testing patients on the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI),7 both pre- and post-treatment. These results are compared with those of other groups of patients evaluated with the same instrument but undergoing different sorts of treatment (e.g., taking an antidepressant medication) or no treatment at all. The results gathered show statistically significant improvements in several treatment groups when compared with the placebo group, and slightly but not statistically significantly better results (in terms of improved BDI scores) for the cognitive therapy group. Conclusions are then drawn that cognitive therapy worked as well or better than medication or other treatments in this study, and much better than no treatment at all. The usual humble concluding comments are then made, with mention that 'more research in this area is necessary.' Depending on whether we are basically for or against cognitive therapy based on our past experiences and prejudices, we applaud or dismiss this study. But in terms of validation, what really has been shown? The BDI and cognitive therapy are both spawned from the same foundational understandings, insights, and approaches to the problem of depression. This overriding approach - set of 'schemas' in cognitive terms - serves to structure the 'data' and the treatment in a certain way that, say, pharmacotherapy does not. It would not be stretching things all that far to describe cognitive therapy for depression as the treatment

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of the cluster of symptoms addressed by the BDI. So finding that scores improved on that measure with this treatment is not quite the same as finding they improved on that measure with antidepressant treatment (i.e., with a treatment derived from a very different approach). Neither is improvement on BDI scores quite the same as having patients actually say they feel so much better now or hearing their friends and relatives report remarkable changes for the better in the behaviour and apparent mood of these people. Let us interview one of the patients in the study, a woman who is quite preoccupied with her weight. She tells us that her weight seems to affect her moods greatly (reportedly through her sense of self-esteem). She then claims that despite an improved BDI score, she is still too depressed to socialize because she's gained so much weight and feels badly about herself. Her BDI score on item 14, 'I believe that I look ugly/ is maximal at both pre- and post-treatment testings, so it shows no change though she has improved somewhat on some other items. However, items 18 and 19 are geared to weight loss as a problematic symptom of depression, yet weight gain is not addressed on this (1978) edition of the BDI. She receives the best score possible (zero) on these items even though she insists that her weight is a big part of her problem. Her friend, on the other hand, is not so concerned with weight, and weight change isn't a big part of her depression anyway. The friend is assigned to the Prozac medication group. The Prozac nauseates her, and she loses her appetite and several pounds, yet she reports that she's happy to shed a few pounds anyway. Even so, her BDI scores go up on items 18 and 19, supposedly indicating a worsening of her depression. She's then instructed to stop taking her Prozac on an empty stomach. This helps a great deal with her nausea and appetite, but has little effect on her mood, though her BDI scores improve again. This is of course an example of the old medical problem: 'Do we treat the patient or treat the numbers?' But it also relates closely to issues of validity and validation criteria, here with respect to the validity either of the numbers (as with the BDI) or of the patient's self-reporting. The validity of self-reports is probably quite high in the above cases, but let's not forget about situations when it commonly is not. For example, T'm just a social drinker, doc,' can mean just about any amount of alcohol consumption. Sometimes in our culture we believe more in the numbers than in

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self-reports (e.g., the scientistic researcher might ask, 'How can you say you still feel anxious when your galvanic skin response, heart rate, and blood pressure are down?'). This goes for highly prized theories too (e.g., the disgruntled therapist wonders, 'How can you still feel so badly after such a brilliant interpretation and such insights?'). In these examples our constructs and/or indicators - whether they are psychometric, biological, or theoretical - tend to be elevated to an unwarranted validation criterion status whereby they come to be seen as the new standard against which other data, measures, or even selfreports are to be compared. Though of obviously human conceptual, interpretive, or theoretical origin, they take on the position of that with which new experiences or ideas must correspond or be coherent in order to be considered valid. This is an example of what I referred to earlier as 'reification/ or the reification of concepts or constructs. This reification process may also represent a basic structure common to a wide variety of orthodoxies, dogmas, and ideologies. Whenever this process occurs, there is considerable danger either of excluding significant sources of information or of overvaluing relatively insignificant aspects of situations. For example, the weight gain in the first case above was an important factor in that patient's depression, yet it was missed or not adequately attended to by the BDI; the galvanic skin response in the later case was overvalued, though the person was seeking treatment for anxiety, not sweating. Lest I be misunderstood here, none of this at all meant to be an attack on the BDI in particular, or psychometrics per se. The BDI is actually a relatively good and well-constructed scale. My point is it remains only a scale - that is, an interpretive indicator or sign based on the assumptions of a particular theoretical point of view. Its results must be understood within that context as well as within the context of its imperfections if they are to do us more good than harm. Indeed it is my own background in psychometrics, scale construction, and scale validation8 that brings me to contend that we must appraise with humility and caution the data gathered by these horizon-narrowing yet quantitatively powerful means. Another example: for years, IQ tests were relied on excessively to 'stream' schoolchildren before some of these tests' inherent cultural and socioeconomic biases became apparent. This also reminds us of the dangers of reification. Here, a scale was overvalued as a validation criterion for assessing a child's 'objective' intelligence - probably a reified, idealized concept itself.

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This is actually a frequent problem in an objectivist epistemology with a correspondence theory of truth (and there is certainly no shortage of these approaches in the psychological field). In the absence of clear and uncontaminated ideal standards (or pure experiences thereof) with which to match our impressions, we must rely on our constructions, representations, and models as the standards to which new material must correspond. The systematic conservative bias in this seems obvious. But again, this is not a bad thing, nor is it a question of bad method - rather it reflects the nature and limitations of all methods. The solution, of course, is not to naively give up on all models, scales, abstractions, idealized fictional types, paradigms, representations, and so on (which probably isn't humanly possible), but rather to stay as cognizant as possible of their humble origins as merely helpful organizational tools that summarize certain sets or varieties of presuppositions, hypotheses, and results of past experience. In other terms, we could say that each of these models, paradigms, or organizational tools will reflect a certain 'horizontally defined' point of view. Alas, this does not sit well with the extreme form of objectivism which requires a degree of correspondence in this world with an unchanging, complete, 'en so/,' as it were 'transcendental,' or 'transsituational' object or reality that is without or is beyond having horizons or limits, and which simply 'is as it is.' For Descartes, this might have fit in well with the notion of 'pure and distinct ideas' placed in the mind directly by God and intuited by pure rationality. But for most of us today, that notion sounds more like a fantastic metaphysical abstraction beyond the possible realm of human experience. So we are left with a correspondence theory that can only compare propositions, sentences, representations, and images with other propositions, sentences, representations, and images. Coming from another philosophical tradition entirely, the Austrian philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein wrote quite extensively (in his later works) about the limits of such (naive?) correspondence approaches.9 He argued that our propositions, comparisons, and so on can only meaningfully refer to others of those sorts as within the horizon of the same overall framework and set of language rules and purposes - or 'language-game/ as he put it (1953). That is, a concept can only be valid within the context of the particular 'language game' in which it originates and functions. The correspondence theory of truth in its extreme form was rejected by many of Wittgenstein's disciples in the British analytic philosophical school because it relied on a matching of human impressions with

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something purely objective and beyond the merely human Reality - an ideal to which we seem not to have access. If correspondence is still to be regarded as a legitimate method of validation, it must then be limited to correspondences among various impressions, constructs, and so on, all of them acknowledged as of finite, human, imperfect origin. One can argue that this limited version of correspondence, however, is really just a coherence argument after all, in which the new data and so on must be found to conform or to be consistent with the old. If we were to accept this latter stance as a viable theory of validity, the Cartesian foundationalist spirit of founding a science on a bedrock of absolute and incontestable truths would certainly have to be either abandoned completely or at least drastically watered down. Most likely, we would say here that the foundationalist project only really fits well with an objectivist epistemological point of view accompanied by an 'uncompromised' (i.e., not watered down) correspondence theory of truth. It really does seem to require something of that sort to provide the 'knowledge grounded in humanly accessible certainties' foundation that is essential to that endeavour. And that again is why I believe the foundationalist project is misguided and must fail. Looking at this in terms of our hierarchy of levels, it seems that the correspondence theory of truth (here on level D) thus requires as its foundation a realist position at ontological level A, a dualist position at ontological level B, and an objectivist epistemological position at level C. Without the presence of all three of these, 'the objective realities' with which our truths must correspond will not be admitted as existent and accessible to humans. Even correspondence theory requires of itself coherence or internal consistency, so it must certainly cluster with the aforementioned positions at the lower levels of our hierarchy or be dismissed by reductio ad absurdum arguments (i.e., as harbouring contradictions within itself). Returning to Dr Meshberger's story, we now find that 'the gold standard of certainty' is simply not available. He can't, for instance, ask Michelangelo if portraying the brain is what he had intended. And even if he could, we might argue that even if the artist answered no, he may have 'unconsciously' intended it. We just can't be sure. Yet some correlational or correspondencelike approaches are still useful to our task of validating this claim. For example, we are impressed how the shape of God's robe belt twists very much like the path of the vertebral artery's usual course, and how the apparent clubfoot of the cherub looks quite a bit like the shape and position of the severed spinal cord.

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These features of course don't guarantee 'truth' to us, but the hypothesis is certainly much more likely to be valid with such hypothesissupporting evidence than without it. Similarly, the opinions of scholars of art history who have studied Michelangelo's works as well as his life and times are also very important validating factors. Partly this is on the basis of intersubjective validation alone (i.e., the idea that the more people who believe something, presumably from a variety of perspectives, the more likely it is to be true). But it also relies on the assumption that there is such a thing as expertise and that the opinions of those who have devoted lifetimes to studying works of art should probably be considered more valid than, say, those of a man on the street picked at random. Of course, experts too can be wrong, especially when they agree with one another too much (as described as 'the conservative bias'), but they also often possess much important information of which the rest of us are simply unaware. The experts tell us (and can substantiate it) that a few privileged people - perhaps including Michelangelo - were indeed allowed to study human cadavers, though the church at the time routinely banned such practices. This lends much more credence to Meshberger's theory, because it renders less incoherent with our other beliefs the possibility that the anatomical similarities are no coincidence. That is, we can now subscribe to this theory without having to believe in any 'magical' or 'miraculous' explanations for Michelangelo's apparent neuroanatomical knowledge, as we now have a more mundane possibility to account for it. In this particular example, 'the test of time' - one of our most 'tried and true' validation criteria - can also be chastised. For even after centuries of meticulous study and many conclusions about Michelangelo's intentions, very important material may still have been missed! And this is so even putting aside for a moment all the subsequent meanings generated in others' encounters with this great work of art encounters that Gadamer would emphasize are also significant sources of emergent truths. And undoubtedly there is still much more to be found even with regard to this one 'text.' This seems to me an excellent example of the hermeneutic circle phenomenon. Further efforts and studies by scholars - and perhaps by other talented observers - will be required over time to sort out new prevailing beliefs (and controversies) about this particular issue in art history, as well as others. Eventually, this particular hypothesis about Michelangelo and the

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brain may greatly revise our thinking about this painting; or perhaps it will come to be dismissed on closer examination, if new evidence controverts its assumptions or findings. It could even wind up being seen as essentially accurate but not original (i.e., 'Many have known that all along'). In any case, I am still impressed with the lack of absolute certainty available and with the apparent fact that through substantial efforts of study, significant (though incomplete) gains in our overall understanding can and do occur. That is, some knowledge (albeit partial) with some 'real' validity does seem possible, even if 'finding the truth' is essentially an evolving, emergent, and necessarily incomplete process. This fits well with a co-constitutional epistemological framework, or is quite coherent with it. Not surprisingly, it also fits well with the Beams-of-Light-through-Time model, which describes our human way of existing as an essentially evolving, emergent, and incomplete process - but one that is still far from totally random or unstructured. A phenomenologically based or otherwise satisfactory general theory of validity is not quite available or sufficiently developed at this time. That being said, approaches such as the hermeneutic one - perhaps augmented by various aspects of the other theories described that are compatible with it - may provide the rudiments of an integrated theory that we can develop further in the future. As things stand now, this chapter may raise more validity questions than it solves. That in itself is not a bad thing if it helps wake us up to the often overlooked but very often present validity questions latent in so many of our everyday practices and judgments. When we think back on the clinical cases and non-clinical examples mentioned in this chapter, the variety of relevant validation criteria becomes apparent. In dealing with the 'delusional' patients discussed, it seems that a set of clear correspondence criteria would be most desirable; unfortunately such criteria are also the hardest to come by. The patient who believes in the government conspiracy believes that only he has access to the 'true' 'facts' of the situation via his radiolike brain. So he too has a correspondence theory, which the clinician is in the position of refuting - perhaps with his own. The 'dead men don't bleed' story shows how little good it may do to demonstrate an apparent lack of correspondence. In that case Bob was able to circumvent the apparent inconsistency between the fact of his bleeding and his overvalued idea that he was dead by maintaining now that 'dead men do bleed.'

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In the case of the man who abandoned his family to go fight off 'demons/ the practical consequences of what he was doing, and the importance of those consequences to him and his family, was emphasized. But perhaps we were testing the limits of pragmatic approaches when we looked at situations where we rely too much on practical validation aids such as diagnostic categories and psychometric tests. In those examples, I emphasized the importance of appreciating the context and the theory or belief system of origin of the instruments of validation when dealing with questions about the appropriateness of these constructs, and about how one should best interpret the information so generated. In the broad psychological field, all of the general theories of validity mentioned in this chapter are well represented. Indeed, one encounters some strange bedfellows with respect to who allies with whom around a given validation theory. For instance, biological psychiatry, classical psychoanalytic thinking, and behaviourism all rely heavily on a correspondence theory of truth, though they don't seem to agree on much else. And existential psychotherapy and narrative, gestalt, and family systems theories can all be lumped in with constructivism and postmodern approaches - another very heterogeneous group - in that they all favour a coherence theory of truth. In this chapter I have focused on this question: 'How do we validate our knowledge or assign truth value to any knowledge in general?' In addition to such general theories of validity, there will also be theories of validation that are meant to apply only to specific areas of study (field-specific or discipline-specific theories of validity). For consistency's sake, these will have to conform to the broadest horizons outlined by a general theory, but they may also add their own particular guidelines regarding appropriate methodologies, interpretations, and validation criteria. I will discuss this topic further in chapter 7. But before doing so, I will address the concept of field-specific or discipline-specific epistemology. That is the topic of chapter 6, which deals with level E of the hierarchy.

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Part III Field-Specific Epistemology: The Basic Layout and Design

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CHAPTER 6

FIELD-SPECIFIC EPISTEMOLOGY (LEVEL E): The Nature and Limits of Knowledge within a Specific Field or Discipline

SECTION I: The Concept of a Field-Specific Epistemological Level of Inquiry, Its Utility, and Its Philosophical Grounding Positions When I discussed epistemology in the last two chapters, I did so in the traditional philosophical sense of the term as applying to theories of knowledge that deal with our access to, and the constitution of, human truths in general. That is, when I spoke of limitations to 'what can be known/ I was speaking in the broadest sense of 'what human beings can know or not know in general/ But there is another, narrower type of epistemology that is also very important to theoreticians in the various scientific, professional, and academic disciplines. The questions raised at this level take the form not of what human beings can know in general. Rather, they ask, 'Given our general epistemological and ontological positions as taken at prior levels, what can we know, hope to know, or learn within our particular field, discipline, or setting?' In other words, 'What are the limits of what can be known within the specific context of a particular field of study or discipline?' Another way of putting this is to ask: 'What is the epistemological "horizon" that is specific to our field of study?' Recall my initial illustration of the Beams-of-Light-through-Time model from chapter 4 (Figure 4.1), with its concept of an epistemological horizon. I am postulating here that each of the various fields of study has its own particular limits and horizons, in somewhat the same way that each individual does. Obviously, the horizons of a scientific field will be much wider than those

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of any one individual or of any one experience; but they will also be somewhat narrower than the horizon for all possible human knowledge. Thus the field-specific epistemological level of inquiry (level E of the hierarchy) deals with questions like these: 'What can be known within a specific field? 'How it can be known?' 'What are the limits of all possible knowledge within this given discipline?'1 Assertions at this level often consist of specific-field delimiting statements or positions that try to define the appropriate limits or horizons for a given field based on epistemological arguments. This latter phrase is important, since fields can also be delimited by other arbitrary or conceptual criteria that have little to do with epistemology. In practice, this is often confusing. For instance, the field of 'fifteenth-century history' is delimited by an arbitrarily chosen time period (the fifteenth century). This statement is clearly field-delimiting, but it is not based on epistemological criteria. On the other hand, a statement such as 'fifteenth-century history is a field in which our knowledge is necessarily limited by the complete lack of anyone still available with first-hand experience of it' is based not on arbitrary but rather on epistemological grounds. In this chapter I will focus mainly on the latter type of statements. I will also argue that a good knowledge of epistemological limitations can help us arrive at the most meaningful and useful delimiting statements. Why so many distinctions, levels, and so on? Often these distinctions are not made or recognized in psychological theory. I will argue that this may be a significant source of confusion. In most discussions of 'psychology and epistemology' the psychological theorist brings to the table a wealth of clinical (psychological) experiences and sophisticated psychological theories; he or she then looks for underlying epistemological rules and structures. At first glance, this approach seems similar to Husserl's: first describe the phenomena (precisely as they appear), then perform 'the reduction' - that is, a careful analysis of the data - in order to uncover invariable patterns or 'structures.' This would be all well and good methodologically, except that so much of our psychological literature does not actually begin with a description of the phenomena 'precisely as they show themselves.' Rather, these descriptions are usually very heavily theory-laden and are already heavily structured by - and interpreted from within - a particular theoretical framework. So any epistemological rules derived from these data will be constricted indeed. They cannot provide an

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epistemological basis for, say, 'the field of psychology in general/ because they are already limited to a particular psychological theory (which has already been structuring this data, whether the theorists are aware of it or not). Observations of this sort can only provide us with an epistemology of what might be epistemologically possible within the framework of that given psychological theory. Unfortunately, this state of affairs is often not clearly acknowledged, nor is a particular-theorybound epistemology what is really wanted in many cases. Thus the confusion. In terms of the hierarchical method I follow in this book, the above approach represents an example of 'arguing from the top down' (the opposite of the method I've chosen and suggested). It uses findings based on level G assumptions (those of a particular psychological theory) to derive arguments or positions taken at levels E or even C (respectively the levels at which the specific epistemology of the entire field of psychology, and the general epistemology of all human knowing, are to be considered). Such an approach seems both misguided and misguiding. Certainly it is inconsistent with the approach I am taking, which argues along the lines of the building metaphor (i.e., the lower levels of the hierarchy are primary, and provide the foundation for the levels above, and not vice versa). Does this mean that clinicians and psychological theorists shouldn't try to do epistemology? Of course not! Quite the opposite, really. I strongly urge them to consider the importance of epistemology to their theories. But their epistemologies must not be too strongly driven by particular psychological theories. Rather, their psychologicallevel theories may sometimes need to be modified to fit better with their epistemological-level foundations. This will mean acknowledging the latter and clarifying them in their own right as prior to and at least relatively independent of (as opposed to derivative of) particular psychological-level theories. Some examples may help clarify this. Consider the following epistemological field-delimiting statements taken from two very different psychological schools of thought: • The field of psychoanalysis is necessarily limited to the analyst's interpretations of drive-derivative manifestations of the patient's unconscious wishes as they present themselves in the transference and the resistance (the patient's unconscious drives themselves not being available to direct observation by the analyst). • The science of psychology should henceforth be renamed the field

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of behavioural science as only observable and measurable behaviour can be known with any certitude and therefore only that qualifies and deserves the name of science. As such we will confine our studies to such observable behaviours and their visible antecedents. Both these statements try to delimit the psychological field (or part of it) in some way. And both are appealing to epistemological criteria rather than to merely arbitrary ones (i.e., the former acknowledges that the patient's 'unconscious drives' cannot be directly known by the analyst, and the latter implies that what cannot be externally observed or measured is therefore unknowable). Yet can either of these statements really contribute anything new to level E (the field-specific epistemological level)? Or are they simply indicating somewhat tautologically that their level G (psychological level) theories have an implied - though perhaps not explicitly acknowledged - large set of conceptual and philosophical assumptions guiding them? The first statement includes concepts such as 'drives' and 'the unconscious/ and also makes assumptions as to their primacy. These drives are then granted an implied ontological status as what is 'really Real' and 'bedrock' and therefore the proper object of study for the field, even if we must get at them only indirectly. Analogously, the second statement in its framework of assumptions defines what is 'really Real' or 'bedrock' as that which is external, observable, and measurable. In terms of a general epistemology, both these approaches subscribe to an objectivist position: there is a purely objective or independent truth out there to be apprehended by us (the 'really Real'). On this they seem to agree. At a higher level of inquiry (the psychological level), they disagree over what best qualifies as our objective bedrock. Is it the 'primary drives' of the first statement or the 'observable behaviour' of the second? Though each of these represents a potentially defensible position within the psychological field as a whole (especially within its own camp), philosophically each merely reminds us that all such theories are heavily laden with philosophical assumptions (e.g., as to what's 'really Real' and 'what can be known,' and as to 'what's important to study and what isn't'). Yet each statement helps us clarify what 'proper knowledge' or 'proper method' is from within its own relatively narrow theoretical perspective - that is, in terms of what the limits are to its own particular model (psychoanalytic in the first statement, behaviourist in the second). But

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in terms of their most applicable level of theoretical inquiry, statements like this merely represent the level G (psychological level) propositions of particular psychological theories. As such neither can help us much when it comes to defining the epistemological limits of the field of psychology as a whole (a 'level E,' or field-specific epistemological level task). This more fundamental and general horizon would have to be wide enough to include at least the phenomenological data and the observations of both the psychoanalytic and the behavioural (as well as other) points of view, but without necessarily supporting - and certainly not being limited to - any one particular psychological theory. The conceptual assumptions inherent in either of the above statements renders them useless for such purposes. Our methodologies and our theories of validity are grounded in our underlying epistemological assumptions. Thus, if we were to adopt either of the two statements as a level E position (in fact, they are level G propositions) - that is, if we were to take one of them as appropriate to the task of defining the epistemological horizons of the entire field of psychology - we would be making a very significant mistake. For from then on, our methods and our sense of validity would be prejudiced, and confined within the 'box' of the particular theory in which the particular statement originated. Valuable data - derived from phenomenological and other sources - would be systematically excluded and missed entirely, often without our even noticing. For instance, the psychoanalyst of the first statement might exclude some important external circumstances by focusing too sharply on primary drives and their derivatives. And the behaviourist of the second statement might systematically miss the significance of various symbolic and emotionally important connections being made by his day-dreaming but well-behaving patient. Surely none of this is desirable. Yet we all know it sometimes happens in actual practice, especially when theoretical constructs become reified or dogmatized to the extent that they begin to dictate implicit or 'unconscious' epistemologies and ontologies that haven't been thoroughly thought through or sufficiently reflected on. So our task is twofold. We must be able to organize and interpret the clinical data in meaningful ways in accordance with defensible psychological theories; and we must ensure that our theories do not entirely dictate our field-specific epistemology, for this would restrict our openness to new information. All of this amounts to a difficult balancing act. Yet we must succeed if we are to maintain the validity

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and theoretical or philosophical integrity of our interpretations and findings. A good example of a field-specific epistemological statement that delimits a particular field, and that illustrates this tightrope walk of being theory-informed yet not overly dominated by a particular theory, is Werner Heisenberg's uncertainty principle, as taken from the field of physics.2 In its most epistemological form, Heisenberg's argument cautions us that there are limits to what we can possibly know in physics. The horizon of what is knowable in physics is necessarily limited to what is observable or observed. According to Heisenberg's theory, the act of observation itself affects and changes what is observed. Therefore, he argues, to speak of what subatomic particles would be like unobserved is quite beyond our scope - that is, beyond the proper epistemological horizon and the limits of what can possibly be known in physics. Heisenberg was trying here to present an epistemological argument that could hold for the field of physics as a whole - that is, that was not limited to his own particular area, which was quantum theory. In keeping with the situated, interpretive, contextualized nature of human-truth hypotheses I described in previous chapters, we cannot assume that even an attempt at generality such as Heisenberg's is entirely without its own theoretical biases. What does add value and credence to Heisenberg's argument is that the particular-theory-driven aspects of his epistemological argument are largely acknowledged by him in quite explicit form. That is, perhaps, all we can reasonably ask of a theorist. In its more physical-theory-driven form, Heisenberg's principle relies on quantum theory's assumptions that light consists of tiny packets of energy called photons, which have a small but not insignificant mass (on a subatomic scale). In order to be 'seen,' a particle or other object must necessarily have light (or photons) moving to and from it. But on such a small scale as the subatomic one, the mass and energy of even a single photon added or subtracted from the system is significant enough to change the mass and energy dynamics of the entire system being studied. Thus the act of observation quite literally changes what is being seen (since the addition or subtraction of photons is not at all insignificant here). This introduces an element of 'indeterminacy' as to what can possibly be known, seen, or predicted within the field of physics. In Heisenberg's view, we can't ever, in principle, completely know or determine how a physical system will behave on its own, in the dark, or in the future when we are not observing it. In my terms this

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can be described as defining the epistemological horizon beyond which valid knowledge in the specific field of physics (perhaps better labelled 'observational or experimental physics') cannot extend. This argument rests on definite theoretical hypotheses (such as the one that sees light as consisting of photons of a certain mass), yet these are clearly enough stated and agreeable to enough physicists that we can consider them a reasonable working hypothesis. We can thus consider Heisenberg's epistemological argument acceptable to most, given these acknowledged provisos. So his particular argument can be considered more general to the broad field of physics than, say, the aforementioned statements would be to the fields of psychology and psychotherapy. There are many parallels to Heisenberg's indeterminacy principle in the field of psychology, especially in psychotherapy. It seems quite obvious that it isn't just subatomic particles that are affected by the act of observation (such that their behaviour is at least partly a function of their being observed). People are too! This is especially true in psychotherapy, in which one is always 'self-consciously aware of being observed.' Yet this does not really fit with the objectivistic epistemological positions, on which many prominent psychological theories rely. For example, when we look at the patient's 'data' (conflicts, behaviours, symptoms, transferences, and so on) naively as arising just from the patient - as a purely objectivistic position would suggest (the observer being 'neutral' and 'abstinent') - we are failing to acknowledge that the therapist who is sitting there listening and participating in the therapy is having a significant structuring or co-constituting role in the creation and expression of the 'data.' This important problem or inconsistency must be addressed in any psychological theory that doesn't already do so. Neither of the extreme positions represented in the two earlier statements deals very well with interactional elements, which may be integral to what I will soon refer to as 'the psychotherapy situation.' The first of these statements tends to neglect these elements in favour of a theory of relatively situationally-oblivious 'drives'; the second one neglects almost all aspects of personal awareness entirely (including the awareness of being observed). This strongly suggests that both theories have serious weaknesses. Perhaps we can do better. Let us begin by looking back at some of the philosophical positions that have been taken by various prominent philosophical-psychological paradigms. If we are to develop more adequate positions at this

126 Part III: Field-Specific Epistemology

field-specific epistemological level (E), it is only sensible for us to start by looking at some of the foundations available to us based on positions taken at the lower levels of this inquiry. These are grouped below in accordance with certain constellations or cluster of compatible sets of philosophical assumptions that are often adopted conjointly with respect to the issues addressed by the bottom four levels of the hierarchy. In examining these models I will pay special attention to how well each of them deals with psychological indeterminacy and with the important interactional phenomena to which I've also alluded. Position 1: The 'Realist-Dualist-Objectivist-Correspondence' Position

A common cluster of philosophical foundational positions adopted by a number of psychological theories (and by a number of theories in other sciences) combines a realist position at ontological level A with a (Cartesian) dualistic position at ontological level B, an objectivist (general epistemological) position at level C, and the correspondence theory of truth as a general theory of validity at level D. In the following discussion I will refer to this cluster of foundational assumptions as 'position 1.' This paradigm, or set of foundational philosophical assumptions, seems to have a lot of trouble with the idea that the observer affects what is observed. Yet the particular constellation of presuppositions that comprises position 1 is quite prominent in a number of different psychological theories, including those represented by the two earlier statements. For example, much of classical psychoanalysis relies heavily on this position - for instance, in its notions of transference and distortion (see chapters 9 and 11). As perhaps an ironic similarity, behaviourism completely rejected psychoanalysis's 'internal' concepts and considered only observable, measurable behaviours precisely to get at the same philosophical concept of a purely objective sort of truth (i.e., truth as independently coming solely from the object). This truth could then be seen to reflect or correspond with what was 'really Real.' Other diverse schools of thought in the broad psychological field, including much of 'biological psychiatry/ tend to share position 1 with these two approaches (again see chapter 11). But in terms of a specific epistemology, what exactly does position 1 entail for the field of psychology and the particular questions raised earlier? The concepts of psychological indeterminacy and of an interactional or co-constitutional origin of truth don't jibe too well at all with the

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axioms of position 1. In that paradigm, observation should be more passive than those concepts allow. It should not be active at all in the sense that it should not change or affect the object, but merely reveal it (in accordance with an objectivist general epistemology). In such a model, 'distortion' should only come in through the unwanted influence of subjective elements. The object itself should not be fluid, or alterable merely by being observed. It should be purely factual and objective, already fully constituted, and entirely independent of whether it is being observed or not. And how does correspondence theory fit with all this? To what would the object really correspond if the act of observation changed the object or in effect created a new and different object? Even in the 'hard/ 'natural' science of physics, Heisenberg would outright reject any claims about 'observed electrons' as somehow corresponding with some meta-physic-al reality of 'unobserved electrons' as utter nonsense (and non-science). So would an experiencing, aware person in psychotherapy somehow correspond with some idealized, unaware, unobserved version of the same? Do we feel and act the exact same way whether or not we are being watched? Of course not. Yet this simply does not fit well with a dualistic objectivism's implication of a static and essential self that is to be revealed but not directly altered by the ontologically separate and necessarily external therapist. So which should be modified (or thrown out) - the theory or the observation? When the question is put this way, the answer of course is 'the theory/ but in practice we've often either turned a blind eye to these problems or been stymied by a lack of feasible alternatives. So we have tended to stick with the prevailing basic theories while adding retailorings and modifications from above. I contend, yet again, that this approach cannot work. That is, if the problem resides in the underlying philosophical foundation, it cannot be remedied without modifying our assumptions on those foundational levels. Position 2: The 'Realist-Dualist-Subjectivist-Coherence' Position

A number of psychological theories have adopted a second, alternative cluster of philosophical assumptions. I will refer to this one as 'position 2/ or the 'Realist-Dualisi-Subjectivist-Coherence' position. This retains the realist and (Cartesian) dualistic ontological-level assumptions of position 1, but rejects the former's epistemological levels C and

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D stances of objectivism and a correspondence theory of validity in favour of subjectivism and a coherence theory of validity. Position 2 does not have as much trouble as its objectivist counterpart in embracing indeterminacy. The position 2 model has no problem with the object being affected by the observer, since it maintains that the 'object' is entirely a function of the subject or observer. Furthermore, the idea of indeterminacy is consistent enough with this model that it meets the validity criteria of coherence theory. But before we are tempted to jump off the objectivist bandwagon and onto the subjectivist one, let us remember that the subjectivist position also has problems. One of these relates to relativism. Let us again consider the problem of relativism. As we move up the hierarchy, this issue's scope seems to become narrower and perhaps more defensible. I have argued that relativism at an ontological level is untenable, as it seems to be based on the proposition 'that there's no such thing as Truth.' Similarly, on the general epistemological level the subjectivist (or philosophically idealist) position has been criticized as not much better, in that it denies the possibility of our having access to any (even partially) objective truth or 'object-ive' component to truth (i.e., to any portion of truth that is even partially independent of us, whether such a thing exists beyond us or not). This is part of what makes any form of subjectivism so hard to maintain as a basis for any concept of science. Inherent to the concept of science is the requirement that at least some 'object-ive' component to truth (though perhaps only a partial or perspectively limited one) be considered as at least potentially accessible. If we could somehow step aside from both subjectivism and objectivism, would a 'weaker' version of relativism coming into play - perhaps not at the general epistemological level (C), but rather later at the fieldspecific epistemological level (E) - be less problematic? And what would it entail? We could then argue, for instance, that Heisenberg's principle is a statement of a field-specific relativism in observational physics. That is, we could argue that it is a statement that all knowledge in observational physics is relative to (i.e., necessarily influenced by) its specific context, which in this case includes the presence of the light required to permit observation, the observer who perceives that light, and their interaction. Such knowledge would thus be intrinsically contextual, that is, understandable only in this sense of being relative to the particular configurations of contributing elements inherent to the given context. This is not the same as asserting that all observations are

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merely subjective. Quite the contrary - Heisenberg argues that physics is indeed a valid science with some access to some portion of Truth beyond the purely subjective. That being said, its boundaries are finite and limited, and when it pretends to exceed them it loses its validity. Similarly, again within the field of physics, Einstein's Theory of Relativity3 maintains that one's physical attributes - size, mass, how fast time is passing, and so on - can only be understood as relative to one's physical frame of reference (e.g., how fast one is moving relative to other objects). Once again, with this theory the horizon of our possible knowledge is understood as limited - in this case to within the bounds of our particular perspective (or frame of reference) and our finite universe of relative space-time. But does this deny the possibility of any objective reality? Not necessarily. Einstein himself was a staunch ontological realist, and in objecting to quantum theory's uncertainties was famous for statements such as 'God does not play dice with the Universe.' In both the physics models alluded to above, the 'laws of physics' are still postulated as having at least partially 'object-ive' or 'World'-based (and not merely 'subjectively' coherent) validity or truth status. Even when the classical concept of 'force' is largely discarded, demystified, or 'de-reified' - as it is in Einstein's theory of gravity in his General Theory of Relativity - the phenomenon of gravity and the recurrent patterns of observations that can be seen and even predicted are neither denied nor viewed as merely subjective. Indeed, they are seen as objectively or ontologically Real (i.e., as at least partially independent of our observations of them) even after the concept of 'gravitational force' is largely dismissed as a 'once-useful fiction.' (All of this has been superseded by a new explanatory hypothesis involving curvatures of the space-time continuum.) Thus one can have some degree of relativity - especially at this fieldspecific level of inquiry (E) - without entirely dispensing with the 'object-ive' component side of the equation (as would be required in an ontological [level A] or even a general epistemological [level C] based relativism). So it seems that at this field-specific epistemological level (E), some degree of relativism, within certain proscribed limits, may be a much more defensible position, and one that can also be separated and distinguished from a general epistemological level (C) subjectivist position as well. At this point, it's hard to say whether we are best off calling this a sort of field-specific epistemological level E 'relativism.' But it seems that

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some psychological theorists who have been allying themselves with the 'relativists' but have found themselves caught in the dilemmas generally associated with that camp could benefit by referring to this concept. For it is at this particular level of inquiry that some of their arguments would be strongest or most tenable. Unfortunately, the psychological literature is often very unclear when it comes to distinguishing among these different levels of inquiry. So it is sometimes unclear whether a particular psychological theory is actually meaning to fully embrace a subjectivist epistemology and a position 2 philosophical foundation, or whether it is actually leaning toward something else, which I'll soon identify as 'position 3.' The key to clarifying all this may involve specifying the level of inquiry at which an argument is meant to apply. In that endeavour, the hierarchical approach may prove helpful. Consider the work of Stolorow, Brandchaft, and Atwood in Psychoanalytic Treatment: An Inter subjective Approach (1987). I choose their book as an example because the authors are quite well informed philosophically; also, they are excellent, experienced theorists and clinicians. Yet there are still problems. They make this argument: We do not believe that the analyst possesses any 'objective' knowledge of the patient's life or of human development and psychological functioning ... The analyst's frame of reference must not be elevated to the status of objective fact... (We) place ourselves squarely within a subjectivist and relativist tradition [italics mine] ... The interpretive conclusions of every case study must ... be understood as relative to the intersubjective context of their origin ... [The] 'analytic space' ... defines the horizons of meaning within which the truth-value of the final interpretations is determined.4

In this passage the authors are repeating some of the assertions made by Atwood and Stolorow in Structures of Subjectivity (1984). Strong accusations of relativism followed these assertions, and by 1995 the authors of intersubjectivity theory found themselves struggling to clarify (modify?) their earlier positions. In response to some of the criticism, Stolorow then argues: Neither self psychology nor intersubjectivity theory claims to offer a general epistemology. Instead what they propose is an epistemological stance specifically appropriate for the psychoanalytic method of investigation ... None of us claims that objective reality does not exist. What we are arguing is that

Level E: The Nature and Limits of Knowledge 131 objective reality is inaccessible and unknowable by the psychoanalytic method, and therefore the concepts of objectivity and distortion have no place within the theoretical lexicon called psychoanalysis.5 (italics mine)

In the earlier (1987) passage, they define their position by referring to 'the subjectivist and relativist tradition.' The later passage (1995), which is in part a response to criticisms about relativism, explicitly denies presenting a 'general epistemology.' In terms of my hierarchical approach, then, their proposal of 'an epistemological stance specifically appropriate for the psychoanalytic method' sounds very much like an attempt to situate their relativistic arguments at the field-specific epistemological level (E) (with their specific-field therein defined as that of psychoanalysis). In the second passage they clearly disavow any connection with ontological relativism (at level A) ('none of us claim that objective reality does not exist'); also their general epistemological assumptions (level C) remain unclear, since they explicitly deny having offered any general epistemology. Yet their claim that 'objective reality is inaccessible and unknowable by the psychoanalytic method' can still make sense if we interpret it as being a level E statement stipulating that knowledge - or what can possibly be known in this specific field - is horizonally limited in this particular manner. In this interpretation, I am taking their 'relativism' itself as being of more limited scope, and as being more or less analogous to the limited or contextualized or level E relativisms that I ascribed to some epistemological features in the theories of Heisenberg and Einstein. At that level of discourse, however, criticisms pertaining only to a more radical relativism (such as an ontological-level one) would likely not apply. I will discuss intersubjectivity theory more in chapter 11. I hav£ presented the above passages mainly to illustrate the potential usefulness of the hierarchical method and the importance of not mixing up or confusing our levels of theoretical or philosophical inquiry so as not to let our theories drift into vague, uncertain, and philosophically inconsistent positions. The intersubjectivists' willingness to situate themselves within a 'relativistic' tradition may prove to be far more defensible than they are sometimes given credit for if indeed their statements are meant to be taken as applying merely at the field-specific epistemological level E and above (as this author believes is their intent). And if that is the case, I would further argue that they are not then really 'position 2' theorists at all. If, on the other hand, they mean their relativism to

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apply at even more foundational levels of the hierarchy, then I believe they are indeed 'position 2' theorists, and the antirelativistic criticisms made about their work are quite valid. Whichever the case, it seems that being clearer and more specific regarding 'at which level of inquiry a particular statement is meant to apply' can certainly be helpful. Position 3: The 'Realist-Non-Dualistic-Co-constitutional-Hermeneutic' Position Some philosophers/theorists may well still argue that the above stances of field-specific or level E relativity (or relativity within a given specific field) can only consistently stand on a general epistemological (level C) position of relativism in which not only pure objective reality but all objective reality must be rejected. I do not agree. Certainly, the possibility of an alternative to positions 1 and 2 - one that better accommodates such concepts as indeterminacy, the contribution of the observer, and level E relativity or level E contextualism - merits further study. Such a position would not have to resort to a general epistemological level C position of either subjectivism or relativism - that is, it could preserve an 'object-ive' component to our experience without going back over to the objectivist side entirely. Indeed, the non-dualistic paradigm I have been developing so far is headed precisely in that direction. That being so, a third foundational position at levels A through D of the hierarchy could prove to be the most satisfactory of those examined so far. This position - I'll call it 'position 3' - is a 'Realist-Non-DualisticCo-constitutional-Hermeneutic' position. Here only the level A realism is continued in common with the two preceding positions. Instead of the Cartesian dualism at ontological level B embraced by the others, position 3 takes up the non-dualistic, (^^9) model. This enables us (consistently) to take up a co-constitutional stance at the general epistemological level C (see chapter 4). To complete the set, we then add the sort of hermeneutic approach to the general validity questions of level D (see chapter 5). To illustrate and develop position 3,1 once again turn to the Beamsof-Light-through-Time model and extend it to the specific field or setting of most interest to so many of us as clinicians - the psychotherapy situation. Obviously, this situation must involve more than one person (i.e., more than one Beam-of-Light-through-Time), since at least two individuals are actively participating and interacting with one another.

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By examining this extension of the model into the interpersonal sphere, I hope to arrive at a workable model of a field-specific epistemology that is suitable for the field of psychotherapy. In looking closely at this model and examining the dynamics and the 'philosophical anatomy' of the psychotherapy situation in this way, I also hope to develop the basis for a psychotherapy-situation-specific theory of validity (for level F - see chapter 7). In Part II of this chapter I will try to interpret and illustrate the philosophical anatomy of the psychotherapy situation, which we should understand as a special case of the convergence of two Beams-of-Lightthrough-Time. My hope is to illustrate in some detail the field-specific epistemological position for the field of psychotherapy that I will be adopting in the rest of this book. This model will try to be most consistent with, and illustrative of, the 'realist-non-dualistic-co-constitutionalhermeneutic' position (position 3), and also with each of its constituent parts as developed in previous chapters. SECTION II: The Beams-of-Light-through-Time Model Extended to the Two-Person Situation, the Concept of 'the Purple Zone/ and the Philosophical Anatomy of 'the Psychotherapy Situation' Human experience seems to be essentially temporal - that is, always experienced in a time-context within which our phenomenological worlds are constantly unfolding, expanding, and restructuring. The process or becoming nature of our existence is central to the approach I am developing. So we might correctly argue that the Beam-of-Light model (see Figure 4.1) is an inappropriately static representation for this dynamic process. In chapter 41 made the point that such a twodimensional metaphor has obvious inadequacies, especially when we assert that what we really want to describe is a multidimensional model of human experience - one that is more accurately likened to a Beamof-Light-through-Time, a much more complex subject. Despite its limitations, the two-dimensional figure was a useful heuristic device: It conveyed the concept of the 'horizon' - or edge to our phenomenological worlds - at any given point in time (the horizon of course being fluid, always shifting). It also conveyed the interrelated quality to our way of Being-in-the-World. Especially within the general epistemological stance I've adopted of accepting that we can only have

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access to partial and perspectival truths, these devices may still be quite useful as long as their limits are explicitly acknowledged. In chapter 8 I will flesh out some more dimensions to this complex model, but here I will once more resort to the two-dimensional, snapshot view, in this case of the psychotherapy situation. Notwithstanding the limitations just noted, this visual approach should clarify some of the basic philosophical anatomy of the psychotherapy 'situation' or 'moment/ and allow us to focus more sharply on some of its particular elements and their interrelatedness. Knowing something of the anatomy of the leg bones and muscles can be quite helpful even if one's overall task is to understand the process of 'running.' In looking at the elements of a process in such an anatomical way at the outset, we need not get sucked into a vortex of 'reductionistic,' 'objectivistic/ 'materialistic,' 'essentialist,' or 'static' thinking, as long as we keep in mind the process nature of our inquiry. This explains, I hope, why I now return to a diagrammatic approach. When we extend the Beams-of-Light-through-Time model to any situation involving more than one person, we find at least two enlightening-relational-interpretive-world-structuring, experiential Beams-ofLight 'shining' in their own perspectively unique and different directions. These directions indicate not so much the participants' physical-spatial positions as their personal and temporal perspectives, including (for each of them) their various understandings, meanings, projects, and cares as a whole. In the psychotherapy situation, the participants' worlds, by virtue of their project-in-common, will certainly have some important areas of overlap; metaphorically speaking, their Beams-of-Light will be pointing roughly toward each other (regardless of the spatial arrangements of the room). In any given encounter, the fields of these beams will of course be covering more or less common ground. Also, we can describe these beams as shining on certain aspects of the other person (e.g., the bodily and behavioural ones) as part of each participant's phenomenological world. In my earlier diagram the Beam-of-Light was related simply to its world (perhaps as composed of objects, things, or equipment); the new situation I am describing is far more complex, since it includes the psychologically even more meaningful presence of another person. This presents an entirely different type of psychological experience that is, the qualitatively different feeling-experience inherent in one's perceiving an object that I sense can look back at me\ In this situation I become self-consciously aware of myself as a potential 'object for the

Figure 6.1 The Philosophical Anatomy of the Psychotherapy Situation: The Convergence of Two 'Beams-of-Light-through-Time'

Major effects and zones: 'A':

Patient's Beam-of-Light-through-Time effect ('red zone')

'B':

Therapist's Beam-of-Light-through-Time effect Cblue zone')

'AB': effect of the dialogical interaction between A and B ('purple zone') Portions of the purple zone: V: Zone of 'encounter' (where the Other is experienced as another Beam-of-Lightthrough-Time or source of personal experience) 'y':

Zone of a common history or objects-incommon experienced together (experienced 'world in common' portion of the purple zone)

'z':

Relatively 'object-ive' or most 'worldbased' aspects to the meeting occurring but not noted or experienced by either of the participants (e.g., the unnoticed movings of the clock)

The interactional field, 'purple zone,' or 'intersubjective space' defined: Ontological level: areas (x + y + z) Field-specific epistemological level: areas (x + y): i) from the patient's direction, or ii) from the therapist's direction Psychological level: area (x)

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Other/ This awareness adds another emotional dimension to my experience of this particular type of object (as that of another possible subject) as I begin to care about the impressions I am making. At this point our reflections and discussions begin to move away from our so-called 'object relations' toward issues more appropriately described as 'subject relations.' From now on I will use the terms 'presence' and 'presence of the Other' in the more specific sense of referring to one's feelings in dealing with an Other who is perceived as 'another subject/ Our sense of the presence of the Other(s) thus always implies that we are in some form of emotionally and psychologically significant or meaning-filled relatedness to him/her/them. Jean Paul Sartre (1943), Martin Buber (1923), and other existential writers have written extensively about this particular experience of the Other as another Subjectivity. The term 'encounter' has often been used to connote that sense in describing interpersonal relationships. The moment of self-awareness of being a potential 'object for the Other' can be seen here as providing the epistemological basis for emotions and experiential phenomena such as 'shame/ 'self-consciousness/ and feeling 'validated/ and perhaps even for 'love' and 'hate/ In any case this is an especially important element of the situation in which psychotherapy - as a particular type of interpersonal encounter - takes place. I will discuss this further in terms of a psychologically defined portion of 'the anatomy of the psychotherapy situation' described as the 'Zone of Encounter/ But I am jumping ahead of myself. Even without considering the complexities added to the rudimentary version of the Beam-of-Light model by considerations of temporality, just extending the model to a two-person situation makes it far more complicated epistemologically, since at least two co-constituting Beamsof-Light are now involved. Thus, the truths of the new microcosmic world described as 'the therapy' will have at least three major coconstituting sources: (a) the patient's co-constitutive Beam-of-Light, (b) that of the therapist, and (c) the objects, ideas, topics, language, and things they discuss in common or experience co-temporally (or synchronously). For illustrative purposes I will now add colour to this model. To the patient's perspectival contribution to the psychotherapy situation as a whole - a contribution originating mainly in the Beam-of-Light-throughTime that represents the patient's experience - I assign a red tint (the choice of the red being arbitrary). Similarly, I assign a blue tint to the Beam-of-Light-through-Time that represents the therapist's experience.

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Now when I illustrate the convergence of these two Beams-of-Lightthrough-Time, 'the place where therapy happens' is seen to be mainly purple! That is, psychotherapy takes place primarily in the area where the patient's red and the therapist's blue overlap and blend together; when this happens, a new and distinct colour, purple, is created out of their interaction. It is this 'purple zone' (as co-constituted by the blending of the red with the blue) that defines what some writers have described as the 'intersubjective space,' or 'intersubjective field.' This zone will seem a 'somewhat more reddish-than-bluish shade of purple' at times - suggesting (it is hoped) that the therapy is centred more on the patient's world and concerns than on those of the therapist. Sometimes the reverse will be true. But in this model the interactional area can never be seen as either pure red or pure blue. Furthermore, any attempt to tease out 'independent' red or blue contributing elements will be misguided and doomed to failure. The colour purple is an experiential whole. Regardless of the physics of combining wavelengths of light, our experience of purple is that it is a unique colour. We do not experience it as either red or blue - or as a combination thereof - even if we 'scientifically know' that it can be materially constructed in that way. The expanded and coloured version of the Beams-of-Light-throughTime model as extended to the psychotherapy situation is illustrated in Figure 6.1. This model highlights psychotherapy as being mainly a 'purple zone' phenomenon. The purple area defines the horizons within which the psychotherapy per se takes place. The 'intersubjective field' thereby created is not only 'co-constituted' but also 'multiconstituted' in the sense that its interactional relationships involve both the red and blue Beams-ofLight-through-Time, with significant contributions from the only partially seen ontological-level world as well. Each of the participants is continuously in a co-constituting relationship to his or her experiential world as a whole, as well as in relationship with the Other - a relationship that results in the interactional purple zone as a special part of each of their worlds. When in the next chapter we look more closely at the methodological and validational implications of this model, our approaches will have to respect the complexity of this situation. They will also have to respect the field-or-systems-theory-like interrelatedness and the interactional quality of the situation's elements. It can't be otherwise if we are to do justice to the study of psychotherapeutic phenomena.

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Figure 6.1 visually conveys the concept of overlapping horizons. These horizons delineate the constitutive elements as well as some of the epistemological and ontological limits that seem inherent to the anatomy of the psychotherapy situation. Let us now take a closer look at the various particular areas, effects, and zones outlined in the figure. 'Major Effects' in 'the Philosophical Anatomy of the Psychotherapy Situation': Areas 'A/ 'B/ and 'AB' In research design, we often speak of the 'major effects' in a system or in the analysis of a set of results. This is in reference to the major contributors to the overall variance found. This is basically a statistical estimate of the relative importance of various contributing factors (or 'effects') to the configuration of the system or to the set of results as a whole. Although this approach is often associated with attempts to isolate or separate 'independently contributing' factors - an approach already deemed misguided in the present context - the language of multivariate analysis can still be useful in describing our system in question. The major contributing factors or 'effects' in the psychotherapy situation as so described are: a the red effect, which I'll here call 'A,' of the patient as a Beam-ofLight-through-Time whose existence and world of personalhistorical experiences, cares, understandings, and projects preceded and extend beyond the psychotherapy, b the blue effect, which I'll call 'B,' of the therapist as similarly defined, and c the purple effect, which I'll call 'AB,' of the interaction between the two. In addition, one should keep in mind that each of these effects is itself 'co-' or 'multi-' constituted, in that each remains as relatednesses-in-aworld, thus containing 'world'-ly (O) or 'object'-ive contributions within them. A true interaction effect, in the terms above, comes about only through the combining of the interacting elements. That is, neither 'A' nor 'B' in and of itself can produce any of the 'AB' effect, just as neither red nor blue alone can produce any of the colour purple. Furthermore, multivariate analysis can statistically separate out a uniquely interactional quality to a given interaction effect (e.g., the 'AB' effect) as

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statistically distinct or distinguishable from the 'A' or 'B' original or main effects. Using these terms, then, to describe the psychotherapy situation, I suggest that this 'AB' interactional factor is the most important one (perhaps, some would argue, the only one) in psychotherapy and that the 'A alone' and 'B alone' factors are of far less significance. This emphasis on the interaction effect has an analogy in our experiences of the various colours: we see purple as unique and distinct from red or blue. In contrast, red and blue on their own might be most noteworthy when we analyse the physical wavelengths of light involved. In this latter physical (i.e., not experiential) approach, we would be teasing out the interaction effect as of minimal importance (i.e., that type of analysis would more likely isolate the main red and blue effects as the key factors). Psychotherapy is most properly described in interactional terms. This is partly because of the co-constituted nature of the 'AB' or 'purple zone.' The co-constituting awarenesses involved in this essentially interpersonal endeavour include of course our apprehensions of the other participant's presence, in the sense discussed earlier. The Other's presence in the situation changes everything; so does one's awareness of being perceived by that Other. In situations where we are acutely aware of being observed, the emotional quality of our experiences is radically changed. This contributes to how we reorganize our phenomenological worlds - worlds that reflect the new, changed 'sets of cares' that arise from these sorts of awareness. This is analogous to Heisenberg's conclusions regarding how photons necessarily alter the physical systems with which they interact. According to his principle, all acts of observation change the system as a whole. This seems to be as valid for the psychotherapy situation as it is for observational physics. And where more than one observerparticipant is involved, as in psychotherapy, the 'awareness of being observed' factors complicate and alter the context or the system as a whole, even more so than in the physics analogy. Thus, in the psychotherapy situation the pre-existing phenomenological worlds of both the patient and the therapist give way or become altered or restructured; this in turn generates new, emergent, interactional 'worlds' - which now include the presence of the Other and new sets of cares, concerns, and projects. Of course when we think back to my assertions about the temporality of human Being, we see that this reorganizing and restructuring of our phenomenological worlds (at least around the edges) is always

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happening for all of us in all situations. That being said, situations involving the presence of an Other likely add a greater degree of complexity or radicality to our reshapings of the experiential landscape. This goes in spades in the psychotherapy situation, which is especially intense and meaning-ful and involves caring a great deal about the impressions we are making on the Other. This is true for both participants, though both emotionally and practically, the stakes may well be higher for the patient. The above paradigm shifts the emphasis in psychotherapy away from the 'A versus B' comparison - an approach that is nevertheless consistent with the various psychological models that rely on an underlying dualistic-objectivistic-correspondence philosophical position - toward the 'AB' interaction itself (in keeping more with the nondualistic-co-constitutional-hermeneutic philosophical position). This is not at all to suggest that 'A' or 'W or their common objects don't exist (an ontological-level proposition). But it does point out that in terms of the field-specific epistemology of the psychotherapy situation, we have unique experiential access to precisely the phenomena of the 'AB interaction/ or those of the 'purple zone.' The purple zone thus defines the field-specific epistemological horizons (i.e., the setting in which psychotherapy takes place); it also defines the really common ground in the communications between the participants. As a therapist, I have found that the 'AB' - the 'purple zone' created through the convergence of two phenomenological worlds - forces my own world, 'B,' to develop in a way that incorporates this new experience. Furthermore, it is only within the 'AB' that I can communicate with the patient, who likewise behaves and communicates in the 'AB,' and whose own world is likewise changed and altered by these new experiences. Each of us is always 'a work in progress.' By the time we leave the therapy room the 'AB' experience has become part of my patient's 'A' and part of my own 'B.' These experiences, like all new ones, reshape my 'B' and his or her 'A' to varying degrees. Furthermore, each subsequent encounter adds a set of new 'AB' experiences for us - experiences that change each of us a bit while we also continue to build an ontological, 'object-ively existent' history of interactions between us. We can look at purple zone phenomena from a variety of perspectives: the psychological, the field-specific epistemological, the general epistemological, the ontological, and so on. On closer inspection we also find that particular portions or sets of areas in the diagram will be

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more pertinent to us depending on which of the various levels of inquiry is our most current concern. To clarify this, I will show that the purple zone itself can be usefully subdivided into at least three subcomponent zones, with the interactional, experiential 'AW perhaps limited to only two of them. Portions of the Purple Zone (Areas 'x/ 'y/ and 'z') (I) Zone 'x: The Zone of Encounter Especially at the psychological level, the presence of the Other as a possible centre or source of personal experience (i.e., as another Beamof-Light-through-Time besides my own) is of profound emotional significance to me; it will reshape my experience of all that occurs within the scope of my awareness. I designate this portion of the purple zone as 'zone "x."' Zone 'x' is that portion of the purple zone in which my experience includes an awareness of the other person as another source of personal experience or as the potential centre of another phenomenological world that, though it is not directly accessible to me, may include a view of 'me' as one of its objects. Only by recognizing the Other as such do I become self-consciously concerned with how I appear to Others. Obviously, this adds a whole new dimension to my concerns, as well as a qualitatively different feeling to my interactions compared with, say, my interactions with the inanimate objects of my world (perceived as such). Psychologically, this 'purple quality' of Being-with-Others (the Mitsein of Heidegger) is of profound emotional significance in many ways. My sense that the Other and I can share certain feelings, experiences, and understandings - not to mention a history - establishes the basis for meaningful relationships (including that of psychotherapy). For this reason I call the quasi-spatial area encompassing interactive experiences of this emotionally distinct type 'the zone of encounter.' Furthermore, my awareness that the Other can see me as an object and that I care what he or she thinks of me provides the epistemological grounding for complex psychological phenomena such as shame, and selfconsciousness, and for the various 'self-object needs' one reads about in the 'self-psychology' literature (e.g., the need to feel validated by others). For without an awareness or knowledge of the Other precisely as an Other, how can an emotion like shame be present or even comprehensible? After all, shame implies being 'in the presence of or 'in the

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sight of some Other. Clearly, zone V or the zone of encounter is a very important part of the purple zone, especially from the perspective of our psychological-level interest in understanding our emotions. Note that the contents of this domain are clearly interactional, and emerge only in relation to a perceived or recognized Other. Thus they properly belong within the interactional province known as the purple zone. (II) Zone 'y'

The purple zone extends beyond the zone of encounter in terms of its own wider epistemological and ontological limits. At the field-specific epistemological level, I can see that an appreciation of myself as a possible object for the Other does not exhaust all that I can know or experience as a participant in the psychotherapy situation. Also, the participants will have various objects-in-common and will develop a history-in-common (albeit only as appreciated from their own unique perspectives). This wider area of experience beyond zone 'x/ but still within the strictly interactive region, I will refer to as zone 'y.' Zone 'y' thus represents the range of experiences possible within the interactional purple zone that extend beyond the more psychologically defined limits of zone 'x' - that is, it includes experiences which, though they occur in the psychotherapy situation, lack the qualitative encountering feeling as definitive for zone 'x.' Zone 'y' and zone 'x' together define the epistemological horizons of the specific field known as the psychotherapy situation. So we can define the field-specific epistemological limits of the purple zone as follows: • for the patient: the totality of his or her experience of all aspects of the meeting • for the therapist: the totality of his or her experience of the same The general epistemological horizons or field limits of each participant are much wider than those of the specific field of the psychotherapy situation. In the diagram I have described the former as pertaining to areas 'A' and 'B' respectively; each of these includes 'AB' (or 'x' + 'y') portions as well. But it is only this' AB' (or 'x' + 'y') part that is accessible and truly part of the psychotherapy per se. So when I as therapist bring reflections of my experiences outside of the psychotherapy situation into this particular therapy, these become transformed

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to some extent by the new situation and by my awareness of the patient at hand. I am always reinterpreting my own experiences in the light of my present relatedness within the context of the current psychotherapy. As such these reflections do not remain 'blue'; rather, they become emergent 'purple' ones. A similar process goes on for the patient in terms of his or her reflections in therapy. (Ill) Zone 'z' For the sake of completeness, note that some purple zone phenomena, though clearly part of the world-in-common or history-in-common that emerges in the psychotherapy situation, are nonetheless beyond or outside the experiential realm of the participants. I call this area 'zone "z/" and it consists of those relatively 'object-ive' or 'world-based' aspects to the meeting(s) that occur but that aren't actually noted or experienced by either of the participants. An example of such an item is the unnoticed movings of the clock. It does occur in the room as part of the psychotherapy session's ontologically real context, and it even adds some specific significant meaning to the meeting (e.g., in defining when the session will end). The clock is in some sense part of the therapy even when it has gone on ticking unnoticed or largely unnoticed by the therapy's participants. Of course, to the extent that it does become noticed, it enters the experiential sphere of whomever notices it. My point is that it does exist as a part of the psychotherapy situation even when not noticed. We can thus describe it as ontologically part of the Purple Zone, though experientially not part of it. While it may well be potentially knowable, it has remained unknown. Summary of the Definitions and Limits of'the Interactional field/ 'Purple Zone/ or 'Intersubjective Space/from the Perspectives of Various Levels of Theoretical Inquiry A. From an ontological-level perspective, the purple zone is defined as the total of all events, behaviours, and experiences, psychodynamically conscious or unconscious, recognized or not, that occur in the therapy room. This includes areas 'x,' 'y/ and /z/ in the diagram. B. From a field-specific epistemological-level perspective, the purple zone is defined as: (i) for the patient: the totality of his or her experience of all aspects of

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the meeting (as seen, of course, from the patient's perspective/ direction), and (ii) for the therapist: the totality of his or her experience of the same (as seen analogously from the therapist's perspective/direction). These include areas V and 'y' (but not 'z') in the diagram. C. From a psychological-level perspective, the most significant portion of the purple zone is the quasi-spatial area in which a feeling is present that one is encountering, being encountered by, or sharing an encounter with another person, experienced not as a mere thing but as another independent, co-constituting, human presence (or another Beamof-Light-through-Time). This feeling includes a sense or appreciation that this is a qualitatively different sort of relatedness than one has with inanimate objects (i.e., with 'things/ or even persons if they are only experienced as 'things'). In the diagram this refers to area 'x' alone. Implications of This Interactional Purple Zone Model of the Psychotherapy Situation in Terms of the Philosophical Positions Examined in Section I of This Chapter I now return to the sets of philosophical positions and questions outlined in Part I of this chapter. I posited three of these as possible foundational stances for an epistemology suitable for the specific field of psychotherapy. I developed the purple zone interactional model mainly as an extension of position 3 - that is, the RealistNon-Dualistic-Co-constitutional-Hermeneutic position. So not surprisingly it is most consistent with that position. Nevertheless, it is worth pointing out some of the differences and inconsistencies between this approach and the assumptions of the other philosophical positions noted earlier. I begin by comparing this model with the assumptions of position 1, the Realist-Dualist-Objectivist-Correspondence model. Comparison and Contrasts with the Set of Philosophical Assumptions Central to Position 1: The 'Realist-DualistObjectivist-Correspondence'Position What is new in this purple zone, interactional, multiconstitutive model of the field-specific epistemology of the psychotherapy situation? To begin with, it emphasizes the purple zone (or the 'AB' interaction). This

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I have described as the domain in which psychotherapy - as an essentially interactional process - really takes place. However, this stance does not accord well with the philosophical assumptions that are central to position 1, the 'Realist-Dualist-Objectivist-Correspondence' position, as I explain next. Using the terms found in Figure 6.1, we see that a Cartesian dualistic model can accommodate the main 'A' (or red) effect (which can include, for example, the concept of 'the transference') as well as the main 'B' (or blue) effect (which could include the concept of the 'counter-transference'). Furthermore, an objectivistic description of these two frontiers as somehow meeting by bordering on each other is not inconsistent with that model. However, the truly mixed 'AB' interactions that happen in therapy (as in the purple zone) involve new sets of phenomena occurring or emerging with their own unique properties; this cannot be adequately described as the mere bordering of atomized' (i.e., radically separated or isolated) subjects, as seems to be implied by the position 1 model. This truly interactional, mutually influencing, 'dialogical' quality is best illustrated in terms of the colour purple. True, 'purple' is materially or physically composed by the overlapping of wavelengths of light that we would perceive independently as red and blue; but we can gain little insight into the experience of purple by looking at red and/or blue. In psychotherapy it is precisely such interpersonal experiences and phenomena that most interest us. Purple is co-constituted by red and blue; likewise, the truths found within a psychotherapy are best appreciated as co- or multi-constituted uniquely by the interactions between patient and therapist (and their respective relatednesses-in-a-world or Beams-of-Light-through-Time characteristics). Consider now the concepts of 'transference' and 'counter-transference' from the perspective of this new model. Here one is not interested so much in idealized or abstracted concepts such as 'transference' or 'counter-transference' in isolation (i.e., as if they could be observed independently of the particular psychotherapy context). Rather, these would be seen as beyond the field-specific epistemological horizons of our situation, in much the same way that speculation about 'unobserved matter' would be for Heisenberg's physics. The more legitimate and valid data of interest in our field are the interactionally emergent 'transference-counter-transference' blendings that occur in the therapy context - the 'purple zone phenomena' in my model. The term 'cotransference,' borrowed from psychoanalyst-philosopher Donna Or-

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ange (1995), may be more appropriate here. It may well be that these essentially interactional phenomena are more adequately and appropriately dealt with from within the framework I am developing than from the objectivistic frameworks as subscribe to position 1. Psychological theorists such as those of the object relations school, and certainly the self psychologists, have tried to deal with and indeed emphasize these heavily interactional qualities of our human condition and their importance to our psychological development and psychodynamics. But the cumbersome atomistic and often mechanistic terminologies of these theories seem somewhat tangled in the Cartesian dualistic tradition and its assumptions. As a result, these important and essentially interactional psychological phenomena have been very difficult to describe in a way at all consistent with the accompanying implicit positions taken at the ontological and epistemological levels. For example, whether we are speaking of 'introjections' and 'projections/ which can be moved about in relatively unaltered form; or of 'transferences' and 'counter-transferences/ which can bang up against either 'objective facts' or each other; or of 'affects/ 'impulses/ and 'drives/ which can be 'displaced' or 'converted' from the 'mental' to the 'physical' spheres of our Being; or of 'internalizations/ which can be 'transmuted' from one person as it were 'into' another, we are speaking in a mechanistic and atomistic language which assumes that Reality consists of and is limited to pure and distinct entities. These concepts and terms are quite consistent with the assumptions of position 1, but they don't at all fit my project, which is to describe the phenomena at hand in terms of their truly and essentially interactional nature. Regarding transferences and counter-transferences, the radical separateness from others demanded by dualistic-objectivist models can only get us as far as a red zone bordering on a 'blue' one (in terms of Figure 6.1). It simply fails to adequately describe the interactional, metaphorically purple blendings emerging in the psychotherapy situation, for which a term like 'co-transference' might be suggested.6 Yet even this term retains its mechanistic roots, and I caution that nothing is actually 'transferred' (as it were, en masse) in my model. Perhaps this term will still suffice for the moment, though as a sort of 'bridging concept' to maintain some connection with the rich literature on important clinical phenomena that have historically (if misguidedly) been referred to as 'transference(s)/ It may be that such phenomena are more adequately and appropriately dealt with from within the framework I am developing in this book. I will argue that this is so, in chapter 9.

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Regarding the 'correspondence theory of truth or validity' component of position 1, the incompatibility of the purple zone model is even more obvious. If the truths of the psychotherapy situation are newly emergent and at least co-constituted as described, the idea of comparing them with an abstracted, objectivistic ideal of a pure and independent factual Truth to which we can match our impressions is absurd. We would have to exceed our epistemological limits to find such 'beyond the realm of possible experience' entities with which to make such comparisons. So we will require a different theory of validity to maintain consistency with our purple zone model (see chapter 7). Co-constitutional metaphoric models and descriptions are simply not consistent with Cartesian dualistic and objectivistic models. But they do seem quite consistent with the findings of philosophers such as Heidegger and of more recent thinkers who have sought to surpass the Cartesian 's R o' model. In hierarchical terms, some of the differences between the paradigm I have been developing and the more traditional position 1 philosophical assumptions can be summed up on a level-by-level basis as follows: A. On the ontological level. I have moved away from the Cartesian conception of Man/Cogito as an entity so isolated by its ephemeral nature that it seems fundamentally separated from the world and other people, whose very existence may be questionable to us, toward a conception of Man as intimately and necessarily in relationship with a Real (or at least partially independent of us) Reality. This is possible through a reconception of the nature of our very way of Being. By its very nature or structure, our Being is fundamentally a necessarily relational process of successive, perspectival revealings and interpretive enlightenments of those aspects of that Reality which are present(ed) to us (as organized by our cares and projects) at any given moment (i.e., as in the Beams-ofLight-through-Time model). B. On the epistemological level. I have moved away from a conceptualization of the question of human access to truth or knowledge that locks us into an either/or position, and that forces us to choose between a belief that everything we know is merely 'subjective' and a product of our Mind(s) alone (subjectivism), and a belief that we have direct access to pure, uninterpreted, and unbiased 'facts' that do not depend at all on their or our context (objectivism) toward the conception that the truths of human experience are always co-constituted by the combination of

Level E: The Nature and Limits of Knowledge 147 'Being-in-the-World' elements. That is, I see the truths of human experience as always perspectival and contextual, and as co-constituted in any given act of perception or experience through our interpretive relatedness to a world. So we never experience completely known objective truths, but at the same time, those perspectival (and necessarily incomplete) truths as are available to us are not (and cannot be) merely or completely subjective either. C. On the psychological level. Likewise, I have moved away from atomistic conceptions of emotions, ideas, fantasies, images, and behaviours, which in the theoretical literature of psychotherapy are often treated as encapsulated little entities in quasi-spatial places and forms. It was as if they were marbles or coins that could be moved, exchanged, or converted 'from my bag to yours' or 'from this bag to that one' (as in the language of 'projections,' 'introjections,' and 'conversion symptoms') or 'put on the table to compare and to choose from' (as in the language of transference, counter-transference, and the 'real relationship'). I have moved toward a psychological perspective in which the above elements are acknowledged but are not treated in this atomistic way. This allows us to develop a more field theory or systems theory appreciation of the interactional, metaphorically purple quality of our human feelings, thoughts, imaginings, wants, cares, and behaviours as they emerge and occur in our interpersonal encounters. This point is central to our understanding of the psychotherapy situation. Section 4 of this book (chapters 8 through 11) deals mainly with such matters. Comparison and Contrasts with the Set of Philosophical Assumptions Central to Position 2: The 'Realist-DualistSubjectivist-Coherence'Position When we assess the consistency of the purple zone interactional model with position 2, the 'Realistic-Dualisi-Subjectivist-Coherence' position (as outlined in the first part of this chapter), we find several points of incompatibility. To the extent that the position 2 model retains a Cartesian dualistic position at ontological level B, the same criticisms of dualistic models as mentioned in the earlier section apply equally here. But by and large, the problems with subjectivism and idealism are very different from those of the objectivist position. The general epistemo-

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logical position of subjectivism, like its objectivist counterpart, also has trouble absorbing the interactional quality of the purple zone into its theory - but for opposite reasons. Objectivism doesn't allow for a personalized, relative, 'subjective' component to our interactional truths; subjectivism doesn't allow for the more 'object'-ive, 'worldly,' or partially-independent-of-us, less obviously relativistic components of such truths (i.e., those which seem more invariant as seen from a variety of perspectives, and which remain quite unyielding to our wills even when we try to see them as otherwise). As for the ontologically realist aspect of position 2, all that admits in a subjectivist model is that some external ('noumenal') Reality may exist independent of us. It continues to assert that epistemologically, we can have no knowledge of or access to it whatsoever. Such an external Reality would thus remain largely irrelevant to us in an idealist model. If we begin with the subjectivist assumption that Truth is constituted solely from the subject-side of the Cartesian dualistic split, obviously this is incompatible with our co-constitutional approach. From the perspective of position 2, there should be no truly purple zone. From the patient's view, there should be only a red zone. Area 'A' would be the sole significant effect here. From a truly subjectivist point of view, both the purple zone and the Other would have to be dismissed as illusory. However, when we do indeed follow the subjectivist/idealist argument to its solipsistic logical conclusion (i.e., no one else really exists in my world, a world solely of my own mind and fantasy), the entire concept of psychotherapy seems rather absurd. Why go to an illusory Other for help anyway? These are major problems that any subjectivist/idealist model must address. Some of the most relevant inconsistencies of this approach with my model relate to the areas of the diagram labelled zones 'x' and 'z.' Regarding zone 'x' (the zone of encounter), it is obvious that the position 2 model, denying the existence of the Other as it does, cannot accommodate any concept that is not only interactional but also interpersonal. Since it sees all such relationships as fundamentally illusory, this position is ill equipped to deal adequately with such complex emotional matters as our encounters with others - precisely the phenomena of zone 'x' in my terminology. This point is of quite central importance to my project. With regard to zone 'z,' this being fundamentally of 'World-ly' origin and definitionally outside of our immediate experience, an idealist position would have to dismiss it entirely as a fiction. Of course, once

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we begin taking this dismissive approach toward all that is deemed by other philosophical positions to be at least partially 'object-ive' or 'Worldly' in origin, even if we were somehow able to escape the dilemmas of solipsism raised above, we would again have to contend with issues of relativism. The problems of relativism, and the problems of position 2 in that regard, have already been discussed. And for this section's comparative purposes, it should suffice to say that the new model I have been presenting in this chapter is not compatible with a position 2 underlying philosophical grounding either. But now that the relativism question has again been raised, we can see that this may indeed be a crucial issue when it comes to situating my model. So let us look briefly now at where the Beams-of-Light-through-Time model stands on this important topic. What sort of position regarding relativism does the purple zone model of the psychotherapy situation take? And at what level of our hierarchy does it seem to apply? Clearly, my model is incompatible with a relativism at either an ontological or a general epistemological level. But the model developed above does acknowledge a type of relativism at the field-specific epistemological level E. That is, the truths of the psychotherapy situation are seen as emergent within and relative to this particular situation. This means the experiences, feelings, observations, and interpretations made within a psychotherapy (as a specific field or as a particular, defined frame of reference) can only properly be understood as within or relative to this specific context. Thus our findings and conclusions within this realm must remain contextualized. This is again analogous to the physicist's positions described earlier; physicists too must acknowledge the contextualized limitations of the data of their specific field of study. In the general epistemological position I have adopted throughout this book, all the truths of human experience are contextualized. But these ones are a bit more clearly situated, in that more specific detail can be offered as to the nature of the particular context known as psychotherapy. The details of this again imply certain methodological considerations and validational limitations (e.g., regarding what sort of statements and conclusions we can draw from psychotherapy-based 'data' - see chapter 7). In terms of my proposed model, the coherence theory of validity (level D) is probably the most acceptable, or least inconsistent, part of position 2. Nevertheless, though 'coherence' does seem far more acceptable here in some ways than the alternative correspondence theory

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presented earlier, the former also may find itself stretched quite a bit when we try to deal with the most purportedly object or World-ly aspects of our situation. This will be examined in the next chapter, which deals with a theory of field-specific validity for the psychotherapy situation. Comparison and Contrasts with the Set of Philosophical Assumptions Central to Position 3: The 'Realist-Non-DualisticCo-constitutional-Hermeneutic'Position The model presented was essentially designed to be consistent with this position, so we ought not be surprised that it fits in well with the earlier assumptions of this approach. The presence of the object (World) portion of the diagram acknowledges the ontological realist position adopted in chapter 2. The Beams-of-Light-through-Time representations of the patient-in-relation (the red or 'A' factor) and the therapistin-relation (the blue or 'B' factor) as each being a metaphorically 'enlightening' relatednesses-in-a-world is meant to acknowledge the non-dualistic CJR—K>), and Beam-of-Light models discussed in chapters 3 and 4. The questions of validity and the co-constituted and emergent properties of truth, especially as might be understood through a hermeneutic method (see chapter 5), are addressed diagrammatically in the concept of the purple zone. Finally, the concepts regarding the limitedness (as well as the overlappings) of our horizons, as discussed in the first part of this chapter, and the radical contextualization of all knowledge gained in the specific field of the psychotherapy situation, are diagrammed in Figure 6.1. In summary, then, I believe that the arguments of this chapter are consistent with the central philosophical tenets of position 3. The further elaborations of the Beams-of-Light-through-Time model, the concept of the purple zone, and the other details of the philosophical anatomy of the psychotherapy situation presented in this chapter are meant to describe a consistent position that I will be adopting at the next step up the hierarchy. That is, they detail a field-specific epistemology that seems appropriate for the field of psychotherapy. I make two final points here. First, some of the above sections have dealt with the concept of the purple zone in a highly detailed and abstract-sounding manner (partly for the sake of completeness and partly for the sake of precision). I hope the more experience-near simplicity of the idea of red and blue coming together to make purple will

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not be lost in the wake of my perhaps excessive verbiage. This 'purple' idea, in its simplest form, can be readily applied to a variety of clinical instances, moments, and processes in the psychotherapy situation. In practice, I have often found it a 'clinician-friendly' and 'patient-friendly' concept. Second, I shall end this section as I started it - with a comment on 'temporality.' The snapshot view of the psychotherapy situation is far too static. It is meant as a two-dimensional heuristic device, not as a comprehensive picture of an essentially temporal process. Similarly, the 'horizon' is not to be understood as either fixed in shape or smooth in contour, as might be mistakenly taken from the diagram. Its vibrant, changing, multifaceted, and multidimensional properties are here acknowledged, although these are clearly beyond the scope of a simple diagram. With that I proceed to the next chapter.

CHAPTER 7

FIELD-SPECIFIC VALIDITY (LEVEL F): How Do We Validate What We Know in 'the Psychotherapy Situation'?

What are the implications for us of the Beams-of-Light-through-Time model and the 'philosophical anatomy of the psychotherapy situation'? What practical effects does this field-specific epistemology have in terms of our specific field of interest - psychotherapy?1 From the vantage point of the Beams-of-Light-through-Time model, the processes of clarifying and acknowledging the limits of our possible knowledge, and of validating or assigning truth value to what qualifies as knowledge, now seem more complex than before. The objectivist approach (which we have more or less abandoned) postulated that at least in principle, we could sort out the subjective from the objective and then label the former as 'false' or 'invalid' and the latter as 'true' or 'valid.' In theory, we could do this by checking our impressions, findings, and/or assertions by comparing them with the corresponding 'real facts, or real truth of the world' as it really is and as we really know it to be. In the psychotherapy situation, this objectivist approach would play out with the (sometimes tacit) assumption that the therapist occupies an epistemologically privileged position relative to the patient. That is, it assumes that the therapist has a much more direct and perhaps pure access to these externally validating 'facts' of correspondence with the objective world. The objectivist view goes roughly like this: In terms of Figure 6.1, the red factor (coming from the patient) is a source of impressions that are rife with 'subjective distortions' or 'untruths' (e.g., as in the case of transference distortions). In the same vein, the blue factor (coming from the therapist) is a source of similar distortions (e.g., in the

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form of counter-transference), although it is further assumed that generally, these are a much smaller problem than the distortions originating in the patient. This is because the therapist has greater 'objectivity' and can reliably compare the impressions expressed in the therapy (by either party) with 'the known, objective, presumably real facts' of the matter. The differences between this position and that of the Beams-of-Lightthrough-Time model (and indeed their incompatibility) become clearer when we look at them with the aid of Figure 6.1. Recall that in an objectivist model, truth originates solely on the object-side of the Cartesian split. It follows that in such a model the only possible source of truth is the 'object (world)/ Yet is it obvious that the object or world section of the illustration is not a homogeneous, well-defined whole. Some of it is white, some red, some blue, and some purple. The only part that isn't tinted by human subjectivity (i.e., 'distortion' to an objectivist) is the white part, which by definition is unseen, not accessed by us (even though it may be potentially accessible), and therefore not very helpful to us. Of course, if any of us were to see this white part, it would have to be (metaphorically speaking) in colour, and as such it would then lose its claim to objective purity. But if that is the case, we are caught once again in the crucial dilemma of objectivism and the correspondence theory of truth: From where can we get this 'God's-eye view' of uninterpreted, unbiased, or undistorted Reality' from which we can then draw our correspondence conclusions that this or that, in fact, really does match the objective truth as it exists in itself (i.e., independently of human experience)? No human position or perspective can ever be that privileged or nonprejudicial. But if so, our assertions of correspondence can never be certain either; they can only be hypotheses that we believe to a certain degree. The objectivistic-correspondence theory's validation argument seems, then, somewhat circular in that the ideal it puts forth involves the therapist validating the beliefs or opinions expressed in the therapy by comparing them with what is really 'known' to be true. But now it seems that even that 'knowledge' relies on beliefs. In the absence of any human accessibility to the certainties of absolute knowledge, when the question 'how do you know' is posed regarding sets of facts or beliefs, an endless regression then arises. Presumably, the degree of faith we have in even our most learned and scientific suppositions is a function of how strongly we believe in the arguments, instruments, and other validation criteria we use to support

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or defend them. But this faith should not be absolute. We may be tempted here to soften our objectivistic-correspondence stance a little by letting go of the presumption of access to any 'pure' and 'undistorted, untainted' truths, and instead rely on 'pretty good but not absolute' 'presumed truths.' But the moment we do that, we begin to drift away from a correspondence theory of truth toward a coherence theory that validates our impressions, beliefs, and opinions in terms of their coherence with others of that same epistemological genus (i.e., rather than with absolutes). This may indeed be a wise move, but it also suggests that the therapist's epistemic position is not as privileged as we may once have thought. At least, not in the sense of the therapist having more direct access than the patient to 'the untainted truths of reality.' If the therapist has an epistemological advantage at all here, it is likely based on the overall convincingness of his or her arguments rather than on a greater access to absolute truth or reality. When we compare the objectivist-correspondence position with that of the Beams-of-Light-through-Time model, we find major differences on these points. The latter model is more interactional and suggests that: a no one has a privileged position with regard to 'the facts,' and b the truths of human experience, even on an 'individual person at one point in time' basis, are co-constituted through a blending of various 'person in relation to a world' elements that are inextricably mixed in such a way that the 'subjective' and 'objective' portions are never encountered as parts of the blend that are capable of being teased apart. This latter point recalls my discussion in chapter 3 of the paradigm shift at ontological level B from the Cartesian 'sRo' model to the one. Even in the simplest case one can imagine (e.g., of only one person's experience when alone, or of the one-person version of the Beams-of-Light-through-Time model in chapter 4), we find that human experience always has blended and fluid (through time) characteristics. When we then look at the 'purple zone phenomena' which emerge from the interaction of the worlds of at least two individuals, we can readily see that a higher order of complexity must be involved both in the constitution of such truths and in our appreciation or understanding of them. For these truths are perhaps best described as 'multi-

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constituted/ in that they always emerge through a complex interaction of various patient, therapist, and 'world-ly' elements. By definition, such emergent qualities cannot be reduced to their individual elements. Again, the unique meanings and experiential truths of the mixture emerge precisely through this interactional blending (i.e., as a truly 'interactional effect' - see chapter 6) and not merely as the atomistic addition of elements. The whole here is greater than the sum of its parts. The new context of the whole creates a new set of meanings and significances for the partial elements, which are now part of a greater relational configuration or system. A house may be made of bricks, yet a pile of bricks is not a house; all known life-forms are based on carbon atoms, yet a lump of coal is not alive. Furthermore, the bricks of the outside wall of my house that keeps the draft off of me have particular, personally meaningful significances to them that I could not possibly find by studying the same bricks in isolation. And this new significance can only be created by the bricks' incorporation into the higher-order phenomenon of the interactional entity or system that I call 'my house,' as part of my experiential world. The part has taken its meaning from the whole. More precisely, the part has taken on added meanings from its participation in the new context of the whole. Thus, as I noted in my discussion of H.G. Gadamer (see chapter 5), the sum of the meanings, significances, and truths of human experience is not finite. New meanings and truths are being created (or are emerging) all the time through new and ongoing situational, perspectival, and contextualized interactions. Yet the old meanings or truths don't necessarily disappear. Perhaps they are simply being added to without being replaced or made untrue (e.g., the brick in the wall still matches the front of the house in colour - it doesn't lose this property or significance - even when we are more interested in its wind-resisting function). An important philosophical argument that arises in this context relates to reductionism. Reductionism is basically the view that complex phenomena are reducible to the simpler 'building block' elements from which they were constructed. Reductionism may well be compatible with certain forms of objectivism, but as the preceding arguments show, it is clearly incompatible or inconsistent with my own position. Reductionism argues that new or truly interactional phenomena are illusory and that a system's complexity is basically the result of additive or recombinative processes. In sum, nothing really new is ever created.

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Reductionistic arguments have important methodological implications, especially in psychology and psychotherapy. For example, traditional natural science-based experiments often try to isolate particular elements for observation or manipulation while holding (or trying to hold) all other variables as constant as possible. The 'double-blind placebo controlled study' is a familiar example of this approach. Undoubtedly this methodology has been enormously useful in many disciplines for many years. However, I strongly contend that in the specific field of psychotherapy, the most pertinent phenomena are co- or even multi-constituted, and essentially interactional in nature. I am referring of course to human experience and human relationships with others. Human reality involves a variety of very complex systems carrying many radically contextualized and emergent sets of meanings and significances. So we should have grave reservations about research methodologies or interpretive methodologies that are based on radical decontextualizing strategies - that try to isolate single phenomena or factors of interest in order to study them 'as much on their own' as possible. Such an approach ill fits the study of the complex, interactional phenomena that we encounter in the field of psychotherapy. So we should be sceptical about the findings of decontextualized research or investigation. They may well be of dubious validity or applicability to radically contextual and interactional fields like ours. Certainly, clinical approaches in our discipline based on systems theory or field theory (e.g., family therapy) have long argued similar points. To recapitulate, the truths of human experience are interactional, so we can't understand them simply by isolating and dissecting their elements. Furthermore, it would be very difficult to apply a pure correspondence theory of truth when validating such experiences. For, with what would a 'purple zone' truth correspond? My view? Your view? Only that which we can agree upon? God's view? Perhaps this last one (which is Berkeley's solution) would be of help, except that in practical terms, it would be inaccessible to us from our finite, perspectival position. Certainly any one merely human view alone (including the therapist's) cannot by itself establish the absolute validity of an interpersonal or interactional truth. Some very difficult questions indeed are raised by this state of affairs. Does this mean we must abandon all notions of objectivity entirely in the field of psychotherapy, as some (e.g., Stolorow [1995], have argued? And would this reduce the truths of our discipline to merely a matter of intersubjective consensus (ultimately a relativistic position at some

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level)? Surely the criteria of consensus alone are inadequate or insufficient for our validation tasks - after all, we could certainly agree on something only to later find we were mistaken (as history has all too often shown). The question that clinicians most often raise regarding philosophical and theoretical issues in general is more or less this: 'Does all of this really matter on a practical level? How would or should it make a difference in terms of how I approach, treat, or understand a given case (or a research finding for that matter)?' My answer, in short, is that it matters a great deal! Questions about the truths of human existence and about the truths of the psychotherapy situation, and our beliefs about these (whether we are conscious of them or not), probably provide the context for all of our understandings, methodologies, interpretations, and actions in the psychotherapeutic endeavour. Let us now look at a clinical example that sheds light on some of the epistemological dilemmas inherent to our field - dilemmas that have huge practical consequences in people's lives. In the following clinical situation, issues of truth, validity, method, and so on are all highlighted. The patient presents with the alleged recall of early sexual abuse, while others maintain that these memories are 'false memories.' Case The Patient

The patient, a twenty-seven-year-old single woman, presented with a lengthy history of anxiety, depression, anger, self-defeating or selfdestructive behaviours, low self-esteem, and marked difficulties with relationships (especially sexual ones). She is bright and articulate and seems quite committed to pursuing her psychotherapy. She has been employed full-time since leaving school. She has a university education and is capable of a high calibre of work in her field, but she has not risen as far in her company as she might have and has left several jobs after heated arguments with supervisors. While in university she had one especially bad bout of depression, accompanied by anxiety attacks and some substance abuse. This followed a breakup with her boyfriend, which she attributed to her extreme discomfort around sexuality, including strong feelings of anger and anxiety. The failure of this relationship and her subsequent symptoms prompted her to seek psychological help, and she entered into her first psychotherapy. After three years of therapy once or twice a week

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(the frequency varied over time), she concluded that she had been sexually abused by her father in her early childhood. Her memories of this have always been vague, yet she has no doubt that this abuse took place and that it happened on a number of occasions. She also believes that she 'repressed' these memories, which later resurfaced or were 'derepressed' during her first psychotherapy. Unfortunately, her original therapist left town to work in another city a while back. This is why she has been referred to the current practitioner. The patient is now considering pressing legal charges against her father for the past abuse. At one point she confronted him with her claims. These were met with horrified indignation and denial on the part of both parents. The patient now feels even more desperate and is pinning her hopes on the courts to 'establish the truth' and thereby vindicate her. These hopes of hers are often accompanied by sometimes vague and sometimes not so vague hints that she will kill herself if this approach doesn't work out as planned. She is an only child, so there are no siblings available to provide corroboration about her early home environment. The Other Main Players in This Drama

The first psychotherapist. The patient's first psychotherapist was an enthusiastic, quite politically active young woman who was and still is quite committed to the women's movement - in particular, to helping women who have been victims of sexual or physical abuse. In fact, she left town a few years back in order to serve on a national task force on this issue. She has had no contact with the patient since her departure. The current psychotherapist. The current psychotherapist has a different professional training background than the first, and is a man. The patient had wanted another female therapist, but none was readily available in her community. The current psychotherapist is considered a reasonable alternative, since he has successfully treated a number of women with similar problems, is an experienced and skilled professional, and has a reputation among women's activists for not being 'too overly male-chauvinistic.' At the same time, the current psychotherapist feels somewhat ill at ease - and certainly more sceptical than the first - about the whole issue of 'repressed memory.' Furthermore, he has a strong dislike for legal hearings of any sort and believes that concurrent legal proceedings are often an obstacle to his psychotherapeutic work with patients.

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The patient's father. The patient describes her father as a fairly gruff, aggressive, and successful businessman. His marriage with the patient's mother has been long but according to the patient 'not close,' and was 'constantly on the rocks' during her early years. She describes her parents as having 'mellowed out' into an arrangement of convenience; they are still married but lead fairly independent lives, and show little affection for each other. She has no doubt that her father has pursued extra-marital affairs for many years. Since the patient confronted her father on the issue of abuse, he has been completely estranged from her. He has found himself a lawyer and has joined a support group for those who have been 'wrongly accused' as a result of 'false memory syndrome.' His wife has also attended some of these meetings. The current therapist has never met the father, who has always refused any involvement with the patient's care. (The first therapist had suggested a family meeting.) The patient's mother. The patient's mother has basically taken her husband's side in this conflict, though she is apparently quite embittered that she has had to choose between them. She too is estranged from the patient now - perhaps more on the patient's initiative than her own. Her daughter is enraged that her mother has not been more supportive. The mother has had her own significant mental health problems to deal with. For much of the patient's early childhood, her mother suffered from lengthy bouts of depression and alcohol abuse. She admits that she just wasn't there for her daughter for much of that time and that she relied on housekeepers to raise the patient. She also admits that a lot of those years are 'just a blur' to her now, though she does recall much marital strife and a decision to have no more children. She has been treated with antidepressants reasonably successfully in recent years and has been off alcohol as well. She describes herself as a very 'private person' and is still somewhat sceptical about these 'talking cures' her daughter believes in. The 'chorus.' Besides the main characters of this story, we must also consider the strong influences radiating from a variety of community sources, whom I refer to (perhaps too lightly) as 'the chorus.' These influences will include support groups, lawyers, and activist groups, as well as the media. All of these will become more and more involved the more public the patient makes her case. These influences will significantly affect the therapy and its participants, since these external factors and proceedings will be highly relevant to the 'cares/ concerns, projects, and interpretations of the patient both in and out of the therapy.

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They will have some significance for the therapist as well, and he will have to deal with them as part of an increasingly complex context in which this particular psychotherapy will take place. Clearly, in any attempt to understand a case like this, and deal with its practical and therapeutic aspects, the 'truth questions' we have raised will be highly relevant. Differing views of the nature of truth may well lead us to differing approaches, whether we are cognizant of this or not. For example, a clearly defined objectivist approach to truth might encourage us to try to gather evidence as to whether the father actually did or did not sexually abuse his daughter. However, this makes the assumption that such information does exist somewhere in a rather untainted form that psychotherapy can access, given the right questioning methodologies. For example, hypnosis or hypnotic regression might be tried as a method for getting at 'what really happened back then' through the patient's 'de-repressed' memory. This approach likens memory to a computer's 'memory/ or to a videotape that can be played back in more or less unaltered form if properly accessed. Furthermore, the act of recalling these memories, and the circumstances surrounding this recall, should not have any significant effect on the content of what is recalled. An old videotape replayed should look about the same whether it is viewed in public, in private, by me, by you, by the many, or by the few. In this model the videotape view of de-repressed human memory constitutes the objective, factual truth, to which the correspondence theory of truth must then appeal. But does it really fit with the human situation and human phenomena with which we are dealing? What if we adopted a more subjectivist, idealist, or relativistic view of truth? We would be far less inclined to look for external or objective correspondence-validation criteria. We would much more likely focus on the coherence and internal consistency of the story from the perspective of the patient. The key question of interest here would not be, 'Did he do it?' Rather, it would be, Ts she really sure? Does she really believe he did it? What is truly her experience of this whole matter?' At this point the objectivist may well argue, 'Just because she believes it doesn't make it true.' And the relativist may counter that we have no access to the objective facts required of the other theory anyway, and that the objectivist is overstepping his bounds and making false claims as to both knowledge and certainty (i.e., he is failing to acknowledge the field-specific epistemological limits regarding what can possibly be

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known, and what types of knowledge are possible within the horizon of the psychotherapy situation). These questions about the truths we seek in psychotherapy remind us again that in complex situations, we may have to deal simultaneously with different types of truths or levels of truth. Questions of pragmatics are also important here. Which sorts of truth we are most interested in will be affected by the goals of our endeavour and the potential consequences of pursuing (or not) certain courses. For example, it is essential for us to understand the truths of the patient's experience as we pursue of our therapeutic and healing goals. But once legal charges are involved, and potential criminal punishments become part of the agenda, externally demonstrable proofs also become critically important. And these do not just affect the courtroom situation. Psychotherapy never takes place in a vacuum; practical issues (e.g., 'Where does the therapist stand with regard to court testimony?') may have a huge impact on the relationship between patient and therapist (especially around the issues of trust). Thus, however indirectly, these external aspects of the situation will partially structure the psychotherapy relationship. For obvious example, a therapist who seeks to understand his patient and who is also willing to back her case up in court will be trusted more by the patient than one who is not willing. This may place the therapist in a very awkward position. What is his duty here? Should he 'back up his patient's story one hundred per cent' if he is convinced she believes it? Is there room for some scepticism on his part? Does he have any duty to the court, or to the patient's father if indeed he (the therapist) is unsure whether an actual (i.e., ontologically real) crime was committed? Does he try to decide whether a crime was committed, or does he try to defer that question entirely to the court? Many of the answers to these moral or ethical dilemmas depend greatly on which theory of truth the clinician believes. So it is certainly a good idea for him to be aware of his own particular stance (and its inherent biases) in situations like this. Careful reflection on such matters can only help. In this particular case an objectivist approach would likely send us in the direction of looking for external or less contestable evidence relating to whether the alleged sexual abuse actually, or ontologically, historically happened. A relativist or subjectivist approach, on the other hand, would focus much more sharply on a detailed understanding of the patient's past and present experience, and thus would be more confined to the epistemological level(s) of inquiry. Furthermore, prag-

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matic concerns would significantly affect us, in terms of preserving a healing relationship with the patient and also in terms of not doing any further harm (primum non nocere) to the patient and to other members of the community. Here, the epistemological positions of the Beams-ofLight-through-Time model, taken at both the general level and fieldspecific one (i.e., the field of the psychotherapy situation), occupy a place in between the extremes of objectivism and those of subjectivism/relativism. Let us now look at how this particular case might be conceptualized from within this new framework, and examine the epistemological limits and truth claims it might see as appropriate, feasible, and reasonably applicable to the psychotherapy situation. In contrast to the more extreme objectivistic or subjectivistic approaches, the Beams-of-Light-through-Time model immediately helps us appreciate the interactional complexity inherent to the situation at hand, as well as the truth claims that can reasonably be made within it. In chapter 6 I illustrated this with respect to the emergent qualities of the truths we find in the multiconstituting interaction between two Beams-of-Light-through-Time. The present situation is complicated even more by the fact that many players and many different significant interests are now involved. Each of these interests contributes to the epistemological complexity. All the cast members mentioned above, from the politically active therapist who first 'uncovered' the patient's memories, to the current therapist, who seems to have stepped into a quagmire, to the humiliated spouse of the accused abuser, to the lawyers trying to make their cases (on each side), and of course to the original participants in the event or non-event, will add their own perspectival contributions to what the law refers to as 'the whole truth.' Here, we are sharply reminded that the notion that psychotherapy can isolate itself from the extra-psychotherapeutic context is a chimera. There is no neutral, objective, or uninvolved position to be found, there is no safe place to hide. Every cast member will contribute his or her own colour to the blend that constitutes an expanded version of Figure 6.1. Obviously, some will contribute more to the developing colour matrix than others, both overall and at any given point in time, as their relative influences will vary. But to the extent they are seen, heard, or otherwise involved, each will always be of at least some influence or 'colouring.' If I am to take a stab at extending my diagram here to cover this situation, I'm obviously going to need more colours. For example, I might add the patient's father to my illustration and assign to his Beam-

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of-Light-through-Time the colour yellow. As in Figure 6.1, there will remain a purple zone delineating the emergent interactional field between the patient and the therapist. Analogously, then I would have to add a similarly organized 'orange zone' to describe whatever interactions have occurred between the patient's (red) and the father's (yellow) Beams-of-Light-through-Time. In terms of the partitions within the Purple Zone (see chapter 6), we find in this situation that the zone V portion (the zone of 'encounter'), which is of such paramount importance in the purple zone, is currently quite a minimal part of this new orange zone, since patient and father now have little direct contact with one another. Rather, zone 'y/ the zone of a common history together - though one that has been experienced very differently by each of them - is the main concern of ours with respect to the orange zone. The zone 'z' portions of what occurred unnoticed between them may or may not also be of particular relevance in this case, and may or may not become accessible to us later on. In the case as I've described it so far, the father has refused or been unable to meet with the therapist. But were this otherwise, that meeting would create a 'green zone' consisting of the interactional field between the Beams-of-Light-through-Time of the therapist (blue) and the father (yellow). And if all three parties were to meet together, some hard-tochromatically-describe zone where all three primary colours overlap would emerge in which the Beams-of-Light-through-Time of the patient, the therapist, and the father all interact. Obviously, as additional characters and their perspectives get added to the mix, further interactional colourings and blendings will continue to occur. These influences will likely be of variable significance for the main characters at different times or with respect to different purposes or contexts. Family therapy in this situation would be a colourful process indeed! At this point, my colour metaphors and certainly my two-dimensional representational abilities are being stretched to their limits, so I won't try to draw another diagram to suit this more complex and colourful situation. I could of course switch here from colour metaphors to the algebraic symbols that are encountered often in research design (see chapter 6). That way I could describe a whole series of elements, each of them contributing to the philosophical anatomy of this particular situation. In that language, I could describe a whole gamut of main effects (such as the 'A,' 'B,' 'C,' or 'D' ... etc. effects ascribed to each of the respective people or Beams-of-Light-through-

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Time), two-person interactional effects ('AB' for the patient-therapist interactional effect, 'AC' for the patient/father interaction effect, etc.), and many-person interactional effects (the 'ABC' effect of all three, the 'ABCD' effect when another interested party is brought into the meeting, etc.). Each of these effects would contribute to the 'whole picture' or the whole truth, though again to unequal and varying degrees at different times and in accordance with various purposes. I won't be going that route. Overall, however, it is clear that in both the colour composition metaphor and its more mathematical description, the picture is becoming more and more complex. Also, the colour metaphor seems to have an advantage over the algebraic one because of the experiential wholeness one finds in the perception of colours. As I noted in the previous chapter, when apprehending the colour purple we do not experientially tease out its red and blue components. The same, of course, is true of orange, green, and other 'composite' colours. Once these elements are combined in a truly interactional manner, we cannot separate them. This 'irreducibility' quality to the truths of human experience is perhaps better illustrated through the colour metaphor. The algebraic version says the same thing (in fact, mathematically speaking this is the very definition of an interactional effect), but the colour one is more 'experience-near.' The reader is free to choose between them. Either way, the important point is to illustrate the increasing complexity and the interactional and dynamic quality to the nature of truth as it emerges and/or becomes accessible within the epistemological limits or horizons of a given situation. In viewing a given situation, I am restricted to my own set of interactional 'colourings' (or algebraic interactions); so are we all; this further reminds us that in the 'lived world/ the truths of human experience available to us are finite and perspectival in nature.2 These perspectival truths are by no means 'merely subjective/ but they cannot be 'purely objective' either. Dealing with such complexity is not as simple as sorting out the good guys from the bad guys or the truth-speakers from the liars. Many or even all of the parties involved may be well intentioned with regard to both seeking and speaking the truth. In the absence of blatant, conscious lying - which obviously can also occur - there are also situations where each party believes its take on 'what really happened' - more accurately, 'its own experience of what happened.' But does that suffice to make it true (as the relativists might declare, over the objections of the objectivists)? And if so, in what sense? Is truth not a multilevel phenomenon too? And if our experiences are strongly at variance with

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those of another, what then? Are they both true? Are they equally true? Or is there only one incontrovertible truth (as the objectivists would declare, over the objections of the relativists). It seems as if our validation criteria - that is those criteria to which we appeal in order to sort out the truth value of our impressions and assertions - must include quite a mixture to deal with such complex systems. The who's right and who's wrong approach sounds good on paper, but it's often naive in practice in situations where each party actually believes his or her version is 'correct.' It's like asking, 'What colour is the picture?' This model has shown the picture's colour to be blended, not easily described, and variable over time. And like many great works of art, it looks different from different perspectives. Nevertheless, it does not change entirely, randomly, or willy-nilly, and it also seems to retain some seemingly 'core' shape and colour over time. Some element of 'relativized' objectivity or object- ivity remains. So perhaps, if we are careful, we can salvage something of this concept. The above case, and the Beams-of-Light-through-Time model's view of the nature of the truths with which we are dealing, makes us ask just what sort of validation criteria we should be using in such a model. Coherence criteria such as the internal consistency of a story are certainly of great importance here. And despite our reservations about naively objectivistic correspondence theories of truth, some more humble and modified attempts to corroborate the 'relatively objective facts' of the situation at hand will also be worthwhile. Intersubjective agreement may not 'guarantee' objective truth, but it can still play a useful role in establishing some degree of validity. Similarly, pragmatic issues such as the 'motives' for an action (e.g., in a criminal investigation, or in the - perhaps defensive? - meanings and significances of a particular belief held by a psychotherapy patient) may also be important sources of validation criteria. The Search for an Appropriate Set of Validation Criteria Applicable to the field of Psychotherapy: A Convergence of Theories, or an Integration of Them As was the case with my conceptualization of the nature of the truths of human experience, my approach to choosing validation criteria for my model will involve integrating a variety of elements. Validation criteria such as internal consistency, corroboration, and motivational context needn't be associated exclusively with one particular theory of validity

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(e.g., the coherence, correspondence, and pragmatic ones respectively). To fit in with the epistemology of the Beams-of-Light-through-Time model, we might expect some degree of convergence among these theories once the most extreme elements are purged. Such an approach to validation is not inconsistent with some notion of 'relativized objectivity/whereby the more stable and enduring features of our experienced world can be distinguished from their more fluid, more arbitrary, more 'voluntarily yielding to our will' aspects. We can see these as having the epistemological status of 'working hypotheses/ which though not absolute or unchallengeable, can be accepted as fairly safe assumptions for the time being. The physical laws of mechanics and gravity may be examples of these. This approach has an important practical advantage. To illustrate, if a patient tells me he was 'so excited that he jumped into the air and didn't come down for fifteen minutes,' I needn't spend too much time worrying about whether the law of gravity is just a rumour - better that I concentrate on other matters at hand. It is true that I could be wrong and in this case that would be very important - but some discriminating judgments and assumptions must be made in all lived world situations (i.e., in practice). Clearly, we can borrow some notion of objectivity - and perhaps even a similarly relativized version of the concept of 'distortion' - from traditionally objectivistic and correspondence theory sources. That is, in the absence of objectivism we can still retain some notion of at least relative objectivity. By de-absolutizing these concepts and situating them in their proper context, we are integrating them into a more suitable theory of validity for our field. But when correspondence gets de-absolutized, it becomes less a matter of matching with a perfect model and more one of seeing how this all fits in with everything else we know - or more precisely, believe. This of course starts to converge with a coherence argument, although coherence here is used in its broadest sense. A narrow coherence argument would rely most heavily on factors of internal consistency - within, for example, our patient's personal narrative. A wider coherence argument would appeal to the consistencies within a somewhat wider field of experience - that is, it would include not only what the patient says but also various other sources of information, and observed actions as well. In the latter case we are still utilizing the overall goodness of fit criterion; but this one is less subjectivistic; it also moves farther away from the most extreme forms of relativism.

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Similarly, pragmatic criteria for truth such as 'what is true is what proves to work in practice or over time' can be integrated into a new model, albeit, again, in a somewhat watered-down form. We acknowledge the usefulness of practical tests as validating criteria, but we must also acknowledge the judgmental and relative character of assertions as to what works and what doesn't. These assessments are highly relative to our motives, purposes, and operational criteria and to the methodological tools we use in making such judgements (recall my discussion of the Beck Depression Inventory in chapter 5). So it may be somewhat tautological to say that 'what is true is what works in practice,' in that the latter part of this statement may require a truth judgment to begin with. An integrated theory of validity suitable for psychotherapy is far from complete; that being said, some of the rudiments of an approach are available. This theory will likely appeal overall to the 'wide coherence' criterion - that is, it will be generally consistent with, and fit well with, the whole mass of what we believe to be true as gathered from a variety of sources and methods. In my view, we must recognize that our prior understandings of our world and its objects, and of our cares, concerns, and projects regarding them, constitute the background for each and all of our perceptions, ideas, interpretations, and judgments. Having accepted this, we can then see that 'prejudging factors' will always be involved in the ongoing processes of structuring, organizing, and indeed constituting this wider sum of our collected beliefs (at any given point in time). In this regard, we will of course have to acknowledge the necessarily limited quality of our human epistemological condition or situation. Nevertheless, within this relativized appeal to a wide-coherence criterion as a replacement for the illusory 'matching with the (inaccessible) ideal object' of correspondence theory, some of the criteria traditionally associated with the latter theory may still find a place. For example, 'falsifiability' will still be a valuable criterion where available (e.g., in terms of demonstrating inconsistencies within a given point of view), though it will lose any claims to being 'the' absolute criterion on which all 'scientific' or truth claims must be based. Similarly, more humble or relativized claims regarding the value of cherished, traditionally natural-scientific validation criteria such as apparent predictiveness, causality, and controllability can also be integrated into this model, especially when expressed in more probabilistic terms. Other familiar criteria for validity, such as the number and quality of

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apparently confirming or disconfirming findings, and the consistency of our interpretations with a variety of observations taken from a multitude of perspectives (including those of different observers), different theoretical contexts, and different time periods can all be a part of our theory of validity for the psychotherapeutic field. However, the oversimplistic extreme positions that rely on either an objectivistic appeal to pure, uninterpreted facts, or on a subjectivistic/idealist/ relativist position that claims everything is 'entirely or merely subjective/ must both be rejected as inconsistent with my approach. The Hermeneutic Circle Revisited: The Hermeneutic Spiral In this context, the notion of the hermeneutic circle can be quite useful. This notion offers a method for going over the various types of available data, information, perceptions, ideas, feelings, impressions, and so on in an interpretive way, within the context of one's previous understandings. In proceeding this way, we must acknowledge that there will always be major unknown areas, and also that the inevitable, even constitutive, presence of a complex system of prejudgments (cf. Heidegger; Gadamer) will always be involved in the ongoing process of creating an expanded set of new, emergent understandings. These new interpretations and understandings will constantly focus or redirect our understandings in particular directions (and away from others). This, of course, is always happening in psychotherapy. During psychotherapy we often stray from a particular topic or issue for a time, only to find that circumstances or other reasons bring us back to it, this time from a different perspective. Having been elsewhere in our reflections, we come back to the 'same old issue/ but now perhaps see it in a somewhat different light. All but the most extreme relativistic varieties of hermeneutics agree that though our successive interpretations of our subject matter will never be absolute, such ongoing study may be progressive - that is, more valid or more truthful interpretations can in principle (though not invariably) be developed with time and effort. This notion of hermeneutics is decidedly not an 'anything goes' approach,3 even though its appreciation of the contextualized nature of our interpretations, its scepticism about absolute or grandiose truth claims, and its respect for 'the test of time' are all quite high. The various validation criteria that have been previously mentioned will of course be repeatedly called on as evidence for the relative merit of one interpretation over another at any given time. A succession of apparently better but never complete

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understandings of the phenomena in question can be expected in such an approach. To be more accurate in our descriptions, we should really be talking here of a hermeneutic 'spiral' rather than a hermeneutic 'circle/ since the place to which we return is never quite the same one and the spiral figure implies a progression in a particular direction. Granted, such directions may with time change or even reverse, having been found to be apparently misguided; even so, the faith of this approach is that with sufficient time, effort, and reflection, not only newer but better models, interpretations, understandings, and so on will prevail. This may be controversial to some, but it reflects the ontologically realist stance adopted at the beginning of this project in combination with the more relativizing arguments above regarding the epistemological limitations inherent to our field. In terms of the hierarchy, then, I am here acknowledging that an increasing amount or degree of relativity is appropriate as we ascend the various levels. This is not at all to subscribe to a position of relativism per se, as the realistic component is quite incompatible with that. I am thus acknowledging some degree of relativzfy but not relativz'sm, much as I maintained earlier that we may be able to retain the notion of some degree of objectivity without objectivism. If pushed in terms of this terminology, my position would probably be most accurately described as only relatively relativistic. The above notion of an open-ended series of progressive-in-the-longrun interpretations or understandings seems to fit in very well with the clinical practice of psychotherapy. As psychotherapists, we are always dealing with both radical uncertainty and meaningfully non-random material and experience. Inevitably, we are forced to live within the epistemological limits of our field: a field in which we must deal with truths that are neither entirely objective nor entirely subjective, a field that is inescapably loaded with ambiguity but in which some understandings really are better or more truthful than others. And we must do all this even though we lack an immediate gold standard with which to validate our understandings. Practical Reasoning, Wisdom, and Living with an Epistemology of Uncertainty Having developed a field-specific theory of validity for psychotherapy to this extent, I will return now to the case example to see how it might apply. It was not entirely coincidental that I chose a case involving legal

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proceedings for my example. A judge in a court of law is in something of the same position as a psychotherapist in that he or she faces a great deal of information from a variety of sources, much of it contradictory. From my point of view, the idea of a witness telling 'the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth' is an unrealistic, impossible, objectivistic fantasy. It is highly unlikely that any real-world judge would ever expect such a thing either. In his or her practical world, these ideas represent ideals or principles toward which the witness (and others) should strive. Justice, then, is not an exact science but rather an exercise in 'applied wisdom' and 'practical reasoning' guided by often well-defined but still progressively interpreted and reinterpreted principles of jurisprudence. Over two thousand years ago, Aristotle described this sort of applied knowledge as phronesis (roughly, 'practical knowledge').4 He distinguished this term from other forms of knowledge such as episteme, or 'scientific knowledge of the general, theoretical, universal, or necessary properties of its objects' (from which our term epistemology is derived), and techne, roughly referring to technical knowledge (or technical know-how). Although each of these three forms of knowledge relates to truth (aletheia in Greek), phronesis, in the words of contemporary philosopher Richard Bernstein (1983) is 'the form of reasoning appropriate to praxis,5 which deals with what is variable and always involves a mediation between the universal and the particular that requires deliberation and choice.' Bernstein, who is following on Gadamer here, emphasizes the continued importance of the terms phronesis and praxis for the purposes of ethics. Some recent writers such as psychiatrist James Phillips (1996) and psychologist Louis Berger (1996) have also drawn from such sources to suggest that these terms are especially applicable to the type of knowledge available to us as psychotherapists. It may indeed be very useful to recognize the psychotherapeutic process as one in which we harness a variety of sources of applied reasoning or practical wisdom. This, however, does not in any way mean to limit psychotherapy to the 'cognitive' or 'reasoning' sphere as opposed to the 'emotive' one. (I will argue in the next chapter that the two spheres are inseparable.) Rather, it refers to the essentially practical and applied nature of the therapist's work. The therapist in our case draws on all aspects of his experience - often unconsciously - in his emotion-laden understanding of and presencing to his patient. He must set aside the illusory and arrogant certainties of the various ideological models of the past in favour of seriously, caringly, empathically,

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reflectively, and reasonably helping the patient to the best of his trained but still limited abilities. The in-practice sorts of questions that have arisen regarding our very difficult case abound with ambiguities and uncertainties. But for the sake of applying practical wisdom in a caring and well-reasoned way, we can at least see the importance of acknowledging the complexity of the issues, the absence of simple solutions and shortcuts, and the potentially heavy consequences of our various possible courses of action. For example, to feign certainty in compliance with the patient's perspective as a way of 'trying to be supportive' is not necessarily the only way or the most authentic way of validating (in the psychological sense) her experience. Nor would it be appropriate to 'invalidate' her story or her experience without strong evidence to the contrary, simply on the basis of one's own wish to believe such things don't happen. The consistency criteria discussed earlier may ultimately decide the legal side of this case. The legal decision will, of course, not be the therapist's to make. However, the therapist's efforts to help his patient deal with some undoubtedly horribly painful experiences and feelings will be guiding his practical work, and so will his efforts to 'first do no harm.' The 'do no harm' part in this particular case and context may lead him to find out whatever he can, if possible, and to expand (with the patient's permission) the types of information he has available to him beyond his discussions with the patient alone (e.g., in terms of speaking to other family members regarding their perspectives). The point here is not to arbitrarily decide the right or the wrong approach to take in such a complex, difficult, and contextually situated case. The point, rather, is to acknowledge that this situation is a highly uncertain one, and that one's actions and interpretations are best seen from the standpoint of endeavouring to apply one's skills, understandings, and so on as an exercise in applied, practical, imperfect, but well-considered and caring reasoning. In more 'standard' psychotherapy cases - those without all the outside legal ramifications and so on - the epistemological and practical situation is not that much different. Psychotherapy is still essentially an applied endeavour that must live with its own uncertainties. It may be an 'applied science,' but it is not 'unscientific.' All sciences contain uncertainties - otherwise there'd be nothing to study! Ours just happens to be more uncertain than most. For those with no stomach for ambiguity, it may be too frustratingly difficult a field to tolerate. On the other hand, its very complexity and uncertainty represents its unique

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challenge and charm to others. That is more a matter of personal significances to various individuals than it is one of scientific status. In the following four chapters I will explore yet another level of complexity in the Beams-of-Light-through-Time model, focusing more on the 'Through Time' portion of it. Let us now consider the highest level of the hierarchy of levels of theoretical inquiry and the issues of the psychological level per se.

Part IV Psychology: The 'Finished' Living and Working Areas

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PSYCHOLOGY: The 'Finished' Living and Working Areas

Level G: How Do People Feel, Think, Behave, and Interact? In What Context? And How Can We Help Them Psychotherapeutically? This section deals with the psychological level proper, and consists of four chapters. These pull together all that I have been developing in the previous chapters. I then present a multilevel model or paradigm that I think is appropriate for the field of psychological and psychotherapeutic thinking, and consider its applicability to both theory and practice. Chapter 8 deals more with the general psychology of the human condition or 'the general context of human experience.' Chapter 9 focuses in on the implications of chapter 8 for the theory and practice of psychotherapeutic work in particular. Chapter 10 discusses some key concepts for psychological thinking borrowed from phenomenological philosophical sources, and takes us deeper into the realm of practice by presenting a clinical case understood in terms of the Beams-of-Lightthrough-Time model and a new approach to the Mental Status Examination. Finally, in chapter 11, a series of 'hierarchical sketches' in which the philosophical assumptions and presuppositions of a variety of important contemporary schools of psychological thought are examined in a common manner for both explicative and comparative purposes. Chapter 8. In this chapter I will deal with the issues of 'interlevel consistency' or 'coherence' as raised by the hierarchical approach. I

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then further develop the Beams-of-Light-through-Time model. The last of this chapter's sections borrows some notions from other fields, such as physics, in order to arrive at a different way of looking at 'drives/ 'forces/ and motivation in psychology. This chapter ends by presenting a 'Five-Plus-Dimensional Beams-of-Light-through-Time model.' Chapter 9. This chapter looks at psychotherapeutic work in particular. Psychotherapy is conceptualized as a series of 'encounters in the purple zone.' I describe six essential features of a phenomenological psychology: relatedness to a world, temporality, interpretiveness and perspective, care-fullness, embodiment, and Being-with-Others. I also reinterpret a number of central themes, concepts, constructs, and phenomena from the traditional theory and practice of psychotherapy in terms of the Beams-of-Light-through-Time model. Chapter 10. In this chapter I focus more on practice, and apply the Beams-of-Light-through-Time model to a clinical case, contrasting this new approach with a more traditional one. I also look briefly at some of the earlier phenomenological and existential psychological literature and at some recent developments at the 'philosophy/psychotherapy interface.' And I describe some key concepts such as 'bad faith' and 'authenticity/ both borrowed from the phenomenological philosophers. Then I suggest an alternative approach to the traditional Mental Status Examination or psychiatric/psychological assessment, this new one based on the Beams-of-Light-through-Time model. Finally, I look at a longer case study in order to illustrate, discuss and compare the above methods. Chapter 11. In this chapter I present a series of 'hierarchical sketches' in order to clarify, classify, and compare several major contemporary psychological theories and models. These include (a) primarily psychoanalytic or psychoanalytically-derived theories, (b) primarily non-psychoanalytic psychological/psychiatric theories, and (c) the Beams-of-Light-through-Time model.

CHAPTER 8

PSYCHOLOGY (LEVEL G), PART ONE: The General Context of Human Experience

Issues of Consistency In the next four chapters, comprising the 'psychology proper' section of this book, I finish ascending the levels of my hierarchy. The questions properly addressed at this, the hierarchy's psychological level of inquiry (level G), include 'How do people feel, think, behave, interact, and so on?' and 'How can we help them psychotherapeutically?' So far I have shown that below such questions are many levels of philosophical issues. In chapter 7 in particular I discussed the value and importance of maintaining a high degree of coherence or internal consistency with the totality of one's 'position as a whole.' This includes the various stances adopted at each level of the hierarchy. It may be useful to reserve the term paradigm here to refer only to such broad, multilevel theories. That is, I will be defining a paradigm here as a broad theory that embraces (explicitly or implicitly) stances or positions taken at each of the levels of the hierarchy described in this book. In judging which paradigms are most worthy or useful to us in our psychological thinking, it is important for us to appraise their coherence or 'interlevel consistency' in the above sense. Inconsistent paradigms are bound to generate a great deal of conceptual confusion, and it is important for us to be aware of this. It should be clear by now that certain types of psychological theories rely on particular philosophical perspectives and are logically inconsistent with other perspectives. For example, a radically behaviourist psychology emphasizes the external, the observable, and the measur-

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able. It also considers concepts such as the 'internal' and the 'mental' as dubious at best. This stance is most compatible epistemologically with positions that value the external as the ultimate source of our truth claims - for example, the one offered by objectivism at the general epistemological level C. Objectivism (see chapter 4) maintains that truth essentially comes from the object-side of the Cartesian dualistic split between the subject and the object of knowledge (recall the s R o model). The opposite position, that of a subjectivist or idealist epistemology, emphasizes the subjective and sees truth as originating in the subject-side of the supposed split, and so is hardly compatible with a behaviouristic approach to psychology. For how could we reconcile the behaviourist's focus on the external alone with a belief that only the subjective or the 'ideational' is really true? Nor does a radical behaviourism fit well with the co-constitutional epistemological model I have been presenting in this book. For in this new model - which rejects the Cartesian or's R o' split from the outset the subject-in-relation-to-the-object-mteracfzon is the essential unit or locus of emergent truths. Truths in this model are thus highly contextualized within human experience. From this perspective, behaviourism's inattentiveness to the experiential domain neglects some of the essential elements of any psychological phenomenon. Furthermore, a co-constitutive model is incompatible with the concepts of 'raw data' and 'pure uninterpretted facts,' whereas those terms are often quite welcome in a Cartesian-objectivist-empiricist-behaviourist psychology. So it makes no sense to maintain a radical behaviourist approach at psychological level G while positing a subjectivist or a co-constitutional position at general epistemological level C. This would be an 'inconsistent paradigm,' in the sense that the positions adopted by the theory at different levels of inquiry would be quite in conflict with each other. Inconsistencies are not necessarily 'all or none/ In a given paradigm or set of arguments there may be degrees of coherence or incoherence. A complete logical inconsistency or contradiction (i.e., an argument for both 'a' and 'not a' at the same time) would be the extreme of incoherence. In any case, the above examples illustrate a pretty high degree of inconsistency. To avoid the confusion that inconsistencies inevitably create, we in the psychological field - both as theorists and as clinicians - must be as clear, as aware, and as explicit as possible about our own underlying philosophical presuppositions. The issues we encounter at psychologi-

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cal level G, being at the uppermost level of the hierarchy, are especially vulnerable to flaws in the underlying structure or coherence of a given paradigm. So it is of great practical value for us to 'know ourselves' philosophically, since the philosophical choices each of us makes at the deeper levels of our respective paradigms necessarily limit the theory choices coherently available to us at the psychological level of inquiry (assuming we want to avoid adopting incompatible assumptions). Psychological practitioners may be intrigued by the notion of examining the compatibilities and incompatibilities of various prominent psychological/psychotherapeutic theories with various sets of philosophical assumptions. In chapter 11 I use my hierarchical schema to tenatively classify several contemporary psychological theories in philosophical terms. The above arguments about coherence and consistency do not in any way imply that any psychological (or level G) theory can be merely deduced from its underlying philosophical positions at other levels. In the hierarchical structure I have employed, the range of possibilities available at higher levels may indeed be limited by the lower ones in terms of compatibility. But this is far from suggesting that the former as determined by the latter. As I mentioned in chapter 1, positions taken at lower levels of this hierarchy are not logically sufficient to either predict or determine positions taken at higher levels. Furthermore, in keeping with the phenomenologically based psychology I am developing, we must remember that our cares, imaginings, values, and projects play a fundamental role in the very structuring of our perceptions. Emotional (and thus psychological) factors like those strongly influence the structures even of our ontological, epistemological, and other philosophical positions. This reminds us again of the dialogical or mutually influencing relationships found among the various levels of theoretical inquiry as these present themselves in everyday life and practice (or as Husserl has put it, in the Lebenswelt or 'life world'). This, of course, argues against any form of 'philosophical determinism' in which one's philosophy would simply determine one's psychology. For conceptual and heuristic purposes we can usefully and meaningfully proceed in the hierarchical manner I've taken; but we must also bear in mind the ongoing, mutually influencing, dialogical relationship in the life world between the psychological level proper (G) and its more obviously philosophical counterparts. Similarly, at the other extreme, we should be quite wary of argu-

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ments suggesting a sort of 'psychological determinism' (i.e., the position that one's psychology determines one's philosophy). The interactional patterns among the issues at the various levels of the hierarchy at any given time are better seen as part of a complex field or system of phenomena. Simplistic, linear thinking just doesn't account well for this class of phenomena. Having raised the issue of coherence within a given paradigm, I now further develop the new paradigm, illustrated by the Beams-ofLight-through-Time model, as one consistent with many of the phenomenological insights espoused in previous chapters. Further Development of the Beams-of-Light-through-Time Model I began to develop a phenomenologically based psychological theory with concepts such as the CsR—K^) ontological (level B) model, the co-constitutional general epistemological model, the Beams-of-Lightthrough-Time model, Heidegger's multifaceted concept of 'Being-inthe-World/ and the 'purple zone'-centred interactional model of the philosophical anatomy of the psychotherapy situation. In the following section I further develop a multileveled, phenomenological, psychological paradigm. This will extend the Beams-of-Light-through-Time model yet again. As we explore the issue of temporality and its significance to human experience, we will find that our model needs to be multi-dimensional as well as multifaceted. At the end of chapter 41 began to summarize Heidegger's 'existential analytic of Dasein' - that is, some essential features of human existence to be dealt with by any phenomenologically informed psychological theory. In the following passage I reiterate these conclusions from chapter 4 The particular Beam-of-Light-through-Time that is human experience will always possess, as a minimum, the following structural or formal qualities: 1 Human reality is always experienced within the context of an ongoing relationship to a field of meaningful objects. This phenomenological world (i.e., this world as it is experienced) is constantly being organized and reorganized, patterned and repatterned in a fieldlike manner in accordance with our concerns or cares of the moment. This phenomenological world is also always of finite extent, that extent being limited to within a given horizon (or set of horizons along various dimensions).

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2 Human reality is always heading toward and anticipating the future in terms of possibilities, goals, hopes, projects, and so on. All of these invariably are also experienced within the broader time context. That is, even our most future-directed projects can be understood only against the background of, or in the light of, our past experiences and interpretations of our present position. 3 Our perception of our situation is always interpretive whether we are focusing on its past, present, or future aspects or all of these in combination. We always interpret our situation in the light of our prior understandings and our cares, concerns, and values. These interpretations (i.e., the interpretive structuring or organization of our perceptual experiences) are always present although they may occur at different levels of reflective awareness. That is, for these interpretations to happen, we needn't be consciously aware of them or deliberately trying to make them. They occur both at prereflective and at more reflective, conscious, and deliberately reasoned out levels of awareness - sometimes simultaneously. 4 The caring and anticipatory qualities of human experiencing necessarily involve some element of emotion, imagination, anticipation, and creativity. All of these are inherent to every act of perception (even if only in rudimentary form). 5 The lived body is a key element of the situation from which we view the world. Human perception is phenomenologically experienced as always coming from within an embodied perspective. Even in the special case of dissociative, 'disembodied' experiences, the experiences are still described in positional terms (e.g., as in 'looking down at my body'). In such cases, however, one's sense of embodiment is experienced as peculiar - that is, one's usual mode of embodiment is experienced as conspicuously altered, absent, or missing. 6 Phenomenologically, the world tends to be experienced as a social one - that is, as one peopled with others. Part of this sense of Mitseii or 'Being-with-Others' (Heidegger's terms) is acknowledged in the assertion that all human experience is necessarily embedded in an interpersonal, cultural, and historical context. The Primacy of Care When we look at human experience in terms of 'Being-in-the-World' (and 'in time'), we see that this understanding of man may also require different ways of looking at human psychology. Significant issues here

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are the primacy of the above-mentioned qualities and the primacy of relatedness-to-a-world, temporality, interpretiveness, emotion, imagination, anticipation, creativity, embodiedness, and 'Being-withOthers.' These are key features of all our initial perceptions, and also of all of our subsequent reflections and reinterpretations. In seeking a single simple term to summarize these features, I have arrived at the term care (following Heidegger, though he uses the term a bit differently). Our world(s) are always organized and structured in terms of our cares, or what we care about. Our goals, projects, wants, desires, values, beliefs, interpretations, and understandings, and our attributions of significance and meanings, all reflect our various cares. Maurice Merleau-Ponty titled his major work The Phenomenology Perception (1945), and in 1947 used the term 'the primacy of perception' as the title of a paper on the same topic. But it is our cares (or our set of cares at a given moment - or 'meanings/ if we apply Merleau-Ponty's terms) that organize and structure our perceptions as they happen. It is this current 'set of cares at a given moment' that provides the particular, individualized, metaphoric colouring(s) for one's world at any given moment (recall my depictions of the Beams-of-Light-through-Time model). Also, in the fluidity of our perceptions and in the continuously reinterpreting quality of the flow of our experience, we see reflected the fluidity of our specific set of momentary cares. Perhaps, then, it is better to speak here of the primacy of care, or the primacy of caring, rather than just the primacy of perception, since there is no perception that is not 'already organized' (to at least some extent) by our set of cares, meanings, and significances. That is, in human experience, caring comes first. Humans always care about something (or, more accurately, many things). Caring is omnipresent in human experience. This is a fundamental starting point for any psychology that strives to be consistent with the phenomenological underpinnings discussed in this work.1 This omnipresence of caring is perhaps the most fundamental feature of our existence - what truly distinguishes our peculiarly human mode of Being from that of inanimate objects, or 'things.' Things don't care, so methods for dealing with them can be more straightforward; they need not concern themselves with the current status of cares, for things have no cares. On the other hand, in the human world, our understanding of any given individual will rely, more than on anything else, on our ability to appreciate the status of his or her cares, in his or her current situation or life context. Descriptions of human beings that lack an appreciation of the emotional context of their cares are of little value to

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us. Such descriptions may be valid for describing certain features of non-living bodies (which are things in this sense). But for living humans, using such descriptions alone is like trying to locate a position on a map when given only the longitude or the latitude, but not both. Human experience is essentially multifaceted in the sense that the multitude of qualities listed above are inherent to the general 'structure of our experience' and also in the sense that human experience is organized, patterned, and structured in accordance with the interplay of a whole gamut of different types of cares. This is one reason why we need complex, multifactorial, field or systems type models to adequately understand, describe, or deal with human psychology. The classic 'natural science' approach of isolating (or trying to) one critical variable and adjusting it while holding (or trying to) all others constant, is enticing in theory but naively oversimplistic when it comes to dealing with the complex, peculiarly human phenomena of a lived world whose organization reflects a multiplicity of interacting and interactional cares. So the multifaceted nature of the human world reflects the multiplicity of our cares at any given moment. Furthermore, the concept of care as I understand it also implies a different sort of temporality to human life as compared with the way of Being of things. The fact of caring requires that any adequate understanding of human experience or psychology include an appreciation of human time or temporality as well. This is because our human experiences of our cares are always experienced within a particular time context, in such a way that we are always anticipating and imagining future possibilities for our world or situation. These anticipations (e.g., hopes, fears, projects) help us organize our perceptions of the moment.2 In contrast, things lack future-anticipating cares; they are dominated by present forces, which are caused or driven by past antecedents alone. This is not the case at all in the realm of human existence. Pastdriven, 'causal' explanations are always inadequate in the realm of human psychology, where the temporality is entirely different from that of the realm of things. Indeed, in the human realm the future may well be the most significant dimension of all when we try to understand where an individual is in his or her current life context. In the realm of things, the futural (anticipating) dimension is the least important; from the point of view of the thing, which by definition does not care, imagine, or anticipate, this dimension may not exist at all. Things may sometimes be adequately described in atemporal terms; people can never be.

184 Part IV: Psychology The Primacy of Temporality When we look closely at the concept of care and at the multidimensional quality of human experience, we see that some of the many dimensions inherent to the human context are temporal or time ones, not just spatial or space ones. For implicit in our notion of care is the notion of change - that our world can change and indeed is always changing in various ways. These changes are what we care about. That is, we care about what changes, in what ways, how fast, with what consequences, and so on. And change, of course, is a temporal term. Human experience is always 'within time' or within a temporal context; this is fundamental to an adequate human psychology. And again, it does much to distinguish the human mode of Being from the mode of Being of things. At any given point in time, the domain of human experience is anything but static or complete. The 'moment' is itself an abstraction; our experiential world(s) are ones of very fluid systems 'in process.' That being said, these worlds are not without limits, and various types of equilibria occur in them as well. In the world of lived experience, various elements are constantly being highlighted while others fade into the periphery - into the relative shadows of our awareness. There is a vast continuum of levels of awareness within which dynamic interchange is ongoing. Fluctuations continuously occur, with some elements 'brightening' into the foreground while others fade (or are pushed) into the relative background. The constantly changing status of these elements is mainly the result of our continuously changing and developing sets of wants, expectations, and projections into the future, in the light of our ongoing experiential feedback and reinterpretations of our world. That is, our context of cares and understandings is constantly evolving. Time, or our temporality, is thus the key feature of our way of being. The 'essence' of human existence is becoming. Our imaginative anticipation of our future possibilities in the light of our personal, historically given situation, and our feelings about where we are coming from, where we are now, and where we want (or dread) to be next, continually structure and restructure the meanings and significances of our experiential world at any given moment. As 'caring beings/ our very perception - especially in terms of what is highlighted as foreground or not - is structured by our feelings and imaginings. At the same time, our past, our situation, and the 'giveness,' 'throwness/

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or 'unyieldingness' qualities of the world establish the limits or outer horizons within which the variabilities and possibilities of both perception and action occur. Our Epistemological Situation and the Concept of 'Horizons' Revisited The above positions are consistent with my philosophical project. The ontological status of the world, which stands at least partly independent of us (see chapter 2), and which exceeds our complete knowledge, is still acknowledged. In any of the figures showing the Beams-ofLight-through-Time model, this is indicated by the 'O' (for object or world) portion(s), which are seen to be partly within our horizons of experience and perception and partly beyond them. The 'giveness' and 'unyieldingness' qualities of these relatively immutable 'facts of the world' (i.e., the fact that some things won't change or won't completely change simply because we want them to) place the firmest limits on our range of possibilities. This is true in terms of both our perceptions and our actions. Thus, though our perceptions are structured and organized in accordance with our cares, even our cares do not have an infinite or unlimited freedom regarding what we will see. Recall our concept of the 'horizon.' The horizon is an essential feature of the co-constitutional epistemological stance and is central to the Beams-of-Light-throughTime model. This is as opposed to a subjectivist or idealist stance, according which to one's cares, ideas, and subjectivity have free reign over all of perception (whether consciously and wilfully or not). The epistemological status of one's particular world is always limited by one's personal horizon - more accurately, horizons (as the multiplicity of our many cares and their interactional patterns require us to embrace a multifaceted or multidimensional concept of horizon/ horizons). But these horizons vary in 'width' over time, depending on the situation and on the degree of abstraction with respect to the particular issues in question. For instance, with fairly abstract issues, our 'horizons of imagining' are generally wider than our 'horizons of possible action.' On a more concrete level, this author's 'horizons for writing' are much wider than his 'horizons for drawing.' A more situational and developmental change in horizon is seen in the assertion that one's 'horizons for understanding King Lear' are likely wider after years of study and many readings than they would be for a grade nine student reading that play for the first time.

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This idea that potentially, horizons can widen through experience brings us back to my earlier discussions about hermeneutics and the prospects for making progress in knowledge over time even though 'we can never know it all.' Later in this chapter I will deal with the concept of widening one's horizons in terms of the goals of psychotherapy. We will see that psychopathology can perhaps be defined as a restriction of an individual's range of possibilities, or a significant narrowing of his or her horizons as a whole. The aim of treatment, therefore, would be to free up more of those possibilities, or widen that individual's horizons. But more on that later. The Primacy of Emotion Let us return now to our discussion of the concepts that I have mentioned as central to an adequately human psychology. I have already asserted the primacy and omnipresence of care. When we consider the term 'care/ we readily see that is an emotional term. That is, 'care' implies that emotion is present. It is hard to conceive of caring about something without at least some emotional feeling or significance being inherent to that caring. So when I speak of the primacy of care, I am also implying the primacy of emotion. That is, I am speaking of the inextricable presence of emotion (or feelings), as an integral aspect of all human perceptions and experiences. At first glance, this does not seem so very radical; yet in fact, it is quite inconsistent with a number of psychological perspectives that explicitly or implicitly maintain that 'rational' and 'emotional' spheres of the human psyche are sharply separated. Abstract splits like this, such as 'reason and emotion' and 'cognition and affect/ are quite similar to the Cartesian dichotomies that I find so lacking and that I rejected early on. The primacy of emotion as the central core of our psychological being may not come as a surprise to many current clinicians, but it is certainly not the only way in which thinking in the field has run. Various philosophical and psychological theorists have separated 'reason and emotion/ 'the intellect and the passions/ and so on, for thousands of years. In contrast, Heidegger, for instance, with his Being-in-the-World paradigm, defined the Being of Dasein (Man) as care, and saw 'scientific' knowing as merely a 'founded' (or secondary) mode of isolating and relating to objects in an abstracted way, not as the primary way in which we relate to the world. Our 'cares' necessarily involve emotions -

Level G, Part One: The General Context of Human Experience 187 how we feel about the things, situations, and others of our past, present, and anticipated possible futures, describes our cares. And our cares, as they are lived out in the world, structure our experience. From this perspective, everything in human life is emotional. This is not to say that reason, intellect, and cognition do not occur or are illusions. It does, however, argue two points about them that have by no means been universally accepted by other psychological theories: 1 Neither 'reason,' nor a purely receptive or passive cognitive perception, precedes emotion in human experience. Nor are these cotemporal or synchronous with it in origin. That is, emotion is primary, and abstract or 'scientific, knowing-reason' comes only later. 2 Human reasoning or cognitive knowing can never be 'pure' - that is, completely 'uncontaminated' by emotion and entirely isolated from it. And to imagine that it could be would be to misunderstand the nature and groundedness of this phenomenon. The first of these statements will not be new or problematic to most psychodynamic, developmental, or evolutionary psychological theories, but it is quite contradictory to several mainly rationalist approaches, which tend to think of reason and emotion as radically separate faculties of Mind that can be studied in isolation, or that can be combined in an additive manner. The great increase in knowledge and research in cognitive science and neuroscience has led many (or reflected the belief of many) to look on cognition as if it can be primary and pure. Even some cognitive psychology writings geared toward psychotherapy make it sound as if emotions are secondary and reflect only - or in the most extreme examples are actually 'determined by' - the contents of our thoughts and cognitions ('distorted' though these may be). See for instance David Burns's statement that 'your thought actually creates the emotion' in chapter 1 of his enormously popular book Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy (1980:12). Similarly, the literature on 'artificial intelligence' regularly talks about emotion as if it were a mere epiphenomenon that we can simply add on at some point to a primary, purely calculative machine. Our culture's fascination with the rapidly developing field of computers and cybernetics reflects and often encourages this sort of belief. The somewhat elusive but seemingly plausible 'emotion chip' addition for robots or computers in science fiction is perhaps the pinnacle of the emotion-as-

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epiphenomenon line of thought. Biologists - evolutionists in particular - tend to see the argument that emotions can be 'programmed' as precisely backwards. Such an approach may be fine in dealing with computer systems and other machines that are not 'caring creatures/ but it cannot be carried through into the human sciences without seriously misrepresenting the basic nature of the subject matter. Human experience is always caring, and human memory is always emotional. Recall our case discussion of sexual abuse and false memory in chapter 7, and just how emotional, 'care'-ful, and 'concern'-ful the various participants' memories and interpretations of past events were. Memory here is understood as a more active, complex, fluid, temporal, contextually reinterpretable or restructurable process-phenomenon. This is a far different thing from the ill-named 'computer memory.' The latter is a passive, static, non-anticipating, non-temporal, non-caring, 'thing' sort of memory. It is much more akin to one's written notes or to taped recordings than to what one actually remembers. Unfortunately, the same term, 'memory/ has been used to describe both these radically different phenomena - that is, the temporal, caring, contextualized, worlded phenomenon of human memory, and the thinglike passive storage of relatively static and uninterpretted data in a computer. The data have no meaning to the computer; in sharp contrast, all human experience is meaning-ful to us and is organized and interpreted precisely in terms of those meanings. The second of the above statements echoes the rejections of pure objectivism as described earlier at the general epistemological level (C). It also accords with the thinking of many 'postmodern' approaches and theorists in a variety of applied fields. It amounts to a sort of 'uncertainty principle' as applied to the limits of rationality in psychological theory. In the terms of the preceding two chapters, pure cognitions, pure knowledge, and pure uninterpreted facts necessarily fall outside the boundaries of the epistemological horizons specific to the field of psychology. As such they are not humanly accessible (by definition) and are not useful constructs in the endeavours of that field. In any case, the primacy and centrality of emotion and an appreciation of the emotion-laden nature of our perceptions and responses in our lived world(s) are necessary concepts for a psychological theory that seeks consistency with a paradigm based on ideas such as Beingin-the-World and on the Beams-of-Light-through-Time model. To me, a clinician, this feels like a good thing to insist on in our theories. People do not act simply 'reasonably' or 'emotionally.' 'Either/or' has no place

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here. Instead, people reason in the context of their feelings. Psychoanalyst/philosopher Donna Orange discussed this more integrated concept of reason and emotion in Emotional Understanding (1995). The Primacy of Imagination It is terribly artificial to abstractly separate reason and emotion in a dualistic manner at the psychological level. A radical dichotomy between the 'real' and the 'imaginary' is just as unwarranted. Imagination or 'the imaginary' is also part of the very fabric of our existence. It provides the necessary grounding for the anticipations that help structure our perceptions and understandings. This being so, there is an element of the imaginary in all of our experiences. It follows that to think in terms of a clear either/or distinction between the imaginary and the real would be misleading, as well as inconsistent with this new paradigm.3 In my discussions of temporality and care I have already touched on the importance of anticipation in both our experience and our behaviour. Since anticipation of possible future states involves a certain awareness of situations that are not (or are not yet) current ontological realities, imagining (or imagination) must be in play. The same applies to the 'presences' we feel of people, things, and situations remembered or sought for from the past (including the sense of someone, or something, being missing or absent). Thus, our imaginings are very much at the heart of our experience and an integral part of our epistemological reality. Imagination, Psychopathology, and the Centrality of the Experiential When we phrase our questions - as we sometimes do - in terms of, 'Are these experiences real or imaginary?' we are guilty of committing an overly abstract and inappropriate disjunction. Yet this either/or approach is often encountered in psychiatric and psychological textbooks, in their descriptions - indeed, their definitions - of many psychopathological symptoms. Especially when the authors cling to objectivist general epistemological level positions and to correspondence theories of validity. For example, that paradigm sees clinical phenomena such as hallucinations, delusions, illusions, confabulations, and 'distortions of the past' as part of a class of 'mental' (i.e., merely subjective) phenomena,

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which are judged to be lacking in correspondence with their 'factual objective' counterparts in external reality. Thus, we can find these experiences defined in traditional textbooks as 'false perceptions/ 'false beliefs/ or, more recently, as 'false memories' (see for instance the definitions offered in the widely used Comprehensive Textbook of Psychiatry (Sadock and Sadock, 7th edition, 2000: 681-3). This either/or, 'true/false/ 'imaginary/real' dichotomizing is far from hidden. Though its rootedness in the particular philosophical biases noted earlier is rarely acknowledged or examined in detail. Yet it is only within the Cartesian framework, which radically separates the 'subject(ive)' and the 'object(ive)/ the 'mental' and the 'physical/ that these approaches make any sense at all. (Recall Descartes's original split of Being into two types - res mensa or mental/spiritual/nonextended-in-space substance, and res extensa or extended/spatial/physical substance). Definitions like those above, in order to be coherent, require the judgments of an objectivist framework; they also require a correspondence theory of truth that values the objective as more real than the subjective. How else could one meaningfully refer to any experiential or perceptual phenomenon with a term like 'false' - a term not really about immediate experiences at all, but referring rather to our later validational assessments of, or judgments subsequently made abo such experiences. These philosophical issues may be highly significant in a clinical context. The application of Cartesian-objectivist-correspondence-theorybased terms such as false perceptions, false beliefs, and false memories may be especially problematic in clinical situations. For if human perceptions are always limited and interpretive (as I've maintained), and if imagination is an essential element of all of our experience, what do these terms really mean? Without the notion of an external ideal with which perception must correspond, how can an experience be false? An experience is either experienced or not; just as a sensation of pain is either felt or not. It cannot be 'false.' The 'falsehood' arises not in terms of the experience itself but rather in terms of some (perhaps causal) interpretation or attempt at an explanation of the experience in its wider, worldly, meaning-ful context. Clinically significant phenomena such as hallucinations, delusions, and confabulations are far from lacking experiential impact. And they are never completely cut off from the contexts of their worlds, no matter how bizarre those experiences may seem. The inconsistencies between these psychopathological phenomena and the experiences of others -

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and the experiences of the patients themselves at other points in time are of course usually quite painful to those unfortunate individuals who run against them. They are terribly debilitating; they limit possibilities and constrict horizons. These patients certainly need whatever help we can offer. But to accurately appreciate their situations, we have to acknowledge that these inconsistencies with the experiences of others - even if we view them in terms of 'distortions/ or as phenomena that lack correspondence with others' experience of the world - are relative rather than absolute. That is, it can be helpful to describe the deluded or hallucinated experience as one that involves a much higher degree of inconsistency or incoherence with the experiences of other people or other times. This is not, however, the same as stating in absolute terms that the patient's experience is 'false' or 'untrue' or 'merely subjective' (while that of the clinician is presumably 'true,' 'correct,' or 'objective'). To do so is perhaps the ultimate in empathic failure - surely not something that a contemporary clinician would want to be guilty of. In the paradigm I've been developing, all experiences, being coconstituted, involve a blending of relatively 'subjective' and relatively 'objective or world-ly' elements (as do all human phenomena). But this still allows for some variation in (and assessment of) the overall coherence of one's perceptions, beliefs, and understandings at various times and in various conditions and situations. So we need not abandon everything connected with a correspondence theory of truth and its methods provided we can modify or relativize the findings of these approaches so as to make them more consistent with the somewhat more humble claims of the 'broad coherence' approach to validation (within the proposed epistemology appropriate to the specific field of psychology - see chapter 7). An example: A patient (male) is seen in hospital and is judged to be delirious. Terrified, he complains of frightening visual and tactile illusions and hallucinations. His perceptions are not false. They are quite real - that is, he really is experiencing them. What we judge to be false are the patient's interpretations or explanations of these experiences when he tells us that he sees 'demons in the room' and feels 'insects on his skin.' Clearly, these explanations are inconsistent with the experiences of the others in the room. Furthermore, prior to the very high fever and other metabolic abnormalities that have also been noted as part of this patient's current condition, he never believed in demons. In terms of treatment, we have no problem here assessing this pa-

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tient's metabolic abnormalities and attempting to remedy them using medications (e.g., to bring down the fever, to treat underlying conditions we can identify, even to relieve the symptoms of psychosis). We would not reject any of this solely on the basis of it being too 'natural scientific' an approach. That would betray an unhelpful prejudice. Rather, we would look at this as an area in which our more natural-scientific methods might be most useful, since we are dealing with some of our most 'physical/ 'bodily/ or 'organic' aspects. These are, after all, the necessary grounding conditions that make human experience possible. Without a basically intact and properly functioning (e.g., breathing) body, there can be no human experience. This does not make the body, or breathing, 'the cause of the mind/ even though a living body is a necessary condition for the possibility of the human experiences of caring, feeling, thinking, and so on. At the same time, there is always more to deal with than just the bodily or most thinglike aspects of our existence, and this 'more' is what makes each of us uniquely human. Whatever happens to us bodily - or otherwise in terms of the givens, thefacticity,4 the relatively unyielding and uncontrollable aspects of our worlds and our situations - we also always carry with us our own particular personal-historical, contextualized, situational interpretations, understandings, significances, and meanings associated with our experiences. The content and 'colourings' of our experiences of the events in our world depend on such a multitude of factors that even an in-depth knowledge of the most external of these factors may tell us little about the personal impressions the set of conditions or events will make on a given individual. Returning to our delirious patient, he has been diagnosed and medically treated and the delirium has subsided. The treating physician comes in and informs the patient that he had been seriously dehydrated, febrile, and psychotic - all presumably the result of a serious infection that has been treated with powerful antibiotics. The patient is told he is 'cured' and can go home again. Yet the patient is still confused. He has a vague anxiety about a recent terrifying and psychologically traumatic experience, but his memory of it is very patchy. In fact, he is shocked when he's told he's been in hospital for a week already. He's not sure if this is all a dream or not. Embarrassed, he asks the doctor about some frightening thoughts and feelings he had that there were demons and bugs in the room. He's told with a smile, 'Those were hallucinations, they weren't real, they didn't really happen, you had a false perception, it was all in your head.' A member of the cleaning staff

Level G, Part One: The General Context of Human Experience 193 smirks as she overhears this. She mutters, 'If it was all in his head, how come I had to keep changing the sheets when he drenched them in sweat seven times the first day!' The patient does not understand the term 'false perception.' Nor does it make sense to him. He now feels even more uncertain of the reality and validity of his own experience: 'What's real and what isn't? I know I felt something! Am I going crazy? How solid is the world around me anyway?' The patient appropriately thanks the physician for the excellent care he's received in the healing particularly of his most bodily aspects. But there is still more with which to deal. His experiential world feels as if it's got a hole in it. He feels shaken up and very vulnerable. Only now that his delirium and its underlying organic causes have been dealt with can he reflect on his experience and its meanings to him. All of this should be attended to. It is mainly with regard to these reflective, experiential aspects to the meanings in our lives that the role of the psychotherapist comes in. With that in mind, one feature of objectivist-correspondence theories that must be outright rejected here - where our objectives are geared mainly toward the realm of psychotherapy - is its overvaluation of the external at the expense of the experiential. Such an approach is completely inconsistent with the primacy of care, emotion, imagination, and so on as the crux of the human way of being. The emphasis for the Beams-of-Light-through-Time paradigm clinician must swing over to the experiential and the meaning-ful; that being said, the clinician must still acknowledge the importance of the person's embeddedness in a world with many relatively unyielding qualities (including those relating to the body's anatomical and physiological limitations). Within the realm of psychoanalytic/psychological/psychiatric treatment, clinicians of this ilk find themselves no longer asking whether the patient's experience is true or false. Rather, they find themselves asking, 'How can I best understand, relate to, and deal with the particular blendings and mixtures of cares, concerns, imaginative projects, meanings, and significances that comprise and structure this patient's world?' and 'What are the likely present and future consequences of this patient's beliefs and perceptions in terms of his projects, relationships, and feelings as a whole?' Here we would not call a delusion a 'false belief (as in the true or false mode above). Rather, we would understand that some of the patient's imaginative components or particular projects or motives are dominating perception and reasoning to the exclusion of others. The con-

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cept of narrowing one's horizons is again applicable here. We can now define the 'pathological' - that which requires treatment - as whatever limits a patient's possibilities and/or causes pain, suffering, dysfunction, or other undesirable consequences. And we can now reconceptualize treatment not in terms of trying to exorcise the patient of the imaginary. Rather, we are accepting the imaginary as a fundamental and valued part of the structure of experience, with the goal of acknowledging and freeing up our patient's imaginative and active possibilities in areas where they've become rigid, narrowed, and restrictive of other aspects of his or her experience. The clinical diagnosis of 'delusion' generally involves examining how rigidly the patient rejects any alternative possibilities. In pragmatic terms, this can be highly significant. (Of course, by those criteria, some dogmatic clinicians could equally well be described as delusional.) Good clinicians have long recognized delusions usually contain some 'kernel of truth.' We have also made good use of many important findings based on more natural-scientific research methods. For example, altered dopamine levels in the brain predispose one to the sorts of clinical phenomena described above (see Sadock and Sadock and many other textbooks). However, though such 'externally real' elements are very important to our understanding, they never explain away the experiential aspects. As clinicians, our ultimate goals relate to the experiential domain - that is, we try to alleviate suffering and foster creative enjoyment and fulfilment. The rest is only our means to that end. Thus, the clinicians of the Beams-of-Light-through-Time model's paradigm, like its theoreticians and the judge in chapter 7, find themselves drawing on information gathered from a variety of sources in trying to assess, understand, and deal with phenomena such as psychotic symptoms. Temporality and Motivation When we return to the question of consistency raised at the beginning of this chapter, the following points seem evident: • It is quite possible for an objectivism-based theory of psychology to be consistent with a philosophical paradigm in which our peculiarly human way of Being is not much different from that of things - that is, with a model in which awareness, consciousness, care, context, and temporality are not so important that they affect the very na-

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ture and structure of the reality of the human world and all human experiences. • This is not possible for a psychological theory founded on the phenomenological premises or assumptions I've advanced. A phenomenological psychology cannot be consistent with a philosophical paradigm that treats human beings as merely one (albeit complex) thing or object of study among the various other things and objects of the world. In an objectivist model, the 'facts of the world' simply are as they are. Humans may discover them (as premade), but they do not create or cocreate them. Nor do they add anything substantial to them. In such an approach, human beings themselves may consistently be seen in static and 'essentialist' ways. Similarly, a person might be seen as a complex dynamic system, but still as an essentially dosed system. That is, a person may be something that in theory or in principle could be described in its totality (i.e., as a thing that endures rather than as a process of becoming). The basic premises of objectivist models are inconsistent with those of the phenomenological one I am developing. Ontologically and epistemologically, the phenomenological paradigm explicitly rejects concepts such as the pure, complete, 'objective' fact and the static, non-contextual, isolated subject. Thus, for the sake of consistency, in describing this new psychological paradigm, we must be careful not to resort to the myriad of concepts and approaches that rely on these 'fictions.' This new paradigm sees people and their worlds as never disconnected, static, and fully definable (or thing like). It does not see human beings as ever being either totally complete or totally indifferent (un-'caring'). Indeed, this new psychology understands human experience as occurring fundamentally in a context of relatedness, as always caring, and as an essentially temporal process of becoming. But what do these abstract terms - especially 'temporality' - really mean for us at the psychological level? What are these phenomenological philosophers really getting at? And what is its significance to psychological theory and psychotherapy? Let us consider. In a non-dualistic framework, the truths of human experience are seen as 'co-constituted' and the traditional boundaries between self and world, internal and external, real and imaginary are much less clear and much more fluid. In a similar vein, Heidegger, Sartre, and others argue that our boundaries (including our temporal ones)

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aren't easily fixed and definable either. They describe 'temporality' (our 'Being-in-Time') as a crucial dimension of our uniquely human way of Being-in-the-World. In the 'commonsense' (or Newtonian) notion of time, time represents an external series of 'nows' or 'moments/ or a set of fixed, objective 'whens.' From that vantage point it seems to be obvious that we exist precisely now, at this moment, in the present and in the present alone. But this funny term 'exist-ing,' defined in existential philosophy as a process of continually becoming (but never being complete, while alive), seems to fit badly with the snapshot view of time as an absolute, external series of moments. Putting aside for the moment the fact that even in the physics of things we now recognize time as relative and as not absolute, psychologically (or experientially) 'living solely in the moment' seems to be an impossibility. To 'live solely in the moment' would involve abandoning all our hopes and fears (which always anticipate future possibilities), and rejecting our past experiences and personal-historical contexts as meaningless. This goes far beyond mere semantics. When we look closely, we find that our phenomenological world (i.e., the experiential world of meanings and significances in which we emotionally live) is filled with presences and possibilities of anticipated and remembered things and situations that are not actually physically present at the moment. Heidegger described our primary (motivational) relationship to the world as one of 'ready to hand' instrumentality - that is, the world and its objects are primarily/first recognized and organized in accordance with our perceptions of their potential utility. The world is first experienced as a world of 'equipment' for us to use in terms of our trying to actualize our projects (i.e., to get what we want but don't yet have). Obviously, this view is only possible because of our capacity to imaginatively anticipate a future state of affairs that as yet is not but might become. But here we note an odd consequence: we then see our perceptions in the present moment as structured by goals temporally belonging to an anticipated future! Certainly our past experiences and personal history also play a crucial role in defining the meaning-context in relation to which our present situation is understood. This is recognized by a variety of psychological theories and therapies. But the great significance and implications of our 'future-ality' are not so widely appreciated. Philosophers of this ilk go so far as to define man as a 'thrown projecter' - as a being that finds itself unchoosingly 'thrown' into a

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situation with a given and finite past (though one subject to multiple interpretations), and who then creatively 'pro-jects itself (literally, 'throws itself forward') into the future by imaginatively anticipating possible changes or alternative states of the world (or parts of it) in accordance with its cares. So to define the boundary or horizon of our experience at any given moment we must include not only spatially present objects and their meanings, but also the current significances and 'presences' of a multiplicity of objects, meanings, and understandings as recalled from our past, as well as a whole set of various anticipated future possibilities. Of these latter, some will be more or less expected to become actualities, and others not, and each may come with its own, sometimes complex emotional valences attached. We now recall that the meaning-structure of our present Being-in-theWorld is being continuously restructured - for example, in terms of various figure/ground relationships and emphases depending on our current set of cares and the information/interpretations we have at hand. But the set of future possibilities is continuously changing as well (of necessity), as some of these possibilities become actualities and others don't, as some needs get met, as some projects get finished, and so on. Thus, our set of projects, goals, cares, and wants - which structure our immediate perceptual apprehensions of the world in its context as 'equipment' - are constantly being revised in a complex feedback dynamic. For example, as I sit here writing I am absorbed in the work. My project is to finish this section before I go home. I pay little attention to the other objects on my desk. Suddenly, the phone rings and my world has changed. The prospect of finishing this page recedes into the background as the loud noise and sudden visual presence of the phone to my left grab the foreground. The field of my anticipations is now dominated by wonders of who might be phoning. Should I let the machine answer it? Could it be an emergency? As these cares come to dominate the moment, I lose my train of thought on the book. Even the hoped for accolades for my book as projected into the distant future have receded into the very far periphery of my awareness. My world has changed. I answer the phone and find it was a wrong number. My worries about Mr Smith's possible emergency now dissipate. As I look at my papers I feel the loss of the moment and of the momentum I previously had. Suddenly I feel restless, and all else fades into the background as my thirst takes centre stage. All else loses its urgency

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and will wait for my new project - getting a drink of water - to be actualized. Thus my phenomenological world is in a state of fluid and continuous change. This doesn't make it entirely random - it no more so than the continuous flowing of a river. It is indeed an ongoing, non-static process. And it is one that - unlike the river - derives many of its even momentary significances from the possibilities of anticipated futures as much as from present actualities and remembered pasts. In this way, the three temporal dimensions (or ekstases) of past, present, and future are 'blended' together in human experience, much as was seen in the blendings of subject and world, self and other, described elsewhere in this model. The psychological implications of this seemingly abstract philosophical discussion may be of great importance. First of all, when we emphasize the importance of anticipation (i.e., the imaginative projection of oneself into future possibilities) in our experience, it becomes clearer that tools, methods, and concepts designed to understand non-anticipatory, or 'atemporal' things are inadequate to understand people. Things as an unconscious, unreflective class of Being obviously cannot anticipate (or remember). This quality allows them to simply be what they are (and only that) in the present. They have no dynamically-restructuring-itself world of meanings; we do. On the other hand, we cannot not anticipate, nor can we not restructure or reinterpret the world. Nor can we completely not remember. This is the essence of what I mean when I describe human beings as temporal beings or beings with 'temporality.' I am referring to the meaning-and-world restructuring aspects of the way we live in time as a continuously developing process of becoming in a future-oriented temporal context. This does not merely refer to the external historical facts of having a beginning, a life span, and an end; for that aspect of time can equally describe things as well. The emphasis on the future here is psychologically interesting, especially when we look at traditional theories of motivation. Most such theories tend to describe motivation as 'driven' mainly from the past. They conceive of human behaviour as being 'pushed' (somewhat passively) as it were 'from behind' (from the past), by drives, or by instincts, or by psychological deficits, or by learned patterns of (past) reinforcement. In the phenomenological approach, with its emphasis on 'futurity/ motivation is seen more as a 'pulling' or 'enticing' process from the

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future, since action choices are made mainly in accordance with one's imaginatively anticipated future possibilities. Obviously, our past experiences are of enormous importance when we attribute significances to the various objects and projects to which we relate. They also heavily influence (one hopes) our judgments as to the feasibility or actualizability of the particular projects we imagine. But even when we feel a great urgency at a given moment to look for gratifying possibilities to satisfy a particular need (which momentarily overshadows all others), the possible ways of acting to meet the need felt still tend to be multiple and far less deterministically predictable than many past-driven motivational theories would suggest. This is not to promote an extreme 'voluntaristic' position, which might overvalue the conscious, reflective, voluntary aspects of such choices of action. Indeed, choices of action seem sometimes to be made on the basis of very limited levels of awareness. For example, in terms of the structuring or restructuring of our perceptions, these choices of emphasis mainly occur at a prereflective level of awareness. That is, they largely occur without our conscious deliberation. Similarly, no 'internal representation' is required to mediate them. Psychodynamically, they can be thought of as unconscious or preconscious choices, but they are choices or selections all the same. In terms of theories of psychological motivation, what is especially interesting - and different - about this approach is that it emphasizes the future rather than the past as the main temporal locus of motivation. Unlike most contemporary psychological theories, and necessarily unlike any deterministic ones, the emphasis here is on the uncertainby-definition future rather than on the potentially more fully knowable past. This approach is thus incompatible with psychologies that adhere to determinisms of the sort that make claims to some potential for certainty in the predictability of human experience and behaviour. Physics, Philosophy and 'Forces': Other Notions of Time and Space and Possible Implications for a Different Way of Looking at 'Drives/ 'Forces/ and Motivation in Psychology The concepts of 'time' and 'space' have interested theorists in both physics and philosophy for centuries. Over that time various perspectives, paradigms, and postulated entities have come and gone as apparently better, simpler, more comprehensive, more accurate, or otherwise

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more useful ways of understanding the phenomena in question have taken their places. A classic example of this from the history of science was the 'Copernican Revolution/ in which the enormously complex and cumbersome earth-centred models of the orbits of the moving celestial bodies were abandoned in favour of the sun-centred models developed from the work of such astronomers as Copernicus, Brahe, and Galileo. The solar-centric model was found to be vastly superior in the long run, based on a variety of validation criteria. But it was accepted only after enormous resistance. In philosophy, the eighteenth-century German philosopher Immanual Kant launched his own sort of 'Copernican Revolution' through his ideas about the nature of time and space. Kant, of course, did not discuss the movements of the planets. His interests were more along the lines of inquiry raised by Descartes and others - inquiries that questioned the ontological and epistemological problems of 'What, in our perceptions, really comes from the outside of us, and what really comes from inside?' Prior to Kant it had generally been accepted (and rarely questioned) in both physics and philosophy that 'time' and 'space' were properties of the outside world, not of us. Kant postulated the reverse. It was partly the radicality of this reconceptualization that led him to describe it as a sort of 'Copernican Revolution.' In his most famous book, The Critique of Pure Reason (1781), Kant argued that time and space were not properties of the outside world at all; rather, they were a part of the format the human mind must use in organizing or structuring its perceptions. He referred to the necessary formal properties inherent to our minds as the 'categories.' He postulated that before any perception or mental representation of any outside object can be apprehended by us, it must be properly formatted in terms of these necessary (or 'categorical') properties of mind. In our computer age, this argument is perhaps easier to follow. Anyone who works with computers knows that they will only accept, store, or reproduce material that matches the specific requirements of the program being used. For example, this chapter can presently only be word-processed by conforming to the requirements of MS Word and MS Windows. But the latter are not properties of the English language in itself or on its own. Nor are they essential to the substance of this text. In its present form, however, prior to a hard-copy printing, the text can only be accessed in and through those programs. Kant saw the human mind in a somewhat analogous way. For him, the categories of time and space constituted the essential, mindimposed formatting required in order to perceive or to mentally or

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internally represent any external object. Thus time and space, for Kant, were conceived of (in modern terms) as the 'formatting' or 'structuring' requirements occasioned by our 'internal software,' rather than as properties of the external objects in themselves. In the terms I've used throughout this work, this amounts to saying that for Kant, time and space did not need to have any ontological-level value, existence, or status - that is, they didn't necessarily have an existence independent of us. In contrast, at the general epistemological level, they are always there, a priori (Kant's term) or of necessity. That is, none of our perceptions or knowledge can occur without them. According to Kant we can only perceive objects as within the mindimposed format of always seeing them as within time and space. This certainly adds a large subjectivistic (or idea-listic) flavour to his arguments. From such a Kantian, idealistic inspiration, one might be led to one of the possible extreme views on the nature of time and space. That is the view that both exist only as properties of our minds and have no absolute (or ontological) existence in the world as independent of us. At the opposite end of the spectrum is the view that time and space exist outside us as absolute and well-defined, completely mindindependent properties of external matter or Reality. This latter view is sometimes referred to as the Newtonian concept of time and space. In twentieth-century physics, of course, this view was seriously challenged by Einstein's Theory of Relativity. Though he didn't go to the idealistic extreme of some Kantians, Albert Einstein shocked the world of physics in the early twentieth century when in the Special Theory of Relativity (1905)5 he deabsolutized the notions of time and space that had dominated physics since Newton's time. With this theory he introduced the notion of the relativity of time and space - the notion that, for instance, an hour here might not last the same amount of time as an hour there, each being observed or measured by an outside observer. Similarly, neither need sizes or masses be constant. Einstein contended that one's physical context - one's 'frame of reference' - affected how quickly time passes. How fast the frame of reference itself is moving (or the objects within it) is of particular importance in this theory. For example, an hour - as measured by an astronaut's watch, or as assessed by the astronaut herself from within a swiftly moving spacecraft - would actually be measured by her counterparts on Earth (in a relatively slower-moving frame of reference) as lasting somewhat longer than an hour. Furthermore, the amount of the discrepancy would be

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calculable as a function of the relative disparity between the speeds of the two frames of reference with respect to each other. Complex equations aside, this tells us that even in as 'hard' a science as physics, a certain amount of perspectivalism and contextualism is required to best or most accurately describe our world. Many analogies with the epistemological and psychological arguments I have made come to mind here, but for the moment let us press on. The relativity of time as proposed in the Special Theory seems radical enough; the relativity of space (more precisely, of the space-time continuum) that he describes in his more comprehensive General Theory of Relativity6 is an even more striking concept for our purposes. Einstein's latter work includes a paradigm-shifting way of looking at gravity. The details of the physics are beyond the scope of our discussion, but the conclusions may be of great interest to us. Einstein's theory sees gravity less as an external 'force' that pushes or drives heavy objects together, and more as a function of the geometry of curvatures in the space-time continuum. In Einstein's theory of gravity, the space-time continuum is curved, or bent inwardly, where masses are involved. The greater the mass, the greater the bending of the spacetime continuum toward it. A multiplicity of masses (or objects with mass) demands a multiplicity of curvatures, and will result in a very complex geometry involving many interacting mass effects. Thus spacetime is anything but smooth. In addition, since mass effects are also a function of the distances between the masses, and since the universe is filled with objects in motion relative to one another, the curvatures are constantly changing as well. Thus, the shape of the space-time continuum is not static. Whether or not we follow or even agree with the physics argument on this matter, a novel and elegant reconceptualization can be seen in it. The very idea that a 'driving force of mysterious origin' model might be reconceived by postulating a complex geometrical arrangement is compelling. It reminds us of the elaborate orbits within orbits that had been postulated to account for the motions of the planets in the pre-Copernican, geocentric models. With the advent of the heliocentric model, these notions were no longer needed and were dropped, having lost their status as 'useful fictions.' The concept of the 'ether/ which was postulated by nineteenth-century physicists to fill the void of empty space, was similarly dropped in the subsequent century. In the field of psychology, an analogous argument for reconceptualizing some of our notions of 'drives' and 'psychic forces' can perhaps be made.

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At this point one might ask, 'Why are we doing this?' 'What is to be gained by pursuing this?' 'Is this just a diversion? Or does it have some relevance?' I answer that all of this may indeed be useful and relevant for our purposes precisely because we have a problem in the field of psychology that these concepts borrowed from physics may help solve. This problem involves the incompatibility of psychological drive theories and other forms of 'the past as pushing us' determinism, with notions of a more future-based theory of motivation and temporality as proposed for the Beams-of-Light-through-Time model. Though I favour a non-deterministic approach, I acknowledge that a tremendous amount of valuable psychological, psychotherapeutic, and especially psychoanalytic insight exists in the literature as expressed by the language of drive theory and 'psychic determinism.' Perhaps if we reconceive drives in such a way as to make them less incompatible with the Beams-ofLight-through-Time model, we will be better able to preserve or translate the wisdoms found in this literature for incorporation in the newer paradigm. This may be possible even if the conceptualizations of the drive theory framework are essentially insufficient or incomplete. With the advent of the Copernican model, astronomers did not throw out all the observations of their pre-Copernican counterparts. Rather, they used and reinterpreted them, and in so doing showed that the new model accounted better for the data as a whole. It is in this context that I seek to reinterpret some of the traditional concepts of psychoanalytic thinking as well, for use in the Beams-of-Light-through-Time model. Einstein's Theory of Gravity and Motivational Forces: Can 'Cares' Be Seen as Bending the Metaphoric Landscape of Our Phenomenalogical World(s) Much as 'Masses'Do in the World of Physics? If we can imagine, as Einstein did, gravity not as some mysterious rays of energy pushing massive objects together, but rather as simply the peculiar geometrical bendings of the multidimensional fabric of timespace around a centre of mass, perhaps we can do something similar in psychological theory. I have described the phenomenological world (i.e., the psychological world of human experience) as similarly 'bent.' It is bent, however, not by 'masses' in it, but rather by our cares, projects, and values. The epistemological and psychological structuring and restructuring, organizing and reorganizing quality of human experience to which I've often referred can here be seen as analogous to the 'bending of the time-space continuum' concept borrowed from physics.

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Can we then see our cares as bending the metaphoric landscape of our phenomenological or experiential world(s), much as 'masses' bend the world of physics? If our cares indeed replace masses in this description, perhaps our various 'drives' or 'drive-derivative impulses'7 constitute a set of relatively 'heavy' cares. That being so, these will have a very significant 'bending effect' on our current ways of experiencing our world. That being so, we will be able to make use of many of the findings gleaned, from, say, the drive-theory literature, with room left over for other sorts of cares (or sources of curvature) that we can apply to our phenomenological worlds. Notwithstanding all of this, I would still rather bury drive theory than praise it. Within my model, the landscape of the phenomenological world is continuously being reshaped in accordance with our field of cares and their respective 'weightings' of the moment, so it is possible that in terms of psychology, the whole notion of past-driven, pushing, motivational 'forces' is unnecessary and even misleading. At a more mundane level, it's quite difficult to think that when I accidentally knock a cup off my desk it falls to the ground because it went rolling down the curved slope of the time-space continuum that was bent in that direction. It's easier to say, 'Gravity pushed it down.' This pushing force we imagine may be in some respects a useful or practical fiction. Like 'the ether,' however, it may also be illusory. The notions of 'psychic energy'8 and 'drives,' which have been challenged so often in the psychoanalytic and non-psychoanalytic literature in recent decades, occupy a similar status: in some contexts they are useful fictions, in others they are misleading illusions. For our purposes, the notion that one's phenomenological world is being continuously restructured in accordance with our set of cares as reflecting the entire range of our temporality (i.e., as not being simply dominated by the past) is much preferred. The Five-Plus Dimensional Beams-of-Light-through-Time Model The complexity of this model is very great, since our experiential worlds and our cares of any given moment change far more rapidly and unpredictably than the masses of objects. Also, dealing with the gamut of future possibilities is a far more complex task than dealing with rather more narrowly defined sets of possible pasts. Once again, physics presents an interestingly similar situation: in quantum physics and quantum states, we must deal with a range of possibilities and/or

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probabilities as a group; we cannot deal with single, fixed possible outcomes. Science fiction is filled with concepts such as 'series of parallel universes/ and so on. Still, it seems that the psychological sphere is more complex even than this - it is probably the only sphere in which a person envisions future possibilities in advance (photons and electrons can't do this). Furthermore, this envisioning affects the very nature of the same person's phenomenological world.9 Anticipation's influence on present experience adds a whole new order of complexity to the human world. To come to grips with this aspect of human reality, it is probably best for us to add a whole other dimension to our understanding of our human psychological or existential context. We occupy a certain place in the world of three-dimensional space and the fourth dimension of time (as linearly aligned from the past through to the present). But beyond all this, the future and our anticipations of it exceed the horizons of a linear or one-dimensional conception of time. For the future carries within it - even for just one given project - an entire set of parallel, envisioned alternative possibilities. And many of these anticipated possible outcomes will have their own influences on the 'care structure' of our experiential worlds, even if they cannot all come to pass. For example, as I sit here at my desk, trying to finish this section by the end of the day, my anticipatory projections strongly influence how I approach the task, and how I perceive it. When I anticipate eventually having this book published and having it read by some young scholar who finds it inspirational and goes on to develop these ideas into something even better, I begin to feel more energetic and am glad there are still a few hours left in the day. But when I anticipate having trouble finding a publisher who doesn't say, 'This is good but we can't make money from it with such a limited audience,' I find myself growing fatigued, and notice I have phone calls to return and have to leave here by a certain hour. Then I feel like I'll never get the book done. Each of these anticipations, and my various other ones, perhaps occurring at several different levels of awareness, influence my experiential world. It would be exceptionally difficult to describe this situation diagrammatically. For this range of possibilities regarding the future of this project would have to be represented as perhaps a fifth dimension containing multiple possible positions, and of course I would also have to indicate where I am in terms of the other four dimensions as well. And that is just to describe the set of possible futures pertaining to only one of my projects! When we consider the multiplicity of our

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cares, projects, and so on as well as the possible interactions among them, we gain a better appreciation of what I described earlier as the multidimensional quality of our understanding of the world of human experience. So this model is probably too complex to represent with a diagram. However, models with five or more dimensions can probably be described using mathematical notation, even if we won't then be able to visualize the result. Visualizing in five-plus dimensions likely exceeds the imaginative horizons of any of us, but we can still grasp the idea that there are sides (or dimensions) to something that we cannot see (just as I cannot see all the sides of my desk at any given time, though I concede that the rest are still there). In this spirit, let us return to the Beams-of-Light-through-Time model. Consider its two-dimensional representations as perhaps helpful metaphors or useful oversimplifications of an essentially five-plusdimensional world that greatly exceeds our capacities at the drafting board. To capture the gist of the temporal dimensions of human experience, I have called the model the Beams-of-Light-through-Time one. We cannot picture a beam of light in five dimensions, so this idea must remain somewhat obscure. Nevertheless, by embracing the concept of the 'horizon/ which can be represented two-dimensionally, and by using our imagination to extend this concept to additional dimensions, we can glean a somewhat more comprehensive notion of the general context in which human experience takes place. As awkward and as abstract as this endeavour sounds, it is quite important. For unless we can appreciate what each of these many dimensions contributes to our phenomenological worlds, and to the truths of human experience, we will be missing some of the essential pieces to our puzzle. I conclude this section with the premise that inherently, human experience is both multifaceted and multidimensional. It is multifaceted in the sense that a plethora of different types of cares influence our perceptions at any given time. It is multidimensional in that to properly appreciate any one of these cares in its totality we must recognize its full temporality - i.e., that it has a history, a place in the present (with a set of current associations), and a set of anticipated future possibilities, and that each of these elements interacts with others of the same set, and with those of other cares as well. So if the general context and/or structure of our experience is something of a puzzle, it is a very complex puzzle indeed!

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The following non-clinical case brings this abstract discussion down to a much more concrete level. It illustrates how our phenomenological and experiential worlds are constantly being restructured along multifaceted and multidimensional lines even by the commonplace cares of everyday life. Multidimensional World Restructuring by the Cares of Everyday Life: Jeff's World Jeff was an active seventeen-year-old high school student with multiple cares on his mind. Today he had to make a small detour on the way home from school as his mother had asked him to pick up a few grocery items. As he meandered on roughly in the direction of several shops, his thoughts jumped from questions of which store to get the groceries at, to which of his subjects to study first tonight (as exams were coming up), to the all-important question of his weekend social plans. Of course, the latter concern preoccupied him most at that moment. Should he ask Julie out to a movie on Saturday? Or maybe Karen? Karen was more the picnic type - maybe Sunday would be better for her. Julie was really cute, but Karen was easier to talk to, and he sensed she liked him too. As he walked down the block he passed a younger kid carrying a hockey stick. His thoughts shifted to thinking about how he could arrange his studying tonight so that he could also catch the end of the hockey game on television. He now envisioned getting the groceries at the larger store near where he might also be able to pick up the tape he needed for his own hockey stick. Just as the presences of the two girls he was interested in faded out of his immediate world, he came to 'Susan park.' This park was actually named for the street it was on, but Jeff instantly thought of it as 'Susan park' because of his chance encounter there a few months ago with Susan, that great-looking girl from last year's English class. As he approached the park, distance became measured solely in terms of his distance from the bike path near the water fountain where he had briefly spoken to Susan that day. Glancing around today, he somewhat automatically found himself looking for traces of Susan on her bicycle. He smiled as he thought of her dark hair and pleasant smile. Not finding her, but feeling warm and excited at the thought of her, he found himself wandering up the bike path away from the store he'd had in mind. A honking horn from the traffic on the street startled him into noticing his misdirection. Pulling himself together, he told himself that perhaps he should study English first tonight.

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As he turned right and exited the park, he walked past a clothing store whose busty storefront mannequins wore tight, sexy sweaters. 'Boy, would Julie look great in one of those/ he thought as the street transformed itself into the potential venue of Saturday's date with Julie as he now envisioned it. The love story showing at that theatre over there would be perfect, and that cafe on this side seemed just the sort that Julie would like to go to after the show. But as he pondered his future conversation with Julie at the cafe, he noticed the 'fruits and nuts store/ which rapidly changed the scene again. 'Wow/ he thought, 'that's just the sort of place Karen would love! I can get some of that health food stuff she always talks about and then for sure she'll want to go on the picnic with me!' The whole Julie scene had given way to a Karen-centred scenario. 'And I can get my mom's fruit there too, but I'll still need to go somewhere else for the bread and milk.' Jeff went into the store, imagining his picnic with Karen. As he picked up a few items he became aware that he could save some time on his route home if he now didn't go to the big grocery store he'd been thinking of and instead got the bread and milk at a closer corner store. Still going through the fruit store, he noticed how all the vaguely seen packages in the distance looked as if they might be packages of the hockey tape he also sought. But, of course, on closer inspection they were not. That would have to involve another trip. Similarly, as he sought out his hockey stick tape in the fruits and nuts store, he saw a girl at the end of the aisle and quickly asked himself, 'Is that Karen?' Alas, it was not. He emerged from the store equipped with picnic supplies and fruit for his mother, but still no tape and no firm date for the weekend either. Back on the sidewalk, his vision was reoriented toward the corner store (with its bread and milk) in the opposite direction to the one he had been heading. The big grocery store, the Julie-theatre, and the Juliecafe receded well beyond his current horizon of awareness as he thought of the investment he'd now made in his Karen-centred hopes and plans. His walk now took him back past 'Susan park/ where again he began to glance around for Susan and thought, 'If only I could somehow arrange to go out with her someday.' It then struck him why he'd decided that English should be his studying priority that night. 'If only I'd done better in English last year, I might've been able to stay in the same class with Susan again ... Hey, "Study hard and you'll get the girl?" ... Yuck, I'm starting to sound like my father: I'll study math instead tonight!' Not surprisingly, the presence of the need to study

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English was easier to shake off than was that of Susan herself. Jeff's thoughts returned to his memory of Susan on her bike mixed with a recurrence in the present and a projected immediate future in which he very casually asked her out for this weekend (of course she would enthusiastically accept). Noticing the spokes of her imaginarily-thoughnot-physically-present bicycle, he thought of 'the bike shop' where he took his bike for repairs. It was also near the 'bread and milk store' and might even have hockey stick tape. Energized by this thought, he quickened his pace and thought of the hockey game on TV tonight and how he could get his math studying done in time to catch the third period if he started right away. He soon went into 'the bike store' and asked the clerk if they sold hockey stick tape. 'Of course we do - this is a sporting goods store/ replied the slightly sarcastic employee. Jeff looked around the store and saw it differently than he had before. He'd always thought of it as just 'the bike store' and bought his other sporting goods elsewhere. Now, noticing parts of the store he'd typically ignored when he'd been in previously to get his bike fixed, he remarked 'Hey, you've got some good hockey equipment here. How long have you been a full sporting goods store?' 'Only since we opened twelve years ago/ replied the snotty clerk with a grin. Unfazed by the clerk in the glory of his discovery of a 'new' sporting goods store in the neighbourhood, Jeff bought his tape and headed off absent-mindedly in the direction of the corner store. He began once more to think about his weekend plans, and he almost walked past it. Its 'fresh milk' sign caught his eye, though, and he recalled to himself, 'Oh yeah, mom said to pick up bread and milk too.' Having purchased these, he proceeded to walk home with his parcels, seemingly oblivious to all but the traffic as he thought to himself, 'I wonder if I can manage to get up the nerve somehow to ask a girl out on a date for this weekend? And if so, who? And who would I have the best chance with? ... Let's see, there's Julie, or Karen, or ...' He spotted his mother, as he was now approaching his home. 'Hi, mom, I bought you your groceries. I've got a little bit of math to study tonight, then I'm going to watch the hockey game on TV.' As he walked into the house, something caught his eye off in the periphery. 'Was that Susan riding by down at the end of the block?' But the rider turned the corner before he could get a closer look, and Jeff entered the house, where a whole host of his other cares and concerns lay in wait for him, cares waiting to be reawakened for him - that is, to move closer

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to the forefront in the continuous process of the subtle but fluid, meaning-filled restructurings of his immediate world. Discussion of Jeff's World

'Jeff's World' is meant to illustrate some of the multifaceted and multidimensional qualities to human experience evident even in a simplified version of this boy's everyday concerns. Jeff's world is constantly being restructured in terms of what is (relatively) foreground and what is (relatively) background in accordance with his various ongoing projects (or cares). Projects as simple as wanting to pick up some groceries, having to study for exams, and wanting to make social plans for the weekend affect the topography of meanings that describe the horizons of Jeff's phenomenological (or experiential) world. Yet each of these projects has its own set of anticipated possibilities as well - that is, each can be seen as another 'dimension' in describing 'where he is at' at present (which must include the convergences of 'where he's going' and 'where he's coming from'). The grocery project has its big store, fruit store, and corner store possibilities. Studying could involve either English or math, though other possibilities are undoubtedly present on a somewhat less reflected-on level of awareness. A weekend date could involve either Julie or Karen, or perhaps even the ephemeral Susan. Some of these particular options are additionally connected with other possibilities (or sets of them). For instance, a date with Julie offers a further imagined scenario involving a movie on Saturday and a cafe afterwards, whereas one with Karen is linked with a picnic, fruits and nuts, and Sunday. As if trying not to be outdone by the active anticipations of these future plans for an outing with either Julie or Karen, the somewhat 'sticky' and ubiquitous presence of Susan pervades the park and all bicycles in a seemingly 'less invited' or more passive/receptive manner. Here, the influence of past experience on present perception is making itself more obvious. The following up of some possibilities brings to light other ones - in this case such as the desire to watch some of the hockey game on television and the reminder to also buy some hockey stick tape. But what further complicates matters the most is that the various sets of future possibilities afforded to each of the above projects are interacting with those of other projects. Thus, the choice of English as tonight's subject for study has to do with travelling through 'Susan park' and

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Jeff's hopes of seeing Susan again; but this choice then gives way to the choice of math when Jeff is confronted with the awful thought of sounding too much like his father. Besides, he then tells himself, math is more conducive to his project of watching part of the hockey game. Similarly, Karen's assumed fondness for fruit and nuts overlaps with mom's request for Jeff to pick up some fruit. This powerful alliance of cares suffices (at least momentarily) to banish all thought along the Julie-movie-cafe-Saturday dimension to the vague periphery of his awareness. The unanticipated noticing of a bicycle at the end of the block is equally capable of rapidly altering the rather fluid horizons of Jeff's attentions - and indeed his world. Note well that though Jeff's world is flexible, it isn't arbitrary. Even when the emphases switch so that one alternative or project momentarily grabs the spotlight, much remains the same. Jeff's projects continue to be about groceries, studies, hockey, and girls (although not necessarily in that order). His phenomenological world, though somewhat fluid and certainly non-static, can still be described as most fluid 'around the edges' - that is, in its momentary highlighting of particular projects and options. Closer to the core of his experience, things tend to change less dramatically. We notice this particularly when we strive to understand Jeff in as wide a scope as we can in order to appreciate him precisely as a multifaceted and multidimensional being. That is, when we appreciate his full present situation, which necessarily involves (a) the meanings and significances of his current environs (both physical and social) and (b) an inherent vast array of futural dimensions (in accordance with his sets of anticipations pertaining to a variety of care-filled possibilities). And both (a) and (b) are haunted or 'scented' to varying degrees by Jeff's set of past-meaning-related presences. Our understanding of temporality here really means that all three of the temporal 'ek-stases' - past, present, and future - are essentially collapsed into 'the moment.' That is, all three are inherent or co-implied in any given human experience, and the moment itself is always phenomenologically part of an ongoing process of experiencing and becoming. Jeff is not a completed or static thing to be observed at a series of discreet instants. We can now reconceive the Beams-of-Light-through-Time model as it appears in the lived world, notwithstanding its five-plus dimensions. If we take the scene where Jeff is in the fruit and nut store, we can describe his multidimensional, phenomenological locale as follows For simplicity's sake we will record his three spatial dimensions in their common place usage here. To these we will add the simplest of

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linear temporal dimensions by noting the date as Wednesday afternoon, 9 October 2002. But then we add some of his projects,10 with their associated sets of hoped for - perhaps dreaded - future possibilities, as additional dimensions to his present modes of Being-in-the-World. While in the fruit store we may see him as 'dwelling' in the 'picnic with Karen' metaphoric 'space' within the 'social-life division' of his 'Being-towardthe-weekend' project of having a date with a young lady. At the same time, his position can also be 'plotted' as 'at' the fruit section of his 'needing to pick up some groceries' division of his 'wanting to please Mom' project. The 'curvature of experiential space' phenomenon described earlier is also demonstrated here. For even while Jeff is occupied with the above two concerns, his other project of acquiring some hockey stick tape is meaningfully 'heavy' enough to 'bend' his perceptions of the various packaged items in the store around this goal. Thus, several things appear to him from a distance as 'possibly a package of hockey tape/ despite the unlikeliness of finding hockey stick tape in a fruit and nut store. Similarly, his perceptions of the girl at the end of the aisle are bent by the 'gravity' of his desire to see Karen, in the same way that at other times his perceptions of the park and of bicycle riders become 'curved' around his wish to encounter Susan again. In these rather mundane examples - restricted as they are to only the most rudimentary elements of the entire Beam-of-Light-through-Time that represents Jeff's existence - we can perhaps see the multifaceted and multidimensional qualities that apply to all of human experience. Chapter Summary In this chapter the discussion has at last reached the highest level of my proposed hierarchy of levels of theoretical inquiry - the psychological one proper (level G). In moving upward from the foundation of philosophical positions taken in the previous chapters, I have begun to outline some of the essential characteristics of an approach to psychological theory and practice that is consistent with phenomenological philosophy. Early in the chapter I discussed issues of consistency within larger or multileveled models. I reserved the term 'paradigm' to describe these overarching models or frameworks, and pointed out that when certain positions taken at one level of inquiry are incompatible with those

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taken on another, an inconsistent paradigm may result. In the model I am proposing I have taken steps to avoid this. The Beams-of-Light-through-Time model has been developed further in this chapter. By the end of it, the model has transcended my abilities to diagram it. I have tried to provide a coherent overall model, theory, or paradigm for describing the general philosophical or existential context (or structure) of human experience. This paradigm is consistent, at a variety of levels of theoretical inquiry, with the central assumptions and positions proposed by phenomenological philosophers. Certain concepts or qualities of human life are central and primary in all of our experiences, and so must be at or near the heart of any phenomenological psychology. In this chapter I have discussed these concepts at length. My views about temporality as a central element in a phenomenological psychology have brought us to a different way of looking at the concept of 'motivation.' The temporal emphasis here is on the importance of the 'pulls' of our anticipated future possibilities, and less on 'forces' of the past that 'push' us in predictable directions. In considering the complex relationship between temporality and motivation, I have looked to some concepts and lessons borrowed from modern physics. Here I have tried by way of analogy and metaphor to suggest some useful means of imaginatively grasping the multidimensional qualities of our human, existential context (or situation). I hope this has helped overcome some of the unavoidable complexity of the subject matter, which prevents us from drawing or visualizing these qualities. I offered the somewhat simple example of 'Jeff's World' as an illustration of the rather complex phenomena alluded to in this chapter. This example was also an attempt to demonstrate how multidimensional world restructuring operatives even in the simpler cares of everyday life. This multifaceted and multidimensional working version of the Beams-of-Light-through-Time model is offered here for use in the broad field of psychology. It is meant to describe the general context or structure within which all human thinking, feeling, behaving, and interacting takes place. I hope it does justice to the unique complexities of human experience. I hope also that this framework will allow us to integrate into the new paradigm some of the wisdom gathered from other, perhaps less satisfactory models. In the next chapter I continue my discussion of the general context of

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human experience with particular reference to 'Being-with-Others' and 'embodiment/ That discussion will lead into the broad topic of how all of this affects our understandings in the realm of psychotherapy. I will revist a number of the notions and concepts central to the literature of that field from the perspective of the Beams-of-Light-through-Time model.

CHAPTER 9

PSYCHOLOGY (LEVEL G), PART TWO: Psychotherapy and Encounters in the Purple Zone

In this chapter I apply the understandings developed in the previous chapters to the theory and practice of psychotherapy. From the perspective of the Beams-of-Light-through-Time model, psychotherapy involves a series of encounters in the 'purple zone.' I will elaborate on this in the following discussions. The first part of this chapter summarizes the elements essential to a phenomenological psychology based on the Beams-of-Light-throughTime model. The last two of these elements, embodiment and Being-withOthers, are then discussed in some detail, since they are especially relevant to the discussions of related psychotherapeutic phenomena that follow. The second part of the chapter reconsiders and reinterprets several of the central themes, concepts, constructs, and terms found in the traditional psychotherapy literature from the perspective of this new model: transference and counter-transference, conflict and defence, internal representation and representationalism, consciousness versus unconsciousness (or levels of awareness and reflectivity), and mind versus body. (A) Essential Elements of a Phenomenological Psychology Based on the Beams-of-Light-through-Time Model In chapter 8 I suggested that a multifaceted and multidimensional approach to understanding human experience would serve us well in our psychological thinking. I have presented the Beams-of-Lightthrough-Time model as a framework that might facilitate this approach

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and that seems consistent with phenomenological philosophy. In taking this approach to describing the nature or structure of human experiences in general, I have alluded to several features I consider essential. Any truly adequate psychology or approach to psychotherapy will have to attend carefully to each of these key facets of human life. Based on my discussions in previous chapters, I postulate that the following six elements comprise a set of essential dimensions of the general context of human experience: • Relatedness to a world. Human experience is always experienced as taking place in the context of already being in a world. • Temporality. Human experience is always experienced as situated in time, in the full multidimensional sense of time (see chapter 8). • Interpretiveness and perspective. Human experience is always actively interpretive - that is, always interpreting and reinterpreting its previously interpreted situations, at a variety of levels of awareness at any given time, and doing so at all times from its own unique spatial, temporal, and above all meaning-full (care-full) perspective. • Care-fullness. Human experience is always filled with, and organized in accordance with, our cares. Thus, the presence of some degree of emotion, imagination, and anticipation is an essential feature in every act of human perception. • Embodiment. All human perception is phenomenologically experienced from within an embodied perspective. It follows that the lived body is also an integral element of the situation from which we view and live in the world. • Being-with-Others. The world is experienced as essentially social that is, as peopled with others. Furthermore, all of human experience is necessarily embedded in an interpersonal, cultural, and social-historical context. In earlier chapters I discussed the first four of these features at length. The latter two deserve more discussion, and will get it here, especially as they relate to the clinical concepts and themes I will reconsider in the second part of this chapter. Embodiment

In brief, we are spatial, sensate, embodied beings. This is an essential aspect of the primary fabric of our being. It helps form the context from

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within which all of our perceptions and actions arise, and all of our efforts to find structure and meaning in the world. But our bodies do more than provide the 'space' from within which a fairly autonomous 'mind-being' can then operate (as in 'Mind/Body dualism'). Rather, our bodies are a vital part and means of our way of living in the world, in our expressive and receptive modes. Our body states are always present and always actively involved in our (often prereflective) assessments of our projects and their priorities. This is most obvious when a 'bodily urge' presents us with a sense of urgency. At such times our phenomenological world gets reorganized very quickly and quite obviously. In terms of the Beams-of-Lightthrough-Time model as described in chapter 8, this means that at the time of a bodily urge, the metaphoric 'geometry' of our world becomes greatly 'bent' or 'curved' in accordance with the 'massiveness' or 'gravity' of this newly accentuated care. For example, if the urge in question is hunger, our world becomes reorganized and our attentions, assessments, and interpretations of its objects quickly and heavily tilt toward their value as 'food objects' or as potentially 'food producing' objects, actions, and so on. Food-related objects move to the foreground, while everything else recedes to the background. Once the food urge is satisfied, the value of food-related objects again diminishes. As the relative valence of other cares then increases, the emotional and meaningful landscape of our phenomenological world reshapes its bendings in yet other directions. But even in less overt situations than this, we are constantly living, relating, and communicating bodily - though often in more subtle ways. The French existentialists Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Jean-Paul Sartre described this aspect of our Being-in-the-World especially well. Merleau-Ponty's work on 'the lived body' (e.g., 1945) is a great help in clarifying the differences between the body as 'an external material object' (e.g., 'the body' as described in an anatomy text) and the body as something within which we live meaning-/M//y and interactively (i.e., 'bodily'). The 'lived body' concept refers specifically to the body as we live it out in the world as a fundamental dimension of ourselves. Our bodily aspect is thus an essential part of all of our experiences, actions, and expressions. This is true even though many of the bodily components of our experience and many of our expressions of self happen at primarily prereflective levels of awareness. That is, they often occur so seamlessly, so naturally, and so without our thinking about them, that they are simply lived out unnoticed (or simply done, in the case of

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actions or bodily expressions). They certainly often occur before we notice, 'know/ or consciously reflect on them. Deliberate, conscious actions are seen here as the exception rather than the rule. It is important to understand that whether we overtly acknowledge it or not, our experiences, expressions, and actions are always embodied. So it is always best to understand clinical work on 'the mind' very much in the context of the body. This can be seen in phenomena as diverse as the subtle communications of bodily language in the therapy session, the somatic expressions of feelings like anxiety and depression, the prominent role of sexuality in our social lives, and such existential issues as aging, vulnerability, limitation, finitude, and death. Embodiedness is always an essential feature of our situation. In this phenomenologically based paradigm, we must reject outright the extreme forms of the Cartesian dualistic concept of a basically 'isolated mind' that is ontologically and radically separated from the 'being' of the body. The lived body must be seen as a fundamental dimension of our Being-in-the-World or of our existence as a person, rather than as an external and incidental 'casing' in which our 'Mind' or 'consciousness' (perhaps 'the real me') is housed. An example from Sartre illustrates this point. In Being and Nothingness (1943), he devotes a great deal of attention to the body. He talks of it as having three ontological dimensions: I exist my body: this is its first dimension of being. My body is utilized and known by the Other: this is its second dimension. But in so far as / am for others, the Other is revealed to me as the subject for whom I am an object... I exist for myself as a body known by the Other. This is the third ontological dimension of my body. (469)

In the first of these 'dimensions,' I simply live my body in my dealings in and with the world. This comes to me 'naturally.' I don't have to think about it, I just do it. In this sense, I am my body - it is not distinct from who I am, and T am not merely encased in it. My body, as prereflectively lived, expresses me at all times. Sometimes it does so quietly or subtly, and sometimes it is inarticulate, 'hidden/ and hard to decipher. Nevertheless, it is often a remarkably honest and authentic means of self-expression. The second of Sartre's dimensions of the body is not so much a dimension of the body for me. Rather, it acknowledges the fact (though not the awareness of the fact) that my body can be seen as an object-of-

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the-world for someone else ('the Other'). This dimension has less to do with my experience than with someone else's. The 'merely anatomical' view of the body, or the 'body as a mere object or thing' (which could be either dead or alive) might be described as confined to this dimension. For the field of psychology, the third ontological dimension of the body is especially interesting. This dimension is more reflective in some ways than the other two, in that it necessarily involves, at least at some level, a degree of awareness or self-consciousness of myself/my body as being a potential object for the Other. And it is in this dimension of the body that we find a philosophical grounding for the emotions that deal with self-consciousness of various sorts. For instance, it is through this particular dimension of being conscious of myself as a potential object for the Other that 'shame' and 'embarrassment' and similar experiences can be understood. My awareness that I can be seen, known, and perhaps judged by the Other is what makes me feel 'self-conscious' (in the colloquial sense), or makes me fear that my shape, my appearance or my performance may be found lacking in the eyes of the Other. Furthermore, I may extrapolate from this original experience of shame in the face of the Other to the point that I come to regard myself or an image of myself or an image of a part of myself (e.g., my body) in a similar way - that is, as if it/I was being seen, and certainly judged by, an Other. That is, I may come to look at myself (or some image thereof) as though I were another person viewing me, and pass judgments on myself accordingly. In the psychotherapy situation, phenomena like this are often of central importance. And in keeping with the complexity argument of the Beams-of-Lightthrough-Time model, many of these self-viewings and self-judgings may be occurring at a variety of levels of awareness simultaneously. For good example, a patient may present with extremely harsh and cruel, self-condemning judgments of her own body. These judgments may be supported by, or even have originated with, the comments of others (or the perceived though unstated opinions of others). At the moment of presentation she may experience her own body as something alien, foreign, or even repugnant to herself. As she comes to identify her body as her own, she may react with shame and self-hatred rather than acceptance or pride. She may display a curious ambivalence regarding whether her body really is her (i.e, something she is responsible for), or whether it's something that isn't really her and that she shouldn't be blamed for. Her awareness of how she naturally and prereflectively lives and expresses herself in the world (Sartre's first

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ontological dimension of the body) may be seriously constricted at such times. At the same time, on a more interactive but still self-conscious level, this patient will often be wondering what the therapist thinks of her. Some of this wondering will be of the 'does the therapist like me' sort, but some will also be more specifically referring to her body as seen by the Other. 'Does the therapist also see me as fat, as disgusting, as repulsive? Or is he too captivated by my attractiveness to look beyond that and hear about the rest of who I am?' There may, of course, also be interactions going on between the sorts of thoughts or feelings mentioned earlier, such as, 'If he thinks I look okay, maybe I really do/ and 'If he can't see or acknowledge how ugly I am, maybe there's something wrong with him too.' In any event, these aspects to the psychotherapeutic encounter are of great importance to the development and progress of the therapeutic endeavour - and to the patient/therapist relationship in particular. Obviously, these issues are not unique to the psychotherapy setting: they are a critical part of our Being-with-Others. But our embodiment especially our awareness of these phenomena of Sartre's third ontological dimension of the body - will certainly be of great importance in any understanding of this essential feature of our existence. Interestingly, these two great French thinkers seem to have been emphasizing two quite different aspects of embodiment. Merleau-Ponty was asking us mainly to acknowledge the largely prereflective, not-at-all self-conscious, lived body dimension of our experiences, expressions, and actions. Sartre was directing our attention to the most self-conscious experiential dimension of our bodies - that is, to those times when we feel apprehended by the look of the Other and become most aware of ourselves and our bodies as objects for other people (whether shamefully or pridefully). Both these ways of understanding embodiment are of great psychological importance. And each points us toward another essential quality of human Being-in-the-World - Being-with-Others. So let us discuss this issue. Being-with-Others

Phenomenologically, the world is experienced as essentially social that is, as peopled with others. Furthermore, all human experience is embedded in an interpersonal, cultural, and historical context. This

Level G, Part Two: Psychotherapy and Encounters in the Purple Zone 221 enmeshment in a social world peopled with others has generally been discussed by phenomenologists in terms of Being-with-Others. In Being and Time, Heidegger discussed this fundamental dimension of human existence as he introduced the term Mitsein, or 'Being-with[Others].' He described Mitsein as equally primordial with other essential aspects of our Being-in-the-World, such as temporality and Relatedness-to-a-World. The Mitsein dimension of Being-in-The-World is thought by many critics to be one of the least well developed parts of Heidegger's work (and also of his life).1 But the concept is there in his work and is acknowledged as essential to an understanding of the human world, even if he left it largely to others to develop this aspect of his thought. With this concept of Being-with-Others, we go to the heart of what much of current psychological theory seems to be getting at with its recent shift toward more 'interpersonal/ 'intersubjective/2 'objectrelated/ 'relational' models. Just as we are never without our bodily and temporal contexts, we are never without an interpersonal one. Relational psychologies and psychotherapies deal mainly with the different ways that we live out our Being-with-Others. Nowadays, psychologies that don't deal sufficiently with 'object relations' are considered sorely lacking. It is interesting that Being and Time was first published in the same decade that Sigmund Freud published his own structural theory (in The Ego and the Id [1923]). Freud, though, saw the internal dynamics among the various structures within the mind as clearly 'where the action was,' and at least at the time he de-emphasized the interpersonal. With regard to the significance of Being-with-Others for us now, there is no question that this dimension must be central to the development of any contemporary psychology, especially one that is phenomenologically based. The many modes, types, and ways of relatedness to others that we come to live out are a major part of any such psychological theory. Being-with-Others, the Purple Zone, and Encounter: In chapter 4, when I introduced my first Beam-of-Light diagram, we were still dealing with a fluid and dynamic system in which one's experiential world was constantly under revision and development, in accordance with one's varying 'states of mind' (i.e., one's set of givens, cares, anticipations, and interpretations). One's various projects, emotions, and so on were seen as interacting with each other, each with its own time-line, and all

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of them together affecting the dynamic field structure of the entire system at any given moment. Even this artificially simplified situation was obviously a complicated one. When we turned our attention to the interpersonal sphere (in chapter 6), we encountered an even higher order of complexity. For in considering the interpersonal or 'intersubjective' world of Being-with-Others, we are dealing with complex interactions between at least two of these individually complex systems/worlds and then adding to the mix all that may emerge from those encounters. In the terms of Figure 6.1 illustrating the interpersonal situation, I have broken this interaction into various elements. The simplest distinction we can make is that each person in the relationship will have his or her own distinct perspective and therefore his or her own phenomenological or experiential 'world' and 'horizon.' In that diagram, each of these perspectives delineates one particular point of view toward a common ontological 'world.' The experiential world of A (the patient) is shown as red, and that of B (the therapist) as blue. What makes human interaction so interesting is that one field of personal experience is truly affected by another. Furthermore, as the concept of 'the purple zone' emphasizes, in such an interpersonal experience or encounter, something new and experientially unique - the experience of the colour purple - emerges from the interaction. That is, something new is produced that, though formed out of blue and red initially, is qualitatively different from and beyond either colour, and more than their sum. If we accept this state of affairs as accurately describing the psychotherapy situation (I believe it does), an approach to understanding what goes on in psychotherapy that deals only with its constitutive parts (i.e., the patient and the therapist) as if they were in isolation from each other, must be misguided at a very fundamental level. From the standpoint of a phenomenological psychology, the findings based on such an approach must be of highly dubious validity. Yet precisely that approach is well represented in the psychological literature, which for example often speaks of 'transference' and 'counter-transference' as if these clinical phenomena can only occur alone - that is, in either the red or the blue zone. Perhaps the red and blue zones border on each other, and are aware of each other, but they are essentially untouched by and unchanged by each other. In the basically Cartesian literature, they are not seen as truly interactional in the sense I've described.

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From my perspective, the most significant part of the diagram is precisely the part the traditional approach omits or ignores - the purple zone, or the transference-counter-transference interactional complex. Perhaps we may come to call this phenomenon 'the co-transference' (Donna Orange's term), though the 'transfer' part of all these terms, while maintaining some historical continuity in the literature, suffers from a mechanistic quality. Whatever name we assign this essentially interactional phenomenon, it is understood in my diagram as occurring within (or perhaps constituted by) an emergent purple zone.' It is within the purple zone that psychotherapy really takes place. So, the concepts with which I seek to understand psychotherapy and the various processes that comprise it must be appropriately interactional if they are to deal adequately with this subject matter. In view of this, another look at our long-standing concepts may be in order. But before proceeding with that, let us consider again how a phenomenological psychological approach or a Beams-of-Light-through-Time model might approach the topic of Being-with-Others. Presence: One concept borrowed from the phenomenological philosophical literature that is of psychological relevance, especially in the current context, is that of 'presence.' As noted in the earlier Sartre references, the presence of 'the Other' - or our sense of that presence reshapes and reorganizes our experience. Diverse human emotions and themes such as shame, exhibitionism, and performance anxiety can be seen in this way to be grounded in the emotional importance of our awareness of being seen by the Other (cf. Sartre on 'the look'). As simple an act as getting dressed or undressed takes on very different meanings depending on whether another person is present. My choice of what to wear is usually influenced by my imaginative anticipations of who will likely be there to see my choice later in the day, and what they will think of my selections. So the existence of the Other, or my awareness of the Other's existence, changes my projects, possibilities, and ways of being. Most importantly, just the possibility or thought of being seen by someone else may redirect or restructure my experience, even when the Other is not physically present. This brings us to the crucial phenomenological concept of 'presence,' which is of enormous emotional and thus psychological importance. The experiential 'presence' of the Other is not just a function of physical, spatial present-ness. Rather, what is most significant is the extent to which the meanings associated with the Other are a matter of foreground

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(as opposed to background) in one's current perceptions, actions, interpretations, and projections. More psychologically expressed, what is most significant - is how one feels in or about the presence of the Other in terms of one's cares, needs, and goals - not whether the other person in question is physically there at the moment or not. Consider a grieving widow whose world of daily routines seems dark and filled with 'gaps' and feelings of 'emptiness.' She continues to feel the loss of her absent spouse and senses his 'missingness.' Or consider the excitedly anticipating and nervously preparing teenager getting ready for a first date with a potentially wonderful Other, whom he has admired till now only from afar (recall Jeff in chapter 8). For each of these people, the immediate experiential world is heavily structured by an emotional or psychological sense of the 'presence' of a significant other who is not spatially present at that time. These two significant others have a very different ontological status. The husband's death has precluded the widow's hoped-for possibility of a physical reunion, even in the future; the teenager's patience may only be taxed for a few 'seemingly long' hours. Yet in each case the sense of the Other's presence - even when experienced as a physical absence (a 'missing') - is central to the meaning-structure of the person's current world view. This is so regardless of the ontological status of these particular Others. It is not that their ontological status is unimportant. Quite the contrary in the widow's case: her husband's death (his ontological status) is so important that it has restructured the rest of her world view as within the shadows of gloom and grief. The ontological status of the Other becomes part of that 'giveness' of the world of which I spoke earlier. It certainly limits the horizon for action possibilities and for future physical encounters. Yet our imaginative and meaning horizons are generally wider than those of our action possibilities. Note well that even an Other 'of little ontological status' (a dead person, or even an imaginary friend or a fictional character) can still have a very important emotional and experiential presence in one's life, and can thus contribute dramatically to the emotional structuring of one's phenomenological world. This will be highly significant in when we come to consider the 'psychopathological' conditions in which various 'fictitious,' 'fantasized/ or otherwise 'ontologically challenged' Others can exert a huge influence over the experiential life of individuals.

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Encounter, Presence, and Mitsein: In the above cases the 'presence' of the Other had a strong effect on the individual's world. The Other was seen as a part of that world. But these examples didn't deal with f interactional situations - the effects were mainly on one individual's world. When a true dialogue is going on between two experiencing humans (as when two people actually meet) something new is created, in addition to the effects each is having on the Other's 'private' world. This truly interactional area constitutes 'the purple zone' in the diagram. When red and blue not only meet but blend and interact, a new phenomenon is created - the colour purple. The purple zone is an area of shared experience or 'intersubjective space'; within it, new experiences and occurrences arise in addition to and beyond the now restructured red and blue zones. The purple zone is something new and qualitatively different. In the research design terms alluded to in chapter 6, it is akin to a true interaction effect - one that has been teased out as distinct from the 'main' red and blue effects. It is easier to appreciate that in experiential terms, purple is qualitatively different from either red or blue and does not equal red plus blue phenomenologically, regardless of the scientific descriptions of the different wavelengths of light involved. Within this interactive purple zone we can distinguish experiential subdomains. The types of interactions with the Other that take place in the purple zone exhibit some qualitative differences. At an ontological level, two people meeting in a room creates a common historical 'fact' that is independent of whether either participant is experientially attuned to it or not. Clearly, there is an 'objective' or world component to the meeting. In an earlier illustration, the ticking of the clock and its recording of an hour's passing was part of the ontological 'giveness' of the situation, whether the participants noticed it or not. In experiential terms, either or both participants might still have sensed the passage of time as 'a slow hour' or 'a fast hour.' This non-experienced, 'factual' aspect of the world, which remains a part of the interactive space (or purple zone), was labelled as area 'z' in the Figure 6.1. Of more psychological significance are the areas we define more epistemologically or experientially, including areas 'y' and 'x' of figure 6.1. The distinction between these domains is more psychological, more emotional, more feeling. In zone 'y' the two participants experience a set of objects and conversations in common with each other. They share

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a common history, even if their individual perspectives, interpretations, and understandings of that history are quite distinct. Yet, within this zone the other person may remain emotionally in the role of an 'object' to one or both of the participants, perhaps not so different from other objects (things) of the world. But sometimes the feeling is different. When it is, the Other is perceived uniquely not as just another object in the world, but rather as another person, another subject, another source of an experiential world. These qualitatively different feeling experiences I here designate 'the zone of encounter' - zone 'x' of Figure 6.1 In this zone exist our truly intersubjective experiences. This zone includes truly shared experiences such as those of love, shame, feeling connected, feeling understood, feeling part of a 'we' - as in an 'I-Thou' (Ich-Du) relationship, as philosopher Martin Buber (1923) described such intensely personal encounters. Indeed, it seems that much of psychotherapy involves examining the oscillations of our modes of Being-with-Others: we move out of area 'y' and into area 'x' (i.e., toward a greater sense of the Other as another experiencing person) as the relationship deepens and progress is made. Thus psychotherapy is apparently a mainly 'purple zone phenomenon'; not only that, but the therapy process gravitates toward one particular sector of the purple zone. Indeed, a psychotherapy may be operating best precisely when it is operating most within this zone of encounter (zone 'x'). In these types of interactions in particular, our awareness of a sense of our Mitsein - of our essential being-withothers - is at its experiential highest. Put another way, the type of Being-with-Others experience that occurs in the zone of encounter cannot accurately be described by terms such as 'object relations.' Rather, a term like 'subject relations'3 would better apply. And often a successful psychotherapy consists of this qualitative shift from object-relatedness to mainly subject-relatedness. In the terms of Figure 6.1, the therapy can then be seen as moving away from a centre in area 'y' toward becoming centred in area 'x.' This emotional sense of encountering another person precisely as another person - not simply as a role, a type, or an object - is central to our understanding and appreciation of the Other, and to our own sense of embeddedness in the Mitsein world. So it can also be seen as the mode of Being-with-Others most sought out in a phenomenologically grounded psychotherapy. Thus, the psychotherapy I am presenting consists mainly of encounters in the purple zone.

Level G, Part Two: Psychotherapy and Encounters in the Purple Zone 227 I have discussed six essential features of human existence to be dealt with by a phenomenological or Beams-of-Light-through-Time based psychology. Let us now turn our attention to some of the more familiar terms traditionally used in discussions of psychotherapeutic theory. (B) Dichotomous Thinking and Its Discontents: A Reinterpretation of Some Central Themes, Concepts, Constructs, and Phenomena in the Theory and Practice of Psychotherapy as Seen from the Perspective of the Beams-of-Light-through-Time Model In this section I look briefly at some of the key terms used in the traditional psychotherapeutic literature (including but not limited to the psychoanalytic) in the light of the new model/paradigm I am developing in this work. I hope to demonstrate that the new model entails some significant changes in our understanding and approach to some of these theoretical issues and clinical phenomena. In particular, this may involve getting beyond much of the 'dichotomous thinking' so often found in our field. 'Transference' and 'Counter-Transference' The concepts of 'transference' and 'counter-transference' have been central to most theories of psychotherapy - and probably all psychoanalytic theories - since the early twentieth century. Furthermore, the clinical phenomena involved have been recognized and acknowledged even by practitioners who do not place them at the centre of their treatment approaches. Yet from my standpoint, these terms are highly problematic because they imply certain philosophical stances that are quite incompatible with the Beams-of-Light-through-Time model. In his Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis (1917), Sigmund Freud described the phenomenon of transference: This new fact, which we thus recognize so unwillingly, is known by us as transference. We mean a transference of feelings on to the person of the doctor, since we do not believe that the situation in the treatment could justify the development of such feelings. We suspect, on the contrary, that the whole readiness for these feelings is derived from elsewhere, that they were already prepared in the patient and, upon the opportunity offered by analytic treatment, are transferred on to the person of the doctor. (494)

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Ralph Greenson, a later champion of Freudian psychoanalysis, elaborated on this in his now classic text, The Technique and Practice of Psychoanalysis (1967): The main characteristic is the experience of feelings to a person which do not befit that person and which actually apply to another. Essentially a person in the present is reacted to as though he were a person in the past. Transference is a repetition, a new edition of an old object relationship (Freud, 1905). It is an anachronism, an error in time., A displacement has taken place; impulses, feelings and defenses pertaining to a person in the past have been shifted onto a person in the present' (151-2)

He adds: The person reacting with transference is in the main unaware of the distortion ... All human relations contain a mixture of realistic and transference reactions (Fenichel, 1941) ... Transference reactions are always inappropriate ... The transference reaction is unsuitable in its current context; but it was once an appropriate reaction to a past situation. Just as ill-fitting as transference reactions are to a person in the present, they fit snugly to someone in the past... The two outstanding characteristics of a transference reaction are: it is a repetition and it is inappropriate/ (152-5)

An extensive literature on transference has been produced since Freud's time, and even Greenson's, and I acknowledge there are many other views on the phenomenon's nature and extent. With that in mind, I now highlight my divergences from these classic - and I believe still widely held - descriptions of transference, in terms of the 'six essential elements of human experience' (see above). In terms of 'Relatedness to a World,' the Freudian take on transference seems quite different from the phenomenological one. Freud's and Greenson's descriptions seem to imply a Cartesian (or s R o) type of separateness between the patient and the doctor. Feelings are described as happening inside the patient in a quite atomistic way. That is, they occur as if they are quite isolated, non-interactional units, capable of being moved around hither and thither without being affected very much. They are seen as existing quite independent of context, and it is only as such that they can be shifted or 'displaced' from one object/ person to another while otherwise remaining fairly intact. It is as if

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these feelings or sets of emotions and reactions were marbles that can be taken away from Peter and given to Paul, or perhaps kept outside both for a time. But here we are speaking in a mechanistic and atomistic language that talks of psychological 'reality' as if it consisted of the 'pure and distinct ideas' envisioned by Descartes - possibly even as composed of little 'mental entities' unto themselves. But surely this ill fits the interactional and emergent nature of the phenomena we wish to describe. In the discussion of 'intentionality' in chapter 3, I argued that 'relatedness' is fundamental to the structure of human experience. The concept of isolated feelings, disconnected or disconnect-flb/e from any object at all, even temporarily, makes no sense when we conceive of human experience as always relational (or intentional), vectorial, or 'worlded.' The Beam-of-Light cannot shine on nothing! So how can a set of feelings simply detach themselves from their object and reattach to another later on? In the new model they cannot be merely 'free-floating' (without intentionality) even for the brief time during which this 'transfer' is taking place. If a light beam is moved from one person to another, clearly it must shine on some background objects in between during this movement - it can't shine on 'nothing.' The traditional concept of 'transference' applies basically to persons, and so intermediary objects aren't available to it. 'Free-floating' feelings, ideas, and so on aren't inconsistent with the more Cartesian model embraced by much of classical psychoanalytic thinking, but they surely contrast with the model I've been developing. So how does my model understand these clinical phenomena that have for so long come under the rubric of 'transference'? It seems far more likely that old sets of feelings don't simply 'unhook' themselves from a person in the past, to be 'shifted onto a person in the present' as Greenson contends. Rather, new but similar feelings develop toward the new or present object/person - in this case the therapist. These feelings resemble those of the patient toward someone from the past, but properly speaking, this does not constitute a transference of those feelings. Indeed, nothing is being transferred or moved here. And, though I partly agree with Greenson that something (a particular relationship pattern) seems repeated in these occurrences, I contend that this repetition involves a repetitive theme only, and not any exact replications or copies, let alone displaced or moved originals. Even the energetics of the original concept of transference are quite suspect when we look closely. Within the atomistic notion that feelings

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can be transferred from one object to another, according to the laws of conservation of matter and energy, after this transfer those feelings should be no longer attached to their original object. For they cannot be in two places at the same time. Yet clinically, this is not what we tend to observe. For example, people who develop a 'father transference' toward their therapist/analyst are perfectly capable of still exhibiting the same feelings and conflicts toward their fathers (and often several others in their lives) at the same time! This being so, the term 'transference' is a poor one. For instance, when someone is transferred from one job to another, you no longer expect to still find her in the original setting (as well as in the new one). On the other hand, it is not unreasonable to expect that her behaviour and performance will be quite similar in both settings, the new and the old. The above extracts from Freud and Greenson are still highly ambiguous regarding what exactly is transferred - as opposed to merely imitated - in the transference. The transference is alternatively referred to as a 'displacement' in which feelings and so on have been 'shifted,' and as a 'repetition' and 'a new edition of an old object relationship.' These are simply not the same thing. It may seem as if I am quibbling about words here, but let us remember that if there is one thing both psychotherapists and philosophers consistently agree on, it is that words are important! And imprecise terms and definitions usually lead to conceptual confusion and increase our likelihood of 'philosophically painting ourselves into a corner/ however unwittingly. In terms of the 'temporality' of transference, Greenson is especially clear in describing the transference as 'an anachronism, an error in time.' Like the discontinuous memories of the protagonist in Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five,4 the transference feelings have 'come unstuck in time' and are wandering around and drifting from one point to another on his personal time line. Actually, transference feelings are not quite as random as this - they always drift from a past situation to a present one, and the future - or the anticipation of it - is largely ignored. In my discussions of temporality, however, I have elaborated on the experiential unity or the mutually implicating qualities of past, present, and future in a more complex manner. Greenson quotes Freud in describing the transference as 'a new edition of an old object relationship'; this is not nearly as incompatible with my perspective as some of

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Greenson's other claims (though I've argued that to view the phenomena in this way is to make the term 'transference' a misnomer, since nothing is transferred). The wider temporal point of view, however, may help us understand how and why these phenomena come about without resorting to a metapsychological 'repetition compulsion' that really doesn't explain much. In terms of the future-oriented quality to motivation discussed in chapter 8, when we form our present relationships our horizons are shaped not only by our past experiences but also by our future anticipations and projects. So I hypothesize that when people form new, present relationships that are highly similar to those of their personal past(s) (whether they are immediately aware of this or not), they are likely trying to get something for the future out of it. For instance, they may repeat not only because they are 'driven to do so' deterministically by their past, but also because at some level of awareness they are 'trying it again but this time to get it right, to finally make it work for them.' Alternatively, they may be anticipating extreme pain or some sort of disaster if they do not behave as they have in the past, and may simply be too frightened to do otherwise. In the former instance the transference is an attempt at 'finishing one's unfinished business,' and one's phenomenological world has become structured so as to favour that particular project. The concept of 'horizons' can be invoked here in terms of understanding emotional trauma and/or conflict. The effects of emotional traumas, deprivations, and conflicts in one's life can be seen in the Beams-of-Light-Through-Time model as factors that tend to constrict one's imaginative horizons. Here one's anticipated possible relationships or relationship patterns may be quite restricted in scope. If for example a man's life experiences have been dominated by relationships of a 'victim is hurt by victimizer' pattern, his imaginative horizons may well be so narrow that he can't even imagine any significantly different pattern. That being so, his set of anticipated possible future relationships will be quite abbreviated. This patient can envision being either a victim or a victimizer, and perhaps the modes of victimization will vary. But overall, this one theme may come to dominate his imaginative possibilities to the exclusion of others. And if his experiential world becomes continuously organized along these limited lines, the likelihood of 'the same old story' getting played out again and again - albeit with variation - may become strong as well. This idea that psychopathology can be approached in terms of con-

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stricting of one's horizon of possibilities (be they imaginative, perceptual, interpretive, action, empathic, or other ones) may be worth remembering in more general contexts as well. In any case, we don't have to appeal to magical-sounding, literal 'transfer'-ings of feelings and so on across time, place, and person in order to understand the clinical phenomena traditionally known as transferences. The 'interpretive and perspectival' quality to human experience as set out in the Beams-of-Light-through-Time model also suggests some differences with the approaches of Freud and Greenson. The Greenson extract especially seems to rely on a correspondence theory of truth one that overestimates the therapist's ability to know the 'actual' truth. Or put another way, it seems to underestimate the extent to which the therapist's view too is always interpreted and perspectival. This stance seems evident in his judgments that the patient's transference feelings 'do not befit' one person and 'actually apply' to another. Transference is described as an 'error/ a 'displacement,' 'unsuitable/ 'inappropriate/ and above all a 'distortion.' Furthermore Greenson, in stating (following Fenichel) that 'all human relations contain a mixture of realistic and transference reactions/ is apparently placing 'transference reactions' in a disjunctive opposition to 'realistic' reactions. He seems to be basing this on the same sort of objectivistic epistemological stance I discussed in chapter 8 regarding dichotomous thinking strategies. There the dichotomy in question was 'the real versus the imaginary/ as if clear and absolute boundaries and distinctions between the two were both possible and evident. Here it is between 'the real versus the transferential/ and the same criticisms apply. Most missing in these classical psychoanalytic teachings is the humble acknowledgment that the 'inappropriateness' and 'distortedness' of the patient's transference feelings or 'reactions' is a matter for the therapist's judgment as to how well these reactions match with his or her own vision or impression of how the patient should be feeling and reacting in the given situation. Whether these reactions belong in the 'distorted, inappropriate, transference' category rather than the 'realistic' one is a judgment call for the therapist (or sometimes by the extended community, when others are involved). According to the Beams-of-Light-through-Time model, the 'mixture' referred to by Greenson cannot simply be one of 'distorted, transference reactions' mixed next to 'undistorted, objective, realistic' ones, since in this newer framework the latter 'purely realistic' reactions can't

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possibly exist in the world of human experience. In an approach that acknowledges the imaginative, interpretive, and perspectival quality of all the perceptions and judgments of human experience, we can only have 'apparently' or 'relatively' undistorted reactions, not absolutely objective ones. If we then want to acknowledge a 'transferential' component to all human relationships, this may best be done by simply acknowledging such a component as one important aspect of the generally interpretive and perspectival nature of human experience. That is, 'the apparently more or less transferential features' of our thoughts and feelings may be significant factors in the mixture that 'co- or raw/tz-constitutes' any given perception, experience, or human relationship. But this is not a mixture in the sense of a collection of right (realistic) perceptions and wrong (transferential) ones. Regarding 'care-fullness,' many of the same arguments apply. This approach rejects outright the implication that any judgment can be 'purely neutral' and not reflective as well of the therapist's 'cares.' The ideal of such a neutrality - or any concept that posits 'objects, perceptions, reactions, or judgments as possibly occurring without affects' - is incompatible with the concept of the care-fullness of human experience. Similarly, the notion of 'affects without objects' - which seems presupposed in the notion of a 'transference reaction' that is detachable and movable from one object to another - is quite incompatible with our notion of intentionality. For it seems that these detachable reactions (or feelings) would have to be able to stand on their own at least for those instants while they were 'in transit' from one object (person) to another. In this discussion of transference, the issue of 'embodiment' is perhaps the least directly involved of my six essential elements of human experience. So let us proceed to the one that is the most obviously involved - 'Being-with-Others.' It is in the Beams-of-Light-through-Time model's recasting of the type of Being-with-Others that occurs in psychotherapy that the traditional concepts of transference and counter-transference most clearly fail. So far everything I have said about 'the transference' could equally apply to any discussion of 'the counter-transference.' These concepts have traditionally been seen as essentially describing the same phenomenon, and as only differing in that the former term applies to the 'displaced or distorted feelings or reactions' of the patient, whereas the latter applies to the same (though presumably less extensive) phenomena originating in the therapist. But the essentially isolated quality attributed to the

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transference as a ready-made or preformed attribute of the patient's world, and to the counter-transference with similar reference to the therapist, leaves little or no room for truly interactional 'purple zone phenomena' as were discussed in the previous section's account of Being-with-Others. As well, the transference and the counter-transference have typically been described as in a dichotomous opposition to each other. In the traditional literature, the isolated (perhaps metaphorically encapsulated) transference reaction (akin to something occurring solely in the red zone) comes to border on the equally isolated countertransference reaction (solely in the blue zone). So we can describe the two reactions in some respects as interacting. That is, they will affect each other at least on the surface - for example, through the fitting together (or not fitting together) of pieces of the patient's background with complementary pieces of the therapist's psychological 'baggage.' In this respect a fairly stable 'transference-counter-transference complex' forms. But this happens in such a way that neither of the two participants' respective contributions to the complex is changed in itself by the simple formation of their association, stable or unstable as it may be. The idea that something new is created by such an interaction - that some 'fusion of horizons' occurs by which something akin to the 'purple zone' arises - is very different from the far more superficial interacting allowed in the traditional model. Once more, the metaphor of the 'marbles' comes to mind. In the traditional model, the patient's marbles may well bump into those of the therapist, with some external effects on each then being notable (in terms of changes in their directions and so on). But this happens without the substance or internal structure of the marbles themselves changing much, and certainly without the creation of any new marbles. Red marbles stay red, and blue ones stay blue. There is no room in the model for purple marbles to be created. The above arguments have some interesting repercussions when we consider this critical clinical question: 'How does change happen in the psychotherapeutic process?' If the patient's and therapist's worlds relate only in this relatively superficial manner, how does therapy work? Theoreticians and clinicians have hotly debated this question for years. To summarize, however, there have been two main answers The first and generally older answer is more compatible with isolated or atomistic models. It goes that the changes produced by therapy are produced in the patient alone though a restructuring or reconfiguration of his or her internal world, which includes, of course, the transference.

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These internal changes occur largely as the effects or results of cognitive and interpretive interventions by the therapist, who carefully and repeatedly confronts the patient with the 'irrationality' or 'distortedness' - and in some methods also the 'origins' - of his or her reactions and feelings. The person can then use the understandings so gathered to develop more 'appropriate' or 'adaptive' responses to current life situations. This answer, which emphasizes the cognitive component of therapy, is reflected in the rationale for therapies as diverse as Freud's original version of psychoanalysis and modern cognitive psychotherapy. The second answer does not stress the cognitive component so much, and places more emphasis on the healing powers of the psychotherapeutic relationship itself. That is, the caring, emotional, empathic relationship with the therapist is the main curative factor. These days, of course, most clinicians acknowledge that both factors, cognitive and relational, are quite important. The debate (still lively) now revolves around which is more so. As noted, the cognitive answer is most compatible with the isolated, traditional models of the transference. Ironically, it was only after phenomena such as transference, counter-transference, and the 'transference-counter-transference interactive patterns' were recognized and carefully studied that many theoreticians in the field began to appreciate the importance of the relational aspects of therapy. An emphasis on cognitive components is not entirely incompatible with the Beams-of-Light-through-Time model, as long as we grant that the cognitive and the emotional are never really completely separate to begin with (or at any other time). That being said, the model does emphasize the centrality of the patient-therapist relationship as fundamental to appreciating our essential Being-with-Others. The 'centrality of the relationship' between the patient and the therapist is, of course, inherent in such concepts as 'the purple zone' and 'the encounter.' That emphasis would likely classify this model as more in the 'relational camp' than the 'cognitive one.' Fortunately, we don't have to choose between the two. From the standpoint of the Beams-of-Light-through-Time model, the most interesting question is not whether the cognitive or the relationship component is more important in therapy, but rather, 'What is the precise nature of the relationship between the participants in the psychotherapy situation?' This is why I went to such lengths in chapter 6 to detail the philosophical anatomy of the psychotherapy situation. In that chapter I showed that the epistemological horizons within which

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psychotherapy takes place have an essentially interactional quality (e.g., as in the concept of the purple zone). From that standpoint the transference, when conceived of as isolated, marble-like, and externally interactive but not truly interactional, is clearly inadequate to the task of accurately and appropriately describing what occurs in these encounters. In sum, the atomistic approach is quite incompatible with the Beams-of-Light-through-Time model. What, then, is the alternative supported by my new approach? First and foremost, I conceive of 'transference' and its counterparts as taking place within an interactional field. The primary units of these phenomena are dyadic or dialogical ones at least; they are not isolatable mental entities sufficient unto themselves. In this approach we start and end with 'the patient/therapist complex/ not with the patient and the therapist separately. Let me clarify: this model acknowledges the independent existences of the participants, especially outside of the therapy setting; the red and blue zones illustrate this much. But as soon as these aware participants come together in the therapy situation, an interactional purple zone is established, and the therapy per se occurs as solely from within that zone's horizon. So our descriptions of the emotional field that shapes and reshapes itself as a function of the fusing of the horizons of the two worlds of the respective participants must deal mainly with the interactional phenomena that emerge through such meetings. The relationship between the patient and the therapist is no less interactional because the discussions focus on the patient rather than the therapist. The content of discussions does not have to be equal, nor does the talking time allotted to each participant. At every moment, regardless of the focus of discussion, and regardless of who's doing the talking or whether there is silence, the two people in the room are engaged in an essentially relational endeavour. And the elements of that endeavour cannot be usefully understood if they are abstractly and artificially isolated from their interactionally constituted context. We would certainly not try to understand the architectural workings of a house by isolating its bricks and looking at them under a microscope! So why would we try to understand what goes on in such an intensely interpersonal psychological encounter as a psychotherapy by ignoring the relatedness of its participants? So we need to arrive at some new, more thoroughly interactional terms for the relational phenomena known as the transference, the counter-transference, and transference-counter-transference complex.

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Donna Orange's (1995) term 'co-transference' immediately comes to mind here. This term has the advantage of preserving some historical continuity with the traditional terms; unfortunately, it also preserves the mechanistic-energistic inaccuracies of the 'transfer' root that I have already rejected. Perhaps a term like 'the co-experience' would better serve our purposes. This term would acknowledge the co-constituted nature of the unique, interactional phenomena formed within the psychotherapy relationship through the fusion of horizons - the overlapping and blending of two initially distinguishable Beams-of-Lightthrough-Time. Yet we must not forget the individuality of the participants before and beyond this interactional situation. The essentially individualized care-fullness and temporality of human experience in general (in accordance with the Beams-of-Light-through-Time model) reminds us of the situated and the Being-toward-the-future qualities that each participant brings to the meeting. So, even inherently interactional phenomena such as the 'co-experience/ which analogically takes place in the psychotherapy situation, can still be interpreted, known, understood, and otherwise appreciated differently from the distinct epistemological perspectives of the two participants. Put more simply, even the 'transference-countertransference complex,' or 'co-experience,' can still be understood and interpreted differently by each of the participants, even though both must be present in order for it to occur. In recent years, several 'relational' psychological and psychoanalytic theorists have been discussing this interactional field or 'place' where such a 'co-experience' may be taking place. For instance, Stolorow and Atwood (e.g., 1984,1992) and their colleagues, including Orange (1995, 1997) and Sucharov (1992), have written extensively on what they call the 'intersubjective space' or 'intersubjective field.' I've preferred 'interactional' to 'intersubjective,' for the latter term still seems to preserve vestiges of the old Cartesian 'subject versus object' ('s R o') dualism, even though each of those authors is markedly non- or antiCartesian in both their approaches and their common sympathies. The term co-experience emphasizes not only the 'where' of this coming together of worlds (which constitutes the interactional or intersubjective space) but also the 'what' of it. For the 'what' of it is that it is first and foremost an experience or a set of experiences. How conscious are these (old terms) transference and counter-transference 'experiences' and 'reactions'? I don't want to get too deeply into this now (although this is worthy of discussion elsewhere). My point here is that

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these interactional phenomena, which arise in the meeting of the patient's world with that of the therapist, are lived out. As such they immediately contribute to the 'care-laden' restructurings of the ongoing world(s) of experience of each of the participants, whatever levels of awareness this is occurring at for them. I have stopped short of calling co-experience a 'shared experience,' although the parties will be sharing much. They will be seeing even the shared aspects of their worlds from their own unique perspectives. Even in the newly emergent interactional experiences of the purple zone, we do not forget who we are entirely, nor do we truly experience the other person's experience. We can, however, 'co-experience,' or each (simultaneously) experience something that is going on between us while recognizing in a very deep way that the other participant has his or her own unique experience of this (and of other things). In fact, it may be precisely in this feeling of 'encounter/ which occurs in the coexperiential situation of being face to face with another experiencing Beam-of-Light-through-Time perceived as such, that this fusion of horizons, this meeting of two worlds, is both at its most interactional and 'purple/ as well as at its most emotionally connected, charged, close, and empathic. To illustrate some of these points, let us consider a case example: Being-with-Others, Encounter, and Co-Experiencing: A Case Illustration. Ms L.G. was a twenty-six-year-old, single, professional singer. She presented for treatment with symptoms of anxiety, depression, and low self-esteem, as well as a lengthy history of unsatisfying relationships with men. She was an only child who often felt more comfortable with her friends at school than she did at home. She described her mother as a very critical and competitive career woman who was not emotionally involved with her but who always 'took care of business.' Her father was a somewhat less successful businessman; she described him as both 'hard-working' and 'hard-drinking.' Even so, she felt that her father was more 'present' in her early emotional life than was her mother. As she later pieced it together, her relationship with her father revolved largely around her apparent helplessness, with father seen as coming to the rescue of his little girl. As she grew older she began to develop some resentment about this, feeling that she was always having to founder in order to engage her father's rescuer responses. Without this 'flattering of his ego/ as she put it, there was far less emotional closeness between them. As she felt little if any closeness with her

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mother, and little caring coming from her, L.G/s connection with her father became of paramount importance. She grew into an attractive woman and became moderately successful in a career in which she met many eligible men. In that milieu, she began a long series of unsatisfying relationships. Perhaps not surprisingly, she gravitated toward rather immature, self-centred, and insecure men who 'looked after her for a time' while they enjoyed each other's attentions and while she maintained something of her old foundering role. After a while, one or both partners would tire of the relationship and they'd part company usually after a loud argument. In the early stages of psychotherapy, Ms L.G. came across as a genuinely nice person though a very troubled one. It was not difficult at all for the somewhat older, male therapist to want to help this talented but lonely and unhappy 'little girl,' who could be so hard on herself with a steady stream of self-deprecating thoughts and comments. The 'little girl' part was indeed striking to the therapist, as his patient was not a little girl. Rather she was a young, highly attractive, well-dressed entertainer, and, in other surroundings he would probably have described her as quite sexy. Yet he did not seem to find her sexually arousing at all. While reflecting on that, he began to think about his own unfulfilled fantasies about one day having a daughter. He had sons but no daughters, and he and his wife had recently discussed having no more children. While seemingly overlooking how chronically unhappy his patient had been for most of her life and how difficult it would be to see a family member suffer so much, he smiled to himself amusedly at the thought of having her as a daughter, or having a daughter like her. As the therapy proceeded, many issues about the patient's past and current relationships with men were discussed. The atmosphere was generally one of cooperative cordiality, and they seemed to grow emotionally closer with time. A generally warm though still somewhat fatherly feeling toward the patient persisted in the therapist; he also grew more attuned to just how lonely and sad she really felt. He sensed that she saw her own world as very narrow and isolated and as one in which others really were not interested. One day, while Ms L.G. was going on about her plights and her guilt and her self-deprecating thoughts, she looked up (she was in the habit of looking down ashamedly) and caught the pained expression on the therapist's face. As their eyes met both became awkwardly aware that something had changed between them. Ms L.G. grew quite fidgety at that point and was glad

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that the session time was at an end. She left hurriedly without much more being said. Ms L.G. had been in the habit of coming to sessions dressed very 'prettily' and wearing ample make-up (though not too much). At the next session she came in wearing a torn grey sweatsuit, with her hair a bit dishevelled, and wearing no make-up at all. She began to apologize profusely for her appearance: she had gone jogging, then realized she was late and come straight over for her appointment. She stopped herself almost in mid-sentence and said serenely: 'But you really don't care, do you?' The therapist was at first taken aback by these seemingly admonishing words. The tone was not critical; however, it was different and more serious-sounding than anything he'd heard from this patient before. She then went on to clarify: T mean, you really don't care whether I come in dressed up or in my sweats ... That's not really what it's about for you, is it?' The relieved but still hesitant therapist nodded affirmatively, saying nothing but looking her straight in the eye and waiting for whatever came next. There was a long pause, then the patient tucked both her legs under her to make herself more comfortable and broke into a big smile, saying only, 'Shit, this is good! ...' The silence persisted for a while after, as did the eye contact. Eventually the therapist broke out in a grin too, and nodding approvingly, again said, 'Yes, I think so too!' In hindsight, this moment of encounter, as I think of it, was the turning point in that particular therapy. During that silence between these two rather vague statements, the meaning-ful contours of the co-experienced, interactional world of this particular psychotherapy began to change, evolve, grow, and reorganize themselves dramatically. The feel of the therapy was never the same afterwards. Though the relationship had always been 'cooperative,' it now came to feel much more like a 'partnership.' That is, it came to feel less like a 'doctor helps the patient' (or 'father helps the child') one and much more like a 'we're both working on this problem together' endeavour. Interestingly, the therapist felt a bit caught off guard as he began to see his patient less as a little girl and more as a rapidly maturing young woman who was growing much more capable of taking care of herself and thinking for herself. She also began to seem much more 'sexy' to him, and he was at first concerned about the counter-transference aspects of that. But the atmosphere clarified itself over the ensuing weeks, till it became one of mutual respect. It was precisely this respect for each

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other, with each in the other's eyes a genuinely new and genuinely other person, that enabled the therapy to achieve higher levels of connection, appreciation, and (in Orange's 1995 term) 'emotional understanding.' Of course, if one wanted to, one could describe this case in traditional terms alone. We could speak of the daughter's father transference to the therapist. We could also speak of the therapist's counter-transferential wish to have a daughter as playing into this and so forming a fairly stable transference-counter-transference complex. We could also argue that this complex later became more sexualized. With those descriptions, though, we are a little harder pressed to explain why such a change for the better occurred in the progress of the therapy. We could talk of a 'moment of insight' in the patient, but it wasn't really 'insight' that changed everything. The moment of encounter, where the eyes of patient and therapist met (and worlds met) happened between the two, not merely in the patient. And the therapist's world was certainly affected as well. Obviously, the experiences they had when together were part of each's broader experiences as a whole, so there should be no problem with the idea that both took their new experiences with them after leaving the room. One can better understand what transpired in this case from within the interactional Beams-of-Light-through-Time model than from within the traditional model. Traditional discussions of 'neutrality' and 'abstinence' can make it harder to understand such cases; here, the therapist's and patient's 'being-with-each-other' in an emotionally engaged fashion is what seems to have been most helpful. It would not have been helpful - if even possible - for the therapist to have taken a position of a disengaged neutrality. Furthermore, the concept of a 'sustained empathic inquiry'5 does not suffice to explain the changes that occurred during and after this encounter. This attitude apparently was present and helpful in allowing such an encountering to occur, yet this concept doesn't quite capture the qualitative difference in the type of presence felt together that occurred between the patient and the therapist. After all, the therapist's stance may have been one of sustaining empathic inquiry both before and after the relationship changed. Similarly, one could argue that the therapist's 'neutrality' and 'abstinence' were also helpful (i.e., he did not express value judgments about the patient's behaviour, and he did not give in too much to gratifying her need for a father figure, or his need to be one for her. But these things still don't quite capture the essence of the idea that when two

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people truly encounter each other, in an emotionally significant apprehension and appreciation of each other precisely as the source of a separate experiential world of his or her own, a new and unique transformation of their relationship and their 'world in common' emerges. And this phenomenon seems to be of profound psychotherapeutic significance. I further contend that this phenomenon cannot be well explained if we limit ourselves to the philosophical outlook of the various 's R o' and Cartesian dualistic-based psychological models or to the traditional transference-counter-transference terminology that fits in with them. With that, let us turn our attention to some other central concepts in the psychotherapeutic literature. Conflict and Defence

Many of the issues raised in the above section on transference also apply to a variety of other psychological and/or psychoanalytic concepts, especially those involving psychological defences. The Beamsof-Light-through-Time model does not force us to reject the notions of conflict and defence. But it does make us look at some of our conceptualizations of these more closely, with an eye to teasing out or explicating some of the philosophical assumptions on which they are based. In particular, this model calls on us to reject the most dualistic, dichotomized, atomized, and mechanized conceptualizations of the defences. It also argues strongly against reductionism. This model affirms emotional or 'psychic' conflict, but not in the simple, dichotomous way that has been so prevalent in the traditional literature. My reinterpretations of several traditional psychological-level theoretical constructs in light of the Beams-of-Light-through-Time model include arguments based on differences that have arisen at various levels of inquiry. For instance, many of the faults noted with the traditional notions of transference and counter-transference can be traced back to positions taken at ontological level B of the hierarchy. The Beams-of-Light-through-Time model rejects the assumptions made at that level which seem necessary to support the traditional notions of transference and the like. That is, it rejects the assumption that a fundamental separatedness initially exists between any subject and object (or between any two subjects) - an assumption found in the dichotomous, Cartesian, 's R o' model. Also, the Beams-of-Light-through-Time model further suggests that

Level G, Part Two: Psychotherapy and Encounters in the Purple Zone 243 we reinterpret some concepts that deal with more classically epistemological themes. These include the questions generally raised under such headings as 'consciousness versus unconsciousness/ the 'internal mind versus external reality/ and 'internal representations versus external objects/ as well as 'Mind Body' problems. Clearly, the usual phrasing resorted to in traditional discussions of these important questions describes them in terms of (apparent) dichotomies. From the perspective of the Beams-of-Light-through-Time model, that is an unfortunate and inappropriate approach. For this sort of dichotomizing can be quite faulty, and can mislead us in such a way as to create the sorts of 'false problems' I discussed earlier. I will now revisit some of these issues with an eye to refraining their questions in a more helpful manner that does not treat them in terms of sets of false dichotomies. Conflict as an Inherent Feature of the Human Condition, But Not in the 'Atomized' or Dichotomized Sense: The Beams-of-Light-through-Time model sees conflict and ambiguity as essential features of the human condition by virtue of our ontological make-up. My discussion in chapter 8 of people as multidimensional, temporal beings argued that at any given point in time, we live and experience within our individualized horizons. These horizons are populated, for instance, by our various sets of anticipated possibilities regarding our particular cares. But many of these possibilities pertaining to a given care, if actualized, would be mutually exclusive of other possibilities in the same set. As a result, conflict between possibilities is inevitable. Furthermore, the possibilities pertaining to one care or project often conflict with those of other cares and projects. My view of the structure of human experience sees our cares and projects as part of a continuous flowing among many simultaneous concerns and projects, which are always competing for our attention. These are constantly sliding to and fro between relatively 'background' and relatively 'foreground' positions at different moments. Thus, as a result of the multiplicity of our cares, projects, and anticipated possibilities, some amount of conflict is always present in human experience. Yet conflict - even classical psychological conflicts - needn't be seen in a simple dichotomous way. Indeed, as the conflicting elements are generally manifold, the interactions that take place are often quite complex and arise at a variety of levels. This is not to say that classically described conflicts such as those between 'libidinous versus aggressive

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desires' do not occur. But it does suggest that the context in which these clashings of particular libidinous and aggressive cares, wishes, and projects take place is much broader and more complex, and that far more than two simple factors (or their 'derivatives') are usually involved. On the other hand, more abstract concepts such as 'Eros versus Thanatos/ fit much less well with our more experientially based model. These abstract ideas - which are inferred but never experienced - are rejected by this new model to the extent that they are reified entities with an ontological existence of their own either 'within the mind of or otherwise distinct from the experiences of particular human beings. They can have some use as merely nominal terms (e.g., for classifying purposes in categorizing certain groups or types of cares), but it is questionable how much they can really explain to us. This latter point again reflects a rejection of psychological atomism. The atomistic, Cartesian model of 'mind' as a sort of container holding a set of clear and distinct ideas, feelings, thoughts, memories, and representations of an external reality again reminds me of the metaphor of 'a bag of marbles.' But this model does seem to be implied in many psychotherapeutic theories dealing with the various 'mechanisms of defence' and 'psychodynamics' in general. Consider, for instance, the various spatial terms in the literature such as projection, introjection (from the Latin jacere, 'to throw'), internalization, and externalization. This is the language befitting to the 'mind as a bag of marbles' model. In that language, which is so prevalent (e.g., in the 'object relations theory' literature - c.f. Buckley, 1986), one can easily speak of atomized feelings, thoughts, ideas, transferences, and so on in terms of taking them 'out of my bag and putting them into yours/ or vice versa. Yet there is no real interaction between or among them in such a model - just a moving about between the internal and the external, or between one (mind) bag and another. In the case of 'conversion' the same type of argument applies, only here it takes the similarly atomized concept of an idea/wish/conflict out of 'the mental bag' and places it in 'the physical bag.' As discussed earlier, the classical psychoanalytic literature often speaks of 'transferences' and 'counter-transferences' as banging up against either 'objective facts' or each other. Object relations theorists talk similarly in terms of marblelike, distinct mental entities, which tend to be 'introjected/ 'projected,' 'internalized/ and so on between people. And even self-psychologists like Heinz Kohut (1977) speak of 'transmuting

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internalizations' from one person 'into' another. In each of these cases they are speaking in a mechanistic and atomistic language that assumes many Cartesian ontological and epistemological judgments - judgments that tend to partition Reality along dualistic lines (subject as separate from object, mind as separate from body, internal as separate from external) and then perceive 'the internal' or 'the mind' as a sort of container of 'pure and distinct/ non-physical but transportable entities. These views are quite at variance with the Beams-of-Light-throughTime model. My 'bottom line' is that the entire set of philosophical assumptions implied in such a model ill fits the interactional-dialogical nature of the phenomena of human experience we are trying to describe. Thus, the conceptualizations based on this Cartesian model are inappropriate for our purposes, since they are inconsistent with this understanding of the human condition. But surely, as clinicians, we are all well aware of the existence of the clinical phenomena that have been referred to as 'projection/ 'introjection/ 'internalization/ and so on. It is not the phenomena themselves that I am rejecting, so much as particular conceptualizations of them. For example, in the case of 'projection/ to which phenomenon or process are we actually referring? Projection essentially refers to the situation in which someone misattributes his or her own feelings onto someone else. A common clinical instance of this is the case of an angry man who would like to punch someone. Rather than stating or acknowledging this feeling directly, he instead says he feels like the other person wants to hurt him (or 'is out to get him'). Undoubtedly he does fear the other person, whether that other person has any ill intentions toward him or not. He also may not be really aware of his own anger. Often such patients are aware of their anger but see it as only as 'a response' to the other's perceived threat. What is happening here involves phenomena of interpretation, or of the patient's judgments regarding whose anger he is sensing. No feelings are actually being thrown or transported in any manner, as the term 'projection/ taken literally would imply. At no time does his anger really leave him. And often the unsuspecting other to whom he has misattributed his feeling isn't actually angry at him - indeed, the other person may not even know him. The marble is not transferred, tossed, or projected from the patient's bag into someone else's. There may well be defensive explanations as to why this patient is making this particular disavowal of his own angry feelings and attributing them to someone else, but a description of simply what is going

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on needn't use mechanistic terms. Instead of saying his feelings are 'projected/ we could describe the situation as one in which the patient's interpretive horizons seem constricted with respect to his ability to identify or acknowledge his own angry feelings, whereas his imaginative horizons can and do accommodate the more tolerable idea to him that the anger he at some level senses belongs to someone else. This patient's experience of his phenomenological world is being shaped (or reshaped) in accordance with his prevailing set of emotional cares or concerns at the time (keeping in mind that my use of the word 'cares' here isn't restricted to the 'positive' cares such as wishes or wants, but also includes the dreads and fears that we equally 'care' about, in our wishes to avoid them). This description fits with the Beams-of-Lightthrough-Time model. Let us consider the following clinical vignette Clinical Illustration: A Different Way of Understanding a Case of'Projection': A patient comes in and accuses the therapist of being angry at him. At the start of the session the patient is aware of being angry himself, but picking up on some subtle body language from the therapist (which he interprets as hostile and disapproving), he quickly makes his accusation. The therapist has had a rough day and is a little irritable at the time, and gets a bit defensive himself. He asks why the patient thinks that, but does so in a somewhat aggressive tone. The patient immediately picks up on this and retorts, 'I don't have to be treated so contemptuously ... See, I was right, wasn't I?' The therapist is about to respond (angrily), 'No, I'm not angry at you,' but catches himself and instead says, 'You know what, I am feeling a bit angry now and I imagine you are too ... Let's try to have a look at what's going on between us here.' At this point the mood in the room shifts. The patient, who did not identify his own anger previously, says (more calmly now), 'Yes, actually I came in angry at you today ... I didn't think of it at first but it had to do with feeling rushed out of here last session when you said you were running late.' The therapist acknowledges that he himself was in an irritable mood even before this patient's arrival, and that he was quite aware today, at some level, that the patient was behind on paying his bill. An uncomfortable silence follows, which ends with the patient saying, 'I guess it's better to get it out in the open like that, and I appreciate it that you don't always play Mr Perfect.' The session goes on with some discussion of how the patient never felt allowed to be angry with his father and yet was always blamed for

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his father's moods. His father, it seems, 'always had to be right... the rational one.' At the end of the session the patient also speaks of his anger at the cost of the therapy. When the therapist acknowledges (less defensively) the sacrifice involved on the patient's part to pay the bill, the patient adds (with a big but somewhat aggressive smile) that it felt good to be able to tell his therapist he was angry. Although the anger has been acknowledged by both parties, by the end of the session there is also a calmer atmosphere, one more like mutual respect. Both participants come away from the meeting feeling somehow more deeply connected or engaged. One could conceptualize the above vignette in quite traditional terms. One could speak of the patient's initial projection, of the therapist's successful interpretation of it, of the analysis of the transference origins involved, and perhaps of the patient's internalization of the therapist's calmer reflective stance. If we wanted to push it, we could probably also make a case for some 'projective identification.' But though it may be technically correct within a more Cartesian-based framework, I don't think any of that theoretical analysis is especially accurate or helpful in understanding the interactions that took place in the session. Alternatively, the case could be described as follows: The patient enters the session with his phenomenological world structured in certain ways. His anger at feeling rushed out of his previous session, and his financial worries (as associated with the therapist's bill), are prominent influential cares of his at the time. So he is especially well attuned to the slightly unwelcoming gestures he immediately perceives are coming from the therapist. His emotional world is based largely on his interpretations of his past experiences and has always included a rather restricted imaginative horizon, as evidenced by the fact that with men, he sees only a very limited range of possibilities for emotional expressiveness. Especially toward male authority figures, he is unable to express anger. He can't even imagine it. So he doesn't know what to do with his anger at the therapist - it just doesn't fit in his world view. But the possibility that the therapist is angry at him makes perfect sense to him ('been there, done that'). His attunement to hostile cues from the therapist allowed him to home in on something minor, but nevertheless real, around which to organize his perceptions. Early on, when the patient confronted a therapist who was already having a bad day, the atmosphere of anger escalated quickly - that is, more anger than had been there initially, emerged as a result of their interaction. But later in the session, after the

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negative feelings were discussed more openly, the quality of the interaction changed. A feeling of a common purpose, of understanding, of cooperation then emerged. Furthermore - and perhaps most importantly from a therapeutic standpoint - the sense of mutual respect, perhaps in response to a feeling of honest encounter with an Other who might truly be 'other' than either the patient or the patient's father, seemed to open up new possibilities for the patient. He could now imagine the possibility of a different sort of relationship with a male authority figure (the therapist) in which he might be able to express his anger and get away with it! That is, his imaginative horizons with respect to his cares regarding such relationships had expanded to include the new expression of his feelings, which he exhibited later in the session. This can be seen accurately as a change that occurred in the patient, but it is in him only in the sense of being a change in his world or world view, which of course he may take with him after leaving the therapist's office. But it is not in him in the sense of being something from outside of him put in his mind, as it were, by or from the therapist. Furthermore, the encounter(s) that occurred between him and the therapist, and his ability to make use of them, are the most healing or horizon-expanding factors here. This therapeutic change is not merely a result of the cognitive components of their discussion. I hope the sort of approach illustrated here provides a useful starting point for developing a new set of theoretical notions and understandings of the various defences and conflicts as they present themselves in the psychotherapy situation as 'purple zone' phenomena. Such a set of conceptualizations consistent with the Beams-of-Light-through-Time model may prove especially useful in clinical contexts. Further work, of course, remains to be done in this area. 'Internal Representation' and Representationalism

The concept of 'internal representation' tends to be quite closely tied in with the Cartesian notions described in the earlier section. This is so especially with respect to the 'mind as inner or mental container of ideas' model, which I likened to a mental 'bag of marbles.' Talk of 'internal representations' permeates the psychological and psychotherapeutic literature, and in recent years has arisen from highly diverse sources. Though several psychoanalytic schools (including most object relations theories) rely heavily on such notions in a somewhat abstract

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or metaphoric way, this concept is now also being taken very seriously in the 'cognitive science' framework and has been described and investigated in some more literal or concrete ways from that standpoint. Yet though it has been readily adopted by such diverse approaches to our field, many of the same problems associated with Cartesian-style thinking remain connected with this concept. For instance, in the two above-mentioned traditions of psychological theorizing, the concept of internal representation has tended to attribute to these representations, once formed, something like the 'pure and distinct idea' status inherent in Descartes's original thinking. Also, these representations are often discussed as though they were more of the 'atomized marbles' I criticized earlier. This sort of view overestimates their 'purity and distinctness' (from other representations and from new 'presentations'), as well as their 'fixity' and immutability over time. In parallel it underestimates - or does not allow an appreciation of - their interactional qualities and the importance of situation and context to them (in both spatial and temporal terms). The Videotape' or 'computer-file-like' views of memory discussed and criticized in chapter 7 fit well with the 'fixed representation' concept. But actual human memory doesn't seem to function that way in practice. We don't simply unwrap old, pristine, preformed, internal representations for our present uses or for projections in an atemporal, 'uninfluenced by our present cares' manner, as if we were retrieving a saved computer file or rewinding a videotape. Even very traditional researchers from the experimental 'psychology of memory' and neuroscience fields are now increasingly acknowledging this - as does Harvard psychologist Daniel Schacter in Searching For Memory (1996). This care-related quality to our current impressions, ideas, and recalled representations is evident regardless of how our memories of our past(s) are 'encoded and stored by our brains/ or by what physiological or 'mechanical' means. If you like, the requisite pieces of 'hardware' (e.g., an intact and working brain, a body) needed to support the more experiential processes involved in human memory and in acts of remembering should not be confused with one another. Acts of remembering include an awareness of our temporality and are subject to the same processes of organizing and structuring our experiential 'data' in a care-filled manner as discussed earlier. Thus in human experience as well as in the recounting of it, the processes of remembering the past, interpreting the present, and anticipating the future are quite intertwined. Remember also that even computer files

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and videotaped recordings are only relatively immutable, as most of us have all too often found out for ourselves by accidental erasures and the like. So why should we implicitly impose such unrealistic, mechanomorphic expectations on our understandings of human memory at all? In recent years, more criticisms of the sort of thinking that relies excessively on concepts of internal representation - sometimes described as 'representionalzsra' - have appeared in the psychotherapy literature (e.g., L.S. Berger, 1996, and Maxwell Sucharov, 1999). But by and large the theory's 'naive adherents' (i.e., those who adopt these notions without much thought as to their accuracy or epistemological implications) still far exceed its critics in number. In its more psychodynamic variations, representationalism takes the form of describing a person's current interpersonal reactions, responses, and interpretations of situations mainly in terms of the interplay of these old and rather immutable internal representations or 'images' (e.g., of a particular type of object/other with a particular sort of self6). The components of this quite limited set of internal representations generally seen as having been established through internalization in early childhood - are then seen as competing for the present stage and as getting stirred up or triggered into the foreground by the particulars of the present situation or relationship. One psychological-level problem with this theory has always been that no satisfactory answer has been offered to this question: 'Why should the representations formed and seemingly "introjected" in early childhood be so dominating in later life?' Put another way, 'Why should the re-presentations retained from early life dominate over the current presentations of later life?' Since most clinicians of this ilk reject Descartes's less-than-acceptable-to-modern-tastes notion that 'innate ideas' are put into our minds at birth (or conception) by God, the question becomes tougher. For it then requires that the early representations be there as a function of our learning or experiencing them. This is seen as quite possible in early childhood, according to most psychoanalytic representationalist models; these models, however, then seem to see our abilities as considerably diminished in that regard later on in life. If they are, why? Since many theories of psychotherapeutic treatment actually hinge on these difficult questions, it is important to consider what sorts of philosophical baggage come with this mode of conceptualization and with these assumptions. A further observation about representationalism is that it can also be

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understood as a sort of psychological-level version of the correspondence theory of truth. The same sort of comparing of the internal idea or representation with the external 'reality' approach is evident in this type of thinking. A matching process between the inner and the outer seems central here. People undoubtedly interpret present relationships in light of their past experiences with others. Yet it is highly questionable whether our current perceptions are really so limited that we should best describe them in terms of a matching process in which present perceptions are merely compared with a narrow set of preformed representations brought with us from our past. Further questions about 'how change can then occur/ and what makes 'new representations' and new relationships possible - and indeed, whether anything qualitatively new beyond one's set of early childhood representations can ever be expected in such a framework are important and difficult ones to be addressed as well. While I cannot offer any easy answers to these questions, I think the Cartesian philosophical assumptions inherent in some of these conceptualizations contribute substantially to our difficulties in solving them. Some questions may even, at some point, be seen as 'false problems' - that is, as issues only raised as problems when seen from within an inconsistent or erroneous conceptual framework. For instance, recall that Descartes himself initially postulated his set of 'innate ideas' (historical forerunners of our modern concepts of 'internal representations') in order to somehow allow our internal, immaterial minds to have some kind of valid knowledge of the external, material world - that is, to bridge the ontological gap. But if the 'gap' itself is an erroneous abstraction, perhaps we no longer require such 'bridges' either. The Beams-of-Light-through-Time model, based as it is on ontologically interactional premises, has a quite different starting point when compared in this respect with the neo-Cartesian 'mind as a container filled with marblelike internal representations' paradigm. As a consequence of that, the newer model emphasizes the interplay of the various cares, projects, and presences in our immediate (that is nonmediated but still fully temporal) experiential context without needing to resort so heavily to 'mediating concepts' such as those 'internal representations.' Unlike the Cartesian alternative, it has no need to build complex 'epistemological bridges over ontological gaps,' since it does not presume the existence of these gaps in the first place. Time will tell which of these approaches will prove most fruitful in the long run, but this too is an area that deserves further attention.

252 Part IV: Psychology Consciousness versus Unconsciousness, or Levels of Awareness and Reflectivity Another important issue above which dichotomous thinking has reared its head involves whether feelings, thoughts, desires, and intentions can rightly be judged 'conscious' or 'unconscious.' I am concerned about the way we have used these terms, but not because I contest the existence of 'unconscious' emotional factors as active influences in our lives. Rather, I question the all-or-none, 'this marble belongs in either this container or that one' approach to dealing with such phenomena. There is no shortage of discussion in the psychological (mainly psychoanalytically influenced) literature that talks in this way. It is as if the mind was a big container with certain discreet compartments, such as 'consciousness' and 'the unconscious,' each with its own 'mental contents.' According to this view, specific mental contents are movable from one compartment to another. The task of psychotherapy is then to move certain of these mental contents out of the unconscious compartment and into the conscious one. Obviously, this conceptualization is another variant or manifestation of the atomistic formulations discussed earlier and is subject to the same criticisms as cited earlier. But is it entirely necessary to think of all notions of unconscious-ness (as opposed to 'the unconscious') in such a dichotomous way? Or is that too only necessary to the extent that we continue to cling to our Cartesian epistemological and ontological heritage? I oppose the use of the term 'the unconscious' grammatically as a noun (i.e., an abstracted or idealized thinglike entity); really, it should be used in a merely descriptive adjective form, as in 'an unconscious wish.' It is the noun form that raises the questions and criticisms about the reification of originally descriptive or organizational constructs till they reach the status of alleged ontological entities. This line of criticism has been taken up already in earlier chapters, as well as by several other authors, so I will not repeat it here. Yet even when the term 'unconscious' is used only in adjectival ways, there are at least two important different senses to it in the classical psychoanalytic literature. Freud referred to these two as 'unconscious in the "descriptive" sense' and 'unconscious in the "dynamic" sense' (see New Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis, 1933:102-3). The former of these, he says, refers to 'a psychical process ... whose existence we are obliged to assume - for some such reason as that we infer it from its effects -, but of which we know nothing' (102). He then uses the latter,

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dynamic sense of 'unconscious' to refer to only those mental contents that are actively (and thus dynamically/energetically) kept unconscious by the forces of 'repression.' The mental processes or contents that remain descriptively unconscious, but that are not actively repressed (i.e., those which can easily come into consciousness should we attend to them), Freud then labels merely 'pre-conscious.' This is to distinguish them from their dynamically unconscious or actively repressed counterparts. Though few theorists have much trouble with the 'preconscious/ controversy has for decades surrounded this concept of the dynamically unconscious. One of the earliest and perhaps most reasoned phenomenological critiques of Freud's notions of the unconscious was advanced by Sartre in Being and Nothingness (1943). Here he criticized Freud's notion of unconsciousness at the level of 'the censor' itself - that is, at the level of the supposedly unconscious part of the mind that executes the repression or that 'decides' what to repress and what not to: 'The censor ... it alone knows [italics Sartre's] what it is repressing ... The censor must choose and in order to choose must be aware of so doing' (93). He then asks questions like these: 'How could the censor discern the impulses needing to be repressed without being conscious of discerning them? How can we conceive of a knowledge which is ignorant of itself? ... All knowing is consciousness of knowing. Thus the resistance of the patient implies on the level of the censor an awareness [italics mine] of the thing repressed as such. (93)

From here, Sartre develops his concept of 'bad faith/ in which each person - or 'Consciousness' for him - basically lies to itself. His prime example of this relates to the duplicity of the 'censor/ which must be aware of precisely that which it is repressing in order to deny it. I'll return to this concept of 'bad faith' (mauvaisefoi) or self-deception in next chapter. For now let us focus on Sartre's criticism of the possibility that something can truly be unconscious in an 'all or none' sense. Sartre points out that if 'consciousness versus unconsciousness' is conceived of in a dichotomous way, the censor must have some awareness (presumably a property of consciousness) of what it is choosing to repress (or to deny access into consciousness), and that is a paradox. If some awareness is involved, we should not be calling this 'unconscious.' If there is no awareness, then, how can the censor choose what is dangerous and in need of repression, and what is not?

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This argument, launched over half a century ago, is still valid despite the many substantive and valid criticisms that have since been made of Sartre's later work. We don't have to conclude (as Sartre seems to) that the paradox of the censor must mean that everything in mental life is conscious, chosen, and voluntary. Instead of feeling obligated to assert that the censor is fully conscious OR fully unconscious, we can take a philosophical step back and wonder whether this dilemma is simply a consequence of the dichotomizing itself. If it is, the apparent paradox may be merely another 'false problem.' Consider When we abandon the dichotomous approach, we can understand the entire question of consciousness and unconsciousness as one of degree, or relativity as well. We can then understand even psychodynamic issues as occurring along a continuum of degrees or levels of awareness on which some thoughts, feelings, wishes, interpretations, imaginings, projects, and 'cares' in general are relatively more conscious to us than others. That is, differing degrees of awareness and even different kinds of awareness may be involved in our different cares and so on, etc., either at different times or in different contexts and situations. Coming back to the problem of the censor, and allowing for various levels of awareness as a possibility, we can dissolve the paradoxical part. We can then see the censor as operating on a relatively unaware or relatively unconscious level. We can then acknowledge some awareness of the feelings, thoughts, and so on that are to be avoided or repressed; but at the same time, we can assert that this awareness is minimal in degree and may be quite peripheral in terms of our immediate, conscious experience. This need not imply that such cares or concerns are unimportant or not highly influential in our world structuring; it simply means that we are not terribly aw are of them at the time. Another concept that Sartre uses extensively, that of prereflective as opposed to reflective knowledge, may help clarify this. Reflective knowledge relates to our highest levels of awareness, in which we quite consciously (in the psychoanalytic sense) and rather deliberately focus on some object, or idea, or the like. The object of our reflections is clearly at the centre of our focus at the moment in hand and is central to that moment's experience. Prereflective knowledge, in contrast, refers to our apparent knowledge of many things, tasks, and so on that are not the focus of our thoughts at the given moment. Examples of this include the 'relatively unconscious' ways in which we non-verbally communicate - for instance, by making gestures without noticing we are

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doing it. Merleau-Ponty discussed prereflective and non-verbal knowledge extensively in his work about the 'lived body/ especially in The Phenomenology of Perception (1945). Nowadays, descriptions of this phenomenon are found even in the neuroscience literature - for example, in discussions about 'procedural memory' as opposed to the more reflective, verbal, better articulated, 'declarative' kind of memory (see, for instance, Cohen, Poldrack, and Eichenbaum, 1997). An example of procedural memory is the complex but non-reflective learned task of riding a bicycle. Here one must maintain one's balance while focusing on other things. Procedural memory also provides good examples of levels and types of awareness and knowledge. Surely the bike rider knows how to ride a bicycle, yet doing so is not the focus of her awareness, nor is she reflectively thinking about how to ride or how to keep her balance while doing so. Ordinarily we would not think of this as involving repression (or even 'suppression/ which is more deliberate and conscious); however, in some circumstances it could. For example, if our bike rider panics whenever she thinks about the act of riding or balancing and, becoming self-conscious, falls off the bike, there may well be some motivational or functional advantage to not noticing that one is riding.7 In a great many endeavours, from playing the piano to swinging a one-iron, too much conscious-reflective awareness can get in the way of an otherwise smoothly flowing, prereflective, procedural memory task. In this regard we can say that reflective awareness is not necessarily 'better' than prereflective or non-reflective awareness. But surely they are different. This reflective versus prereflective distinction is also probably better conceptualized as being a matter of degree - that is, some awarenesses may be more reflective than others, and some may be far more potentially accessible to reflection than others. When psychotherapists talk of something being 'just below the surface/ or 'close to becoming conscious/ this implies some concept of varying levels of awareness or of degrees of unconsciousness. So the ensuing step of taking the metaphoric 'leap into consciousness' can also be conceived in terms of allowing something known only on a prereflective, relatively unaware level to become more accessible to one's reflective awareness. We can thus rephrase the traditional task of psychotherapy: it is not about 'making the unconscious conscious/ but rather about 'making the less conscious more conscious/ or generally increasing our self-awareness in varying ways. However, our examples of procedural memory remind us that too

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much reflective awareness can be a bad thing; it is best for some of our actions to involve prereflective levels. In sum, levels of awareness matter, but so do types of awareness. There seems to be some hope here. If we can abandon the all-or-none approach to the 'unconscious versus conscious' distinction in favour of one involving degrees and types of awareness, or relatively unconscious phenomena, we may be able to escape the paradox of the censor without abandoning the psychodynamic notion of 'unconsciousness' entirely. This whole discussion reminds us again that the literature in our field is deeply rooted in a Cartesian or dichotomous style of thinking - one that has been highly influential in a prereflective way, but that has not been well acknowledged on a reflective level. Mind versus Body Issues

This key psychological issue - the last of those I have associated with a Cartesian philosophical framework - is perhaps the most familiar one to many readers. When we encounter the term 'Cartesian dualism' in the literature (be it of general psychology, neuroscience, or philosophy), it is most often in reference to Descartes's splitting of the mind from the body.8 There are many contemporary objections to this form of Cartesian dualism, yet it remains deeply rooted in our terminology. In 1994, Antonio Damasio, a distinguished neurologist, published a book on this topic from a brain researcher's perspective, Descartes' Error. In it he took exception to 'mind/body dualism' and also to the artificial separation often made in the literature between 'reason' and 'emotion.' But as I have emphasized repeatedly, mind/body dualism - even with the addition of reason/emotion dualism - is certainly not the only form of dualism in Descartes's thinking. Nor are these the only dualisms that have had a major philosophical impact on our field. So let us look a bit closer at this mind/body dichotomy in the psychological field. Modern Western thought has always shown a strong tendency to represent 'the mind' and 'the body' as two separate and distinct realms. These roughly correspond to Descartes's two ontological types of being: thinking, mental, or immaterial Being (res cogitans, res mensa), and extended or material Being (res extensa). The mind of course belongs to the former category and the body to the latter. It is the 'and ne'er the twain shall meet' aspect of this dichotomy that has been so problematic for both philosophers and psychological thinkers over the years.

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Descartes suggested the pineal gland (near the base of the brain) as the 'bridge' where body and soul meet, but this notion has not been taken seriously for centuries. In fairness to Descartes, the separation of mind/ soul from body in our thinking hardly originated with him. The same idea was well developed in the dialogues of Plato and in many religious texts. But Descartes - seen by most as the father of modern Western philosophy - gave it its modern and somewhat scientific-sounding form. In psychiatry the standard tool for classifying mental disorders is the DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical classification of Mental Disorders, now at DSM-IV). This very thick book is laced with terms for use in classifying so-called mind/body problems. These terms range from originally Freudian ones such as 'conversion disorder/ to the 'psychophysiological disorders' of DSM-II (1968), to such current (DSM-IV) terms as 'somatoform disorders' (300.81), 'psychological factors affecting medical condition' (316), and 'pain disorder associated with psychological factors' (307.80). The philosophy underlying the DSM's approach (which is present despite its authors' naive claims of being 'generally atheoretical'9) seems to be one of mind/body dualism, but one in which the mind and the body can nevertheless somehow affect each other. How they can do so remains, of course, a mystery. A solution often proposed to this dilemma involves the idea of mind/ brain reductionism, whereby the mind is really only a complex way of looking at the brain. That is, from a reductionistic perspective the 'mental' can be reduced to no more than the physical and physiological workings of the brain, a part of the body. It follows that the mind, the mental, or the soul is an illusory and perhaps dispensable concept, since all is 'really' just body (i.e., material). This reductionist, materialistic point of view is well represented in the medical and neurosciences today. Psychopharmacology and neuroendocrine studies have contributed many discoveries of great practical and therapeutic value in recent decades. Unfortunately, many of these findings have been interpreted as supporting the reductionist thesis that mind is ultimately just brain. That conclusion seems unwarranted. Clearly, the findings do demonstrate that the mind and the body are not completely isolated from each other. But it does not follow at all that these influences run one way (i.e., the body/brain influences the mind, and not vice versa), or that the mind can be totally reduced (even in principle) to the brain or the body. We can say that the mind, in order to exist, requires a bodily founda-

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tion, and that an intact brain and other body parts and functions are requirements for healthy mental functioning; but this is not the same as saying that mind can be reduced to body. We are reminded again that a house is founded on bricks but cannot be reduced to its bricks. With the mind and the body the situation is of course far more complex, but reductionism does not seem to be the only way out of Descartes's dilemma regarding how mind and body can ever meet or influence each other. There is plenty of evidence that the influence does not flow only in one direction. Study after study has shown that in a variety of medical/ physical conditions or illnesses, one's 'mental state' can either help or hinder one's physical state. At the same time, there is ample evidence that under appropriate conditions, particular drugs (e.g., antidepressants) or hormones can have remarkable benefits for a person's mental state. And though psychopharmacologic treatments tend to provide more measurable and visible results, recent studies (e.g., using PET scan brain imagery techniques to examine changes in the localized brain metabolism of glucose) have shown that similar changes can occur following psychotherapy or behaviour therapy alone (e.g., see Baxter et al. [1992], and Schwartz et al. [1996]). These findings do not fit well with the basic reductionist argument that 'brain causes mind' or that 'mind is merely an epiphenomenon of brain.' With all this evidence to support mind/body interactionism, the question becomes, 'Whatever made us think mind and body were so separate to begin with? And that one was subservient to, reducible to, or caused by the other?' The Cartesian framing of the question as, 'How does the immaterial ever influence the material, or how does the mind ever influence the body (or vice-versa)' seems here to be creating a false problem. For if we don't arbitrarily choose to separate the mind and the body into two radically independent ontological realms to begin with, there is no problem of reconnecting them. The most obviously Cartesian-based concept in this regard seems to be that of 'conversion,' especially as originally formulated in classical psychoanalysis. In conversion, a psychological or mental conflict is deemed to be 'converted' (somehow) into a physical one. How this actually happens - it seems rather magical - is not clear, although the results seem obvious. Again, an atomistic view of feelings - and in the case of conflicts - is evident. The 'marble' of a psychic conflict here is taken out of the 'mental' bag and placed in the 'physical' one. The conservation laws of physics remind us once again that if the conflict is removed from the mental bag in this way, the mental conflict should

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not continue to exist there too (for it can't be in two places at once). That is not the same as saying we are no longer aware of it in the mental realm, though it remains there. The marble, having been transferred out of the 'consciousness mental bag,' should not then be able to show up in both the 'unconscious mental bag' and the 'physical symptom bag' at the same time. Something must be amiss here, unless we are prepared to see conversion symptoms as outright cures of psychic problems rather than as physical manifestations of unconscious psychic conflicts. In clinical work we never see disembodied minds, nor do we ever encounter mind-less brains and bodies. Nor presumably, do we elsewhere in our lives. The radical separation of mind and body that seems so well entrenched in our modern Western heritage may well be unnecessary and misleading. So can we step outside this dualisric assumption and arrive at an approach that rings truer to our experience and that still keeps us out of the clutches of a disheartening reductionism? Yes, if we stop thinking about 'the mind' and 'the body' and begin instead with the more holistic concept of 'the person.' The concept of 'the person' is not necessarily naive or oversimplistic. If we take this approach, it will be quite obvious from within the perspective of the Beams-of-Light-through-Time model that although the 'person' is a holistic concept, it is also a complex, multifaceted, and multidimensional one. Furthermore, as we have already shown, we will be able to study this particular whole in greater detail by examining its various facets and dimensions, and do so without having to fragment it into decontextualized parts. Indeed, to break it into fragments would be to miss the point entirely, since the field or system like truths of this whole would then be lost. In sum, atomistic and reductionistic approaches are counterproductive to this way of understanding 'the person.' From the standpoint of the Beams-of-Light-through-Time model, the concept of the person includes embodiment as an essential feature. That emotional conflicts can be symbolically expressed as conversion symptoms is therefore no great surprise in this model! Why shouldn't a person express some of his or her emotions mainly through embodiment, albeit in other ways besides? Indeed, it might be better to ask, 'When do we not embody our emotions?' Embodiment, as an essential dimension of human experience in the Beams-of-Light-through-Time model, is always one of the ways in which we express and manifest our emotions. When we are happy we smile, when we are angry our muscles tense up and we clench our fists or frown or both. When we are anxious, we sweat, we excrete more stomach acid, and we worry.

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This acknowledgment that we express our feeling bodily in no way means we should try to reduce our emotions to their physical, endocrine, or behavioural manifestations (as the most naive of radical behaviourists were wont to do at one time). We are no longer confined here by the either/or dichotomy. A given feeling, emotion, or conflict can easily have both physical and non-physical manifestations. And this is not a theory of mind/body 'parallelism' (in which a mental event routinely occurs in parallel to a corresponding physical event). Rather, since people are multif aceted and multidimensional, they tend to manifest their experiences, actions, and expressiveness in a number of dimensions simultaneously. There is nothing mystical or surprising in this. Analogously, we don't find it strange that a three-dimensional object manifests the same weight or mass whether we are looking at it mainly from the perspective of its length, width, or depth. To ask, Tn which one of its three dimensions does this object manifest its mass?' would be silly - that is, it would be posing a false problem. An illustration that I first came across in a book by the existential psychiatrist Viktor Frankl (1967: 132-3) may be helpful here. We are shown two figures: an equilateral triangle and a square. Can the two figures be of the same object? The answer is yes - they are two facets of a three-dimensional, pyramid-shaped object. Each was seen straight on and perhaps from too close a perspective, so the views provided gave the illusion that they were only two-dimensional figures - and quite different ones at that. From the standpoint of the Beams-of-Lightthrough-Time model, 'the person/ in accordance with our notions about the structure of human experience, is like the pyramid - that is, essentially multidimensional. Of course, in the case of the person, the number of significant dimensions involved at any time will be greater than the three of the pyramid (see chapter 8's discussion of the 'Five-Plus Dimensional Beams-of-Light-through-Time model'). From this perspective, the mind and the body, though at first glance as different from each other as a triangle is from a square, may simply be presentations of two different aspects or dimensions of one whole, indissoluble person. Accordingly, the conversion symptom may still be a manifestation of a person's emotional conflict; but as a symptom it has the peculiarity of being most easily seen from a physical or bodily perspective. To extend the pyramid metaphor, we might liken the conversion symptom to one in which the conflict arises somewhere inside the pyramid (or person) but is most visible from (perhaps) its square (bodily) base's direction. It may be less visible from the triangular

Level G, Part Two: Psychotherapy and Encounters in the Purple Zone 261 (mind) sides - where perhaps we initially sought it out - but in any case it could still be reached from those angles too. With a conversion symptom the physical manifestation is the part most easily seen, although the particular psychological meanings and significances of the symptom (beyond the obvious physical dysfunction or pain) tend to be buried much deeper within the figure. These may be best approached from other directions as well. From the dimension of our more psychological or mental aspects, a conversion symptom can be seen as a condition in which the psychological conflict is not absent but merely difficult to see or buried more deeply - especially from our most conscious perspective. The terminology of the previous section on 'levels of awareness' fits well here. The conflict manifested by a conversion symptom is experienced only at a very low level of reflective awareness. Put another way, the expression of the conversion symptom is for the most part limited to something akin to the 'procedural memory' level. In any case the dilemma of the 'either/or,' 'mind/body' question is no longer such a problem in the Beams-of-Light-through-Time model, which allows for 'both/and' answers. The many terms for describing how the mind and the body influence each other can be best subsumed under the more encompassing understanding that these two are never totally separate to begin with. The mind' and 'the body' are simply two different aspects of the same multidimensional 'person.' In this regard, terms like 'somatoform disorders' and 'psychological factors affecting medical conditions' could all be included under a heading such as 'significant bodily manifestations of a person's cares.' We might then see that there are varying degrees as to how manifestly physical, how manifestly psychological, how reflectively aware, and how conflictual a given experience, action, problem, or dysfunction will present itself. This could be a useful approach to describing and classifying phenomena dealing with the multidimensional complexities of human life. It certainly seems preferable to one that poses such oversimplistic and misleading questions as, Ts it really physical or is it just mental?' Summary In this chapter I began applying the Beams-of-Light-through-Time model to the realm of psychotherapy. In accordance with that model, I dis-

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cussed the psychotherapy situation in terms of a series of encounters in the purple zone. In the first part of the chapter I discussed six essential elements of a phenomenological psychology based on the Beams-of-Light-throughTime model: relatedness to a world, temporality, interpretiveness and perspective, care-fullness, embodiment, and Being-with-Others. I then discussed the latter two in more detail, the first four having been dealt with extensively in earlier chapters. I emphasized embodiment as an omnipresent dimension of our dayto-day lives that significantly contributes to the organization and structuring of our phenomenological worlds. I then discussed the extensive writings on 'the body' by Sartre and Merleau-Ponty. Merleau-Ponty's concept of 'the lived body' was seen to be an important one, especially in regard to the 'prereflective' aspects of our embodied living. Sartre's descriptions of the three ontological dimensions of the body were especially useful in dealing with the more reflective and self-conscious aspects of embodiment. His 'third ontological dimension of the body' roughly, our awareness of our bodies as potential objects to be seen by someone else - helped clarify just how interpersonal our sense of embodiment and our feelings about our bodies are. We saw that emotions such as shame and embarrassment were grounded in this type of selfawareness. Being-with-Others is perhaps the most crucial dimension for us to understand when we recast the psychotherapy endeavour in accordance with the Beams-of-Light-through-Time model. I made reference to the philosophical anatomy of the psychotherapy situation' (see chapter 6) in order to elaborate on the concept of 'the purple zone,' which is central to this endeavour. I discussed the concepts of 'presence' and 'encounter' in that context. The second part of chapter 9 reinterpreted some of the central themes, concepts, constructs, and phenomena in the theory and practice of psychotherapy from the perspective of the Beams-of-Light-throughTime model. I discussed transference and counter-transference in order to show the inadequacy of the traditional descriptions of these concepts in dealing with the interactional, Being-with-Others, and encountering dimensions of what actually goes on in therapy. I offered a case illustration to help clarify this. The section after that dealt with conflict and defence, again pointing out some of the apparent inadequacies in the traditional understandings of these.

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The final three sections of this chapter dealt with 'internal representation and representationalism/ 'consciousness versus unconsciousness, or levels of awareness and reflectivity/ and 'mind versus body issues.' In these sections I offered further examples of the pitfalls and inadequacies of dichotomous or Cartesian-style thinking, and recommended different approaches emphasizing a greater appreciation of the interactional complexities and the multidimensional qualities of human life. In particular, I criticized the perspectives that tend to see the mind as a 'container' of discreet thoughts, feelings, representations, and so on, in the section on internal representation and representationalism. I showed that terms of relativity or degree (as opposed to all-or-none terms) are more in accord with the alternative way of thinking I propose in this book. The concept that different types and levels of awareness are possible, and the notion that particular thoughts and feelings (etc.) can be described as relatively conscious, unconscious, reflective, pre-reflective (etc.) are examples of this. In the final section, on 'mind versus body issues/ I showed that many traditional problems in this area are actually false problems, the result of faulty Cartesian thinking. I called for an approach that emphasizes 'the person' as a multidimensional but indissoluble whole, and offered a geometric metaphor to illustrate this.

CHAPTER 10

PSYCHOLOGY (LEVEL G), PART THREE: The Beams-of-Light-through-Time Model Applied to a Clinical Case, and a New Approach to the Mental Status Examination

This chapter deals with some important concepts initially developed in the phenomenological philosophical literature that are of special relevance to an approach to psychotherapy based on the Beams-of-Lightthrough-Time model. It also completes the journey I alluded to in the title of this book as I shift focus from concepts to clinical practice. In the first part of the chapter, I discuss some of the past literature available on phenomenological and existential psychology. I then discuss 'bad faith' and 'authenticity' - two key concepts for psychological thinking borrowed from phenomenological sources. Finally, I consider the 'Mental Status Examination' (MSE) and case formulation generally, suggesting that a new version of the mental status exam, based on the premises of the Beams-of-Light-through-Time model, can and ought to be developed, as either an alternative or a complement to the traditional MSE. To illustrate this, I present a case example formulated in accordance with the respective terms of each of these two variations. This will allow us to compare and contrast the traditional model with my own. Previous Phenomenological and Existential Psychological Literature, and the Philosophy-Psychotherapy Interface Many phenomenological and existential philosophers have made brilliant contributions to our understanding of human interactions and human encounters 'in the purple zone.' I note in particular Sartre (1943), Merleau-Ponty (1945), and Buber (1923), who often made up for their lack of psychological training or expertise with their intuitive

Level G, Part Three: A Clinical Case, and a New Approach to the MSE 265 brilliance. As well, the extensions of phenomenology into hermeneutics by later philosophers such as Ricoeur (1970) and Gadamer (1960) have prompted important recent discussions in psychological circles. Indeed, these discussions have led many thinkers (especially in Europe) to regard psychoanalysis and psychotherapy as essentially hermeneutic disciplines (e.g., D.B. Stern, 1990). As we approach the end of this book, I should at least mention in passing that besides the work of the writers alluded to already, there is a varied (sometimes sporadic) body of literature available on phenomenologically influenced approaches to psychology and to the broad psychotherapeutic field. This consists mainly of contributions from various psychological theorists and practitioners who have tried to integrate phenomenological ideas into their psychological work. This heterogeneous body of work includes Ludwig Binswanger (1945) and Medard Boss (1979) on 'Daseinsanalysis/ Karl Jaspers on a phenomenological approach to general psychopathology (e.g., 1913), Rollo May (1958) and James Bugental (1965) on 'existential psychology/ and Viktor Frankl on 'logotherapy' (1967). Amadeo Giorgi (Psychology as A Human Science [1970]), J.H. Van den Berg (A Different Existence [1972]), Irvin Yalom (Existential Psychotherapy [1980]), Richard Chessick (What Constitutes the Patient in Psychotherapy: Alternative Ways of Understanding Humans [1992]) and a variety of authors under the 'humanistic psychology' banner have all made important contributions as well. Herbert Speigelberg wrote an excellent two-volume historical text, The Phenomenological Movement (1971 - a one-volume edition has recently been published). He later wrote another book, Phenomenology in Psychology and Psychiatry (1972), that I recommend to those who are interested in more background in this area (although it may be a bit dated by now, and Speigelberg's books are not clinical). Misiak and Sexton published a historical survey, Phenomenological, Existential, and Humanistic Psychologies (1973), around that time too. Also available is the Review of Existential Psychology and Psychiatry, which has published some special issues in book form, including Heidegger and Psychology (1988, ed. Keith Hoeller). In the modern-day psychoanalytic field, some of the philosophical problems I address in this book have been tackled to varying degrees by diverse other writers. George Atwood and Robert Stolorow and their collaborators on 'intersubjectivity theory' have drawn significantly from phenomenological sources (1984; 1987; 1992; Orange, 1997). Charles Hardy (1992) from a classical analytic position, Arnold Goldberg

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from a self-psychological position (1988), Stephen Mitchell from a relational theory position (1993; 1995), and Irwin Hoffman (1983) and others from the 'constructivist/constructionist' movement all have dealt with at least some of the epistemological problems I raise in this book though not from an especially phenomenological perspective. Until recently, the European psychoanalytic schools had far more exposure to and interest in phenomenological and philosophical ideas than their North American counterparts.1 The sometimes perplexing work of Jacques Lacan and his followers in France is an example of a psychoanalytic school that has been heavily influenced by philosophical writings, even if Lacan does not always directly embrace or credit these sources.2 More recently, the English-speaking world has been showing more interest in the interface between philosophy and psychology. The Association for the Advancement of Philosophy and Psychiatry was founded in 1988 as an interest group within the American Psychiatric Association. Its members have written some interesting books - for example, Sadler, Wiggins, and Schwartz, Philosophical Perspectives on Psychiatric Diagnostic Classification (1994), Donald Mender, The Myth of Neuropsychiatry (1994), and J. Phillips and J. Morley (eds.), Imagination and Its Pathologies. That organization and its British counterpart, the Philosophy Group of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, publish a quarterly journal, Philosophy, Psychiatry, and Psychology. Since 1996 the two groups have organized international conferences on 'Philosophy and Mental Health/ where members of similar organizations from a number of other countries have also participated. Likewise, the American Psychological Association has a division (#24) called the division of Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology, which also publishes a journal and has annual meetings, with presentations on topics at the philosophy and psychology interface. All of the above works have informed and inspired me, and provided the background to my own reflections. So much so that I tend to overlook them - in Heideggerian fashion, where one tends to overlook that which is closest to us - or to take them too much for granted at times. I have been developing my own ideas in this particular area for many years, so it is hard for me now to say exactly to what extent and exactly at what levels of my own awareness these works still influence me. I can only acknowledge their high significance. At the same time, this body of literature has never seemed to me to hold together well enough or to be sufficiently comprehensive to do this topic justice. Nor

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has it had as significant an impact on psychological thinking as I think it could have. No one of the above approaches has ever seemed to me satisfactory enough that I can simply align myself behind it. There are probably a variety of reasons why. I will mention a few of them. Interdisciplinary topics in general have many obstacles to overcome. In the case of this field, these obstacles have included the very arcaneness of most philosophical works for the average psychological clinician or theorist. Most psychological theorists are hard-pressed to keep up with developments in their home field and don't have time to conduct extensive studies in philosophy as well. And when philosophical issues are raised in psychological theory, it is often done within the rather narrow confines of one particular psychological (or psychoanalytic) theoretical stance, which may not be readily available to the broader psychological audience. Another problem is that many works in this area pick and choose their philosophical issues of interest at a given time or regarding a particular psychological issue, and rarely attend to the philosophical dimensions of psychological thought in a systematic and comprehensive way. That is, there has been a lack of comprehensive approaches that try to at least acknowledge the manifold philosophical issues and levels of inquiry that are operating simultaneously in our theorizing (e.g., the ontological as well as the epistemological ones, and so on), and the interrelationships between these questions or stances. All of this has sometimes fostered a 'resistance' to talking about philosophical issues, especially among those in our field who insist on especially high standards of scientific rigor and completeness. In this book I am assuming that these issues - though often highly complex and difficult - can indeed be dealt with in a rigorous and relatively thorough manner without necessarily alienating a busy clinical audience. Furthermore, I contend that all people in our field are already dealing with philosophical questions all the time; indeed, no one in our field, in practice or theory, can possibly avoid it. The real issue is whether a given practitioner is doing so consciously and explicitly or only implicitly (i.e., without being aware of it). I have tried to make this book as 'scientist or theorist friendly' and as 'clinician friendly' as possible too, with the goal of helping 'make our philosophical unconscious more conscious.' So let us turn our attention to two important concepts derived from the phenomenological philosophical literature that I feel can make significant contributions to our thinking in our psychotherapy endeavours. These two concepts are 'bad faith' and 'authenticity.'

268 Part IV: Psychology Bad Faith and Authenticity

Two concepts developed by phenomenological - and especially existential - philosophy can be extremely useful in developing a psychotherapeutic understanding in a Beams-of-Light-through-Time based psychology. These are 'bad faith' (mauvaise foi as first elaborated by Sartre [1943: 86]) and 'authenticity' (mainly in Heidegger's sense of the term). 'Bad faith' is the pejorative label Sartre gives to a particular form of self-deception regarding the nature of ourselves and of many other worldly phenomena that allows these to seem more definite, solid, absolute, unchanging, or universal than they really are. 'Authenticity,' on the other hand, has to do with a way of experiencing and acting that involves appreciatively and expressively grasping our most unique and particular possibilities at a given moment, and then enacting those possibilities which are most in harmony with the givens of our current situation of Being-in-the-World. Although this enacting is always limited to some degree, to be authentic is to be most true to one's self (i.e., to one's self as involving an entire temporal, relational, care-filled, Being-in-the-World matrix or complex). Bad faith is a form of falsity, a self-deception; authenticity is a form of truth, a mode of true selfunderstanding and true self-expression. Some of our old issues of realism and relativism tend to come up around these concepts. Sartre applies the notion of bad faith in criticizing the objectivist and transcendentalist (or essentialist) perspectives. This concept is clearly anh'-objectivist in sentiment. It suggests that our beliefs in essences - for example, the belief in an essential, set, fixed, or complete self - are grounded in the self-deceptions of bad faith. He gives a psychological rationale for this, arguing that bad faith is a common and necessary defence that we use when confronted with or forced to face emotionally intolerable facts, such as those of the ambiguity, the radical contingency, and the ungrounded freedom inherent to the human condition. Clearly, these ideas push us off the objectivist views of essences. For its part, the notion of authenticity tries to save us from falling way over in the opposite direction into the abyss of a complete 'anything goes, it's all of equal value' position. As I discussed earlier, the latter, radically relativist stance would ultimately undermine all projects of progressive understanding, science, expertise, and wisdom of any sort. As a concept, then, authenticity is designed in part to let us embrace the existential limitedness and incompleteness inherent to our condition of Being-in-the-World, while at the same time

Level G, Part Three: A Clinical Case, and a New Approach to the MSB 269 ensuring that we don't fall into an utterly groundless and perhaps solipsistic position as a consequence of rejecting extreme objectivism. This is why it may be helpful to consider these two concepts together. In terms of my hierarchy, bad faith asserts a relativism at the general epistemological and higher levels of inquiry; authenticity tries to confine this relativism to only the upper levels of the hierarchy while preserving a perspective of realism at the ontological level. Bad Faith In the personal psychology of an individual, bad faith is similar to the notion of reification. Many writers in the last few decades, from sociologists Berger and Luckman in The Social Construction of Reality (1966) in the 1960s to Stolorow and Atwood's work on intersubjectivity theory in the 1980s and 1990s, have written extensively about problems of reification in various scientific theories. Psychological theory and psychoanalysis in particular have often been chastised - and rightly so for falling into the reification trap. Reification is more than a postmodern buzzword; it refers to the process by which we take man-made concepts, ideas, models, constructions, or imaginings and - forgetting their humble origins - begin to treat them or think of them as 'really Real/ external 'things in themselves.' It is a sort of conceptual idol-building, which unfortunately leads to conceptual idol-worshipping. Reification is thus the self-deceptive process of making an idea or a construct seem more externally, ontologically, objectively Real than it actually is. The reified idea has been crowned with an (apparent) ontological status that it doesn't deserve. Psychoanalytic constructs such as 'the ego,' 'the id' and 'the instincts' have been assailed as reifications - in effect, for having been taken too seriously in this manner. Many of the discussions of these constructs in the literature seem to forget that originally they were merely metaphoric fictions - perhaps with some explanatory value - and that they are not and never can be the actual phenomena of experience (let alone something experienced as above and beyond or independent of us). They have been reified despite clear warnings against it by their 'inventor' (see Sigmund Freud, 1933, 'On the Question of Weltanschauung' New Introductory Lectures On Psychoanalysis). Ironically, the psychological reasons underlying why we are so prone to reifying may be explained better by Sartre's concept of bad faith rather than by anything in the psychological literature proper.

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Like Heidegger before him, Sartre saw the human world as one of non-fixed phenomena whose significances and meanings are continuously in flux (to some degree), and that are influenced by the confluence of all three temporal dimensions of past, present, and future. However, Sartre focused more on the psychological awareness of this condition of being. He argued that I hate it - that my ambiguity and incompleteness make me so anxious and uncomfortable that I will go to great lengths of self-deception in order to conceal from myself the ambiguities inherent to my life. He contended that I would rather create illusions to the contrary and cling to them tightly. Thus, I try (defensively) to convince myself that 'indeed I am a thing,' an essence, something that is set, fixed, determined, and complete. It is this selfdeceptive process that he calls bad faith. Bad faith, then, was Sartre's psychological explanation for our apparently erroneous tendency to describe or think of ourselves as if we were mere 'things.' He believed we take comfort in this, since it allows us to hide from both the arbitrariness and the uncertainties of life, as well as - in Erich Fromm's (1941) terms - to 'escape from freedom/ Heidegger attributed this tendency to refer to people or to discuss human phenomena in terms appropriate only to 'things,' to a mistaken direction taken by centuries of 'metaphysical thinking.' Sartre attributed it, rather, to an aspect of human psychology. Specifically, it is that aspect of our emotional make-up which can't stand uncertainty, incompleteness, or the presence of the arbitrary (merely 'contingent') features of life and seeks to hide from them self-deceptively. Bad faith, according to Sartre, is thus our most primary, central, important, and universal 'defence mechanism' (to use the psychodynamic term). After we strip away some of the confusing wordiness of some of the writings on bad faith, the concept boils down to a form of selfdeception in which I try to see myself as a particular type of essence (or thing) with a postulated inherent or essential nature. This makes me then seem to be a complete, given, or determined entity. These fantasies relieve me of much of the burden of my choices and responsibilities, from which I seek escape. Actually, there are two possible forms of bad faith: a falsely affirmative one, and a falsely denying or disavowing one. Regarding the first type, I may for example in bad faith choose to over identify myself wit particular role (e.g., as a waiter in one of Sartre's original examples), or with a label I give myself or that is given to me by others (e.g., 'a homosexual/ 'a winner,' 'a born loser'), or with a group with which I

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affiliate (e.g., Canadians, writers, therapists). But in each case my identification with the name attached is carried to excess. In its false affirmation type, bad faith takes the form of 'because I am an 'x/ I must do 'y/ the implification being that no choice is involved. The deception here is found in my attempt to believe that I have an essence as 'an x' which then determines everything about me, including my behaviours. It thus disavows whole realms of my possibilities as well as my freedom(s) to pursue them. Thus even the seemingly affirmative type of bad faith is really about disavowal too. In the second type of bad faith, the denial or disavowal is more blatant and obvious. Here Sartre argued that it would be equally in bad faith for me, if I was working as a waiter, to say 'I am not a waiter.' For this too would be a denial of a true aspect of who I am. In bad faith I either say 'I am just a waiter and nothing more' (type one: my waiter-ness determines all of me), or that T am not at all a waiter' (type two: there is nothing waiterlike about me). In comparison, in good faith I would have to acknowledge my 'waiting-on-tables' activities and roles, and the personal meanings attached to these, as real but only partial, incomplete, and certainly non-deterministic aspects of who I am, while also acknowledging that I am always much more than just these. Yet Sartre himself had little faith in 'good faith'! He thought it didn't happen much and then when it did, it couldn't be maintained for long. He argued that bad faith, in contrast, was at the very heart of our human (ontological) mode of Being. But this seems just an assumption he makes, as it were, on faith. I don't agree with this last supposition and with several other elements of Sartre's philosophy and psychology, and some of his arguments seem to contain their own reifications and inconsistencies. That said, his concept of bad faith could be extremely useful in psychotherapy. For example, how many times as therapists have we encountered self-deceiving, responsibility-avoiding phenomena that could be understood in terms of Sartre's bad faith? Consider patients who seem unable to assert themselves, or to seek help from others, or to express their anger or their sexuality, or the like, and who then say 'they can't' because 'nice people/ 'helpers,' 'civilized people,' 'good girls/ and so on, don't do that sort of thing. These patients are overidentifying with a label and then taking that label for the guiding determinant of their behaviour. These are very common clinical issues. These patients can be described as presenting the false-affirmation type of bad faith. Similarly, any clinician will be quite familiar with cases of bad faith

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of the more blatantly disavowing type. For instance, patients who drink to the point of severe dysfunction but say 'they are not alcoholics/ or who cheat on their spouses but maintain they're 'not unfaithful/ or who beat their wives but say they are 'non-violent/ or whose hostility is felt by all around them on a regular basis but who say 'I'm not an angry person.' All of these are familiar examples of this phenomenon. And the strange thing about these self-deceptions is that at some level, these patients really believe their own hypocrisies. That is perhaps what distinguishes this sort of bad faith from mere lying. Back in the realm of theory, this 'defence' of bad faith also seems quite rampant at times, especially in some objectivistic approaches where diagnostic labels and constructs tend to take on a life of their own - often inappropriately. For instance, do we treat 'neurotics/ 'bipolars/ 'depressives/ 'schizophrenics/ and 'borderlines'? Or do we actually treat individual people whose problems happen to often include certain collections of symptoms that statistically tend to cluster into these familiar syndromes? But even when they do follow familiar groupings, any individual's particular symptoms will nevertheless take on very idiosyncratic meanings and significances in the differing contexts of each patient's life. Clinical wisdom often teaches us that in some very important ways, 'every patient is an exception.' Diagnostic labelling based on clusters of symptoms and signs alone often adds little - or little of positive value to the psychotherapeutic encounter or its context. Yet both therapist and patient are often more 'comfortable' at times, in a bad faith sort of way, when they pretend that labelling provides certainty or solidity. Bad faith is an example of a concept borrowed from the philosophical literature that is of considerable utility in the psychological or psychotherapeutic field. This is so whether or not we acknowledge it as philosophically important. The Ethics of Bad Faith

Sartre's notion of bad faith allows us to pull back drastically from the 'Scylla' of objectivism and its self-deceiving reifications, but it also moves us dangerously close to the 'Charybdis' of an ultimately meaningless radical relativism (as contemporary philosopher Thomas Langan refers to these twin dangers in his 1996 book, Being and Truth). Sartre argued provocatively that in the end, or on an absolute scale, 'it makes no difference whether one conquers nations or gets drunk alone.' This

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position is, of course, fraught with the philosophical dilemmas of relativism at many levels, from the ontological to the psychological and the moral. But his argument seems to be trapped in the either/or position of Cartesian Dualism - which Sartre didn't always seem to escape or even to want to escape, despite his phenomenological grounding. Certainly, if we throw out all notions of objectivzfy entirely, instead of just the extreme of objectivism, we get caught up in the subjectivistic and relativistic problems previously described. But if we don't start with the either/or dualistic split, this extremism may turn out to be neither necessary nor warranted. That is, the dilemma of choosing between these two extremes may be far less of a problem when we begin with the assumption of the primacy of relatedness-to-a-world (at ontological level B of the hierarchy), as was described in Heidegger's Being and Time, and which I have taken up in the Beams-of-Light-through-Time model. On that basis, rather than on the basis of the 's R o' model's 'truth comes either from the subject or the object but not both' dichotomy, I have adopted a co-constitutional epistemology in which the relatively subjective and the relatively objective components offer significant contributions to the interactional truths of human experience that emerge from their blendings. In terms of the hierarchical approach I am developing, we can deal with the twin difficulties of objectivism and relativism I alluded to earlier by applying a framework of understanding that includes multiple, simultaneously operative levels as follows: If we can preserve some element of objectivity without objectivism, it is because we have taken a position of realism at the ontological level, even if our positions are more relativistic at the general epistemological and higher levels. This enables us to deny a complete arbitrariness to our worlds, perceptions, and actions while still acknowledging their care-structured and perspectival qualities. This blended, co-constitutional quality of human reality, as embraced by the Beams-of-Light-through-Time model, provides a grounding whereby various notions of at least some degree of validity are possible and consistent, either in the sciences or for an ethics. For example, good faith here does seem 'better' than bad faith. This is a moral assumption I am prepared to make and acknowledge, though not out of an objectivistic sense of certainty. I adopt this position for more pragmatic reasons. That is, it seems to be a reasonable hypothesis that is workable and that is not inconsistent with my philosophical positions at more foundational levels. Furthermore, its 'reasonableness' - a value judgment on my part, of course - can be shared by a broad

274 Part IV: Psychology segment of the psychological and philosophical community. Clearly, I am appealing here to the validity criteria described earlier as those of coherence, pragmatism, and consensus. I acknowledge, of course, that this sort of grounding necessarily leaves my position with only the status of a working hypothesis or a working assumption. So it is certainly subject to further development, revision, and possible replacement. Sartre's position, on the other hand, left him caught in his own web of moral or ethical relativism, and he had to declare that it is no better in any absolute sense to be in good faith (i.e., not overidentifying with one's role or label, while not denying its personal appropriateness either) than to be in bad faith. But we could argue that he did not live that way! Indeed, his supporters maintain that as an adult, he developed and practised very deep, carefully considered commitments (many of them controversial) in an actively engaged way and encouraged others to do the same (see for instance Axel Madsen's 1977 biography of Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir, Hearts and Minds). To the extent that we agree with those biographies which see him in this positive light (others are more negative), we can see Sartre's lived philosophy as more 'authentic' and as making more sense than some of what he wrote (his life being less radically relativistic than his work and more in keeping with the practicalities of the lived world). To better address these questions of 'lived philosophy,' let us turn now to the concept of authenticity. Authenticity Moral and ethical questions of 'what should I do (or not do)' tend to be quite intertwined with those of 'who am I really.' Indeed, Canadian philosopher Charles Taylor described them as inextricably linked. In Sources of the Self: The Making of Modern Identity (1989), he asserts that 'to know who you are is to be oriented in moral space, a space in which questions arise about what is good or bad, what is worth doing and what not, what has meaning and importance for you and what is trivial and secondary' (28). Thus our very identity is essentially wrapped up in the network of values, meanings, significances, and concerns that I've referred to in previous chapters as our cares. Questions of identity and action are obviously of enormous emotional and psychological importance. The concept of 'good faith' as discussed earlier can be helpful when we look at psychological identity issues. But especially when it comes to questions about the Tightness or appropriateness of one's actions, the related term found most often in the

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existential and phenomenological literature is 'authenticity.' This term is discussed at length in Heidegger's Being and Time and in subsequent works by a variety of authors. It may seem quite odd - certainly distasteful, and perhaps even offensive to some - to turn to Heidegger for a term on which to base a sense of moral validity. Heidegger's life conduct was sometimes thoroughly appalling (his Nazi political activities, his mistreatment of Husserl during that period, and his postwar reluctance to denounce the deeds of that awful time).3 As a consequence, many people now ask whether a man like him could possibly have ever written anything that deserves to be taken seriously in any discussion of ethics, morality, or 'right conduct' (even though Being and Time was written in the 1920s, well before the Nazi era). In philosophy, perhaps even more than in other fields, these criticisms cannot be simply dismissed as ad hominem arguments. It matters a great deal what one does in practice. But it does not follow that Heidegger's reprehensible behaviour means that nothing he ever wrote could be of significant value. Psychologically, the relationship between his writings and his actions may be quite a fascinating study in itself. But that is not our task here. At best, his case represents a humbling reminder of how difficult it really is for all of us to be consistent and authentic in both word and action. The 'easier said than done' phenomenon is certainly well known by clinicians of all persuasions. Philosopher Thomas Langan, in Tradition and Authenticity in the Search for Ecumenic Wisdom (1992), defines authenticity as 'the project of achieving the fullest possible self-understanding and self-control so as to be able to respond to the needs and possibilities of the situation' (213). Psychotherapist J.F.T. Bugental, in The Search for Authenticity (1965), similarly claims that 'a person is authentic in that degree to which his being in the world is unqualifiedly in accord with the givenness of his own nature and of the world' (31-2). He adds that 'we are inauthentic to the extent that we are in conflict with the givenness of being' (33) In these two descriptions there is clearly an element of philosophical realism to be appreciated: authenticity does indeed embrace a strong element of the 'to thine own self be true' dictum of Polonius in Shakespeare's Hamlet.4 However, it also involves perhaps an even stronger degree of 'being true to' a broad, genuine, thoughtful, and wise understanding of the world, one's situation, and - as Langan puts it - 'how [one] stands with Being' in all its fullness. This notion of authenticity thus stands in stark contrast to the sense of groundlessness later articu-

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lated by Hamlet himself when in anguish he comments that 'there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so/5 So, if Sartre's notion of bad faith amounts to a caution against any inappropriate sense that human existence is definite and certain, the concept of authenticity may (albeit from the opposite direction) amount to a caution against any inappropriate sense that our lives are arbitrary. In this sense the two concepts may be capable of working together harmoniously, to keep us in balance and away from either extreme. Returning to Taylor's point, the seemingly more psychological question of 'Who am I?' and the seemingly more philosophical one of 'What should I do (or not do)?' appear to be quite related. Perhaps curiously, Heidegger himself in Being and Time denied that his work has any ethical content. And Sartre said the same in Being and Nothingness (although he at least concluded that book with an affirmation that another one on existential ethics should follow it).6 Yet most readers have understood the term authenticity as containing an implied positive moral valuation that offers some basis for making personal action choices (as is similarly the case with Sartre's notion of good faith). Bugental is quite explicit about this, stating that 'authenticity is the primary good or value of the existential viewpoint' (32). Langan, too, attributes a positive moral value to authenticity (as opposed to inauthenticity), though he also emphasizes how much hard work and serious thought is required in the pursuit of this virtue. He goes on to say that 'bringing our action into harmony with that critically purified reality in all its various dimensions ... is the challenge each of us faces' (12). In an earlier work, The Meaning of Heidegger (1961), Langan pointed out that the German term Heidegger actually uses is eigentlich, which can be translated as 'ownmost' rather than as 'authentic' to preserve the eigen ('own') etymology of the term. 'Ownmost' also points to the 'self (autos in Greek) root of the word 'authentic'; perhaps this conveys a bit more of the sense of 'a good and appropriate fit for me' as opposed to 'good in itself.' That is, it may be a more relativized or personally situated term in the original than in the translation. In any case, 'ownmost' is clearly defined in relation to the specific self involved, which again refers us back to an important psychological concept. The term authenticity has been taken up by many since Being and Time - including those of far different political persuasions than Heidegger - and has generally been seen as an ethical and a psychological goal to strive toward. Bugental's work is an early example of this from the American psychotherapy literature. More recently, von

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Broembsen in The Sovereign Self: Toward a Phenomenology of Self Experience (1999) has utilized the concept of authenticity extensively, roughly equating it with 'existential identity/ She describes it as a 'dimension' of what the term 'self entails (in addition to other dimensions of the self such as 'sense of self or self concept' and 'self structure'), and as the most complex one of these. She adds: At its fullest development it amounts to an integrative awareness of self and of surround, of substance and of process. Even in its interim manifestations - self-as-agent experiences with varying degrees of lucidity - it involves an intuitive, relatively lucid confluence in one single moment of experience, one single act of cognizance, of the first two aspects of the self - sense of self and self structure, (xxv)

In these works the achievement of a greater degree of authenticity is seen as of great psychotherapeutic value. These writers are placing authenticity in opposition to such psychologically unhealthy terms as the 'false self (as used by D.W. Winnicott [1958] and others from the 'object relations" and 'self psychological' schools of psychoanalysis and psychotherapy). In the psychological literature, behaviours that people feel best reflect their truest self and that lead them to strongly positive feelings of self-cohesion, integrity, and a sense of 'having done the right thing' are often labelled authentic as well. Yet as the term is used in psychology (i.e., somewhat loosely), it sometimes seems to overemphasize the self component of authenticity at the expense of the world portion with which it is supposed to be in harmony. This can reflect or give rise to a common misinterpretation of the term whereby authenticity is grounded merely in how a given act feels to the agent carrying it out. Self-indulgence, self-centredness, and even selfishness - perhaps rationalized under the rubric of 'self-actualization' - can all feel quite good and (?)'right' to an individual, yet none of these can be seen as authentic in the technical philosophical sense described above. Also the realistic basis of the idea 'that it is better to be authentic than to be inauthentic' is not and cannot be based merely on the psychological fact that one way of acting simply feels better than another. The 'how it stands with Being' questions are integral to the philosophical concept of authenticity. As a guiding principle in terms of both identity and action, the concept of authenticity does offer us an argument that some possibili-

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ties are more in harmony than others with a given individual's unique personal history, situation, understandings, goals, projects, perspectives, set of cares, and so on - in short, with his or her Being-in-theWorld. It follows that these 'harmonious' possibilities are more specifically 'appropriate' than the rest to him or her. Acting authentically thus involves taking up (or 'appropriating') these most personal-historically, situationally, and contextually relevant possibilities. Put another way, one's 'ownmost' (eigentlich) possibilities are the ones that are best to pursue from the standpoint of both ethics and psychological health. This line of reasoning brings out the truism that it certainly does make a difference what we choose to do. And these choices are never entirely arbitrary. Our phenomenological worlds tend to favour some possibilities over others. Even so, the choices may be far from easy and obvious. Furthermore, the answers to our action questions cannot be definite and absolute, for the concept of authenticity, though it prefers some possibilities over others, is anything but deterministic. To think otherwise would be a complete misreading of any existentialist thinker, including Heidegger. It would also be an example of bad faith par excellence! Many schools of psychology emphasize the importance of a sense of identity, or a sense of the integrity, cohesiveness, or wholeness of the self and one's actions. In this sense, the term authenticity has something useful to contribute to psychology, and to psychotherapeutics in particular. The concept of authenticity may also provide a bridge or balance point between the extremes of a fixed and totally determined self (and its course of behaviour) on the one hand, and a chaotic (though free) self caught up in a directionless and completely arbitrary voluntarism on the other. Of course, philosophically derived notions such as bad faith and authenticity cannot provide us with 'be all and end all' guidelines for psychological health, or for ethical behaviour either. Even so, the psychological field would benefit from borrowing these terms. With that in mind, let us consider a clinical case formulated in accordance with many of the philosophically informed concepts I have developed so far. Two Views of the Mental Status Examination: A Traditional One Contrasted with a Beams-of-Light-through-Time Based Version The standard format for summarizing a psychiatric assessment of a patient's current condition is the Mental Status Examination (MSE).

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MSEs have long been organized around classical categories such as 'Appearance, Behaviour, and Speech/ 'Affect/ 'Thought/ 'Perception/ 'Cognition/ and 'Insight and Judgment/7 In the Beams-of-Light-throughTime model there are six essential features of a phenomenological psychology that do not simply overlap with these terms. In this vein, I propose an alternative approach to MSEs that assesses patients in terms of their current condition with respect to these six crucial aspects of human experience. In other words, a Beams-of-Light-through-Time based version of the MSE would assess patients in terms of their current modes of relatedness to their world(s), temporality, interpretiveness and perspective, care-fullness, embodiment, and of course 'Being-withOthers/ This very different way of assessing someone's current psychological condition may prove useful as either an alternative or an adjunct to traditional MSEs. Below I describe a clinical case, and then summarize it utilizing both formats: the traditional MSE, and my proposed one based on the Beams-of-Light-through-Time model. This will allow us to compare and contrast these alternative approaches to the assessment of mental or psychological status. Case Example: J.T. J.T. was a fifty-year-old male professor of English literature who had been on the faculty, somewhat unhappily, for over twenty years at a local university. He had obtained tenure in his department many years before, but had been out of favour with its chiefs for much of his career. The main issues were his cantankerous personality and (more recently) a severe case of writer's block. The latter, which was taken as an affront in the 'publish or perish' atmosphere of his faculty, had apparently led to his recent demotion: his graduate-school courses had been 'temporarily but indefinitely' suspended, and he had been assigned to teach only introductory survey courses for undergraduates. He felt humiliated and angered by this turn of events; even so, he tried at first to adjust to his demotion and make a go of it. But he grew more and more irritable and depressed throughout the first term of this new routine, till by the starting date of the following one he was totally incapacitated. He was then placed on sick leave. Although an acknowledged world-class expert in his area of specialty, he had not completed a single publishable article in the last three years. Also, since his demotion he hadn't touched his long-term project - a book for which he'd been gathering notes for over fifteen years. One of the conditions of his

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sick leave was that he seek psychiatric help. He would never have considered doing so in the past, but he knew he was depressed, so he agreed with some reluctance. J.T. had a very harsh upbringing. He had been raised on a farm, and in his large but seemingly loveless puritanical family, discipline was paramount. His father enforced this all too often with severe beatings (usually with a wooden stick or a leather belt). Equally severe to the patient were the dirty looks, admonishments, and harsh criticisms (usually invoking God's displeasure) he was constantly receiving from his mother. As the eldest boy and the second of five children, he was the main target of the family's discipline - the one singled out to be an example for the others. Almost from the first, he handled all of this with a quiet contempt accompanied by outward compliance. He did his best to hide his emotions and to act indifferent to the beatings. The hatefilled, finger-pointing criticisms from his mother (who portrayed herself as God's messenger) were much harder for him to tolerate. A sense of painful imperfection, sinfulness, and inadequacy would haunt him throughout his life, apparently as a consequence of this. As he grew older he grasped that he was intellectually far better equipped than either of his parents and that this might be 'his ticket out.' A strong determination to succeed academically enabled this very driven young man to make a brilliant start as a young scholar. Scholarships allowed him to move off to the university and the big city. Unfortunately, he remained so haunted by self-doubts and constrained anger that he could take little pleasure in his early successes or in the path that led to them. Relationships with women were always a problem for this man. From an early age he felt tormented by the conflict between his sexual desires and his mother's rantings against the 'depraved sinfulness' of basically all sexuality. At the same time, he felt that women had a power over him and were not to be resisted. Consequently, when in his mid-twenties a young woman took a fancy to him and wanted to marry him, he felt unable to say no. His marriage was always stormy. He kept an emotional distance from his wife and their three children. The children were largely raised by his wife, and he harboured much secret jealousy over the attention she gave them. J.T.'s psychiatric family history was not encouraging either. Three of his four siblings had needed psychiatric treatment of some kind - two for depression - and one sister had committed suicide. In each case treatment was sought only as a last resort. There was probably signifi-

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cant depression (and other problems) in his parents and in their families of origin as well, but their culture would not allow for medical or psychological intervention for such things. No one of their generation ever received treatment. Initial Mental Status Exam ofJ.T. (traditional version) Appearance and Behaviour: The patient presented as a somewhat gruff, unhappy-looking, slightly dishevelled 50-year-old man appearing older than his stated age. He sat quietly, moved slowly and was generally cooperative with the interview process. He looked downward most of the time with minimal eyecontact. Speech. His speech was clear though he answered quietly with rather curt replies. An angry tone to his responses seemed to show a reluctance to be here. Affect: (Subjective): The patient talked of feeling betrayed and cheated by his department head at the university and he was also angry at the 'unruly' gang of undergraduates he had been saddled with. He was aware of his sense of discouragement and loss of interest in almost anything, but was not sure if he was 'depressed' or not when asked. Affect (Objective): The patient showed several signs of depressive symptomatology, including slowed movements, a reported sleep-disorder with early-morning waking, persistent frowning, irritability, reports of fatigue, loss of energy, decreased libido and appetite, worse than expected performance on simple concentration tasks (e.g., serial 7's and months of the year backwards, etc.), and passive suicidal ideation ('it would be okay to be hit by a car now, but suicide would be a sin'). It was also noted that he appeared to have great trouble in even naming his feelings of sadness, anger, and depression. Thought (Form): No abnormalities of thought form were noted. There was no loosening of associations, tangentiality, etc. Thought (Content): Thought content revolved largely around how mistreated he felt he had been by the authorities at his university and how angry he was about that. He also described the situation as 'hopeless' at this time. He tended to ruminate guiltily over seemingly minor mistakes he made years before (an off-hand comment, etc.) as well. While there was no clearly delusional content, he certainly felt that he was alone, could trust no one, and had been betrayed. His attitude was seen as quite negativistic. Perception: No abnormalities of perception were noted, there were no reports of hallucinations, illusions, etc. Cognition: He was well oriented to person, place, and time. This patient appeared to be an extremely intelligent man though currently functioning below his capacities. Performance on routine memory and calculation tests was good but likely not commensurate with his pre-morbid baseline. Concentration was within normal limits but probably diminished from his baseline too. No gross abnor-

282 Part IV: Psychology malities of cognition were found. Insight and Judgment: Insight appeared to be limited in this man. It was quite difficult for him to see or acknowledge that he had a problem or that he may be depressed. His judgment seemed somewhat poor in this regard too, particularly in terms of social skills and the social judgment required to deal more effectively with his colleagues (as well as his family). Diagnosis: Based on the above history and mental status this man was diagnosed as having a 'Major Depressive Episode' thought to be precipitated by his recent work problems and his demotion. The question of some underlying 'personality disorder' was also raised but judgment on this was reserved due to the presence of his current depressed state which could be colouring his history and presentation significantly. Recommendations: Psychotherapy was recommended on a twice-a-week basis for this patient to start immediately. It was also recommended that a trial of anti-depressant medications be discussed with the patient and subsequently implemented if he agreed. A Beams-of-Light-through-Time Based Version of the Mental Status Examination ofJ.T.

Relatedness to one's world. J.T. has always seen his world as a rather gloomy web of duty and punishment in which he is always alone and put upon. Of late it has taken on an even darker and more threatening tone, to the point of effectively squeezing all the hopeful and enjoyable imaginative possibilities out beyond his current experiential horizons. His world is a trap from which extrication is impossible. Furthermore, his world is pain-filled and humiliating. He experiences no separation between his personal pain and the painful world. Still, it feels like a lonely and hostile place to be. Temporality. Perhaps the best way of describing J.T.'s current sense of his temporality is as 'blocked/ or as somehow folded in on itself and looking backwards. His imaginative world of anticipatory, hope-filled, future-directed cares seems at this time to be dominated and constricted by his ruminative focusing on either the mistakes of his distant past (for which no new action possibilities exist) or on the restricted scope of practical work opportunities afforded him in his more recent past and present (for which his action possibilities have been and still are very limited). Thus a more satisfying sense of Being-toward-theFuture feels deadened and squashed in him, and has been replaced by

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one of helpless resignation. He seems to have closed off a part of himself with respect to his temporality, preferring to maintain a position of feigned indifference - in this case towards his future. This approach seems much like the ways in which he closed parts of his experience off from himself at other points in his life - for instance, in his responses to his childhood beatings early on, and later when confronted with the tasks of articulating his emotions in his relationships. Yet the 'feigning' quality to this indifference can only be acknowledged at some deeper level of awareness. On the surface he maintains that he 'does not care' about his future now, and that even to be hit by a car would be of no great consequence to him. He seems to have neither hope nor dread of the future now, and that's it. Yet his resignation seems to be in 'bad faith.' For he does care. And his angry ruminations on the past, on closer examination, are generally of the 'if only I or they hadn't said or done this then I could still be able to do that' variety. Secretly he hopes for things to change for the better in the future, but he dares not expect anything good by hoping for it too obviously, for he is constantly on guard against further future disappointments. It would be better to be indifferent. It would be easier if he could actually be the indifferent thing that bad faith allows him to pretend to be. The problem is that he can't be that. Such a complete indifference is not humanly possible, so rather he feels despair. And at some deep level he knows his 'not caring' can only be superficial, and that is part of why he agreed to come see a psychiatrist. The 'requirement' that he seek treatment has allowed him to come in while still disavowing any hopefulness about it. It allows him the sense of dignity he finds in this particular instance of bad faith. So although he seems to be caught looking only backwards at the temporality of a static past, in truth he is also anxious to sneak a peak at the future through the strained glances of his peripheral vision. Yet at all times he feels both fearful of and embarrassed to admit to any such hopes and cares. Interpretiveness and perspective. This man's interpretiveness and perspective are certainly coloured at present by the world view described above. An angry, disappointed, hurt, and discouraged negativism seems to have narrowed his perspective and constricted his imaginative horizons, and may have been doing so (perhaps to a lesser degree) for some time now. Concepts of 'joyfulness' and 'fulfilment' seem almost incomprehensible and certainly foreign from this man's perspective. Likewise, notions such as trustworthiness, affectionate benevolence, and

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sharing seem totally alien from within his current perspective. His is the perspective of the rejected outsider who can only interpret the actions of others as self-serving, abusive, and hypocritical. In this hostile, antagonistic world, he has made the present interpretation that the situation is rather hopeless and that it would probably be better to just give up the fight. Care-fullness. Probably the most significant care-filled theme in this person's life - and the one that has structured his world the most - has been that of intellectual mastery and success. This was his ticket out of a dreadful home situation, this was what he was best at, and likely this was his major care in terms of his pride and his self-esteem. In this venue he had truly excelled in the past. But its purpose was also to provide him with a sense of independence and freedom - another major caring theme in his life. When he felt that others expected him to 'produce his academic work on demand/ it ceased to be his own source of independence and came to feel like yet another way in which he might again be obligated to others. This felt to him like a repeat of the dutiful 'enslavement' he experienced in childhood. Furthermore, it felt 'inauthentic' to him, to the extent that he seems to have had — at some deep level of awareness — a poorly articulated but still significant sense of what 'authenticity' would mean for him. At that point rebellion again became a key theme or care for him. Once more, conflicts about duty, and about not wanting to offend parentlike authorities while emotionally needing to rebel against them, led to the perhaps 'passive-aggressive' solution of 'writer's block.' This bit of bad faith would allow him to rebel while disavowing any rebellion. It just happened, as it were, to him, not by him. The great importance he attaches to not being humiliated and chastised again by the authorities (like his mother, under God's authority, no less!) seems to have been one of the major organizing cares or themes around which much of his life, world, and perspective has been structured, not just recently but for decades. Thus it was the humiliation, the dependency, the lack of available recourse, and the failure of even his brilliant intellect to save him in the end from ruthless authorities that precipitated his present state of overwhelming depression. He had been hit precisely in the areas of his greatest cares and hopes, and that is why his devastation felt so total. Embodiment. J.T. has always experienced his embodiment as a curse, or at best a nuisance. He has lived out his body as a potential source of

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pain, as a way in which he can always be brutalized. Even as he matured, grew strong, and worked out with weights to become quite a formidable physical presence, he did so defensively and without much pleasure. Similarly, he has always experienced sexuality with a powerful sense of torment. It is a means by which enticing but malevolent women can exert a power over him, or it is a source of moral weakness and temptation that could lead him toward eternal damnation. Although he has at times greatly enjoyed food, with the onset of his depression this has ceased to hold his interest much either. His body feels like it's his, but it also feels like in some way it's 'owned' by others - that is, like yet another vehicle for enslavement. What rare pleasures he has experienced through it have been followed by such tirades of self-deprecating, guilty admonishments that he'd have sooner been off with the whole thing. He wishes he could live as a disembodied mind. Being-with-Others. Much has already been intimated about the modes of Being-with-Others experienced by this unfortunate man. His world is populated by legions of hostile presences of both past and present and by expectations of the same for the future. Though he has always seen himself as intimately connected with other people, he unfortunately experiences this as being in constant danger of being oppressed by them. Such concepts as 'co-operative enjoyment,' 'enjoying the company of another,' and really feeling 'loved' are seen by him as fictional things that he has read about but hasn't experienced and that he doubts really exist for anyone. Always the outsider, he is all too aware of being outside of something. He feels quite lonely, yet curiously he never feels alone. When others are not physically around, cruel presences from his past mercilessly haunt and torment him. Besides this, he always feels watched and judged by God. To his chagrin, he has always experienced God as a malevolent, fault-finding, finger-waving agent of his mother, whose power has stretched well beyond the grave (for she died many years earlier). Being-with-Others too is experienced by J.T. mainly as a curse. Diagnosis. In this Beams-of-Light-through-Time based description of the mental status of J.T., his clinical depression is certainly as evident as it was in the more traditional model, if not more so. But in this description it is also quite clear that much more is troublesome and missing in this man's life and world than just what the checklist of his current depressive symptoms would indicate. This man has lived within an

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entire set of severely constricted horizons, including those of imagination, of action, and of his emotional and interpersonal experiential possibilities in general. This constriction extends across the multiple existential and experiential dimensions, aspects, and cares of his life and his world. So his treatment should focus not only on his current depressive symptoms but also on the depressingly narrow world view into which it fits so neatly. A Note on Psychopathology in General The above assessment seems to conform with the following view of psychopathology (in accordance with the Beams-of-Light-through-Time model) In the realm of psychopathology, problems can arise from an unnecessarily narrow range of perceptions, interpretations, and perceived possibilities (as is often the case in the various neuroses, character disorders, and situations characterized by ignorance or by significant deprivations and/or deficits). Or they can arise from an inappropriately wide range of perceived possibilities, whereby the limits of one's particular situational and historical perspective are not sufficiently acknowledged (as in the psychoses). In practice, however, every psychopathology, whatever its form, can be seen (or even defined) as a point of view from which one's range of possibilities is ultimately constricted. Clinicians well know that even a perceived 'widening' of possibilities seen, for example, in a grandiose psychosis - is in practice an extremely limiting factor in a patient's life (e.g., the patient becomes closed off to other possibilities to the point, perhaps, of being deemed dangerous and requiring physical confinement). With this orientation in mind, let us look at J.T.'s course of treatment. Early Course of Treatment for J.T. J.T. commenced treatment with me shortly after his assessment was completed. We began with twice-a-week psychotherapy sessions. He hesitated to take medications, so they were not started right away. At first, he came to treatment out of a sense of duty - it was another unpleasant job he had to do. He had little faith in the process and was certainly unsure of me, yet he confessed that he was impressed by the number of diplomas and certificates on my wall - something that he said made him much more comfortable. As the sessions progressed, his

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initial quietness and passivity began to give way to more of a 'chessplaying' atmosphere; he became more active in the process and seemed to think the point of it was to outwit me. At this stage he seemed to brighten up, and complained less about having to attend. After a few months he seemed less despairing, though clearly still depressed. Poor sleep, low energy, and weight loss (resulting from lack of appetite) continued to bother him. To a degree, he welcomed his decreased sexual interest, since this freed him from having to deal with the personal and interpersonal conflicts that sexual relations always aroused in him; yet he also experienced his declining libido as one more humiliating personal failure. With all of that in mind, he agreed to an antidepressant trial, the purpose of which was to help him with these more physical aspects of his depression. Over the ensuing months, his progress in these regards was steady though not dramatic. Six months into treatment (and after three on medication), there was significant enough improvement in his biological symptoms, and in the 'objective' items noted under the heading of 'affect' in the traditional MSB, that I drafted letters to his employer suggesting he could return to work. A departmental colleague was to be away on sabbatical the following term, and it was agreed that J.T. would take over his course for him. It was not quite in the patient's specialty area, and it was not a graduate course, but it was at least at an advanced undergraduate level and not an introductory survey course. J.T. agreed that getting back to work was probably a good idea, but he wasn't very enthusiastic. Still, he contended, 'something is probably better than nothing.' He also agreed to continue with his psychotherapy after resuming his job, and this time he did so with little hesitation. By the time of his initial return to work, J.T.'s mental status had certainly changed from when he had first been evaluated. But how much? The answer to this depends largely on the assessment criteria applied. In the terms of the traditional MSE, we could summarize J.T.'s status with the phrase 'within normal limits.' His appearance, behaviour, and speech were all 'appropriate.' His affect or mood seemed better, and he acknowledged that he was calmer, as well as less angry and irritable. Though 'subjectively' he did not feel at all happy, he said he was more able to keep this to himself and to keep his feelings 'under control.' His sleep, appetite, energy level, and concentration level had all improved greatly. Regarding his former passive suicidal ideation, he was non-committal but said he 'didn't dwell on it anymore.' His thoughts were now focusing on immediate practical concerns and less on his

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anger at his department head and others. His cognitive abilities were easily seen as first-rate by now, and under the traditional term 'perception/ he remained clear of hallucinations and so on. His social judgment had apparently improved in the sense that at least he didn't air his anger and rage in public - something that had got him into a lot of trouble before. All in all, he was functioning much better and was indeed able and willing to return to work. One could argue that his 'major depressive episode' had lifted, or even that he was 'cured' of it. But he was not at all a well man. He was still very unhappy, and his world remained very bleak. From the standpoint of the Beams-of-Light-through-Time based version of the MSE, some changes for the better were indeed evident by now, but the improvement was far less dramatic and it could hardly be said that he was 'cured.' For though his world was less immediately noxious, he still experienced it as an essentially joyless place filled with potential pains and humiliations for which he must remain on guard. His temporality now seemed less 'blocked' toward the past. Indeed, he was focusing more on the practicalities of the present than on his ruminative past. His thoughts were more overtly future-oriented as well, though to him the future still seemed more ominous than potentially rewarding. His perspective and interpretations were still those of a wary, distrustful outsider who felt repeatedly burned by others. He no longer felt as actively mistreated, but his horizons could be described as limited to the task of 'playing the game' or 'the system' well enough to get by or not get hurt more. He still couldn't imagine joyful possibilities they remained beyond the limits of his horizons. In sum, he could survive but not thrive. In terms of his major cares at this time, his basic strategy was to get back to work and to try not to think too much about anything else. In this way he hoped to take the first steps toward re-establishing his academic position. This, of course, held the key to his great concern, which was to be productive and therefore possibly worthy of some selfesteem. He was recouping lost ground on the way to building a new fortress of intellectual superiority. But since he had to start small, and since there were many dangers, he would try not to think ahead too much. Nor would he allow himself to be distracted by other concerns. In some ways, then, in his adamant focus on the major task at hand, he had narrowed even further his scope of present cares.

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His sense of embodiment had improved, but he quite quickly took this for granted. He soon forgot his sleeplessness, fatigue, and overall lethargy. He willingly used his increased energy, but did not savour it. Sexuality was still 'a problematic nuisance/ but 'that was nothing new.' J.T.'s modes of Being-with-Others were not all that different from before. His distrustful outsider's stance with respect to colleagues, employers, and even family still dominated his perceptions of the interpersonal world. Rage and anger were evident, though both were now much less overt. He saw his escape from immediate persecution not as any benevolence on the part of others, but rather as a reprieve or a parole that he had legalistically received as a result of having 'done his time.' The one crucial exception in this regard was in his developing relationship with me, his psychotherapist. It would have been dangerous and humiliating for him to admit it at this point, but he genuinely seemed to be enjoying the therapy! He took great glee in testing some of the rules and limits of the process in minor ways, especially if he found me fumbling for an answer and felt he had outwitted me. He began to arrive earlier for sessions, and he seemed to look forward to telling me about his new ideas, and especially about his triumphs over the system as the new school term progressed. This man had initially come across to me as a dark, brooding, angry, depressed, and somewhat depressing man; his personality had always hinted at a potentially explosive rage. Now it seemed that despite his obvious self-centredness and his sometimes outrageous mysogynistic and racist comments, there was something more human and likable about him, although it was well guarded and hard to reach. A 'purple zone' of interesting complexities and undercurrents had developed between us, though my 'sense of it' predated my abilities to articulate its qualities in even a rudimentary way. Later Course of Treatment J.T. remained in psychotherapy for several years. By the end, he had improved a great deal in terms of the Beams-of-Light-through-Time model and - most importantly - in his own terms as well. Early in his treatment, medications had seemed to help him significantly, perhaps by helping him regain bodily health and energy so that he could 'kickstart' his occupational recovery. But after his successful return to work that first fall, he wanted to come off them. They were gradually tapered

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off without problems, and he never required them again during his treatment. In his first term back on the job, he worked hard at honing his teaching skills. He was determined to become so proficient at his job that even the most hostile of employers would not be able to find fault with him. While filling in for his colleague on sabbatical, he came across several innovative ideas for papers. These were not in his main area of expertise, so he was not as apprehensive about writing them - he talked of them as 'insignificant' papers. Since they were not in the domain of his most central cares, he was relatively free of his usual performance anxieties. He was thus able to produce two publishable pieces in rapid succession. He considered it more of a joke than an achievement to publish at last not in his own but in a colleague's area. Even so, it delighted the departmental powers that be, and at least they would be 'off his back for a while.' Even better was the talk that his own graduate seminar might be reinstated the following year, which it was. Perhaps the most remarkable content change in the course of the therapy was that as it progressed we began to discuss his prized ideas more and more in sessions. In terms of the process involved, it was striking that after a time he seemed to actually 'love' talking about them. It was the first time I had seen him as animated and positively joyful about anything. He seemed to be experiencing a sense of the authenticity of these topics; nothing else had ever grabbed hold of him like this. This spurred him to collect and organize the plethora of papers, notes, and brief discussions he'd accumulated over the years in the hope of returning to his long-dormant book project. Over the longer course of the therapy, he not only began this project again but completed it and published it. It was in far too specialized an area to produce much in the way of royalties, but it did meet with high academic praise 'from those few in the know/ as he put it. Perhaps most significantly, toward the end of our treatment endeavour, he was able to take great pleasure in this praise and in his own sense of personal achievement. Somewhat surprisingly, he was grateful to his wife and family for having supported him in his project, and he wanted to share some of his enjoyment with them - perhaps for the first time. New possibilities and new horizons seemed evident all around him, in directions and dimensions he hadn't ever perceived, noticed, considered, or in some cases even known existed. He described the process as feeling like 'a pair of pliers or some kind of wrench had been used in order to pry open the lid on [his] imagination.' Once it was released a

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bit, 'it sprung open wider than [he'd] ever imagined previously.' But I suppose that's precisely the point - he could not even have imagined it till now. Discussion of Changes Over the course of this psychotherapy (which lasted for several years), J.T.'s world view (which had lasted for several decades) changed significantly. His world of duty, pain, and punishment was still there, but it had widened to include new possibilities of enjoyment and new feelings of accomplishment. Most striking in the therapy relationship between us was a sense of co-operation and 'encounter.' He still experienced the world as a rather dangerous place, but he had come to experience himself as more a part of it, as more 'in it,' as less of an outsider. His temporality was now far more future oriented. The ghosts of his past still haunted him occasionally in his darker hours, but there were also new projects for him, and new challenges to imagine and anticipate. He'd say happily, 'There's important work to be done now,' and he seemed to have a sense that it was properly, or authentically, his work to do. In a sense, he felt that he had at last found his calling. Perhaps he had not actually 'found' it, since it had already been there with him for a long time. But now he was able to feel it, sense it, experience it, and willingly take it up as his own for the first time. As if out of nowhere in his new enthusiasm about the future, he even began to look at his children - and by now his grandchildren too - with interest and with a sense of hope that sharply contrasted with his previous attitude of seeming indifference. One thing he did decide about the future was that he would not retire when he reached sixtyfive. He had simply lost too much time in those fruitless years, which now seemed like a blurred memory. His perspective and interpretations seemed broader both to himself and to others. Much of his misogynism and racial intolerance had abated over the years, and his appreciation of the points of view of others (and even that these existed) had increased, though this would never be his strong point. If the world system was basically a game to him, at least he now felt he could play it reasonably well and even win some of the time. His scepticism and sometimes cynicism were still intact, but he was far less negative and angry in most of his impressions now. And with his students he could sometimes be remarkably gener-

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ous. Most of all, he related to those who had suffered. He had become quite attuned to the sufferings of students with similar upbringings to his own, and he could be quite supportive of them, especially if they'd been 'mistreated by the system.' His cares still revolved mainly around his academic and scholarly productivity. But he no longer saw his work as an oppressive duty to others. Rather, it was his own. So were his pressures to do more of it. He enjoyed it now, or at least he enjoyed its end products and rewards. Work now felt worthwhile to him personally - he felt 'self-employed.' As I noted earlier, by the latter years of his therapy other cares also became more important to him. For example, he had a renewed (or perhaps new) interest in his wife and family - something they experienced largely as a pleasant but unexpected surprise. Part of this new interest in his wife had to do with changes in his sense of embodiment. It struck him as quite odd when at the age of fifty-four he was out running (as he'd always heard it was good for you) and noticed feeling as if his legs were really part of himself for the first time. He marvelled at his own legs on this occasion, exploring their contours when he got home and saying to himself, 'this is really me.' Through such experiences of his 'lived body/ and through many discussions in the therapy about his sexual conflicts, and through gradually becoming less threatened by women in general, his sex life improved as well. His wife seemed highly supportive and encouraging in that regard. Sexuality would never be something he could quite accept or feel natural about, but it was not the curse it had once seemed to be. The Being-with-Others aspect of the Beams-of-Light-through-Time model is probably the best one for describing the changes in J.T. This was most evident in the gradual development and the qualitative changes experienced in our relationship. The particular 'purple zone' that emerged through our interaction early on gradually changed in texture. In the early stages of treatment, J.T. was there somewhat reluctantly. I was the doctor, he was the patient. Furthermore, he was compelled to be there, which meant that at some level to him the treatment was more for my purposes than for his. I was just another authority figure wanting something from him or wanting to 'correct him' something he experienced as exploitive abuse. In fact, the co-experience of those early sessions was dominated by such themes. Each of us experienced the therapy then as one in which /, the active doctor, was to try and do something to him, the passive patient. In terms of Figure 6.1,

Level G, Part Three: A Clinical Case, and a New Approach to the MSE 293

our relationship was confined to areas 'y' and 'z' of the purple zone, while the sense of 'encounter/ area V on the diagram, remained totally unexplored. That would all change. Our relationship grew progressively less 'object-relational' and more 'subject-relational' or 'intersubjective.' I have already noted the limitations of these terms (and their rootedness in the 's R o' model), so perhaps our meetings should really be described in terms of the 'coexperience' and our increasing sense of 'encounter' over time. As the therapy progressed, the feeling in the room seemed to change from one in which he experienced me just an incidental 'part of the furnishings' of the situation, to one in which he could see me as a potentially useful object or tool for him in his projects, and ultimately to one in which he experienced me as another person, another source of an experiential world who was present to and with him in our encounter. The latter state was the most profound of the new modes of Being-with-Others experienced by J.T. For in this sense of actually 'encountering' another person who was neither part of him, nor trying to 'use' him in some way, he experienced the possibility of truly co-operating with another person, perhaps for the first time in his life. This made a qualitative difference in our sense of 'working together.' And to his surprise, he was no longer threatened by it, but liked it quite a lot. From my perspective, he had also become a pleasure to work with. This new experience of a non-adversarial way of Being-with-an-Other (in this case me) seemed to open up for him a whole new horizon of possibilities regarding co-operative endeavours with other people as well. No longer would his interpersonal imagination be populated solely by antagonistic or competitive possibilities. Though still not in the majority, a whole range of positive, interpersonal possibilities was at least imaginable for him, and that opened up a whole new perspective. When he tentatively and selectively did try these possibilities out in practice, he was pleased to find some quite receptive others, especially in the case of his wife and some other family members. From then on, the benefits of this more open and appreciative attitude seemed to 'snowball' for him in those relationships. By the end of our lengthy work together, the feeling in the room was of warm connectedness, of mutual respect between team-mates on a long journey together, and with an extensive 'history together' as well. By then the sense of encounter was dominant in our co-experience of the situation, both from my side of it and from his.

294 Part IV: Psychology Concluding Reflections on the Significance of This Case

I have presented the case of J.T. to illustrate that a clinical psychotherapy can be conceptualized and formulated in terms of the Beamsof-Light-through-Time model. Though I don't judge anything to be wrong with the traditional approach to the MSB and its categories, I have found that its more phenomenologically based counterpart has been much more useful to me in dealing with the issues and multidimensional complexities inherent to the psychotherapy endeavour. We can, of course, argue that the comparison is unfair, in that the traditional MSE is designed not as a means of detailed or psychodynamic formulation but rather as a format for quickly assessing a patient's current mental state in a variety of crucial areas. This is of course true. On the other hand, the MSE's categories also provide the framework on which rests most of the formulations found in general psychiatry, clinical psychology, and much of psychotherapy. As useful as those categories may be (e.g., perhaps for diagnostic or statistical purposes), in the case of J.T. they wouldn't have caught the essence, the feel, the process, the sense of the 'co-experience' or of 'the purple zone' as well as my alternative. Furthermore, had I relied solely on the findings on the traditional MSE categories, I might have concluded that after just the early phase of treatment, J.T. was 'well' (i.e., 'within normal limits') I might then have mistakenly concluded that he didn't require further treatment. His therapy would have been discontinued far too early, just as the really significant changes in his life were about to begin! This is perhaps as obvious an example as one can find of the fact that differences in our underlying philosophical and theoretical stances - sometimes just as reflected in the ways we organize (or selectively neglect aspects of) our 'data' - can have enormous practical consequences in clinical work, even if we have not been used to thinking of philosophy in this way. With regard to the question of other types of in-depth formulations (psychodynamic or otherwise), many are possible. I am certainly not contending that the approach I have presented here is 'the best one' or 'the only one.' That would run completely against the perspectivalist point of view I have adopted. I do, however, offer this approach as one that is clinically useful, that generates a unique variety of clinical understandings of psychotherapeutic phenomena, and that maintains a high level of openness about and explicit acknowledgment of its underlying philosophical rootedness. This latter point permits this ap-

Level G, Part Three: A Clinical Case, and a New Approach to the MSB 295

proach to maintain a high degree of internal consistency among the various levels of theoretical inquiry I've discussed as being simultaneously operative in the complex workings of any psychological theory. There may be much to be gained by conceptualizing the clinical material of a psychotherapy case such as that of J.T. in accordance with a schema based on the Beams-of-Light-through-Time model and the six essential features of human experience discussed by it. One could argue that our journey 'from philosophy to psychotherapy' is somewhat circular. On arriving at psychotherapy, we find that we never entirely left philosophy. Rather, we've just added to it more layers of complexity and more levels of understanding. Let us hope that if this journey has been somewhat circular, it has been in the sense of a hermeneutic circle in which new depths of understanding have been achieved. Summary In this chapter I discussed some key concepts derived mainly from philosophical sources, and developed them so as to emphasize their relevance to the field of psychotherapy. The first section of the chapter looked briefly at the available literature on the philosophy/psychology interface, and on phenomenological and existential psychology in particular. A number of worthwhile efforts in these very heterogeneous areas have been made, but in my opinion the literature does not yet offer anything close to a comprehensive, integrative, and accessible approach. However, I did identify two key concepts from this literature as deserving of our further attention: 'bad faith' and 'authenticity.' In the next section I discussed the relevance of the bad faith and authenticity concepts to psychotherapeutic work. I discussed Sartre's term bad faith as a particular clinical phenomenon that is easy to identify in psychotherapy. I understand it as a sort of psychological 'defence' that individuals often resort to in dealing with some of the unpleasant facts of the human existential condition - specifically, with the incompleteness, uncertainty, ambiguity, finite freedoms, and responsibilities that life (often frighteningly) entails. Issues of realism and relativism came up once again in this discussion. I then discussed authenticity in a similar vein, not so much as a tool to be used for specifically defensive purposes, but rather as having a more self-integrative purpose. The concept of authenticity was seen as

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capable of providing some guidelines or guiding principles for an individual faced with the inevitable tasks of choosing from among the variety of possibilities available in a given concrete human situation. It offers some basis for making selections somewhere in the middle ground between the extremes of a complete randomness of choice on the one hand, and deterministic fatalism on the other (each would necessarily be in bad faith). The feeling of doing something that seems truly authentic, or in accordance with the sense of one's whole Being-in-the-World, tends to promote a substantial improvement in an individual's psychological sense of identity, integrity, and well-being. As such, the concept of authenticity is potentially very useful in psychotherapy. The last section of this chapter dealt mainly with the case of J.T. I used this case to develop a new way of organizing a Mental Status Examination, this one in accordance with the categories of the Beamsof-Light-through-Time model. I described the case in terms of the traditional MSE, and then in terms of this alternative approach, and then compared and contrasted the results. I then described the course of this particular treatment in more detail, and the changes that occurred in the therapy and in the patient's life world as a whole, in accordance with the Beams-of-Light-through-Time model and the new MSE framework suggested by it. I concluded that this alternative approach yielded something of substantial clinical significance, that at the very least complemented traditional psychological/psychiatric approaches. Finally, I noted that the philosophical issues I am dealing with in this book are never really far from our clinical work, and that our explicit awareness of them can only help us in our practical endeavours. In the next chapter, the last major one of the book, I return to the hierarchical method as outlined in the introduction. I then offer an overview of the philosophical positions of some major contemporary schools of psychotherapeutic thought in accordance with this method. I discuss each briefly and sketch it out schematically to summarize the various positions taken at each level of the hierarchy. Similarly, I will sketch out the overall position of the Beams-of-Light-through-Time model.

CHAPTER 11

PSYCHOLOGY (LEVEL G), PART FOUR: Examining Our Philosophical Differences in the Psychological Field

A Means of Philosophical Clarification, Classification, and Comparison of Major Contemporary Psychological Theories and Models In this chapter I develop and present a series of 'hierarchical sketches.' Each will illustrate a particular psychological theory. All the theories I have chosen for examination are considered quite important in the field, but the list is certainly not meant to be exhaustive. By using the hierarchy of levels of theoretical inquiry method I have developed, it is possible to sketch out the positions taken by a particular psychological theory on the various levels of the hierarchy, and draw charts or schematic diagrams illustrating the philosophical stances adopted by a given psychological approach. We can apply this common format to a wide variety of theories. These individual 'hierarchical sketches' may prove quite useful when we try to explicate or clarify the philosophical underpinnings of a given psychological theory as a whole. The structured, standardized format provided by the hierarchical method allows us to more readily examine an overview of a whole set of positions taken simultaneously by a given psychological theory at a variety of levels of inquiry. This can be especially helpful for the task of checking for any obvious intratheory omissions or inconsistencies. Such an analysis could be done in order to philosophically evaluate and critiqe an existing, well-known psychological theory from a text. It could also be used to conduct a selfreflective examination of a set of one's own ideas (as I have attempted

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to do with mine in the development of the Beams-of-Light-throughTime model). This latter, self-reflective application in particular could be a significant aid in the task, which I referred to earlier as trying to better "know thy philosophical self.' Collectively, this descriptive methodological approach provides us with a basis for comparing different theories. When we sketch them out in this way, various psychological theories - including the major contemporary ones - can be compared and contrasted, with particular reference to their basic philosophical groundings. We thus have a means of examining and characterizing them in terms of their 'philosophical differences.' I use the word 'sketch' to acknowledge that psychological theories in general - and the ones I present next in particular - tend to be quite complex and not always easy to classify at all levels. To do them proper justice would require a much lengthier discussion - perhaps even another book. Nevertheless, I believe that the general gist of a psychological theory and its major philosophical assumptions can still be usefully summarized in this way. Examples of such 'sketches' and how they can be schematized for expository and comparative purposes follow. Again, these are not presented as exhaustive studies of the respective approaches discussed, but rather as examples of the method and as illustrative caricatures of my reflections on them. The theories I reflect on in this manner include: a primarily psychoanalytic or psychoanalytically derived theories (classical psychoanalytic theory, object relations theory, self psychology, intersubjectivity theory, and constructionism); b primarily non-psychoanalytic psychological theories (behaviourism, cognitive psychotherapy, and biological psychiatry); and c the Beams-of-Light-through-Time model. In presenting my own model along with these others in the form of a 'hierarchical sketch,' I hope to further clarify it and to compare it fairly with other theories. I conclude the chapter with a brief section on the objectivism-relativism debate. The now familiar hierarchy of levels of theoretical inquiry is reproduced here from chapter 1 for easy reference and convenience. Once more, I remind the reader that many of the issues of the various levels of inquiry are in practice present simultaneously and in a dialogical relationship with each other. Even so, the hierarchical approach to

Level G, Part Four: Philosophical Differences in the Psychological Field 299 CHART 11.1 The hierarchy of levels of theoretical inquiry and their questions The bottom levels are the most 'foundational' to the others - i.e., positions on level A form the 'grounding' or the conditions for the possibilities of positions on level B; those of B ground C, etc. In order of which are the most fundamental, the chart should be read from the bottom level up: from A to G. Thus, e.g., psychological level G insights and theories rest on a whole series of positions taken up at each of the supporting levels (A through F). Psychological

G) How do people feel, think, behave, interact, etc.? How can we best help them psychotherapeutically?

Field-specific epistemological

F) How do we validate knowledge appropriately in this given field? What methodological approaches are appropriate to it? E) What can we know or hope to learn within this given field or discipline? What are the limits or boundaries to the above?

General epistemological

D) How do we validate our knowledge? How do we know it is true? What criteria do we use to assess its truth value? C) What is our access to truth or knowledge in general? Where is truth to be found? How or from what is it constituted?

Ontological

B) What is our position or relation to that Reality (if we do assume it exists on level A)? A) Is there any Reality independent or partially independent of us? Does any absolute Truth exist?

conceptually organizing them is still of significant heuristic and analytic value. Primarily Psychoanalytic or Psychoanalytically Derived Theories The Classical Psychoanalytic Model ofSigmund Freud Sigmund Freud revised his theories many times and in many ways. A number of critics contend that his clinical writings are far less rigid and more humanistic in tone than his theoretical ones (especially his 'metapsychological' papers). Bettelheim (1983) and others have also

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pointed out that in the standard translations of his works (e.g., Strachey) he comes across as much more distant and mechanistic than he really was. For instance, Strachey translated (and 'Latinized') Freud's Ich and Es as 'Ego' and 'Id' rather than as T and 'it.' Be that as it may, when we read Freud's work it is hard to miss his enthusiasm for the nineteenthcentury model of an objectivistic and mechanistic science. Early in his career, in Project for a Scientific Psychology, Freud wrote that he hoped 'psychical processes' could one day be represented as 'quantifiably determinate states of specifiable material particles' (1895: 295). Though he moved away from this blatant physicalist reductionism in later years he continued to use the language of energetics (including such key terms as 'cathexis' and 'de-cathexis') throughout his career. Freud was an enthusiastic defender of the natural scientific model of his time. In his New Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis (1933) in the section titled 'The Question of a Weltanschauung' (roughly a 'world view'), he stated of psychoanalysis that 'as a specialist science ... it is quite unfit to construct a Weltanschauung of its own: it must accept the scientific one' (193). He then distinguished this perspective from that of 'three powers which may dispute the basic position of science': philosophy, art, and religion. The last of these, he added, was the only one of the three 'to be taken seriously as an enemy,' since art 'is almost always harmless and beneficent' whereas philosophy merely 'goes astray/ overestimates itself, and 'has no direct influence on the great mass of mankind' (italics mine) (pp. 195-6). In the conclusion of The Future of an Illusion (1927) (in which he also argued against the religious point of view), Freud went so far as to refer to 'our god Logos' (89) in promoting his scientific ideal. He described the concept of science he believed in a little farther into the 'Weltanschauung' lecture: Scientific thinking [has] developed certain features: it takes an interest in things even if they have no immediate, tangible use; it is concerned carefully to avoid individual factors and affective influences; it examines more strictly the trustworthiness of the sense-perceptions on which it bases its conclusions; it provides itself with new perceptions which cannot be obtained by everyday means and it isolates the determinants of these new experiences in experiments which are deliberately varied. Its endeavour is to arrive at correspondence with reality - that is to say with what exists outside us and independently of us ... This correspondence with the real

Level G, Part Four: Philosophical Differences in the Psychological Field 301 external world we call 'truth.' It remains the aim of scientific work even if we leave the practical value of that work out of account. (206-7; italics mine)

Here we find ample evidence of Freud's realism, his objectivism, and his empiricism, and about as clear a statement of his belief in the correspondence theory of truth as we are apt to find. With this as a starting point, let us now develop a hierarchical sketch of the positions Freud apparently took at each of the levels of inquiry. This will illustrate how we can utilize this method. Remember, though, that this is still a rough 'sketch' and is not meant to be a definitive analysis of Freud's work. I offer the following as a coherent summary of a set of positions be adopted in a large part of his work. Ontologically, at level A of the hierarchy, Freud's position is clearly a realist one: he believed firmly in an observer-independent and absolute Reality. At level B we also see that he implicitly subscribed to the Cartesian 's R o' paradigm in describing our primary relation to that Reality. That is, he subscribed to that ontological model which posits the subject, 's,' and the object (or world), 'o/ as initially separate entities that become connected through some sort of relational, 'R' event. The prototypical relational event of this sort is the primarily cognitive act of 'knowing' - subject and object come to be related through the 'former's' coming to know the latter. Freud seems to have embraced the Cartesian splits between subject and object and between the mind and the body in most of his theorizing. Many authors have already criticized this sort of dualistic thinking (e.g., J.H. Van den Berg, 1972). Without repeating all their arguments here, Cartesian dualism (in my terms, an 's R o' ontological model) is inherent to much of the terminology that Freud introduced (e.g., 'transference,' 'projection,' 'conversion'). The general epistemological level C stance that predominates in Freud's work is objectivism: real truth exists, is potentially accessible, and is to be found on the object-side of the Cartesian split. The subjective elements, although understandable or symbolically meaningful and they were of immense clinical interest to Freud - are basically unwanted distortions to be removed or eliminated (as possible) in order to get at the obscured 'objective truth.' (Freud's many discussions of 'transference' offer excellent illustrations of this attitude.)1 Not surprisingly, at level D of the hierarchy, dealing with general theories of validity, Freud favoured a correspondence theory of truth. (So have most classical analysts since him.) According to this theory, a

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perception or a judgment is valid or true insofar as it 'matches' with the objective or 'factual' reality of the world around us. At level E of the hierarchy, dealing with the epistemology specific to the field of psychoanalysis, it seems that Freud found limits to knowledge only on the subject-side of the Cartesian split. These 'subjective distortions' can originate in the subjectivity of either the patient (as in 'transference') or the analyst (as in 'counter-transference'), but the 'untruths' all come entirely from the's' or subject-side of the 's R o' split. It seems that Freud saw few or no limits on the object-side. In other words, the object is just what it is factually. It is not ambiguous in itself; our misperceptions provide the ambiguity. Interestingly, in classical psychoanalytic thinking these 'objective facts of the world' (which by definition stand as true regardless of our will, mood, or perspective) include both external states of affairs in the world and certain internal (though still objective) states or realities. The Oedipus complex is an example of an 'internal' concept that has been accepted as an 'objective fact' in orthodox Freudian theory. From this perspective we can say that classical psychoanalysis 'discovered' the Oedipus complex out there in the world; it did not just create it as a concept. So we can consider it a universally valid 'feature of the human mind' and as an essential product of both normal and abnormal development. In some psychoanalytic circles, the Oedipus complex is considered to be a concept that can be empirically verifiable in principle. Some even claim that it has already been objectively demonstrated and validated as corresponding to the state of things as they actually are in Reality (e.g., see Hanly, 1992). Of course, to make claims like this, one must first presume that people do have access to factual truths of the world as they actually are in Reality (i.e., that we are able to know things as they really are). Consider this extract from Freud's conclusion to The Future of an Illusion: Our mental apparatus - has been developed precisely in the attempt to explore the external world, and it must therefore have realized in its structure some degree of expediency; in the second place, it is itself a constituent part of the world which we set out to investigate, and it readily admits of such an investigation. (91)

Here Freud was expressing his belief that the 'mental apparatus' is an independent thing that can be objectively investigated much like other

Level G, Part Four: Philosophical Differences in the Psychological Field 303

natural objects. He was also making the somewhat curious argument that since the mind evolved as a tool for exploring the world, it must be pretty good at what it does. This seems a rather weak argument on which to justify an empirical approach. In terms of level F of the hierarchy, dealing with questions of validity and methodology in the specific field of psychoanalysis, Freud's biological reductionism and commitment to specific etiologic hypotheses and metapsychological theories (e.g., drive theory and the principle of psychic determinism) tended at times to place arbitrary restrictions on the data that could be used in psychoanalysis (i.e., regarding which data were valid and which weren't). For example, according to the classical model, a good analyst should look out for 'drive derivatives' and search for their origins in more primary drives. Similarly, a diligent analyst should search for the Oedipus complex even when it has not yet made an appearance. I am not alone in seeing this approach as problematic. It seems here that theories and methods most properly belonging to the psychological level G are dictating what qualifies as good and valid data at fieldspecific epistemological level F. In other words, positions at lower levels of the hierarchy are being dictated by higher ones. The hierarchical approach does not recommend this. For the more the psychological level G theory determines or dictates what is to be considered valid knowledge in the field (i.e., at the field-specific epistemological level F), the less likely it is that anything not in conformance with the particular psychological level G theory will be found, noticed, or 'admitted as evidence/ And though this 'hegemony of the psychological level G theory' seems to increase coherence within a theory by guaranteeing a certain amount of conformity, it also encourages a systematic neglect of other potentially valid but contradictory observations. Several of Freud's critics contend that he overestimated his and others' abilities to be 'objective,' and that this led inadvertently to many of the problems of classical psychoanalysis. Specifically, the theory seemed to overstructure, overselect, and sometimes even overshadow the data presented by the patient. Especially with respect to the experiential data. Thus the recent calls for more 'experience-near' concepts and approaches. How fair and accurate are these criticisms of Freud's work? Any answer would be beyond the scope of this paper. But few would deny that the above-mentioned problem has often raised itself in the classical analytic literature over the years. These dilemmas demonstrate how important it is for us to be as conscious and aware as we can of the

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philosophical presuppositions embodied in our psychological theories. Regarding level G of the hierarchy - the psychological level proper we are all quite aware of the vast contributions that Freud made to our field. The details of his many psychological level G theories and ideas are also well beyond the scope of this 'sketch.' So let me simply point out that at pyshological level G, he consistently emphasized intrapsychic phenomena and the psychodynamics or energetics of the interplay between competing/conflicting drives and internal 'structures.' That is, his emphasis was mainly on the internal mind and its subcomponents, rather than on the external, the interpersonal, or the in-between. In these respects and at this (psychological) level of inquiry, many of the familiar revisions and alternatives to classical psychoanalytic thinking have amounted to clear departures from Freud. But some of these may reflect very different stances adopted at the more fundamental levels of our hierarchy as well. As I've already stated, the most radical revisions or alternative theories will likely be the ones that stem from changes at the lowest levels of the hierarchy. These philosophical issues left Freud confronting some very significant dilemmas. Generally, his psychological theories were very heavily committed to the 's R o' model of Cartesian dualism. However, if one adopts that position at ontological level B, one is then generally left at the general epistemological level C to choose between two basic options regarding this crucial scientific question: 'From where does truth come?' We must then choose between two theories: one sees truth or valid knowledge as coming from the object-side of the 's R o' scenario, the other sees it coming from the subject-side (thus objectivism and subjectivism). Clearly, Freud was facing a dilemma. His sympathies were with the objectivism side of the epistemological debate, yet his subject matter was subjectivity in all its richness. No wonder his mechanistic metapsychology required multiple revisions and complex explanations, and that his more clinical writings have quite a different tone from his theoretical ones (and perhaps at times even different implicit epistemological leanings). To his credit, he was constantly 're-thinking' himself and revising his conceptions. But I also think that, in Kuhn's terms, the philosophical paradigm of science that Freud adopted never quite fit his subject matter. Perhaps the apparent contempt for philosophy evident in the New Introductory Lectures hampered Freud's efforts to see this. Chart 11.2 is a hierarchical sketch of the philosophical positions adopted most consistently in the classical psychoanalytic works of Sigmund Freud (by my reading of them).

Level G, Part Four: Philosophical Differences in the Psychological Field 305 CHART 11.2 Classical psychoanalysis (Freud) Psychological

G • Emphasis on the /nfrapsychic. • Conflicts, defenses, transference, resistance, drive theory, etc.

Field-specific epistemological

F Validity and methodology dictated by metapsychological theories, e.g., the principle of psychic determinism E Objective facts or truth accessible, only limited by subjective distortions

General epistemological

D Correspondence theory of validity C Objectivist, empiricist

Ontological

B s R o Cartesian dualist A Realist

The above hierarchical sketch summarizes several important assumptions made by the classical psychoanalytic model. One striking observation of particular interest here is that in terms of the realist-dualisticobjectivist-correspondence theory of validity foundation to the philosophical paradigm delineated above, not that much has changed in a great deal of psychological theory since Freud. Over the years there have been many advances in psychological theory, and many disagreements with Freud's theories, methods, and conclusions, yet his basic objectivist stance is still shared by approaches as diverse as object relations theory, ego psychology, behaviourism, and biological psychiatry. Indeed when we look at the hierarchical sketches and charts that follow and categorize some of these other traditions in the same manner as above, we will find substantial agreement with Freud's positions from levels A through D. That is, we will see that all of those approaches subscribe to a realist-dualistic (s R o)-Objectivist-correspondence theory of validity position as well. We will also see that the major differences among these theories arise mainly at levels E, F, and G of the hierarchy, in terms of their emphases and specific methods, and of the aspects of human life they consider most important, most valid, and most deserving of our attention. For example, we will see that at psychological level G, object relations theory emphasizes early interpersonal relationships, whereas ego psychology emphasizes intrapsychic adaptation to external reality, and behaviourism emphasizes observable behaviour, and cognitive psycho-

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therapy emphasizes automatic thoughts and cognitive distortions, and biological psychiatry emphasizes biological and biochemical states. Accordingly, each approach then tends to adopt specific methodologies that seem best suited to their particular areas of emphasis. But in terms of the more radical critique offered, for instance, by the phenomenological approaches I am developing, we will also be looking for models that are significantly different from the above ones at the more fundamental philosophical levels of the hierarchy. Of the above group, object relations theory is perhaps the one that stretches the underlying objectivist framework the most. So let us now discuss that one. Object Relations Theory

Object relations theories focus on the central importance of relationships with significant others (especially early ones) to psychological development. W.R.D. Fairbairn, one of the pioneers of this fascinating group of theories, wrote (half a century ago): In my opinion it is high time that the attention of the psychopathologist, which in the past has been successively focused, first upon impulse, and later upon the ego, should now be focused upon the object towards which impulse is directed ... The time is ripe for a psychology of object-relationships, (in Buckley [1986]: 102)

The literature of object relations theory is now very extensive. It is heavy with talk of 'internal objects/ 'internal representations' of both self and other, 'projected images and affects/ and an entire gamut of complex relationships between the 'internal' and 'external' worlds. The philosophical issues we've been addressing are highly relevant to these concepts, although until recently, terms such as epistemology and ontology were rarely encountered in this literature. Nevertheless, the issues are always there. For all the attention accorded to the patient's 'inner world' by this approach, its major adherents leave little doubt that they believe in an independently existing outer world as well. In that respect they are ontological (level A) Realists. Melanie Klein, generally regarded as the first major figure in this movement, was clear about this in her discussion (1935) of the philosophical status of 'introjected good and bad objects': 'These images, which are a phantastically distorted picture of the real objects upon which they are based, are installed by it not only in

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the outside world but, by the process of incorporation, also within the ego' (in Buckley [1986]: 40). In effect, she was contending here that at ontological level B, the subject and the object are fundamentally quite distinct. At general epistemological level C, however, the situation is a lot more confusing. In Kleinian theory 'the development of the infant is governed by the mechanisms of introjection and projection (40; italics mine). What these 'mechanisms' essentially entail is that though the subject and the object start out as quite distinct from each other, specific elements or representations of one of these often get transposed, as it were, 'into' the other. Thus the inner world gets populated with internalized objects incorporated from the outer world in which they originated. In the even more complicated concept of 'projective identification/ a part of the outer world (another person) can be changed or altered as a result of the projection of something that at first was solely a part of the patient's inner world. It is as if the boundary between inner and outer or between self and other is a sort of semipermeable membrane through which some images and affects (or specified 'units' of them) can move, though only when certain psychological conditions are met. One quickly sees that difficult questions of knowledge and of what is 'subjective' or 'objective' often arise from this theory. For if my mind is populated with a whole world of internal representations and memories of once external objects and object relationships, how can I know that something I perceive is a correct perception of the outside world? In this line of thinking one sees a sort of philosophically 'idealist' or 'subjectivist' element, in that object relations theory deals mainly with the complex personal worlds of very personalized and internalized object relationships, which have been to some extent cut off from contact with the realities of their current external situation. Yet the very terminology of object-relations and internal representations clearly implies the presence of real, external, independent objects to which these people and their representations must really relate or correspond respectively. Thus there is an implied correspondence theory of truth (at level D) here as well. There is a sense in this literature that in some way one can tell - especially with the help of the analyst - whether one's internal representations do indeed correspond to, or accurately reflect the 'true state' of, one's external objects. Exactly how this is done and by what criteria is somewhat less clear. In some ways, object relations theory is a perfect example of both representationalist thinking and the correspondence theory of truth. It

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fits well with the Cartesian 'mind as a container of ideas' perspective except that instead of his 'innate ideas/ it contains representations of early objects and object relations, and their related affects. Furthermore, these "units' or 'imagos' are neither innate nor constant in number: their quantity at any given time varies with the ongoing processes of introjection and projection. Note, however, that in these conceptualizations an 'atomistic' or 'marblelike' quality to these 'units' (as American object relations theorists like Otto Kernberg2 and James Masterson3 tend to refer to them) seems quite evident. That being so, my earlier criticisms of atomistic approaches apply here as well. Kernberg, for instance, writes about units consisting of constellations of 'a self-image + an object-image + the affective colouring of both' (1984:29). And Masterson (1981) sounds even more committed to descriptions involving the moving about and competitions between atomisticly described units and 'part-units.' But even when these postulated units are moved around in the various 'jections' alluded to earlier, we still can't describe these processes as truly interactional in the sense I described in chapter 6. There doesn't seem to be an actual 'purple zone' in this framework - just 'red' or 'blue' units that perhaps move from one of those two coloured areas to the other, but do so without really changing. So although we can certainly describe an object relations theory as a 'relational' theory at psychological level G - especially in the sense described by Stephen Mitchell (1988) - it is not an epistemologically interactional theory (at level C). And ontologically, it is very much a dualistic theory in which the separation of subject and object as distinct and separate entities is paramount. So it is not at all what I would refer to as an ontologically relational model at the ontological (B) level of inquiry. An interesting exception to the above position can be found in the work of psychoanalyst Hans Loewald. For present purposes I will discuss his work as falling within the broad framework of object relations theory (although it doesn't fit perfectly there). Loewald does not subscribe to the usual 's R o' dualism at ontological level B. Mitchell and Black (1995), in their discussion of his work, comment to the contrary that for Loewald: in the beginning there is no distinction between self and other, between ego and external reality, between instincts and objects ... There is a primary, 'unitary whole' or a 'primal density'... Furthermore 'everything in the developing child, and later the adult, is a product of interaction ...

Level G, Part Four: Philosophical Differences in the Psychological Field 309 Mind does not become interactive secondarily, but is interactive in its very nature. (189-90)

Loewald's views on these matters are quite striking, in that his is an ontologically relational model (at level B) - something of a rarity in the field, especially at the time he was writing. It should not surprise us, then, to hear that he 'came to the United States in the early 1940s after studying philosophy with Martin Heidegger' (186). Despite his influence on psychoanalysis, Loewald's views are still the exception rather than the rule. As we move up into the field-specific levels of epistemology and validity (levels E and F respectively), we hear some interesting definitions from object relations theorists. Fairbairn says later in the paper I quoted earlier that 'psychology may be said to resolve itself into a study of the relationships of the individual to his objects, whilst, in similar terms, psychopathology may be said to resolve itself more specifically into a study of the relationships of the ego to its internalized objects' (103). Field-delimiting statements like this one certainly can restrict the epistemological horizons of psychotherapists regarding which data are valid and which are not. In particular, this view of psychopathology seems to rule out any use of - let alone emphasis on - empirical methodologies of any sort. Does this view further propound that the ongoing relationship between therapist and patient is to be understood as solely a matter of the patient expressing his or her internalized objects and their manifestations, with no really new contribution arising from the present relationship? And how does one know which representations, and which interpretations thereof, are more correct or valid than others? This question is even harder to answer here. That being said, it seems that the appeal to correspondence criteria under this approach is based mainly on rational (as opposed to empirical) arguments. D. W. Winnicott, another important object relations theorist, addressed these epistemological issues in an interesting way. In his classic paper Transitional Objects and Transitional Phenomena' he contended: 'From birth... the human being is concerned with the problem of the relationship between what is objectively perceived and what is subjectively conceived of, and in the solution of this problem there is no health for the human being who has not been started off well enough by the mother' (1986: 286). He then went on to talk about an 'intermediate area' that is 'the area that is allowed to the infant between primary

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creativity and objective perception based on reality testing' (266). In this intermediate area he then placed his now famous 'transitional object' concept and other 'transitional phenomena.' He continued: 'Of the transitional object it can be said that it is a matter of agreement between us and the baby that we will never ask the question "Did you conceive of this or was it presented to you from without?" The important point is that no decision on this point is expected. The question is not to be formulated' (268). It is interesting, though, that his solution to the epistemological dilemma posed here involves a tacit agreement to ignore or look away from the question. This may work for purposes of the healthy and creative emotional development of the baby, but it certainly won't do for our task, which is to explore and clarify underlying philosophical assumptions! Winnicott called this intermediate zone an area of 'illusion' (267). He even showed it diagrammatically, but in a very positive way, essentially arguing that the illusion zone is crucial to our psychological development and well-being. This zone of illusion, where transitional objects dwell as midway between subjectivity and objectivity, is certainly an interactional concept and may remind us of my 'purple zone.' However, in his model a rather pure zone of 'objective perception' and another zone of 'primary creativity' seem to reside side by side with the zone of illusion. And as positive as Winnicott tried to be about the term 'illusion,' it still suggests some sense of epistemological inferiority or inadequacy. As we can now see, object relations theorists differ greatly in some of their philosophical and psychological perspectives. All, however, emphasize the importance of early relationships with others and of attending to present manifestations of them. At psychological level G, object relations theorists emphasize a careful analysis of one's population of internalized objects, images, and representations, and their related affects and current manifestations, especially as these arise in the transference. This is a world of 'good objects,' 'bad objects/ 'self-images,' and 'object (other person) images,' along with their accompanying affects - often extremely intense ones. Sometimes these are dealt with largely in terms of clusterings and fusions among 'units,' sometimes less in these terms. The psychodynamics of introjection, projection, and projective identification are quite central in this theory, which involves an ongoing dynamic dialogue between what is outer and what is inner - often with elements moving in either or both directions.

Level G, Part Four: Philosophical Differences in the Psychological Field 311 CHART 11.3 Object relations theory (composite) Psychological

G Emphasis on early developmental /nferpersonal object relationships, internal representations, and more primitive conflicts, defences, transferences, drives, etc.

Field-specific epistemological

F Focus on internalized objects and their interplay in relationships, also the 'in-between' and 'illusory' zones worth studying E

General epistemological

Mind as container of images, representations, and affects; all object related and developmentally derived

D Correspondence theory of validity C • Objectivist, but some idealist elements • Representationalist • ?Semipermeable boundary between 's' and 'o'

Ontological

B s R o Cartesian dualist A Realist

Overall, though, the paramount emphasis is on the patient's internal world. The general theory is that the quality of an individual's character is based mainly on the quality of his or her earliest relationship experiences and subsequent dealings with these. The hope is that these influences be modified by later positive object-relationship experiences, such as those fostered by psychoanalysis or psychotherapy. Also, object relations theories tend to emphasize very early development. Unlike their more classical psychoanalytic colleagues, they emphasize the pre-Oedipal years over all others as being the most psychologically significant. Object relations is hardly a homogeneous movement, but the various branches have enough in common that I can offer Chart 11.3 as a general hierarchical sketch. Kohut and Self Psychology: A Less Objectivist Approach Although he never espoused a systematic philosophical theory, Heinz Kohut, through his work in what is now known as the 'psychology of the self or 'self psychology,' presented a philosophically different sort of psychological theory - one that involved a significant subjectivistic turn at general epistemological level C. His departure from the more

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objectivistic body of classical and ego-psychological psychoanalytic theory thus occurred at a more fundamental philosophical level of the hierarchy than several other early attempts to revise classical psychoanalysis (including object relations theory). On the most fundamental, ontological levels, A and B, Kohut retained the realist and 's R o' dualism positions, and did not directly challenge them. However, in emphasizing 'the self/ subject-ive experience, and the patient's experience he was suggesting changes at the field-specific and the general epistemological levels. Regarding the field-specific epistemological level (E), Kohut was quite clear. In his now classic paper 'Introspection, Empathy, and Psychoanalysis' (1959), he attempted to confine and define the limits of psychoanalytic knowledge as found entirely within the horizons of 'empathy and introspection/ This is an example of what I have referred to in this book as field-specific epistemological theorizing of the fielddelimiting statement type. That is, it is a statement about the limited extent of what it is possible to know within a given field. And here it involves a radical constriction in terms of both the valid sources and the scope of knowledge applicable in this field, as contrasted with those suggested by Freud's more objectivist point of view. Under Freud's approach, psychoanalytic truths can be found either 'out there in the world' or as abstract conceptualizations that can nevertheless be validated through their correspondence with the state of things in a reality independent of us. The domain circumscribed by 'empathy and introspection' is far more experiential, 'internally based,' relativized, and 'subjectivistic.' To establish how philosophically farreaching or fundamental this change is, we must look more closely. Kohut clearly remapped the sphere of possible knowledge available for the specific field of psychoanalysis to within these more subjectivistic parameters. Is there also an implied subjectivistic turn here with respect to all knowledge in general? With respect to his central concept of the 'self-object,' Kohut was clearly implying a shift at general epistemological level C. In his introduction to The Analysis of the Self (1971), he defined the self-object as an object or 'objects which are themselves experienced as part of the self (xiv). In this concept the boundary of the 'experiential self is actually extended into the realm of the Other (or the 'object'). This, it seems, goes beyond the scope of object relations theory's concepts of 'projection' and 'introjection' in the sense that it blurs the boundary between what is subject and what is object. In object relations theory the subject

Level G, Part Four: Philosophical Differences in the Psychological Field 313

and the object still seem well-defined and quite distinct from each other (in harmony with the dualistic s R o mode of thinking); only specific mental contents - in an atomized form - can be shifted from one entity to another. In contrast, in the theory of self-objects, the boundaries where the self (?or subject) ends and the Other (?or object) begins are blurred. This position seems incompatible with an objectivist position at general epistemological level C, unless we see the self-object concept merely as an utter distortion of reality. For in an objectivist position the subjective-objective distinction is fundamental, with the latter seen as true (or actual) and the former as false (or distorted). In self-psychological thinking, the self-object concept is not limited to the psychopathological sphere, where we might dismiss it as a 'mere distortion.' Kohut saw self-object experiences and relationships as quite central, crucial, and frequent even in normal human development and normal human experience. From this perspective, then, the subjectobject and self-other distinctions involved in any act of knowledge or experience have a somewhat fluctuent and ambiguous quality. An intrinsically subjectivistic element has been added here in the general epistemological position of self psychology. Kohut's theory remains within the unchallenged, dichotomized 's R o' ontological paradigm (at Level B). But his decidedly less objectivist concepts (like 'the self-object') promote an epistemological level shift (at level C) away from the objectivism side of the Cartesian-dualistic fence toward the other side, that of subjectivism. On this side of the argument, subjective experience is now valued as 'the place to look for the truth.' However, as we know, such subjectivistic leanings - especially if left only implicit - run into some major philosophical problems when examined closely. Solipsism (with subjectivism) is one of these. Another is that subjectivism is often associated with extreme relativism, something that can easily imply that any concept of truth or science is groundless. Perhaps Kohut was aware of this, for his departure from the objectivistic framework seems to have been both ambivalent and incomplete, and remnants of objectivism are preserved intact throughout his work. For instance, he always maintained a belief in the existence of some objective truth, and he tried to avoid contradicting the findings of classical psychoanalysis. He preferred to see his work as extending psychoanalysis to include the 'narcissistic' dimension of life, the pathologies of the 'self,' and so on. Indeed, in major works such as The

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Analysis of the Self (1971) and The Restoration of the Self (1977), he developed his own theories of development (both 'normal' and 'pathological') much in the way Freud did - as if the objectivistic approach was quite satisfactory to him a good deal of the time. And when it came to the crucial question of how analysis works or helps people, he talked of 'transmuting internalizations' - a term that easily fits within the atomized, less truly interactional conceptual framework that I attributed earlier to object relations theory. So in Kohut's work we encounter major philosophical ambivalences and/or inconsistencies at general epistemological level C. Kohut and the self psychologists who followed him usefully employed a distinctly subjectivistic turn as an important corrective to the stance that the analyst/therapist is the 'keeper of the Real truth' - a stance flowing from the objectivist approaches that dominated the classical4 psychoanalytic literature of his time. This turn toward the subjective, coincident with a greater general awareness of epistemological dilemmas, seems to have inspired later thinkers, such as the intersubjectivists (e.g., Stolorow and Atwood), to try to steer self psychology into more truly interactional waters (see the next section). At psychological level G, Kohut's theories revolve around concepts such as the self and self-object experiences with others. He also assembled an entire developmental theory focusing on the 'narcissistic' dimension of both 'normal' human growth and its pathological 'by-products.' We can certainly consider self psychology an objectrelational theory, in that it sees the availability of empathic, validating relationships with others as absolutely crucial to healthy psychological development throughout the life cycle. Kohut's earlier work was more tied to the classical psychoanalytic terminology of drives, impulses, and Freud's structural model; his later work drifted away from these notions and terms. Chart 11.4 is my attempt to summarize Kohut's implied philosophical positions in terms of the hierarchy. Intersubjectivity Theory The intersubjectivity theory of American psychoanalysts Robert Stolorow and George Atwood and their colleagues tackles somewhat more directly the philosophical issues and dilemmas raised by Kohut's self psychology (e.g., see Atwood and Stolorow, 1984; Stolorow, Brandchaft,

Level G, Part Four: Philosophical Differences in the Psychological Field 315 CHART 11.4 Self psychology (Kohut) Psychological

G Emphasis on self-object or self-self-object (extendedself) relationships; self-cohesion and narcissistic dimension of human development, etc.

Field-specific epistemological

F

Largely coherence and limited pragmatic (e.g., usefulness as a self-object) criteria

E Subjective-experiential is most true. Field is limited to the data of empathy and introspection General epistemological

D Fuzzy - Coherence validity criteria mainly, but correspondence implied at other times C Fuzzy - Subjectivist mainly; at times sounds relativist/idealist, but occasional objectivist statements too.

Ontological

B s R o Cartesian dualistic, but somewhat unclear A Realist

and Atwood, 1987; Stolorow and Atwood, 1992; and Orange, Atwood, and Stolorow 1997). And their concept of 'the intersubjective space' clearly defines the epistemological limits of the psychoanalytic endeavour in a manner different from that of Kohut. As their theory's name implies, this approach emphasizes the 'inbetween' area (i.e., between patient and therapist). It thus extends self psychology's emphasis on the experience of the patient to that of the interactional experience between the two participants in the psychoanalytic process. This shift is evident in the titles of Atwood and Stolorow's main works: Structures of Subjectivity (1984), Contexts of Being (199 and Working Intersubjectively (1997, with Donna Orange as co-author). The first of these titles suggests their earlier, more subjectivistic leanings, the latter two their later, more interactional ones. I noted elsewhere that the philosophical stances adopted by intersubjectivity theory - especially by its later versions - are incompatible with a Cartesian dualistic ('s R o') model at ontological level B (Hersch, 1993). This is because these authors conceive of the 'intersubjective space' as a fieldlike, interactional phenomenon and not as one of discrete entities that are only secondarily related. This is particularly

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affirmed in Contexts of Being, in which Stolorow and Atwood completely reject the concept of 'the isolated mind.' This position, however, also seems to involve a rejection of the basic's R o' model. This being so, we are speaking of a change of stance at a very fundamental level of our hierarchy - at an ontological one. The implications of any change of position there are sure to have far-reaching consequences. It seems that to have a solid and consistent philosophical basis, intersubjectivity theory must rest on a position different from that of most of its predecessor theories at ontological level B. That is, it requires something other than the's R o' dualistic assumption at that level if it is to have a coherent philosophical paradigm. Such a new position may indeed be possible, but it will involve a reasonable alternative to the's R o' model - probably something akin to the more holistic ontologically relational, intentional (vectorial, or essentially directional) model discussed earlier in this book. (The Beams-of-Light-throughTime model preferred this one too.) Unfortunately, questions about the nature of our basic ontological relatedness to our world(s) are not discussed explicitly in these authors' works. This has been the source of much confusion and misunderstanding. In particular, the authors are unclear regarding at which level of theoretical inquiry some of their discussions of philosophical matters are meant to apply. To quote again the 1987 positions stated at the beginning of Stolorow, Brandchaft, and Atwood's Psychoanalytic Treatment: An Intersubjective Approach: We do not believe that the analyst possesses any 'objective' knowledge of the patient's life or of human development and psychological functioning ... The analyst's frame of reference must not be elevated to the status of objective fact ... [we] place ourselves squarely within a subjectivist and relativist tradition ... The interpretive conclusions of every case study must ... be understood as relative to the intersubjective context of their origin ... [the] 'analytic space' defines the horizons of meaning within which the truth-value of the final interpretations is determined. (6-7)

While ostensibly these authors claim to be speaking only of their understandings of the psychoanalytic endeavour itself and of the epistemological limits thereof, these positions have far too many implications at other levels for us to leave them in this philosophically rather undeveloped form. I hope the hierarchical approach will clarify matters in this regard.

Level G, Part Four: Philosophical Differences in the Psychological Field 317

Epistemologically, intersubjectivity theory is clearly inconsistent with the objectivist models. Is completely rejects their psychoanalytic perspective of concepts such as 'objectivity/ 'distortion/ and 'the isolated mind.' Sometimes this leaves the proponents of this theory open to criticism that they are in the philosophical camps of 'subjectivism/ 'idealism/ and/or 'relativism/ with all the problems inherent to those positions. But a closer and more sympathetic reading of their work suggests a less subjectivistic and more interactional epistemology. The 'inter' part of their mtersubjectivity name suggests as much. They tend, especially in their more recent works, to view the locus of truth as not so much in the 'subject' per se but rather as in the 'in-between' or in the intersubjective/z'e/d itself. The authors of intersubjectivity theory have in some ways gone farther than many of their psychoanalytic colleagues in terms of clearly defining their philosophical positions within their psychological theorizing; yet significant ambiguities remain. In particular, some of their statements sound like, and have been criticized for being, extremely relativistic' (e.g., Kriegman, 1996; or Carveth, 1994, 1995). Stolorow responded to such criticisms in 1995 as follows: Neither self psychology nor intersubjectivity theory claims to offer a general epistemology. Instead what they propose is an epistemological stance specifically appropriate for the psychoanalytic method of investigation ... None of us claims that objective reality does not exist. What we are arguing is that objective reality is inaccessible and unknowable by the psychoanalytic method, and therefore the concepts of objectivity and distortion have no place within the theoretical lexicon called psychoanalysis, (xvi)

This extract, however, is clearly speaking to several levels of inquiry. And we have seen that in evaluating these criticisms of being excessively relativistic, it is of the utmost importance to ascertain the level of philosophical inquiry at which these relativistic claims can be said to apply or be valid. It makes a big difference whether these criticisms apply at level A, or at level C, or at level E, as the hierarchical approach should demonstrate. For instance, if intersubjectivity theory's relativistic statements are taken as positions adopted at either general epistemological level C or at ontological level A, then the standard criticisms of relativism apply (see Wallace, 1988; Hanly, 1992; Orange, 1992,1995; and earlier chapters

318 Part IV: Psychology for a discussion of them). Relativism at ontological level A has repeatedly been seen as untenable, in that it harbours a contradiction. That is, it asserts, 'All statements are merely relative and are never universal or absolute, except this one!' And even if it were tenable, ontological relativism would leave us with no grounding for any theorizing of any kind (see chapter 2). For if everything is entirely relative and variable, the pursuit of knowledge or truth is inevitably a misguided exercise in selfdeception. Later I will present a hierarchical sketch of a coherent paradigm that illustrates the groundlessness of all theorizing from the standpoint of ontological (level A) relativism. Certainly the authors of intersubjectivity theory want no part of ontological relativism, and they are quite clear that they reject it (e.g., 'none of us claims that objective reality does not exist' - see the previous quote). Also, they say they don't claim to be offering a general epistemology. So if we take their rejection of such concepts as 'distortion' and 'objectivity' (Stolorow, 1995) as applying only at the fieldspecific epistemological level E, and not at either the general epistemological level C or the ontological level A, then their position, though still arguable, is far more defensible. That is, if we take such rejections as applying specifically and only to knowledge acquired within the realm of the psychoanalytic exchange rather than to all knowledge in general, these charges of relativism may not be so scientifically unacceptable. If that is so, then their theoretical stance is merely stipulating a relativity regarding what can be known from within the analytic setting, and is not being extended to the extreme of asserting that all truth is merely relative, in or out of the psychoanalytic situation. Yet this question remains: Can we create a coherent paradigm up and down the various levels of the hierarchy on this basis, or must inconsistencies inevitably arise? I hope the hierarchical sketch approach will help us answer this question. A workable hierarchical sketch for intersubjectivity theory might well include the following positions: Ontologically, it would be Realist at Level A in order to affirm the existence of some Reality independent of us (and in so doing escape any charges of ontological relativism). At level B, it could still reject the 's R o' position in favour of the one, which is more holistic. At general epistemological level C, the objectivist position is clearly rejected. So is the subjectivist position (though less clearly) in favour of some sort of interactional origin to

Level G, Part Four: Philosophical Differences in the Psychological Field 319

knowledge. Stolorow and Atwood use the term 'co-determined' in this regard, though I find it questionable whether any use of the root word 'determined' is really compatible with their line of thinking. Regarding a theory of general validity, they clearly reject a correspondence theory of truth in favour of one based on coherence and on hermeneutic and perhaps pragmatic criteria. So it is at field-specific epistemological level E that their more radically relativistic stances take hold. Here they maintain that all truths must be understood as relativized and contextualized and as interactionally derived solely from within 'the intersubjective field' that constitutes the psychoanalytic situation. The field-specific validity criteria applying here (at level F) are thus mainly coherence ones. The concepts of objectivity, distortion, isolated minds, and uninterpreted facts have no validity at all at this level when we follow this approach. Methodologically, this approach tends to carry over self psychology's emphasis on 'empathy,' and 'introspection/ and 'the experiental' (though the second of these no longer fits well with field theory's conception of the intersubjective space). Finally, at the psychological level per se (level G), they emphasize the intersubjective relationship field and the experiences that emerge in the interactions between its participants. These intersubjective, dialogical encounters are interpreted in their interactional contexts, but attempts are also made to elucidate certain 'organizing principles' by which the patient typically organizes many of his or her experiences and interactions. In this approach, the analyst/therapist is considered very much an active and 'co-determining' part of the context/situation in which these intersubjective truths emerge. A hierarchical sketch of my particular (and generally positive) reading of the admittedly ambiguous positions of intersubjectivity theory is shown in Chart 11.5. Constructionism, Constructivism, Narrativism Constructionism, social constructionism, constructivism, narrativism, narratology, and a few other related terms all refer to a loosely knit group of psychological theories that emphasize the more relativistic and contextualized qualities of human life and experience. Their positions on the nature of human knowledge, validity, truth, and 'reality' emphasize relativistic claims in a variety of ways and perhaps to vary-

320 Part IV: Psychology CHART 11.5 Intersubjectivity theory (Stolorow and Atwood) Psychological

G • Emphasis on intersubjective relationship field • Intersubjective, dialogical encounters and experience in context; therapist very much a part of the context/ situation in which intersubjective truths emerge

Field-specific epistemological

F • Coherence validity criteria mainly • Empathic and introspective methodology • Concepts of 'objectivity' and 'distortion' allotted no place, considered invalid E • Experiential data is most true; • Field limited to experiential data derived from the interactional or 'intersubjective' field • No isolated mind

General epistemological

D Coherence/hermeneutic validity criteria mainly C 'Codetermining' but sometimes sounds subjectivist

Ontological

B Vague: implied ;but could be seen as s R o and subjectivist at times {as above) A

Implied Realism; sometimes unclear, with relativistic statements present, though without clear level indicated

ing degrees. These theories do not constitute a single school of thought. The point of most of them is precisely that a plurality of truths is available in life, and that these truths are continuously being 'constructed' - somewhat idiosyncratically - through the particular interactions and interpretations that arise in particular contexts. These contextualized constructions can be social or personal-historical in nature, but they are usually both in some combination. Different theories in this cluster tend to emphasize one or the other of these aspects. What they all seem to have in common is a fundamental rejection of the 'facts are facts' attitude of extreme objectivism at the general epistemological level of inquiry (C), and a related rejection of the correspondence theory of validity in favour of a coherence type at level D. Among the constructionists I include Peter Berger and Thomas Luckmann, who in 1967 published a highly influential book, The Social Construction of Reality, on 'the sociology of knowledge' - a term they attribute to German philosopher Max Scheler (1925). But even in this

Level G, Part Four: Philosophical Differences in the Psychological Field 321

book they talk about 'reality' and 'knowledge' within quote marks, rather than about Reality and Knowledge. They are interested mainly in 'the processes by which any body of "knowledge" comes to be socially established as "reality"' (3). They leave to the philosophers questions of 'the ultimate status' of both reality (as 'independent of our volition') and knowledge (as 'the certainty that phenomena are real and that they possess certain characteristics'), and they take pains from the outset to 'immediately disclaim any pretension to the effect that sociology has an answer to these ancient philosophical preoccupations' (1-2). Their claims and major interests lie more in the area of what comes to be accepted in the community as knowledge or reality, than in ontological level questions about these per se. Nevertheless, their anti-objectivist critique - especially its attack on the reification of our constructs has been of enormous influence for psychological and other types of theory. At present, arguments like theirs are usually launched under the banner of postmodernism or the postmodern critique. The 'ironist' perspective of contemporary philosopher Richard Rorty (e.g., 1989) has also been influential in many of these approaches. In any case, Berger and Luckmann argued several decades ago that whatever a given society (or part thereof) takes or accepts as knowledge and reality, a sociological process is involved whereby such 'realities' are 'socially constructed.' In psychoanalytic and general psychological theory, these ideas have been taken up in different ways by the aforementioned approaches. The constructivism of Irwin Hoffman emphasizes the relativism of the patient/analyst interaction in terms of the essential importance of the therapist's contribution to what can possibly develop in the psychoanalytic encounter and in the construction of the truths of such encounters. He emphasizes transference-counter-transference interactiveness, and he criticizes any notion that the analyst is 'a blank screen' (e.g., see his 1983 article The Patient as Interpreter of the Analyst's Experience'). Certainly Hoffman embraces relativism at least at the field-specific epistemological level of inquiry, but it is unclear just how radically relativist he wishes to be at more fundamental levels, and he too, in his more recent writings, seems to want to distance himself from any position of ontological relativism (much as did Stolorow and Atwood). Other psychoanalytic theorists, including Roy Schafer (e.g., 1983) and Donald Spence (e.g., 1982), talk more of 'narratives' and 'narrative

322 Part IV: Psychology

truths/ which are constructed or developed within the analytic dialogue and its reflections on the patient's personal history. The main validation criterion here is still coherence, or cohesiveness. That is, if a cohesive story or a cohesive interpretation of the patient's life experiences can be weaved, this is considered to be of high therapeutic value and is assigned a certain measure of 'truth value' as well. This certainly pertains to an experiential or epistemological (or higher) level notion of truth, which Spence differentiates from the more ontological level questions of 'historical truth.' The really radically relativistic thinkers, however, tend to deny even the existence of anything approaching Realist concepts such as 'historical/ 'independent/ 'actual/ and 'ontological' truth. Although it seems to me that these radically relativistic stances tend to become much harder to find when the particular authors in question are pressed on these points. Interestingly, while some in this group have emphasized the importance of a cohesive life narrative around which one can build a coherent sense of self, other social constructionists such as Kenneth Gergen argue quite the contrary - that the very concept of 'the self is a misguided reification, a fiction, and not especially useful in therapy (e.g., see Gergen's chapter in Anderson's The Truth about the Truth [1995]). Sartre's notions of 'bad faith' (see chapter 10), though not alluded to by Gergen, come to mind here. Though theories in this group are often charged with relativism, and sometimes with subjectivism, we can still frame the crucial questions in these terms: 'At which levels of inquiry do these relativistic claims and criticisms truly apply, and at which do they not?' I do not attempt to try to analyse any of these approaches individually here, but I do try in Chart 11.6 to summarize some of their commonalities. In this section and the previous one I allude to the most troublesome position, that of ontological relativism, so in Chart 11.7 I provide a perhaps coherent, though not very tenable, illustration of that position. Not all constructionist positions entail ontological relativism, but all of them must be wary of this position, especially as they adopt more radically relativistic positions (i.e., ones that apply at the most basic levels of the hierarchy). Though I am attempting here to present a composite picture of this group of theories, I certainly do acknowledge that these terms are used in very different ways in the literature. Ian Hacking's The Social Construction of What? (1999) is an excellent reference in this regard.

Level G, Part Four: Philosophical Differences in the Psychological Field 323 CHART 11.6 Constructionism/constructivism (composite) Psychological

G Emphasis on constructing meaningful and therapeutic stories, understandings, narratives, etc., of the patient's life and experience; done together with the therapist

Field-specific epistemological

F

Coherence always important, whether of narrative, self, roles, or interpretations (in different variations)

E

Knowledge, realities, and truths are constructed, or are emergent within the interpersonal encounter of the psychotherapeutic situation

General epistemological

D Coherence theory of validity; knowledge is contextualized C No uninterpreted facts; anti-objectivist, may be subjectivistic or interactional

Ontological

B May be s R o or A • Variable, some include a belief in a Reality independent of us, others may not • Some Realist, some anti-realist

CHART 11.7 Ontological relativism Psychological

G Whatever feels good at the time

Field-specific epistemological

F

Method doesn't matter

E Anything goes, no such thing as expertise General epistemological

D Can't validate knowledge; can see different subjective states at best C No absolute truth; subjectivism, subject with only apparent transient objects

Ontological

B

Idealism, no true objective side, only subjective states, ?solipsism

A

No absolute Reality beyond us

324 Part IV: Psychology

Primarily Non-Psychoanalytic Psychological Theories Behaviourism At the start of the twenty-first century, it is questionable whether behaviourism can still be considered a 'major contemporary theory of psychology or psychotherapy.' For all its limitations and inadequacies, however, behaviourism has been and still is a strong influence in psychological theory and practice. Behaviour therapy and techniques such as systematic desensitization are certainly still mainstays in the therapeutic community for certain conditions, even if most of these techniques are now used in conjunction with other forms of treatment (as in 'cognitive-behavioural' approaches). Behaviourism, especially as delineated by its most influential proponent, B.F. Skinner, expresses an antimentalist and environmentally deterministic point of view, and sees method as of paramount importance. It embraces a strongly positivistic philosophy of science. Its philosophical nature is stated by Skinner as follows: 'Behaviourism, with an accent on the last syllable, is not the scientific study of behaviour but a philosophy of science concerned with the subject matter and methods of psychology' (from Behaviorism at Fifty, in Warm, 1964: 79). Terms such as 'radical' behaviourism and 'methodological' behaviourism have sometimes been used. In the first of these, 'the internal' or 'the mental' is seen as ultimately reducible to the external or to particular forms of behaviour (e.g., substituting 'internal speech' for 'thinking,' and so on). The second does not try to explain internal events at all, but rather says we should only concern ourselves with what is directly observable. Following is a hierarchical sketch of the behaviourist position as represented by Skinner At ontological level A, Skinner's position is decidedly Realist. The 's R o' separation assumption at level B is also implied here. One could ask about this theory whether 'the subject' even exists. In terms of general epistemology, Skinner's objectivism is so extreme that the subject may have no epistemological significance at all. In Beyond Freedom and Dignity (1971) he argues that 'nothing is changed because we look at it, talk about it, or analyze it in a new way' (203). This is almost the direct opposite of the hermeneutic-emergent concepts of truth discussed in earlier chapters of this book. His emphasis on the external is clear when he states later in his book that 'it is the environment which acts upon the perceiving person, not the perceiving person who acts

Level G, Part Four: Philosophical Differences in the Psychological Field 325

upon the environment' (179). Not surprisingly, his work appeals to a correspondence theory of general validity. In practice, however, he also appeals to pragmatic criteria, as long as these are observable and potentially reproducible. In terms of field-specific epistemology and validity, 'methodological behaviourism' clearly seeks to delimit the field to the observable. At one point behaviourism even tried to rename the field itself along these lines, with some success: a number of university departments of psychology were renamed departments of 'behavioural science' (mainly in the 1960s and 1970s, when Skinnerian behaviourism was in its heyday). Skinner offered the following field-delimiting epistemological statement: 'Methodological behaviorism limits itself to what can be publicly observed; mental processes may exist, but they are ruled out of scientific consideration by their nature' (181). Here he is asserting that knowledge in the field can only be valid if it can be publicly demonstrated. In epistemological terms, this excludes the 'subjective' from the psychological field. Accordingly, the goals of behaviourism and even behaviour therapy reflect the traditionally natural scientific ones of prediction and control. 'Management' and 'a technology of behaviour' (as Skinner puts it) become the new goals; concepts such as 'insight,' 'understanding,' and 'self-knowledge' are pushed aside as fuzzy, unscientific, and perhaps meaningless. Nevertheless, a psychological level G approach that addressed some of the problems psychotherapists deal with was developed from the behaviourist perspective. The techniques found in this model emphasize 'conditioning/ 'desensitizing/ 'selective reinforcement/ and other training or learning-based methods of behaviour manipulation and control; 'awareness' and 'insight' are de-emphasized. A hierarchical sketch of behaviourism is summarized in Chart 11.8. Cognitive Psychotherapy

Cognitive psychotherapy has become a major force in contemporary psychotherapeutic theorizing in the past few decades. This school of thought has been especially influential among clinical psychologists, although its first important proponent, Aaron T. Beck, and its major popularizer, David D. Burns, are both MDs. It arose as a reputable therapeutic approach at a time of huge popular demand for faster, cheaper, 'more scientific' (often meaning more measurable) treatment modalities, which it was hoped would be as or more effective than the

326 Part IV: Psychology CHART 11.8 Behaviourism (Skinner) Psychological

G • Emphasis on the manipulation of environmental 'contingencies of reinforcement' to produce 'better' behavioural effects • A technology of behaviour

Field-specific epistemological

F • Radical empiricism, externalism, positivism, emphasis on epistemological on experimental methods, prediction and control • Methodological behaviourism defines 'subjective' elements right out of the field of study E • Only publicly observable behaviours are valid and count as knowledge • Mental processes and inner experiences do not count as valid sources of knowledge

. General epistemological D Correspondence theory of validity External > Internal Principle of environmental determinism

C Objectivist, empiricist, ?positivist Externalist, not interactionalist Ontological

B s R o dualist (with 's' approaching zero) A

Realist

insight-oriented and psychoanalytic approaches. At the time, more and more psychiatrists (and medical people in general) were being attracted to biological psychiatry and its promises of better, quicker, cheaper, easier, and more effective treatments, and more and more emphasis was being placed on neurobiological breakthroughs and new pharmaceutical modalities. In some ways, then, cognitive therapy filled a market niche by offering a brief, non-medical form of therapy. This appealed strongly to patients who did not want to take medications, as well as to treatment providers who could not prescribe them. All of this at a time when the limits of behaviourism and behaviour therapy were becoming more evident in the community. Over the years, cognitive therapy has established itself as a viable form of psychotherapy; it is now part of the armament of both non-medical and medically trained clinicians. As a 'brief therapy' with very pragmatic goals, cognitive therapy in some philosophical respects is more akin to biological psychiatry and behaviourism than to any of the psychoanalytic schools of thought I've discussed so far. As must seem usual by now, some of this approach's

Level G, Part Four: Philosophical Differences in the Psychological Field 327

philosophical stances are quite explicitly stated, whereas others, at other levels of inquiry, seem somewhat covertly adopted. Let us now try to sketch them out on the hierarchy. At the ontological levels, the assumptions of Beck's cognitive therapy are as realist as one can get. The existence of a reality independent of us is clearly assumed and never really questioned. Beck refers to this sort of 'reality' repeatedly. In the 'Overview' chapter of perhaps the first major text on this approach, Cognitive Therapy of Depression (1979), Beck and his colleagues state (in reference to Kuhn's work on paradigms) that 'when the patient's personal paradigm is reversed and realigned with reality ... his depression starts to disappear' (21 - my italics). The implicit's R o' assumption that subject is split off from object is also quite evident here. The patient's subjective 'paradigm' is seen as clearly separate and as distinguishable from the objective 'reality' of the (independent) world. This radical split seems quite fundamental to the philosophical approach of cognitive therapy. For its most central concept is that of 'cognitive distortion' - something hard to imagine unless the subjective (i.e., the 'distorted') is separated from the objective (i.e., the 'undistorted'). Furthermore, cognitive therapy seems to go farther than most theories in one particular aspect of Cartesian-style dualism - that is, in the separation between cognition and affect (or more traditionally, between reason and emotion). The theory behind cognitive therapy seems to be entirely about the relationship between cognition and affect, with the latter clearly distinguished from and to a large extent subservient to and dependent on the former - it may even be just a by-product. Burns probably goes the farthest in this regard. In his enormously successful book, Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy (1980), which presents co tive therapy to the general reader, Burns states that 'your emotional reaction is generated not by the sentences you are reading but by the way you are thinking. The moment you have a certain thought and believe it, you will experience an immediate emotional response. Your thought actually creates the emotion' (12; italics his).5 So from this point of view, emotion and thought are quite distinct from each other and are not on equal footing: emotion is highly subject to the specific contents of its antecedent thought(s). In philosophical terms, one might call this rationalism or cognitivism. It is not 'rationalist' at all in the traditional philosophical sense applying to thinkers like Plato and Descartes, who believed in the presence of 'innate ideas'; but it is rationalist in the more colloquial sense that it maintains 'a faith in Reason,' and a belief in the ability of 'the rational' to triumph over 'the

328 Part IV: Psychology

emotional or the irrational/ In cognitive therapy, the belief is that by teaching patients to apply more clear-thinking reasoning, we can triumph over irrational, distorted thinking and its emotional consequences, such as depression. At general epistemological level C, the above position is of a straightforward objectivism. Postulated here is a distinct objective reality to which we have either a 'distorted/ 'incorrect' impression or a 'correct/ 'undistorted' one. Interestingly, Beck's language about needing our cognitions to conform to this 'reality' and about the importance of their 'adaptiveness' (1979: 4) is curiously similar to the language used so often by the psychoanalytic school of 'ego psychology/ which was prevalent at the time of his training but against which he largely rebelled. The proponents of ego psychology would probably also have supported the epistemological position that Beck offers under the term 'collaborative empiricism' (6). Here he appeals to consensus and 'empirical evidence' as validation criteria. In the terms I have been using, Beck's empiricism and objectivism appeal strongly to a correspondence theory of truth, although in his work this is more taken for granted than reasoned out. At the field-specific epistemological level E, things get quite interesting. Certainly, the theory diverges here from the positions of its psychoanalytic counterparts. Beck wants cognitive therapy to be a hereand-now, evidence-based approach with readily reproducible results based on measurable goals. He is not especially interested in the past, the unconscious, or the origins or causes of the patient's symptoms. Rather, he is interested in their immediate causes, which according to him are the patient's distorted and negativistic cognitions. He contends that by carefully attending to changes in mood states and their apparent situational precipitants, we can trace these back to a series of 'automatic thoughts' or crucial cognitions, which by virtue of their 'depressogenic' distortedness gave rise to painful affects such as depression. So the first task of cognitive therapy is to search for (though not properly speaking 'uncover') the distorted thoughts that gave rise to the feelings. Furthermore, we ought to be looking for particular sorts of depressogenic thoughts, such as those of 'the cognitive triad' of negativistic thoughts regarding one's self, the world, and the future. The longer-lasting and relatively more stable cognitive patterns found in a particular individual's thinking are known as 'schemas/ We seek these out as well so that we can later reason with them and subject them to 'the rules of evidence' in our attempts to change them. The model here

Level G, Part Four: Philosophical Differences in the Psychological Field 329

is basically an information-processing one in which even depression - a classic 'affective disorder' - is approached as primarily the result of a form of thought disorder. Here, in epistemological terms, 'the cognitive' has been upwardly valued as 'that which is most important and significant for our knowledge in this field/ largely at the expense of 'the emotional' (which perhaps represents the merely symptomatic consequences of the former). In terms of the field-specific validity level F, this model's emphasis on cognition and on empirical validation and 'objective' methodologies tends to structure data in certain ways. Unlike psychodynamic theories, but much like behavioural ones, cognitive therapy has always placed psychometric tools of measurement very much at the centre of its approach. The pragmatism appealed to by this model from the outset has always placed an enormous emphasis on measurable successes. To that end, the Beck Depression Scale (BDI) and its psychometric counterparts have long been central features of cognitive therapy. This project of demonstrating the effectiveness of a therapy is admirable, but as I mentioned in chapter 5, we must be careful not to 'treat the scale items' or 'treat the numbers' more than the patient. The goal is still a happier, better-functioning patient, not just one who scores better on the BDI. Cognitive therapists, like others today, feel pressured to perform well in terms of these popular outcome measures, and those many who call themselves 'empiricists' must be cautious not to overestimate their own particular abilities to be objective. The following passage from Burns (discussing a comparison trial between two treatment groups) is of some concern in this regard: The doctors who performed the psychological tests were not the therapists who administered the treatment. This ensured an objective assessment of the merits of each form of treatment' (13). This sense of certainty seems philosophically naive to me: it overestimates the degree of objectivity that this sort of methodology can ensure. But in fairness to the author, this quote was taken from his popular book (Feeling Good), not from c- scientific paper. On the other hand, this particular popular book has probably been far more influential than any number of scientific papers. When at last we come to the psychological level proper (G), we find that many of the emphases of cognitive therapy have already been mentioned. For example, it emphasizes cognitions, 'automatic thoughts/ 'schemas/ and the here and now. It also places great stock in revealing and reasoning against 'cognitively distorted' beliefs by appealing to

330 Part IV: Psychology CHART 11.9 Cognitive psychotherapy (Beck) Psychological

G Emphasis on pathogenic cognitive distortions, automatic thoughts, schemas, reasoning in the here and now

Field-specific F Emphasis on psychometric measurability, empirical epistemological evidence, experimental methods; predictive and pragmatic validation criteria E • Objective facts or truth accessible, only limited by subjective, cognitive distortions • Cognitions of primary importance • Access limited to the here and now, not the unconscious or the distant past General epistemological

D Correspondence theory of validity C • Objectivist, empiricist • Cognition and affect separated

Ontological

B s R o Cartesian dualist A

Realist

'evidence/ and takes up a generally 'experimental' approach to making predictions about a patient's future feelings and behaviours. Although I disagree with the fundamental proposition held by many cognitive therapists 'that negative feelings are caused by negative thoughts/ I do believe that cognitive therapy has added a powerful weapon to our therapeutic arsenal. I personally do not practise cognitive therapy alone or in isolation from other techniques, yet I do find it an extremely useful adjunct, especially in the treatment of 'negativism' (something I see as a very difficult symptom and/or exacerbating factor in a number of psychiatric and psychopathological conditions). And I agree without question that negative thinking does occur in depression (and anxiety), and that such cognitions do tend to make whatever negative feelings were there at the outset that much worse. Chart 11.9 outllines the positions of the cognitive therapy approach. Biological Psychiatry

Biological psychiatry is not so much a particular theory of psychiatry or psychology as it is a broadly based movement that emphasizes a par-

Level G, Part Four: Philosophical Differences in the Psychological Field 331

ticular set of philosophical assumptions. These assumptions generally emphasize the biological, physical, and bodily aspects of psychological life and often include a belief that these former constitute the true and even sufficient basis of the latter. That is, they emphasize that one's 'mental' states depend on one's physical or biological states. In this movement, psychiatry's connections with general medicine, neurology, and other neurosciences - neuroendocrinology, psychopharmacology, neuroimaging, and so on - and with classically natural-scientific methodologies are endorsed and strengthened. Correspondingly, its associations with the humanities, the psychotherapies, psychosocial factors, and hermeneutic and similar methodologies are de-emphasized (and in some cases devalued). When it comes to questions about the relative importance of studying 'the brain' versus 'the mind,' the brain wins out. In philosophical terms, the underlying positions adopted here are generally of materialism and reductionism. Materialism maintains that the apparently mental or spiritual ultimately boils down to a set of physical or biological factors - albeit complex ones - and that these are in principle sufficient on their own to account for all mental phenomena. Somewhat more radical steps in this direction lead one to further assume that (a) mental and emotional phenomena can actually be 'reduced' to physical patterns (e.g., involving the interaction of various neurotransmitters and neural networks) within the brain, and (b) by manipulating these biological substrates in particular ways, through physical or medical interventions, we may be able to control the psychological phenomena to a large extent. The traditional natural-scientific goals of prediction and control are heavily emphasized in this highly pragmatic clinical approach. 'Understanding' in its more introspective, emotive, relational, hermeneutic, humanities-like senses is far less the direct goal here. From this perspective it follows that the natural scientific investigation of brain states, including their neuroanatomy and neurophysiology, is probably the best route for solving the problems of psychology and psychopathology, or at least managing them effectively. Thus the 'mind/body' problems that philosophers have posed (especially since Descartes) are of quite central concern in biological psychiatry. And the answer generally found throughout this group is that 'the body, the brain, or the biological' is what is 'really real' and most worthy of our effort and attention. That being said, adherents to this model vary in the precise ontological and epistemological status they

332 Part IV: Psychology

accord to 'the psychological' or 'the mental.' Some see 'the psychological' as fully reducible to its biological substrates in a rather simple fashion; in other words, phenomena such as 'consciousness' are illusory or are merely metaphoric fictions that add little or nothing to our understanding (much like 'the ether' concept in nineteenth-century physics). Others, however, tend to see consciousness (for instance) as an 'epiphenomenon' - that is, a real phenomenon but one that occurs completely deterministically as a predictably emergent property when a certain configuration and degree of complexity is achieved in a particular biological substrate (in much the same way steam predictably forms when water is heated to its boiling temperature). Still others in this movement adopt a more Cartesian position of mind/body parallelism, whereby bodily states occur in parallel with mental states (or vice versa) at all times without necessarily being in reality identical; accordingly, the mental need not be reduced to the physical (as the materialistreductionists would have us believe). All these subschools, however, seem to maintain that the way to a man's (or woman's) metaphoric 'heart,' mind, soul, or spirit is through his or her brain, body, or neuroendocrine system. In practice, this generally means focusing in on specific syndromes or diagnostic categories and their biological correlates. These syndromes are defined through a combination of clinical, research, and statistical methods, all of which are geared to establishing distinct recognizable patterns or clusters of symptoms and signs. A high level of interobserver reliability in the assessment of whether they are present or not is also emphasized. Having established these diagnostic entities, adherents of this approach then focus on their biological correlates and try to manipulate them by biological means. They then try to assess whether these interventions changed the clinical state. This research is largely done with large groups of subjects with a core set of common symptoms (i.e., a diagnosis in common). Their individual clinical states are usually assessed using batteries of standardized biological or psychometric 'before and after' tests. Group means, for example, can then be compared to evaluate the effectiveness of a particular type of biological intervention.6 An example of this is the evaluation of a new antidepressant. The major depressive syndrome has been defined in a particular way that provides a high degree of inter-rater reliability by setting out a clear set of relatively objective criteria, which - if enough of them are present operationally define the presence of the condition. Large groups of

Level G, Part Four: Philosophical Differences in the Psychological Field 333

people who meet these criteria are gathered. Some are given the new drug and others are not. The results among the groups are then compared. The drug is deemed effective or not on the basis of whether it provides statistically significant improvements according to the averaged scores of the two large groups of subjects. Individual differences are less well accounted for here, as are the peculiarities of each individual's personal experience of depression. This approach emphasizes and tends to deal best with the commonalities within diagnostic groups, and less well with the idiosyncrasies of the individuals within them. Nevertheless, findings based on commonalities can be extraordinarily useful and helpful on a broad scale. For instance, literally millions of people have been helped by antidepressants developed and researched in this manner. Still, these drugs won't necessarily help a given patient's depression, and the way the depressive syndrome itself has been defined may miss some of the most central experiential elements of that patient's suffering. It is theoretically possible for that patient's biological syndrome to be quite healed while his or her world is far from it. The case of J.T. (chapter 10) was a good example of this. The philosophical positions generally maintained by advocates of the biological psychiatry movement seem to be as follows: Ontologically, the position of biological psychiatry is as Realist as they come. Though mind/body dualism is denied by many in this movement (with mind being seen as reducible to body), subject versus object dualism is adopted whole-heartedly. This is quite apparent at general epistemological level C: the objectivism that forms the basis of this paradigm often approaches the positivistic extreme in its rather exclusive emphasis on the 'object-ive' side of things. The position that knowledge comes mainly or entirely from the object-side of the 's R o' split is quite basic to this world view. 'Mind' or 'subjectivity' is seen here as incapable of providing an adequate basis for truth on its own; even its own ontological status may be of dubious validity. In this movement the question seems to be whether the contributions to knowledge arising from subjective factors (i.e., arising from the subject side of the s R o split) should be accorded little epistemological value or none at all. The general validation criteria appealed to in this movement are those of a correspondence theory of truth - one that emphasizes criteria that are most reproducible, reliable, and apparently 'objective' above all else. At the field-specific epistemological level E, this approach narrows

334 Part IV: Psychology

the horizons of our attention in particular ways. Its perhaps overemphasis on syndromatic diagnostic categories tends to restrict our attention to what falls within these descriptions alone. The major classification system in use today is the DSM series (now at DSM-IV), which relies heavily on statistical validation criteria in its designations of discrete diagnostic entities. Yet while its ability to discriminate between schizophrenia and bipolar affective disorder is quite good, when it comes to the conditions most often dealt with in psychotherapy (e.g., the anxiety disorders, dysthymic and other depressive-spectrum disorders, personality disorders, somatoform disorders, and most non-psychotic, non'organic' disorders in general), DSM-III, IIIR, and IV's statisti specificities are far less impressive. That is, in 'the life world/ clinicians often find a huge amount of mixture and overlap among these symptoms and supposedly discrete syndromes. Actual psychotherapy patients' conditions don't seem to fit into neat little categories nearly as well as some diagnosticians like us to believe. And why should they? Is it not merely an assumption borrowed from general medicine (where it often works much better) that psychiatric or psychological problems and disorders should break down into sets of specific definable pathologies? To maintain such a theory is, of course, anyone's prerogative. But we should acknowledge that it is precisely a theory, and defend it as one. Unfortunately, some adherents of this point of view seem quite remiss in that regard. A quite striking (and somewhat frightening) example of this is found in the introduction to the DSM-III, where the authors speak of maintaining a 'generally atheoretical approach' (1980: 7). Although they are trying mainly to acknowledge that there are many particular etiological theories in the field, and that they do not wish to take sides among them, their talk of a 'generally atheoretical approach' still sounds remarkably naive philosophically. Indeed, the term is probably an oxymoron. These criticisms have been made extensively elsewhere (see for instance Sadler, Wiggins, and Schwartz, 1994), but so far there has been little noticeable impact among the DSM series' main proponents and users. The danger in adopting a radically objectivist position, which the DSM series seems to do in an uncritical manner, is that in its preoccupation with objectivity (or inter-rater reliability in this case), it can easily designate many of the more experiential (yet nevertheless valid) aspects

Level G, Part Four: Philosophical Differences in the Psychological Field 335

of psychological phenomena as outside the proper field-specific epistemological horizons of our field (much as behaviourism did years ago). And although a careful study of biological factors in the psychiatric and psychological field is undeniably important and useful, this question is still raised: If you can't study the experiential in psychology or psychiatry, then where can you?' So it is wise to be wary of such 'hegemony' by this or any other particular philosophical-psychological theory at the field-specific epistemology and validity levels. In our field, too narrow a focus on quantifiable, inter-rater reliable, large-group-based methodologies and definitions in terms of what can and cannot be considered valid sources of knowledge can inappropriately narrow our scope. As I discussed in chapter 5, sometimes we can squeeze out what is experientially most important to us in our overzealous attempts at uniformity and reproducibility. This seems to occur to varying degrees within the biological psychiatry movement, especially among its more radical adherents. The assertion that the brain is important, and that the careful study of it yields important knowledge in our field, is easily defensible; the assertion that the brain (or the neurobiological organism) is all that is ultimately important is not. Generally in this model, brain and biological factors are seen as more valid or more important than any others. At psychological level G, what follows from these beliefs is an emphasis on physical or biological interventions. Those of a psychopharmacological nature are most prevalent, but there are plenty of others: light therapy (for seasonal depression); electroconvulsive therapy (ECT); and hormones (for premenstrual syndrome and subclinical hypothyroidism). In related research, much is being made of the biological or brain correlates of various psychological and psychiatric states and syndromes. This type of research is now far more feasible (and exciting) as a result of new technologies. For instance, neuroimaging techniques are far more advanced nowadays, with PET scans (positron emission tomography), MRI scans (magnetic resonance imaging) and computerenhanced EEG (electroencephalography). Our society's current fascination with technology and science seems to have made biological psychiatry more acceptable. So has the prospect of 'mass solutions' for 'mass problems' (even those of an essentially psychological nature). Certainly, generalist and pill-taking approaches also fit in better than more individualized and labour-intensive ones (i.e., the psychothera-

336 Part IV: Psychology CHART 11.10 Biological psychiatry (composite) Psychological

G • Emphasis on the manipulation of biological factors, e.g., neurotransmitters, neuroendocrine factors, 'chemical imbalances,' and on their 'normalization' • tied to traditional 'medical illness model'

Field-specific epistemological

F • Radical empiricism; natural scientific large-groupbased methodologies • Emphasis on inter-rater reliability, reproducibility, prediction, and control • Belief in biological causality and control of mental states/phenomena through biological manipulation guides validation judgments E • Objective facts seen as accessible by empirical investigation of biological states and statistically validated syndromes • 'Subjective' or 'inner' experience and 'psychological or mental' processes de-emphasized or do not count as valid sources of knowledge

General epistemological

D • Correspondence theory of validity • Physical/bodily/brain 'data' > (more real, more valid) than mental/experiential/mind • Principle of biological/physiological determinism C • Objectivist, empiricist, sometimes positivist • Usually materialist, and/or reductionist

Ontological

B • s R o dualist (sometimes with 's' approaching zero) A • Realist

pies) with the economic agendas of many modern 'health care economic systems' (including 'managed care'). Remember always, however, that correlation does not imply causation and that in a variety of sciences, both prediction and control have repeatedly been found to be far more elusive goals than they first seemed. And with regard to our acknowledgedly important economic concerns, we must not forget that our main goal as clinicians is to provide very good health care, not just quick, easy or cheap - though somewhat inadequate - solutions. Chart 11.10 sketches out the positions of biological psychiatry.

Level G, Part Four: Philosophical Differences in the Psychological Field 337 The Beams-of-Light-through-Time Model

The philosophical positions taken by the Beams-of-Light-through-Time model can also be sketched out hierarchically. It seems only fair to subject my own model to the same constrictions as I've applied to the others. So my final chart then will illustrate my own positions as developed in this book. Ontologically, the Beams-of-Light-through-Time model takes a clearly Realist position at ontological level A (see chapter 2), and rejects the Cartesian dualistic 's R o' position at level B in favour of a non-dualistic 'ontologically relational/ or stand chapter this yields a new set of epistemological possibilities at general epistemological level C. A 'co-constitutional' or 'perspectivalist' approach (see Wallace, 1988; Orange, 1995; and chapter 4) then replaces the subjectivism/objectivism disjunction occasioned by's R o' dualism. Accordingly, at level D dealing with general theories of validity, the correspondence notion of validity favoured by objectivist approaches (in which perceived 'truths' must be judged to match with or correspond to an absolute or 'objective reality' beyond) is seen as no longer fitting properly with the assumptions of the developing new paradigm. This 'pure correspondence' theory then gives way (chapters 5 through 7) to other types of validation criteria (e.g., hermeneutic, coherence, pragmatic, and other non-dualistic ones) as mainstays in the new model. Moving up the hierarchy into the field-specific levels (E and F) and the psychological level proper (G), I present several clinically relevant implications of the new model (more remain to be developed). The 'philosophical anatomy of the psychotherapy situation,' as explored in chapter 6 delineating my positions at level E, yielded some interesting suppositions required by this new model in order to be internally consistent. For psychotherapeutic theory, the foregoing paradigm was seen to lead to certain epistemological field-delimiting statements. For example, because of the co-constitutional nature of human meanings and truths, the objectivists' search for absolutely 'objective' facts freed from subjective or interpretive biases makes no sense here. That is, 'pure uninterpreted facts' are seen here as beyond the epistemological horizon or finite set of knowledge possibilities considered inherent to this particular field. So, from the perspective of my alternative approach, trying to seek these out is not an appropriate goal in our field. Similarly, the subjectivists' denial of any meaningful contribution

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from 'the world outside of us' makes equally little sense when we are defined as an enlightening relationship with a world. Therefore in the Beams-of-Light-through-Time model we cannot afford to completely neglect the unexperienced or even 'extra-analytic/ external-historical, biological, and environmental factors of the world either. As such we cannot be content with any notion that we are completely limited to a merely 'narrative/ 'subjectivistic/ or entirely relativistic concept of truth either, even if that's all we may have immediate access to in a given consulting room at a given moment. The Beams-of-Light-through-Time model discusses the psychotherapy situation as mainly a 'purple zone/ interactional phenomenon. This area is seen as defining the horizons within which the psychotherapy encounter takes place. The 'intersubjective' - more properly speaking 'interactional' - field there created is now seen not only as co-constituted but also as mult /-constituted by the complex of dialogical relationships existing between the two people present; each is in a relationship with (a) his or her own world and (b) the other person. Methodological considerations (at level F) must therefore respect both the complexity of their field-or-systems-theory-like interrelatedness, and the mutually influencing interactionality of the elements of the situation, in order to understand psychotherapeutic phenomena as much as this is possible (see the case in chapter 7). At psychological level G, the Beams-of-Light-through-Time model emphasizes interactional phenomena such as 'the co-experience' and the 'encounter.' These are seen to take place the context of this multiconstituted 'purple zone/ which includes contributions from the phenomenological worlds of the participants, the ontological world (as existing independently of them), and the interactions among these. This approach also embraces a more 'futurally based' theory of motivation (see chapter 8). People are not 'pushed' deterministically by 'forces' or 'drives' from their past, as much as they are enticed or 'pulled' forward toward their imaginative anticipations of their future possibilities. The latter, however, are always seen only within the context of a complex meaning-network (or world) that is structured and organized by one's respective 'cares' at the time. The metaphoric topography of this world of meanings, significances, interpretations, utilities, and projects is experientially 'curved' in accordance with the relative 'gravity' - or emotional importance - of our various cares of the given moment (including our wishes, fears, and projects). To some degree, these relative weightings fluctuate rather

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fluidly, with the 'surface landscape' of one's phenomenological world following suit; its more core beliefs and cares tend to retain their general shape for much longer periods of time. The Beams-of-Light-through-Time model went on in chapter 8 to identify six essential features of human experience that we should address both individually and collectively if we are to provide an adequate psychological level G description of a person. These six features are relatedness to a world, temporality, interpretiveness and perspective, care-fullness, embodiment, and Being-with-Others. The multidimensional, multifaceted, more holistic view of human experience in this model was further elaborated in chapters 9 and 10, in which I applied and adaptated this perspective with respect to such traditional psychotherapeutic concepts as 'conflict/ 'defence/ and 'transference/ and also to some concepts from more general psychiatric or psychological theory such as the Mental Status Examination (MSB). For example, I argued that whether we are speaking of 'introjections/ 'projections/ and 'transferences' banging up against 'objective facts/ or of 'internalizations' that can be 'transmuted' from one person 'into' another, we are speaking in a mechanistic and atomistic language that limits Reality to 'pure and distinct' entities. That language ill fits the dialogical-interactional nature of the phenomena we are trying to describe. Similarly, when we speak of 'transferences' and 'countertransferences/ the separateness from others demanded by the objectivist models in which these concepts originated can only get us as far as a 'red' zone bordering on a 'blue' one (in terms of Figure 6.1). That is, those terms cannot adequately describe the truly interactional 'transferencecounter-transference' blendings that occur in therapy. In chapter 9 I introduced the term 'co-experience' to better describe these phenomena. In the new model these phenomena are described as the colour 'purple/ not merely as 'red' bordering on or alternating with 'blue.' We are reminded once more that experientially, purple is a new or emergent interactional phenomenon and is not simply additive. I've argued that human encounters in the purple zone are likewise more than merely additive. It seems that such phenomena can be more adequately, clearly, flexibly, and consistently dealt with within the (sR—K>) framework of the Beams-of-Light-through-Time m witEm the older Cartesian dualistic 's R o' ones. The newer model seems better suited to appreciating and describing the inherently interactional complexity of the phenomena in question here. The Beams-of-Light-through-Time model led us to a different way of

340 Part IV: Psychology CHART 11.11 Beams-of-Light-through-Time model (Hersch) Psychological

G • Emphasis on interactional phenomena in the purple zone; e.g., 'encounter and co-experience' in the context of a real but temporal world • Multidimensional, multifaceted, holistic view of conflict, defence, mind/body issues, etc. • Future-based theory of motivation, with 'gravities' of our current cares affecting the 'curvature' of our experiential worlds (seen as networks of meanings) • Six essential features: relatedness to a world; temporality; interpretiveness and perspective; carefullness; embodiment; and Being-with-Others • Mental Status Exam organized re: above elements

Field-specific epistemological

F • Methodology and validity criteria acknowledging the complexity of mutually influencing elements in a truly interactional, fieldlike system • 'External reality' (including biological and 'actual historical') elements also need be addressed E • Interactional, dialogical 'purple zone' as the area in which psychotherapy takes place • No completely objective or uninterpreted facts • No completely subjective, decontextualized, or unworlded ideas • 'Emergent' interactional truths arise, but still a unique perspective on the above for each participant

General epistemological

D Hermeneutic, coherence, pragmatic + some nondualistically-modified criteria formerly associated with correspondence (a mixture) C • Co-constitutional; interactional; perspectivalist; • Neither objectivist, nor subjectivist • Experience occurs in a world context organized/ structured by one's current 'cares' and temporality

Ontological

B A

; ontologically relational; non-dualistic Realist

organizing our understandings and formulating our impressions and interpretations of a patient's mental status. This new approach to the MSB - one organized in terms of the six essential features noted earlier - was illustrated by the case of J.T., also presented in chapter 10. Chart 11:11 illustrates the Beams-of-Light-through-Time model.

Level G, Part Four: Philosophical Differences in the Psychological Field 341

Claiming the Middle Ground: Concluding Reflections on the Objectivism-Subjectivism Debate In this chapter I have discussed a variety of important psychological theories. Each has taken up its own set of positions with respect to the critical philosophical questions I have raised in this book. One of the most obvious ways of classifying them would be to group them into two broad categories: 'objectivistic' and 'relativistic.' We could then subdivide each of these groups into more radical and less radical stances. This radicality would roughly coincide with how 'low' or fundamental a level on the hierarchy these positions could be said to apply. There is some merit to this approach, but in practice it also raises a problem. As with so many human arguments and disagreements, when pressed on these issues (especially in face-to-face discussions), those who adhere to a given position often seem more reasonable and compromising, and less radical, than one would have expected. In particular, with respect to the objectivism versus relativism debate, I have found that most theorists of either persuasion try to claim the middle ground for their own perspective. They do this in part by radicalizing the opposing stance to emphasize its failings. Each of the positions of objectivism and relativism contains within it a serious problem, so 'straw man' arguments are readily available to both sides; one simply has to emphasize that problematic feature. Unfortunately though not unexpectedly, proponents of theory x often accuse proponents of theory y of misrepresenting x in an oversimplistic fashion. Please remember this when examining the charts I have provided with this chapter. I have sacrificed complexity for clarity, and hope that in doing so I have not created too many 'straw man' versions of the approaches presented. Certainly that was not my intent, though of course I have biases like everyone else. Returning to the issue at hand, I have argued that objectivism, and the correspondence theory of truth with which it is usually linked, contains a major problem when it comes to dealing with the limited and 'flawed' nature of our merely human perspectives from which we ascertain any given matter or experience - perspectives that are always laced with some amount of 'subjectivity.' There can be no completely unbiased perspective, so there can be no pristine access to the pure, objective, independent-of-us 'facts of reality' with which our representations and experiences are supposed to be matched in order to ascertain their truth value. This, I believe, is a problem that a radical objectivism cannot solve.

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In parallel, however, we have seen that a radical relativism also contains an insoluble dilemma or paradox - one that has to do with the contradiction inherent in the statement that 'all truths are merely relative, except this one/ If pushed to the limit, this is precisely what the extreme of relativism seems forced to argue. In practice, what often happens is that theorists of the more relativistic stripe soften their stances short of this extreme. They do this by 'relativizing' their relativism so that it does not apply at the basic ontological levels. Thus, for instance, we hear from intersubjectivists and some constructivists that they do not wish to deny the existence of all reality independent of us. In so doing they disavow any position that embraces ontological relativism (or ontological antirealism) in favour of a realism at the ontological levels of inquiry. They then wish to limit and confine their relativistic stances to the higher epistemological and psychological levels. This part of their argument makes sense provided they can still demonstrate the overall coherence of such a set of positions adopted simultaneously at different levels. Where the 'straw man' argument sometimes then enters the discussion is when they (of more relativistic persuasions) take the additional step of defining objectivism as the position that posits a belief in the ability of people to have pure and unaltered, completely non-subjective knowledge of external 'facts' about the real, external world, which is independent of us. All other positions can then be defined as ones that embrace some form of limited 'relativism.' In so doing, the (limited) relativists can thereby seize the middle ground and claim it as their own. That is, by such convenient definitions, they claim for themselves all but the most extreme and largely untenable objectivistic positions. In very similar fashion, proponents of more objectivistic positions often try to distance themselves from the most radical claims within their own camp. It is harder today than one might think to find an objectivist so radical as to claim that we can indeed receive pure and uninterpreted 'facts' or 'data' from our environment as if we were merely Lockean7 'blank slates' (tabula rasa) or 'white papers' to be passively written upon. In fact, most contemporary objectivists do not insist on absolute or certain knowledge, and admit that there are limits to what we can know from any given act of perception. But they hold fast to the idea that some objective knowledge, or true knowledge orignating in the object and not the subject, does exist and is humanly accessible. The interesting turn to the 'straw man' argument as coming from them (of more objectivistic persuasions) comes into play when they then try

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to define relativism (or 'subjectivism/ a term they often use quite similarly) as the position that denies the existence of any possible knowledge of objects beyond our thoroughly subjective impressions. All relativistic positions can thus be radicalized to a position akin to ontological relativism, whereby no possibility is admitted that even an element of independent reality can be the basis of any human knowledge. Here the objectivists may then lay claim to the middle ground as their own, with all positions that even hint at a non-purely-subjective component to knowledge being seen as ultimately belonging to their camp. Here it is the relativists' turn to complain about being misrepresented by 'straw man' arguments. What causes this debate to sometimes degenerate in the above manner is not so much the misdefining of the other side's arguments so much as the dichotomizing of the two positions to begin with. The objectivism versus relativism dichotomy itself is one of those 'false problems' to which I referred several chapters back. This dichotomy seems to follow naturally from the 's R o' position at ontological level B (see chapter 3). That particular ontological model positing a basic initial separateness between each of us and his or her world (or the objects of the world) forces us to choose an epistemology in which truth or knowledge originates in either the 'object-ive' side or the 'subject-ive' side of the 's R o' relationship, and cannot originate in both. A co-constitutional or interactional view of knowledge, based not on the 's R o' model but rather on the o does same problems. That is, such a model can admit to the existence of some 'object or world'-based component to knowledge (on which the objectivists insist), and to some 'subject' or individualized-perspectivebased contribution to all knowledge (on which the relativists insist). In this way the more moderate claims of each of the above groups can be accommodated. Perhaps each side would then claim this approach as its own 'middle ground' position. But this would still ignore the essentially interactional nature of experience as emphasized by the Beams-of-Light-throughTime model. For this new model does not conceive of the creation or constitution of 'knowledge' or 'experience' as merely adding an 'objective' component to a 'subjective' component (like a red zone alongside a blue one would be); rather, it conceives of the constitution of human knowledge or experience as necessarily interactional from the onset (like a purple zone would be). According to this view, then, both interaction and emergence are part of the basic structure of experience.

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In this regard, the Beams-of-Light-through-Time model is not really consistent with either objectivism or relativism as they are traditionally described. Rather, to borrow from the title of Richard Bernstein's 1983 book, something 'beyond objectivism and relativism' is implied and required here. I refer to this stance as 'ontologically relational.' In this position, relatedness is primary and the blendedness of the components is irreducible. Thus to try to atomistically break down experience into a set of discrete 'objective' and 'subjective' elements would be inappropriate and misguided. Many of the traditional problems of epistemology - including those of the objectivism versus relativism debate - are better dealt with when we can step back and look at the broader overall philosophical picture at a variety of levels of theoretical inquiry simultaneously. Here it seems that looking down a level (or two) on the hierarchy, from the epistemological levels to the ontological ones, can be very helpful. A general premise of this chapter in particular and this book as a whole has been that a multilevel approach to arriving at broad overviews of the sets of positions adopted simultaneously by a given psychological theory at various levels of inquiry may help us with some of our traditional psychological level problems. Ultimately, this approach may in turn help us understand and deal with many of the issues and dilemmas we encounter in clinical and theoretical work.

CHAPTER 12

Philosophy Is Unavoidable

At the end of a lengthy work it is often worth revisiting some of the hypotheses offered early on in it. With that in mind, I repeat some of the propositions I advanced in chapter 1: Philosophy is unavoidable, because we always operate from within a context of beliefs, presuppositions, and background understandings. In this work I have tried to demonstrate that there is an inescapably philosophical basis to our psychological theories and practices. In that respect I believe that Freud - whom I nevertheless revere for his pioneering efforts - was quite wrong when he claimed in his Weltanschauung lecture that 'philosophy has no direct influence on the great mass of mankind; it is of interest to only a small number even of the top layer of intellectuals and is scarcely intelligible to anyone else.'1 On the contrary, philosophy has a great influence on all of us. And this is so whether we take an active interest in it or not, and whether we are even conscious of it or not. The irony, of course, is that this is precisely what Freud said about unconscious motivations - thus prompting me to paraphrase him in describing our task of 'making one's philosophical unconscious more conscious/ And lest the reader think I am picking on psychoanalysis here, I will add that the DSM group's decidedly non-psychoanalytic attempts, some fifty years later, to be 'generally atheoretical with respect to etiology/ only 'descriptive/ and 'at the lowest order of inference necessary'2 is no less philosophically naive, and generally antagonistic in spirit to an open exploration of our hidden philosophical assumptions.

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Practice without theory is not just blind but impossible. One's philosophical grounding is like one's nose: it's right before one's eyes yet most often not seen; it's routinely overlooked and rarely focused on; but even so it's always present. I have tried to show, however, that this simile breaks down rather miserably when we consider how important our fundamental philosophical stances are (unlike our noses) to exactly how and what we see. And it is this latter point that makes philosophical inquiry so relevant, especially to clinicians, throughout the broad psychological field. Clinicians tend to be a highly pragmatic lot. Typically, theoretical and especially philosophical issues like the ones I've raised in this book are received somewhat sceptically by clinical audiences, with the inevitable question being, 'Yes, but is this relevant, will this change what I do in my practice?' Once raised, this question is usually accompanied by much nodding of approval by other clinicians. I wrote this book largely to address that question. Philosophy is certainly relevant to our field - extremely so. Unfortunately for the busy practitioner (who would perhaps prefer to learn some quick and simple new 'tricks,' if at all possible), it is difficult to explain just how philosophy changes what we do in practice. But we must try to understand. Pragmatism in these matters can be misleading, for philosophical awareness changes what we do in practice in indirect ways. That is, what we see and how we experience the interactions in our psychotherapy encounters will necessarily be different (and hopefully enriched), after we arrive at an understanding of 'the philosophical anatomy of the psychotherapy situation,' or more explicitly increase our own self-knowledge of our underlying philosophical paradigms. This is because these new understandings will have changed the perspective from which we approach our sessions. Indirectly, that must alter our interpretations and awarenesses, as well as 'how we are' (including 'what we do') in these meetings (even if only in very subtle ways). Practice without acknowledged or conscious theory is blind (or at least has significant blind spots). Philosophy earned itself quite a bad reputation among psychological thinkers a long time ago because of its tendency to engage in extensive speculations that seemed at odds with many modern notions of science. Yet the resistance (sometimes passionate) to philosophy that is still felt and heard in a number of university departments of psychol-

Philosophy Is Unavoidable 347

ogy and psychiatry seems strikingly overdone. The now obvious point is that the empiricist, behaviouristic, and objectivistic perspectives usually being defended in the psychological field are philosophical positions themselves, though ones often left to operate at only an implicit level of awareness. But such defensive and/or hostile attitudes seem much more scientistic than scientific. They are more muddled than helpful. They persist for probably a number of socio-cultural-historical reasons, which I don't have enough space to discuss, though the clinician in me suspects that some of us may be experiencing Tab-coat envy,' a result of our field being perceived as 'too soft' by our academic brethren in other natural sciences and specialties of medicine. Still, we would probably be far better off embracing the difficulty and complexity of our subject matter as its challenge, and developing our methods to fit the phenomena in question rather than vice versa. Certainly, to the extent that we are 'such stuff as dreams are made on,'3 and insofar as our work mainly involves emergent, interactional, 'co-experiential,' 'purple zone' phenomena, restricting ourselves to tools designed for the study of non-caring, atemporal 'things' would be a foolhardy course to follow. Good psychotherapeutic practice is best grounded in good psychological theory. Good psychological theory is best when it is consistent with or wellgrounded in good philosophical theory. Good philosophical theory is best when it is most clear, explicit, conscious, and acknowledged. The nature of philosophical work is such that, though important to those in the psychological field, it has been hard to appreciate, difficult to do, and often relatively inaccessible. That is why I took up the tasks in this book of trying to introduce some of these relevant philosophical concepts to the psychological reader in as accessible a manner as possible. For similar reasons, I have also presented a method of organizing and systematically approaching these issues (i.e., the hierarchical approach). I hope that the hierarchical method has demonstrated how a philosophical approach can be used by my psychological colleagues for various purposes: to conduct a philosophical analysis of a particular psychological paradigm; to make philosophical comparisons among a number of different approaches; to assess the compatibility of various paradigms with one another; and perhaps (as I have done with the Beams-of-Light-through-Time model) to build or develop a new theory.

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Tlie Interplay of Theory and Practice The development of the Beams-of-Light-through-Time model in this work had purposes beyond those stated earlier. Specifically, I elaborated on it systematically here partly out of a felt need to clarify my own philosophical positions. I began studying philosophy (and phenomenology in particular) before studying or practising psychotherapy. Perhaps this primacy effect helped me understand that these two fields are linked. As I trained in various programs and approaches in departments of psychology, medicine, and psychiatry, philosophy was always there in the background for me. My efforts to develop a phenomenological approach to psychology go back at least to graduate school in the 1970s. However, my clinical training and practice over the subsequent two decades were largely influenced by the various psychoanalytic and non-psychoanalytic approaches discussed in chapter 11. Through reflecting on my practice of psychotherapy over the years, I realized that what I actually was doing and how I was being with patients seemed more influenced by my phenomenological understandings of the psychotherapy situation than by anything else. As I began to explore more of the philosophical implications of, for instance, the classical psychoanalytic concept of 'transference' - a concept I used in my practice - I became increasingly aware and troubled by seeming inadequacies in these models and by possible inconsistencies in my thinking and approach.4 It also struck me that my more existential or phenomenological understandings were the ones I found in practice to be the most useful to me in dealing with actual patients and their lives.5 Mainly in response to all this, I began developing what I now call the Beams-of-Light-through-Time model. In sum, it is to an ongoing dialogue between theory and practice that this work owes its origins and purpose. It would be hard to simply say that the theory came first, or the practice came first. More accurately, some implicit theory guided my practice, which inspired more reflection, which altered the practice, which required elaborations in the theory, and so on and so on in an ongoing dialogical manner. This might also be a good way of describing how a patient's experiences in a psychotherapy come to gradually effect changes in his or her life as a whole - that is, through a similar interplay among perceptions, understandings, reflections, and actions.

Philosophy Is Unavoidable 349 From Reflection to Perception: Learning to Look at the World Anew I am a full-time, practising clinician and psychotherapist. From that stance, perhaps the best recommendation I can offer my colleagues for the Beams-of-Light-through-Time model and the approach I have presented in this book is that it works for me! That is, it has benefited both my understanding (of the various phenomena involved in the psychotherapy process) and my clinical effectiveness in immeasurable ways. It probably has in quite measurable ways, too, but most of the subtle perceptual changes we are dealing with, and most of the broadening and deepening of horizons, possibilities, and experiences, tend to become trivialized if we focus too much on measurement. Most patients report changes in their lives of both a qualitative and a quantitative nature. But it is usually the more qualitative ones that they tend to cherish as most important, most substantial, most real, and most valued. And the 'perceptual changes' in the way they see the world perhaps along a number of the dimensions I've outlined in earlier chapters - tend in my experience to be the most prized gains reported. Similarly, when the therapy is really going well, the quality of the relationship tends to achieve a greater sense of 'encounter'6 for both patient and therapist. That is, the feel of the therapy tends to move toward a state of authentic being-with another person, such that the Other is perceived differently, and is no longer experienced as just another (perhaps useful) person-'object,' but rather as fully another 'subject' in his or her own right, the source of his or her own phenomenological world or Beam-of-Light-through-Time interacting with mine. Maurice Merleau-Ponty wrote in the preface to his Phenomenology of Perception that 'true philosophy consists in re-learning to look at the world.'7 Perhaps this can just as appropriately be said of 'true psychotherapy,' both from the standpoint of the patient who learns new ways of seeing his or her world, and from that of the continuously learning therapist whose appreciations may deepen but will never be complete (recall my discussion of 'the hermeneutic spiral' in chapter 7). In this book I have tried to integrate what I have learned from various sources in order to provide my colleagues with a novel psychological model that is more consistent with much of phenomenological philosophy. The resultant 're-learned look at the world of psychotherapy' begins with an ontologically relational model, one that gets us

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out of some of the traditional objectivist versus subjectivist dilemmas, one that provides for some new ways of understanding a variety of psychotherapy phenomena - including an alternative way of organizing and conceptualizing the 'mental status evaluation' of a patient and one that ultimately better describes the irreducibly interactional nature of human experience. I hope this new approach will be as helpful to my colleagues and their patients as it has been for me and mine, and that perhaps others will take up the task of further developing and improving it.

Glossary

Analytic

'Analytic Philosophy' refers to a major twentiethcentury philosophical movement that has focused mainly on such areas as logic and language analysis. It has been most prominent in the English-speaking world. It uses the term 'analytic' to refer to its methods of careful and rigorous analysis. (It has nothing to do with, and should not be confused with, the more psychological use of the term 'analytic,' which refers to the psychoanalytic literature or to those psychotherapeutic approaches originally arising from the work of Sigmund Freud).

Antirealism

The ontological-level belief that no reality exists independently or at least partially independently of us.

Atomistic

A way of describing such psychic phenomena as feelings (or sets of feelings), thoughts, representations, relationship patterns, and so on as if these were selfcontained, relatively autonomous 'units' of mental life (akin to physical atoms, or perhaps molecules). As such these units are seen in an atomistic approach as capable of being moved around from here to there between persons, psyches, and realms of being (as in mind to body conversion) without essentially changing anything of the inherent content of the 'unit' (e.g., of the transference feelings/pattern that might comprise

352

Glossary such a unit). Such presumed discreet 'atoms' or 'units of feelings' are likened in the text to marbles.

Authenticity

This has to do with experiencing and acting in such a way as to involve an appreciative and expressive grasping of one's most unique and particular set of possibilities at a given time, and of choosing to enact those which are most in harmony with the actual set of givens included in one's current situation of Beingin-the-World.

Bad faith

A pejorative label given by Sartre to the particular form of self-deception about the nature of ourselves (and of other worldly phenomena) that allows one to appear to be more definite, solid, absolute, determined, unchanging, or universal than one really is. That is, in bad faith one pretends that one is a welldefined thing with a determinate essence rather than more accurately acknowledging one's true mode of being as that of an inherently indeterminate process of existence.

Beams-of-Lightthrough-Time model

The new psychological model, based on a phenomenological philosophical foundation, that is developed in this book.

Being-in-the-World

Term introduced by Heidegger to denote our human mode of existence, which he sees as being always and necessarily enmeshed in a whole world context (which includes a number of ever-present essential dimensions, as elaborated in the text.)

Being-with-Others

A term originating as a translation of Heidegger's Mitsein, in which the presence of others or one's primordial enmeshment in an inherently social world (or one experienced as 'always already peopled with others') is taken to be part of the essential structure of human experience. This notion has since been elaborated on by a number of other existential and phenomenological philosophers.

Blue zone

The metaphoric Beam-of-Light-through-Time that represents the therapist, or the experiential world the

Glossary 353 therapist brings into (and later takes out from) the therapy session (refer to Figure 6.1). Broad psychological field

The 'psychological' field encompassing the variety of professional and academic disciplines involved in dealing with the psychological, the mind, and so on. Includes psychology, psychiatry, psychoanalysis, and psychotherapy.

Care, cares, care-fullness

Care here means first of all 'the opposite of indifference' or having emotional significance for the one experiencing. It implies a primordial emotionality to all of human experience. This sharply distinguishes the human mode of Being from that of things. Heidegger uses the term Sorge (which has been translated as care) extensively and centrally in his descriptions of the fundamental structure of the sort of Being he calls Dasein (the human way of Being). My use of these terms in this text is perhaps a little broader than his in that I am referring more to the essential and ubiquitous presence of emotion (in general, through its full variety of types) in any given human experience, while not referring preferentially to the sort of anxious or Angst-filled sort of care (or Sorge) that Heidegger emphasizes. The 'care-fullness' or 'Care-filled' quality to human experience that I have talked about refers basically to the notion that in any experience, we are always found to be caring about something(s) (i.e., we are never truly or completely indifferent).

Cartesian

Pertaining to the philosophy of Rene Descartes.

Co-constituted

Refers to a general epistemological level model in which the truths of human experience are seen as constituted or seen to arise precisely from the interaction or relationship between the so-called 'subject-ive' and 'object-ive' elements of the situation, rather than from one or the other of these alone. Thus, the truths of human experience are both emergent and coconstituted.

Co-experience

New term referring to one's 'experiencing with another/ for example, in the psychotherapy situation.

354

Glossary It is not quite literally a 'shared experience/ as each partner retains something of his or her own perspective on what is experienced together. Nevertheless such experiences are profoundly affected by the presence of the other.

Cogito

The isolated 'I think/ the 'thinking I/ or the 'thinking subject' in the philosophy of Descartes (and his followers).

Coherence

The property of a group of arguments, observations, or statements such that they are consistent with, or do not contradict, one another.

Consciousness

In philosophical writings, this term is often used to refer to 'the experiencing human' or 'human awareness' in general. (It is there not necessarily limited to what is considered to be 'conscious' in the psychodynamic or psychoanalytic sense).

Conversion

A psychoanalytic term referring to an unconscious process in which an emotional or psychic conflict may somehow be changed, displaced, transformed, or converted into a somatic one (or a symbolic physical manifestation of it).

Correspondence A theory of truth which asserts that truth is ascer(theory of truth) tained by a process of 'matching' one's beliefs, observations, propositions, and so on with a set of 'independent' 'facts' of the world. Counter-transference Psychoanalytic term roughly equal to that of 'transference' (see definition below), only referring in the case of counter-transference to feelings of the analyst/ therapist that have been (inappropriately) transferred onto the patient. Dualism

Any dichotomous set of arguments. There are many dualisms in philosophy, but 'subject versus object' and 'mind versus body' are two of the most common ones. (These are often associated with the philosophy of Rene Descartes, as in the term 'Cartesian Dualism'.)

Ekstases

A term found in the phenomenological literature

Glossary 355 referring to the different ways of 'standing out' (ekstasis) that different dimensions of a nevertheless holistic phenomenon may manifest. The principle examples given are the three 'temporal ekstases' of past, present, and future. These can be seen quite separately, notwithstanding the inherent unity of temporality as a whole, which tends to be emphasized in existentialist perspectives. Embodiment

The notion that the fundamentally embodied dimension of human existence is also part of the primordial structure of human experience - that is, all experience at all times contains within it an implicit expression and understanding of our embodied perspective. (This feature of human living was described extensively by Maurice Merleau-Ponty, who saw it as of central importance.)

Emergence

The situation where something essentially new and irreducible arises or comes into being with the interaction of various pre-existing elements of a complex system (in other words, when the whole becomes greater than the sum of its parts).

Empiricism

The doctrine that all of our knowledge comes to us through our five senses or 'sense data.' (John Locke pioneered this point of view, some three hundred years ago.)

Encounter Human interactions involving a particular quality of feeling in which one appreciates the Other precisely as an other person or as another source of a whole experiential world and personal-historical context (or as another Beam-of-Light-through-Time). Epistemology

The branch of philosophy dealing with the theory of knowledge. It is concerned with questions about the nature, possibility, and limits of knowledge, and about what access we have or can have to knowledge or truth.

Existence

The term used by existential philosophers to capture the 'process of becoming' nature of our lives and the

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Glossary directional-temporal, choosing, incomplete, and undetermined quality of human living as a unique mode of Being. This is as opposed to any static or 'complete at any moment' way of Being that may be properly applied to 'things/ but only improperly applied (according to this view) to human life.

Existentialism A philosophical movement largely summarized by Sartre's phrase, 'Existence precedes essence.' This movement emphasizes an irreducible 'subjectivity.' It sees the human mode of being, or existing, as quite different from that of non-conscious 'things.' Freedom, finitude, non-static temporality, and consciousness are key themes. (Other philosophers associated with this term existentialism are Kierkegaard, Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty, and G. Marcel). Experience (or human experience)

All that one perceives, understands, knows, or is aware of at any level of awareness, whether this is reflective, verbal, psychodynamically conscious, or not. One's phenomenological world as limited by its 'horizons' at a given time.

False problem

A problem that only arises as a consequence of faulty assumptions that precede or underlie it.

Field-specific epistemology

An epistemology or set of epistemological assumptions that is judged to apply throughout the particular domain of a specifically delineated field or discipline. It is not meant to necessarily apply outside of that field, but is considered to necessarily apply within it.

Field-specific validity The epistemological assumptions about the proper ways to validate the beliefs, truth claims, and methodologies thought to apply specifically within the domain of a particular field or discipline. Foundational

Providing the necessary support or 'grounding' for something else. Establishing the preconditions or conditions for the possibility of something else.

Foundationalism

The idea that one can build a theory of absolute certainty by beginning with a set of absolute, 'objec-

Glossary 357 tive/ 'rock-bottom' truths and building on them. This idea was pursued by Descartes. (It should not be confused with my use of the terms foundation and foundational, which do not include any assertions of certainty or absoluteness.) Fundamentality

The quality of how basic or foundational a particular assumption or idea is in the overall framework of a given theory or paradigm. On the hierarchy, this refers to at how low a level a proposition or assumption is said to be made or apply.

General epistemology

An epistemology or set of epistemological assumptions thought to apply to the whole range of possible human knowing.

General validity

A theory of validity - or theory of how we assess the truth value of our beliefs, findings, concepts, theories and so on - that is thought to apply to the whole range of possible human knowing.

Grounding

Refers to something that logically or philosophically lays the groundwork for one or more subsequent concepts or propositions. The former creates or establishes the conditions for the possibility of the latter.

Hermeneutics

The science or art of interpretation - as in 'text interpretation/ the goal of which is to arrive at a greater understanding or appreciation of texts (as opposed to an all-encompassing, definitive, scientific, or causal explanation of the phenomena or 'texts' in question). Important philosophers associated with this term include H.G. Gadamer and Paul Ricoeur.

Hermeneutic circle

Concept in hermeneutic approaches that acknowledges the importance (and perhaps the inevitability) of going over the same 'texts' or themes repeatedly by coming back to them successively from a variety of different viewpoints in a process of developing potentially deeper or enriched understandings of them.

Hermeneutic spiral

Newer term coined as a variant on the 'hermeneutic

358 Glossary circle' to emphasize the (at least potentially) progressive aspect to such studies and understandings. That is, to allow that more valid or more truth-filled interpretations of 'texts' or other phenomena may in principle (though not invariably) be developed with, for instance, more time, effort, and study, even if the whole or absolute truth of them remains an unreachable ideal. Hierarchical method

The process (employed in this book) of systematically addressing theoretical issues in a step-wise manner, proceeding from the bottom of the proposed hierarchy upward on a level-by-level basis.

Hierarchical sketch

A summary overview of the philosophical and psychological paradigm (or set of assumptions adopted at each of the levels of the hierarchy) thought to be embraced by a given psychological theory.

Hierarchy of levels of theoretical (or philosophical) inquiry

A system that involves delineating a series of theoretical or philosophical issues and hierarchically ordering them according to which seem most fundamental, and foundational to the others, and which need to be dealt with first.

Horizon

Concept found in Husserl and Heidegger (in particular) denoting the limitedness or finitude of one's (albeit broad) experiential context at any moment. Roughly pertains to one's 'scope' (e.g., of knowledge, awareness, or understanding) at a given time.

Idealism

A philosophical school of thought which asserts that the reality of the world and all knowledge of it exist basically only as ideas in the human mind (in contrast, in realism or objectivism, reality and knowledge originate in the external world). That is, what is 'really Real' depends on or is confined to the contents of our minds. Berkeley, in the eighteenth century, was the pioneer of this school of thought. (This term should not be confused with the lay term 'idealism,' which has to do with the pursuit of ideals, not ideas.)

Independent

When an entity has some reality of its own, or when

Glossary 359 at least some characteristics of it exist that are not entirely dependent on the perception of them by a given subject. Intentionality

The directional, relational, or vectorial property attributed to consciousness, especially in the works of Brentano and Husserl (as well as most subsequent phenomenological thinkers). It refers to the property of consciousness such that 'consciousness is always consciousness of something.' (This should not be confused with the more psychological usage, which refers more specifically to one's emotional 'intentions' or specific 'motives'.)

Interactional

In terms of this book, a form of interaction in which each participant is somehow changed and something new emerges as a result of their interaction. Briefly put, the whole is more than the sum of its parts.

Internal consistency

Similar to coherence. The logical property that the various parts to an argument or set of propositions can and do hold together so that they don't contradict one another.

Internal representations

A concept used in a variety of psychological schools of thought. It refers to the idea that the mind forms (or is given) and keeps inside itself some sort of image, copy, or representation of the things or experiences that it initially encountered in - or that otherwise belong to - the outside or object-ive world.

Interpretiveness

One of the six fundamental features of human experience to which I have alluded. This refers to the notion that all experience involves an interpretation or set of interpretations of whatever is seen. That is, no 'pure' uninterpreted or preinterpretive perception is possible in human life. Perception itself is already an interpretation, since it is already structured in terms of our particular perspective (including our cares, projects, etc.) at any given time.

Knowledge

Often defined in philosophy as 'true belief.' In order for something to really be considered knowledge (as

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Glossary opposed, for instance, to mere 'opinion'), a justification of its 'true-ness' is sometimes required.

Locus of truth

A basic general epistemological level assumption regarding the origin of all truths. Thus, with respect to the 's R o' model (see Figure 3.1), this would refer to the questions of 'from which side of the subject/object split does truth arise/ or 'from where does truth ultimately arise and reside'?

Materialism

In philosophy, a theory that maintains that everything - including 'the mind' - is made of matter, and that nothing exists in a purely 'immaterial' form as distinct and separate from matter. This position is in opposition to Descartes's famous 'res extensa versus res mensa' or 'mind versus matter/body' dualisms. Materialism is often but not always related to reductionism and is sometimes used synonymously with the term 'physicalism.' (The philosophical term materialism should not be confused with the lay term, which refers to a 'preoccupation or love of material objects or possessions.' That has nothing to do with the above theory.)

Mental Status Examination

The somewhat standardized approach to assessing and recording a patient's mental status, or current state of mental functioning, at the time of a clinical examination.

Multiconstituted

Essentially the same concept as 'Co-constituted/ but emphasizing that more than two constitutive elements are involved (e.g., a complex interaction among various patient, therapist, and 'World-ly' factors).

Narrative truth

A term used in more recent psychoanalytic and psychotherapy literature, referring to the coherence of a patient's narrative or life story as it comes together in a therapy or analysis. Some authors have emphasized a 'truth value' and/or a 'therapeutic value' to a patient's coherent life narrative, regardless of whether attempts are made at external corroboration.

Necessary

A term of logic conveying the certainty and absolute

Glossary 361 importance of the presence of whatever condition is deemed necessary. For example, being unmarried is a necessary condition for the possibility of being a 'bachelor.' A necessary condition for something is thus an ever-present condition for it. Objectivism

In this text, the theory that truth or knowledge originates in the object (or on the object-side of the subjectobject split) rather exclusively, and that 'object-ive' truths are at least potentially accessible to us in relatively unmodified or pure form as 'facts.'

Ontologically relational

Refers to an ontological level B assertion that we are essentially and fundamentally relational beings. That is, there can be no 'isolated subject,' and the very nature of our existence is to be always 'already in relation to' or 'already within a world (of relationships and meanings).' This view denies the s R o, or Cartesian dualistic 'subject as initially separated from object' split at the outset (i.e., on one of the most foundational of levels).

Ontological relativism

The ontological level A assertion that everything that exists or seems to exist does so only as relative to me, my will, my perspective, or my consciousness; and that nothing - no truths or even partial truths - exists as independent or even partially independent of me. A related term is antirealism.

Ontology

The branch of philosophy dealing with the nature and existence of 'Being' or 'Reality' in general.

Paradigm

As used by Thomas Kuhn, the prevailing wide, overarching model or basic framework in use by a given science at a given time. I've also used it in a somewhat narrower sense as referring to the overall set of stances taken up by a particular psychological theory at the variety of levels of inquiry I've laid out hierarchically. In this sense, one of my 'hierarchical sketches' can be seen as describing the overall paradigm of a given psychological theory (rather than showing the paradigm of current psychological thinking as a whole).

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Glossary

Perspectivism, perspectivalism

An epistemological point of view maintaining that any and all perception and knowledge of objects occurs solely as from a given perspective. Thus, our knowledge is always limited, incomplete, and not pure and absolute, though it may still be true. The term 'perspective' in this sense is not necessarily limited to one's spatial perspective; it can refer to one's temporal, historical, cultural, ideational, or otherwise care-filled perspectives as well.

Phenomena

Whatever appears to us - that is, the 'contents' of perception, or that which one experiences, regardless of the ontological status of the presenting phenomena (e.g., whether or how they exist independently of us).

Phenomenology

The philosophical movement begun by Husserl that systematically describes our experiences (or the phenomena of experience) precisely as they are experienced, or as they appear (or as they present themselves), and later reflectively studies these in order to better understand the basic forms or general structures of human experience.

Philosophical self

The total set of one's own philosophical assumptions or beliefs, including those which one may have adopted without being explicitly aware of them.

Philosophical unconscious

The philosophical assumptions one has made at an implicit (i.e., less than explicit) level of awareness.

Phronesis

Term from Aristotle dealing with 'practical' or 'applied' knowledge (as opposed to 'abstract, scientific, or theoretical knowledge/ which he called episteme; and to techne or 'technical know-how').

Pragmatic (theory of truth)

A theory of truth that understands truth or knowledge mainly in terms of what actually happens in practice. Thus, the practical consequences of a given belief or theory are of crucial importance in assessing its truth value. Truth is seen largely in terms of 'what works in practice.' (Key philosophers associated with this approach are C.S. Peirce and William James.)

Glossary 363 Praxis

The Greek word for 'action/ used by Aristotle. Related to phronesis, a form of knowledge that is more of an applied or practical nature (see phronesis).

Presence

The experiential awareness and emotional significance of another person or persons (or occasionally some other object that can be experienced in a like manner). This does not necessarily refer to their being physically or spatially present at a particular moment. Rather, it refers to the meanings, significances, and emotional importance associated with a given Other, irrespective of his or her concrete proximity.

Project/projection

In phenomenological philosophy, to pro-ject is to 'throw oneself forward/ as in the case of our imaginative anticipations of the future. In that literature, one's goals and the aims or hopes associated with one's actions and understandings are often referred to as one's 'projects.' (This is quite distinct from, and should not be confused with, the psychoanalytic use of the term, which refers to the 'defence mechanism/ whereby a person misattributes his or her own feelings to someone else (e.g., a 'paranoid' patient who is angry projects her feelings onto someone else and claims 'the other person is angry at me').)

Psychological level of inquiry

Psychological theorizing that addresses theories and practices in a narrower and more traditional manner (i.e., without referring to the entirety of the theory's philosophical underpinnings).

Purple zone

The truly interactional 'area' in which the respective Beams-of-Light-through-Time representing the experiential worlds of the patient and the therapist blend and merge (see Figure 6.1).

Rationalism

Theories that emphasize the role of reason or reasoning as opposed to 'mere sense data' in the generation of knowledge. Various theories posit the existence of innate 'ideas' (Descartes), 'forms' (Plato), and 'categories' (Kant). All of them help us make sense of our experiences or sensations. (In less philosophical

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Glossary contexts, the term is sometimes used more in the sense of affirming the 'power' or 'importance' of the rational, as opposed to the 'emotional/ the 'irrational/ the 'instinctual/ and so on.)

Realism

The ontological level A belief that there is at least some Reality that exists independently or at least partially independently of us.

Red zone

The metaphoric 'Beam-of-Light-through-Time' that represents the patient, or the experiential world the patient brings into (and later takes out from) the therapy session (refer to Figure 6.1).

Reductionism

The belief that 'higher' or more complex structures, processes, or phenomena can ultimately be reduced to 'lower' or simpler ones. Accordingly, the whole can at least in principle be reduced to the sum of its parts.

Reification

The tendency to imbue concepts or theoretical constructs with an overestimated reality status that is not properly fitting to them (i.e., to treat them as if they were independent objects found out in the world, as opposed to merely being our own theoretical creations). A sort of conceptual idol worshipping.

Reflective awareness An awareness that is explicitly conscious, largely as a result of a deliberate effort to think about or reflect on something. Relatedness to a world

One of the six essential features of human experience that I have described. This refers by and large to the 'Being-in-the-World' and 'worldedness' concepts in Heidegger's Being and Time. There he describes human experience as essentially contextualized, so that we always experience only in the form of being already in a world and as always being in relation to a world.

Relativism

In general, the belief that our knowledge, truths, and experiences are not absolute and universal: rather, they are somehow relative to our particular situation and perspective. The question, 'At what level of

Glossary 365 inquiry does a given theory's relativism apply?' (or roughly, 'How radically relativistic a view is it?') is the crucial one in this book. Resistance

In philosophy, the 'given-ness' quality of objects such that they are 'unyielding' in certain ways to either our will or our psychological 'projections.' (Not to be confused with the psychoanalytic usage, which refers to a patient's defensive resistance against a therapy.)

Scientism

A sort of blind allegiance or ideological commitment to 'the scientific' or to 'scientific data' or to 'scientific methods/ as either sources of 'pure (absolute and objective) truth/ or as the sole means of access to 'all that is or can be really true/ or both.

Specific-field delimiting statement

An epistemological statement meant to clarify or delineate the limits to what can possibly be known within a given specific field or discipline. Alternatively, a statement establishing the outer horizons of all possible knowledge within a given field.

s R o model

A prominent philosophical model based on the (at least implicitly adopted) ontological level B assumption that the subject and the object are initially separate entities (at least in theory) that later become connected through some (secondary) relationship (e.g., as with the subject's coming to know the object).

model

Subjectivism

An alternative philosophical model to the 's R o' model. This model is based on the ontological level B assumption that the relatedness of the 'subject' and 'object' is primary and irreducible (i.e., that one cannot properly speak of an isolated 'subject' but rather only of a 'subject-in-relation' from the outset). This is an analogically relational model. In this book, an epistemological theory maintaining that truth or knowledge originates on the 'subjectside' of the subject/object split, and that what one might think is coming from the outside world is actually coming (at least primarily) from myself or my own mind. A related philosophical term is idealism.

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Glossary

Sufficient

A logical term, like 'necessary/ but one that establishes a given condition as being all that is needed to fulfil a certain requirement (e.g., being an unmarried man is sufficient qualification for one to be considered 'a bachelor').

Temporality

In phenomenological and existential philosophy, a term that emphasizes the centrality of time in its whole unified structure - including past, present, and future as mutually implicating dimensions of a basically indivisible system - to understanding the structure of human experience or the human mode of Being. The process (as opposed to fixed essence) nature of human existence is emphasized by this term.

Things-in-themselves A philosophical term for the realist notion that things have certain properties that exist independently of our perception or experience of them. Refers to the set of these inherent properties. Transference

A psychoanalytic term originally referring to the process by which the patient transfers onto the analyst or therapist feelings, thoughts, impulses, and so on associated with an important person in the patient's early life. The term has sometimes been used more broadly, to refer more generally to any interpersonal situation in which old feelings once connected with a significant person in one's past get transferred (generally inappropriately) onto another person in one's present life.

Validity

The truth value of a given belief, idea, theory, concept, bit of knowledge, or similar, and the processes and criteria we use to make these judgments.

Notes

1 'Know Thy Philosophical Self 1 Including those of psychiatrists, psychoanalysts, clinical psychologists, psychiatric social workers, and so on. I'm using the term 'psychological' in its broader sense here and do not mean to restrict it to those affiliated with the academic or professional discipline of psychology. 2 This phrase is used - very naively in my opinion - in the introduction of the American Psychiatric Association's DSM III (1980: 7). 3 The actual quote was simply to 'Know Thyself.' 4 As with note 1, this term is meant to include fields such as psychiatry, psychology, and psychoanalysis, as well as psychotherapists of other backgrounds. It is meant to encompass the wide variety of academic disciplines and professional affiliations associated with psychological and psychotherapeutic matters. 5 This line paraphrases Kant in Critique of Pure Reason (1781): Thoughts without contents are empty, intuitions without concepts are blind' (93, A51 / B75). 6 Rene Descartes, in his quest for absolute certainty of knowledge, is generally seen as the father of foundationalz'sm. See, for instance, Descartes's Meditations (1641). 7 This term will be discussed later. It roughly refers to our tendency to take some of our invented concepts too literally, as if they were things in themselves. 8 A related term to the above, in which a false sense of definiteness and the oversimplification of complex phenomena are often involved.

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Notes to pages 23-56

2 Ontology (Level A): The Question of Reality 1 'Cogito ergo sum' (I think, therefore I am) is Descartes's most famous phrase. It is from his 'Discourse On Method' (1637), which was written in French (je pense, done je suis), not Latin. He switched to Latin in his later book, 'Meditations' (1641), in which he continued his arguments as above. 2 Indeed, such 'correctness' was a very serious matter in Descartes's time. Walter Kaufman (1968, vol. 2: 21) writes that Descartes's first book was ready for publication in 1634, but he chose to withhold it after hearing of Galileo's persecution by the Inquisition (which forced him to recant his Copernican views) the previous year. 3 A term borrowed mainly from Thomas Langan (see 1992,1996). 4 See Theaetetus in E. Hamilton and H. Cairns (eds.), The Collected Dialogues of Plato (1961). 5 It would be very hard to argue convincingly for the existence of other people or 'other minds' at all once one has embraced the perspective that 'no reality beyond and independent of me exists.' 6 I grant that some paranoid patients also have 'nihilistic' delusions. 3 Ontology (Level B): Our Basic Position or Relation to Reality 1 As seen, for instance, in his Discourse on Method (1637) and Meditations (1641). 2 Some of the primary source references for this section include Husserl's Ideas (1913), Cartesian Meditations (1929), and The Crisis of the European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology (1936). Speigelberg's The Phenomenological Movement (1971) is a recommended secondary source. 3 See the glossary provided by Speigelberg (1971: 719) for definitions of intentionality as used by Brentano, Husserl, and Sartre respectively. 4 A translation of zu den Sachen ('to the things'), which closed Husserl's 1910 essay 'Philosophic als strenge Wissenschaft' (Philosophy as Rigorous Science). Sometimes the word selbst (themselves) is added. Husserl often uses this phrase. 5 The references to Heidegger's work in this section are all from Being and Time (1927). Some philosophers appear to be most interested in his later works. I find this earlier work the most interesting and relevant to the psychological field. 6 Heidegger discusses and contrasts the terms 'ready-to-hand' (zuhanden) and 'present-at-hand' (vorhanden) at length in Being and Time, pp. 95-107. 7 The German das Zeug refers to 'a totality of equipment' (Being and Time, p. 97); it does not refer to a particular tool.

Notes to pages 57-104 369 8 Robert Stolorow and George Atwood discuss this term extensively in Contexts of Being (1992). 9 See, for example, Langan's Being and Truth (1996:11). 10 See Donna Orange's Emotional Understanding (1995) for a detailed discussion of this term. 4 General Epistimology (Level C): The Question of Knowledge in General 1 See, for example, the psychoanalytic works of Donald Spence (1982) and Roy Schafer (1983). 2 This position was perhaps first raised explicitly by philosopher Paul Ricoeur in Freud and Philosophy (1970). Since then, many psychoanalysts have extended his argument. 3 1 am using the term here in the broad philosophical sense as including the totality of all levels of our awareness, not just the 'reflective' or psychodynamically 'conscious' ones. 4 From Lecture 31, vol. 2, p. 107, in the Pelican Freud Library (1973 edition). 5 The Republic, book 7. 6 In The Future of an Illusion (1964: 91), Freud states that 'our mental apparatus ... is itself a constituent part of the [external] world which we set out to investigate, and it readily admits of such an investigation.' 7 A criticism that seems especially applicable to some of Sartre's work. 8 This temporal 'pro-jecting' or anticipating the future is not to be confused with the psychoanalytic term 'projection,' which is a different concept entirely. 9 I discuss this argument in more detail in chapter 8. It is also the focus of a chapter of mine in another book (see 'Imagination and Its Pathologies: Domain of the Un-Real or a Fundamental Dimension of Human Reality?' in J. Phillips and J. Morley (eds.), Imagination and Its Pathologies (2003). 10 See, for instance, definitions used in Kaplan and Sadock's Comprehensive Textbook of Psychiatry/1V (1985: 500-1), or Sadock and Sadock (2000: 681-3), where the word 'false' is used repeatedly. 5 Validity (Level D): How Do We Validate or Assign Truth-Value to What We Know? 1 See The Republic, book 7. 2 See, for instance, Hume's Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (1748). 3 See the Oxford Companion to Philosophy (1995: 710). 4 Suzanne Kingsmill, 'Michelangelo's Secret Message (1991).

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Notes to pages 105-63

5 F.L. Meshberger, 'An Interpretation of Michaelangelo's Creation of Adam Based on Neuroanatomy (1990). 6 More recently, Nobel Prize-winning neuroscientist Gerald Edelman and co-author Giulio Tononi were sufficiently impressed by Meshberger's article that they placed a picture comparing the Michaelangelo scene with a section of the human brain opposite the title page in A Universe of Consciousness: How Matter Becomes Imagination (2000). 7 A.T. Beck, Depression Inventory (1978). 8 See for instance Hersch, Krai, and Palmer (1978); Hersch (1979); and Hersch, Merskey, and Palmer (1980). 9 Wittgenstein's early work (e.g., his Tractatus, 1921) may actually seem to support the correspondence theory of truth. But his later work (e.g., his Philosophical Investigations, 1953) clearly does not. 6 Field-Specific Epistimology (Level E): The Nature and Limits of Knowledge within a Specific Field or Discipline 1 2 3 4

The terms 'field' and 'discipline' are used interchangeably here. See, for instance, W. Heisenberg, Physics and Philosophy (1958). See, for instance, A. Einstein, Relativity: The Special and General Theory (1961). From R.D. Stolorow, B. Brandchaft, and G.E. Atwood, Psychoanalytic Treatment: An Intersubjective Approach (1987: 6-7). 5 R.D. Stolorow, 'Introduction: Tensions between Loyalism and Expansionism in Self Psychology/ in A. Goldberg (ed.), The Impact of New Ideas: Progress in Self Psychology (1995: x 6 In chapter 91 introduce the term 'co-experience' as preferable to 'cotransference.' 7 Field-Specific Validity (Level F): How Do We Validate What We Know in 'the Psychotherapy Situation'? 1 I am using the term 'psychotherapy' very broadly here to include a whole gamut of theoretical approaches, including those of the various psychoanalytic schools. 2 Recalling the key term Lebenswelt ('life-world' or 'lived-world') in Husserl's writings. 3 Some readers may be surprised to learn that at least one serious philosopher of science, Paul Feyerabend, actually does suggest the slogan 'any thing goes' with regard to scientific methodology. See for instance his brief article, 'Anything Goes/ in The Truth about the Truth (1995).

Notes to pages 164-214 371 4 In Aristotle's Nichomachean Ethics, book 6. 5 The Greek word for 'action/ from which we get the English word 'practice.' 8 Psychology (Level G), Part One: The General Context of Human Experience 1 This follows, for instance, from Heidegger's descriptions of our initial apprehensions of a/the 'world' as an 'equipment' context. For 'equipment' is a relative term implying that it is equipment (which is 'useful') for some purpose(s) or project(s). And where there is human purpose there is care. For our purposes, projects, and intentions (regardless of how reflectively aware or unaware of them we might be at that given moment) will always have to do with what we want, fear, or otherwise care about. 2 The 'equipment for what purpose' argument made in the previous footnote is recalled again here, where 'purpose' implies an anticipation of possible future states that are imagined but that necessarily go beyond and are not limited to merely what is 'factually present' already. 3 For an extended discussion of this, see my chapter 'Imagination and Its Pathologies: Domain of the Un-Real or a Fundamental Dimension of Human Reality?' in J. Phillips and J. Morley (eds.), Imagination and Its Pathology (2003). 4 This term is used by such existential writers as Sartre to acknowledge the unchosen 'givens' of our situation, which we must always respond to, interpret, and make choices about. 5 See Einstein (1961). 6 As above. 7 Central terms in the classical psychoanalytic literature. 8 As above. 9 Coming from a very different, non-phenomenological tradition, contemporary philosopher Ian Hacking also makes this point well. He refers to it as the 'looping effect.' See, for instance, Hacking (1999). 10 The terms 'projects' and 'projections' are used as mainly temporal terms here, referring to one's ability to project oneself into the future through one's imaginative anticipations of possible future scenarios. This is in keeping with their traditional usage in phenomenological philosophy. The psychologist reader should be aware that this usage is quite different from the one traditionally encountered in psychoanalytic writings, where it is used in a much more spatial and psychodynamic sense and refers to the process whereby one misattributes one's own thoughts or feelings to someone else.

372

Notes to pages 215-63

9 Psychology (Level G), Part Two: Psychotherapy and Encounters in the Purple Zone 1 A good biographical study of Heidegger's life is presented by Rudiger Safranski in Martin Heidegger: Between Good and Evil (1998). 2 Stolorow and Atwood's (1992) term. 3 A term actually preferred by a few psychoanalytic writers. 4 See Vonnegut (1994). 5 A term describing the more recently recommended therapeutic stance that the analyst/therapist is supposed to take toward the patient, as advocated especially in the 'self psychology' literature. 6 See for instance the work of such notable object relations theorists as Otto Kernberg (e.g., 1984) and James Masterson (e.g., 1981) as representative of this approach. 7 Edelman and Tononi (2000), coming from their 'neural-networks studies of brain functioning' approach, also emphasize this same point extensively. They too then go on to discuss different 'types or levels of consciousness,' even in their very brain-based theories of 'neural Darwinism.' 8 In some of this literature, especially that dealing with questions of reductionism, materialism is sometimes offered as the alternative to dualism. In those cases the materialist conception of the Mind as ultimately reducible to the brain (or body) is placed in opposition to the more Cartesian-style 'mind/body dualism' as if these two were the only (dichotomous) options possible. This reflects a more narrow usage of the term 'dualism' than I have generally used, and it does not tend to deal with the ontological or general epistemological level dualisms I've discussed previously. In those respects, materialism, though non-Cartesian-dualistic with regard to the mind/body split, can be seen as very much a 'Cartesian dualistic' or 's R o' model at an ontological level, while epistemologically it can be seen as an extreme form of objectivism in which the value of the 'subject-ive' component's contribution will ultimately be seen as negligible. 9 See, for instance, p. 7 of the introduction to DSM III (1980). 10 Psychology (Level G), Part Three: The Beams-of-Light-through-Time Model Applied to a Clinical Case, and a New Approach to the Mental Status Examination 1 The work of Alfred Kraus, a phenomenological psychiatrist at the University of Heidelberg, is a good example of this. His chapter on phenomenological and criteriological diagnosis in Sadler, Wiggins, and Schwartz (1994) is one of his papers available in English.

Notes to pages 264-341 373 2 This point has been made by H. Spiegelberg (1972:141), and also by Hermann Lang in Language and the Unconscious: Jacques Lacan's Hermeneutics of Psychoanalysis (1997). 3 A great deal has been written about these issues. Rudiger Safranski's Martin Heidegger: Between Good and Evil (1998) is a good contemporary biography for the interested reader. Philosopher Richard Bernstein has an interesting ethical discussion in his chapter 'Heidegger's Silence' in The New Constellation: The Ethical-Political Horizons of Modernity/Postmodernity (1991). 4 Polonius, advising his son Laertes, in Hamlet, act I, scene 3, lines 78-82. 5 Hamlet, to Guildenstern and Rosencrantz, in Hamlet, act II, scene 2, lines 239-51. 6 Though he never did write one, his long-time collaborator Simone de Beauvoir did write a book titled The Ethics of Ambiguity (1948). 7 See, for instance, Kaplan and Sadock (1985: 490-3), or Sadock and Sadock (2000). 11 Psychology (Level G), Part Four: Examining Our Philosophical Differences in the Psychological Field 1 The reader can also refer back to my section on Transference' in chapter 9 for further discussion and illustration of this. 2 E.g., see Object Relations Theory and Clinical Psychoanalysis (1984). 3 E.g., see The Narcissistic and Borderline Disorders (1981). 4 I don't think ego psychology was any better than classical psychoanalysis in that respect either, but for the sake of brevity, I will not pursue the point further here. 5 Even in the introduction to the 1999 revised and updated version of this book, Burns still says, after some examples, that 'in each case your thoughts create your feelings' (p. xviii). 6 I have chosen not to cite specific studies here, not because they are difficult to find, but rather because there are so many that it is hard to know where to begin. The interested reader could refer to almost any issue of one of the prominent clinical psychiatric journals available - for example, American Journal of Psychiatry or Archives of General Psychiatry. 7 As in the work of John Locke. See, for example, Locke (1690). 12 Philosophy Is Unavoidable 1 See Sigmund Freud, Lecture 35, 'On the Question of a Weltanschaung,' in New Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis (1973:196).

374 2 3 4 5

Notes to pages 342-50

See page 7 of DSM III (1980). Prospero in The Tempest, act IV, scene 1, lines 156-7. See my discussion on this in chapter 9. Especially when dealing with patients like J.T. (in chapter 10), where I felt that a description of his state that was limited to traditional terms left much to be desired. 6 Its centre of gravity shifting from a beginning in zone 'y' to one in zone 'x/ in terms of Figure 6.1. See also relevant sections in chapters 6 and 9. 7 See M. Merleau-Ponty, Phenomenology of Perception (1962: xx).

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Index

abstinence, of therapist: and disengagement, 53; as naive, 125 access to truth, privileged, 93 action, human: as always embodied, 218 adaptation, 328; in ego psychology, 305 affect: as subservient to cognition, 327; classical category of MSE, 279 affects, without objects: as incompatible with intentionality, 233 alethia: as truth, 170 ambiguity: as anxiety producing, 270; as feature of the human condition, 243; bad faith as defence against, 268 ambivalence, philosophical, 314 American Psychiatric Association, 266 American Psychological Association: Division 24, Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology, 266 analyst/therapist, as keeper of the truth, 314

anticipated possibilities, sets of, as interactional with each other, 206, 210 anticipation: and imaginings, 83; as adding higher order of complexity, 205; as changing, 83; as structuring perception, 83; imaginative, 338; of future, of sets of alternative possibilities, 205 antidepressants, 258, 333 antiobjectivism, 321 antirealism, 342; and ontological relativism, 32; as no reality independent of us, 35 anything goes: and ontological relativism, 31; position, 268 Appearance, Behaviour, and Speech, classical category of MSE, 279 arguments, rational vs empirical, 309 Aristotle: on types of truth, 170 artificial intelligence: and emotion as epiphenomenon, 187; models as naive, 54 Association for the Advancement of

384

Index

Philosophy and Psychiatry (AAPP), 266 assumptions: as adjustable, 98; epistemological, 3; ontological, 3 assumptions, philosophical: as underlying psychological theories, 4; tacit, 6 assumptions, unconscious: as uncritically accepted, 65 atomism, 339; and mechanistic language, 145; and scientism, 44; in conversion, 258; in object relations theory, 308 atomism, psychological: and marbles metaphor, 244; rejected, 244 Atwood, George, 130,265,269,314, 318; and intersubjective space or field, 237 authenticity, 7,274-8; and appropriate actions, 268,275; and appropriating, 278; and existential situation, 268; and 'how it stands with Being,' 275; and lived philosophy, 274; and 'ownmost' possibilities, 278; and realism, 269, 277; and the self, 276,277; and trueness to both self and world, 268; and trueness to one's Beingin-the-World, 268; as both psychological and ethical goal, 276; as existential virtue, 276; as guiding principle, 277; as not deterministic, 278; definitions, in Langan, in Bugental, 275; in J.T. case, 284, 291; in psychotherapy, 349; term from Heidegger and others, 268; translation issues with term, 276; vs Hamlet's groundlessness, 276 automatic thoughts, 306, 328,329 awareness, levels of: and degrees

and types of, 256; as solving the censor paradox, 256; implicit, 7 awareness, prereflective: as sometimes more helpful, 255; vs reflective as matter of degree, 255 bad faith, 7; and constructionism, 322; and relativism, 269; and the censor, 253; as antiobjectivist, 268; as defence, 270; as overidentifying with a label or role, 271; as reification in personal psychology, 269; as self-deception, 268; as universal defence mechanism, in Sartre, 270; as useful concept for psychological theory, 272; as use-ful concept for psychotherapists, 268,271; ethics of, 272; in J.T. case, 284; in Sartre, 268; vs good faith, 274 bad faith and authenticity: 268-78; as complementary concepts, 276; as in balance, 276 bad faith, forms of: as false affirmation, 270; as false denial or disavowal, 270 BDI. See Beck Depression Inventory Beam-of-Light: metaphor, 51, 74; model of human experience, 74; model of perception, 74; schematic of, 75; vs Beam-of-Light-throughTime, 76 Beams-of-Light: as overlapping, 134 Beams-of-Light-through-Time model, 6; 337-40; and paradigm shift on level B, 154; and structure of experience, 78; as allowing for 'both/ and' answers, 261; as appreciating interactional complexity, 162; as between extremes of subjectivism and objectivism, 162; as beyond

Index 385 objectivism and relativism, 344; as clinically relevant, 337; as clinically useful, 294; as co-constitutional, 337; as extended to multiple characters, 163; as extended to two people, 134; as five-plus dimensional, 204, 211; as handling increasing complexity, 163; as multidimensional, 76; as multilevelled phenomenological paradigm, 180; as new psychological paradigm, 347; as ontologically realist, 78, 337; as ontologically relational, 337; as perspectivalist, 337; as philosophically more open, explicit, 294; as rejecting Cartesian dualism, 337; as rejecting correspondence theory, 337; as rejecting objectivism, 79; as rejecting s R o model, 337; as rejecting subjectivism, 79; as relearned look at the world of psychotherapy, 349; as valuable in psychotherapy, 296; hierarchical sketch of, 340; key features of, 78,180 Beams-of-Light-through-Time model, as 'friendly': to clinicians, theorists, and scientists, 267 Beams-of-Light-through-Time model clinician: as emphasizing the experiential, 193 Beck Depression Inventory (BDI): as measure of treatment outcome, 109; dangers of overinterpreting, 110 Beck Depression Inventory, 329; and depression, 108 Beck, Aaron T., 325, 328 becoming: as 'essence' of human existence, 184

behaviour manipulation, 325 behaviour therapy, 324, 325 behavioural science, 325; and certitude, 122; as psychology renamed, 122 behaviourism, 305; 324-5; and correspondence, 115; as a philosophical perspective, 347; as clinically limited, 326; as objectivist, 126; hierarchical sketch of, 326; methodological, 324,325; radical, 324 behaviourism, epistemology of, serious weaknesses in, 125 behaviourism, radical, reductionism in, 260 Being: as divided, 43; as verb vs as noun, 51; types of as ontologically separate realms, 41; types of in Descartes, 41 Being and Nothingness. See Sartre, Jean-Paul Being and Time. See Heidegger, Martin Being, human mode of: as co-constituted, 58; as openness toward Being, 51 Being, structure of man's, in Heidegger, 50 Being, the question of: in Heidegger, 49 Being-in-the-World and Beam-ofLight, 74; and existential situation, 268; and ontological relativism, 56; and purple zone model, 180; as a system, 56; as an irreducible whole, 54; as continuously restructuring, 197; as irreducible, 51; as nondualistic paradigm, 64; as not subjectivism, 56; in Heidegger, 50. See also Dasein

386

Index

Being-toward-the-Future: quality of experience, 237 Being-with-Others: 220-6; and intersubjective or object-related models, 221; as Beams-of-Light-throughTime model MSE category, 279; as dimension of all experience, 216; as key feature of human experience, 89, 339; as non-adversarial in J.T. case, 293; in Being and Time, 221; in contemporary psychology, 221; in J.T. case, 285, 292,293; structuring of, as implied in all experiencing, 181 Berger, Louis, 250; and phronesis, praxis in psychoanalysis, 170 Berger, P.L., and T. Luckman, 269, 320, 321 Berkeley, Bishop George: and idealism, 36; realist ontological assumptions in, 36 Bernstein, Richard, 68,344; and practical reasoning, 170,373 n. 3 (ch. 10) Bettelheim, Bruno, 299 Binswanger, Ludwig, 265 biological correlates, 332 biological psychiatry, 305, 326; 3306; and correspondence, 115; as objectivist, 126; hierarchical sketch of, 336; philosophical assumptions of, 331 bipolar affective disorder, 334 blank screen: impossibility of analyst being one, 321 blank slate or white paper, 342 body: as a fundamental dimension of self, 217; as context for mind, 218; as expressive and receptive, 217; as grounding condition for experience, 192; as not cause of

mind, 192; as object for the Other, 219; as prereflective, 217; as selfexpression, 218; not as casing for mind, 218; responsibility for, 219 body language: as expression, 218 body states: and foreground vs background, 217 body, third ontological dimension of: and the look of the other, 220; as important in psychotherapy, 220 body, three ontological dimensions of: in Sartre, 218,220 Boss, Medard, 265 boundaries: blurring of, 312 boundaries, of self vs Other, 313 boundary, between self and other: as semipermeable, 307 bracketing: in Husserl, 47 brain: as the 'really real,' 331; as ultimately important, 335; vs mind, 331 brain, intact: as requirement for mental health, 258 brain, the human: as an idealized abstraction, 106 Brandchaft, Bernard, 130 Brentano, Franz, 47 brief therapy, 326 Buber, Martin, 89,264; and encounter, 135, 226 Bugental, James, 265,275 building metaphor, 13; and importance of foundation, 121 Burns, David, 187, 325, 327,329, 373 n. 5 (ch. 11) Care: as opposite of indifference, 86; as the Being of Dasein, 86; in Heidegger, 86

Index 387 care, in experiential landscape: as analagous to mass in physical one, 203 care, primacy of: 181-3 care structure: as inherent to all experiencing, 181; as part of all human experience, 54 care-fullness: as Beams-of-Lightthrough-Time model MSB category, 279; as dimension of all experience, 216; as key feature of human experience, 339; in J.T. case, 284 cares: as forming alliances, 211; as not restricted to positives, 246; as omnipresent, 182; as phenomenological landscape bending, 204; as world 'colouring/ 182; as world organizing, 182; as world structuring, 338; relative 'gravity' of, 338 Cartesian. See Descartes, Rene Cartesian dichotomy: inner vs outer, 95 Cartesian dualism: and mind/body issues, 256; as default position, 64; at epistemological level, 95; in cognitive psychotherapy, 327; in Sartre, 273 Cartesian dualistic paradigm: and isolated subject, 144; and ontological separateness, 60; and transference, 144; as atomistic, 144; as s R o model, 56; vs phenomenological, 56 Cartesian fence: and epistemological forced choice, 65; and forced choice of, 68; hopping over it, 67; sitting on it, 68 Cartesian philosophical model: in modern psychological theory, 26

Cartesian s R o model: in Freud, 301 Cartesian thinking: pitfalls and inadequacies of, 263 case of J.T.: and importance of the experiential, 333 cases: (anecdotal) 'dead men don't bleed/ 97; L.G., Being-withOthers, and co-experience, 238; man with demons, 115; nihilistic delusion, 30; non-clinical, of Jeff, 207-12; of delirium, 191; of J.T., 279-95; of multidimensional world restructuring, 207-12; of paranoid patient, 92; of projection in angry man, 246; of recovered vs false memory, 157 cash value: in pragmatism of W. James, 103 categories: as like computer's formatting requirements, 200; in Kant, 200 cathexis, 300 causal explanations: as appropriate to things but not people, 183; as past driven, 183 causality: in cognitive psychotherapy, 330 censor, the: as paradoxical, 253; in Freud, 253 certainties: as unavailable, 112 change: in the way one sees the world, 349 change, in psychotherapy: and how it happens, 234,348; as change in world or world view, 248; cognitive vs relational factors in, 235 changes, in world view: in J.T. case, 291 Chessick, Richard, 265

388

Index

choice: as not arbitrary, 278 classical psychoanalysis: 299-306; and correspondence, 115; and distortion concept, 126; and transference concept, 126; hierarchical sketch of, 299 classical psychoanalytic theory: as Cartesian, 229 classification, philosophical: of psychological theories, 297 clinical consequences: as stemming from epistemological dilemmas, 157 clinician's viewpoint: as philosophically challenged, 97; as privileged, 97 co-constitutional, truth as: epistemological stance, 105 co-constitutional approach: in position 3,132 co-constitutional epistemological model: as incompatible with Cartesian dualistic ones, 146 co-constitutional epistemology: in Beams-of-Light-through-Time model, 273 co-determined, term, 319 co-experience, 338; and encounter, 238; and sense of partnership, 240; as co-constitutional, interactional new term, 237; as fusion of horizons, 238; as where two people's worlds meet, 237; emphasis on 'experience' in term, 237; in J.T. case, 292, 293; in L.G. case, 240; not quite same as shared experience, 238 cogito: and knowledge, 24; as foundational, 24; as immaterial subject, 24; as indubitable, 24; as

isolated, 24. See also Descartes, Rene 'cogito ergo sum,' 368 n. 1 (ch. 2) cognition: as 'creating your feelings/ 187; classical category of MSE, 279 cognition and affect: as separate in cognitive therapy, 327 cognitions: negativistic, 328 cognitive distortions. See distortions, cognitive cognitive knowing, as never 'pure,' or separated from emotion, 187 cognitive psychology, 305 cognitive psychotherapy: 325-30; and psychiatrists, 326; and realism, 327; and reasoning, 328; as non-medical alternative, 326; hierarchical sketch of, 330; in clinical psychology, 325; of depression, 108 cognitive triad, 328 cognitive-behavioural treatment, 324 cognitivism: in cognitive psychotherapy, 327 coherence, 274; as validation criterion, 322; internal, lack of, 11; of arguments, 98; overall, 342; within a given paradigm, 180 coherence arguments: and goodness-of-fit criteria, 166; narrow vs broad types of, 166 coherence theory: as appealing to diverse schools, 115; as lacking grounding, 104; in position 2,127 coherence theory of truth: and consistency or fit, 94; and consistency among beliefs, 100; and problems of relativism, 100; in constructionism, 320

Index 389 coherence, broad theory: validation criteria of, 191 cohesiveness: as validation criterion, 322 colour metaphors: as limited, 163 compatibility, among psychological theories, 347. See also consistency conditioning, 325 conflict: as feature of the human condition, 243; as inevitable among many cares, 243; as manifold, not as dichotomous, 243; between possibilities, as competing for foreground attention, 243; in conversion, 44 conflict and defence: 242-8; as linked traditionally with s R o model, 242; as needing reinterpretation of terms, 242; Beams-of-Lightthrough-Time model as compatible with concepts of, 242 conflict, emotional: as imaginative horizon constricting, 231 connectedness: in J.T. case, 293 conscious vs unconscious: as false problem, 254; vs degrees or levels of awareness, 254 consciousness: and levels of awareness, 252; as epiphenomenon, 332; as like Dasein, not Cogito, 75; as lying to itself, 253; in philosophical sense, 48; vs unconsciousness, 252 consciousness, human, as enlightening, 75 consciousness, structure of, in Husserl, 47 consensus, 274; as insufficient validation criterion, 157 consent: to treatment, 33

consistency: between levels, 177; logical, 178 consistency, cognitive: in social psychology, 98 consistency, logical, 10; as a value, 10 constructionism: 319-23; in psychology, 36; social, 319 constructionism/constructivism, 266; hierarchical sketch of, 323 constructivism, as appealing to coherence theory, 115. See also constructionism context: and correspondence theory, 111; temporal, 184 context, philosophical, 4 contextualism: and constructionism, 319; in physics, 202 contingency, 270 contingency, radical, 268 convergence of phenomenological worlds: as making each evolve, 139 conversion: and atomism, 244; as an atomistic concept, 145; as jumping an ontological gap, 41; as magical, 41, 258; conflict in, as at low level of reflective awareness, 261; disorder, 257; in classical psychoanalysis, 258; physics laws violated in classical view of, 258 conversion symptom: as akin to procedural memory, 261 Copernican revolution: in astronomy, 200; in Kant's philosophy, 200 correlation: as not implying causation, 336 correspondence: and multiple levels of representation, 106; and preci-

390

Index

sion, 106; as appealing to diverse schools, 115 correspondence criteria: as desirable but hard to come by, 114 correspondence theory: and position 1,126; as comparing propositions and representations only, 111; as incompatible with purple zone model, 146; as matching reality, 94; as tautological, 104; in behaviourism, 325; in biological psychiatry, 333; in cognitive psychology, 328; in Freud, 301; in object relations theory, 307; rejection of in constructionism, 320; Wittgenstein and limits of, 111 correspondence theory of truth: and empiricism, 94; and 'facts,' 94; and matching of representations, 96; and reality, 96; hidden assumptions in, 96; in textbook definitions of symptoms, 191 correspondence theory, on level D and lower-level positions, 112 correspondence, with reality: in Freud, 300 co-transference: as not atomistic, 145; D. Orange's term, 144,223; 'transfer' root as mechanistic, 223; transfer root rejected, 237 counter-transference. See transference culture, modern scientific: and belief in numbers, 109; and scientism, 110; as against magical explanations, 107; as pragmatic, 103 Damasio, Antonio: and Descartes' Error, 256 Dasein: as a process of becoming, 50;

as Being-there, 53; as care, 54, 186; as consciousness, 56; as eksistence, 53; as incomplete, 50; as not a thing, 53; as not an essence or thing, 84; as relational, 50; in Heidegger, 49 Daseinsanalysis, 265 data, formation of, 67 de Beauvoir, Simone, 274,373 n. 6 (ch. 10) decontextualized research: as illfitting to psychotherapy, 156 defence, mechanisms of, and spatial language, 244 defences and conflicts, as purple zone phenomena, 248 delusion: and some projects, motives as dominating perception and reasoning, 193; not as false belief, 193; paranoid, 100; rigidity in, 194 delusion, as pathological: as narrowing horizons, 194 delusion, patient's experience of: as not matching clinician's, 100 delusion, treatment of: as freeing up possibilities, 194; not as eliminating the imaginary, 194 delusional disorder: as a construct, 101; as matching a syndrome, 101 denial: in bad faith, 271 depression: and reality, in Beck et al., 327; as thought disorder, 329 depressive spectrum disorders, 334 deprivation, emotional, as imaginative horizon constricting, 231 Descartes, Rene, 53; 23-6; 327; and doubting our senses, 31; and Husserl, 46; and mind/body issues, 256; and ontological dualism, 41; and transference, 229;

Index 391 and types of Being as ontologically separate realms, 41, 351 n. 6; res cogitans vs res extensa, 40 Descartes, epistemology of: cogito, 24 Descartes, ontological assumptions of: as not explicit, 25 Descartes's project: and certainty, 24 desensitizing, 325 determinism: in bad faith, 271; in biological psychiatry, 332 determinism, psychic: in psychoanalysis, 203 development, pre-Oedipal, 311 developmental theory, 314 diagnosis: as coherence with constructs, 102; as correspondence with syndromes, 102; as giving false certainty, 272; as not ontological-level matchings, 102; Beams-of-Light-through-Time model version in J.T. case, 285; of psychiatric syndromes, 101; traditional one, in J.T. case, 282 diagnostic categories, 332 diagnostic entities: ontological status of, 101 diagnostic labelling: bad faith in, 272 dialogue: as creating something new, 225 dichotomies: in psychology, 44 dichotomizing, 343 dichotomous thinking: in psychotherapy literature, 227; pitfalls and inadequacies of, 263 dichotomy: of conscious vs unconscious, 254; of distorted vs undistorted, 328; of mind vs body, 87; of physical vs mental, as misleading, 261; of real vs imaginary, 87;

of reason vs emotion, 256; of reason vs emotion, rejected, 186 Dilthey, Wilhelm, 72 dimensions, future: arrays of, 211 dimensions, temporal: emphasized in through-Time aspect of model, 206 disorder: as cause of suffering, 103 distorted vs undistorted: dichotomy in cognitive psychology, 328 distortedness: as a matter of judgment, 232 distortion: and transference, 233; cognitive, 306; in Freud, 301; in object relations theory, 306; in self psychology, 313; rejection of in intersubjectivity theory, 317 distortions: motivational, 95; subjective, 302 distortions, cognitive, 327,329 dopamine, levels of: in psychosis, 194 double-blind placebo controlled studies, as method, 156 drive theory, 303 drive theory, in psychoanalysis, as determinism, 203 drives: as situationally oblivious, 125 drives, in psychoanalysis, as reinterpretable as 'heavy' cares, 204 drives, intrapsychic, 304 DSM: and mind/body issues, 257; criticisms of, 334; hidden assumptions in, 345; in biological psychiatry, 334; philosophical naivete in, 345; underlying philosophy of, 257 dualism: and position 1,126; in

392

Index

Freud, 301; in Kohut, 312; in position 2,127; in psychology, 44 dualism, ontological, in Descartes, 41 dualistic models, forced-choice aspect of, 65 economic agendas, 336 Edelman, Gerald, and Guilio Tonini, 370 n. 6 (ch. 5), 372 n. 7 effectiveness: in psychotherapy, 349 ego, the, 269, 300 ego psychology, 305, 312,328 ego, Freudian: as behind perception, 77 eigentlich: as 'ownmost' vs as 'authentic/ 276 Einstein, Albert: and theory of relativity, 201; as ontological realist, 129 Einstein, epistemology of, as level E relativism, 131 ekstases: of time, 83; as intertwined, 83 electroconvulsive therapy, 335 electroencephalography (EEG), 335 embodiment: 216-20; and expression of emotions, 259; as an aspect of our being, 88; as Beams-of-Lightthrough-Time model MSB category, 279; as dimension of all experience, 216; as key feature of human experience, 339; in Beams-ofLight-through-Time model, 259; in J.T. case, 284 emergence: in psychotherapy, 339; of intersubjective truths, 319 emergence, of purple zone, in J.T. case, 292

emergent qualities: as not reducible, 155 emotion: as feature of human experience, 89; as integral to all experiences, 186; structuring of, as inherent to all experiencing, 181 emotion and reason: as never separated, 186; as separate, 87; separation of as misguided idea, 188 emotion chip: in science fiction, 187 emotion, primacy of, 186-9 emotional understanding: in D. Orange's work, 189; Orange's term, 241 empathic failure: in applying textbook definitions, 191 empathic inquiry, sustained: as insufficient to describe encounter, 241 empathy, 314,319; and co-experience, 238; in Kohut, 312 empathy and introspection: as experiential concepts, 312 empirical methodologies, 329 empiricism, 328,329; and atomism, 45; and knowledge via senses, 45; and ontological dualism, 45; as a philosophical perspective, 347; faith of, 96; lack of empirical evidence for, 95 empiricism, radical: and correspondence, 94; and objectivism, 94 encounter: and sense of 'we/ 226; as between patient and therapist, 248; in Beams-of-Light-throughTime model, 235; in existentialism, 135; in J.T. case, 291, 293; in L.G. case, 241; in psychotherapy, 338; moment of, 240; sense of in psychotherapy, 349;

Index 393 where Other is seen as a Subject, not object, 226 encounter, feeling of: in angry man case, 248; when psychotherapy working well, 226 energetics, language of, 300 engagement: feeling in therapy, 247; in therapy, 241 engagement, of therapist: as opposed to neutrality, 241 environment, role of: in behaviourism, 324 episteme: as scientific knowledge, 170 epistemologies, different ones: as leading to different approaches, 160 epistemology: and access to truth, 23; and knowing, 23; of Descartes, 23. See also field-specific epistemology; general epistemology epoche: in Husserl, 46 equipment: in Heidegger, 52 equipment context: as constantly being revised by feedback, 197 equipment, world of: as ready-tohand, in Heidegger, 196 Eros vs Thanatos: as reification, 244 escape from freedom, 270 essences: and bad faith, 268; in Sartre, 84 essentialism: and bad faith, 268 ethics: of bad faith, 272 existence, as a process, 84; as 'standing out from,' 53 evidence, empirical: and reinterpretation of, 97 evidence, hypothesis supporting: and validation factors, 113 existences, vs essences, 84

existential analytic of Dasein, 54; as relevant for psychology, 81; in Being and Time, 81 existential ethics: as denied by Heidegger and Sartre, 276 existential psychology, 265 existential psychotherapy, 265; as appealing to coherence theory, 115 existential situation, 79; many factors in, 76 existentialism: and exist-ence, 83; as 'existence precedes essence/ 84; in Sartre, 83 existing: as an active verb, 84 experience: as marginalized, 334; as shaped by goals, 52 experience, 'false/ as inappropriate term, 190 experience, human: as a 'worlded' system, 69; as always embodied, 218; as care-full, 233; as dialogue, 98; as interpretive, 233; as irreducibly interactional, 343,350; as multidimensional, 184, 206; as multifaceted, 183; as multifaceted and multidimensional, 206, 210, 339; as primarily relational, 49; as the light itself, not behind it, 77; essential dimensions of, 215; foreground and background cares in, 210; general context of, 177; irreducibility of, 344; key features from phenomenology, 88; six essential features of, 339,340; structure of, 343 experience, human, multidimensionality of: as described mathematically, 206; as too complex to visualize, 206

394

Index

experience, personal, vs group means, 333 experience, phenomenology of: in new paradigm, 80 experience, structure of: in Husserl, 47 experience-near concepts, 303; and purple zone, 150; in psychology, 49 experiences: as contextual, 79 experiential landscape: curvature of, 212 experiential world. See phenomenological world experiential, the: emphasis on, 319 experimental approach: in cognitive psychotherapy, 330 expertise: as possible, 268; assumption of possibility of, 113; concept of, 14 explication of theory, importance of, 347 expression, human: as always embodied, 218 facticity, and the body, 192 facts, appeal to: and belief in them, 98 facts, completely objective, as incompatible with new model, 75 facts, objective, 339; in Freud, 302; rejection of concept, in constructionism, 320 Fairbairn, W.R.D., 306, 309 false beliefs: in psychiatric textbooks, 87,190 false memories: in psychiatric textbooks, 87,190 false memory syndrome, 159

false perceptions: in psychiatric textbooks, 87,190 false problems, 343; as consequence of dichotomized thinking, 243; as result of philosophical assumptions, 53; as results of poor questions, 64 false self, 277 falsifiability: as one validation criterion among others, 167 family systems theory: as appealing to coherence theory, 115 family therapy: as contextualized, 156 fatalism, 296 Fenichel, Otto, 232 Festinger and colleagues: When Prophecy Fails, 98 Feyerabend, Paul, 355 n. 3 fictionalism: in psychology, 36 field-delimiting statements, 309,337; behaviourist example of, 121; in Heisenberg's physics, 124; in Kohut, 312; in Skinner, 325; psychoanalytic example of, 121 field-specific epistemology: as basic layout and design, schematic of, 117; as knowledge horizon of a given field, 119; concept of, 119; limits of knowledge in a given field, 16 field-specific validity, methods appropriate to a given field, 16 figure/ground relationships: as continuously restructuring, 197 force, concept of: as a useful fiction, 202; as de-reified, 129 forced choice, in epistemology, 343 foreground vs background: and focus, 108; as continuously changing,

Index 395 184; present in any method, 108 foundational: as distinct from found ationalism, 12 foundationalism: as rejected by Heidegger, 53; Cartesian, 12; in Descartes, 25; in psychology, 25; spirit of, 112 frame of reference: in theory of relativity, 201 Frankl, Viktor, 265; and perspectives, 260 freedom: as ungrounded, 268 Freud, Sigmund: and conversion, 42; and s R o model, 42; as objectivist, 312; classical psychoanalytic model, 299-306; on philosophy, 345 Fromm, Erich, 270 fundamentality, 10 future: as structuring perception, 83; parallel possibilities for, 83 future possibilities: as adding dimensions to our Being-in-the-World, 212 future-ality: in structure of perception, 196 Gadamer, Hans Georg, 98,105,168, 265; and Beams-of-Light-throughTime model, 100; and emergent meanings, 155; and emergent truths, 113; and Heidegger, 98; and hermeneutics, 98; and interpretation, 99; and phronesis, praxis, 170; and truth as interpretive, emergent, 98 Galileo, 200, 368 n. 2 (ch. 2) galvanic skin response (GSR): as measure of anxiety, 110

general epistemology: and access to truth or knowledge, 15; and s R o paradigm, 64; based on non-dualistic paradigm, 68; level C, 63; questions of, 64; schematic of, as framework and infrastructure, 61 Gergen, Kenneth, 322 gestalt psychotherapy: as appealing to coherence theory, 115 Giorgi, Amadeo, 265 giveness: as quality of the world, 185 God, figure of, in Creation of Adam: and brain anatomy, 105 Goldberg, Arnold, 265 good faith, 271,273 good objects and bad objects, 306, 310 gravity, theory of: Einstein's, 129 Greenson, Ralph: and correspondence theory, 232; and Technique and Practice of Psychoanalysis, 228; on transference, 229 groundlessness: in Hamlet, 276 Hacking, Ian, 322, 371 n. 9 hallucinations: as 'false perceptions,' 34, 87; in delirium, 192; sensations vs judgments about, 96; textbook definitions of, 87 hallucinations and delusions: as never completely cut off from world context, 190 Hanly, Charles, 265, 302 health care economic systems, 336 health care, as clinician's goal, 336 Heidegger, Martin, 26,43,46, 75,168; 49-54; and features of Dasein, 180; and horizon, 76; and Husserl, 275; and Mitsein, 221; and Nazi activities, 275; and necessary dimensions

396

Index

of experience, 81; and ontological relatedness, 273; and our boundaries, 195; and temporality, 270; life conduct of, 275,372 n. 1; on knowing, 186 Heisenberg, Werner, 98,138; as rejecting claims about the unobserved, 127; epistemological arguments of, 125; epistemology of as level E relativism, 131 Heisenberg's uncertainty principle: and field-specific epistemology, 124; as a field-specific relativism, 128 hermeneutic: validation criteria, 94 hermeneutic approach: in position 3, 132 hermeneutic circle: and depth of understanding, 295; and emergent truths, 113; and progressive understanding, 73,168 hermeneutic methods: in psychotherapy, 73 hermeneutic spiral, 349; and possibility of better understandings, 169; and successive interpretations as progressive, 169 hermeneutic truth: as not entirely relativistic, 105 hermeneutics: and Beams-of-Lightthrough-Time model, 114; and epistemological realism, 71; and evolving truth, 71; and interpretation, 72; and phenomenology, 265; and progress in knowledge, 186; and understanding, 72; as not an 'anything goes' approach, 168; in psychiatry, 72 Hersch, Edwin, 315,370 n. 8 hierarchical method, 7, 347; as

against 'top down' approach, 121; as clarifying, 316; as helpful in evaluating relativistic claims, 37; as useful for level of relativism, 131; of theory analysis, 11 hierarchical sketch: as multilevel summary of assumptions, 305; of Beams-of-Light-through-Time model, Chart 11.11,340; of behaviourism, Chart 11.8,326; of biological psychiatry, Chart 11.10, 336; of classical psychoanalysis, Chart 11.2,305; of cognitive psychotherapy, Chart 11.9, 330; of constructionism, Chart 11.6,323; of intersubjectivity theory, Chart 11.5,320; of object relations theory, Chart 11.3, 311; of ontological relativism, Chart 11.7,323; of self psychology, Chart 11.4, 315 hierarchical sketches, 6; as philosophical overviews, 297; for comparison of psychological theories, 6; of psychological theories, 297 hierarchy of levels: as a heuristic device, 179; as dialogical, 60; of philosophical stances, 297; stances taken at each, 177 hierarchy of levels method: of sketching psychological theories, 297 hierarchy of levels of theoretical inquiry, 6,12; and questions, Chart 1.1 illustration, 299; and their questions, bottom up approach, 18; and their questions, table 1.1,18; as helpful and clarifying, 344; bottom layers as foundational, 12; figure 1.1 sche-

Index 397 ma tic of, 19; in theory comparison, 298; method of, 6 Hoeller, Keith, 265 Hoffman, Irwin, 266, 321 holism: importance of, 17 homosexuality: as sometime-diagnostic category, 101 horizon: as expandable, 80; as limited by foundational understandings, 108; as widening, 186; in physics, 124; narrowing factors, 79; of possibilities, 83; psychotherapy as widening, 79 horizons: and freedom, 79; as multiple, 185; as not just spatial, 76; different types of, 185; epistemological, 87; in intersubjectivity theory, 316; in psychotherapy, 338; of action, 185; of imagination, 185; of knowledge possibilities, 337; of psychoanalytic knowledge, 312 horizons, as narrowed: by particular theories, 335; in biological psychiatry, 334 horizons, as widened: in J.T. case, 290 horizons, constriction of: in J.T. case, 286 horizons, fusion of: and co-experience, 238; as incompatible with atomism, 234; in psychotherapy, 234 horizons, imaginative: as exceeded, 206; as expanded in angry man case, 248; as restricted in angry man case, 247; as widened in J.T. case, 293 hormones, 258 house metaphor: and reductionism, 258

human experience. See experience, human human experience and behaviour: as unpredictable, 199 human experience, realities of: as both given and made, 60 human world: as an open system, 99 humanistic psychology, 265 humans, descriptions of: as caring beings, 182 Hume, David: and scepticism, 96 Husserl, Edmund, 53; 46-9; and horizon, 76; and how phenomena show themselves, 120; and lived experience, 49; and structures of consciousness, 81; and 'the reduction/ 120; and theory-laden descriptions, 120, 368 nn. 2,4 (ch. 3) hypnosis: and 'de-repressed' memories, 160 hypotheses: my working one's, 8 hypothyroidism, subclinical, 335 id, the, 269, 300 idealism as reality all in Mind, 35; vs realism, 35. See also subjectivism idealism/relativism: in psychology, 36 idealism, philosophical: in object relations theory, 307 ideas: as clear and distinct, in transference, 229; as clear and distinct, in Descartes, 43; as God-given, 43; as innate, in Descartes, 250 ideas, free-floating: as Cartesian, 229 identification: in bad faith, 271 identity, 274; as psychologically important, 278; as related to morality, in Taylor, 276 illusion, area of: in Winnicott, 310

398

Index

images, ideas: as re-presentations, 95 images, of self and object, 310 imaginary vs real: as false dichotomy, 189 imagination: and presences, 189; as feature of all experience, 189; primacy of, 189; structuring of, as inherent to all experiencing, 181 inconsistencies: within a theory, 297 inconsistencies, philosophical, 314 inconsistency, between levels: examples of, 179 inconsistency, interlevel: behaviourism with subjectivism as example of, 178 incorporation, 307 indeterminacy: in physics, 124; in psychology, 126; in psychotherapy, 125 inductive reasoning: and scepticism, 96; in empiricism, 96 information-processing model: in cognitive psychotherapy, 329 innate ideas: as corresponding with the external, 25; in Descartes, 25 inner objects: in psychological theory, 26 inner vs outer worlds, 307 'Insight and Judgment': classical category of MSB, 279 insight and understanding: as rejected in behaviourism, 325 instincts, the, 269 intentionality: and transference, 229; as directedness, 48; as not consistent with subjectivism, 57; in Husserl, 47; in intersubjectivity theory, 316 interaction effects: as statistically

distinct from original (main) effects, 137 interactional effects: algebraic notation of, 164; as complex, but irreducible, 164; with many people, 164 interactional factor, AB: as most important, 138 interactional model: as dialogical, 144 interdisciplinary studies: problems for, 267 internal objects, 306 internal representation: and marbles metaphor, 248; and object relations theory, 248; in cognitive science, 249; in Descartes, 249; in Freud, 77; vs presences in new model, 251 internal representations, 306; as introjected, 250; as mediating concept, 251; as re-presentations, 250 internal structures, 304 internal vs external worlds, 306 internalization: as an atomistic concept, 145; as mechanistic, atomistic, 245; in psychological theory, 26 internalizations, 339; transmuting, 314 internalized objects, 307,309,310 interpretiveness: as feature of human experience, 88 interpretiveness and perspective: as Beams-of-Light-through-Time model MSB category, 279; as dimension of all experience, 216; as key feature of human experience, 339; in J.T. case, 283

Index 399 intersubjective agreement: as no guarantee of truth, 104; as validating factor, 113; as validity criterion, 103 intersubjective consensus: as useful, 104 intersubjective field, 319; as a convergence of two Beams-of-Lightthrough-Time, 136; in psychotherapy, 338; vs Cartesian s R o, 237 intersubjective space, 315; as a convergence of two Beams-ofLight-through-Time, 136 intersubjectivity theory, 269; 314-9; and concepts of objectivity and distortion, 131; and phenomenology, 265; and relativism, 36,130; and subjectivism, 130; as interactional, 315; as level E relativism, 131; hierarchical sketch of, 320; criticisms of, 317; epistemological stances in, 130; epistemology of, 317; vs Kohut, 315 intratheory omissions, 297 introjection, 306, 310; as an atomistic concept, 145 introjection and projection: in Kleinian theory, 307 introjections, 339 introspection, 312, 319 involuntary treatment, 33 ironist perspective, 321 isolated mind, 54; as incompatible, 75; rejection of, 218; rejection of in intersubjectivity theory, 317; rejection of the concept, 316 isolated variable approach to research of dubious validity in psychotherapy, 222

I-thou relationship: as encounter, in purple zone, 226 James, William, 103 Jaspers, Karl, 46, 265 judge: as like psychotherapist, 170 Kant, Immanuel, 8; and Critique of Pure Reason, 200; categories, 81, 367 n. 5; on time and space, 201 Kernberg, Otto, 308 Klein, Melanie, 306 knowing our philosophical selves, 7 knowledge: and privileged positions to, 30; as a founded mode, 64,186; as accessible, 342; as co-constituted, 343; as either from object or subject, 65; as immediate or mediated, 95; as interactional, 318; as limited; in observational physics, 128; as limited but not insignificant, 91; as relationship between s and o, 64; as relative to situation, 80; as secondary, 64; as socially established, 321; certainty of, 342; gains in possible, without certainty, 114; limits of, 16; in Freud, 302; sociology of, 320; validation of, 16 knowledge, appropriate data for: in behaviourism, 122; in psychoanalysis, 122 knowledge, in psychotherapy situation, as radically contextualized, 150 knowledge, prereflective: and gestures, 254; and levels of awareness, 254 knowledge, scientific: as a 'founded'

400

Index

mode, 52; as limited, 53; as secondary, 52 knowledge, theories of: empiricism vs rationalism, 45 knowledge, types of: reflective vs prereflective, 254 known reality: as both given and made, 60 known, what is: as co-constituted, interactional, 74 Kohut, Heinz, 311,312,314; and atomism, 244 Kraus, Alfred, 357 n. 1 Kuhn, Thomas, 17,39, 55, 304,327; and intersubjective agreement as no guarantee, 104 lab-coat envy, 347 labels: psychiatric, 102 Lacan, Jacques, 266 landscape: of phenomenological world, 339 Lang, Hermann, 357 n. 2 Langan, Thomas, 58, 70,272,368 n. 3 (ch 2); on authenticity, 275; on Heidegger, 276 language: atomistic, mechanistic, 245 language games: and correspondence theory, 111 language, mechanistic, 339 lebenswelt. See lived world levels of awareness: and choices, 199; and interpretations, 89; implicit or unconscious, 4; in dynamic interchange, 184; vs conscious/unconscious dichotomy, 254 levels of hierarchy: as dialogical, mutually influencing, 179

levels of hierarchy, higher ones: limited, but not determined by lower, 179 levels of inquiry, 7; as interrelated, 267; as operating simultaneously, 10; as unclear in inter subjectivity theory, 316; field-specific epistemological, 7; general epistemological, 7; in dialogue with one another in practice, 298; ontological, 7; psychological, 7 libido vs aggression, 243; as competing cares, 244 light metaphors: in other contexts, 76 lived body, 88; and embodiment, 216; as feature of human experience, 89; as inherent to the structure of all experience, 181; in J.T. case, 292 lived philosophy, 274 lived world, 334; as complex, but irreducible, 164 lived world, of emotion: as a necessary concept for psychological theory, 188 Locke, John, 342; and empiricism, 94; 'blank slate' or 'white paper/ 94 locus of truth: as in the interaction, 80,90; See also truth, locus of Loewald, Hans, 308; and Heidegger, 309 Logos, 300 logotherapy, 265 magnet metaphor: and field of iron filings, 99 magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), 335

Index 401 major depressive episode: as 'cured' but patient not well, 288 major depressive syndrome, 332 man as the measure of all things, 28 managed care, 336 marbles metaphor: and atomism, 234,244; and the unconscious, 252; in conversion, 258; in object relations theory, 308 Masterson, James, 308 materialism, 331; in medical and neurosciences, 257 matter: in Descartes, 43 May, Rollo, 265 meanings: new ones continually being created, 155; world of, 51 measurability, 325 mediated images: and Plato's cave, 95 medical illness: and mental state, 258 medicine, general, 331 memory, computer: as ill-named, 188 memory, human: as active, restructurable process, 188; as always emotional, 188; as caring, 188; as unlike computer's, 249; as unlike videotape, 249; experimental psychology of, 249; in neuroscience, 249; mechanomorphic views of, 250; temporality of, 249 memory, human vs computer, 87; as qualitatively different, 188 memory, procedural: and prereflective lived body, 255; in neuroscience, 255; vs declarative memory 255

memory, theories of: as like videotape, 160; human as like computer 'memory,' 160 Mender, Donald, 266 mental: as reducible to biological substrates, 332 mental apparatus: as natural object, 309; in Freud, 302 mental processes: as ruled out, in Skinner, 325 mental states: as dependent on physical, 331; as dependent on biological, 331 Mental Status Examination (MSB), 278, 339; Beams-of-Light-throughTime model version, 340; classical categories of, 279 Mental Status Examination, initial, of J.T.: Beams-of-Light-throughTime model version, 282; traditional version, 281 Merleau-Ponty, Maurice, 46; and Phenomenology of Perception, 182; and prereflective lived body, 220, 255; and seeing the world anew, 349; and the lived body, 88, 217 Meshberger, Frank, 105; and correlations, 112 Meshberger's theory: and emergent truths, 113; and hermeneutic circle, 113 metaphysical thinking: in Heidegger, 270 metapsychology, 303, 304 method, questions of: as founded on general epistemology, 99 methodologies, empirical: as ruled out, 309 methodology: in psychoanalysis, 303

402

Index

Michelangelo: and brain anatomic similarities, 113; Sistine Chapel painting, Creation of Adam, 105-6 middle ground, seizing of, 343 mind: as epiphenomenon of brain, 258; as never disembodied, 259 mind and body: as mutually influencing, 258; as never totally separate to begin with, 261; as not isolated from each other, 257; separation of as unnecessary and misleading, 259 mind and brain: as affecting each other, 42 mind/body dualism, 217,333; as unnecessary split, 87; in Descartes, 88 mind/body problems, 331; as central in biological psychiatry, 331 mind/body separateness: as false problem, 258; Cartesian framing of, 258 mind/body split: in Descartes, 256 mind vs body: 256-61 mind, as container of ideas, 245; and internal representation, 248; in object relations theory, 308; in psychoanalytic theory, 244 Misiak, H., and V.S. Sexton, 265 Mitchell, Stephen, 266,308 Mitsein, in Heidegger. See Beingwith-Others Morley, James, 266 motivation, futural theory of, 338 motivation, new theory of: less deterministic, but not voluntaristic, 199; with emphasis on future desirable, 198 MSE. See Mental Status Examination MSE, Beams-of-Light-through-Time

model version: as useful, 294; categories of, 279 MSE, traditional version: and discontinuing treatment too soon, 294; uses of, 294 MSE, traditional, as 'within normal limits': in J.T. case, 287 multivariate analysis: language of, 137 narcissistic dimension, 313,314 narrative psychotherapy: as appealing to coherence theory, 115 narrative truth, 321; in psychology, 36 narrativism, 319. See also constructionism narratology, 319 natural faiths: as underlying assumptions, 27 natural science methodologies, 331; of dubious validity for psychotherapy, 156 natural science, isolated variable methods, as inappropriate, 183 natural sciences: objectivist approaches in, 72 natural scientific model of psychoanalysis, 300 necessity, logical, 201 negativism, 330 neglect, systematic. See overlooking, systematic neural networks, 331 neuroanatomy, 331 neuroendocrine studies, 257 neuroendocrinology, 331 neuroimaging, 331 neurology, 331 neurotransmitters, 331

Index 403 neutrality and abstinence: as helpful in certain senses only, 241 neutrality of therapist, 53; as a myth, 125; as impossible, 233 non-dualism: in position 3,132 non-dualistic paradigm: as third foundational position, 132; in Beams-of-Light-through-Time model paradigm, 132 nosology: of psychiatric syndromes, 101 'nothing good or bad, but thinking makes it so/ 276 object: as not a source of distortion, 127; in grammatical sense, 48 object, 'o': as external, 40 object relations: vs subject relations, 135, 226 object relations theory, 277,305, 312; 306-11; and atomism, 145; and internal representation, 248; hierarchical sketch of, 311 objective: as reliable and reproducible, 333 objectivism, 337; and bad faith, 268; and behaviourism, 324; and correspondence theory, 66, 341; and diagnostic labels, 272; and origin of truth, 94; and reification, 272; and scientific facts, 66; and separateness assumption, 339; and truths or facts, 65; as a philosophical perspective, 347; as empirical, 66; as tautological, 95; as truth from object-side only, 66; extreme or radicalized, 343; favours correspondence, 102; in biological psychiatry, 333; in cognitive psychology, 328; in Freud, 301; in

position 1,126; problems with, 341; rejection of, 188; weaknesses of, 66 objectivism and relativism, and twin difficulties, 273 objectivism vs relativism, 343 objectivism vs subjectivism, 304,341; dilemma of, 68 objectivism, extreme: rejection of, 269 objectivism, radical: dangers of, 334 objectivist approach: to transference and distortion, 152 objectivist epistemology: and conservative bias, 111; problem with, 111 objectivist model: as closed system, 195 objectivist models: as not truly interactional, 339 objectivist models, in psychology: and correspondence theory, 153; as relying on faith, 153; dilemma of no access to unbiased view, 153; object is true, subject distorts, 153 objectivist position: philosophical assumptions guiding, 122 objectivist-correspondence stances: contrasted with Beams-of-Lightthrough-Time model, 154; if softened, drift toward coherence, 154; therapist's privileged access to truth in, 154 objectivity: as distinct from objectivism, 105; rejection of in intersubjectivity theory, 317; vs objectivism, 58 objectivity vs objectivism, 273 objectivity, of therapist: as overestimated in objectivism, 153

404

Index

object-relationship experiences, 311 observation, as passive: in position 1,127 Oedipus complex, 302 On the Question of Weltanschauung (Freud lecture), 269, 300 ontological gap: in Descartes, 41, 256 ontological level of inquiry: as most foundational, 23 ontological realism: as level A position, 37 ontological relativism, 322; and constructionism, 321; and science or knowledge, 29; as a level A position, 29; Chart 11.7, hierarchical sketch of, 323; in delusions, 30; in psychosis, 30. See also relativism, ontological ontological stances: as clinically important, 32 ontologically relational stance, 344 ontology: as left out, 10; as prior to epistemology, 26; as study of Being, 14; as the groundwork and foundation, schematic of, 21 Orange, Donna, 60, 70,265; and cotransference, 144,223; and intersubjective space or field, 237; and intersubjectivity theory, 315 organizing principles, 27, 319 Other, the: and self-consciousness, 134; as object that can look back at me, 134 Other, the look of the: and awareness of being seen, 223; and grounding of diverse emotions, 223; as source of shame or pride, 220 outer vs inner, 310

overlooking, systematic: as guided by implicit prejudices, 107 overvalued idea: in case of Bob, 114 paradigm, 39; as broad multilevel theory, 177; old, 39 paradigm shift, 17; in physics, 55 paradigm, inconsistent: as containing contradictions, 178 paradigm, new phenomenological: as better suited to complexity of human experience, 339 paradigms: as horizonally defined, 111; in Beck et al., 327; psychological, 347 paradigms, contrasts between old and new: on epistemological level, forced-choice vs interaction, 146; on ontological level, cogito vs Dasein, 146; on psychological level, atomism vs field or systems approach, 147 paradigms, ontological level B: schematic comparison of, 57 paradigms, two: Cartesian s R o vs Being-in-the-World, 59 parallel universes: in science fiction, 205 parallelism, 332; in mind/body theory, 260 paranoia, 30 paranoid patient: with demons, 101 paranoid patients: and scepticism, 96 past: as situation, giveness, throwness, 184; influence of on present perception, 210 patient/therapist complex: and purple zone emerging from, 236; in psychotherapy, 236

Index 405 patient-therapist relationship: centrality of in Beams-of-Light-throughTime model, 235 Peirce, Charles Sanders, 103; and community of investigators, 103 perception: as always interpretive, 181; as co-constituted, 59; as in light of prior understandings, cares, values, 181; as shaped by goals, 52; classical category of MSE, 279; interpretive component in, 59; key features of, 182; primacy of in Merleau-Ponty, 182; structuring of, at many levels of awareness, 181 perception, human: as co-constituted, 58 perceptual changes: in psychotherapy, 349 perceptual-consciousness, system: in Freud, 77 person, the: as more holistic concept, 259; as multidimensional, 260; in Beams-of-Light-through-Time model, 259 personality disorders, 334 perspectival realism, 70, 80; and coconstitutional epistemology, 60 perspectivalism: as not extreme relativism, 73; in art, 55; in physics, 202 perspectivalist model: and deeper understandings, 71 perspective, as broadened: in J.T. case, 291 perspectives: in architecture, 72; in Picasso, 72 perspectivism, 70 PET scans, 335; in brain imagery, 258 phenomena: in Husserl, 47

phenomenological and existential psychology: literature of, 264 phenomenological critique, 306 phenomenological critiques: of Freud, 253 phenomenological method: of Husserl, 46 phenomenological model: as incompatible with isolated mind, 54; as incompatible with pure, objective facts, 54; as open system, 195 phenomenological paradigm, new: as ontologically relational, 60 phenomenological philosophy: as contextual, relational, 55 phenomenological world: and Being-in-the-World, 69,133; and human experience, 69; as an indisoluble system, 69; as 'bent' by 'gravity' of cares, 203; as carestructured and perspectival, 273; as continuously restructured by cares, 138; as flexible but not arbitrary, 211,273; as fluid and changing, 198; as 'in process/ 184; as limited by horizon(s), 180; as multidimensional, 133; as temporal, 133; presences and possibilities in, 196 phenomenological worlds: as works in progress, 139 phenomenology: and new paradigm, 46; in Heidegger, 50; in Husserl, 47; in philosophy, 5; in psychology, 265 Phillips, James, 72,266; and phronesis, praxis in psychiatry, 170 philosophical anatomy of the psychotherapy situation. See psycho-

406

Index

therapy situation, philosophical anatomy of philosophical assumptions: clusters of, 126; in biological psychiatry, 331 philosophical awareness: as changing one's perspective, 346 philosophical differences: in psychological field, 297; in psychological theories, 298 philosophical groundings: of psychological theories, 298 philosophical integrity, 124 philosophical issues: and levels of inquiry, 267; as never far away in clinical work, 296; as unavoidable, 267 philosophical positions: and psychiatric terms, 31 philosophical prejudices: in empiricism, 95 philosophical questions: as inescapable, 5; as underlying psychological theories, 5 philosophical self: knowing one's, 298; knowing thy, 4 philosophical self-knowledge: importance of, 161 philosophical stances: as covertly adopted, 327; of Freud, 301 philosophical unconscious, 4,345; and need to explicate, 267; making it more conscious, 7, 267 philosophical underpinnings: of psychological theories, 297 philosophy: as clinically relevant, 346; as hard for psychological clinicians to access, 267; as influential, 345; as unavoidable, 8,14, 345; Freud's contempt for, 304;

inevitability of, 6; lack of influence of, in Freud, 300; vs philosophizing, 14 philosophy/psychology interface, 295 philosophy/psychotherapy interface, 264 philosophy and psychology: as intertwined, 91; neither determines the other, 180 Philosophy Group of the Royal College of Psychiatrists (U.K.), 266 philosophy of science, 324 philosophy of science, Western, as dominated by s R o model, 64 philosophy to psychotherapy, as a journey, completed, 295 philosophy, neglecting it: as hazardous in psychology, 37 Philosophy, Psychiatry, and Psychology (PPP), 266 philosophical comparisons: among psychological theories, 347 photons, 125 phronesis: as different from episteme, 170; as practical knowledge, 170 physicalism: in Freud, 300 physics: field-specific epistemology of, 124 physics, philosophy and forces: 199-203 Picasso, Pablo, 55, 72 pineal gland: in Descartes, 41,257 place where therapy happens: as a convergence of two Beams-ofLight-through-Time, 136 Plato, 257,327; cave metaphor, 77,95 Polonius: in Hamlet, 275 position 1: as not fitting with inde-

Index 407 terminacy, 127; as realist-dualistobjectivist-correspondence cluster, 126 position 2: as realist-dualist-subjectivist-coherence cluster, 127; incompatibilities with Beams-ofLight-through-Time model, 149 position 3: as realist-non-dualistco-constitutional-hermeneutic cluster, 132 positivism, 324; and scientism, 44; as extreme objectivism, 67; in biological psychiatry, 333 possibilities, new ones: in J.T. case, 290 postmodern approaches: and uncertainty, 188 postmodernism, 321; as appealing to coherence theory, 115 practical wisdom: and psychotherapy, 170; in choosing validation criteria, 171 practice and theory, relationship between, 347 practice without theory: as impossible, 346 practice, psychotherapeutic: as grounded in theory, 9 pragmatic approaches: limits tested, 115 pragmatic criteria: in behaviourism, 325 pragmatic theory of truth: and consequences, 94; as appealing to consequences, 102; as lacking grounding, 104 pragmatism, 274; and utility, 103 praxis: and practical reasoning, 170 pre-conscious: in Freud, 253 prediction and control, 331; as elu-

sive goals, 336; as goals of natural science, 325; vs understanding, 331 prejudging factors: as always present, 167 prejudgments: as always present, 168 premenstrual syndrome, 335 presence: absence as a form of, 224; and horizons, 224; as felt, 224; as felt together in L.G. case, 241; emotional sense of, 134; in J.T. case, 293; not a matter of ontological status, 224 presence of the Other: as reshaping experiential landscape, 139 presence, concept of: 223-6; and foreground vs background, 223; refers to meanings, not spatial, 223 presence, of the Other: as changing everything, 138; as integral to therapy situation, 138; as reshaping phenomenological world, 138; has emotional impact on me, 135 present-at-hand objects: and s R o model, 52; in Heidegger, 51, 52 presuppositions: my own, 5; of empiricism, 96 presuppositions, philosophical, 3, 27, 304; as needing explication, 4 pride: source in the look of the Other, 220 primacy effect, 348 primum non nocere (first do no harm), 162 priority, logical, 10 privileged access to truth: who has? 100 privileged epistemic positon: of ther-

408

Index

apist, in objectivist approach, 152 projection, 310; and subjectiveness, 28; as an atomistic concept, 145; as imaginatively throwing oneself forward, 197; as mechanistic, atomistic psychological term, 245; in angry man case, 247 projections, 339 projective identification, 247, 307, 310 projects: and meanings, 51; as bending perceptions, 212; as interactional with one another, 210 projects and goals: as structuring perception, 86 projects, goals, wants, set of: as constantly being revised, 197 Protagoras, in Plato: man as measure of all things, 28 Prozac: in treatment of depression, 109 psychic determinism, 303 psychical processes: in Freud, 300 psychoanalysis: as a hermeneutic discipline, 265 psychoanalysis, epistemology of: serious weaknesses in, 125 psychodynamics, 304, 310; and mechanistic language, 244 psychological factors: in act of knowing, 90 psychological field: scientific status of, 27 psychological field, as broad, 4 psychological level G theory: hegemony of, 303 psychological level issues: as founded on philosophical ones, 344

psychological level, G, 175; as founded on lower levels, 16; as vulnerable to changes on lower levels, 16 psychological methods and concepts: inadequacy of those geared to atemporal things, 198 psychological models: phenomenological, new, 7 psychological terms: as resting on unstated philosophical assumptions, 34 psychological theories: and epistemology as foundation to, 121; as grounded on philosophical stances, 345; as multilayered, 13; as structuring their data, 121; as vulnerable to flaws at lower levels, 179; Beams-of-Light-through-Time model, 298; Cartesian as norm in, 55; classical psychoanalytic model, 299-306; existentialists' criticisms of, 85; non-psychoanalytic, 298, 324; psychoanalytic, 298, 299; should not dictate field-specific epistemologies, 123 psychology: as the finished living and working areas, schematic of, 173 psychology and philosophy, relationship between, 347 psychology, phenomenological: essential elements of, 215 psychometric tests: as constructs, 110; as indicators, 110; dangers of over-reliance on, 115 psychometric tools, 329 psychopathological symptoms: and coherence, 191; as constriction of

Index 409 horizons, 191; as 'false' and distorted, 190; as lacking in correspondence, 190; hallucinations, delusions, illusions, confabulations, 189; philosophical prejudices in textbook definitions of, 190; textbook definitions of as objectivist, 189 psychopathology: as constriction of horizons, 186,231; as narrowing of horizons and possibilities, 286; in Fairbairn, 309 psychopharmacology, 257, 331 psychosis: in delirium, 192 psychotherapist: role of dealing with meanings, 193 psychotherapy: and ethical dilemmas, 161; and outside situation, 162; and pragmatics, 161; as always interactional, 136,223; as an applied science, 171; as encounters in the purple zone, 215,226,339; as essentially interactional, 236; as horizon widening, 186,349; as labour-intensive, 335; as multiconstituted, 136; as not unscientific, 171; as purple zone phenomenon, 136,223; complex and uncertainty as inherent to its subject matter, 171; horizons of, 136 psychotherapy situation: as interactional, 338; as multiconstituted, 137,338; as purple zone concept, 338; complexity of, 338; interaction effects in, 137; overlapping horizons in, 137 psychotherapy situation, philosophical anatomy of, 133-43; 337; col-

our schematic of (facing page 134) psychotherapy, task of: as increasing self-awareness, 255; as making less conscious more, 255 psychotic depression, 31 psychotic states: vs neurotic, 34 pure and distinct ideas: as unavailable, 111; in Descartes, 111 pure, empirical facts: as a metaphysical fantasy, 98 purity, of knowledge, facts, or cognitions: as not humanly possible, 188 purple zone: as a convergence of two Beams-of-Light-through-Time, 136; as defining field-specific epistemological horizons of therapy, 139; as emerging from interaction, 222; as intersubjective space, 225; as qualitatively different and new, 225; concept of, 133; field-specific epistemological level definition of, 142; in J.T. case, 292; in psychotherapy, 338; ontological level definition of, 142; psychological level definition of, 143; subdivisions of, 140 purple zone model: and position 3, 143; as consistent with Heidegger's Dasein, 146; compared with position 2,147; compared with position 3,150 purple zone phenomena, 347; as multiconstituted, 154; as of a higher order of complexity, 154 purple zone, concept of: as clinicianfriendly and patient-friendly, 151 purple zone, interactional model: and position 1,143

410

Index

purple, experience of: as distinct from blue or red, 138 pyramid metaphor: and conversion, 260; and mind/body problem, 260 quantum physics: and ranges of possibilities, 204 quantum theory: in physics, 124 range of possibilities: as sets of possible futures, 205 rational vs emotional, as dichotomy, 327 rationalism: and mediated knowledge, 45; in cognitive psychotherapy, 327 rationalist approaches: in cognitive and neurosciences, 187 ready-to-hand objects: in Heidegger, 51 realism, 342; and behaviourism, 324; and position 1,126; in Beck et al., 327; in object relations theory, 306; in position 2,127; in position 3, 132; ontological, 32,273; vs idealism, or antirealism, 35 realism and relativism: and bad faith, 268 realist-dualist-objectivist-correspondence paradigm, 305 reality: as independent of us, 15,23; as socially constructed, 321; independence of, 28; our relation to, 15; questions of, 14; social construction of, 320; ultimate status of, 321; unyieldingness of, 70 reality, human: and phenomenological world, 180; as future-directed, 181 reason: as never separated from

emotion, 187; as separate from emotion, 55 reason vs emotion: as false dichotomy, 188; dualism of, 256; separation of, 256 reason, rationality, intellect: in Michelangelo's Creation of Adam, 106 reasonableness: as a value judgment, 273 reductionism, 12,331,333; as incompatible with Beams-of-Lightthrough-Time model, 155; in behaviourism, 324; in Freud, 300; in psychoanalysis, 303; in psychology, 156; of mind to brain or body, 257 reductionism, in psychology: as creating methodological problems, 156 reification, 321; and IQ tests, 110; as conceptual idol-building, 269; danger of, 13,110; Freud warning against, 269; in bad faith, 269; in notion of self, 322; in psychology and psychoanalysis, 269; of constructs, 45,110,123; of psychiatric syndromes, constructs, 101; of the unconscious, 252 reified concepts: as metaphoric fictions, 269 reinforcement, selective, 325 relatedness to a world: as Beams-ofLight-through-Time model MSB category, 279; as dimension of all experience, 216; as key feature of human experience, 88, 339 relatedness to one's world: in J.T. case, 282 relational psychologies: and Beingwith-Others, 221

Index 411 relational theory, 266 relationship, between light and object, as irreducible, 74 relationship, quality of: in psychotherapy, 349 relatively relativistic stance: as suitable in psychotherapy, 169 relativism: and constructionism, 319,321,322; and level of in intersubjectivity theory, 317; and solipsism, 32; as paradoxical, 29; at different levels of the hierarchy, 28; at field-specific epistemological level, 318; at level C, 70; defensibility of as varying with level, 318; extreme, 29; extreme or radicalized, 343; favours coherence, 102; hierarchy as useful in assessing degree of, 341; in delusional case, 100; in intersubjectivity theory, 316, 317; in psychological theory, 130; is all truth merely subjective, 28; level of, 322; moral or ethical, 274; objections to, 58; ontological, 29; problem of, 28; problems witi\ 273, 342; problems with, for position 2,149; radical, 268, 322; radicality as dependent on level, 341 relativism, epistemological: vs objectivism, 35 relativism, in psychology: level it applies at as crucial, 130 relativism, ontological. See also ontological relativism; as contradictory, 318; as rejected by intersubjectivity theory, 318; disavowal of, 342; vs realism, 35 relativisms, higher level ones: as more defensible, 131

relativistic claims: level on hierarchy is crucial, 36 relativity: cultural-historic, 107; with out relativism, 169 relativity, degree of: as more defensible on level E, 129; relating to levels of applicability, 169 relativity, Einstein's theory of: and frames of reference, 129 relativized objectivity: as de-absolutized objectivity, 166; as some objectivity without objectivism, 165 reliability, interobserver, 332 remembering, acts of: as care-filled and temporal, 249 repetition compulsion, 231 representation: in Kleinian theory, 307; inner world of, 95; problem of, 95 representation, internal. See internal representation representational thinking: in cognitive psychology, 25; in Descartes, 25; in object relations theory, 25; in psychoanalysis, 25 representationalism, 250; in object relations theory, 307; philosophical assumptions of, 251 re-presentations: as dominating over presentations, 250 representations: as care-related, 249; as inner images, 25. See also internal representation representations, internal, 310; as distorted, 95 repressed memory, 158 repressed, the: as at relatively unaware level, 254 repression: and suppression, 255; in Freud, 253

412

Index

res cogitans, 256; as thinking substance, 40; in Descartes, 88 res extensa, 256; as material substance, 40; in Descartes, 88. See also matter res mensa, 256. See cogito res mensa vs res extensa: in Descartes, 190 resistance: in philosophical usage, 59; in psychoanalysis, 121; to philosophy, 27; to philosophy, among clinicians, 267 respect, atmosphere of: and encounter in L.G. case, 240 respect, mutual: in therapy, 247 responsibility, 295 Review of Existential Psychology and Psychiatry, 265

Ricoeur, Paul, 43, 265,369 n. 2 (ch. 4) Rorty, Richard, 321 s R o dualism, and behaviourism, 324 s R o model: and language, 42,45; as Cartesian dualistic, 40; as ontological, 42; as source of dichotomized thinking, 273; as too abstract, 53; schematic of, 40; in cognitive therapy assumptions, 327; primary separateness of subject and object in, 43 s R o model, rejection of: in intersubjectivity theory, 316 s R o paradigm: and primary separateness, 64 Sadler, J.Z., O.P. Wiggins, and M.A. Schwartz, 266, 334 Safranski, Rudiger: 357 n. 3 Sartre, Jean-Paul, 46,264; and ethical relativism, 274; and ethics, 272;

and our boundaries, 195; and presence, 223; and temporality, 270; and the Other, 135; critique of the censor in Freud, 253; on bad faith, 269; on the body, 217,218; on the censor paradox, 254 Schacter, Daniel, 249 Schafer, Roy, 321 Scheler, Max, 320 schemas, 27,328,329; in cognitive therapy, 108 schizophrenia, 334 science and knowledge: possibility of, 30 science, concept of, 14, 300 scientism, 347; and positivism, 44; as ideology, 44; as materialistic, 44 Scylla and Charybdis, 272 self: and authenticity, 277; and bad faith, 268; as compatible with phenomenology, 85; pathologies of, 313 self psychology, 266, 277; 311-14; and atomism, 145,244; and intersubjectivity theory, 317; and presence of the Other, 140; as less objectivist, 311; hierarchical sketch of, 315; subjectivist epistemological turn in, 311 self, sense of true, 277 self, the: in Kohut, 312 self-actualization, 277 self-consciousness: in the face of Other, 219 self-deception: in bad faith, 270 self-judgings: at various levels of awareness, 219 self-knowledge, philosophical, 6, 346; value of, 179 self-object, 312, 313

Index 413 self-object experiences, 313 self-object needs: and presence of the Other, 140 self-reflection: on philosophical stances taken, 297 self-reports: and validity problems with, 109 separateness, assumption of: denied, 48 separation, radical: of subject and object, in Descartes, 26 sexuality: and body as expressive, 218 Shakespeare, William, 275 shame: and presence of the Other, 140; as in the face of Other, 219; source in the look of the Other, 220 Sherlock Holmes: and clues missed. See overlooking, systematic significances: new ones continually being created, 155 situatedness in time: as feature of human experience, 88 Skinner, B.F., 324, 325 social sciences: vs natural sciences, 72 social world: structuring of, as implied in all experiencing, 181 social world, the: as feature of human experience, 89 society: as fascinated with science and technology, 335 solipsism, 269; and Other as illusory, 148 somatic expression: of feelings, 218 somatoform disorders, 334; as having significant bodily manifestations of cares, 261 spatial terms, '-jections': in classical

psychoanalytic theory, 244; in object relations theory, 244; in psychoanalytic terminology, 244 specific-field delimiting statements: and epistemological horizons, 120 specificity, statistical, 334 Spence, Donald, 321, 322 Spiegelberg, Herbert, 265, 373 n. 2 (ch. 10) splits. See dichotomies sR: as subject-in-relation, 60 stances, philosophical, 7 Stolorow, Robert, 130, 265, 269, 314, 318; and intersubjective space or field, 237; rejection of objectivity concept in psychoanalysis, 156 story, cohesive: therapeutic value of, 322 Strachey, James, 300 straw man arguments, 342,343 structural model, of Freud, 314 structural theory, of Freud: as contemporary with Being and Time, 221 subject: as an 's/ related to an object, 'o,' 40; in Freud as a natural object, 84; in s R o model as an essence, or thing, 84; thinking, 40 subject and object: as different forms of Being, 40; as related by knowing, 40 subject relations: as opposed to object relations, 135, 226; in J.T. case, 293 subject vs object: language of, as outmoded, 70 subject-in-relation, sR: schematic of, 75; in phenomenological paradigm, 56 subjective experience: as valued, 313

414

Index

subject-ive factors: as distortions, 66 subjective vs objective: as separate in cognitive approach, 327; distinction, 313 subjectivism, 273,337 and constructionism, 322; and idealism, 35; and solipsism, 35; as odd form of s R o, 58; as truth from subject-side only, 66; in intersubjectivity theory, 316, 317; in object relations theory, 307; in position 2,127; problems with, for position 2,148. See also idealism subjectivism vs objectivism: rejection of disjunction, 337 such stuff as dreams are made on, 347 Sucharov, Maxwell, 250; and intersubjective space or field, 237 sufficiency: logical, 179 suicide: rational, 33 syndrome, biological, 333 syndromes: as epistemic-level working hypotheses, 102 syndromes, psychiatric, 332 systematic approach; to examine philosophical groundings, 11 systematic desensitization, 324 Taylor, Charles, 274, 276 techne: as technical know-how, 170 technology of behaviour, 325 temporal dimensions, past, present, and future: as all blended together in experience, 198 temporality: and anticipation, 82; and concepts of transference, 230; and lived world, example of Jeff, 211; and phenomenological world, 76; as Beams-of-Light-through-

Time model MSB category, 279; as dimension of all experience, 216; as essential feature of human reality, 82; as key feature of human experience, 339; as key feature of our way of being, 184; as thrown projection, 86; as uniquely human, 183; centrality of, 83; in existential philosophy, 82; in J.T. case, 282, 291; primacy of, 184 temporality, and motivation: 194-9 test of time: as validation criterion, 113,168 tests, before and after methods, 332 the Other, awareness of: as epistemological basis of shame, selfconsciousness, 135 the reduction: in Husserl, 47 the whole truth: as only an ideal, 162 theories of truth or validity: coherence, 93; consequential; correspondence, 93; general, 93; pragmatic, 93 theories of truth or validity, general: need for a more integrative one, 104 theories of validity, for psychotherapy field: some convergence of, 166 theories, psychological; classification of, 297. See also psychological theories theory: as a portion of one's philosophy, 8; as ever-present, 8; as needing to be acknowledged, 8; as underlying assumptions, 27; denial of in DSM, as naive, 334; importance of acknowledging, 346; in biological psychiatry, 334; psychological, 5

Index 415 theory and practice: dialogue between, 348; interplay of, 348 theory of gravity: Einstein's, 202 theory of relativity: as paradigm shifting, 202; general theory, 202; special theory, 201 theory of validity, for psychotherapy field, values consistency among many perspectives, 168 theory of validity, phenomenological: as not fully available, 114; as rudimentary, 114 therapist: co-constituting role of, 125 things: as lacking anticipation, 183; as non-caring beings, 182 things-in-themselves, 269 'Thought': classical category of MSE, 279 thought, as creating emotion: in Burns, 327 thrown projecter, man as, 196 thrown projection: and temporality, 86 time and space, notions of: Einstein's, 201; in physics, 200; Newton's, 201 time and space, theories of: Newtonian vs Einsteinian, 55 time, notions of: in existential philosophy, 196; Newtonian, 196 to the things themselves: in Husserl, 47 'to thine own self be true,' dictum: in Hamlet, 275 transcendentalism: and bad faith, 268 transference, 310, 339; and Cartesian s R o separateness, 228; as a displacement, 230; as a misnomer, 231; as inappropriate repetition,

228; as new edition of old relationship, 230; atomism in classical concept of, 228; in Freud, 227; in Greenson, 228; in psychoanalysis, 121; inadequacy of traditional concept of, 348; more future-oriented view of, 231; nothing transferred in, 230 transference and counter-transference: 227-38; as a blending in new model, 144; as if they could stand alone, 222; as problematic philosophically, 227; as purple zone phenomena, 144; in L.G. case, 241; in psychoanalytic theory, 227 transference, classical conception of: and temporality, 230; as consequence of dichotomous epistemology, 232; as mechanistic, 229; as objectivist, 232; as philosophically outdated, 242; conceptual confusion in, 230; energetics as suspect in, 229 transference, in psychotherapy: as interactional, 339; as purple zone phenomenon, 339 transference-counter-transference blendings, 339 transference-counter-transference complex, 234; and constructed truths in, 321; and co-transference, 223; as needing new interactional terms for, 236 transferences: as underlying assumptions, 27 transferential vs real: as inappropriate disjunction, 232 transfer-ing: as magical, 232 transitional object, 310; as between subjectivity and objectivity, 310

416

Index

transitional phenomena, 310 trauma, emotional: as imaginative horizon constricting, 231 treating the numbers: as validity problem, 109 treatment, course of: early in J.T. case, 286; later in J.T. case, 289 treatment, pharmacological, 335 truth: absolute, 23; as accessible, 66; as co-constituted, 90; as non-static, evolving, 100; as object-ive, 66; conceptions of, 338; historical, 322; objective, 313 truth, emergent properties of: and hermeneutic approach, 150 truth, locus of, 313; as either from object-side or subject-side, 65; in intersubjectivity theory, 317. See also locus of truth truth, search for: as more than right method-choice, 99 truth, types of: narrative vs historical, 66 truths: as a plurality, 320; as constructed, 320 truths and goods: as all relative, 28 truths, in psychotherapy situation: as co-constituted, 135 truths, of human experience: as always interactional, 69, 70; as complex, but irreducible, 164; as contextualized, 149; as emergent, 70; as limited and incomplete, 70; as never completely objective, 73; as never completely subjective, 73; as problematic for both objectivism and relativism, 164; as situated, 73; components of, as inseparable, 70; in Beams-ofLight-through-Time model, 154

truths, types of and levels of: and pragmatics, 161 truth-value: assigning, 92 unbiased view: as impossible, 76 uncertainty principle: Heisenberg's, 98 unconscious: two senses of in Freud, 252 unconscious drives: as only indirectly known, 122; in psychoanalysis, 121; philosophical assumptions in conceptualization of, 122 unconscious, philosophical. See philosophical unconscious unconscious, the: as container of mental contents, 252; as reification, 252; as thinglike, 252; atomistic view of, 252; noun vs adjective forms, 252; vs unconsciousness, 252 unconsciousness: all-or-none view of, 253; and levels of awareness, 252; degrees of, 255 underpinnings, philosophical: of psychological theories, 5 understanding: and hermeneutics, 72; as evolving, 98; as goal of psychotherapy, 338; as progressive, 268; degrees of, 72; gains in possible, without certainty, 114; in angry man case, 247; in psychotherapy, 349 understanding and interpreting: affective dimension to, 87; in construction of phenomena, 87 units: in object relations theory, 308 unyieldingness: as quality of the world, 185

Index 417 validation criteria, 93,274; hermeneutic, coherence, pragmatic, 337; in behaviourism, 325; multiple sources of, 165; must accommodate complexity, 165; non-dualistic ones, 337 validation criteria, for psychotherapy phenomena: as needing integrated approach, 167 validation criteria, pragmatic: practical utility as a judgment, 167; tautology in 'what works is true/ 167 validity: and 'how do we know' questions, 92; as epistemology, 92; as possible, 71,273; degrees of, 113 validity, general: and assigning truthvalue, 92; level D, 92 values: as ever-present, 17 Van den Berg, J.H., 265, 301 verification, empirical: in Freud, 302 voluntarism: and relativism, 85; as not necessary, 278; as untenable, 85 von Broembsen, Francesca, 277; on authenticity, 277 Wallace, Edwin, IV, 70 weight loss: as depression symptom, 109

Weltanschauung. See On the Question of Weltanschauung whole: as greater than sum of parts, 155 wide coherence theory: as replacement for matching with ideal object, 167 Winnicott, D.W., 277, 309 Wittgenstein, Ludwig, 43, 111; and language games, 111 world: as equipment context, 86 world in common: as emergent in encounter, 242 world, external: as illusion, 66; as partially independent, 60 Yalom, Irvin, 265 zone x: and Being-with-Others, 140; and presence of the Other, 140; as portion of purple zone, 226; as zone of encounter, 226 zone y: as defining general epistemological horizons of the therapy, 141; as portion of the purple zone, 141, 225 zone z: as portion of purple zone, 225; as unseen portion of the purple zone, 142