PRESENTATION FOR THE INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE OF CRITICAL PSYCHOLOGY – UNIVERSITY OF BATH – 31st OF AUGUST, 2003. PAPER.
I apologise for my engagement with heavy information
on Sunday morning. This presentation
was originally meant to be given on Thursday morning. It has been a very exhausting conference and we had a gala dinner
last night. I understand perfectly if
you choose to fall asleep. I would have
done it myself, in fact. So what I
suggest is that you snooze, glance at my slides a bit and try to pick up a few
key words that I shall stress and wake you up for.
Then, you are most welcome to email me if you wish
and we’ll create an interaction through the Internet. I would like very much to have your comments, reflections and any
suggestions that you feel may be helpful.
I am merely giving you a feel of my work. I have long papers explaining
my position and the actual methodology and are an elaboration of this short one
and I’ll be more than happy to share them with you. I am currently in the process of creating an URL address for my
work and will be happy to give it to you.
In
this room on Friday, it was suggested that humanism is dead
Now, I have two comments that I’d like to argue very
strongly
1.
If
it is indeed the case then my paper wishes to put the case for its resurrection
so as to base empirical psychology on it.
2.
Much
like the little child in Hans Christian Andersen’s tale of the emperor’s new
suit who yelled that the emperor is naked, I wish to yell that social
constructionism is problematic, that I have reservations and that I wish to put
forward a post-positivistic alternative to it.
Having said that, I can now start my paper.
I. This is the subject of my paper and I think I
deserve an award for the conference’s longest title. [Showing slide and reading it to audience]
“Self-Reflexive, Self-Narrative, Self-Constructive,
Individualistic Living Accounts As Post-positivistic Heuristic Tools for the
Questions of the Human Subject and the Human Existence in the World.”
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In
this paper I shall talk about a more holistic version of psychology, one which
would begin with an integrated model of human existence rather than seeking to
compose the whole from the parts.
II. [Showing second slide - “My
Conception of the Human Subject and Human Existence”].
This proposed model in the social sciences studies
the human subject as a whole, unique,
dynamic, passionate, constantly progressing, self-reflecting and self-creating
individual Being-in-the-world as a total unit in the world.
The individum finds himself/herself in the world,
existing, living, emerging, conscious, conscious of his/her consciousness. The human existence was immersed and launched
upon him/her. It is simply there (Da
sein, there being) [I quote and mention Heidegger (1927)] and there is no need to analyse and scrutinise it
further.
Once we find ourselves, we seek a manner to play the
game of living and existing in the world to the best of our capability.
The game of life is universal. The rules of this game, I believe, are the
establishment of the enhancement of our selves, self-actualisation,
empowerment, happiness and peace of mind.
This is the end, the objectives. The means of reaching the end and actually
playing the game is personal, unique, individualistic and very much dynamic and
constantly changing and reformulating in accordance with our interrelation with
the external world (illustrated by the Gibsons’ work of ecological psychology
which highlights a reciprocal engagement between the perceiver and the world in
which he/she is found), the internal world (shown to us in Laing’s clinical
work into the self) and in between the two worlds. And thus the game varies
and redefines itself in a continuous fashion until death (as shown in Sartre’s
Huis Clos/No Exit), where a static, permanent nothingness will be launched upon
us and put an ending to it all.
Each of us devises his/her own manner of playing the game in accordance
with the game’s rules I have just mentioned.
The social others of the game player should not tailor and accommodate
the life and existence of the given human subject in accordance with their
rigid, convenient, already-devised theories and models nor with their own values, judgements, moralities, principles, analysis, conceptions, reflections and
concepts.
We, as human beings, should strive to understand, accept
and support phenomenologically each others' unique manner of playing the game,
possibly to learn from it, advise if asked to give advice (making it clear that
it is derived from our own personal and different inner world and way of
playing the game, namely our own interrelationships with the external and
internal world, that is with ourselves and with others).
Based
upon this conception of the human subject and his/her existence, I have
undertaken an historical and theoretical/philosophical examination into the
origins of the discipline of empirical psychology, how it started, where it has
gone and what it has become from its founding right through to contemporary
empirical psychology models.
In
particular, I wanted to analyse how the different models in empirical
psychology have conceived the human subject and to compare their conception
with mine.
III.
[showing third slide; “Problems With Existing, Mainstream Psychology (Serper,
1999]”.
My
principal argument was that the historic inclination (prescribed by radical
positivism) to affiliate empirical psychology with the natural sciences which
can be reduced to mathematical quantities (in line with Comte’s positivism)
tends to alienate the human subject from real-life situations and interactions,
to reduce, automatise and mechanise the human agent and to be subject to
scientific bias, inauthenticity and scholasticism.
At
the same time, radical post-positivistic social constructionism tends to absorb
and ‘swallow’ the individual, holistic, autonomous, self-constructing,
self-defining, condemned to free will unique human agent in the contextual, the
communal, the verbal discourse, the deterministic, the historical and the
social.
It
does not devote itself to him/her as such, namely as a human subject that can
transcend the contextual, cultural, historical, verbal discourse and social and even
himself/herself and his/her own existence.
The
models’ system in psychology is devoted to social and cognitive elements and
processes, behaviours, actions, verbal discourses, conscious experiences,
social interactions etc., rather than to the human subject as a total unit in
the world.
Furthermore,
the distinction between the self and the other, the ‘I’, the ‘You’, the ‘Us’
and the ‘they’ has become blurred.
IV. [Showing
fourth slide – “Solution; Alternative Heuristic Tools”].
As an alternative heuristic tool in
empirical psychology for the study of the human subject and his existence in
the world, I
suggest something along the lines of the living educational action theory, a
self-reflexive type of narrative, autobiographical living account.
This method was proposed by the educationalists Jack
Whitehead, Pamela Lomax and Jean McNiff as a method of improving themselves and
their roles as educationalists. It called upon the teacher to examine and
reflect upon his/her work, values, successes and failures in relation to
his/her pedagogic objectives, namely what he/she strives to achieve as an
educationalist.
I call for a version of psychology in
which each given individum continuously constructs and reconstructs his/her own
manner of existing in the world, that is his/her way of playing the game of
existing and living.
He/she will study his own existence in
the world, continuously reflecting and dereflecting upon it, learning from
mistakes and weaknesses, enhancing and replicating strengths.
[The following paragraph is the most important one of my paper
and as I said, if you are asleep then maybe you could wake up just for this
paragraph. There is a key word that I
like to stress very strongly].
This method stems from the need to show [this
is the keyword of the paper] firsthand
what it is to be/become a human subject existing and emerging in the world,
interrelating with the inner and the outer world, to structure and study her
existence in the world.
The
aim is to produce an account of how one has become who/what he/she is, for
others to engage with whilst interrelating with their own similar
accounts.
Each
experiencing subject should convey and analyse his own experiences of living in
the world as he/she perceives them to be from his/her own consciousness, both
at the specific moment of time and context in which the experiences were
perceived and at a later stage reflecting and dereflecting upon them.
Consciousness
is a personal, subjective and flowing process.
In his ninth chapter of the Principles of Psychology, called “stream of
thought”, William James described it as “personal”, “in constant change” and
“continuous”.
All
the other human beings who come across this given account should merely
receive, engage and absorb it as it is, already analysed and reflected
upon. They are not to interfere in the
actual analysis of the given account according to models and theories but
rather to accept those accounts as they are and to compare them with their own
and others’ accounts.
Individuals
are to communicate and interrelate with others’ accounts through their own
accounts, distinguishing between the ‘I’, ‘You’, ‘He/She’, ‘They’ and ’Us’ and
accepting the fact that each account will be different, unique and personal.
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V.
Illustrative case study
Let
me demonstrate what I mean, how this type of psychology works. I’d like to show
an Illustrative case study;
[showing the fifth slide ;
self-reflexive account
five – “Illustration; Case-Study- Self-Reflexive Accounts”].
This
is an extract from a long 1100 words self-reflexive account sent to an email
forum.
"Empowering self through
action rather than compliance to no action"
“I am in the middle of a big change. It is not easier now.
But I feel alive! And feeling alive means, feeling pain, also.
I have to remind myself daily, that this is worth it.
I fall on my face a lot, and it hurts.
But I am able to get up, shake it off, come out stronger.
I am still afraid of a lot of things. But I won’t allow this to
stop me.
Amazing, fear can make you feel like dying. But you don't.
Yes, I get scared easily, but I am not a coward.
I might hesitate, but than I jump.
Of course I could sit here and think of all the things, I could,
would and should do. And keep thinking,
I might do them, if ............ the time is right.
But is it ever right? You can always find an excuse, if looking
for one.
Waiting for the perfect time? It is now [I should like to stress these three words]!
There
might never be a perfectly right time, therefore is never wrong, either.
It
shows the dilemmas in and of the living process, the self-reflexive and
passionate characteristics of the human subject in his existing and becoming
and the dynamism and temporal dimension of the human existence in the world.
As
you can see, the living, account giver even uses words like ‘the time’ and ‘It
is now’ to emphasise the temporal and dynamic dimensions of her account. Living (and its account) is shown in this
extract as a very dynamic, moving and flowing and constantly changing process.
I’d
like to accompany this account with a reply to it based on a self-reflexive
living account of the replier and his existence in the world. [showing the sixth slide ; Reply to the
Self-Reflexive Account].
I
have chosen a short extract from the very long reply. I think this is the culmination of both the account and the
interaction between the two holistic living accounts.
Reply to the Self-Reflexive Account
“I am also a suffering (passionas) individual with painful
and bloody wounds. I am also confused,
passionate, rational/irrational, feel and experience, conscious of my
consciousness (Sartre). I relate and
engage. I interrelate. I feel less alone, less lonely when I read
this account. I feel we can understand each other and
interrelate to each other.”
The
respondent identifies common/shared characteristics between the two accounts,
namely his account of his Being-in-the-world and the original, given
account. Still, I think, as a whole,
his account is different. It is more
academic, distant and cold. The
respondent even uses academic references and Latin words (namely, Sartre and
passionnas).
As
it can be observed from this illustration, the result of this heuristic tool
will be a more authentic, true and thus valid holistic account of what occurs
inside the inner world of the human subject in the external, tempo-spatial
world.
We
will end up with numerous parallel, independent holistic accounts, varied and
different, and amounting to the number of individuals existing on the planet
earth.
We
will look for and examine communalities, common and shared qualities by virtue
of all of us being human beings and sharing humanity, and differences and
distinguished features due to our being whole, autonomous and unique individual
beings in the world with different stories and manners of engaging and
interrelating with the world, both the inner and outer world.
Once
this is achieved, it is feasible to explore the possibility for establishing,
improving and attaining a better, more enhanced, more fulfilled human existence
in the world and a more empowered, actualised and happier human subject,
individual being in the world.
And
then a more fulfilled, tolerable and accepting community of individual beings
in the world who will be truly aware of themselves and through themselves of
others and the question of the human subject in the world.
VI.
To conclude the paper, I’d like to show a quote that
I think summarises very neatly the self-reflective and self-analytic
methodology of the holistic study of both the human subject and human existence
in the world as I conceive them to be.
[Seventh slide, a quote from R. D. Laing; The
Bird of Paradise].
“The Life I am trying to
grasp is the me that is trying to grasp it”.
(R. D. Laing (1967); The Bird of Paradise; p. 156).]
The human subject shouts at the top of his voice “I
am life. I am my existence. It is me.
I am trying to figure myself out”.
Please understand, accept and support me. And may I add, the human subject and his/her existence in the
world is the only thing that is there, the sole entity.
Discussion;
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Emperor’s New Suit.
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