Yesterday I had an interesting talk with Professor Richard Bartle. This talk made me think a lot about what I know about psychology and how people around the world see psychology.
For my fellow psychologists from the UdeA there is no doubt about the plural nature of psychology. It has been an ongoing debate in the academic environment of the university since I have memory. For me (or us) it is quite normal to accept that Psychology is not only one, therefore psychology is not a science but a discipline. It is also not arbitrary to refer to it as them: 'The psychologies'.
And it turns out that psychology is not only one, there are different branches, with different theoretical foundations, different methods and objects of study, and different goals. This creates an whole bunch of ontological, teleological, and epistemological problems to begin with.
But the more I read papers in psychology and the more I am in the international academic environment, it turns out that psychology, at the eye of psychologists is seen as: (a) a science, and (b) a whole and somehow finished field of study. And of course, due to my critical nature, I can partially agree with some of these points.
I am actually thinking on writing a paper about these reflections, which take into consideration the latest criticism to psychology for its non-replicable findings, as well as old, current, and new perspectives in psychological studies. Because the way I see the psychological discipline right now, it is quite bias. And more than that, it has lost its teleology. We are a Social Science, but it looks more like we are trying to find the Higgs boson within a letters’ soup than really trying to understand the humans and the society.
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