It’s not in the bottle: research, ethics & psychotherapy

Abstract

Today, professions and disciplines of all kinds fall over themselves to present their claims as being ‘evidence-based’ in order to garner for themselves the kudos of being a positivist science. In this paperI will critique attempts made by the ‘psy’ disciplines’ (psychiatry, psychology and psychotherapy) to use positivism to enter the citadel of science. Amongst other things, I will argue that their efforts have resulted in the corruption and distortion of the principles of (positivist) science. I will argue that positivist methodologies are unable, even in principle, to capture the intricacies of human exchange; in lieu of positivism, notions of emergence and complex responsive processes are more appropriate. Additionally, the argument will also raise questions about the idea of science itself, and claim that much of what passes for science in this territory is a distortion of reality rather than a description of it.