F.Wertz The role of the humanistic movement in the history of psychology Pt.1

THE ROLE OF THE HUMANISTIC MOVEMENT IN THE HISTORY OF PSYCHOLOGY
Frederick J. Wertz

This article first appeared in the Journal of Humanistic Psychology, Vol.38 No.1, Winter 1998 42-70

SUMMARY

HISTORY OF PSYCHOLOGY TEXTBOOKS
Content
Precursors
Zeitgeist.
Institutionalization.
Completeness of characterization.
Evaluation.

PROGRESS UNDER WAY
Unifying Principles of the Historical Tradition
Relevance of Philosophy for Modern Psychology
Explanatory construction & science.
Descriptive analysis.
Problems of explanation.
Understanding in psychology
Husserl's appropriation of Dilthey.

A RENEWED CRITICISM OF DOMINANT APPROACHES TO PSYCHOLOGY
Cognitive Psychology
Psychoanalysis
Unity in Psychology
The Third Force
The entire field of psychology.
Methodology
Scope
Institutionalization
Relation to the Humanities
Zeitgeist and Social Reform

CONCLUSION

REFERENCES

Frederick J. Wertz

Summary
A review of history of psychology textbooks shows that humanistic psychology is in crisis. Although well understood and respected by some, it is inadequately understood and dismissed by many The value of the movement is shown to hinge on whether it faithfully embodies the historical tradition of humanism, provides an appropriate philosophical foundation for psychology, asserts relevant critiques of contemporary psychology; affords the discipline theoretical unity, offers rigorous research methodologies, bridges the gap between psychology and the humanities, and assumes leadership in socially reforming the depersonalizing tendencies of modern culture. It is argued that the best work in humanistic psychology has achieved these virtues, and that the major criticisms of the movement do not apply to this work. The contemporary crisis is attributed to sociological factors-inadequate institutional establishments necessary to gain historical impact.

When humanistic psychology emerged in the middle of the 20th century; psychology was dominated by behaviorism and psycho-analysis. As this century draws near its end, the historical picture of psychology is significantly different. Although behaviorism has been replaced by the now dominant cognitive psychology in the academy and cognitive behaviorism in the clinic, humanistic psychology and psychoanalysis have been developing, and other alternative approaches, such as constructivist psychology, have asserted themselves. Most historians now broadly characterize psychology as pluralistic. How successful has humanistic psychology been in its impact on psychology over its first two generations? What is its position and critical relationship to this new plurality in psychology? What are the future directions for humanistic psychology? This article will explore these questions in the context of the present historical situation.

To address the nature and the extent of the impact of humanistic psychology on psychology and United States culture, I will summarize my study of how the humanistic movement has been represented and evaluated in textbooks on the history of psychology (Wertz, 1992). This survey suggests a number of important problems and tasks for humanistic psychologists. Then, I will turn to humanistic psychologists for solutions to some of these problems. I argue that the past accomplishments of humanistic psychologists are of tremendous relevance to contemporary psychology and suggest ways in which the movement may enhance its impact in the future.

HISTORY OF PSYCHOLOGY TEXTBOOKS

I reviewed 24 textbooks on the history of psychology, including 6 that I have followed into second editions. Most of the textbooks published since the late 1970s contain coverage of the Third Force movement. The coverage ranges in form from whole chapters (as much as 42 pages) (Hillner, 1984), to small sections (as little as 2 pages) (Watson, 1978). It is fair to say that the amount of coverage corresponds to the author's view of the movement's importance.

Content
The content of coverage is as variable as the amount.

Precursors.
Some texts omit any historical treatment of humanism or of the precursors of the movement and imply that the movement began in Amenean psychology Other texts cite a host of antecedents, including the early Greeks; Italian renaissance thinkers, Vico, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Windelband, Dilthey, Husseri, Heidegger, Sartre, Merleau-Ponty; Tillich, Buber, Adler, AIlport, Horney, Stumpf, Kulpe, James, Binswanger, Boss, David Katz, Goldstein, van Kaam, Franki, Buhler, MacCleod, May, Child, Snygg and Combs, Fromm, Erikson, and William Stern. It is difficult to decipher why a particular text cites a particular precursor. Those who present the premoderns tend to be the most favorable to the movement, and those who fail to present the modern philosophical influences tend to be the most unfavorable. The most important problems suggested by this are, first, the need to recognize the long historical tradition of which the movement is a part; second, to discern the basic principles of this movement so as to make explicit its unity and to derive principles of inclusion; and finally, to consistently carry forward the essence of this tradition.

Zeitgeist.
Some historians (e.g., Leahey, 1987; Schultz & Schultz, 1987) trace the movement to the social zeitgeist of the 1960s, the protest against the status quo of mechanization, dehumanization, bureaucratization, deindividualization, powerlessness, and phoniness of humankind. Few of these historians emphasize the innovation and promotion ofvalues, policies, and practices that facilitate human dignity; freedom, power; individuality, and honesty in this context. It is interesting that those historians who emphasize this zeitgeist's connection with the movement offer the darkest picture of its status. For instance, Leahey (1987) discredits humanistic psychology in a parallel with the hippie movement. This suggests the need to clarify the movement's present sociopolitical position and agenda. Clearly, humanistic psychology emerged with a definite role in the process of sociohistorical change, and the focus of this dimension of the movement may now need to be reviewed and renewed

Institutionalization.
There is not much stress in these texts on institutionalization, perhaps due to its scarcity. The Association for Humanistic Psychology, the Journal of Humanistic Psychology, and the American Psychological Association's (APAs) Division of Humanistic Psychology (32) are sometimes mentioned, and even less frequently other related journals and educational programs. The lack of institutionalization is sometimes attributed to the movement's predominant practitioner constituency. The problem here is the establishment of forums for the development, expression, and especially teaching of humanistic psychology, which, as they now stand, may not provide for future generations of humanistic psychologists.

Completeness of characterization.
The textbooks that I would call grossly incomplete (e.g., Murray, 1983) tend to reduce the movement to prescientific attitudes (such as emphasizing the good in people) and therapeutic practices (such as those used by Rogers, Perls, or Ellis). More complete texts (e.g., Leahey, 1987; Schultz & Schultz, 1987; Stagner, 1988) give expositions of key figures, always including and often limited to Maslow and Rogers, critiques of mainstream psychology, and general theoretical principles (e.g., freedom, holism) of the movement. The two texts with substantially reduced coverage m the latest edition (Marx & Gronan-Hillix, 1987; Watson & Evans, 1991) are of this type. Most texts (e.g., Brennan, 1982; Hergenhahn, 1986, 1992; Hilgard, 1987; Hillner, 1984; Kendler, 1987; Murphy & Kovach, 1972) attempt to go beyond the work of Rogers and Maslow, as well as the enumeration of particular theoretical postulates, to integrate the diverse strands of phenomenology, existentialism, and humanism with an emphasis on the nature of science, philosophical underpinnings of psychology; and methodological issues. These authors often struggle with the problem of whom to include in the movement, for instance in the cases of Milport and Kelly The texts with expanded coverage in the most recent edition (Brennan, 1991; Hergenhalin, 1992) are of this type, and expansion is chiefly in the area of philosophical foundations.

What is clear from this is the danger of an emphasis on therapeutic practices, even theoretical pioneers and principles, without focal attention to philosophical, metascientific, and methodological principles. The task is to articulate these latter principles in a manner that puts therapeutic practice and particular theoreticians and their postulates into a more comprehensive perspective.

Evaluation.
There is considerable discrepancy concerning the value, present status, and future contribution of the movement. To some authors, the Third Force is a thing of 'the past with very limited impact and value (Leahey; 1987; Stagner; 1988; Wertheimer, 1987). Others give the movement a mixed review, ranging from mostly negative (Brennan, 1982, 1991; Murray; 1983; Schultz & Schultz, 1987) to viewing the movement as a positive approach with continuing value in a pluralistic field of orientations (Hilgard, 1987; HilIner, 1984;). There are some texts that, despite criticisms, view the movement's achievements as historically significant and see a continuing potential to revolutionize psychology as a whole in a legitimate and valuable way (Hergenhahn, 1992; Kendler, 1987).

The following are among the recognized positive contributions: the introduction into modern psychology of a relevant historical tradition, important social criticism and progressive reform, valid criticism of dominant trends in mainstream psychology, new psychotherapeutic orientations and procedures, new topics for research (change, growth, health, self-perception, locus of control, self-disclosure, values, creativity; love, death), methods and methodology tailored for research on humans, phenomenological knowledge, theoretical principles (e.g., meaning, freedom, intentionality, self-actualization), integration of traditional research and theories within a more comprehensive framework, a sophisticated philosophy of science and metapsychology, and a fruitful dialog with the humanities.

The negative evaluations included the following: The movement is more a common sense attitude of valuing and respecting people, often amounting to sappy sentimentality, than a scientific discipline. The movement's protests outweigh its positive contributions. The critiques of mainstream psychology are now outdated and no longer apply. The movement has had more impact on psychotherapeutic practice than on the explanation of behavior. The movement is vague in its objectives, fragmented in its achievements, and contains no discernible principles of unity. Rigorous research methods have been lacking. The introduction of new topics, which should be and have been studied in traditional ways, does not revolutionize psychology. The topics of mainstream psychology have not been researched. The theories have not been defined and tested sufficiently according to scientific standards. The promise to interrelate psychology with the humanities has not been full-filled. Many of these problems are attributed to the movement's large proportion of practitioners, as opposed to researchers, and its failure to establish a place for itself in academic institutions.

An overall positive evaluation of the movement occurs when it is seen as (a) an authentic recovery and extension of early Greek, Renaissance, and Romantic thought; (b) a heterogeneous and yet essentially unified group including, beyond Rogers and Maslow, existential and phenomenological psychologists; (c) rooted in a sophisticated alternative philosophy and theory of science, (d) offering a rigorous, original research methodology aimed at the distinctive characteristics of human subject matter. This suggests the need to promote and emphasize these four dimensions of the movement that the critics seem to have missed.

Conclusions
Treatment of the movement in history of psychology texts is very uneven. The movement is grasped in only a small way by some historians. Although others have attempted an admirably comprehensive treatment, inconsistencies among various texts prevail. This is to some extent the fault of the historians, but it also reflects the failure of humanistic psychologists to make their movement, in its full complexity, known. These history texts suggest that the movement is now in a state of crisis, at worst fading from view and at best a difficult and problematic alternative psychology awaiting a secure future place.

However valuable and significant, contributions in the clinical domain are insufficient to support the movement and must be at least strongly supplemented by work in other areas. A treatment of all content areas of psychology is necessary; including a critical dialog between humanistic and mainstream psychology on common topics. This dialog must include radical reflections on what constitutes psychological subject matter proper, including its relationships with the subject matter of other related fields such as neuroscience and sociology. A rigorous methodology must be articulated in conjunction with carefully conceived philosophical foundations. The question of the meaning of science with reference to human subject matter must have a loud and clear answer. This work will lead to more definitive answers to the question of what principles unify the movement, who are the genuine precursors and contributors to the movement: Humanistic psychology must thereby become more self critical. This naturally leads into the question of the movement's relationship to other approaches to psychology and the question of the unity and diversity of psychology at large Humanistic psychology must certainly assume a leadership role in a more satisfing dialog with the humanities. The issue of values and the relationship of psychology to society and culture must be revisited. Last but not least is the task of institutionalization and the training of future psychologists, for instance, humanistic education/training models and guidelines for psychotherapy that are widely disseminated and supported by professional organizations and regulating governmental agencies.

These tasks are likely to seem overwhelming. It might be some consolation to realize that, as several historians have recognized, the crisis of the humanistic movement is the central crisis of psychology itself (with the exception of the problem of institutionalization). Mainstream psychology is itself limited in scope, fraught with methodological dilemmas, unclear about philosophical commitments, fragmented and ambiguously boundaried, more successful in practice than in theory not foundationally self-critical, unsatisfiing in its relationship with the humanities, and profoundly challenged by ethical and societal problems. A humanistic response to these dilemmas would bring the movement beyond being merely one alternative in the context of psychology's plurality for it would provide a sound basis for a comprehensive human psychology

PROGRESS UNDER WAY
A second consolation may be found in the valuable work already done and still under way on these difficult and fundamental problems.

Unifying Principles of the Historical Tradition
Davidson (1992) has drawn on Bullock (1985) to distinguish the common denominator of humanistic thought throughout history and to answer the question of whether humanistic psychology is consistent with this tradition, because the name was selected from several options without any explicit aim of reviving the historical tradition of humanism (Greening, 1985; Sutich, 1962). According to Bullock (1985), the constant conceptual cornerstones of humanism are threefold. First, human beings are ontologically and epistemologically irreducible. This means that knowledge claims cannot be derived, methodologically or theoretically, from theology or the physical sciences, and that distinctively human phenomena, such as creativity and love, are stressed. Second, the freedom and dignity of the person are respected and made foundational in considerations of values and rights. Third, abstract principles are distrusted and replaced with the historical study of concrete human experience and symbolic expression in social and cultural contexts, which contain many different truths and therefore prohibit dogmatism. Davidson convincingly argues that humanistic psychology is unified in accordance with these convictions.

Relevance of Philosophy for Modern Psychology
Continental philosophers have done extensive work in articulating humanistic principles within the context of modern science and particularly the formation of psychological science. Husserl's (1925/1977, 1954) contention that, to be genuine and truly scientific, a discipline's fundamental methods and concepts must follow from the nature of its subject matter, had already been applied to psychology by Wilhelm Dilthey.

The crux of Dilthey's (1894/1977) insight is that differences between the subject matter of human science and natural science call for different methods and conceptual orientations. By this, he did not mean merely that humans are rational and/or free, whereas physical and vital entities are not. Rather, he noted that although physical phenomena are external to the investigator's experience and separate from each other, psychological life is internal to the scientist's experience, and its parts are inextricably interrelated and mutually implicated. For instance, whereas connectedness must be imputed to sensory stimuli, lived experiences themselves are already given in their unity. Because physical phenomena and their laws of interconnection are not directly given, they must be explained by constructed models, theoretically derived hypotheses, and experiments revealing functional relationships among isolated factors. Human phenomena, because they are immediately given to knowledge and internally related to each other, need not be hypothesized but are to be described and understood in the meaningful interconnections.

Explanatory construction & science.
Duthey (18941~77) distinguished two major orientations within psychology The one that had dominated the discipline, Dilthey called explanatory or "more exactly, constructive" psychology This approach, borrowed from the physical sciences, attempts to construct a hypothetical system including a limited number of unambiguous and exactly determined elements and universal laws or principles governing their connections, combination, and ultimate organization. Predictions about functional relationships among variables are then subjected to verification tests that allow inferences supporting the hypotheses' generality The postulated elements of the system, their combination, the principles and processes governing their interconnections and organization, and the predictions of functional relationships are all hypothetical constructions.

In Dilthey's (189411977) view, this approach is required of physical sciences by virtue of their phenomena's externality to experience and the relative independence, isolation, and mutual exclusivity of the phenomena's various parts. That is, because elements occur in mere juxtaposition and succession, their connections, interrelations, and functions within the whole of physical reality are not and cannot be given directly to observation; they must be hypothesized and the correctness of the hypotheses inferred.

Descriptive analysis.
Dilthey (189411977) thought it was a fundamental mistake to make the above approach primary, let alone exclusive, in psychology; because the constituents of the psychological order as well as their interconnections and organization are given as a real continuum internal to mental life itself:

"Psychology... has no need of basing itself on the concepts yielded from inferences in order to establish a coherent whole" (p.28) because "the experienced whole is primary here" (p.29). The nexus and intelligibility of phenomena are concretely lived and are available to reflection directly (p.35). For instance, whereas connected-ness must be imputed to sensory stimuli, lived experiences themselves are already given in their unity. "It follows from this that the methods by which we study psychic life, history, and society are different from those which have led to the knowledge of nature28). In his famous dictum, Dilthey said, "We explain nature, we understand psychic life" (p.27).

Problems of explanation.
For Dilthey (1894/1977), one of the difficulties intrinsic to the explanatory approach to psychology is that it is never possible to say that its theoretical constructs are any more than hypothetical. The calculation of probable certainty, as embodied in a statistical test of "significance," may be infallible, but the inductive inference that it authorizes, that the hypothesis is true of people, lacks apodicticity. Also, there are always alternative hypotheses that can account for empirical results, and there are alternative theories from which empirical realities can be deduced. The "struggle of hypotheses" is therefore endless, and their number constantly grows. Exclusively explanatory psychology leads to skepticism, superficiality, sterile empiricism, and an increasing separation of knowledge from life. 'That whatever extent explanatory knowledge approaches truth, it borrows concepts from description and analysis, but the partialness of these contents, lacking a descriptive framework, never surmount their characteristic incompleteness. In summary, the limits of explanatory knowledge are the following: certainty is only probabilistic, alternative explanations cannot ever be eliminated, first questions concerning the nature of the phenomena cannot be resolved in a convincing manner, and knowledge remains incomplete without being able to complete itself.

Understanding in psychology
Some of the general characteristics of psychic life found by Dilthey (1894/1977) in such analyses are its structural unity, teleological development, the influence of acquired links within the whole of every single act of consciousness, the centrality of motivation and feelings, a reciprocality and efficacy with the external world, and that members of the variety of constituents (e.g., representations and feelings) cannot be reducible to each other or be derived from each other, although they are always involved in intrinsic interconnections. Descriptive knowledge such as this is indubitable, and objections to this certainty rest on the transference of doubt proper only to the experience of external physical objects.

Husserl's appropriation of Dilthey
Husserl (1925/1977) points out that psychology has not made progress on par with the natural sciences because it has succumbed to the temptation of naturalism without ever considering the demands its unique, human phenomena make on its methods and concepts. Because physical nature lies transcendent to experience, which provides only partial views, experiential appearances of the physical order must be subordinated to an inferred totality Psychological life, however, does not lie outside experience, and so it need not be inferred; for Husserl, even "the unconscious" can be brought forth with direct evidence through careful intentional analyses. Unlike physical things, mental life contains no independent elements but different moments mutually implicating each other in the whole. "Internal experience gives no mere mutual exteriority; it shows no separation of parts consisting of self-sufficient elements. It knows only internally interwoven states, interwoven in the unity of one all-inclusive nexus" (Husserl, 1925/1977, pp.4-5). Perceptions, recollections, feelings, and willings pass over into one another and proceed forth from one another as one nexus, therefore intertwining as moments of one continuing process rather than separable elements. The great task is to systematically describe this process with concepts uniquely suited to it.

Husserl (192511977) developed the position of his mentor, Franz Brentano, that the major characteristic of mental life that is available to direct experience and description and that provides its essential distinction from the physical sphere is intentionality. That is, usual, everyday consciousness is a consciousness of "objects," that is, that mental life transcends itself and consists of an involvement in the world. The meaning of personal situations, as given in and through experience, becomes the proper subject matter of psychology This makes mental life not merely another object in the world that is subject to influences of other things in the world but attributes to it an essential spontaneity and freedom that has been elaborated by Sartre (1943/1956). Merleau-Ponty (1942/1963) distinguishes the human order from the physical and vital orders by the human being's power to create its own milieu. These philosophical developments have made it possible to constructively criticize and reformulate the meaning of "science" in the discipline of psychology (Wertz, 1994b).

A RENEWED CRITICISM OF DOMINANT APPROACHES TO PSYCHOLOGY
Do these foundational contentions, which led to criticisms of behaviorism and psychoanalysis in the first half of the 20th century; still suggest a need for revolution in psychology as it approaches the 21st century?

Cognitive Psychology
Humanistic psychologists share a number of positive convictions with cognitive psychologists. These include the view that the behaviorists' rejection of mental life from psychological thought and the restriction of subject matter to observable behavior is unnecessary and deleterious to psychology Humanistic psychology; like cognitive psychology; accepts references to mental life and encourages the study of its full spectrum of manifestations as legitimate subject matter. Also, both do not view behavior as strictly stimulus determined and focus instead on perceived meaning as the basis of behavior. Furthermore, there is the conviction that human beings present a unique reality; irreducible to the order of animal behavior. There also follows the commitment to original concepts designed to address human beings in their uniqueness and thereby to constitute a "pure" psychology; which is only subsequently to be fruitfully related to neurophysiological science. In addition, there is a common openness to everyday life, including such ordinary language terms as meaning, purpose, and value, which are then subjected to rigorous clarification within a scientific framework. Positive methodological status is accorded to verbal description of psychological processes as well as self-observation. There is also a shared emphasis on the qualitative structure or organization of experience.

Phenomenological and more broadly humanistic critiques of cognitive psychology focus on the failure of the approach to faithfully capture the meanings of individuals' experience (Maim, 1993; Wertz, 1983). This failure stems most fundamentally from the discipline's scientistic approach, that is, proceeding as if reality can be truthfully known only by a hypothetico-deductive approach. Cognitive psychologists hold the conviction, carried over from behaviorism without any revolutionary rethought, that only behavior can be observed, arid mental life must be inferred. Cognitive ;psychology', rather than describing and reflecting on the psychological life of persons; then goes on to borrow concepts from computer science; communications science, and neuroscience, all of which refer either to physical or formal logico-mathematical systems where spontaneous personal expression is admitted, in the form of self-reflection and verbal reports, it is subordinated to generating or verifying these abstract explanatory concepts and carries little methodological status, ultimately rejected. as not satisfying the demands of scientific rigor imported from the physical sciences. The experimental method, which is considered the privileged way of accessing human psychological processes, is itself borrowed from the natural sciences, and its modus operandi in principle falls short of the meaningful structure of human life, which is necessary for an authentic psychology. Cognitive psychology lacks genuineness as a psychological science.

Husserl, as Dilthey before him, did not forbid psychology from a constructive approach. However; he reversed natural science's priorities regarding description and construction. Constructive conceptuality and methods have a secondary status and a limited function. In phenomenological psychology, one starts with description and only resorts to construction after extensive intentional analyses have established first principles and fundaments of knowledge in the discipline. One may construct hypotheses or run experiments to surpass the de facto limits of descriptive analysis, but these merely suggest further lines for new descriptive analytic inquiry. Inferences, analogies, and conjectures "have only the methodological meaning of leading us toward the facts which it is the function of direct essential insight to set before us as given" (Husserl, 1913/1931, p.193).

Phenomenological psychology does not dismiss the findings and theories of cognitive psychology a priori as untrue or useless. It places them in abeyance while discovering essential insights concerning the psychological sphere. These inquiries typically demonstrate that some knowledge in cognitive psychology is not constructed at all nor is it truly hypothetical, but rather it is a fully evident descriptive truth of human psychological functioning. Falsehood is also established in many cases, for instance in computational models. Other speculative notions guide special descriptive reflections and serve a heuristic function; they thereby contribute to the depth and scope of analysis. Good examples of this kind of inquiry may be found in Wertz (1993), Aanstoos (1987b), and Dreyfus and Dreyfus (1987). In principle, genuine essential insights about psychological life can be gained from the guidance of cognitive theories, hypotheses, typologies, and experimental data, but without phenomenological clarification, integration, and supporting evidence, these offerings "have yet to set foot on the soil of a genuine psychology" (Husserl, 1954, p.250).

Psychoanalysis
Psychoanalysis was originally one of the approaches humanistic psychologists protested against, but more recent history has revealed profound convergence. For instance, Guntrip (1971) has forcefully argued that all the lasting contributions of Freud as well as all the significant advances in psychoanalysis since Freud have involved the discarding of physical scientific concepts and their replacement with ones referring specifically and exclusively to persons. Second, developments in the philosophy of science and psychological research methodology have shifted the focus from theory to more foundational scientific issues on which humanistic and psychoanalytic psychology share important common ground. Third, developments in the intersubjective, relational aspects of psychoanalytic theory and practice create bridges between such theorists and therapists as Kohut and Rogers (Tobin, 1990, 1991).

Far too little attention has been given to the psychoanalytic "ground rules of science." Psychoanalysis has been identified primarily as theory and therapy; its conception of psychology as a scientific discipline has been almost completely ignored. The pervasive impression is that psychoanalysis has "nothing to do with (research) method" and provides a merely subjective basis for its knowledge claims (Hornstein, 1992, p.258). These misconceptions have been dispelled by a line of scholarship that precisely articulates the philosophy of science and research methodology that is operative in psychoanalytic practice (see Kvale, 1986; Politzer, 1928; Radnitzky, 1968). Under the profound influence of Franz Brentano, Freud distinguished the approach of psychology from that of the natural sciences, which had proven deficient in such areas as neurosis, dreams, and parapraxes (Barclay, 1964; McGrath, 1986; Wertz, 1994a). He began by suspending concerns with the physical and biological spheres as well as all theorizing and inferential thought (Freud, 1916, 1926/1978). Instead, he developed a descriptive science based on. the direct observation of psychological life, with a focus on its meaning. The data through which meaning is grasped are descriptions of (a) the phenomena itself in its plain visibility; (b) the individuals speech{c) persoanal life circumstances, and (d) the cultural milieu (Freud., 1916; see Wertz, 1987 for a full exposition with additional references). All these data are relevant and necessary because for. Freud, like Dilthey and Husserl, meaning (by its very nature) rests not in an isolated event but in the relations within psychological life. The meaning of a psychological process consists of its intention or purpose, its whence and wither, its position or role in the continuity of the total psychic order (Freud, 1916). Freud insisted on many occasions that training in mathematics, natural sciences, and medicine was not only irrelevant but harmful for psychologists because it directs students away from properly psychological attitudes and subject matter (Freud, 1916, 192611978). Instead, he advocated study of the humanities and the arts along with extensive and detailed observations of individual persons' expressive behavior (see Wertz, 1994a). This metapsychology is virtually identical to that elaborated above-of humanistic psychology

It is well-known that Freud considered the experimental method completely unnecessary and inferior to his own directly observational, qualitative procedures. The attitude of the psychoanalyst involves (a) complete, nontheoretical, nonevaluative openness to whatever presents itself ("evenly hovering attention"), (b) a suspension of belief in the reality of what is experienced and reduction to its subjectively given characteristics, and (c) an empathic immersion in the entire world of the subject (Wertz, 1986). Then, the procedure of analysis proper involves (a) distinguishing the constituents of psychological life relevant to the phenomenonal process under investigation; (b) carefully explicating the interrelations of the various constituents within the whole; (c) describing the role (meaning) of each constituent in the psychic order and continuity; (d) identifying recurrent meanings in different constituents; (e) comparing the patterns of meaning found in different real cases, including the investigator's own; (f) formulating idiosyncratic, typical, and even universal patterns of meaning; and (g) verifying these formulations through further, fresh observations of independent data (Wertz, 1986). These qualitative methods are identical to those that have been formally specified by phenomenological psychologists.

What is the role of the inferences, hypotheses, analogies, models, constructions, theories, and speculation for which Freud is so well-known? These are epistemologically and procedurally secondary; strictly subordinated to the above procedure (Freud, 1916, p.244, 1937; Wertz, 1994a). They are employed only after enacting observational procedures, particularly when data are insufficient or when they fail to allow satisfactory answers to research problems. Then, nonobservational conceptualization serves as a temporary guide (or heuristic) that directs the investigator to observe additional data whose analysis by the above procedures would -answer the question(s) conclusively. Freud continually insisted on the transient, modifiable, and discardable nature of all his abstract -constructions and theories, which he called the scaffolding of psychoanalysis, insisting that they not be mistaken for actual psychic life and indicating that they simply assist in the direct observation of the matters under investigation. Again, this is precisely the role of construction mandated in the programmatic statements of Dilthey and Husserl, the two most seminal philosophers who ushered humanistic thought into the sphere of modern science.

Humanistic psychologists with philosophical sophistication can perform an invaluable service to psychoanalysis, which has so long and frequently suffered accusations of being unscientific from mainstream academic psychology; by clarifying its implicit human science orientation. Humanists can also provide a framework for critically acknowledging and abandoning the ways in which psycho analysis has forsaken its most productive orientation to appear, if not to be, natural scientific. In the struggle to establish a genuine human science, humanistic and psychoanalytic psychologists can rightfully join forces on the deepest common ground.

Unity in Psychology
Humanistic psychologists are among the strongest advocates of unity in psychology. Giorgi (1985) points out, however, that unity need not be construed as homogeneity or even the absence of controversy. We remember that humanism has been traditionally an enemy of dogmatism, a critic of abstract principles when given priority over concrete human experience (Bullock, 1985), which may legitimately admit different and even opposed perspectives. However, humanism is surely not an unprincipled eclecticism.
Continued in Part two

e-mail feedback, comments or requests.