Abstract
The aim of this chapter is to show that determinism, reductionism, and mechanism have dominated people’s lives since the early modern period and, as a consequence, have been representing a monopoly in sciences in general and in psychotherapy science in particular ever since. In addition, it will raise the issue of what other approaches to understanding reality and human beings have unjustly been forgotten—unjustly, because they might contribute to a more comprehensive understanding and examination of human life and with it also of psychotherapy. These include, as we will attempt to demonstrate in the following, intentionality, wholeness, and the analogical thinking, which lay the groundwork for emerging alternative research approaches. Finally, the implications of the above for a pluralistic psychotherapy science will be presented.
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- 1.
It should be noted that, when talking about empirical evidence, the term “empirical” is most of the time understood sensu stricto as indicating the standardized measurement of a certain phenomenon; as a consequence, qualitative research is considered not at all, or at least less, empirical than quantitative research and is therefore disqualified as pseudoscientific or, in any case, as less scientific than the dominant quantitative approaches. On the contrary, we consider the term “empirical” as indicating the fact that some data about a phenomenon of interest are systematically gathered and analyzed (see also Barker et al. 2002); following this, both quantitative and qualitative researches may be considered empirical approaches, though different in their foundations and implementations (see Gelo, Braakmann, & Benetka 2008, 2009; Gelo 2012).
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Rieken, B., Gelo, O.C.G. (2015). The Philosophy of Psychotherapy Science: Mainstream and Alternative Views. In: Gelo, O., Pritz, A., Rieken, B. (eds) Psychotherapy Research. Springer, Vienna. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-7091-1382-0_4
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