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This article is from the Psychology FAQ, by Rolf Marvin Bøe Lindgren roffe@tag.uio.no with numerous contributions by others.

02 Is Psychology A Science?

There seems to be a confusion of levels regarding this problem.

Academic psychology is a scientific project, initiated by Wilhelm
Wundt at the University of Leipzig ca. 1885. His project was the study
of the average adult human mind, and the scientific method used was
introspection. His approach has been long since abandoned, and so have
many of his ideals, but not the basic ideal of understanding or
describing human functioning within a scientific context.

Psychotherapy, on the other hand, is no more a science than is civil
engineering: ideally, scientifically investigated therapeutic
techiques are used together with ethical and philosophical principles
in order to achieve some desired outcome. Psychotherapy, then, is a
mixture of a craft and an art.

 

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• prev: 01 Introduction
• Index
• next: 03 References

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