Abstract
M.A. (Clinical Psychology)
Despite more than a century of development, there can be little doubt that many
psychologists today still adhere to a worldview that characterised the earliest developments in the discipline. A worldview which holds that there is an external reality, that objectivity is attainable, and that, given enough time and effort, we shall be able to discover the 'truth'.
These psychologists have chosen to ignore the occurrence of what may well be regarded as a paradigm shift, in the sense that Kuhnian philosophers of science use this phrase. They tend to believe that if anything exists, it must exist in some measurable quantity.
In sharp contradistinction, adherents of the constructivist orientation, who have admittedly been influenced by developments in what is often referred to as the 'new physics', adopt a stance in which they emphasise the essentially subjective nature of what we know- or, at least, believe we know. Constuctivism, in spite of not representing a unitary body of theory, accepts that all so-called knowledge - especially knowledge about other human beings - is dramatically influenced by our assumptions, prejudices, perceptions and constructions about the people, events, and stories that we all tell to ourselves, and to others, about the events that represent our lives. Given the body of constructivist thinking, a question that arises is whether, and to what extent, it is possible to apply this highly abstract worldview to the interpretation of the events that occur in, for example, a single psychotherapy session.
In this dissertation an attempt has been made to analyze the events of a single (and singular!) therapy session. The analysis has been conducted at several levels of abstraction. The events are viewed from the perspective of a transcript of the session, from the angle of the therapist's interpretation of what occurred during the session and what he attempted to achieve, from a viewpoint adopted by the author of the dissertation (who also happens to be the therapist in question), and from the position of yet a fourth 'participant' who is referred to as the rapporteur. The latter dwells on the conceptual implications of other discussions in the dissertation. The recursive nature of the interactions between the four 'viewers' of, or 'commentators' on, the process, and the complexities which derive from adopting a constructivist stance in which the alleged certainties of a positivist position are eschewed, are illustrated in the conceptual analysis and description offered. Ultimately, it would appear, a constructivist stance has numerous benefits, although they may not readily be admitted to by those with a low tolerance of ambiguity.