Postmodern psychology is an approach to

psychology Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behavior. Psychology includes the study of conscious and unconscious phenomena, including feelings and thoughts. It is an academic discipline of immense scope, crossing the boundaries betwe ...

that questions whether an ultimate or singular version of truth is actually possible within its field. It also challenges the

modernist Modernism is both a philosophy, philosophical and arts movement that arose from broad transformations in Western world, Western society during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The movement reflected a desire for the creation of new fo ...

view of psychology as the science of the individual, in favour of seeing humans as a cultural/communal product, dominated by language rather than by an inner self.

Characteristics

Postmodern Postmodernism is an intellectual stance or mode of discourseNuyen, A.T., 1992. The Role of Rhetorical Devices in Postmodernist Discourse. Philosophy & Rhetoric, pp.183–194. characterized by skepticism toward the " grand narratives" of modern ...

psychology relies on using a range of different methodologies rather than a singular approach, to embrace the complexity of reality and avoid

oversimplification The fallacy of the single cause, also known as complex cause, causal oversimplification, causal reductionism, and reduction fallacy, is an informal fallacy of questionable cause that occurs when it is assumed that there is a single, simple cause of ...

. Post-modernism challenges a systematic, analytical approach to the understanding of the human psyche, as inherently flawed by the impossibility of taking a detached, 'objective' position; and favours instead a transmutable position which may maintain the possibility of taking conceptual hold of a self that is itself decentered. Some would maintain that the very project of a postmodern psychology is self-contradictory, in the wake of the

deconstruction The term deconstruction refers to approaches to understanding the relationship between text and meaning. It was introduced by the philosopher Jacques Derrida, who defined it as a turn away from Platonism's ideas of "true" forms and essence ...

of the unified self - the fading or

aphanisis In psychoanalytic theory, aphanisis (; from the Greek ἀφάνισις ''aphanisis'', "disappearance") is the disappearance of sexual desire. The etymology of the term refers to it as the absence of brilliance in the astronomical sense such as the ...

of the

subject Subject ( la, subiectus "lying beneath") may refer to: Philosophy *''Hypokeimenon'', or ''subiectum'', in metaphysics, the "internal", non-objective being of a thing **Subject (philosophy), a being that has subjective experiences, subjective cons ...

that psychology is traditionally supposed to investigate.

Tetrad and transmodern

Postmodern psychology has also been linked to the

Tetrad Tetrad ('group of 4') or tetrade may refer to: * Tetrad (area), an area 2 km x 2 km square * Tetrad (astronomy), four total lunar eclipses within two years * Tetrad (chromosomal formation) * Tetrad (general relativity), or frame field ** Tetrad f ...

Marshall McLuhan Herbert Marshall McLuhan (July 21, 1911 – December 31, 1980) was a Canadian philosopher whose work is among the cornerstones of the study of media studies, media theory. He studied at the University of Manitoba and the University of Cambridg ...

: "Tetradic logic" supposedly allowing us to accept knowing without knowing in the context of changingness.

Paul Vitz Paul may refer to: *Paul (given name), a given name (includes a list of people with that name) * Paul (surname), a list of people People Christianity * Paul the Apostle (AD c.5–c.64/65), also known as Saul of Tarsus or Saint Paul, early Chr ...

refers to yet a further development, that of "transmodern"

, as a "new mentality that both transcends and transforms modernity ... (where) psychology would be the handmaid of philosophy and

theology Theology is the systematic study of the nature of the divine and, more broadly, of religious belief. It is taught as an academic discipline, typically in universities and seminaries. It occupies itself with the unique content of analyzing th ...

, as from the beginning it was meant to be"Paul C. Vitz, "Psychology in Recover," ''First Things''(March 2005) - aspiring to cure mental problems through integrated intervention into the

human mind The mind is the set of faculties responsible for all mental phenomena. Often the term is also identified with the phenomena themselves. These faculties include thought, imagination, memory, will, and sensation. They are responsible for various ...

and body combined.

References

External links

* https://web.archive.org/web/20100124213519/http://www.postmodernpsychology.com/
Postmodern psychology
Postmodernism Psychological schools {{psychology-stub

Characteristics

Tetrad and transmodern

See also

References

External links