I am interested in doing a paper on the historical roots of neurotherapy. It is possible that the implications in the findings of this new technique will force a new paradigm. I would like to BRIEFLY summarise the major paradigm shifts starting with the sensationalists (French) up to contemporary reflexology. I am too bogged down with too much information. I was hoping to find some good summaries, that described the impetus for the changes in thinking so far, utilizing the strategy described by Thomas Kuhn, in the structure of Scientific Revolutions (1970).

Certainly the excesses of each movement contain the seeds for the next. I need a little help in identifying the right seeds. Thank you.

Sheila McQuinn Graduate student in Clinical Psychology

-- Sheila McQuinn (smcquinn@islands.vi), November 26, 2001

Answers

I think my first reaction is to wonder why you expect "neurotherapy" to have followed so closely the model of scientific development Thomas Kuhn laid out for the *natural* sciences (physics and chemistry, mainly). My guess is that Kuhn considered ALL of psychology to be "pre-paradigmatic," so the direct answer to your question would be: "there have been *no* paradigms." More important, however, Kuhn's model of scientific development is itself highly controversial, and, indeed, not nearly so widely accepted as it was even a decade ago. There have been uncovered many cases of scienctific development that did not follow the "old paradigm" -revolution- "new paradigm" model that he proposed.

-- Christopher Green (christo@yorku.ca), November 26, 2001.

Thank you for your prompt and informative response to my question. I cite Kuhn, because his explanation for changes in scientific thinking happens to be the only one I am familiar with. Certainly his discussion of zeitgeist seemed to fit a number of movements such as the reaction against Wundt's structural psychology. Boring ( 1950), a student of Tichener, the American spokeman for a brand of Wundt's thinking,"conceded that the Wundtian influence was most apparent as a negataive force motivatiing scientists to discredit structural psychology in America.. and was a negative force motivating scientists to discredit both the substance and the methodology of the system" (In Brenner, 1998, History and Systems of Psychology. Prentice Hall, New Jersey.) Watson also created a backlash, as did Freud and others. If these are not "paradigm shifts", what do psychological historians call them?

We now have what looks like a fairly entrenched system or methodology, impericism, or the more often reductionist type of study in psychology, not prone to acknowledge methodologies that use some introspection. I believe that the neurothrapy may offer a rather unique opportunity to study the effects of manipulation of mental events. Morover, the rhythmicity of the brain is introducing new variables of space and time to explain function. (Othmer,S, Othmer,S. and Kaiser, D. EEG Biofeedback: An Emerging model for its global Efficacy in Evena, J and Abarbanel A Intoduction to Quantitative EEG and Neurofeedback. Academic Press, APtos, CA) This is certainly a big switch from its roots in reflexology. I am looking for a way to explain how these shifts take place in the big scheme of things, or conversely. Any ideas? Serendipidity??

-- Sheila McQuinn (smcquinn@islands.vi), November 26, 2001.

Kuhn, I believe, would have called these the "schools of thought", characteristic of pre-paradigmatic science. They do not have either the unanimity or stability characteristic of scientific paradigms. But again, why assume that Kuhn's specific model of scientific development is the right one from the outset. You might look also at the work of other historian and philosophers of science. Larry Laudan, for instance, has been quite critical of Kuhn and of the tradition his work spawned. See, e.g., _Beyond Postivism & Relativism_. (Not that Laudan is to be taken uncritically either. You might look at the work of David Bloor for a contrasting, more radical view. The point here is that there is no one universally-accepted position on the "right" progress of science.)

-- Christopher Green (cgreen@chass.utoronto.ca), November 27, 2001.

Hi Sheila, well this paradigm shift stuff? I think this is historical theory, theory of science kind of talk - understand. Although there is no reason a bold researcher couldn't advance and arguement with it as a foundation. Summaries that describe "impetus" for changes in psychological thinking ... well, biological advances probably. A biologist makes a discovery, and a psychologist advances a theory. If there is a basic "paradigm" of psychology, it might be described as behavior (broadly defined) requires structure, neurons, and those neurons have evolved to occupy a specific environment. Reductionistic, you bet, but all molecular theories of psychology are "theories" that attempt to account for behavior until we can map whicn neuron fires when you find yourself looking for an ice cream cone. The paradigm has been - machine.

And that's what Freud is doing when he advances his theory of mind; he assumes that at the bottom of his client's symptoms are sparking neurons, but as a neurologist he knows that it is going to be a long time before we can sort that out, and so he moves on to a theory of interacting psychic-agencies.

As far as new methods, a lot of people have looked, but I don't think there is anything new on the horizon. You use neurotherapy as a metaphor - defined (I don't know how it's being used here.), to indicate a line of publishing and experiments. Well, OK, that launches research. You indicate that you are going to look at correlations between metalistic constructs, self-report variables - unless you can show a specific reformed neuron. How is this a new method?

The paradigm for psychology, if there is one, is probably Darwin/evolution/biology/positive-science, everything else seems to take place inside that framework contributing to this hypothesis. All this is not to say that you can't do research in the clinic, I don't mean to imply that. But I don't think the proposal you've outlined is going to fly with the concepts you have used in the face of a more critical behavioral or cognitive scientist. Then again, I could be wrong, and if you want to pursue your line of thought, you might pick up a history of psychology text and pull out a few people, say Pavlov, Freud, maybe Skinner, and call them paradigms, trace their beginnings, their research, and finally their critics - offer these as your examples of defunct paradigms, and then advance your solution to psychology - neurotherapy. Some people will buy it. Best, David

-- david clark (doclark@yorku.ca), November 28, 2001.

A useful reference is:

Leahey, T. H. (1992). The mythical revolutions of American psychology. American Psychologist, 47, 308-318.

-- Roger K. Thomas (rkthomas@uga.edu), December 05, 2001.