Positivism and clinical psychology

✍ Scribed by Edgar Miller

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1999
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 77 KB
• Volume: 6
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 1063-3995
• DOI: 10.1002/(sici)1099-0879(199902)6:1<1::aid-cpp180>3.0.co;2-r

✦ Synopsis

Approaches to clinical psychology which favour quantification and experimental methods are often criticized as being positivistic'. Critics typically do not define what they mean by positivism'. At best they merely offer hints as to what they mean by this term. An outline of positivism as a philosophical doctrine is provided and it is agreed that in terms of any meaningful definition, positivism is a flawed doctrine. However, it is also argued that those approaches which critics typically claim to exhibit features of positivistic', do not necessarily do so. Positivism' is not a helpful term in discussing the appropriate epistemologies for clinical psychology.