Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGY
ALBERT ELLIS
66 Park Avenue, New York City
INTKODUCTION
METHOD
12
ALBERT ELLIS
13
14
ALBERT ELLIS
sently flUed to overflowing with sucH vague, overlapping, and unrealistic concepts
as "personality," 'mind," "self," and so on.
3. The hypothetico-deductive method frequently results in vested theoretical
interests which give rise to devotees who fanatically spend their lives at desperate
attempts to validate a given systematic theory. Thus, we have the Rorschachists,
the Freudians, the Rogerians, and many other psychological sectarians who view
virtually everything in terms of their own limited, closed systems, and who obviously
would never surrender their faiths even if factual experiment after experiment
proved these theoretical systems to have limited or little objective validity.
4. Conducting clinical psychological research within a strict theoretical framework often has a falsely heuristic value, in that much thought and "fact"-finding
is thereby stimulated, but mostly of a trivial and erroneous nature. Thus, theories
like Jung's idea of the racial unconscious and Rank's notion of the birth trauma have
led numerous over-credulous and mystical-minded writers to offer the wildest speculations and 'facts" in support of these views, and have thus resulted in 'researches"
of the most dubious value. Again, attempts on the part of several contemporary
psychoanalysts and psychologists to merge psychotherapeutic theory with telepathic theory ^'' ^' ^' ^> have, so far, had the "heuristic" value of inducing scores of
clinicians to spend considerable time on what would appear to be crackpot projects
instead of much-needed practical researches.
5. The hypothetico-deductive method in clinical psychology frequently encourages essentially scientiflc, and yet decidedly trivial, researches. So eager
are the proponents of a given system to validate the hypotheses of this system
that they often arrange setup experiments which prove some minor aspect of that
system, and which never tackle the main clinical problems which beset us today.
This has been particularly true of some experiments conducted by the so-called
"client-centered" clinicians, experiments which usually prove some point dear to
the hearts of the Rogerians but virtually meaningless to non-Rogerian therapists.
Thus, in a recent study Bergman<^> shows that in "client-centered" counseling selfexploration and insight are more apt to follow the therapist's reflecting the cUent's
feeling, after this client has requested an evaluation from the therapist, than they
are apt to follow the therapist's giving a direct answer or interpretation to the client.
Obviously, however, a client who (a) has selected a "client-centered" counselor in
the flrst place; who (b) has had several sessions of "client-centered" structuring in
his therapeutic sessions; and who (c) has a therapist who has been speciflcally trained
to avoid, be squeamish about, and to be ashamed of giving direct interpretations
obviously such a client may be set to feel more comfortable with a mere reflection
of his feelings rather than a direct answer to a question he has asked of the therapist.
The important issue is, however, whether interpretation in general, and in any type
of therapy, is more effective than mere reflection of feeling; and this issue, of course,
Bergman (and other " client-centered" researchers) has entirely avoided.
DISCUSSION
15
It is pointed out in this paper that there are, in general, two basic approaches to
clinical psychological research: (1) The empirical approach, which starts from observed data, and which develops clinical instruments and techniques directly from
this data, with little or no attention being given to systematic theoretical formulations. (2) The hypothetico-deductive approach, which starts with a consistent, wellorganized theory, and which designs experiments and instruments in conformity
with this theory. Several advantages and limitations of both these approaches to
clinical research are discussed, and it is noted that neither one is usually employed in
a 'pure" manner and that both are subject to various kinds of abuses by individual
researchers. The hypothetico-deductive method is finally favored, but with the
proviso that those employing it take great care to see that systematic theory is
operationally grounded in observable facts, that it be changeable and undogmatic,
that it be unemotionally upheld by its adherents, and that it be concretely stated in
clearly verifiable or disprovable terms.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
BERGMAN, D . V. Counseling method and client responses. J. consult. Psychol., 1951,15,216-224.
D E R I , S. Introduction to the Szondi Test. New York: Grune & Stratton, 1949.
EHRENWALD, J . Telepathy and medical psychology. New York: Norton, 1948.
EisENBUD, J. The dreams of two patients in analysis interpreted as a telepathic rive k deux.
Psychoanal. Quart., 1947,16, 39-60.
ELLIS, A. Telepathy and psychoanalysis: a critique of recent "findings." Psychiat. Quart., 1947,
21, 607-609.
ELLIS, A. Re-analysis of an alleged telepathic dream. Psychiat. Quart., 1949, 23, 116-126.
ELLIS, A. Towards the improvement of psychoanalytic research. Psychoanal. Rev., 1949, 36,
123-143.
ELLIS, A. The validity of personality questionnaires. Psychol. Bull., 1946, 43, 380-440.
ELLIS, A. An introduction to the principles of scientific psychoanalysis. Genet. Psychol. Monogr.,
1950, 41, 147-212
ELLIS, A., and CONRAD, H . The validity of personality inventories in military practice. Psychol.
BuU., 1948, 45, 385-426.
TRAVERS, R . M . W . Rational hjrpotheses in the construction of tests. Ed. Psychol. Msmt., 1951,
11, 128-137.
WEXLER, M . The structural problem in schizophrenia: therapeutic implications. Internet. J.
Paychoanal., 1951, 32, 150-162.