I’ve recently changed the focus of my educational efforts from philosophy to psychology, thinking maybe I have gone as far as I can with the former discipline, but thankfully stopping short of analytics, I hate analytical philosophy anyway so it’s a good time to end. Encouraged by others to pursue a career in psychoanalysis I have begun to study human behavior from the psychological perspective, having previously studied it also through economics and social theory as well as philosophically. What I am mostly interested in is why people do what they do and what does that mean for others?

First I have to point out a problem with psychology, a limitation that cannot be ignored easily, one that was highlighted by Hume and expanded upon by Popper – INDUCTIVE REASONING. Let me tell you two stories that will illustrate my point…….

Two men meet on a beach and they both spot an object that the tide is lapping over. It is a hook shaped object with three prongs, it has a chain attached to it and it is about six feet long and very very heavy. The first man says to the second man “this is a hook, it is used by giants who go fishing in the deep ocean”, the second man says back “don’t be stupid, this is quite obviously a device for moving clouds across the sky to where their rainfall is needed most”.

Now you and I know that it is an anchor, but the point is that they don’t, they’ve never seen a large ship in their lives. Each man has induced a purpose for this device based on what they reason it to be useful for, and neither of them is provably wrong, at least not by the other. This is the problem of induction, that it works backwards from the outcome (an object in reality) to the theory of how the thing came to be.

Two women meet in a laboratory, they are both scientists of some merit. One says to the other “If I get a five litre bucket fill of peas and pour into it two kilograms of sand it will be no more full than it was beforehand”, the other woman disagrees and says “due to the density of material in the newly filled bucket, sand and peas together, there will be less air in the bucket and air is not a measurable quantity in this experiment, therefore the bucket will be more full than before”, they proceed with the experiment and discover that the bucket is indeed more full. They repeat the test and invite others to also repeat it. Each time the same result is shown.

What this is is deductive reasoning, starting with a theory and then testing it to conclusion. If it is successful then it can be stated with certainty that whenever these conditions apply the same outcome will be shown. Psychology is inductive in nature, the theory of how a person came to be as messed up as they are, remember that psychoanalysis is for broken people, requires them to be at the end of a journey. Drawing out the reasons for why they got this way is not really a science, much like the two guys on the beach we have to work backwards and that leaves us open to being dead wrong. take also into account the consideration that the subject may also be unaware, as is likely since they need a therapist, of the root of their own problem and we might actually end up attributing today’s problems to some event in their past that is not truly the source of their issues.

The therapist then must actively avoid the impetus or compelling urge for providing diagnosis, this is where the importance of guidance is highlighted. Rather than trying to work out what has happened by reasoning it the therapist must allow the subject to discover their own problem through their own storytelling, the story of their life will reveal to them the root of the problem they are having, the therapist merely makes suggestions and provides the circumstances to make that happen. So the therapist is avoiding being one of the men on the beach, and avoiding being inductive, by not reasoning for themselves that they can answer the question at hand. In my future career, if I decide that is what I wish to be, I also must avoid figuring things out – let them talk instead.

Paul Simon Wilson