Psychotherapy and science: just navel-gazing?

Authors

  • Gerhard Burda

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.30820/1664-9583-2019-2-31

Keywords:

psychotherapy science, scientific theory, science, subject, self-differentiation

Abstract

Referring to the texts «Wissenschaftstheoretische Überlegungen zur Psychotherapiewissenschaft» (2016) and «Der Wissen­schafts­begriff der Psychotherapiewissenschaft» (2019; ibid) by Markus Erismann, the essay investigates the two questions as to what extent psychotherapy sciences can be identified as independent science and whether the «subjective factor» can agree with a general scientific notion. Concerning the first question, we plead for an external scientific approach as opposed to a definition of psychotherapy derived from an excessively self-centered view of psychotherapies. Concerning the second question, we show that science is in general self-differentiating and that even the frowned-upon «subjective factor» cannot be eliminated from the sciences.

Author Biography

Gerhard Burda

Gerhard Burda ist Philosoph, Psychotherapiewissenschaftler und Lehranalytiker in Wien. Er ist langjähriger Präsident der Österreichischen Gesellschaft für Analytische Psychologie und Mitglied der Wiener Lacan-Schule sowie Autor zahlreicher Veröffentlichungen im Schnittraum von Philosophie, Psycho- und Medienanalyse; zuletzt erschienen: Psychoanalyse der Erlösung (2016), Mediale Identität/en (2018), Pandora und die Metaphysica medialis (2019).

Downloads

Published

2019-10-28

How to Cite

Burda, G. (2019). Psychotherapy and science: just navel-gazing?. Psychotherapie-Wissenschaft, 9(2), 31–40. https://doi.org/10.30820/1664-9583-2019-2-31

Issue

No. 2 (2019): Psychotherapieforschung

Section

Titelthema: Psychotherapieforschung

License

This journal provides open access to its content in accordance with the basic premise that the free public availability of research benefits the exchange of knowledge throughout the world.

Authors wishing to publish in this journal agree to the following:

  1. The author/s retain/s the copyrights and consent/s to initial publication of the work in the journal under a Creative Commons Attribution licence, which allows third parties to use the work by citing the name/s of the author/s and this journal as initial publisher (in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 DE-Licence).
  1. The author/s can enter into additional contracts for the non-exclusive distribution (e.g. publish in a collection or book) of the version published in the journal, if the journal is cited as initial publisher.