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WHAT DOES IT MEAN “SCIENTIFIC” IN CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGY?

E. Faccio, J. Neri, A. Iudici

Abstract

Clinical psychology is characterized by different theories and approaches to the study of human being, mental disease and the possible ways for identity change. This plurality of points of view represents a richness, since it allows psychologists, psychotherapists and also patients to refer to a wide choice of possibilities (such as the variety of configurations, strategies and tools) in order to improve the quality of wellbeing and life for people who need help. Anyway, each theory, on the basis of its epistemological premises, may interpret the construct of “science” and “scientific” differently. For the experts of mental health, it is fundamental to investigate this issue, because it can also reveal an impossibility to overlap or match different concepts related to the knowability of human disease. The heterogeneity in the definition of what is scientific (and how to know scientifically the mental disease) may represent an obstacle or at least a limit to the attempt to create a common language, but also a unique nosographical system. The aim of this paper is to investigate this issue, introducing the method proposed by Wittgenstein called “Perspicuous Representation”, useful to examine the implicit meanings that the words “science” and “scientific” assume in the different diagnostical manuals.

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DOI resolver: doi.org/10.5593/sgemsocial2018/3.2/S11.071

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