First and foremost, I would like to extend a friendly “hello” to my new readers. I am eager to invite you on a journey through the field of psychology and hopefully help you learn something along the way. Throughout these blogs, I hope to impart some of my personal beliefs regarding human psychology. But, let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Before we delve into the nooks and crannies of our psyches, we must orient ourselves by analyzing the current state of psychology.
We are on the edge of immense potential.
We currently live in a historical period with unprecedented levels of knowledge available to us. Many psychological theorists were impeded by their era’s embedded sexism and racism. However, now we understand that concepts such as race and gender are socially constructed categories, not biological characteristics. With this newfound knowledge, we have the capability to construct psychological theories based upon a greater volume of evidence.
Furthermore, we find ourselves in a time of unintegrated theorization. Simply put, we have a lot of good ideas, but not a cohesive “super theory”. For instance, we know that the unconscious mind exists in some capacity, yet mainstream psychological theories such as Cognitive-Behavioral psychology ignore its importance in our behavior. Similarly, Psychoanalytic theory contains important concepts such as projection and sublimation but is largely ignored because of its odious past. Simply put, we have yet to arrive at a “unifying theory” of psychology.
We are indeed on the edge of great potential. However, this potential coincides with great challenges we must face. Despite the many improvements in recognizing our own biases, no one is without them. To create ground-breaking psychological theories, we must be rigorous in our introspection to ensure our personal biases do not interfere with our psychological prescriptions.
Another challenge we face is the question of whether we can improve on our current psychological theories. It is inarguable that Psychoanalytic theory and Cognitive-Behavioral theory have descriptive utility in different situations. However, it may be the case that a series of disparate theories is the best we can get. It may be the case that the human psyche is so immensely complex that there could never be a “unifying theory” of psychology. But, I will try my hardest to inch towards that unification throughout my next blogs. Along the way, I encourage you to challenge my presuppositions, postulations, and conclusions. I am also curious to know, do you think we can ever reach a “unifying theory” of psychology?
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