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Abstract

Smith, G.J.W. Simplistic approaches to complex psychic phenomena. Nordisk Psykologi, 57, 203–208. Psychology's subject-matter is, admittedly, complicated and difficult to handle. Over the years psychologists have tried various approaches to make their endeavours more plain and manageable. One attempt at simplification is to deny the subjective side of psychic reality and exclusively focus behavioral facts. Another way is reduction of psychic events to somatic counterparts. And a third alternative implies concentration on surface manifestations to the detriment of in-depth penetration. The article attempts to show that the depth-to-surface contradictions represented in all of these simplifictions can most easily be subsumed under a process approach to the study of psychology where the subjective starting-point of process represents depth and its outcome, the objective surface.