Methods in Developmental Reflexology

Abstract

I shall begin with a negative definition of the problems of developmental psychology and, at the same time, touch upon the relationship between developmental reflexology and child psychology, which has up to now been considered the most essential province of pedology. As a branch of subjective psychology, a science whose subject matter is processes of consciousness, child psychology assumes as its task the study of the development of conscious processes, "psychogenesis" (Preyer) or "mental development" (Stern), as it is still customarily designated. Developmental reflexology does not set itself these objectives. This is not because, in defining its subject matter, it excludes the problems with which the older science has been concerned, but because "mental development," or the development of conscious processes, can in no way be regarded as proper subject matter for science. Scientific subject matter must involve empirically given facts to whose study an appropriate method, be it simple observation or experiment, can be applied. Let us cite one of the contemporary representatives of child psychology, Stern, on this question: "Mental life is immediately given to everyone for himself alone; the nature of ideas, sensations, feelings, and volitions we immediately know only through personal experience and self-observation." However, when the object of a developmental study is a child from the moment of birth, we certainly cannot speak of self-observation. An adult's recollections of childhood experiences or a child's account of his experiences cannot be considered of any value for a study of "psychogenesis," since not only are they incomplete and insufficiently precise but are totally lacking for the first years of life, which for a developmental study are the most important. Thus the only possible approach is an objective study of the child's personality, in which the only things that are empirically given are the child's responses and the conditions under which they occur. No conscious processes or experiences of the child are empirically given. Consequently, it is quite evident that child psychology cannot be an empirical science, as it does not even possess a suitable methodology.