Psychology, a discipline with a structure-based history and a process-based future

Abstract

Knowledge about the nature of life as well as about the nature of human reality are essential to the study and practice of psychology and psychiatry. Body, mind, thought, and deed are inextricably entangled in a complex network of interconnections which, due to our human limitations, can never be fully understood (Capra, 1988; Chopra, 1989; Frankl, 1969; Gut, 1989; Hughes, 1974). In the development of psychology, much energy has been spent seeking scientifically acceptable concepts, laws, and measurements which subscribe to the Cartesian image of the human being as a clockwork mechanism (Capra, 1988; von Bertalanffy, 1968). To accommodate this mechanistic image, psychological theorists have largely borrowed and adapted concepts from physics, physiology, and mathematics, with little consensus reached about the validity of their actions. The tendency to emulate “hard” science has contributed to the failure of psychological theory and practice to relate comprehensively to the broad issues and problems of human existence (Jordaan & Jordaan, 1984; White, 1993a). The process-based systems view, which has its origins in Heraclitus of Ephesus (Kahn, 1981; Kirk, Raven & Schofield, 1983; Wheelwright, 1959), is a radical reversal of the mechanistic view and represents the human being as an “active personality system,” in which individual uniqueness and creative potential are valued. The systems view of humanity raises issues largely ignored by a scientific psychological view—such as aspects of creativity, self awareness, unpredictability, multivariable interaction, dynamic organization, self-maintenance, directiveness, etc. Process-based systems thinking does not disregard structural aspects of systems but regards them as the conceptual or material coherence of processes. It is a perspective in which process is “foregrounded” relative to structure. The relationship of process to structure suggests a union of opposites (Sabelli, 1991a,b) in which both empirical and interpretive outlooks are compatible (Messer, 1990), reflecting a healthy regard for methodological and theoretical diversity. Process-based systems thinking promotes a shift from structure-based rigidity to a position which presents new challenges and invites a fresh look at old issues in this postmodern (Gergen, 1992; Kvale, 1992) era of psychology. The premises of process-based systems thinking singled out for discussion in this article are: the process nature of life (and psychology), the approximate nature of systems, dynamic organization, the union of opposites, teleos, governance, and emergence in systems.