The universal and the cultural in psychological phenomena

Abstract

Abstract Working within the new philosophy of science (Scientific Neorealism) I suggest a form of understanding the dynamic structuring and manifestations of the universal and the cultural components in the psychological phenomena. I consider that in every psychological phenomenon there exists a Process and a Content. I suggest an understanding of the Process as intrinsic to the functional structure of the human psyche and therefore universal, and of the Content of that process as the historically and the culturally determined element, constituting the circumstantial manifestation in the psychological experience. A psychological phenomenon such as projection will represent the expulsive Process and that which is put on to the other will be the Content. Such a content is what is historically and culturally experienced as unacceptable and becomes threatening to the ego. The content of projection could therefore be any feeling or idea. The sexual content of the projective process would be just one of the man...