Theory & Psychology

This article concerns the workings of metaphors in knowledge formation within psychology. Specifically, the review is focused on George Miller’s (1956) “chunk” metaphor. After considering the introduction and use of the metaphor in his text, the article examines papers in leading psychological research journals to analyse the reception and transformation of the metaphor. How do the researchers take up chunk as a question and organizing principle in their analyses? The results show (a) a tension in conceptualizing the metaphor between seeing chunk as a limitation (in the memory system) and as a means of expanding human abilities, and (b) a reification process of the metaphor, whereby dynamic and expansive actions are transformed into things or objects. It is argued that by emphasizing the static and limited conception of chunk, the premise for Miller’s text of the dynamics of how humans develop and learn is left undeveloped.

Unlike his ideas about education and philosophy, John Dewey’s psychology has been largely neglected. This article begins the rediscovery of his transactional psychology by seeking a synthesizing reading of those of his works that pertain to psychology. The article first outlines his transactional approach and also his metapsychology, which conceived of psychology as involved in the constitution of its own subject matter. Then some central psychological concepts such as habit, thinking, self, mind, meaning, and consciousness are explained within the transactional framework, and some similarities are highlighted between Dewey’s psychology and ecological psychology. It is argued that Dewey’s psychology is still very relevant in the 21st century.

We describe here some of the developing conversations between “third phase” cognitive science and phenomenological philosophy. Contributors to these conversations treat cognition as an embodied, active, and situated phenomenon. We argue that, despite much promise, proper engagement with the foundational phenomenological concept of a situated, meaning-making person has yet to be fully reflected in these conversations. We note that the outcomes of this dialogue have important implications for the field of phenomenological psychology. In particular, we demonstrate that one qualitative method, interpretative phenomenological analysis, can make a useful contribution to the ongoing developments in this field. We suggest that it can provide a valuable hermeneutic counterpoint to the primacy of empiricist methods. Through reference to sustained examples from research participants’ accounts of chronic pain, we show how qualitative phenomenological approaches, such as interpretative phenomenological analysis, can illuminate the importance of situating embodied personal experience in the context of meaning, relationships, and the lived world.

This article seeks to address the theoretical foundations of subjectivity as co-constituted by discursive and material/technological forces. Our ambition is to develop a conceptual framework that draws from Science and Technology Studies and related “new materialist” frameworks and poststructuralist analyses in order to develop analytics that embrace the complexities we face in our empirical work. We discuss the potentialities and weaknesses of the two theoretical frameworks at a conceptual level as well as through an empirical case on peer bullying in schools. The discussion leads us to a redefinition of the concept of subjectivity that emphasizes the multiplicity of enacting forces including human as well as non-human, material/technological actors; and that underlines the importance of a conceptualization of all actors as simultaneously enacting and enacted forces.

Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenological philosophy provides the basis for a form of cultural-existential therapy. Through an examination of Merleau-Ponty’s analysis of the phantom limb and anosognosia, we develop a cultural-existential approach to “psychopathology” and its treatment. In the course of this analysis, ego-syntonic labels are seen in the light of culture-syntonic considerations, depth analysis is married to breadth analysis, empathic understanding is re-understood through a dialectical mode of understanding, medical and psychological analyses are recast within a cultural analysis, and being is resituated within a flesh ontology. Whereas a cultural-existential psychotherapy may compassionately rally around a therapy of situated individuals, it also calls for mindful attention to a therapeutics of culture.

According to evolutionary theorists, there are conflicts in our minds between genes and ideas. Evolutionary theorists investigate how natural selection has moulded possible outcomes of these conflicts. This essay investigates the conceptual framework that is used by evolutionary theorists when they develop explanations. This framework is advanced as an extension of ideas of William James on intrapsychic conflicts. It is argued that this framework is best characterized as crypto-Cartesian. The problems associated with this conceptual framework are analysed and it is suggested that the alternative, Aristotelian framework extended with Darwin’s theory is a better starting point for studying possible conflicts in the mind. The advantages of the Aristotelian framework are discussed with regard to both human and animal behaviour.

A usual way of thinking about the relationship between personal construct psychology (PCP) and social constructionism (SC) is treating them as two separate entities that are similar in some aspects, but also very different in others. This paper aims at exploring some of the possible implications of reframing the relationship between PCP and SC. I point to two important implications: treating PCP as a discourse and adding a new metaphor of the person. Finally, I argue that the invitation to reframe the relationship between PCP and SC extends both approaches and offers more than each of them alone. On one hand, it extends and enriches SC theory and points to benefits of applying the PCP “toolkit” to constructionist therapy and research. On the other hand, proposed reframing contributes to PCP theory and points to new ways of addressing social construction in therapeutic conversations.