The Delicate Scientist Practitioner

Abstract

This article offers an alternative understanding of the ‘scientist‐practitioner’ in clinical practice. The ‘dodo bird’ hypothesis or ‘common factors’ findings suggest that the specific technique of a particular treatment protocol, whether supported or not by empirical validation, are not as important as feedback to the clinician as to whether this particular treatment is working or not. A new philosophy of science and cognition suggests that ‘know‐how’ and ‘withness‐knowledge’ is of more importance than any ‘know‐that’ or ‘aboutness’ knowledge. Two hundred years ago Goethe suggested a method of science that was more focused on performativity than representationalism, which is being discovered again by postmodern science and philosophy. This model of science, combined with Levinas' call for an ethics first approach, can provide an alternative to the move towards treatment manuals.

A Taste of Wittgenstein SFBT. 1: The Tractatus*

“…So what Wittgenstein is doing is helping us make sense of our sense making from within the world, not from an assumed ("objective") 5. See Drury (2006) for an account of Goethe's 'delicate empiricism' as a method of science closer to Wittgenstein.…”

“…Goethe developed this as a method of science, an alternative to Newton's, which he called the 'delicate empiricism'. For Goethe, we become the scientific instrument, by making ourselves one with the phenomena we wish to understand, feeling it out from the 'inside' so to speak (Drury, 2006;Seamon & Zajonc, 2006). As I have shown elsewhere, this is an approach to science and psychotherapy that is also far more consistent with some indig-Wittgenstein's way of dissolving the self (or 'I') in Tractatus was by leading us through an argument on a form of solipsism.…”

Volume 1 Issue 1 Complete

“…The 5. See Drury (2006) He then goes on to describe how we present these 'facts' in our language, and at this point introduces us to the idea that language pictures the world. (In his later writings (1930 onwards) he expresses some regret in restricting the use of language to picturing or representing reality in the Tractatus, for of course there are all sorts of other ways language is used -giving orders, asking a question, thanking, etc., (1958, §23).…”

British Clinical Psychology and Society: A Commentary

“…This would be the approach of choice for American clinical psychology training, and exerted its influence on UK clinical psychology over the next 50 years. It has been criticised as institutionalising the medical model as the dominant one for clinical psychology (Drury, 2006) and that the profession "sold its soul" (Albee, 1998, p. 189). If we were reinventing the profession today, would it be different?…”