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The new image of the person: The theory and practice of clinical philosophy
Brlw, Rr, d; Tl,urnp~. Vol IX. pp 153 IO 159 Perpmon PressLtd 1980 Prmed in Great Brtlam
BOOK
REVIEWS
PETERKOESTENBAUM:The New Image oj the Person: The Theory wood Press, Westport, Connecticut (1978). xiv + 570 pp. f 13.95.
and
Prucricr of C’linicul Philosophy.
Green-
This enormously long, rhapsodical and frequently unreadable tome is unlikely to captivate behaviour therapists. especially in Britain, where the so-called growth movement and popular American fringe therapies, which the book appears to be largely a reaction against, have not gained enough of a following to be a problem and where the majority of clients who seek the help of behaviour therapists are trying to overcome practical problems in their psychological functioning rather than seeking to escape from the sense of meaninglessness produced by a surfeit of affluence. The book is simply not very relevant to their-our-practical problems as clinicians with our particular clientele under the publicly-financed system of health care delivery. If we were to follow Koestenbaum’s lead and say to our phobics and obsessionals, “your symptom (. .) is an expression of the fact that you are not taking personal and free responsibility for asking life’s three basic philosophic questions-Who am I? What is my meaning? What is intimacy?” (p. 6) they would probably-and rightlyregard us as grossly impertinent. Our function is meant to be to help them overcome their phobias, obessions, and so on. not to lumber them with existential problems which they didn’t even know they had. Koestenbaum. a Professor of Philosophy at San Jose State College, names “authenticity, self-actualization, meaning and fulfilment” (p. 6) as the goals of his enterprise. Even if it were obvious what these terms mean. it is really not our business to impose them on clients. From the point of view of a behaviour therapist, the main limitation of this whole approach is that, as psychoanalysis-which it in many ways resembles-did before it. it appears to confuse the special forms of emotional crisis found in a particular population living under particular socioeconomic conditions (including, in this case. privately financed health care) with the human condition at large. Just as the, now largely extinct, classical Freudian hysteric was a product of life in repressive late 19th century Viennese culture, so the particular form of existential anguish for which Koestenbaum’s proposed approach might be fitting seems to be a product of American life in the post-technological era. At the best of times, Americans have been more inclined than the British to accept totalistic therapeutic ideologies. Like psychoanalysis before it, clinical philosophy is based on an unacknowledged stance of therapeutic omniscience and omnipotence, which most behaviourists. with their more pragmatic approach to problem-solving. have, to their credit. chosen to eschew. These two approaches also share a propensity to effusive symbol-hunting from which behaviourists likewise abstain. The case of “Richard” (pp. 420-422). for instance, vies with the most florid of psychodynamic exegeses. Other resemblances could be enumerated. After working through pages of luridly purple existential prose I came to the statement: “An authentic encounter between two authentic persons (in the lived world and not in the therapeutic hour) is therefore a field-field relation or, to use an unforgivably repetitive circumlocution, a field-field field, or a field-to-field field” (p. 413) I reminded myself of Wittgenstein’s dictum, “everything that can be said can be said clearly” and wondered whether the Professor of Philosophy had heard of it. If one ignores the neo-Hegelian verbiage, there are some possibly useful ideas for clinical ploys for use when all else fails. but the reader would be forgiven for wondering whether the game was worth the candle. VICKY RIPPERE
LAWRENCES. MEYERS and NEAL
E. GROSSEN: Behavioural Research. W. H. Freeman & Co., San Francisco (1978). x + 374 pp. f8.20.
Theory,
Procedure
and
Design (2nd Edn).
Although this book is intended primarily as an introductory text for undergraduates, it may be of interest to those who are engaged in behavioural research as well as to those who teach clinical psychology postgraduates, medical and paramedical students. This edition. which represents an expansion and revision of the first (which appeared in 1974) has four m;tin sections. ‘The Beginnings of Research’ contains one chapter on the nature of scientific enquiry; ‘The Foundations of Research’ contains five. dealing with data, their representations and interpretation; ‘The Techniques of Research’ has eight. dealing with sampling, observation, and experimentation. The chapter on Applied Research has been expanded to include more on reliability and validity. The final section ‘The Communication of Research’ contains two chapters, including a potentially most useful sample of experimental report with full running commentary. The extensive appendices include designs for independent groups and repeated measures, non parametric statistics for qualitative and quantitative data, and tables. 153
BOOK
REVIEWS
PETERKOESTENBAUM:The New Image oj the Person: The Theory wood Press, Westport, Connecticut (1978). xiv + 570 pp. f 13.95.
and
Prucricr of C’linicul Philosophy.
Green-
This enormously long, rhapsodical and frequently unreadable tome is unlikely to captivate behaviour therapists. especially in Britain, where the so-called growth movement and popular American fringe therapies, which the book appears to be largely a reaction against, have not gained enough of a following to be a problem and where the majority of clients who seek the help of behaviour therapists are trying to overcome practical problems in their psychological functioning rather than seeking to escape from the sense of meaninglessness produced by a surfeit of affluence. The book is simply not very relevant to their-our-practical problems as clinicians with our particular clientele under the publicly-financed system of health care delivery. If we were to follow Koestenbaum’s lead and say to our phobics and obsessionals, “your symptom (. .) is an expression of the fact that you are not taking personal and free responsibility for asking life’s three basic philosophic questions-Who am I? What is my meaning? What is intimacy?” (p. 6) they would probably-and rightlyregard us as grossly impertinent. Our function is meant to be to help them overcome their phobias, obessions, and so on. not to lumber them with existential problems which they didn’t even know they had. Koestenbaum. a Professor of Philosophy at San Jose State College, names “authenticity, self-actualization, meaning and fulfilment” (p. 6) as the goals of his enterprise. Even if it were obvious what these terms mean. it is really not our business to impose them on clients. From the point of view of a behaviour therapist, the main limitation of this whole approach is that, as psychoanalysis-which it in many ways resembles-did before it. it appears to confuse the special forms of emotional crisis found in a particular population living under particular socioeconomic conditions (including, in this case. privately financed health care) with the human condition at large. Just as the, now largely extinct, classical Freudian hysteric was a product of life in repressive late 19th century Viennese culture, so the particular form of existential anguish for which Koestenbaum’s proposed approach might be fitting seems to be a product of American life in the post-technological era. At the best of times, Americans have been more inclined than the British to accept totalistic therapeutic ideologies. Like psychoanalysis before it, clinical philosophy is based on an unacknowledged stance of therapeutic omniscience and omnipotence, which most behaviourists. with their more pragmatic approach to problem-solving. have, to their credit. chosen to eschew. These two approaches also share a propensity to effusive symbol-hunting from which behaviourists likewise abstain. The case of “Richard” (pp. 420-422). for instance, vies with the most florid of psychodynamic exegeses. Other resemblances could be enumerated. After working through pages of luridly purple existential prose I came to the statement: “An authentic encounter between two authentic persons (in the lived world and not in the therapeutic hour) is therefore a field-field relation or, to use an unforgivably repetitive circumlocution, a field-field field, or a field-to-field field” (p. 413) I reminded myself of Wittgenstein’s dictum, “everything that can be said can be said clearly” and wondered whether the Professor of Philosophy had heard of it. If one ignores the neo-Hegelian verbiage, there are some possibly useful ideas for clinical ploys for use when all else fails. but the reader would be forgiven for wondering whether the game was worth the candle. VICKY RIPPERE
LAWRENCES. MEYERS and NEAL
E. GROSSEN: Behavioural Research. W. H. Freeman & Co., San Francisco (1978). x + 374 pp. f8.20.
Theory,
Procedure
and
Design (2nd Edn).
Although this book is intended primarily as an introductory text for undergraduates, it may be of interest to those who are engaged in behavioural research as well as to those who teach clinical psychology postgraduates, medical and paramedical students. This edition. which represents an expansion and revision of the first (which appeared in 1974) has four m;tin sections. ‘The Beginnings of Research’ contains one chapter on the nature of scientific enquiry; ‘The Foundations of Research’ contains five. dealing with data, their representations and interpretation; ‘The Techniques of Research’ has eight. dealing with sampling, observation, and experimentation. The chapter on Applied Research has been expanded to include more on reliability and validity. The final section ‘The Communication of Research’ contains two chapters, including a potentially most useful sample of experimental report with full running commentary. The extensive appendices include designs for independent groups and repeated measures, non parametric statistics for qualitative and quantitative data, and tables. 153