RISULTATI RICERCA

The mirror is a very widespread tool in human life. It works as an optical device that recreates the image of an object placed in front of it. The relation of the human being with the mirror is very important: we find a pervasiveness and diffusion of mirrors in everyday life, but also in stories and legends, in folklore and mythology. At a certain step of his development, the child is able to recognise himself in the reflected image of a mirror. We observe a strong cultural intra-subjective and inter-subjective recursivity in the construction of the mirroring experience as a model of truth and lie, identity and otherness, knowledge and ignorance. Starting from the debate between two semioticians - Umberto Eco and Juri Lotman - on the semiotic value of the mirror, the authors develop the topic of reflexivity as a psychic process by examining it in the light of various psychoanalytic contributions. Reflexivity and the psychodynamic relationship with one’s own reflected image are developed by centralising the importance of an ongoing and deeply dialogic process between identity and otherness, continuity and transformation.

In their statement paper, Salvatore and colleagues observe dynamics of expansion and specialization in the field of psychological theory and clinical practice, and especially the compartmentalization of professional psychology. The authors, joining a long strand of diagnostics about the fragmentation of the field, argue in favor of an effort toward a reunification of the field. They propose three "overarching strategies: I) the identification of the ultimate causal explanation, from which phenomena could originate; II) the progressive extension of the explicative capacity of specific theories to phenomena other than those for which the theory was originally elaborated; III) the building of a metatheoretical framework providing the language to map the conceptual linkages among short theories". The authors present these strategies as alternatives that would exclude each other and indicate that they themselves do not agree on the best way to fight against fragmentation. As readers with experience in developmental psychology and with the development of theory, we believe that this separation is based on a static flaw: understood dynamically, these three strategies may well be part of a general movement of theoretical development. We illustrate our point with a series of theoretical moves in our fields.

This paper addresses, from the perspective of a psychotherapist, a proposal for unifying psychology under some form of conceptual umbrella, as advanced by Salvatore and colleagues in this current issue of Rivista di Psicologia Clinica. My response raises conceptual and practical questions. The unhappy history of universal models in psychoanalysis illustrates personal, social, and political dynamics that interfere with finding and implementing such models. There is no neutral meta-position; any meta-position is subject to challenge according to its angle, methods, and interests. The question may not be whether, a priori, psychology should be unified, but whether it will turn out to be so. Generalized scientific models applied to psychotherapy may not be close to how people understand and talk about themselves. Psychotherapists are likely to incorporate general principles and models without much rigor and as metaphors to justify and shape change in accord with cultural values rather than to describe or explain. Given different conceptual categories in psychology, natural/causal and humanistic, universal principles or models could be so general and abstract as to constitute philosophy more than science. Balancing assimilation and accommodation, or general stability with local level instability, allow for complexity, flexibility, and responsiveness to unique local conditions for human meaning systems - individual and collective, and for the academic disciplines that study them. Pluralism or polyphony may be an alternative meta-position which allows therapists to flexibly draw from scientific and humanistic perspectives, and from folk psychology, along with personal training and life experience, soft-assembled at the moment of contact with the messy subjectivity of the other.

The rise of psychology over the past century has proceeded apace even in the absence of a unifying theory. The current state of the discipline is one where distinct sub-disciplines pursue compartmentalised interests based on specialist foci that address nuanced aspects of psychological activity in the human species. This commentary outlines the minimal ingredients of a grand theory of psychological activity that requires formulation at three levels of analysis. At the macro level, sociocultural contextual factors bear an influence on individuals and are more or less conducive to the expression of particular tendencies. At the micro level, phylogenetic tendencies influence psychological activity through neurochemical activity. At the meso level, individual dispositions are attuned to contextual demand through a process of changing mindsets to suit circumstances. At this strictly psychological level of activity, the ethical imperative facing the discipline is one that helps maximise psychological health and wellbeing in the face of adversarial conditions.

My response to this road map has three aspects. First, I agree that the various fields of psychology do not share a consensus about basic principles, but I remain skeptical whether they could ever be linked by a unified theoretical framework. Any new set of governing concepts would immediately become a contested topic, increasing the already precarious reputation of the field. My more important reaction, however, focuses on the varied practices and theories of clinical psychology. Clearly, the use of diverse empirical methods by many clinical disciplines does not support the unification thesis of the road map, but rather illustrates their fragmentation. Yet, I find myself in accord with the authors that the absence of a theory with well-defined basic concepts condemns clinical psychology to a patchwork of forms of treatment with disparate goals and purposes. Without a theory, practitioners have no place to organize their observations, choose possible interventions, or even design meaningful research. The example of psychoanalysis in the paper demonstrates the inadequacy of adopting metapsychological terms for this effort. Some psychoanalytic concepts may belong to subcategories of a unifying theory to come (not an organized model). What we may need most now are conversations about this issue among clinicians. Whether this process might lead to identification of shared factors for the vast domain of professional psychology remains to be seen.

This paper is a commentary to Salvatore and colleagues (this volume) which discusses the foundation of a theoretical framework for psychology as a science. The paper argues that in general there are two fundamental sources for any theoretical frameworks in sciences, specifically philosophy and psychology. The argument is that psychology is historically the discipline that justifies an empirical approach in philosophy, whereas philosophy has traditionally only produced theoretical reasoning. This changed in the early modernity, in which philosophy and psychology became united. This unity produced different combinations of subjectivity and objectivity in philosophical reasoning. This paper presents synesthesia as a gateway to investigate the most rudimentary processing of a sense impression. From this perspective, the result demonstrates that the fundamental arbitrariness that forms intensional concepts is almost unavoidable.

The compartmentalization of psychological science and of the profession prevents the progress of the discipline. Compartmentalization is a collateral effect of the impressive scientific, methodological, and technical development of psychology, which has led to the emergence of specialized segments of knowledge and practice that unavoidably tend to progress separately from each other and weaken their reciprocal linkage. The work highlights the limits of compartmentalization and discusses motives that call for the unity of psychology. Three approaches to unification are outlined: I) the identification of the ultimate causal explanation; II) the progressive extension of the explicative capacity of specific theories; III) the building of a metatheoretical framework. Finally, the paper proposes the intervention as the criterion to compare the capacity of the three approaches to unity. According to this criterion, approaches can be validated by reason of their ability to enable professional psychology to address the current challenges that people and society have to face.