Original Message Posted on ShadowPsychologyII Listserv by Dr. Bill Arnott

2) Human behavior does not contain much in the way of "measurable data", hence loses its chance to be treated scientifically. Human behavior is fraught with subjectivity -- scarcely what the scientific method likes to deal with. Science is objectively based, and does not consider non-objectivity (subjectivity) a part of the "laws" it follows. Reviewing total human behavior, it is quite evident that there are many aspects of it that do not do well with "measuring", has many nuances that cannot be given any objective consideration. The fragility of even the conscious -- its constant altering resulting from changing perceptions -- denies its being objective, measurable. The unconscious, by its nature, is subjective, not measurable. As in above, attempts to make objectivity from subjectivity, using "tools" that record functioning of the brain (the locus of the non-materialistic mind), EEGs, MRIs and PET scans, etc. are not successful. All such "measuring" does is record what is going on; however, doesn't measure content in any way. Bohm recognized and said that consciousness is more non-materialistic than materialistic. The mind is not the product of the brain. The brain does not produce thinking. The mind is "outside" of the material brain; however, uses the brain quite will for expression. The totality of human personality is not negotiable, not divisible, not pluralistic. It functions in an interconnected way, and must be treated so. Within this interconnectiveness, this wholeness dwells the psyche. It's a sorry state that it has been lost in overuse of the means at the expense of the product.The psyche is dead! Long live the psyche.

I like Wyatt's analogy: Jung's "shadow" unconscious and its implications in reference to Wyatt's being the "shadow" of modern psychology and its implications. Each "shadow" can be positive or negative.

Response from J Wyatt Ehrenfels

I Will See You The One Shadow Metaphor and Raise You One Hand

Your points are fodder for reflection. I especially like the one about breaking the psyche down into "parts" for study under a microscope. While I would not deny anyone their right to erect fences around that terrain that is of interest to them, I myself receive a lot of resistance when I want to design bold methodologies for broadly exploring the whole. Such broad research is important because too often the phenomenon as depicted in these mini-studies appears too differently than it would in broader research. I like to use the metaphor of an extraterrestrial anthropologist visiting earth to study the human hand. What does it do? One anthropologist observes migrant workers in a California vineyard and reports that the purpose of hands are to "pick grapes." Another anthropologist observes a Broadway audience and reports that the purpose of the human hand is to signal appreciation. And yet a third anthropologist attends a soccer match and reports that the human hand is a vestigial organ with strictly ornamental properties. Then an anthropologist might surrmise after witnessing an obscene gesture that each finger has its own fixed and unique function.

I raise this metaphor because I see this all the time in dream research with cognitive neuroscientists citing their own circumscribed research in claiming "the function of dreams is to serve as cognitive filing cabinets -- oh -- and, by the way, that's all dreams do!" In and of itself, the research makes no official mistakes, impeccably deploying design principles and flanked by a statistical fireworks show and shiny lab instruments purchased on foundation grants. If you do not know enough about science, you'd assume based on the smokescreen of legitimacy and the mistake-free procedures that such a claim should be given the benefit of the doubt and made one's incumbent belief. Meanwhile, I could be performing equally circumscribed research to evaluate another mini-claim and come to a wholly other conclusion about the function of dreaming. If someone came along and performed my program of broad phenomenological research, he or she would likely subsume (dissolve) these previous conclusions into a much bigger picture that embraces the wide role of dreaming in the regulation of personality and experience. If I had a university position from which to launch my program of research, I firmly believe I could satisfy the biggest appetites for information, meaning, and entertainment concerning the mysteries of dreaming. That is simply what I was put on this earth to do, and I would do better than anyone in the game today or should I say, "games without frontiers."

I have often heard it said that women like to be romanced. That if you want to get a woman in the mood (for sex), you should light a few candles, create an ambience or environment. I always felt like such the man in that I never needed any mood-enhancement props. Generally speaking, for women, the ambience is a part of the sex act but for men (again, generally speaking and pending empirical qualification), they are relatively independent. This sort of parallels my disagreement with psychological researchers about the ritual of science. For a scientist to "get in the mood," he or she needs certain devices and environments. Some need a lab. Some need the white coats. Some are only turned on by 200 test subjects and IRB approval. Some need the language of "hypotheses." Some need to crunch their numbers in SPSS for the mainframe. Some need control groups. Some "All Bran types" need a really parsimonious theory, simple and rational. Some need to know that at the end of the day, there will be a power point presentation. Some need to know that whatever it is they are doing, it is exactly as prescribed by "other scientists."

But is any of this science? Like dreaming, and like the human hand, science is one thing with many manifestations. By making certain "manifestations" mandatory aspects of some ritual, we are forcing researchers into nonconsensual sex. Well, that's what it always felt like to me. When people talk about bending over backwards for their careers, well, I bent in this and one other direction. Ironic, isn't it? That as parsimonious, materialistic, and rigorous as many psychological researchers claim to be, they are engaged in purely ritual acts not unlike the myths, wiles, and illusions that charm the masses but to which they pretend to be impervious. Let's examine their attitude toward some very human experiences. What is romance to many of them but some brain secretion? What is dreaming but an attempt by one part of the brain to impart (fictional) sense to the random neuronal firing from a -- GASP! -- more primitive part of the brain? What is a religious experience or UFO encounter but some temporal lobe anoxia? What is a synchronistic or precognitive event but some chest-thumping affirmation of and by the laws of probability? Anyone clinging to the "illusion" or "hoax" must be violently contradicted or condescended, with the posture depending on how threatened the psychology professor feels. Skeptics in research shrink from the direct study of dreams and, in their fear of meaning itself, have unleashed a campaign for rationality so extreme as to dwarf the irrationality, bankruptcy, and fraudulence of the 19th Century spiritual mediums they continue to treat as public health risks. Blinded by their crusade, the professors look at the world around them and see in statistically unique personalities only a potential for maladaptiveness and in phenomena beyond rational explanation only a potential for fraud. If there are two things professors fear, it is being fooled and not fitting in.

Warning: This Sex Metaphor Will Get Away From Me

In any event, they love the cosmetic look of a "polished and complete scientific product" and anyone that does not share their interest in dressing up their journals with such imitations is doomed to have a short career, if any. Please forgive my weakness but it is difficult to resist the lure of a metaphor that compares psychological research with an epidemic of premature ejaculation. Don't get me wrong. Psychological researchers want to have "sex" (publications) as often as possible -- more than once a year. And in order to maintain such high ritualistic standards at that frequency, they have to work with as simple or simplified a question or piece of a phenomenon as possible, most likely something unattractive with low expectations so easily wooed (romanced) by the illusion of science as to be willing to overlook some really forgettable sex. I guess my career problems began when I decided I wasn't willing to compromise. I need a really pretty woman and I need my sex to be memorable. I am not big on gimmicky romance, but I am also no whore. (I also go to bed with no whores). My romance comes from the sex itself and leads to a lasting relationship between two whole persons (i.e., one in which I can respect the integrity of the phenomena under study and the phenomena under study can respect the full, freely, and passionately given wits of this psychological researcher). So let the University of Arizona psychology department adorn its web site with the claim "Department among top 10 on main campus in terms of external research dollars" and also with "One of the most popular undergraduate majors on campus with 1500 students." I'll resist the urge to reintroduce the hand back into this discussion and claim only that "this" is not my psychology.

A Constellation of Metaphors

Over the years I have refined my metaphors for the Procrustean bed of arbitrary and superfluous norms that govern psychological research. I have made up the term methodolatry to refer to their near-liturgical and faith-based observance of what amounts to social conventions. I have never heard a community with such a poignant contempt for religious patrons scream so loudly "this is my God" as those in the psychological community. I have also used the terms autistic empiricism, ADHD science, and cosmetic science to refer to psychological research. There is a self-medicating quality to this research paradigm, the likes of which are matched only by the therapeutic benefits of cosmetic surgery. If they wish to undergo the knife to install a sense of identity or legitimacy where previously some vaccuum existed, that's fine. But keep your hands off me, and keep your hands off the psychological phenomena that I love so much.