Attention and the holistic approach to behavior

Mihály Csíkszentmihályi

pp. 335-358

in: Kenneth S. Pope, Jerome L. Singer (eds), The stream of consciousness, Berlin, Springer, 1978

Abstract

The fate of "consciousness' as a scientific concept is one of the most ironic paradoxes in the history of psychology. Once the central issue, the very essence of what psychology was all about, it is nowadays a peripheral concern, an antiquated idea about as useful as ether and phlogiston are to physicists. According to Murphy and Kovach (1972, p. 51), consciousness "has been a storm center in psychology for a century. Some regard it as an unfortunate and superfluous assumption. . . . Others regard consciousness as only one of many expressions of psychological reality; indeed many psychologists think that the recognition of a psychological realm far greater than the conscious realm is the great emancipating principle of all modern psychology."