What is psychology?

pp. 27-47

in: Thomas Teo, Outline of theoretical psychology, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2018

Abstract

The chapter focuses on ontological reflections regarding the nature of psychology as an academic discipline, profession, and cultural phenomenon. It also addresses the issue of the psychological object and subject matter and includes questions about what psychologists study or should study, the specific and unique characteristics of the psychological subject matter, and the complexity of the psychological object and event. It includes theoretical psychology's traditional debate about the nature of the discipline in terms of discussing the crisis of psychology, and the problem of integration, fragmentation, and pluralism. The question is moved from "how do we integrate psychology?" to "why did integration never happen?" or "why has the mainstream not attended to this problem?" Internal (onto-epistemological) and external (cultural and political) reasons for the lack of attention to this problem are presented.