Problems in Freud's Metapsychology

This article first seeks to analyze in the light of the history of science, two fundamental problems concerning the metapsychology of Freud and the interpretation of these in the related literature that has appeared since. The two problems in question are psychophysi-calism and the dichotomous splitting of the subject. An examination of Freud's conceptual development leads to two hypotheses, namely the so-called three-level model and the partitioning of the subject into an adaptive and a psychosexual register.     

Why positive psychology is necessary

The authors provide a definition of positive psychology and suggest that psychologists should try to cultivate a more appreciative perspective on human nature. Examples are given of a negative bias that seems to pervade much of theoretical psychology, which may limit psychologists' understanding of typical and successful human functioning. Finally, a preview of the articles in the special section is given.     

Sharing is caring for developmental psychology

Many of us, especially in the more experimental tradition, are used to doing it all ourselves: we don't know better than to collect our own data for every new study. We invest considerable amounts of time and resources in designing experiments, ethical review applications, participant recruitment, finding and training measuring assistants, and writing data management plans. And after all the hard work we end up with a sample size that hardly ever meets current standards. What if we could skip, or outsource some of these study aspects, allowing us to devote more of our time, energy, expertise, and experience to data analysis, reading, writing, and theory development? We argue that sharing data, expertise, and infrastructure could contribute to improving the credibility of research results, and to practicing more sustainable developmental science. In addition, we discuss several reasons that we believe may (currently) dissuade researchers from considering such sharing.     

There is no 'truth' outside a context: implications for the teaching of analytical psychology in the 21st century

Humans are from birth embedded in a historical and contemporary context of meanings. This always constrains their theoretical and practical activities. In this paper, I will be suggesting that there are no guiding 'truths' outside such contexts. In order to understand the foundations of any concept or new idea, it is important to comprehend the context in which it is embedded. Candidates and some of their teachers have very little knowledge of the intellectual context in which Jung or any other analytic theorist wrote. As a result, the analytic 'founders' are often believed to have discovered 'truths' transcending the context of history and of everyday life. They were, however, as much creative synthesizers as pure originators. I propose that the components of all analytic theories emerge from their embeddedness. I contend, therefore, that the understandings of these components such as psychic causality, epistemology and identity formation were quite differently conceived at the time the analytic founders were working than they are today. I will give examples to show how the acceptance of this attitude is useful in inculcating a discerning approach in candidates towards traditionally accepted analytic theories and practices. This can provide them with a method to promote their individual creative development.