fic project, initiated byWilhelm Wundt at the University of Leipzig at around 1885. His work was thestudy of the average adult human mind, and the scientific method used wasintrospection. His approaches have long since been abandoned, as have manyof his ideals, but not the basic idea of understanding and describing humanfunctioning within a scientific context.Psychotherapy, on the other hand, is no more a science than that of civilengineering. Ideally, scientifically investigated therapeutic techniquesand methods are used together with ethical and philosophical principles inorder to achieve a desired outcome. Psychotherapy, then, is a mixture of acraft and an art and may not be called a science.Psychology breeds many conflicting explanations of man and his behavior.Psychologist Roger Mills, in his 1980 article, "Psychology Goes Insane,Botches Role as Science," says: "The field of psychiatry today is literally a mess. There are as manytechniques, methods and theories around as there are researchers andtherapists. I have personally seen therapists convince their clients thatall of their problems come from their mothers, the stars, their biochemicalmake-up, their diet, their lifestyle and even the "karma" from their pastlives."These opinions are describing psychotherapy and not psychology in its core. Remembering that psychology is the scientific study of the behavior ofhumans and animals, we should look at their methods of study. As we haveseen, psychologists use scientific methods in an attempt to understand andpredict behavior, to develop procedures for changing behavior, and toevaluate treatment strategies. Mitchell and Jolley discuss the question of whether psychology is a sciencein the first chapter of their text 'Research Design Explained' (3rdEdition). Their conclusions support the claim that psychology is ascience. They discuss the facts that psychology produces objectiveevidence that can be replicated (replicated with the sam...
