PSYCHOLOGISTS, like other men, live according to their perceptions of reality. What they perceive as real they believe, and are thereby governed in their actions both as persons and as members of their science and profession. The culture of psychology, at least of contemporary American psychology, shares many common beliefs. We are all empiricists. We look to observations for our knowledge, not to the authority of the past. We are determinists, and believe that every consequent which we observe has been brought about by its sufficient antecedents. In the main, we are , ontogenists, believing in the orderly nature of developmental sequences.Within the core of common beliefs held by psychologists, some important variations also exist. When experimental psychologists view the sequential changes in behavior which accompany activity or experience, they do not all see the same things. To some of them habit strength is real, to others, reflex reserve, or closure, or sign-gestalt expectation. The experiments we are willing to perform, the results on which we focus our attentions, and, in consequence, the conclusions which we draw, are in no small part influenced by these private realities. Our being scientists does not entirely surmount our attitudinal frames of reference.Among the several dimensions of belief in which psychologists vary, one of great scope may be singled out for closer consideration. In the framework of a common empiricism, some of us find the most convincing reality in our immediate observations. That which is real and truly believed is sensed and felt at first hand: the word, the gesture, the blush, the unique configuration of responses on a subtle projective test, produced by another human being in the direct presence of the observer. Let us call this attitude intuitive; it is the preference for knowing by immediate and direct processes without intervening steps of formal interpretation.
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BY LAURANCE F. SHAFFERTEACHERS COLLEGE, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY npHIS MEETING commemorates the JL founding of the first psychological clinic by Lightner Witmer, a psychologist. Without detracting from the honor paid to Witmer, it might be noted that another early and influential clinic was established by a psychiatrist. In 1909,37 years ago, William Healy opened the Chicago Juvenile Psychopathic Institute, now the Institute for Juvenile Research. Ever since that time, psychiatrists and clinical psychologists have been drawn into increasingly complex relationships, because of their common aims and similar principles and methods.The feeling tone of the relationship between clinical psychology and psychiatry has varied greatly during the past fifty years. From the very beginning there have been examples of cordiality and effective collaboration, as seen in the association of William Healy with Augusta F. Bronner, and that of Aaron J. Rosanoff with Grace H. Kent, partnerships that dated from before 1910. These classic relationships have set a pattern for many other collaborations that are less well known but equally fruitful. When two especially competent people people are thrown into continued and intimate contact, they develop mutual respect, and this is true of a psychologist and a psychiatrist, as well as of other persons.We would only be blinding ourselves
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