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From Matter to Life to Mind...
AN UNFOLDING CONSCIOUSNESS
Behaviorist Psychology
"Psychology as the behaviorist views it,
is a purely objective experimental branch of natural science. Its
theoretical goal is the prediction and control of behavior. Introspection
forms no essential part of its methods, nor is the scientific value of its
data dependent on the readiness with which they lend themselves to
interpretation in terms of consciousness."
John
Watson
"...Skinner expressed no interest in
understanding the human psyche. He was as strict a behaviorist
as John
Watson, and he sought only to determine how behavior is caused by
external forces. He believed everything we do and are is shaped by our
experience of punishment and reward. He believed that the "mind"
(as opposed to the brain) and other such subjective phenomena were simply
matters of language; they didn't really exist..."
Dr. C. George Boeree
"We may now turn to the effects of psychotherapeutic treatment. The
results of nineteen studies reported in the literature, covering over
seven thousand cases, and dealing with both psychoanalytic and eclectic
types of treatment, are quoted in detail...In general, certain
conclusions are possible from these data. They fail to prove that
psychotherapy, Freudian or otherwise, facilitates the recovery of
neurotic patients.
They show that roughly two-thirds of a group of
neurotic patients will recover or improve to a marked extent within
about two years of the onset of their illness, whether they are treated
by means of psychotherapy or not. This figure appears to be remarkably
stable from one investigation to another, regardless of type of patient
treated, standard of recovery employed, or method of therapy
used. From the point of view of the neurotic, these figures are
encouraging; from the point of view of the psychotherapist, they can
hardly be called very favorable to his claims...
These results and
conclusions will no doubt contradict the strong feeling of usefulness
and therapeutic success which many psychiatrists and clinical
psychologists hold. While it is true that subjective feelings of this
type have no place in science, they are likely to prevent an easy
acceptance of the general argument presented here.."
The
Effects of Psychotherapy: An Evaluation, 1957
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