“Aping pharmaceutical research methods does not elevate psychology. We should stop misleading the public to believe that emotional suffering is like medical disease, or that different kinds of psychotherapy are like different medications. These assumptions are false at every level. Psychotherapy is not like medication, psychotherapy is like psychotherapy. “
This article by Jonathan Shedler has been published in Psychology Today. It begins:
“One of the most powerful constructs I know is called supervenience. It helps us understand why knowledge at one level of analysis can be irrelevant at another.
For example: When you watch a movie, you are seeing arrangements of pixels. The movie is 100 percent dependent on pixels and cannot exist apart from them. But knowledge of pixels is irrelevant to understanding the movie. We can know everything there is to know about pixeIs and have no concept of Luke Skywalker, Darth Vader, or the battle for the empire.
Movie supervenes on pixels.
Likewise, mind supervenes on brain. Mind depends on brain and cannot exist apart from it. But knowledge of brain is not knowledge of mental life. They are different levels of analysis requiring different concepts and methods …”
You can read more from here.
