ESSAY: Compare and contrast Watson and Freud's vision of psychology.

 In the preface of his book, An Outline of Psycho-Analysis, Sigmund Freud writes:

The teachings of psycho-analysis are based on an incalculable number of observations and experiences, and only someone who has repeated those observations on himself and on others is in a position to arrive at a judgment of his own upon it.

The fact that Freud is compelled to be on the defense before the book even begins indicates that the atmosphere in which this book was published was not necessarily friendly. His statement implies that some people believed that the psychology that Freud practiced and studied was not "scientific" in the sense that it was not founded upon the methods of the natural sciences. Freud, however, throughout the book attempts to give examples of why his theories and laws are as justified as the theories and laws of chemistry or physics. Similarly, John Watson in 1913 wrote a journal article, which acts as a plea for psychology to change and become a true science. He makes it clear that he does not agree with Freud and believes that the current practices are not "scientific."

Freud's main argument for why his psycho-analysis is scientific is the process in which he uses. His method consists of making hypotheses, establishing laws for understanding, and refining them. These laws are the scaffolding that help in furthering the discipline's applications. Just like natural sciences, Freud formulates these laws based on observations and experiences using what he calls an apparatus. The only difference is that the apparatus is the object of study (a human). The psychologist has methods for filling in gaps of knowledge just like any physicist or chemist. He or she interviews the patient, with the assumption that the patient is honest and revealing all that comes to mind. With these data collected, the doctor can make a conjecture based upon the conceptions of the developmental process. Freud admits that at times these conjectures are not objective, but he says that with more training psychologists at some point in time will be able to assess situations with little variability.

Watson, too, has this desire to prove that psychology has a right to be considered a true science; however, he believes that Freud's psycho-analytic methods cannot be purely objective. He is unsatisfied by the way that Freud's results are at times irreproducible. Additionally, much of the jargon that psychologists use do not have a clear meaning, he claims. Pessimistically, he laments that there will never be uniformity in the way that consciousness is described. Therefore, Watson demands that new experimental settings, which focus on physiology rather than the idea of the conscious, be explored. The method Watson does endorse is behaviorism, which predicts and controls behavior through stimulus and response patterns. Watson relates that identifying the consciousness does not demand an experimental procedure, but behaviorism, as a true scientific discipline, does. Like other sciences, there are variables that can be manipulated and direct observations that can be made. For example, by varying the stimuli in type and size, patterns of responses can be discovered. In this way, the method is quantifiable and testable. While Freud attempts to quantify the energy that is used in the battle for the ego, Watson is measuring stimuli and responses in a more concrete way.

These arguments lead us to the question: what is a true science? Richard Feynman, in his book The Meaning of It All, describes science as being a special method of finding things out thereby creating a new body of knowledge and new applications with that knowledge. In that sense, both Freud and Watson are dedicated to a science. Therefore, maybe the conflict between the two scientists is not arising from the fact that one paradigm is more scientific than the other paradigm. Instead, the tension comes from the fact that the two men have different foci and motives. Freud's purpose lies in helping those who are mentally ill. As a by-product, it seems, he is able to construct laws and theories about minds in general. Watson on the other hand is focused on determining how organisms adjust to their environment. Perhaps since the two scientists are asking different questions, their methods should not be the same.
 
 
 
 

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