There is no psychology; there is only biography and autobiography (Thomas Szasz quote - meaning)?

i believe Szasz literally meant there is the patient (biography) and the therapist (autobiography)...as Playto says, no messy behaviorists "black box" concepts need be applied...there is the patient and the therapist...their life stories will define the interaction...not cognitive theory...

this seems to simply be a extension of his general objections to psychology...some of which i believe to be valid and sound...

he spends a great deal of time discussing power and the difference between behavior and disease...these are valid points but only insofar as they produce an efficacious result in treatment...clients present idiosyncratic symptoms and the treatment should reflect that...in treatment, the therapist should "do what works"...take a little from this school and a little from that...and while i agree with his taking the discipline to task for it's blind adherence to form...for me, he is too strident and paints with too broad a brush in his criticisms...

Szasz is big on the power of words and definitions and i concur...he seems to object to the musings of cognitive psychology over non-observable data...and to me, doesn't seem to like behaviorists that much either...and here is where we start to part company...

where i differ with old Thomas and with Playto as well, is exemplified in Playto's answer..."There is no reason for human behavior. People are not billiard balls that you can roll at each other and predict outcomes." I agree with the billiard ball part, but not the reason for behavior part. Sure...behavior is all we can see, but to deny that there is "something" going on inside the black box is throwing out the baby with the bath water...i believe you can make predictions for individuals on an individual basis...and not JUST from behavioral observation...

i do not say that one can see clearly inside the box, but one can and does recognize patterns in motivations behind behavior...a Plato's cave if you will...i would not apply these shadows to each person in the same way...nor do i tout these inferences as "true" or "defining"...but if they are effective in relieving the maladaptive effects of a behavior in an individual, then i would suggest employing that inference...with or without worrying about the burdens of "proof"...if it works, use it...

Thomas Szasz Biography

Cause and effect does not work in the realm of human thinking. Reasons are invented after the facts. Why did you choose the clothes you choose this morning. Why did you sit at the computer tonight. You did not think about it before you sat, it has become habit.

There is no reason for human behavior. People are not billiard balls that you can roll at one another and predict outcomes. There are only outcomes. There are no reasons. There is only biography and autobiography. There is only, the reasons other people think you did things and the reasons you think you did things. Psychology would then fall into autobiography, self explanation, or biography, explanations others offer for your behavior.

Psychology becomes the behaviorist's black box. We can not tell what goes on in the "black box" (The Brain), We see actions before and actions after, nothing else matters.

Just my thoughts

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i guess it means that psychology is the result of ones life.... your own life story and what you make it to be. you write your own autobiography. i think its a stupid and misguided quote that has no truth in it!

Perhaps it means that psychologist study the life of a person.