The Case for Pragmatic Psychology

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Summary: The field of Psychology is indebted to Daniel Fishman.
Review: Students enter the study of psychology with the belief that psychology is a discipline that can contribute to the benefit of humanity and the betterment of society. They expect to find the accumulated wisdom of thousands of investigators working for over a hundred years of effort to answer the questions and solve the problems of everyday living that burden their existence. They usually come away from their studies sadly disappointed that there were no real answers and that their only hope is a faint promise that a scientific psychology will some day in the distant future have the answers for which they seek. They then turn or return to pop psychology where at least the authors attempt to give answers (superficial as these may be) to the pressing problems that trouble them. If we as a discipline have the courage and vision to go down the path that Daniel Fishman has charted for our profession in his Case for a Pragmatic Psychology, we will finally be able to face our students with integrity, and ultimately with the real answers to the problems they seek assistance in understanding and solving. In this monumental undertaking, Fishman has challenged the myths and self-serving presumptions of the entire discipline of basic and applied psychology, and he has done so with an argument that is both historically and philosophically cogent, and that articulates a concrete alternative research paradigm -- the pragmatic case study. He offers us a vision of a discipline of psychology that is relevant, meaningful, practical, and theoretically sound, and that contributes to the public well-being and interest in the manner in which we have long promised to do, but have rarely actually done. This book will threaten those who are entrenched in the academic-scientific power structure and bureaucracy, and is sure to earn their wrath. The public and professional debate that will ensue is exactly what the field needs to arouse itself from its auto-hypnotic, self-satisfied, scientistic slumber. If the public interest, and the well-being of the individuals in our society are the criteria against which his proposal is evaluated, the outcome of the debate is assured; and the 21st century will be the century of a pragmatic psychology. Of course, only time will tell if that will be the case. In the meantime, the discipline of psychology is indebted to Daniel Fishman for tackling this monumental endeavor, and for having charted a course for all of us to work together to see the promise of psychology is ultimately realized. --Ronald B. Miller, author of The Restoration of Dialogue: Readings in the Philosophy of Clinical Psychology.