The Psychologist As Systems Analyst

Introduction

At my twenty-fifth high school reunion, a classmate asked me what I did. When I told her I am a psychologist, she replied, "Oh, really! I was sure you would go into science because you were always so interested in it."

It has been over 100 years since Wundt established the first psychological laboratory, yet the common view still seems to be that psychologists are not scientists. It has also been over 30 years since George Miller suggested that the brain and the computer are both information-processing systems.

Despite the cognitive revolution in our discipline (Gardner, 1985), including widespread use of cognitive therapy techniques (Freeman, et. al., 1989), the philosophical implications of the information processing view do not appear to have changed the way in which we view ourselves, much less how the public sees us. The early promise of broad applications of cybernetics to psychology (e.g. Buckley, 1968) apparently did not produce a fundamental paradigm shift.

A major factor in this may be the image that the field has in clinical applications, which represent the primary interface of psychology with the broader society.  Practitioners and their clients seem to cling to the paradigm borrowed from medicine of the psychologist as a healer (Orlinsky, 1989). This view may persist without a clearly defined, coherent alternative.

To correct this, I propose a new paradigm derived from the information-processing viewpoint: the psychologist as a systems analyst. To illustrate this, I will provide an overview of my NeuroCybernetic Psychology. The emotional resistance many people, including psychologists, experience towards this paradigm will be discussed. One reason for this may be that an information processing view is often seen as cold and uncaring. I will argue that humanistic purposes can be best accomplished through a scientifically grounded psychotechnology.

Another source of resistance is the common misperception of the information processing approach as mechanistic. This may arise largely from a confounding of hard science with an objective frame of reference. The physical sciences have long been aware of the advantages of conceptual systems with a subjective frame of reference. Such an orientation may be necessary for psychology to achieve critical theoretical advances on issues of consciousness, will and power. I will show this is well within the scope of the systems analyst paradigm.

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