From Anxiety to Method in the Behavioral Sciences pdf epub mobi txt 电子书 下载 2025

The scientific study of man:

Is impeded by the anxiety arousing overlap between subject and observer,

Which requires an analysis of the nature and locus of the partition between the two;

Must compensate for the partialness of communication between subject and observer on the conscious level; but

Must avoid the temptation to compensate for the completeness of communication between subject and observer on the unconscious level,

Which arouses anxiety and therefore also countertransference reactions,

Distorting the perception and interpretation of the data, and

Producing countertransference resistances masquerading as methodology, which cause further sui generis distortions.

Since the existence of the observer, his observational activities and his anxieties (even in self observation) produce distortions which it is not only technically but also logically impossible to eliminate,

Any effective behavioral science methodology must treat these disturbances as the most significant and characteristic data of behavioral science research, and

Must use the subjectivity inherent in all observation as the royal road to an authentic, rather than fictitious, objectivity,

Which must be defined in terms of what is really possible, rather than in terms of what 'should be.'

When ignored, or warded off by means of countertransference resistances masquerading as methodology, these 'disturbances' become sources of uncontrolled and uncontrollable error, although

When treated as basic and characteristic data of behavioral science they are more valid and more productive of insight than any other type of datum.

In short, behavioral science data arouse anxieties, which are warded off by a countertransference inspired pseudo-methodology; this maneuver is responsible for nearly all the defects of behavioral science. (pp. xvi-xvii)