Saumya Sethi
“ When you come out of the grips of a depression there is an incredible relief, but not one you feel allowed to celebrate. Instead, the feeling of victory is replaced with anxiety that it will happen again, and with shame and vulnerability when you see how your illness affects your family, your work, everything left untouched while you struggled to survive. We come back to life thinner, paler, weaker ” (Lawson, 2015)
The author Jenny Lawson in her book ‘Furiously Happy’ describes her life long battle with crippling depression and anxiety. Her implicit experiences of her depression and anxiety cannot be explained by one world solely. The schools of psychoanalysis, cognitive psychology, psychiatry cannot offer reasoning for such psychophysiological phenomena in isolation of one another. Neuroscience in psychology appears captivating with its potential for explaining all human behaviour through biological processes with a grand unified theory however neuroscience and psychology deal with fundamentally different matters.
The lure of neuroscience in psychology lies in its potential of providing a grand unifying theory for psychology tying all of its sub schools under one umbrella explanation for all human behaviour; the norm and the deviance.
The foundation of neuroscience lies in the idea that all mental states and psychological processes are preceded by brain operations. Consensus on the mind-body problem however is hard to achieve among the different stances. A large portion of neuroscientists tend to believe that the mind is nothing but a product of the brain and all mental states can be traced down to biological processes that take place in the brain offering explanations for all psychological processes.
On the contrary, there are neuroscientists of the opinion that although the brain precedes all mental states, the mind is far too complex to be solely explained by the physiological processes of neuroscience and reduced to a product of only the brain. Their argument builds on the idea that although the network of chemical and electrical signals in the neurons present in the brain allow for psychological processes such as perception, memory and emotion to exist, these processes still cannot be traced back to only the brain. Among the countless neurons that exist in our brain, not one of them is conscious yet when placed back in context and structure, they allow for consciousness of the mind to emerge. (Henriques, Gregg 2017)
A closer look at this argument allows for one to realise that despite the interrelation and connectedness of neuroscience and psychology, the two disciplines deal with fundamentally different matters; In spite of the direct correlation between the two, Neuroscience primarily deals with neurons and the brain whereas psychology as a discipline is concerned with conscious experiences, the behaviours of people and the application of different theories, assessments and interventions to ensure the coherent well being of individuals. A classic example to understand the relationship yet the difference between neuroscience and psychology could be the administration of drugs to a patient showing symptoms of depression, the drugs can alter neurotransmitters in the brain and allow for the physiological symptoms of depression such as insomnia, fatigue, headaches etc to subside however psychological aspects of the disorder such as unresolved trauma, faulty thought patterns or maladaptive behaviours would remain untouched.
The lure of a grand unified theory for a discipline such a psychology offers the promise and potential of a systematic and objective explanation for all psychological phenomenon but does the world of psychology really need a grand unified theory? In Spite of the prevalent strife and discord the discipline has been held together by certain features for years now. The intrinsic significant features of psychology that are easily replicable even in instances where no two psychologists agree on one fundamental structure are (i) psychology’s methods and (ii) its functional interpretation of just about any and all of its conceptual elements (Stam, 2004).
In essence, despite the alluring charm of neuroscience offering a single unified explanation for all things psychology, Neuroscience remains a discipline that is different from yet connected to the world of psychology.
References:
Henriques, Gregg. “Defining Psychology.” A New Unified Theory of Psychology, 2011, pp. 181–207., doi:10.1007/978-1-4614-0058-5_7.
Lawson, Jenny. Furiously Happy: {a Funny Book about Horrible Things}. Flatiron Books, 2017.
Schwartz, S. J., Meca, A., Lilienfeld, S. O., & Sauvigné, K. C. (2016). The role of neuroscience within psychology: A call for inclusiveness over exclusiveness. American Psychologist, 71, 52-70.
Stam H. J. (2004). Unifying Psychology: epistemological act or disciplinary maneuver? J. Clin. Psychol. 60 1259–1262. 10.1002/jclp.20069 [PubMed] [CrossRef] [Google Scholar]
Stam, Henderikus J. “The Neurosciences and the Search for a Unified Psychology: the Science and Esthetics of a Single Framework.” Frontiers in Psychology, vol. 6, July 2015, doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2015.01467.
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