Chapter 7 of my book, Cognitive Neuroscience and Psychotherapy: Network Principles for a Unified Theory, is entitled “Evaluation: Criticisms & Rebuttals. It appears at the end of Section 1 and before the beginning of Section 2 entitled “Psychotherapy Integration”. Hence, none of my contributions to psychotherapy integration are included in this evaluation. Only the formal aspects of my theory were considered. This blog is an extension of Chapter 7. In it I aim to evaluate each of the main contributions that I tried to make including those concerning psychotherapy integration. My book is essentially three books in one although it is not formally organized in this way. I now evaluate each of these “three books” by presenting what I consider to be major contributions of each one.
Book One: Explanatory Problem and Paradigm Shift
The first book has two major objectives. The first major objective is to identify a serious explanatory problem faced by psychological science. It consists of the following two anomalies that require a paradigm shift to resolve. The first anomaly is that psychology can only provide functional theories and therefore cannot deliver on its many false claims to have mechanism information as per publications in top tier journals. There cannot be any real psychological mechanisms because there is no psychological substrate for them to operate on. The only real mechanisms are biological. Mature sciences provide explanations based on causal mechanisms. Psychology is an immature science because it lacks genuine mechanism information. Hence, psychological science can only provide interpretations (Teo, 2012) that mainly promote what Lilienfeld (2012) calls our illusion of understanding.
For example, our dominant BioPsychoSocial model is a list of ingredients that explains nothing more about psychology and behavior than the GlassMetalPetroleum model explains about how automobiles work. Our statistical models account for but do not explain variance. Accounting is not explaining. Our brain imaging studies associate brain areas with psychological phenomenon. Associations are not explanations. Some of these studies identify brain areas that mediate psychological phenomena. Mediation is not explanation. Phrenologists once associated brain lobes with psychology and behavior. Our modern brain imaging studies do the same thing. While assessment of brain structures by modern brain imagers has improved, their explanations are no better than those provided by phrenologists. Our fMRI and related studies can therefore accurately be described as modern phrenology as Dobbs (2005) and Uttal (2001) have claimed. The main problem here is the lack of causal mechanism information. All of the research methods described above fail to provide mechanism information.
The second anomaly stems from a longstanding double denial. On the one hand psychologists deny that their theories are entirely mental. They do this so that psychology can appear to be a natural science. On the other hand, they deny that their theories are entirely biological. They do this out of fear that psychology might be entirely reduced to neuroscience. This can’t happen because psychology concerns strongly emergent phenomena that disappear when fully reduced.
The second major objective of this first book is to resolve both of these anomalies with a paradigm shift that comes in the form of a Bio«Psychology Network (BPN) explanatory system presented in Section 1 of my book. It consists of four core and now nine corollary principles. The brain is a network of neural networks. It is therefore best understood in network terms. Hence, the principles that I formulated are network principles. They enable two crucial transitions that constitute the proposed paradigm shift. The first transition is to begin to think about psychology and behavior in physical rather than mental terms. This is not an endorsement of the medical model. While modern physicians think about disease in physical terms, neuroscientists think about normal and abnormal behavior in physical terms.
The second transition is for psychology to move from its present conscious-centric orientation to an unconscious-centric orientation. One reasons from axioms not to them. Our present conscious-centric orientation precludes explaining consciousness and all that derives from it which is most of what psychologists and the general public are interested in. Adopting an unconscious-centric orientation makes the BPN explanatory system fully compatible with the psychodynamic clinical orientation. This is a major step towards theoretical unification because the BPN explanatory system is also fully consistent with the cognitive, behavioral, cognitive-behavioral, and pharmacologic clinical orientations.
Psychology must be consistent with neuroscience to become a mature science. The proposed BPN explanatory system is fully consistent with neuroscience. Freud tried to write a psychology text that was fully consistent with neuroscience in 1895. The title of his book was The Project for a Scientific Psychology. My book is the text that I believe Freud tried to write but could not complete due to the fact that neuroscience was then in its infancy. I followed his lead with the aid of modern neuroscience and computational neuropsychology.
Book Two: Theoretical Unification
The second book also has two major objectives. The first major objective of this second book is to present core and corollary principles as part of a Bio«Psychology Network (BPN) explanatory system because mature sciences are organized around principles and causal mechanisms rather than people and/or isms. Immature sciences like psychology, philosophies and religions are organized around people, schools, and “isms” like behaviorism and cognitivism. These are inherently oppositional forms of organization that retard collective progress. The brain is a network of neural networks. Therefore the principles that I present are network principles. These principles provide missing mechanism information that transforms psychology from an immature to a mature science because they enable psychologists to offer genuine natural science explanations instead of interpretations (Teo, 2012).
The second major objective of this second book is to use these network principles to theoretically integrate the Big Five clinical orientations which are: Cognitive, Behavioral, Cognitive-Behavioral, Psychodynamic and Pharmacologic. This can be done for two reasons. The first reason why these clinical orientations can be theoretically united is that the first four clinical orientations are already united in that they lack physical mechanism information as discussed above. The second reason why these clinical orientations can be theoretically united is because the proposed core and corollary principles provide mechanism information that is fully consistent with all of the Big Five clinical orientations.
Clinical orientations are broader than the theories that support them. One need not believe everything that every cognitive-behavior therapy (CBT) theorist says in order to have a CBT clinical orientation. One need not believe everything that every psychodynamic theorist says in order to have a psychodynamic clinical orientation. Hence, one does not need to satisfy all claims made by all theorists to integrate clinical orientations. Theoretical unification of clinical orientations can occur despite leaving some things behind. This option facilitates theoretical integration.
Book Three: Psychotherapy Integration
The third book has one major objective. It is to achieve psychotherapy integration by presenting a Transtheoretical Transdiagnostic Psychotherapy (TTP) based upon the previously mentioned theoretical unification based on the aforementioned paradigm shift. The resulting eclectic Applied Psychological Science (APS) clinical orientation will change your clinical practice in at least the following five important ways.
1- The APS clinical orientation resolves the professional identify problem identified by Markin (2014). Your professional identity and practice will become centered on scientific principles that explain psychology and behavior rather than the ways that you implement them. This should do much to unite relationship and method-oriented clinicians.
2- You will base your interventions on the core and corollary principles introduced in Chapters 3 and 4 and chapter supplements (www.fordham.edu/psychology/tryon) rather than on manuals. You will customize your interventions to your clients in the way described by Paul (1967) during the early days of behavior therapy. Greene (2012) cited the contemporary trend to replace manuals with principles as an important rapprochement between investigators and clinicians.
3- Your clinical practice will become more comprehensive in at least the following four ways. (a) Your therapeutic goals will expand to include increasing psychological mindedness and emotional regulation in addition to symptom reduction/removal. (b) You will become open to all empirically supported treatments (ESTs) regardless of the orientation from which they were developed. (c) You will use multiple ESTs as necessary. (d) You will have a theoretical basis for your eclectic practice.
4- Your physical mechanism-based explanations will be consonant with those of physicians and pharmacologists which should create parity with the medical community.
5- Your diagnostic considerations will include behavioral assessments. Your interventions will include methods based on operant and respondent conditioning because they have all been reauthorized as cognitive-behavioral methods.
Subsequent Blogs
I have written at least eleven other blogs that have some bearing on your final evaluation of my book. Eight of them discuss publications by noted authors that make similar claims to mine. These blogs show that my book is not as radical as some readers might think and therefore is more deserving of merit for what has been accomplished rather than criticism for what has not been done.
Final Conclusion
On page 15 of my book I stated that:
“I view this book as a beginning; a start in a new direction; an example of how we should be thinking about psychology and about how cognition and affect interact to produce behavior in physical rather than mental terms. This caveat is aimed mainly at readers who might reject this orientation because of its incompleteness rather than its potential. Instead, I ask that they consider whether or not progress to date and promise of more to come warrants their support.”
I continue to fully support this view.
Read more from Warren Tryon on SciTech Connect:
– The Missing Link Between Psychology and Biology
– Clinical Implications of Dissonance Induction and Reduction
– Clinical Implications of Consonance and Dissonance
– Clinical Implications of Reactivation in Psychotherapy
Warren’s book, Cognitive Neuroscience and Psychotherapy: Network Principles for a Unified Theory is available for purchase on the Elsevier Store.
Use discount code “STC215″ at checkout and save up to 30% on your very own copy.
About the Author
Warren W. Tryon received his undergraduate degree from Ohio Northern University in 1966. He was enrolled in the APA approved Doctoral Program in Clinical Psychology at Kent State University from 1966 – 1970. Upon graduation from Kent State, Dr. Tryon joined the Psychology Department faculty at Fordham University in 1970 as an Assistant Professor. He was promoted to Associate Professor in 1977 and to Full Professor in 1983. Licensed as a psychologist in New York State in 1973, he joined the National Register of Health Service Providers in Psychology in 1976, became a Diplomate in Clinical Psychology from the American Board of Professional Psychology (ABPP) in 1984, was promoted to Fellow of Division 12 (Clinical) of the American Psychological Association in 1994 and a fellow of the American Association of Applied and Preventive Psychology in 1996. Also in 1996 he became a Founder of the Assembly of Behavior Analysis and Therapy.
In 2003 he joined The Academy of Clinical Psychology. He was Director of Clinical Psychology Training from 1997 to 2003, and presently is in the third and final year of phased retirement. He will become Emeritus Professor of Psychology in May 2015 after 45 years of service to Fordham University. Dr. Tryon has published 179 titles, including 3 books, 22 chapters, and 140 articles in peer reviewed journals covering statistics, neuropsychology, and clinical psychology. He has reviewed manuscripts for 45 journals and book publishers and has authored 145 papers/posters that were presented at major scientific meetings. Dr. Tryon has mentored 87 doctoral dissertations to completion. This is a record number of completed dissertations at the Fordham University Graduate School of Arts and Sciences and likely elsewhere.
His academic lineage is as follows. His mentor was V. Edwin Bixenstein who studied with O. Hobart Mowrer at the University of Illinois who studied with Knight Dunlap at Johns Hopkins University who studied with Hugo Munsterberg at Harvard University who studied with Wilhelm Wundt at the University of Leipzig.
Cognitive Neuroscience and Psychotherapy: Network Principles for a Unified Theory is Dr. Tryon’s capstone publication. It is the product of more than a quarter of a century of scholarship. Additional material added after this book was printed is available at www.fordham.edu/psychology/tryon. This includes chapter supplements, a color version of Figure 5.6, and a thirteenth “Final Evaluation” chapter. He is on LinkedIn and Facebook. His email address is wtryon@fordham.edu.
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