Table Of ContentHow to Rethink Psychology
Based on the author’s forty years of experience in psychology, philoso-
phy, and the social sciences, H ow to Rethink Psychology argues that to
understand people we need to know more about their contexts than
the dominant modes of thinking and research presently allow. Drawing
upon insights from sources as diverse as Freud, CBT, quantum physics,
and Zen philosophy, the book offers several fascinating new metaphors
for thinking about people and, in doing so, endeavors to create a psych-
ology for the future.
The book begins by discussing the signifi cance of the key metaphor
underlying mainstream psychology today – the ‘particle’ or ‘causal’
metaphor – and explains the need for a shift towards new ‘wave’ or
‘contextual’ metaphors in order to appreciate how individual and social
actions truly function. It explores new metaphors for thinking about the
relationship between language and reality, and teaches the reader how
they might reimagine the processes involved in the act of thinking itself.
The book concludes with a consideration of how these new metaphors
might be applied to practical methods of research, understanding, and
effecting change.
How to Rethink Psychology is important reading for upper-level and
postgraduate students and researchers in the fi elds of social psychology,
critical psychology, and the philosophy of psychology, and will espe-
cially appeal to those studying behavior analysis and radical behavior-
ism. It has also been written for the general reading public who enjoy
exploring new ideas in science and thinking.
Bernard Guerin is Professor of Psychology at the University of South
Australia.
This page intentionally left blank
How to Rethink Psychology
New metaphors for understanding
people and their behavior
Bernard Guerin
First published 2016
by Routledge
27 Church Road, Hove, East Sussex BN3 2FA
and by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2016 Bernard Guerin
The right of Bernard Guerin to be identifi ed as the author of this work has been
asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs
and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or
utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now
known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any
information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the
publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered
trademarks, and are used only for identifi cation and explanation without intent
to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication data
Guerin, Bernard, 1957–
How to rethink psychology : new metaphors for understanding people and
their behavior / Bernard Guerin.
pages cm
1. Psychology. 2. Thought and thinking. 3. Psycholinguistics. I. Title.
BF121.G84 2016
150.1–dc23
2015007989
ISBN: 978-1-138-91653-1 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-138-91654-8 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-315-68955-5 (ebk)
Typeset in Times New Roman
by Out of House Publishing
Contents
List of tables ix
Preface xi
Acknowledgements xiii
CHAPTER 1
Understanding our own psychology: alternative
ways to think? 1
New metaphors to help rethink how people work 2
What will be different after rethinking? 6
Why bother? 7
Causes and contexts: shifting metaphors from
current psychology 8
Sequential, causal, or contextual basis for human
actions? 10
Metaphor 1. Our actions are like lumps of
Plasticine 11
Why do we think action is sequential and
constantly decided? 14
Thinking contextually 16
Metaphor 2. Contexts not causes for growing
seeds into plants 17
We do not have a ‘control center’ 18
Contextual observation 19
Metaphor 3. Contextual observations of
(blue) holistic elephants 21
The rethinking to take away from Chapter 1 22
vi Contents
CHAPTER 2
The ubiquitous social: from social constructionism
to social contextualism 26
Contextual infl uence better thought of as waves than
particles: three metaphors 28
Metaphor 4. Understanding people is better
thought of as attuned responding to external
contexts using wave-thinking 34
Metaphor 5. We can utilize gravity even if
physicists do not understand how it works 39
Metaphor 6. Think of attunement as sympathetic
resonance 42
Twelve ways that being alone is social: how can we
think that? 44
How do social relationships pervade our actions,
thinking, and self-thinking? 56
What does the wave metaphor get us? 58
CHAPTER 3
Language use as the original virtual reality 65
Words do not control language use: social
contexts do 65
Magic, words, and power 68
Language use as the original virtual reality 69
Metaphor 7. Language use as the original virtual
reality 70
Two metaphors that help rethink language use as
virtual reality 78
Back to electromagnetic waves 78
Metaphor 8. Language better thought of as
attuned responses to waves than as reactions to
particles 78
“It either happens or it doesn’t”: contexts are
100 percent 79
Contents vii
Metaphor 9. Getting hit 100 percent by a brick and
other brute facts of life 81
What does all this mean for language use? 84
How does this affect the analysis of
language use? 90
What do we need to know about
language-in-social-interaction to understand
people? 91
CHAPTER 4
Thinking, self-talk, and how to read minds 96
Rethinking thoughts and thinking 100
Thinking and causality 100
Thoughts refi gured as virtual reality: the external
social control over thoughts 102
Metaphor 10. Thinking can also be reimagined as
virtual reality 102
Thoughts as associations: replacing this oldest
metaphor 103
Metaphor 11. Thoughts are like the effects of
waves rather than emitted particles 104
Seven key points for rethinking thinking 107
‘We’ do not control thinking: all thoughts are
intrusive thoughts 107
Words are not controlled by what is named and
neither are thoughts 110
Why ‘consciousness’ is directed towards
other people 111
Thinking is social – it depends on audiences 113
What are the events that happen when we ‘think’?
The social dynamics of thinking 116
We can read people’s thoughts – in a way 119
Talking about ‘inner’ processes for utilization
as rhetoric 120
viii Contents
What do we know about contextual strategies of
thinking? 121
Types of audiences and how they affect
thinking 121
Ultimately, talking to oneself is from economic,
social, cultural, historical, and environmental
contexts 123
The social strategies of cognitive models 124
Conversational strategies in thoughts and
thinking 128
Discursive strategies implicit in psychotherapies 130
Types of unconscious editing 132
Types of repression and similar strategies of
thoughts 134
How can we rethink thoughts? 138
CHAPTER 5
The Zen of running our lives: doing, thinking,
and talking 143
Summary of the plot so far 143
Summary description of life 143
Two short examples 145
Life, words, and Zen 148
Where to from here? 151
Practical methods of research, understanding,
and change 151
Philosophy: on being very clear that actions,
thinklings, and spoken words are not
metaphysically, philosophically, or essentially
different 152
How should we understand people? 157
Appendix: tractatus psychologica 160
Index 166
Tables
1.1 Metaphors that will be presented in this book 5
3.1 Comparison of language use and medical virtual
reality machines 75
4.1 Analyzing intrusive thoughts 108
5.1 Metaphors that were presented in this book 144
5.2 Previous (incorrect) philosophical separations of things,
people, and intervening activities with examples 153
5.3 The sources for believing (incorrectly) that different
brute events can separate three metaphysical domains 155
5.4 Three types of dualism artifi cially produced by treating
the three brute facts as metaphysically separate 156
