Descriptive Versus Dynamic Approaches

Position Paper 2

I have been considering this assignment before the class began. I believe in this day and age that we, as clinicians, must remain open minded and versatile. Therefore, I do not believe that one has to take a single “position” for the “descriptive approach” or the “dynamic approach.” I think one has to be flexible and use every tool in their arsenal to help the clients for a better continuum of care.

Although my intuition leads me to believe that there is, ultimately, only one reality -- infinite and eternal -- experience leads me to believe that there are as many views or viewpoints of that reality as there are conscious people. Each of us has a different genetic heritage, different health histories, different cultural backgrounds, different upbringings, unique individual experiences... and so on. It is a surprise to me that we agree about the world as much as we do! Even more: Our views of reality change over the years and even from moment to moment as our situations and moods change.

The development of individual minds suggests to me that, perhaps, there are a few ideas we can point to -- multifaceted ideas that gravitate to each other, because they share some logical connectedness that goes beyond individual variation. There are “clusters” or “categories” that are connected to some degree into the “objective” and the “subjective.” This is where the psychological (dynamic or descriptive) approach utilized with clients needs to be flexible and versatile.

The first category is autistic and authoritarian and these are “subjective” views. The autistic: I don’t believe that anyone is ever completely involved in this perspective, but it is best seen in infants, autistic children, and severely psychotic adults. On the other hand, we all slip into this

Position Paper 3

perspective from time to time, most obviously when we are dreaming, but also when we engage in instinctive, automatic, or defensive behavior. A person taking the autistic view believes that their personal subjective point of view is, in fact, the only point of view, and that everyone sees reality this same way. It is, in other words, egocentric and self-oriented.

The authoritarian view is a common one -- perhaps the most common one. It is a step above the autistic in that, although it is a subjective view, it takes into account the views of others. In fact, it may be said to absorb the views of others. Developmentally, the simple fact of living among other human beings leads one out of the autistic into the authoritarian. This is the point of view that most fully accepts social reality. This means, to me, that an authoritarian person accepts only one social reality, and understands it as universal. Someone who does not accept the same social reality is seen as either an infant or insane. When the social reality is threatened, either by another social reality or by more immediate experiences, the tendency is for defensive mechanisms to engage.

Both the autistic and the authoritarian views are “subjective” views, in the sense that they believe in and value the interpretation, whether individual or social, of experience more than the experience itself. In either case, I feel the dynamic approach would best be utilized because it provides a coherent conceptual framework and interventions, whether psychotherapy or pharmacotherapy, that depends on a dynamic assessment of the patient’s needs. It is a way of thinking (Gabbard, 1994).

Position Paper 4

The second category is rationalistic and mechanistic. Together, they constitute the “objective” views, in contrast to the previous “subjective” ones. They share the idea that truth has an objective existence to be discovered outside of either personal or social realities. Developmentally speaking, I see in these objective points of view recognition that we may be mistaken, as individuals and as societies. The rationalistic perspective values reason, logic, technicalities, words, and, if sufficiently sophisticated, mathematics. It is an idealistic