Reflections on human nature, science, and progress in counseling psychology

Discusses articles by D. E. Polkinghorne , G. S. Howard , and M. J. Patton , in which they argue that traditional conceptualizations of living organisms as passive reactors to environmental events are inadequate views of the living being. An emerging view of people as causal agents acting to influence the actions of other causal agents for their own purposes has promise in developing a pragmatically useful scientific basis for helping people change through therapeutic relationships. It is concluded that the methods of scientific inquiry should be developed to suit the nature of the object of inquiry and need be limited only by the canon of intersubjective replicability. (3 ref)