Sampling Normal and Schizophrenic Inner Experience

What are the basic data of psychology? In the early years of experimental psychology, they were reports of ''brighter'' or "heavier" or other esti­ mates of the magnitude of differences between the sensory stimuli pre­ sented in psychophysical experiments. Introspective accounts of the ex­ perience of seeing colored lights or shapes were important sources of psychological data in the laboratories of Cornell, Harvard, Leipzig, or Wiirzburg around the tum of the century. In 1910, John B. Watson called for the objectification of psychological research, even parodying the typical subjective introspective reports that emerged from Edward Bradford Titchener's laboratory. For almost fifty years psychologists largely eschewed subjective information and turned their attention to observable behavior. Rats running mazes or pigeons pecking away on varied schedules of reinforcement became the scientific prototypes for those psychologists who viewed themselves as "doing science. " Psychoanalysts and clinical psychologists sustained interest in the personal reports of patients or clients as valuable sources of data for research. For the psychologists, questionnaires and projective tests that allowed for quantitative analysis and psychometrics seemed to circum­ vent the problem of subjectivity. Sigmund Freud's introduction of on­ going free association became the basis for psychoanalysis as a therapy and as a means of learning about human psychology. Slips-of-the­ tongue, thought intrusions, fantasies, hesitations, and sudden emo­ tional expressions became the data employed by psychoanalysts in for­ mulating hypotheses about resistance, memory, transference, and a host of presumed human wishes and conflicts.

Contenu

Preliminary Comments Designed to Suspend the Introspection Controversy.- 1. Introduction.- 2. Method.- Phase 1: The Pre-Sampling Retrospective General Account of the Subject's Inner Experience.- Phase 2: The Sampling Itself.- Phase 3: Writing the Descriptions.- Phase 4: Reviewing Each Sampled Thought.- Phase 5: Comparing Sampled Thought Descriptions to the Pre-Sampling Generalizations.- Phase 6: The Follow-Up Sample.- 3. Method Considerations.- I. The Normal Subjects.- 4. A College Freshman.- Images.- Daydreaming.- Problem-Solving Images.- Comparison of Images with External Reality.- Revisualizations of External Details.- Inner Hearing.- Inner Speech.- Wordless Speech and Imageless Seeing.- Wordless Speech.- Imageless Seeing.- Paying Particular Attention.- Feelings.- Discussion.- 5. A Professional Potter.- Feelings.- Images.- Noticing Characteristics.- Just Doing.- Body Sense.- Verbal Thought.- Discussion.- 6. A Record Store Manager.- Unsymbolized Thinking.- Feelings.- Verbal Thought.- Inner Speech.- Inner Hearing.- Speaking Aloud.- Visual Thought.- Images.- Altered States.- No Thought.- Discussion.- 7. A Medical Doctor.- Verbal Inner Experience.- Inner Speech.- Inner Hearing.- The Use of a Foreign Language.- Partially Wordless Speech.- Wordless Verbalization.- Reading.- Word Repetitions.- Absorbed in Speaking.- Paying Attention.- Nonverbal Inner Experience.- Feelings.- Unsymbolized Thinking.- Visual Experience.- Images.- Imageless Seeing.- Other Characteristics of Helen's Inner Experience.- Multiple Experiences.- 8. A Graduate Student.- Word Repetition.- Self-Aware Thoughts.- Images.- Reverie.- Taking in Quality of Objects.- Actions: Doing, Reading, Listening, Talking.- Comparison with Sonja's Pre-Sampling Expectations.- The Follow-Up Study.- Discussion.- 9. A Research Associate.- Verbal Thought.- Inner Speech.- Inner Hearing.- Unsymbolized Thinking.- Images.- Observing Characteristics.- Speaking Aloud.- Active Listening to Other Persons Speaking.- No Thought.- Comparison with Sue's Pre-Sampling Expectations.- The Follow-Up Study.- Discussion.- 10. Characteristics of Normal Inner Experience.- Inner Verbal Experience.- Images.- Meaning without Words or Images.- Other Observations.- II. The Schizophrenic Subjects.- 11. A Schizophrenic Woman with "Goofed-Up" Images.- Visual Experience.- Images.- Images of External Reality.- Images Related to Current Activities.- Daydreams.- Images of Written Words.- Distortions in Images.- Role of Color and Movement.- Verbal Thought.- Feelings.- Unsymbolized Thinking.- No Thought or Forgotten Thought.- Comments on the Sampling Procedure.- Discussion.- 12. A Schizophrenic Man with (Perhaps) No Inner Experience.- The Experience of the Beep.- Being the Beeper.- The Question of Inner Experience.- Discussion.- 13. A Decompensating Schizophrenic.- The Symptom-Free Period.- Feelings.- Visual Experience.- Verbal Inner Experience.- The Decompensating Period.- Discussion.- 14. A Schizophrenic Woman Who Heard Voices of the Gods.- The Voices of the Gods.- Visual Experiences.- Images.- Verbal Inner Experience.- Feelings.- Discussion.- 15. Implications for Understanding Schizophrenia.- 16. Discussion.- 17. A Look at Depression and Beyond.