Kirk Schneider in psychopathology

• Main Author: Ferreira-Martins,Bernadett de Freitas
• Publication Date: 2007
• Other Authors: Teixeira,José A. Carvalho
• Format: Article
• Language: eng
• Source: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Download full: http://scielo.pt/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0870-82312007000400010
• topic: Free; limited; constrict; expand; polarized

Kirk Schneider emphasises that psychology needs a different grounding from traditional psychology viewpoints. He talks to us about an existential-integrative psychology grounding which has its basis on phenomenology, which is concerned with qualitative rather than quantitative methods. Human experience is seen as being artistic, creative, expressive (“free”), while at the same time it can be constrained (“limited”) by the environment and social viewpoints. If as individuals we confront and adapt we become enriched and revived. If we choose to ignore the situation, we become “polarized” and thus dysfunctional (psychopathology). Kirk Schneider clinically characterizes the “freedom-limitation dialectic” the capacity of the individual to “constrict” (draw-back), “expand” (burst-forth) and of “centring” him/herself.