Kızılkaya / Fıkıh Usulünde Sahabe Fetvasının Kaynaklık Değeri Cilt / Volume: • Sayı /Issue: • 2012

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İnsan ve Toplum
The science of psychology produces  objective, experiment-based, and universally 
accepted information within the modern scientific discourse. Thus, its practices in 
regards to humans and society are also within this framework. The paradigmatic 
crisis in the post 1960 period posed serious criticism against the main assumptions 
of psychology and made culture-central works and publications much more visible 
(Jahoda & Krever, 1996; Kim, Yang & Hwang, 2006). While schools of thought, including 
cross-cultural psychology, cultural psychology and indigenous psychology, strive to 
place culture in the centre of psychological studies, it seems that with a few important 
exceptions, the main school of Western psychological theory and applications con-
tinue to rule over psychology (Kağıtçıbaşı, 2010).
This situation largely applies to Turkish psychology. It can be said that the applications 
are similar whether one looks at the history of Turkish psychological writings or at the 
historical process of institutionalization. For example, according to Batur (2003), the 
acceptance of George Anschütz’s arrival in Istanbul in 1915 as the starting point of the 
science of psychology in Turkey is a result of the dominant understanding in psychol-
ogy because this approach reduces psychology to merely experimental psychology 
and ignores other ways of understanding in psychology.     
Kuş (2007), in a study where he investigates the implications of paradigmatic transfor-
mation in social sciences to psychology, states that there are alternative approaches 
to the positivist paradigm in all disciplines of social sciences; however, psychology was 
influenced the least by this radical change. The accounts of psychologists participat-
ing in the study regarding the difficulty they faced in finding journals to publish their 
research results and academic support reinforces Kuş’s evaluations. 
According to Misra and Gergen (1993), psychology is primarily a product of European-
American culture. However, this Western local psychology is transported to non-West-
Theory or Reality: Positioning and Searching in the  
Face of Dominant Theory and Practices of Therapy
Latif Karagöz*
Extended Abstract
*  Res. Assist., Fatih Sultan Mehmet Vakıf  University Department of Psychology.
  Correspondence: [e-mail], Fatih Sultan Mehmet Vakıf Üniversitesi Edebiyat Fakültesi, 34083, Fatih, İstanbul,  Turkey.

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Karagöz / Theory or Reality: Positioning and Searching in the Face of Dominant Theory and Practices of Therapy
ern societies via the idea of being independent from values/culture which is presented 
as being a necessity of science and economic imperialism. In this sense, the science 
of psychology has an important function in conveying the Western conception of the 
human being, comprehension of knowledge, ways of understanding and thus the 
transformation of individuals and society in non-Western societies.  This circumstance 
is interpreted by Arkonaç (2010) as the knowledge of subject/identity/agent and truth 
in Western epistemology carrying over to this region via its own elites, thus leading to 
the “colonization of the psyche.”
Studies in developmental psychology are important as being one of the best fields 
reflecting this aspect of psychology because this field produces scientific informa-
tion about life in a very wide spectrum ranging from pre-birth to childhood, school, 
marriage and business. It intervenes in the lives of human and society – theoretically 
and practically - with its Western, “universal” understanding of knowledge. Robinson 
(2001) notes that while there is an increase in the studies of psychologists dealing 
with culture-centered research, the current dominant knowledge of developmental 
psychology is produced by European-American psychologists in the wake of their own 
cultural experiences.           
Studies and applications on adolescence are important to grasp this aspect of devel-
opmental psychology. When investigated, developmental psychology books, articles 
in this field and similar studies about adolescence almost always mention certain 
essential features, such as sadness, insecurity, pessimism, chaos through mind-body 
imbalance, guilt, shame and attraction toward opposite sex. Comments of some acad-
emicians, renowned for their work in developmental psychology, also consolidate 
these evaluations.  
Parman (2008, p. 22) states that “no period of human life can be said to have contrast-
ing and complex definitions such as this,” while according to Kulaksızoğlu (2009, p. 52) 
“the development phase undergone together with girls and boys during childhood 
and puberty years is strictly peculiar to that period, depends on age and is a feature 
seen in all societies.” 
These identifications about adolescence in people aged roughly 12-22 or 12-18 can 
be said to be very modern, secular and partly giving a definition of the adolescents 
which is almost always prone to psychopathology. Thus, the academic language used 
to describe a person this period, which can be said to include the most important 
stages in the formation of one’s personality, also shows the conception of this type of 
understanding towards humans and adolescents.
Along with adolescence, attitudes in parenting also hold an important place in espe-
cially developmental psychology books as well as other publications. Nearly every 
developmental psychology book mentions five parenting attitudes; the democratic 

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Human and Society
attitude, the authoritarian attitude, the permitting tolerant attitude, the permitting 
negligent attitude and the excessive simplistic attitude. Among these, the most befit-
ting approach is considered to be the democratic attitude. According to Şendil & Kaya 
Balkan (2005, p. 80), “families belonging to this approach are aware that their children 
are individuals, let their children realize themselves, grant them equal rights in the 
family, support openly expressing their thoughts, thus help them develop independ-
ent personalities.”
When deeply dissected, this approach, which is presented as the ideal parenting atti-
tude, can be said to define parents’ relationship with their children in a slippery, even 
ambiguous, ground. Hence the privative influence on social practices of the family 
roles defined with equity, status given to parents in terms of friendship, fore grounded 
flexibility instead of parental discipline and the emphasis on a disconnected individual 
in the name of “realizing oneself” should be questioned. This is because an approach 
deemed to be “ideal” in this fashion, once again ignores the role culture plays on 
finding and analyzing the parent-child relationship. However, as Sümer (2005) states, 
parenting attitudes show differences according to culture and socioeconomic level. 
Therefore, this shows that it is necessary to form the theoretical knowledge within the 
framework of society’s world of meaning and practices.  
Beyond the theoretical knowledge produced in developmental psychology, it is 
important to observe what kind of reflection this knowledge has on practice. Thus a 
more sufficient and integrated evaluation about the science of psychology’s current 
state in Turkey will be possible. The state of therapist practitioners equipped with this 
theoretical knowledge and practices in this field, since it is the best area to observe 
the influence of the science of psychology on practice, is an important indicator in this 
framework. Fişek (1996) says that there are too few acknowledgements in literature 
regarding how psychotherapies with theoretical and ideological rooted in Western 
Europe and North America are processed in other cultures.
In this sense, this study aims to determine how psychologists, counselors and psychia-
trists evaluate the current state of the science of psychology and the psychotherapy 
services/practices. It also aims to make sense of the dominant Western theories and 
applications and consider whether they are in any pursuit of developing alternative 
approaches. A further aim of the study is to determine the references used while 
evaluating family problems, which is one of the most important social issues, and the 
change and transformation in the family. The purpose here is to investigate whether 
there is harmony between the methods of handling certain issues often faced by 
therapists and the accepted theories and methods while also attempting to find solu-
tions to these issues.

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