My life in psychology: Making a place for fiction in a world of science.

ABSTRACT

The author reflects on his long career as an educational psychologist and on the role of literature in his vision of psychological science. The author followed with great interest the major developments in psychology around the world, but he felt himself progressively alienated from the revealing power of art and literature. At one moment, he realized that a simple narrative constitutes the most profound and also the most effective means of transmitting genuine insights about teaching from one generation to another. This narrative reveals a career guided by high ideals and compromised by the harsh realities of the discipline of psychology.

It is much more difficult to judge yourself than to judge others. If you succeed in judging yourself rightly, then you are indeed a man of true wisdom. (Saint-Exupery, The Little Prince)

A FICTIONAL IMAGE OF PSYCHOLOGY: WAS IT AN IDEAL, OR WAS IT AN ILLUSION?

Forty-six years (from 1955 to 2001) have passed since I started to study a science called psychology. When a boy, I once thought of becoming a novelist, because my family was poor and I had no hope then of receiving higher education. Luckily, however, I was given the opportunity to study at the University of Tokyo, Japan. I thought I would major in mathematics, because I was fascinated by its beauty shown by a high school math teacher. Quite by chance or by fate, I decided to major in the psychology of education. I was attracted to literature, too. In elementary school days, I had devoured three or four volumes a day of Kodan (historical stories), Rakugo (comic stories), detective stories, biographical stories, historical novels, and so on. In my high school days, I had read Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace translated into English by Constance Garnett, S. Maugham's Of Human Bondage, Roman Rolland's Jean Christoph and An Enchanted Soul. In the university, I was awakened to the beauty and the truth of the art of fil m and eagerly watched such classical movies as High Noon, Gone with the Wind, Citizen Kane, The Children of Paradise, War and Peace, Lime Light, Rashomon and many others. These films deeply affected me and profoundly transformed my way of being in the world. I also awakened to the world of music, though very late, and discovered the works of F. Chopin. Just by chance, I bought a book entitled "Psychology of Humanity" and became aware that there existed a discipline called "Psychology", which was entirely unknown and new to me. In spite of my ignorance, or perhaps because of it, my expectations of the new discipline grew out of all proportions. My youthful imagination produced an idealized image of this new science and invested it with extravagant hopes. The image was, of course, not based upon any realistic knowledge of the actual state of affairs in Psychology. It was really a rather fanciful and fictional image. Let me attempt to sketch the fictional image I cherished in those days.

Psychology would perhaps be a science of Kokoro (mind) it seemed to me. Kokoro refers to something like psyche, mind, heart, spirit and soul, or to all of these together. It was also seeing, hearing, feeling, thinking, willing and so on. Such a science would encompass an immense terrain. It would have unfathomable depth and breadth. Most probably, it would include the psychology of animals, but the main part of it would be devoted to human beings. A science of the mind of human beings! What an immensely attractive discipline! Why had I not noticed the existence of such an attractive discipline before? I felt the colors of other disciplines just fade away. The word "Science" of "Psychological Science" also exerted a powerful influence on an ignorant young man. I had previously associated it only with Mathematics, Physics, Physiology and Medicine, and I now began to think of the new discipline of psychology as a science. In my imagination I saw the birth of a new science that promised deep, sharp and rich wisdo m that would solve the many riddles of the human mind and soul.

I had read the novel An Enchanted Soul by Romain Rolland and I was enchanted by his evocation of a vast psychological landscape. That landscape would be vividly explored by this new science of psychology in a manner befitting a scientific discipline. But how was it going to accomplish this exactly? Moreover, if that science of psychology were to explain all the workings of the human mind, it should properly be considered the foundation of all disciplines, all sciences and all arts, and all human cultures. While writing this I smile at myself, recognizing that as a young man I took the viewpoint of psychologism, which was initially adopted by the younger Husseri and which he was soon to severely criticize. I stumbled upon a solemn looking book titled Psychologie der Weltanschaungen (Psychology of Worldviews) by Karl Jaspers, and, looking through the table of contents, I was surprised to find just how fascinating this science Psychology was. My heart literally trembled with excitement and expectation.

When I now reflect upon that time, I know that I concocted out of my own ignorance a rather fantastic image of psychology as an omnipotent and almighty discipline. It was a dreamlike image of a young student who was eager to enjoy or to consume the fruit of an already firmly established and productive discipline. I believe I was not particularly interested at that time in the relationship between psychology and literature. However, if someone had asked me about it then, I might have answered in the following way:

Psychology is a discipline devoted to the scientific study of all reliable facts pertaining to Kokoro (Psyche). It will produce far more reliable and more valuable knowledge and wisdom than can literature, which is a creation of mere imagination and fantasy.

Let me name this first way of formulating the relationship between the two disciplines View A.

My entire career in psychology--my study, research and teaching up to the present time--can be understood in terms of my different perceptions of the relationship these two disciplines. It can be seen as…