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WHAT'S IN A NAME? SOME CONFUSIONS AND CONCERNS ABOUT CONSTRUCTIVISM
Author(s) -
Held Barbara S.
Publication year - 1990
Publication title -
journal of marital and family therapy
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.868
H-Index - 68
eISSN - 1752-0606
pISSN - 0194-472X
DOI - 10.1111/j.1752-0606.1990.tb00837.x
Subject(s) - constructivism (international relations) , epistemology , doctrine , philosophy , sociology , law , theology , political science , international relations , politics
As discussions about so‐called ‘epistemology’ have receded within family therapy, discussions about te doctrine of constructivism have emerged to carry on the underlying impulse of those earlier discussions. This article contends that a constructivist epistemology is not a new doctrine in family therapy, but, rather, reflects a shift in emphasis in that discipline from a nontraditional use to the traditional use of the term “epistemology” uses that coexisted during the ‘epistemology’ debates of the early 1980s and that were the source of many confusions and logical contradictions. The articale also demonstrates how recent articulations of cosnstructivism have resulted in the same logical contradictions tht were committed during the earlier ‘epistemology’; debates. The logic and utility of applying constructivism in particular, and epistemological analysis in general, to the practice of psychotherapy are questioned and considered.