Reflecting on the ISPDI, a Year-and-a-Half “In”
Michael Caplan
During the year-and-a-half of the ISPDI’s life, I have taken great pleasure in connecting with
others from this miniscule (though fairly diverse) niche, this tiny population subset. But what an
odd sort of organization it is: we are few, yet how presumptuous, too, claiming the humility of
our approach, its methodological sobriety and indeed what amounts to its “hobby-status,” while
proclaiming notions of the opus magnum and of “the truth of the real” without irony or a pulled
punch!
Our particular notion of the truth of the real is, of course, profoundly difficult to articulate, even
for our trailblazers, and tends to beggar communication, even amongst “ourselves.” Moreover, it
appears alongside other truth claims in the endless horizontal datasphere, which is a (soul)
context where its sense simply cannot become common, where its value cannot be widely
shared. This is because part of the necessity or telos of the context seems to be to equalize all
truth-claims as “opinion,” which is to essentially dissolve the notion of truth, and/or to reduce it
to the quantifiable, the evidence-based, which robs the notion of truth of its truth. That any
potential “PDI popularity” (never mind ISPDI popularity) is counter to the actual and particular
truth of “PDI” is especially ironic, its being the attempt to represent – to realize in the domain of
logos proper – precisely that which is by definition shared: the logos of soul in modernity.
The notion of “psychology as the discipline of interiority” is inconceivable to the vast majority
of people both inside and outside the psychology profession, yet we assert that the notion’s value
comes not (directly, at least) from any possible therapeutic utility – inside or outside the
consulting room – but from its truth. Why? With our aforementioned presumptuousness we are
daring to define. The truth being proposed is definitional: psychology’s truth, the moment when
it accords with its concept, is when it is the discipline of interiority. The notion’s worth, it
follows – like that of any interpretation of any phenomenon offered in its spirit – must be
evaluated not according to communal assent, even amongst ourselves. Instead, it relies on
“nothing at all”: on our most subjective sense (“Feeling Function”) of an objective reality
sounded, like a bell struck, by an interpretation, of a logos touched (i.e., realized/made
real/brought into reality in/as logos) through its articulation.
I tend not to use the acronym PDI. I don’t begrudge it; it is obviously useful shorthand for “that
form of psychology which interests us, in its difference from other really-existing forms of
psychology.” And I certainly concur with its formula! But precisely as an acronym it signals an
acceptance of its (linear) place within contemporary discourse, its status among supposed equals,
something out of a list from which we might choose: PDI, NLP, SSRI, KFC …
The psychology that we refer to by “PDI,” however, is attempting to do justice to a (kind of)
truth that is unique, un-equalizing, distinction-making and, at a certain point, even necessarily
intolerant; one might even say it is, in this very sense, un-contemporary. This holds not only for
interpretations of individual “cases” (myth, sacrifice, the nuclear bomb, the internet … drones!)
to which we turn our attention, those facets of “outer” reality whose truths we attempt to discern
with our interpretations, but for the field itself: psychology is the discipline of interiority. That is
M. Caplan, “Reflecting on the ISPDI …” v4, page 1
its truth, which we accept and to which we are, by assent, committed. (However – and for
however long – this truth handles us, enlivens us, has need of us, the ISPDI has a potential
function. I don’t imagine the ISPDI having any need to exist beyond this function, and with this
function, it has everything it needs, while it exists.)
My objection to “PDI,” while specific (i.e., because it is an acronym), is also more general – and
of course indebted to Giegerich. When he wrote, at the end of The Soul’s Logical Life (p. 278),
that psychology “is not such that there could be several varieties of it,” I found formulated there
a notion in which everything I felt/thought about psychology clicked into place. And Hillman, of
course, is precursor here: “archetypal psychology” not as a psychology of or with archetypes, but
a psychology with an archetypal eye – a “dream eye” capable of seeing whatever might appear in
an image (Hillman mentions “a can of beer in a Chevy at the curb”) archetypally. That
archetypal psychology didn’t achieve the sense of a psychology without qualifiers– a psychology
that wasn’t called “archetypal” or anything else but that was, rather, something like “psychology
conceived archetypally, in its essence” – it must be credited with attempting as much; even the
term “depth psychology” was discussed, in those writings, as valuable but ultimately
unnecessary, where psychology is done right, i.e., psychologically.
“Imaginal psychology” was also offered, and is useful in its illumination of the (inescapable) role
of imagination in soul. But despite the term “archetypal psychology” bearing an (ineradicable)
association with archetypes, “imaginal” was in a sense a step backward, or at least sideways,
again tending to objectification: an approach setting up a subject looking at images (objects) is
not less unpsychological than one focussed on archetypes (objects), however much the best
archetypalists and imaginalists might argue that this is not what they intend. Thus Hillman’s
extensive and otherwise profoundly insightful attempts to build into his psychology certain
correctives to such a tendency proved (inevitably) unsuccessful. Then Giegerich made his
contributions, proposing (while simultaneously rescinding as ultimately insufficient) “dialectical
psychology” and, in concert with Hillman, “alchemical psychology.”
These are all, of course, right and true, and the step forward represented by “psychology as the
discipline of interiority” is real. And I know full well I’m preaching to the converted in our little
storefront church. I have no doubt we all read and, I’m sure, felt the striking power of
“psychology is not such that there could be several varieties of it.” We all tend to be able to
recognize when one interpretation is more “psychological” than another, referencing in our
minds whatever those essential qualities that would make it so, even if we can’t always verbalize
just what those qualities are.
So there is no animosity in my critical meanderings here at all, however much animus. Because I
want to encourage us to be as bold in self-definition as our approach allows, to follow Giegerich
et. al. in our rightful claim on the word “psychology” – as such, without qualifiers, without
adjectives. After all, there are only a few of us, so who’s going to object? Hardly anyone will
notice anyway. But so what? I think we have to face that truth, too, and not be deterred by it.
Go, ISPDI!
M. Caplan, “Reflecting on the ISPDI …” v4, page 2