NOTES ON AN EXISTENTIAL PSYCHOLOGICAL CLINIC INSPIRED ON KIERKEGAARD:

"EXPERIMENTING" PSYCHOLOGY AND ITS WAYS TO SEE ON THE FRINGES

Abstract

To Kierkegaard, under the pseudonym of Vigilius Haufniensis (1844), Psychology would be by excellence the “Science” to confront the issue of anguish as an opening to the possibility upon an existential and ambiguous movement of existence itself. In opposition to Ethics – which acts and judges according to the Law – and to Dogmatics – which determines and enforces –, Psychology probes, observes and contemplates, drawing near to the experience, not trying to search for explanations nor foundations where to settle its ground rules. Unlike traditional scientific Psychology, that moves technical-disciplinary field, it is an experimenting psychology, as already suggested by authors who look for this connection between Psychology and Kierkegaard Philosophy (such as Protásio, Feijoo, Campos, etc.). That drawing near to the concrete experience is particularly necessary on the current historical moment when there is a reification of biomedical, organicist and globalizing approaches in the psychological sciences that, specifically in the field of Psychology, have been called Evidence-based Practices. In opposition to what is “straightforward”, what can be “seen from the outside”, the “evidences”, etc., that are essential ideas to modern scientific disciplines, Psychology inspired on Kierkegaard claims the seeing (e-videre) that is beyond observation, which is born on the fringes of its own existence and doesn’t seek any centrality. Therefore, we have brought reflections about the relevance of psychological clinic inspired on Kierkegaard on the current historical moment mainly from the concept of anguish, bringing some topics from the short story “Nas águas do tempo”, by Mia Couto, as a fringe of experience to meditate over the possibility of a current experimenting Psychology.