Richters J E
Child & Adolescent Disorder Branch, NIMH, Rockville, MD 20857, USA.
Dev Psychopathol. 1997 Spring;9(2):193-9. doi: 10.1017/s0954579497002022.
Developmental psychopathology stands poised at the close of the 20th century on the horns of a major scientific dilemma. The essence of this dilemma lies in the contrast between its heuristically rich open system concepts on the one hand, and the closed system paradigm it adopted from mainstream psychology for investigating those models on the other. Many of the research methods, assessment strategies, and data analytic models of psychology's paradigm are predicated on closed system assumptions and explanatory models. Thus, they are fundamentally inadequate for studying humans, who are unparalleled among open systems in their wide ranging capacities for equifinal and multifinal functioning. Developmental psychopathology faces two challenges in successfully negotiating the developmentalist's dilemma. The first lies in recognizing how the current paradigm encourages research practices that are antithetical to developmental principles, yet continue to flourish. I argue that the developmentalist's dilemma is sustained by long standing, mutually enabling weaknesses in the paradigm's discovery methods and scientific standards. These interdependent weaknesses function like a distorted lens on the research process by variously sustaining the illusion of theoretical progress, obscuring the need for fundamental reforms, and both constraining and misguiding reform efforts. An understanding of how these influences arise and take their toll provides a foundation and rationale for engaging the second challenge. The essence of this challenge will be finding ways to resolve the developmentalist's dilemma outside the constraints of the existing paradigm by developing indigenous research strategies, methods, and standards with fidelity to the complexity of developmental phenomena.
发展心理病理学在20世纪末处于一个重大科学困境的两难境地。这个困境的核心在于，一方面是其启发式丰富的开放系统概念，另一方面是它从主流心理学采用的用于研究这些模型的封闭系统范式之间的对比。心理学范式的许多研究方法、评估策略和数据分析模型都基于封闭系统假设和解释模型。因此，它们从根本上不足以研究人类，因为人类在开放系统中，在其广泛的等终和多终功能能力方面是无与伦比的。发展心理病理学在成功应对发展主义者的困境方面面临两个挑战。第一个挑战在于认识到当前范式如何鼓励与发展原则背道而驰的研究实践，但这些实践却仍在蓬勃发展。我认为，发展主义者的困境是由该范式的发现方法和科学标准中长期存在且相互促进的弱点所维持的。这些相互依存的弱点在研究过程中就像一个扭曲的透镜，以各种方式维持着理论进步的幻觉，掩盖了进行根本改革的必要性，并且既限制又误导了改革努力。理解这些影响是如何产生并造成损害的，为应对第二个挑战提供了基础和理由。这个挑战的核心将是找到方法，在现有范式的限制之外解决发展主义者的困境，通过开发忠实于发展现象复杂性的本土研究策略、方法和标准。
