While some psychologists might not be aware of this (like the Reason criticism suggests... though mostly has the overworked angle), it seems to be almost insulting to suggest that researchers at his level are not ?
You'd be surprised how niche this sort of discussion is in neuropsych research. Is it because researchers aren't thinking enough about the big picture or because the NIH is incompetent and the researchers just go along with what they need to get funding? Idk, but either way it's not great. I suspect this problem exists in a lot of sciences but psychiatry in particular seems to have overcorrected for some of its less rigorous history.
That said, I don't think it's correct to say the scientific method can't apply. We absolutely have to be more careful about averaging over many people with different actual disease but the same current shitty label, and we also have to be better about looking at longitudinal signals. But there are ways to do this in a more scientific manner (e.g. involving well-defined testable predictions).
I agree that as part of this transitory period (especially with the sample sizes that most psych studies can feasibly get) there should be more synergy between qualitative human-focused approaches and what the by the book science people are doing. It's unfortunate how far behind research psychiatric practice can lag in some respects, and in other respects the psych researchers seem to not take practitioner observations too seriously these days.
That said, I don't think it's correct to say the scientific method can't apply. We absolutely have to be more careful about averaging over many people with different actual disease but the same current shitty label, and we also have to be better about looking at longitudinal signals. But there are ways to do this in a more scientific manner (e.g. involving well-defined testable predictions).
I agree that as part of this transitory period (especially with the sample sizes that most psych studies can feasibly get) there should be more synergy between qualitative human-focused approaches and what the by the book science people are doing. It's unfortunate how far behind research psychiatric practice can lag in some respects, and in other respects the psych researchers seem to not take practitioner observations too seriously these days.