Tree of Knowledge System

The Tree of Knowledge (ToK) System is a theoretical approach to the unification of psychology developed by Gregg Henriques, associate professor and Director of the Combined-Integrated Doctoral Program in Clinical and School Psychology at James Madison University.

The outline of the system was published in 2003 in Review of General Psychology. Two special issues of the Journal of Clinical Psychology in December 2004 and January 2005 were devoted to the elaboration and evaluation of the model. The latest evaluation of this model appeared in a December 2008 special issue of Theory & Psychology''.

The Official Website on the Tree of Knowledge System claims that the ToK is

Henriques argues that the most difficult problem in psychology as a discipline is that while there is incredible diversity offered by different approaches to psychology, there is no consensus model of what psychology actually is.

According to the ToK System, the "problem of psychology", (as Henriques puts it), is that a clear definition, an agreed upon subject matter, and a coherent conceptual framework have eluded its students for its entire history. He further argues that the patent tendency of psychology has been toward theoretical and substantial fractionation and increasing insularity among the “specialties.” In other words, the discipline has fragmented into different schools of thought and methodology, with no overall framework to interpret and integrate the research of different areas. At its best, the different approaches are a strength of psychology; different approaches lead to novel ideas, and prevent psychologists from clinging to a paradigm that fails to explain a phenomenon. At its worst, adherents of one particular school cling to their beliefs concerning the relative importance of their research and disregard or are ignorant of different approaches. In most cases, individual psychologists have to determine for themselves which elements of which perspective to apply, and how to integrate them into their overall understanding.

The reason for psychology’s fractionation, according to the ToK, is that there has been no meta-theoretical frame that allows scholars to agree on the basic questions that need to be addressed. As such, the different schools of thought in psychology are like the blind men who each grab a part of the elephant and proclaim they have discovered its true nature. With its novel depiction of evolving dimensions of complexity, the ToK allows scholars finally to see the elephant. In his 2003 Review of General Psychology paper, Henriques used the ToK System with the attempt to clarify and align the views of B.F. Skinner and Sigmund Freud. These luminaries were chosen because when one considers their influence and historical opposition, it can readily be argued that they represent two schools of thought that are the most difficult to integrate. Henriques used the meta-perspective offered by the ToK to argue how one can retain the key insights from each school of thought, identify errors and points of confusion, and integrate the insights into a coherent whole.

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