ABSTRACT
Who says that philosophy of science is irrelevant to counseling research? Well, sad to say, many of our faculty, practitioner, and graduate student colleagues make that claim quite frequently. This chapter attempts to persuade the reader that counseling research can profit greatly from a consideration of the insights of philosophy of science. But persuading the reader will not be easy. It is not that the insights of philosophy of science are unworthy, but because there are enormous translation problems in transforming abstract philosophical arguments into nourishing nuggets fit for consumption by counseling researchers. Consider the following quote from Maclntyre (1977) on “psychological crises”:
What is a “psychological crisis?” Consider first, the situation of “clients” who are thrown into such crises. Someone who has believed that he [sic] was highly valued by his employer and colleagues is suddenly fired; someone proposed for membership of a club whose members were all, so he believed, close friends, is blackballed. Or someone falls in love and needs to know what the loved one really feels; someone falls out of love and needs to know how he or she can possibly have been so mistaken in the other. For all such persons the relationship of seems to is becomes crucial. (p. 453)
