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Originally written April 2002 | pp. 1 2 3
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Preliminary Issues and Concerns
Three important questions need to be asked about astrology's validity as a psychological tool and it's applicability in the clinical setting. One, is astrology saying anything about reality? Or, is it ontic? Many astrologers support what I would deem the strong belief in astrology: that astrology is not a metaphorical "as if" set of assumptions but that the archetypes affiliated with houses, signs, and planets are interwoven into the very fabric of the universe, permeating all levels of reality. (1) This is a large assertion indeed and one that even the most rigorous and reliable psychological theories don't claim to make. Whereas most psychological theories claim to be nothing more than a set of educated constructs about the amazingly complex and ambiguous nature of the human psyche, astrology boldly asserts that it is a mapping of something inchoate but nonetheless real and beyond the educated guesses of psychological theories. Points along the Enneagram, the Id, borderline personality disorder, their proponents will readily admit, are accurate abstractions of psychological realities but are ultimately interpretations-"best guess" case scenarios. However, the archetype affiliated with the planets, suggests the astrologer, is more than a construct or hypothesis but something that the human mind is informed by and can intuit through feelings, experience, and self-reflection-in other words, something existent and real. This is quite a claim and should be approached with caution, critical thinking, research, and mental thrift, or parsimony.
The bad news is that astrology is not science and is therefore not solely and strictly falsifiable. The good news is that astrology is not science; it might be what Ken Wilber calls "deep science," or what Goethe once called a "science of qualities." Astrology manages to bridge the world of exterior, empirical realities with interior states of consciousness. It's methodology, then, is built upon a hybrid of intuition, empiricism, hermeneutics, felt sense, and lived experience. Because of its complexity, astrology may never be fully refuted or fully accepted, however, the perennial controversy surrounding the subject may only grow stronger in an increasingly psychologically sophisticated and psychologically informed culture such as our own.
In a related sense, the second question to be asked of astrology is, how much is astrology the result of the Barnum Effect, or Forer Effect, and the product of self-fulfilling prophecy? Critics of astrology often claim that astrology's longevity and appeal is based partly on what is called the Barnum or Forer effect. The Barnum effect suggests that people tend to accept vague and general personality descriptions as uniquely applicable to themselves without realizing that the same description could be applied to just about anyone. From this vantage point, astrology works not because it is real but because it appeals to broad, universal character styles. Thus, keeping the Barnum effect in mind, one must ask, Is astrology the case of the map fitting the territory or taking the territory to fit the map? This question is of importance of an astrologer giving a competent consultation but is of particular relevance to a psychotherapist that is relying upon astrology to illuminate certain issues with a client. If a psychotherapist becomes to dogmatic and fixed upon what the birth chart is stating, then certainly the birth chart becomes a blinder and obfuscation of the client's issues, not the purported illuminator that it aspires to be. Thus, astrology becomes quite dangerous as a consultation tool as a psychotherapist would be inclined to rely upon false and misleading information, exchanging the client's symptoms and issues for archetypes.
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