Neuroscience in Psychology Textbooks 33not be operationalized in the same manner by a behaviorist, a cognitivist or
a psychoanalyst. The choice hence, with which psychological theory you
color the brain, obviously becomes more crucial when it comes to
pathologies or ‘disorders’: “PET scans suggest that different patterns of
brain activity accompany major psychological disorders, such as
depression or schizophrenia” (Coon & Mitterer, 2012, p. 62).
Again, depression or schizophrenia is not the same for a behaviorist, a
cognitivist or a psychoanalyst. But of course, one could take recourse to
the short-circuit and claim that now we can transcend the old theoretical
disputes on what pathology is as brain research can show the biological
ground of depression or schizophrenia. But is it not clear that here the
tautological circle threatens to come in? The correlational move, linking
psychological categories and ‘disorders’ to the neurological, risks to rest
on an unacknowledged circularity; i.e., to establish the first term of the
correlation there is proof sought within the second realm: this is where
psychological research claims a ground in neuroscience, while the latter
needs to rely on the supposedly independent knowledge of psychology.
This is why “what is psychology” is always the first chapter in psychology
textbooks. Albeit this is far from logical: if the brain is the base of all
behavior and thoughts, as it said, a textbook ought to start from the brain,
to then move to a chapter 2 dealing with psychology. In the psychology
textbook of Hockenbury, Nolan, and Hockenbury (2015) we read: “This
chapter will lay an important foundation for the rest of this book by
helping you develop a broad appreciation of the nervous system—the
body’s primary communication network” (p. 42).
Nevertheless, this is written in chapter 2. In psychology textbooks, the
chapter on the brain and the neurosciences cannot but be the second
chapter. One needs a prior chapter giving us the shaky grounds of
psychology to correlate the brain to. So if Hockenbury et al. (2015)
announce: “We’ll then move on to a guided tour of the brain,” we should
understand this as follows: psychology guides the study of the brain whilst
the brain itself is supposed to legitimize the guiding principles.
This paradoxical intertwining of psychology and neuroscience, or if we
would use some more psy-lingo, this folie-à-deux, this double bind, further