clipped from: psychology.wikia.com The Tree of Knowledge (ToK) System is a novel, theoretical approach to the unification of psychology developed by Gregg Henriques, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Combined-Integrated Doctoral Program, James Madison University, Harrisonburg, VA, USA.
The outline of the system was published in 2003 in Review of General Psychology and two special issues of the Journal of Clinical Psychology in Dec 04 and Jan 05 were devoted to the elaboration and evaluation of the model.
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 overall consensus model of what Psychology actually is. According to the ToK System, the problem of psychology is that a clear definition, an agreed upon subject matter, and a coherent conceptual framework have eluded its students for its entire 125 year history. 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 phenomena. 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, the individual psychologist has to determine for themselves which elements of which perspective to apply, and how to integrate them into their overall understanding.