Main trends of research in the social and human ... - unesdoc - Unesco

Problem-focused research 623
psychologist plays an active part in the social rehabilitation of the patient and in
this field it is he who directs the social workers. The sociologist, on the other
hand, would seem to have in many cases a devalued status in the sense that all
he can do is to offer the doctor some very general suggestions on the particular
case: ‘the psychiatrists, who have attempted experiments, complain either that
the models proposed by the sociologist (even in the field of adaptation) are
not compatible with those of the psychiatrist, being focused on problems of
a social structure and not on those of individual structures; or that where the
sociologist tries to leave his own field in order to propose practical solutions,
that is to say ‘to play the doctor’ as well, the results have always turned out
disastrous’.74
These matters of status may also be more or less directly influenced by col-
lective considerations outside hospital organization. Bastide reports that, in
Israel, ‘the psychologist has been helped to improve his status by the religious
authorities, because the neuro-psychiatrist is considered to be concerned more
with the body and the psychologist more with the
Of all this analysis bearing on the difficulties of working in a multidisciplinary
team, the most interesting point is without doubt to be found in the conclusions
Bastide draws. He gives there an attempt at a typology of multidisciplinary
research in the field of mental illness. This attempt has, in fact, a much more
general bearing, and the four types which the auth.sr suggests deserve to be
repeated hereT6 :
The first type is that of coexistence between equals: explanations are juxta-
posed or successive; they do not merge.
The second type is stratified coexistence: the director of the team draws up
the final report of the analyses in which specialists from other disciplines have
collaborated ;
The third type is called practical multidisciplinary integration: the contribu-
tion of each discipline does not imply subordinate relationships, each specialist
working independently within the general framework of the research, with one
specialist responsible for arranging the various types of data in a final report.
In the fourth type, integrated theoretical research, the research is conducted
jointly, it is a collective work born of a critical dialogue among equals; it is
considered the ideal type for innovations in method and theory, and as the
achievement of unity in really collective work.
In multidisciplinary problem-focused research, the first three types are
without doubt most frequently represented, whereas the fourth type corresponds
more to the model and the ideal of interdisciplinary research. However, as we
have stressed, although problem-focused research fits most frequently into
multidisciplinary associations, the interdisciplinary must not be excluded.
AtIthe heart of this section, running like a thread throughout the account, we
have again the problem of the dialogue, which is no less important, nor is it
always easier between scientists than between the research workers and the man
of action.
In addition to the various snags already indicated, there are two other diffi-