Jean Leclercq, Modern Psychology, & Structural Hermeneutics

Abstract

In this discussion, I examine various remarks of spiritual writer and medieval historian Jean Leclercq concerning his proposal of a methodology for psychohistory, as well as various observations he makes concerning modern psychology and his own theoretical outlook. I describe Leclercq’s theoretical outlook as a structural psychology. In this viewpoint, the structure of the psyche is understood as a composite personality structure that results from ongoing interaction between innate structures and environmental structures (where such environmental structures involve the family, culture and religion). This theoretical psychology, situated within an interdisciplinary perspective, might be presupposed as a hermeneutic when conducting research. Because of his emphasis on both structure and interpretation, the program of study that Leclercq proposes can be taken up today as a kind of interdisciplinary structural hermeneutics. Such a research approach has application not only in psychology and history, but also in anthropology and sociology, as well as in the clinical professions.

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