Individual and Cultural Historical Development

Abstract

In this autobiography I describe how I became – via Teachers College (TC) -- a developmental psychologist. At the TC I was stimulated by a teacher to read and study scientific works on psychology. I was so enthusiastic about the then leading scholars of Dutch psychology that I decided to move to Groningen University to study psychology. I was particularly attracted by the philosophical and empirical-analytic work of Professor B. J. Kouwer. Coming from a phenomenological background Kouwer was convinced that a psychologist should be able to philosophically understand human subjectivity, while as a researcher he was radically empirical- analytical. During my entire career I followed this Kouwerian ambivalence: for me, the core of psychology consists of the tension between the humanities and the sciences, between alpha- and beta-sciences. I dedicated much of my career as a researcher to change Dutch (clinical) child psychology into a scientific developmental psychology. At the same time, I tried to do humanistic research: the study of the cultural-historical context of childhood and child development.

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