How To Dismount An Epicycle

Written by craig

Imagine taking a trip from Boston to Philadelphia, using a map of Spain, and managing to actually get where you wanted to go! It's possible, IF you're willing to ride an epicycle or two.

Ptolemy was indeed a brilliant man. He (and a few others) studied the complex movements of the heavenly bodies and came up with a system that accurately predicted the passage of the moon, planets, and stars in the sky. Now, this was no walk in the park, because he had to do it assuming that the earth was flat and was the center of the universe, and that everything orbited around it. (Didn't I tell you this guy was good?)

'Want to know how he did it? Enter, the "epicycle." It, and several words like it (deferent, epitrochoids, equant, and  host of others), were used to create mathematical explanations for why things didn't just "work." As the observations got more accurate, the movement wouldn't match the math, so they'd add another epicycle or one of its cousins until things came out okay again. This would have been enough if only the earth were really flat and resting on the back of a large turtle as had been imagined.

The math part was correct. In fact, we still use some of the Ptolemaic math to calculate the movement of the stars and planets. Still, holding on to that whole "flat earth" bit took boatloads of epicycles as the scientists of the time kept trying to tweak an antiquated system that had been completely wrong from day one. It also stopped us from advancing further until Copernicus, Galileo, and a number of others managed to pound their heads through the brick wall of the establishment.

Now, let's look at another truly brilliant man, Sigmund Freud. He studied the complex movement of the human body and came up with a system that, for its time, accurately predicted human behavior. His epicycles included repression, the unconscious mind, transference, and many others. In the decades that followed, his works were praised, panned, and reinterpreted to the point that the licensing exams for the various types of psychotherapists have become nightmares of nuance and complexity. We have CBT, DBT, EMDR, CT, BT, BSFT, AT, MT, EBP (one of my personal favorites, for real), EFT, FFT, and I haven't even made it out of the "F"s yet.

A bunch of the above initials refer to quite effective, valuable approaches. Still, all of them strongly conflict with at least a few of the others when it comes to the "why" part. The explanations tend to take widely divergent routes, and some of them get us to Philadelphia. Still, the names of all of the towns seem to be written in spanish.

Over the past couple of decades, research has been creating a new cartography and, boy howdy, they seem to be nailing it now. When we've finally made the transition, when the mental health Galileos and Descartes' have finally managed to break through the old guard, "getting to Philly" will be a piece of cake. Then, and only then, we'll be free to start reaching for the stars.

"Epicyclists of the world, dismount!"

Peace.