Parapsychology

2. Approaches

As the name suggests, parapsychology is sometimes considered a sub-branch of psychology. In its current state, however, parapsychology is a truly interdisciplinary field, which has attracted physicists, engineers, historians and biologists, as well as psychologists and those from other sciences.

Parapsychologists approach psi phenomena in different ways. Some take a proof-oriented approach which means that they are looking for evidential proof of phenomena (e.g. telepathy). Others take a process-oriented approach which means that they begin from the standpoint that psi phenomena exists, but are trying to find the ideal conditions under which it occurs.

For example, process-oriented parapsychologists may study the personality or beliefs of those who are successful in the laboratory in an attempt to find the ‘perfect’ telepath.