I wrote in 1913 the meaning of my system of methodology: “Instead of forcing the whole domain into a system on the ground of a theory, we ought to seek to separate neatly the individual paths of research, points of view, and methods. Only in this manner can we bring to presentation the many-sidedness of psychopathology and allow this many-sidedness to stand forth clearly. Therefore, we can exclude neither theories nor in general any kind of point of view. Each image of the whole should be grasped, its meaning and its limits understood, and recognized in its legitimacy (Geltung). However, what prevails throughout (Umfassende) remains always investigative thinking. Only out of this thinking is each image of the whole legitimate, and legitimate only from one standpoint. Finally the methods and categories of investigation rule over and restrain (beherrschen) the images of the whole. Thus psychopathological investigations can be organized only according to the different methods and categories out of which the images of the whole arise.” (Jaspers 1965, p. 36 (translation ours), 1997, pp. 41–42)

The schools of thought which have developed one after the other (as the psychology of association, of intentional thought, or as gestalt-psychology) and which have all attacked each other, can in fact be brought together. We can make use of all of them, each one within its own limitations, as a means of describing phenomena and posing new questions for analysis. None of these psychologies can claim to explain everything or provide an all-embracing theory of psychic life as it really is. They fall down entirely as an explanation of the psyche, but show their value nonetheless if one employs them for a clear presentation of the relevant psychic facts. They cohere, they can be combined and do not have to contradict one another. (Jaspers 1965, p. 135, 1997, p. 161)