My love/hate relationship with psychology

[OhioBlue]

I love my job, and there are a lot of things to like about being in the field of psychology.

However, our science is not one of these. I'm one of those who often thinks we'd be better served in psychology by just going back to our roots in philosophy and religion instead of wasting grant money on research that produces the following findings (note, these are actual headlines taken from a recent APA publication, although thankfully not a journal--those are much longer titles ):

Lack of meaning may spur some to dislike modern art
Longer train commutes are more stressful, study finds
The directionally challenged lack an internal compass
Optimists have longer, more satisfying relationships, study suggests



I particularly like the 3rd one. I now plan to develop and market an "Internal Compass" assessment tool, and will lobby that Directionally Challenged Disorder be included in the next iteration of the DSM. Don't laugh, it's an illness people.

[Jeff Lebowski]

LOL. Excellent.

Look on the bright side: shouldn't be too tough to come up with ideas for research.

[Sleeping in EQ]

Did you follow the "Mormon thing" with the APA a few years ago?

My brother is a psychologist (he's doing substance abuse and domestic violence counseling on a Navajo reservation to pay off his loans) and he and I have had a few conversations about it.

[OhioBlue]

Originally Posted by Sleeping in EQ

Did you follow the "Mormon thing" with the APA a few years ago?

My brother is a psychologist (he's doing substance abuse and domestic violence counseling on a Navajo reservation to pay off his loans) and he and I have had a few conversations about it.

Which Mormon thing? There've been a few, and not all negative. You might be referring to the flap created when at the convention one of the presentations was essentially an anti film, presented under the guises of teaching people about the brainwashing techniques used by the LDS church. Actually, IIRC, the video itself wasn't bad, it was the blurb writeup by its presenter in the APA convention program.

To its credit, the APA ended up flying people out to Utah for conversations and what amounted to apologies. As much as I don't like how liberal my profession is at times, I will at least give them props on their consistency. Heck, even the U of U got dinged by the APA because they weren't hiring any Mormons. Never thought I'd see that happen.

Also, fairly recently one of the higher ups wrote a very good piece about psychology in Utah, the divide and battle between LDS and non-LDS professionals, and mentioned his dismay that people aren't flocking to BYU's training program due to its quality and the quality of the counseling center there (it really is virtually unmatched).

So there's been bad and good, but lately I gotta say mostly good.

[Sleeping in EQ]

Originally Posted by OhioBlue

Which Mormon thing? There've been a few, and not all negative. You might be referring to the flap created when at the convention one of the presentations was essentially an anti film, presented under the guises of teaching people about the brainwashing techniques used by the LDS church. Actually, IIRC, the video itself wasn't bad, it was the blurb writeup by its presenter in the APA convention program.

To its credit, the APA ended up flying people out to Utah for conversations and what amounted to apologies. As much as I don't like how liberal my profession is at times, I will at least give them props on their consistency. Heck, even the U of U got dinged by the APA because they weren't hiring any Mormons. Never thought I'd see that happen.

Also, fairly recently one of the higher ups wrote a very good piece about psychology in Utah, the divide and battle between LDS and non-LDS professionals, and mentioned his dismay that people aren't flocking to BYU's training program due to its quality and the quality of the counseling center there (it really is virtually unmatched).

So there's been bad and good, but lately I gotta say mostly good.

I was referring to the blurb. I'm glad the APA has taken measures to straighten things out. As to the U of U, their bias against Mormons in my field is well known. It's kind of stunning that a University would have a bias against the culture of many people who attend it, not totally different in that regard from say, if the University of California at San Diego didn't want to employ any hispanics as professors.

[OhioBlue]

Originally Posted by Sleeping in EQ

I was referring to the blurb. I'm glad the APA has taken measures to straighten things out. As to the U of U, their bias against Mormons in my field is well known. It's kind of stunning that a University would have a bias against the culture of many people who attend it, not totally different in that regard from say, if the University of California at San Diego didn't want to employ any hispanics as professors.

Exactly. Which is exactly what the APA said.

"Sooooo...you have a campus with a large percentage of LDS students. Right? Mmm-hmmm. Sooooo, uhhhh, then why don't you run on out and hire yourselves some LDS therapists then, Mmmm-kaaay?? Good, then."