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Can't Get Psyched Up
March 23, 2017

Comments to: ron.evans@washburn.edu

 I saw a new biography of Herman Rorschach mentioned in the paper today and got to thinking NOW about Psychology in general and my place in it as well.

As the review of the book pointed out, you can use the inkblots or flip a coin and get the same odds of saying anything correctly about a person.  It has been dressed up in theory and exotic scoring procedures so long, it took a while to notice the emperor had no clothes.

A report on the famous MMPI test results can be written by computer as well or better than by a psychologist, and it does a good deal better in revealing difficulties than the softer ink blots or having people draw a picture of a house or a tree.  Not much good research yet on diagnosing people while gazing at tea leaves. 

Mostly  all those psychological tests I learned and taught others for 25 years are not of great use any more.  Somehow x-raying the personality is not as helpful as just asking the person what is wrong.  Duh.

A while back a huge multi-year study found that only about 1/3 of well-known and widely cited psychological studies could be replicated. Now that’s embarrassing.  The statistics we slave over say we should be wrong like that only 5% or so of the time if we re-run an experiment that got positive results.  So what happened?

This is always a conundrum.  Did different subjects matter? Or different experimenters?  Or did people change a bit over the decades since a study was first run?  Maybe.  But in 2/3 of cases?  That seems like a lot.   Read it in Psych Today or in a professional publication and the odds are not good it means much, says these replication studies.

Does Psychology do anyone any good?  If testing and research are suspect, does therapy work?  Clinical experience shows that the oft-used cognitive behavioral approaches help mild to moderate anxiety and depression patients.  Most of the rest of our patients take medications and don’t really need us.  Psychotherapy is also tough to practice without patient insurance, and those insurers want miracles in 4 sessions.  I would suggest trying your bartender or hairdresser first for advice.   

How did I get into this field?  Well, two high school pals who graduated ahead of me told me psych at college was interesting.  I had nothing that could be called advisement and certainly no role models.  Once in school I rejected journalism as requiring too much running around.  History did not seem to offer good employment possibilities.  It was the 60s and this Psychology stuff was still widely believed, so that was the choice.  I found I could do the courses pretty easily.  I never did love it or have a passion. That might explain my early retirement, which is the best career or job I’ve ever had.

When I got my academic job I found I worked in a snake pit of self-serving people who cared for their own comfort and advancement first, last and always.  That did nothing to endear me to my career choice.  It was no fun going to the office sometimes.

So it became a job.  I could do it without much trouble.  It paid OK. I still do it, only online.  It pays less well there but then I don’t have leave home to do it. 

In this sense I’m like millions of workers.  I didn’t love my job but I stuck with it because the benefits were good, and after a while I knew how to play the academic game. 

If you seek psychological services, I suggest doing some research first.  The research is not overwhelming that the field offers what it once hoped to. 



 
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