Dr. Wayne Podrouzek works as an Instructor for the Psychology Department of University of the Fraser Valley and instructor in the Psychology Department of Kwantlen Polytechnic University. Dr. Podrouzek earned his a Bachelor of Arts in Child Studies and a Bachelor of Science (Honours) from Mount Saint Vincent University, a Master of Arts from Simon Fraser University, and Ph.D. from Simon Fraser University under Dr. Bruce Whittlesea. Here is part 3 of an interview from a few years ago.
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: To you, what are the most controversial areas of Psychology? Why do you (and your colleagues) consider them controversial? What are your personal views on them?
Dr. Wayne Podrouzek: Lol – that’s a good one. I certainly won’t speak for my colleagues because I often play in the sandbox pretty much by myself.
Put 6 psychologists in a room and have them discuss any topic and you’ll get at least 7 positions. Except for perhaps bio, some descriptive developmental, low-end sensation (which is pretty much bio), some social, and some behavioural, most areas of psych are pretty controversial, although there doesn’t seem to be much in the way of controversy – we just choose to ignore the difficulties and bung on ahead.
And, for the most part, it doesn’t matter too much – we live in our little bubbles and every once in a while something we do becomes useful, and the rest of the time it doesn’t matter too much and it’s an excellent theoretical and intellectual exercise. Even in things like method and stats, there are different opinions on what is appropriate and why and how things should be interpreted, and so on.
Don’t get me wrong, I think that in the long run what we do will become incredibly important when we get to a certain point and it becomes integrated. All of it contributes to that corpus of knowledge, and even if wrong is very important. We learn most, I think when we find we are wrong in interesting ways – and that really does entail controversy.
Where I get my knickers in a twist is when what we do has real implications for real people, and we are less than totally rigorous. I remember the “repressed memory” debacle, in which folks were sent to jail on the basis of testimony by psychologists. It turned out to be, what word am I looking for here, ah right, “crap”, and it ruined people’s lives. That has now turned from the repressed/false memory debate into the “dissociative identity disorder” debate. That is pretty controversial (at least in some circles).
And how about the “facilitated communication” debacle (there was, perhaps is still, even an Institute for Facilitated Communication at Syracuse, NY) – again, folks lives were ruined. Now, as before, psychologists fixed that through continued study (although not before being hired by a lawyer to see if it “really” worked), but much damage had been done. But that was a few years ago, and we tend to forget our past errors.
Another area that doesn’t seem to get much controversy, but perhaps should, is the use of a certain measure of psychopathy. They are, as I understand it, being used outside of the parameters in which they were developed, and people’s lives are being profoundly affected by them. One girl (17 I think) was declared a Dangerous Offender and put in prison indefinitely based on misdemeanor crimes and her score on “the” checklist and the testimony of some “psychologist” or other. This was subsequently overturned by the Supreme Court of Canada, but again, the damage had been done.
What I find controversial is, where was the psychological community in expressing outrage over this travesty? Let me guess, the same as we usually hear from the Department of Foreign Affairs, “working quietly behind the scenes”.
The problem with Psychology is the same problem we have with Medicine and biochemistry, just worse. Very few people understand it, and it is complicated stuff (which is why I don’t understand why most folks think psych is some kind of a bird discipline that anyone and his dog could do). Psychologists are human, they want to have their moment in the sun, and money and they say stuff and people believe it – without trying to critically evaluate it, and often in the absence of the ability to critically evaluate it. Sometimes it makes no difference.
Whether the memory is a series of stages or structures or is a set of differentially instantiable processes based on some form of information harmonic in the current circumstance is a very interesting question but is not likely to affect too many folks’ lives in the immediate future. So if people ignore the debate and believe one thing or the other makes little difference. However, the same cannot be said for so many other areas.
So, I guess that I think that much of psych is controversial. But that’s not a bad thing – it’s just that we should acknowledge that much of it is controversial not take ourselves too seriously. We are young, some 130 years old. Much of Physics is controversial as well – as the speed of light the limit of particle movement in the universe outside of the movement of the universe itself? (Although this result seems to be the result of a loose cable connection). Are there bosons? We speak of mass and gravity, but what the hell are they? Do causes always precede effects? What is the nature of time? Lots of debates = controversy. That is the stuff of science.
—
Original publication in www.in-sightjournal.com.
—
—
Photo Credit: Getty Images
Everything is controversial! I wonder if we can trust anything! Even the results of the psychological community.