This is a response to Dr. J. Wyatt Ehrenfels’s 16-Points Memo. As an introduction, I would like briefly to cover several topics: who I am, my relationship with Dr. Ehrenfels, and my view of the intellectual state of our times.

My name is Scott Adams, and I received my doctorate in clinical psychology in December 2002. I am not yet licensed and, therefore, cannot legally call myself a psychologist. So, for now, I will say I am a doctor of and in clinical psychology.

Dr. Ehrenfels and I have never met face-to-face. Our few contacts have been via e-mail. I became aware of his website and ideas in the summer of 2002, when his 16-Points Memo was posted on a listserve to which I belong. I followed up by going to his website and reading the materials. I have re-read some of them since. Our acquaintance was made recently, after he posted some thoughts on the same listserve, to which I replied. In my post, I indicated that I find his ideas interesting and agree with many of them. I added in the post some of my own thoughts, to which he replied favorably, suggesting that he might post them on his website in the form of a critique of his Memo. I requested that he permit me some time to write a fuller response, as I would enjoy it, and he agreed. That is the basis for this response.

In the spirit of objectivity and openness, I should say that I have not read Dr. Ehrenfels’s book, Fireflies in the Shadow of the Sun, and therefore cannot say whether I endorse it or not. However, I believe that his campaign is a courageous one, especially given the nature of today’s intellectual climate in and beyond psychology.

In this regard, I would like to briefly state my own thoughts about today’s intellectual climate. I offer this primarily as a context-setting device, so that my comments on his 16-Points will be clearer. However, I also believe that what I write is worth saying and reading. In this sense, Dr. Ehrenfels and I are kindred spirits in our passion for psychology and the importance we place in its evolution (and against its current de-evolution). Quoting from my (slightly edited) post on the listserve:

“The intellectual climate of today is the product of a long, long progression of bad philosophy begun by one man: Plato. It was Plato who denied reality, the mind, and freedom. In fairness, he was apparently better than his more modern intellectual heirs, because the Greeks, to a large extent, valued reason and Man's life on earth. However, his view of existence was that of a shadowland, of blind men groping elephant parts, of the need for the State (of Philosopher Kings) to run everyone's life because reality is shadow and men are blind.

Hegel, Kant, and a host of other foot soldiers took Plato's ideas where even he probably didn't think they would go. These philosophers not only struck down reality and the mind, but buried them and spat on their graves. Every nonsensical, self-contradictory theory that currently exists—from the philosophical buffoonery of Constructivism to the outright nihilism of Post-Modernism—have their roots in these philosophers. So, today, we have the spectacle of brazen proclamations that there are absolutely no absolutes, "reasoning" that reason is invalid, the "truth" that there are no truths, self-righteous amorality, and the "freedom" to obey.

Today's intellectual climate, generally, is anti-intellect, i.e., reason, i.e., mind. One cannot simultaneously claim the mind to be a tool of distortion and worthy of understanding. By what means would we understand it, the mind being disqualified at the outset? The answer is the false alternative: emotions (or whims). And, worse, collective emotions. The spirit of our times may be paraphrased as, "my collective, right or wrong." Which, in reality, means, "my gang, right or wrong." And now, just drop the "right or wrong"—after all, who are we to judge? How can we know? All ideas are opinions, equally valid—meaning, without validity.”*

With those ideas in mind, I will turn to my responses to Dr. Ehrenfels’s Memo (I will not respond to his Epilogue). The format will consist of paraphrasing a given point, then responding afterward. However, if there are statements that I wish to respond to specifically, they will be included in quotations. Since many of his points have significant material and numerous sub-points, my responses may be to all or part of a given point. If a response addresses only a part of a point, then one should not construe my silence on other parts to be either approval or disapproval.

Responses to the 16-Points Memo

1. The first point relates statistics regarding the job market for those with Bachelors degrees in psychology, as well as some survey data about graduates’ attitudes toward their degrees. Dr. Ehrenfels interprets the survey data as a rejection of the importance of undergraduate coursework in statistics and research and an indictment of the socialization into academic culture. He also cites statistics about the very low number of participants in an APA study of B.A. recipients and posits a “hidden contract of repression” among the groups involved.

It is true that one cannot get a high paying job with a B.A. or B.S. in psychology. However, one may reasonably ask: what qualifies those with such degrees to receive higher paying jobs?

An implication of Dr. Ehrenfels’s interpretation is that academic culture and the curriculum in psychology offer undergraduates few valuable, real-world skills. I largely agree with this. However, one need not focus solely on the culture and curricula of undergraduate studies. The educational system (K through 12) in the United States has been widely documented to be steadily worsening compared to other industrial nations for many years. A primary culprit in this de-evolution is “progressive” education.

Many articles have been written about the horrifying methods and goals of progressive education, so I will not repeat it all here. It need only be said that progressive education is not concerned with the intellectual development of students; it is concerned with their socialization. By socialization I mean the molding of children and teenagers into a particular kind of citizen—one lacking in reasoning skills and logic, emotionally driven, collectively oriented, and self-sacrificing. In other words, citizens who know their duty, and obey.

By the time young adults reach college, most have been well prepared for the ideas that await them. For those few who remain independent-minded and see college as a last glorious world of ideas to be explored before their lives as working adults, life can become a living hell. Instead of a diversity of ideas, they find Diversity to be the idea (and only idea). Their coursework offers no guidance in how to properly judge ideas and people. In fact, judgment of any kind is discouraged (unless, of course, it is the judging—and punishing—of those who don’t buy into the Diversity worldview). Thus, upon graduating college, many students are still too intellectually and emotionally immature to handle the kind of responsibility associated with large paychecks. Neither companies nor citizens pay for the “skills” of the open-minded, culturally sensitive keg-meisters, bong smokers, gang-bangers, hip-hoppers, or neo-pseudo-bra-burners universities currently produce.

On the other hand, college graduates also don’t have a lot of life experience, either working or in solid, long-term relationships (beyond immediate family and a few friends). Part of this is the fault of their educational preparation. However, another part is that our society has in many ways become more sophisticated. One simply has to put in more time learning things in order to do them effectively. I believe this is particularly true for psychology. If ever there was a discipline that required life experience, contemplation, talking with others, and personal growth, psychology is it. These things simply take time. I have no doubt that in a society which values and actively promotes cultivation of the mind from the earliest ages there would be many 22 and 23 year olds with the same knowledge and skill levels as those earning doctoral degrees today. However, this just simply is not the case, and the market reflects that.

2. This point offers more statistics about admission to graduate programs, the process involved therein, and other obstacles along the way to achieving a viable career as an academic or practitioner in psychology. Dr. Ehrenfels relates a desire for the field to release statistics regarding these issues to undergraduates so they know what they face.

On this last point, I agree that such information should be made available to undergraduates. As to the process, I see this as less a problem with the process per se than the nature of the academic climate and who is favored for admission. There must be a process in place and, I believe, one that is rigorous. I would rather see fewer people accepted into graduate programs if it meant that they would be those with the most passion, creativity, and motivation. Of course, that isn’t what it means today, so I acknowledge the negative nature of the current system. Indeed, there is a strong push to say the “right” things—the right things being symbolism over substance and conformity instead of creativity. It would be one thing if, like most interview processes, the anxiety stemmed merely from the possibility of not being accepted. However, there is an added anxiety today: being judged unworthy by virtue of saying a politically incorrect thing. And the politically correct thing today is different than what it is tomorrow.

3. Point 3 elaborates on these ideas by describing the impact on the admission process briefly alluded to above. Dr. Ehrenfels writes, “…faculty search committees and student admission committees can afford to seriously consider only those applicants willing to tow the company line. What kinds of applicants are these? Naïve students and vapid drones with no inherent vision—no true calling—no genuine interest—in the human condition. These are psychologically unsophisticated career-seeking youth who are most easily socialized into the professional culture of psychology.”

This identification is wonderful! I took part in an admission process at my school only once. I intuitively saw that it was a farcical social, rather than intellectual, process, and this was confirmed when I finally took part. It had all the earmarks of a fraternity or sorority rush process, including the catty observations and judgments of superficial qualities that, in the end, make a lot of difference. Those graduate students who had worked the political ladders within the department and, therefore, had clout among professors on the committee used their influence to further their status and bring in those of like mind. In this regard, the younger professors, those in their 30s, were the guiltiest of forming covert (and sometimes overt) alliances with politically ambitious graduate students. The older professors were truly a different, better breed, and tended not to get wrapped up in these processes. The effect, however, was that control was ceded to the younger professors and their lust for power.

4. This point talks more about the hurdles students must overcome, the result being an abandonment of the mind (“psyche”) in favor of pseudo-science (“-ology”). Dr. Ehrenfels writes, “Manuals and policies are created to both (a) "train" those with no self-direction or self-motivation and (b) promote a pseudo-scientific and pseudo-medical PERSONA that serves political and public relations objectives. Tenure is wasted on tenured professors, who have survived so many levels of vetting as to have proven themselves unlikely to maintain an original idea.”

In my post, I quoted the last sentence above and wrote, “That assumes they had original ideas in the first place. In fairness, I have had some excellent professors and supervisors who absolutely took the mind seriously and taught me a lot. However, the point is generally right—there are virtually no original ideas, by design.” I would add that the good professors I’m referring to were of the older generation, usually 45 years old and up.

The issue of manuals and policies is worthy of an entire essay (or more) by itself. What became clear as I studied the issue of manualized treatments for my comprehensive exams was that it was driven in very large part by political and economic factors. I purposely put “political” first because of a simple fact: psychology has always been a government-run field. Regardless of one’s politics, it is impossible to deny the slow but steady takeover by government of various aspects of society. It is also impossible to deny that when government becomes involved in any enterprise, they necessarily affect the economics associated with it. Indeed, that is one of the purposes of government intervention. Thus, although there are private practitioners who get paid for their services through non-governmental sources, psychology as a field is clearly government-run. (If you don’t believe me, answer for yourself this question: what would become of psychology if all the government money were suddenly taken out of everything from training to practice?) It may well be that manuals and policies are created to train students with no self-direction or motivation, but the political and, therefore, economic issues are the motive forces behind this. It is literally our (the government’s) way, or the highway—and without fuel, directions, and drivers, the highway is a road no one dares take. (I will have more to say about this later.)

5. Point five may be the essential argument upon which all other of Dr. Ehrenfels’s points rest. In this point he describes psychology’s attempt to follow a “guild” model: “an association of persons of the same trade or pursuits, formed to protect mutual interests and maintain standards.” He identifies four results of pursuing this model (paraphrased here): 1) sacrificing independence and diversity to uniformity of ideas, 2) the extinction of ideas that don’t fit the uniform code, 3) extinction of careers for those who don’t fit the code, and 4) the ultimate demise of a field through extinction of the very people who would move it forward. The manifestation of this is a shift in focus from the psyche (the end) to brain functioning and behavior (the means).

To begin with a point of humor, my dictionary offers a third definition of guild as: “an old term for a group of plants in some way dependent upon other plants, as the epiphytes, saprophytes, parasites, or climbing vines.” I’ll leave it to the reader to determine if co-dependent vegetation is an appropriate metaphor for psychology.

As an historical note, guilds came about during medieval centuries. What are the hallmarks of medieval times? In two words: religious fanaticism. To paraphrase Leonard Peikoff (1982), the medieval period held reality to be “a shadowy reflection” of a greater—more real—reality and nature was “a realm of miracles” manipulated erratically and inexplicably by a divine force. Man was a “nothing-creature,” sunk in sin, depraved by nature. “Knowledge” came from revelation, i.e., feelings, i.e., whims. Moral duty consisted of docile submission, lest one’s personal avarice lead him astray. And avarice came from one place: the mind. The mind, with its “reasoning” and greedy thirst for knowledge, had to be harnessed. On this logic, it was necessary that an elite person (or group) capable of mystic revelation be empowered to curb the impulses of individuals and enforce divine commandment. “God, in short, rules nature; his agents, therefore, rule men” (Peikoff, 1982, p. 104). In such a system, there is only one way for an individual to gain some sense of distinction and freedom: his association with the group.

Self-sacrifice to the group has been the dominant, explicit morality of every society in history. The difference between the medieval period and now is that God as the ruling entity and the king as his earthly incarnation have been replaced by society as divinity and committee as its interpreter. The “public good” or “good of society” is the law of the land. The collective is considered an entity in itself, with its own ideas, desires, will. The collective is the source of personal identity. It is, therefore, not surprising that in an age of increasing socialism, i.e., collectivism, psychology would follow a model that seeks unity (and self-sacrifice) rather than individuality and creativity. The “mutual interests” of the guild overpower and overrule the interests of individuals. The good of psychology is more important than the good of psychologists.

As I wrote above, psychology is a government-run field. The government represents “the people” or society. If it is charged with the maintenance and/or advancement of a field, it needs tangible data to justify its “distribution of resources.” Brains and behavior can be touched and seen, respectively. The mind cannot (except as expressed through words and actions). Psychology’s representatives, having given over to the government the direction of the field, had no choice but to focus on brain functioning and behavior. It was either this or be left on their own. But why would they give over the field to external authorities in the first place? Read on.

6. In this point, Dr. Ehrenfels argues that the guild model affects all aspects of psychological training, research, and practice by introducing bias against specific students and subjects, specifically, the psyche. These biases amount to a “professional analogue of Borderline Personality Disorder.” The professionals and academics who hold such biases are said to manifest Jung’s four perceptual functions (sensation, thinking, feeling, intuition) in perverted, pathological forms (Materialism, Doctrinarism, Credentialism, and Careerism). He finishes by describing the difficulties motivated students have in such a system and the emphasis on a body of knowledge in psychology that amounts to “…inbred and derivative dribble…”

There is little doubt that specific ideas and subject matter are off-limits, conformity is the rule, and the field is disordered. My own diagnosis is Dissociative Identity Disorder (with a little fugue sprinkled in). One perspective in psychology holds dissociation to be the lapse into a mental state that allows a person to do and be things he otherwise couldn’t (for many different reasons). The “hot topics,” fads, or zeitgeists in psychology often amount, in retrospect, to panic-induced fugues states, after which the field wakes up and has forgotten how it got there and what it did along the way.

What is the principle that drives such behavior? Pragmatism. “‘The true,’ to put it very briefly, is only the expedient in the way of our thinking, just as ‘the right’ is only the expedient in the way of our behaving’” (James, in A. Castell, ed., 1952; quoted in Peikoff, 1982). In other words, what we think and do has nothing to do with reality; it has to do with convenience. And, after all, what is convenient today is not what is convenient tomorrow. “What’s true for you isn’t true for me.” An idea “may be good in theory, but it doesn’t work in practice.” In other words, there is no objective reality or truth, merely the clashing desires of disconnected groups and expedient solutions that are good one minute but not the next. The brain is hot—today. Medications are hot—today. What about tomorrow? “Well, one must be flexible. We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.” Indeed.

7. In point seven, Dr. Ehrenfels describes how psychology’s shift away from the psyche changes the very language used and the career paths of those who are otherwise creative intellectuals. He laments that those with true gifts of intellect nevertheless capitulate to the trends in the name and service of presenting a unified front. He then describes the two basic sources of natural diversity (independent thought or alignment with an established school of thought) and then states that both independent thought and theory have become irrelevant to psychology.

Two brief anecdotes apply here. In graduate school, I had a discussion with a professor who was active in APA. I forget the details, but the issue was the size and power of the APA. I suggested that maybe, like most bureaucracies, it had become too big. He responded casually, “Well, that’s how you get things done.” The second event happened within the past two months. I was at a political function for psychologists and a number of state politicians joined us for lunch. One, who was sitting at our table, made the comment (from memory), “It is most impressive to legislators when different groups from the same field present a consistent message.”

The relationship of the first story to the second is unmistakable: the size of one’s gang trumps the quality of one’s ideas. Sadly, my professor was right, as was the politician. That is why I wrote earlier that the spirit of our times consists of claiming, “my gang, right or wrong.”

This leads back to my earlier question: why would our field give up control over its destiny to external agencies, i.e., politicians? First, note that we never had control, so there was nothing really to give up. However, at some point, psychology could have asserted its autonomy and went on its own. It didn’t—but for what reason? Somewhat ironically, the answer is the acceptance and spreading of the philosophy of anti-reason.

Psychology was born in the 1800s, after the tide of the Enlightenment and Renaissance had turned (intellectually) away from science and the mind. The preeminent thinkers of that era were Kant and Hegel, who brazenly denied the efficacy of the mind to know reality. “Things in themselves” could not be grasped by the mind—we can only know what our brains tell us, and our brains are shaped by innate categories and/or social distortion. The real reality is precisely what we cannot know.

It is one thing to say that we cannot know all things in reality at once or even over a lifetime; we are not omniscient. It is quite another to say that no knowledge of reality whatsoever is possible.

Like their medieval predecessors, the subjectivist philosophers paved the way for an elite class of intellectuals to rule men. However, instead of the king, you now had society, or the “volk,” or the “proletariat.” Rule by consensus of committees, in which all viewpoints but the individual’s mattered. Or, the individual view mattered only in so much as it was aligned with the group (guild, caste). The political manifestations of these ideas are socialism, communism, and fascism. It was in this atmosphere that psychology was created and its theories of human nature formulated.

The intellectuals in psychology accepted these ideas and, by extension, have been bound to them. One cannot claim that mind is useless and human nature depraved (because of the unruly id or the conditioning of society) and also claim men should be free and independent. The field has followed and accepted government control as its necessary and deserved fate. It gave itself no other choice, and sees no other choice now.

8. Point eight coincides with what I wrote above. Dr. Ehrenfels also speaks to the lack of choice psychologists have given themselves through their abandonment of the mind. He properly identifies the equivocation of the mind with the brain as materialism, which leads nowhere. He writes, “They also fail to understand how true psychological research provides the framework for the direction and organization of neuroscience (i.e., how neuroscience would be further along if it were informed by psychological research).” He finishes by criticizing neuroscientists’ personalities as lacking an appreciation for psychological life and, therefore, inspiration or direction for their research.

Materialism and its equivocation of the mind with the brain is truly a disturbing trend. But, after all, the 1990s were the “decade of the brain,” and that’s where the big government dollars went. Why not slurp off the gravy train?

I can tell you that even large organizations that advocate for people with psychological disorders are jumping on the “biologically-based disorders” band wagon. By “biologically-based” they mean brain-based and, further, genetically-based. This title no longer applies just to Schizophrenia and Bipolar Disorder (which the evidence to date indicates do have a strong genetic and neurobiological component), but also depression and anxiety disorders. I think it goes without saying that all psychological disorders have a corollary biological process. A limited few (like Schizophrenia) are mostly caused by faulty neurobiology (based on genetic factors). However, there is an earnest attempt to broaden the net of causation to include disorders that are treated as effectively by psychotherapy as they are by medication. If, on average, talking about problems is equally effective as reducing symptoms through pills, then that alone speaks to the mind/brain distinction. However, the driving forces behind this are the desire for insurance coverage of treatment and, sadly, the stigma attached with mental disorders. It is more “face-saving” to say that one’s depression is caused by biology than bad experiences and distorted thoughts. (I can’t say I necessarily blame patients and their advocates for taking this position, although I do think it’s short-sighted.)

As to the personalities of neuroscientists, I think Dr. Ehrenfels characterization is unfair. On the one hand, I cannot say I’ve known enough of them to completely discount this description. However, I have had enough coursework and practice in neuropsychology to know that they absolutely use psychological issues to inform their knowledge of brain function. In fact, it is the psychological experience that takes precedent over brain problems, especially when making recommendations for treatment. A simple fact supports this: for all we know about the brain, we don’t know a lot; it is still necessary to speak in terms of psychological life.

9. Point 9 continues the focus on hurdles students must face, especially in the process of admission to graduate school. Dr. Ehrenfels maintains that vital statistics like GPA and GRE scores serve merely as rule-outs and that the faculty is really looking for group/community-oriented people who are already part of the sociopolitical network. He writes, “Like vampires, trainees and tenure-track faculty are asked to sell their soul (i.e., individuality/humanity) for immortality (i.e., tenure/post-graduate career) and for the social and material amenities associated with membership in a community, which includes but is not limited to basking in the reflected glory of the field’s persona.”

How perverse is it that immortality is defined as tenure and freedom exists in a “reflected” glory of the field’s persona? What immortality? What glory? What persona?

One need only have conducted a literature search on PsychInfo to see the exhaustive and exhausting amount of articles that make up the body of psychological research and work. To consider, as a form of immortality, a CV with hundreds of articles listed is nonsensical given the sheer volume of articles that exist, most of which have nothing to do with one’s specialty or contradict one’s ideas.

As to glory, I ask readers in all sincerity to consider any moment of glory in their lives, then ask whether that glory came from one’s own achievement or was merely a basking in the reflected glory of someone else’s achievement. Glory is personal, individual, and comes from one’s self achieving one’s own values. It is certainly exciting when someone or something with which one is associated achieves excellence and glory, but basking in it and, in effect, riding its coattails is the opposite of glory. In fact, it is a perversion of glory. It is tying the dead weight of one’s own failed ambitions to a soaring rocket, not to go along for the ride, but to ensure the ride is slowed and ultimately fails to leave the atmosphere.

And this is the guilty secret of all collectivist mindsets and motives: in the name of equality, unity, and compassion, all are held at an equally, uniformly, and pitifully low level. No one is to outreach his brother; none are to shine; none are to be revered; and all are to find enlightenment in shared misery.

This is the persona of psychology—an amorphous blend of quirks, squirms, cringes, twitches, threats, snarls, and nervous laughter.

10. This point continues to focus on the admission process and the types of students most likely to be accepted. Dr. Ehrenfels writes, “Admission is a SOCIO-POLITICAL game with no real winners and no real players. In effect, faculty search committees and student admission committees restrict opportunities to like-minded, psychologically unsophisticated, existentially timid, politically biased, and intellectually lazy applicants who are most willing to cede their freedoms and faculties to external authority and central agencies.”

In my original post, I wrote in response to the above quote: “I haven't been involved enough in admission committees to know the process, but there is no doubt that the characteristics of many students are just as described above. And after all, why not bow to central agencies and external authorities—again, who are we to know or judge independently? Two, or four, or a thousand minds are better than one. Plus, it's ‘socially conscious.’ Left to ourselves, we'd just be greedy cutthroats who would trample over the ‘weak’ to grab a dollar bill. We need them to tell us what to do. Haven't you ‘learned’ this J. Wyatt?”

The only thing I would add is a clarification. Earlier I described my experience in one admission process and my assessment of it. However, I did not look at the forms used to rate applicants used by professors and other graduate students, and so did not know the criteria or take part in that aspect of the process. Basically, I was a tour guide who showed applicants around the campus and town and tried to answer their questions. However, my assessment is in agreement with Dr. Ehrenfels in the sense that I went through the process, observed it as a graduate student, and endured 5 years of school with the type of people he describes.

11. Here Dr. Ehrenfels again discusses the manualization of the field, but in the context of passing off jargon and legitimate knowledge. He writes, “In other words, they pass off their own culture as the nature of the psyche. They figure that if you cannot understand their publications through their jargon and format, the publications must appear top you to carry some intellectual or scientific merit. They have neither.”

This calls to mind two statements that one may have heard at some time: 1) “If you don’t have the sophistication to understand it, then I couldn’t possibly explain it” and, more crudely, 2) “If you can’t dazzle them with brilliance, you baffle them with bulls**t.”

The first statement is what Ayn Rand called an “argument from intimidation.” It resembles an ad hominem attack and uses psychological pressure to undercut and bypass logic in rational debate. Whereas an ad hominem attack “consists of attempting to refute an argument by impeaching the character of its proponent” (e.g., so and so is immoral therefore his argument is false)…the [argument from intimidation] “consists of threatening to impeach an opponent’s character by means of his argument, thus impeaching the argument without debate” (e.g., only the immoral can fail to see that so and so’s argument is false) (Rand, 1964, p. 162).

The second statement is straightforward. And besides, it’s what the Constructivists, Post-Modernists, and all the other subjectivist/relativist theorists and philosophers have been doing for years.

12. I will focus on one aspect of this point. Dr. Ehrenfels writes, “Their ‘culture’ or ‘system’ is riddled with biases. They don't discriminate against race or ethnicity, and in fact, their fetishistic rhapsodizing about multiculturalism and diversity conceals their hatred for a diversity of ideas and interests (their hatred for individual talent and freedom)."

In my original post I wrote, “In general, this statement is magnificent. However, I would argue that, in fact, they do discriminate against race and ethnicity: discrimination is at the heart of multiculturalism. These people can't walk 10 feet without noticing the skin color of someone and ascribing all kinds of characteristics, motives, thoughts, and feelings to the person on that basis alone. What their ‘rhapsodizing’ betrays is their own racism, hence their attempts to intimidate others into ‘race-consciousness.’"

I do think that understanding the culture from which one comes is a relevant piece of information within the context of a psychological investigation and/or clinical relationship. However, a person’s race or culture does not define who he is, his character, or his psychological makeup. Arguments that hold race or culture to be the defining issue in one’s character or psychology are racist.

13. Dr. Ehrenfels continues to discuss the socially determined aspects of psychology, the discriminatory process therein, especially as manifest in the attitudes of faculty. Students with interests in phenomena deemed outside the uniform focus are said to carry a terrible burden.

I cannot add much to this, as it has been discussed at length previously. However, I think his point reinforces the detrimental effects of collectivism, be it in academia or beyond. It is truly unfortunate that the only way to “get things done” is to align with groups that put the group ahead of individuals.

14. Dr. Ehrenfels describes how the “business rules” of psychology emphasize “inferential, confirmatory, and quantitative data sources at the expense of descriptive, exploratory, and qualitative data sources,” then describes how such an emphasis not only strips data of meaning, but serves to “preserve university life and the careers of its denizens.”

There has been a debate about these different methods, at least in clinical psychology, with many arguing for the equal legitimacy of qualitative and quantitative data. Whether or not advocates of qualitative data gain momentum remains to be seen. However, this issue derives from the age-old mind/body argument.

It is at least fashionable for psychologists, in and out of academia, to advocate mind/body integration. The usual statement goes, “Well, it’s clear that the state of our bodies affects the state of our minds, and vice versa,” and this is certainly true. But I have not read much (at least not in the psychological literature—and I will submit that I don’t much read the literature anymore, so it may exist and I’ve just missed it) beyond this statement that offers a solid rationale and theory of how the integration operates. Part of the problem in describing the integration of mind and body is that 1) we don’t have enough knowledge and, more importantly, 2) there is some mind body distinction. The brain is not the mind and the mind is not the body. They are related yet distinct, or at least distinguishable.

This is not the place to go into a long discussion of this topic, but it does play a role in the quantitative vs. qualitative data debate. It is akin to the Behaviorist vs. Analyst debate. One side distrusts the mind and the other distrusts behavior. One focuses on the external, the other the internal. One argues that scientific inquiry must be delimited to that which is tangible (behavior), the other argues that the tangible is significant only in the context of the intangible (mind). Personally, my emphasis is on the mind, as manifest in behavior, but with the understanding that people can act the opposite way of what they think and, either consciously or sub-consciously, deceive themselves and others about their motivations.

15. This point describes how standardization is endemic to the field and manifests in textbooks, policies, grants, and the DSM (to name just a few areas).

A question that comes to mind is whether or not standardization is, in and of itself, a bad thing. I think not. Ultimately, when there is true knowledge in the field, then the development of standards based on this knowledge is a logical next step. The problem, as described by Dr. Ehrenfels, is that the current climate is antithetical to the kinds of processes, people, and ideas that could lead to such knowledge. Thus, standards today are based on half-truths or, worse, arbitrary whim and political connection. (By the way, answer for yourself the question: what is the other half of a half-truth?)

16. In his final point, Dr. Ehrenfels describes the result of academics who repress their self-doubts by making students walk a fine line and how violators of conventionality and/or purposely unwritten rules are punished through probation and dealings with “student ethics & evaluation committees.”

I have never been through such a committee and so cannot speak to how difficult it must be, especially when one is being punished for one’s ideas. At most, for me, there were subtle suggestions in evaluations and other comments that something was wrong with my personality, which I later learned aroused questions of my capacity to be a psychologist. That charge was never put to me directly, nor was this the apparent attitude toward me when I left. I believe I was increasingly able, over time, to present my ideas clearly and convincingly, so that questions of my character or psychology were obviously inappropriate. I also called people on it when they were doing this, at which they quickly and nervously backpedaled. I may not have persuaded anyone of my ideas, and they may have left me alone merely to avoid conflict, but I am convinced that in the backs of their minds, they knew I came at things neither lightly nor ignorantly—and they respected me for it.

Closing

As related to what I wrote in point 16, I would like to encourage those students who have read this and who have a true passion for psychology not to give up on the field. On the other hand, I wouldn’t blame you if you did. What you have read here and in much of Dr. Ehrenfels material are the truly negative aspects of the current state of psychology. However, this should not be taken as the totality of what psychology is or, more importantly, can be. What is important in pursuing your degree is the same as what is important in living your life—doing that which is important to you, achieving your values, and making psychology what you want it to be.

Knowing what can happen in undergraduate or graduate school to those who crusade for the “wrong” ideas, I don’t necessarily recommend it. Whether you seek to change things or not and to what extent is up to you, but you should not feel yourself immoral or unworthy if you don’t take up a given cause while in school. It is an issue of context, and the context of getting any level of degree is that it is a temporary time in your life, you will have enough work to do just to maintain grades and excellence in your work, and life is long after school is done. For those that do take up good causes, I commend you, wish you good logic, and encourage you to pick your battles very carefully.

Last, I would like to thank J. Wyatt Ehrenfels for allowing me the opportunity to write this and for his willingness to state what he thinks and why. A challenging voice has been desperately needed in psychology. Whether or not one agrees with his ideas in full, in part, or not at all, I believe he exemplifies independent thinking—a quality to which many give lip service and in which they claim to engage, but few actually practice.

—Dr. Scott J. Adams

March 2003