Wyatt Ehrenfels commented on the resolution of the dispute. "I am pleased the student and I could reach this accommodation. I do not stand to gain in any way from his censure or expulsion from his Ph.D. program." The origin of the dispute can be traced to a discussion thread in which regular users of unmoderated sci.psychology.psychotherapy debated whether the "news group" was an appropriate forum for Ehrenfels's monthly bulletin-board style message announcing new content on his blog, which is critical of Psychology. A message from the graduate student referring to Ehrenfels as an "egotistical SOB" and "buffoon" appeared in a Google Web Search of "Wyatt Ehrenfels," prompting the author to set aside a few paragraphs on his blog to respond to the student. "The thing that surprised me most," remarked Ehrenfels, "was the fact he was moved to these effigies by a paragraph on my site in which I addressed her charge of 'sour grapes' by affirming my love of dreams. The egotistical SOB and buffoon remarks followed this from Ehrenfels:

"Those wistfully alleging that this campaign amounts to little more than sour grapes suffer from a touch of conversion myopia. The very same mechanisms I criticize for having placed a disproportionate number of hurdles between me and my place in Psychology are also criticized for shaping the population of Psychology's academics and professionals into a community remarkably homogeneous with respect to characteristics that adversely impact knowledge production and mental health delivery. Once I left academia behind, my sociological analysis and evolutionary perspective on the development of this field ceased to be about me. I was born to recall vivid dream experiences, born to study dreams, and born to promote and defend the study of dreams. I was disturbed to witness Psychology's policies and procedures evolve into a system of prejudices inhospitable to the study of dreams, and to witness criteria for faculty selection repopulate the field with human incarnations of these prejudices. I feel sorry for those in the field of Psychology whose life did not nurture as deep a relationship to Psychology as to permit them to comprehend such service to a phenomenon (as mine to dreams)."

The graduate student, who has been visiting the site on nearly a daily basis according to access log data, may be pleased to read the following from Ehrenfels:

"I regret you feel slighted that I did not express my appreciation for your gesture of support in October, 2003. I wish to assure you now that I was quite pleased to read your support and thought at the time of its posting that it exemplified an independent thinker. I did not respond to you in Usenet because at that time I was beginning to recuse myself from the "news groups" when I realized this was the kind of forum more worthy of the moniker "Flame Community" than "News Group" and when I realized there were antisocial types with both technical skills and criminal and/or psychiatric histories who had seized control of the forum. I was not willing to foment hostilities by calling unnecessary attention to your support through a public message, and I sincerely doubt, contrary to your imagined sleight, that you really did mistake my withdrawl from Usenet for a personal snub. In any event, I would have replied to you backchannel had I had a non-bogus e-mail address for you, but clearly the fact you [and all other users of this forum network] seek to disguise your identity and e-mail address suggests that you share my concerns for privacy and safety. If you really wanted me to address any questions or concerns, you could have contacted me through my web site, which you read daily and through which you relayed a copy of your complaint to my host ..." "...I was dismayed by the sudden and unexplained turn of events, in which you began to participate in malicious and defamatory speculation about me. I gave you no reason to do so, and you did not give me an opportunity to address any concerns or questions you might have had about me. While you claim to have "wished for answers to the many questions [you've] posed [me]," the manner in which you expressed your 'inquisitiveness' seemed fulsome and full of pre-ordained conclusions. You also raised those questions months after it became general knowledge that I do not, as a matter of policy, participate in this "news group." This allowed you to take some pot shots by answering your own questions in the very same posts in which the questions were posted (dampening any incentive I may have had to address you), doing so for the sake of managing a perception in which you and your pride had a personal stake. What you claim now as an 'interest in the truth' has always struck me as (at best) secondary to goals of protecting the reputation of a field to which you precipitously, excessively, and inextricably tied your personal reputation and identity. When I originally discovered this 'news group,' I expected to find a hotbed of anti-establishment iconoclasm (not unlike my own), and I was surprised instead to find torch-toting members of a lynch mob, like the kind you'd find in 17th century Salem, waiting and wishing to catch something called a 'kook.' I guess that makes me a modern day witch.

Your reference to my having 'sideswiped' you puzzles me. In all the months between your original post of support and my web report, I addressed you twice. One of those messages consisted of a single sentence in a Yahoo discussion group in which I thanked you for your civility in defending my right to post what you called my 'sour grapes'. In the second instance, I addressed your charge of 'sour grapes' on my Web site with the above paragraph about my love of dreams which you, to my bemusement, sought as grounds for labeling me an 'egotistical SOB' and 'buffoon.' Aside from these, we participated in no one-on-one interactions. You do remember posting this about me in the Yahoo group?:

So when you say 'after I went out of my way in the beginning to defend you and include you in discussion', well, I think it's worth a chuckle. Don't you? You invested emotionally in a game of perception management (which is really what those flame wars in Usenet amount to) and it got away from you. I don't think you could be completely faulted for that. You were swept away by a wave of Internet Road Rage and control games endemic to this network of flame communities, which is likely to happen when you want to be one of the game's most prominent players. And your behavior was better suited to someone caught up in a mob than a candidate for a research doctorate. Even now that I take up this matter with you, I can see in you the susceptibility to being swept up in the groupthink and deindividuation. You come off as someone whose core self is not well-developed and someone in whom consciousness is faint or assimilated into the "collective mind" of this gang. While you seem quick to assume leadership roles, your view of a leader appears to be restricted to serving as ambassador or representative of one of two pre-existing collectives. You helped to depict me as a member of a bogus opposition 'kook collective' (the dramaturgical "them" to your "us"), to strip me of my individuality much in the same way war prisoners are shaved and uniformed. You assumed a prominent role in a gang of ragtag critics (who bristle at every opinion and outsider) rather than exercise the kind of leadership that involves differentiating a third point of view. And while your competitiveness and ambition are two positive qualities I would highly recommend, they got you into trouble here in forcing you to the front of the ring, where you were most visible and unfortunately most vulnerable. It is clear from your vita (which you posted to the web) that you are accustomed to building a long list of achievements for the professional and public record, and you are quick to assume leadership roles, which may or may not include churning your own butter for department social functions. But in fashioning yourself the ambassador of Psychology, you stepped to the forefront of the stalking ring, if only briefly, and let yourself be accountable. I realize that your aim is benign (and salutary in some circles), which is to say that you believe yourself to be preserving trust in an institution and, in so doing, serving the public interest. But what you may not have considered is that this is my goal as well, and that there are alternative paths to the same goal. Rather than defend Psychology as it exists today (which would simply embalm it in its current state), I struggle to improve Psychology by restoring flexibility and lost degrees of freedom for the benefit of researchers whose interests in the stubborn and oft-neglected mysteries of the human condition require a keen sense of science's fundamentals, which I feel have been eroded by the incursion of arbitrary and superfluous policies and procedures that serve science less than they serve institutional requirements (e.g. management of public perception and facilitation of the academe's day-to-day affairs). This contamination of essential science by its social and material context created just the right climate for the evolution of a species of thinkers known to those in our field by the name 'social constructionists.'

I want only to bring more people into a discussion of how policies and procedures in our field behave like prejudices to deter or punish research and exploration of certain classes of phenomena (by adversely affecting the careers of those who take up such interests). Along with branching and supporting observations, this is clearly the crux of my argument, and I do not understand how it summoned you to take up arms against me. Now I realize careers in the highly saturated market of Psychology are a zero sum game and that by calling attention to some of our habits and hidden criteria, I threaten those who would appear to be heir apparents to the next round of tenure-track vacancies. You appear to be headed in the right direction career-wise, as your interest in computers is consistent with the intellectual climate of Psychology (such as it is), and I thought it a bit greedy and meddling of you to think you should repress a requiem to a career and a call for reforms, especially without providing insight into the logic behind your objection. Could it be your complaint of "sour grapes" hides a concern my dissemination activities might complicate your access of career pathways in Psychology? Would you produce some sour wine of your own if you did not move into a tenure-track position that YOU deserved?

Now as concerned as you appear to be with what you (wistfully) speculate is my 'misery,' I assure you I could not have been more pleased with the way my life has unfolded since the Ph.D. Unlike you, I stood to gain much more from the Pyrrhic than Primrose path. Even more triumphant than a career managed according to a mob's expectations is a vocation which survives the death of a career in its reincarnation as an influential book and blog. I enjoy an audience and intercourse with the public I would never have enjoyed as an academic and I could pursue my research unfettered by professional trappings, all while pulling down a salary greater than that I would have earned as a university professor. (I am currently employed as a senior researcher contrary to claims by some of your cohorts that I have been unemployed in the years since my PhD was conferred). Moreover, I recommend moving away from the practice of applying such crude labels as "failure" to recipients of research PhDs who could not procure a tenure-track assistantship. Faculty search committees receive somewhere between 80 and 200 applications for every tenure-track vacancy. I doubt such a judgment would go over well with the hundreds of psychology PhD recipients who wander the university system like gypsies jumping from one part-time adjunct teaching job to the next. Most of these people are just as capable and intelligent, if not more so, than the single prolifically published or networked candidate selected for the position. The most trigger-happy practitioner of the word "failure" in your "news group", earned the kind of PhD [a practitioner's PhD] that allows him to, if all else fails, hang a shingle outside his home. (He has not been employed in the capacity against which he is judging me a "failure").

Fortunately, you do not have a real life fight on your hands, but then, much to your discredit, and possibly out of idle boredom, you tossed yourself into unproductive and juvenile flame wars on Usenet. I think I could be forgiven for wondering whether you would have benefited from nobler struggles unfolding as part of your individuation and adult maturation in real life, even if that means having to endure a little of the polemicism and professional growing pains I endured as a graduate student.

When you assumed a more active role in attacking me on Usenet, I looked for the original post in which you voiced support for me. But alas, I could not find it in the archive. Naturally, I wondered whether you had been bullied into deleting the post and, with eyes wide shut, assuming your role in a gang of masked cyberstalkers to which some members refer as the 'CABAL' and the 'brotherhood.' Only months later did you offer any insight into your change of heart, which you attribute to having visited my Web site, where you claimed to have found all those 'half-truths.' I still found it a bit daunting that you should disavow a person so strongly over a 'half-truth.' While I believe wholeheartedly in every one of what you call these 'half-truths,' I still maintain that some of the brighest people I know offered theories or perspectives for which I could muster agreement with only 50 percent (or less) of its propositions. Perhaps, and here you force me to speculate, the reason why you deem many of my criticisms and characterizations 'half-truths' is that they do not apply universally across the experiences of all students. Here you'd have a valid point. But be that as it may, my whole premise is that Psychology discriminates against persons, skills, and interests that do not fit into the system of mindless expectations, expedient procedures, and popular or profitable interests. Naturally, students like yourself, who seem to have a genetic disposition for the taste of kool aid, will not be forced to make the kind of adjustments and sacrifices that I have had to make simply for the chance to compete for that perennial longshot that is tenure-track employment. Students like yourself will not endure the socialization pressures with the same pounds per square inch that squeezed me, and I weathered a perfect storm of politics, prejudice, and professional training just to move through the system as a "student of dreams." I would personally like to see a climate where we affirmed rather than disqualified and where science was used as a tool of exploration rather than as a tool of skepticism.

Yes, I too do not take the word stalking lightly. And when I applied the term to you and others in your "news group", I was not using the term lightly, loosely, or metaphorically. When you post, in what you know to be a tense climate, the physical address and phone number of an individual while she is under hostile fire by persons with the obvious means to distress or disrupt the life of that individual, then you cross a line into stalking. I would have respected criticism that addressed the logic of my arguments, and even speculation supported by at least a thin veneer of factual information, and of course I would have respected mere counter-assertions affirming your glorious experiences and views of Psychology. But when you make a habit of responding to the most sordid x-no-archive material so that it becomes part of the public record and so that it foments hostility, it becomes clear to me that you were playing a game of vanity and sophistry. (There's a good reason the source of this material did not want his statements archived and you do no one any service by giving these individuals an added incentive to post malicious material). You could have, after all, created your own post rather than launder the soiled wears of Usenet's most criminal elements. Granted, the material is too absurd to be deemed defamatory by any reasonable person, but your strategic partnership (or hidden contract) with the x-no-archivers sustains a climate of hostility in the prolonged absence of the target. The author of the original post feels he or she has avoided culpability by taking the precaution (making a good faith effort) not to post for the archive or, in this case, for a broader viewing audience that he or she knows to include the target. You indubitably feel you are also beyond reproach, as you did not write the original post that ends up appearing in the archive. It's division of labor (and a passive-aggressive co-dependency) at its finest, but when the subject of months of malicious posting is an identifiable individual (as opposed to an institution) who has made it quite clear he is not interested in participating in Usenet, and when you attempt to expose the identity of that individual, even when the identification is incorrect (this took some legal research on my part), you cross the line into stalking.

While I know nothing about your life as a graduate student (notice how I make this perfectly clear before I engage in speculation), if indeed you have mastered the art of avoiding criticism as a graduate student (or else just congenitally fitting in), I would deem that both a blessing and a curse. Picking fights in Usenet may dress up an otherwise a drab existence as a graduate student in good standing, but trust me, you do not want to tangle with the university professors with whom you share a hallway. Once even a few of them even begin to question whether you are a less than perfect fit for their profession (or for that matter, their department), they can create an inhospitable climate unlike any I have ever witnessed before or since my years as a graduate student. And it's not really clear at this point whether they'd rally to your side as a shameless defender of Psychology or whether they would view your body of work as a cyberstalker and flame warrior as a blight on the reputation of their community.

Anyway, I am pleased that you are pleased with the outcome of my edits. I hope you do not feel I have been harsh in my criticism, and I will add that my criticism is neither total nor final. The criticisms in my web report are not intended to serve as a derision of you as a person but as a referendum on your conduct on the unmoderated sci.psychology.psychotherapy 'news group.' You have as good a shot as any graduate student at a tenure-track teaching position, and I am pleased that you have decided to manage the tragic risk to future opportunities posed by your conduct on this message board.

fireflySun.com Report List

16 Points Memo: Wyatt Ehrenfels

Authors, Scholars Unite to Support Wyatt Ehrenfels: Wyatt Ehrenfels

Wyatt Ehrenfels Teams with Dream Researcher Gail Bixler: Wyatt Ehrenfels

Wyatt Ehrenfels Exposes Our Fear of Exposure Therapy: Wyatt Ehrenfels

Wyatt Ehrenfels Interviews with Internal Correspondent: Wyatt Ehrenfels

Wyatt Ehrenfels Says Psychology Professors Suffer from Professional Analogue of Borderline Personality Disorder: Wyatt Ehrenfels

Student Defies Psychology Professor's Warning Not to Correspond with Wyatt Ehrenfels: Wyatt Ehrenfels

Wyatt Ehrenfels Chides Daniel Dennett for Evangelical Atheism in Psychology: Wyatt Ehrenfels

Wyatt Ehrenfels Argues Psychology Graduate Education Not Worth the Money: Wyatt Ehrenfels

Psychology Professors Acknowledge Student Complaints about Curriculum: Wyatt Ehrenfels

Wyatt Ehrenfels Answers Critics, Campaign of Diversionary Tactics: Wyatt Ehrenfels

American Psychological Association Denies Listserv Members Access to Wyatt Ehrenfels OKTV Broadcast Report: Wyatt Ehrenfels

Wyatt Ehrenfels Talks about the Dissertation Experience: Wyatt Ehrenfels

Wyatt Ehrenfels Discusses a Methodology for Dream Research: Wyatt Ehrenfels

Wyatt Ehrenfels Defends Dreaming from Psychologist Negative Thinking: Wyatt Ehrenfels

Urban E-Zine Entelechy Publishes Wyatt Ehrenfels Essay: Wyatt Ehrenfels

Wyatt Ehrenfels Defends Dream Research against Vaunted Psychology News Group Moderator: Wyatt Ehrenfels

Wyatt Ehrenfels Customizes Probe to Explore Dreaming-Waking Interface: Wyatt Ehrenfels

Wyatt Ehrenfels Teams with Kindred Critic Dennis Fox: Wyatt Ehrenfels

Wyatt Ehrenfels Teams with Psychotherapist Elio Frattaroli: Wyatt Ehrenfels

Wyatt Ehrenfels Teams with Political Scientist John Freie: Wyatt Ehrenfels

Wyatt Ehrenfels Teams with Biologist John Hewitt: Wyatt Ehrenfels

Wyatt Ehrenfels Shows Support for Embattled Psychology Graduate Student: Wyatt Ehrenfels

Wyatt Ehrenfels Counsels Students on True Callings: Wyatt Ehrenfels

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Wyatt Ehrenfels Says Corrective Statistical Procedure Emblematic of Psychology's Flaws: Wyatt Ehrenfels

Brad Jesness Target of Malicious Psychologists on Usenet: Brad Jesness

Wyatt Ehrenfels Teams with Medal-Winning Author M.J. John: Wyatt Ehrenfels

Wyatt Ehrenfels Critical of Vaunted Cornell Research Claiming Opposites Do NOT Attract: Wyatt Ehrenfels

Wyatt Ehrenfels Criticizes Berkeley Psychology Professors for Left Wing Bias: Wyatt Ehrenfels

Wyatt Ehrenfels Offers Links to Education and Appropriations Subcommittees: Wyatt Ehrenfels

Wyatt Ehrenfels Thunders Away at Psychology's Load-Bearing Premises: Wyatt Ehrenfels

Wyatt Ehrenfels Counsels High School Students on Choice of College Major: Wyatt Ehrenfels

APPIC Match Service Helps Veterans Hospital Psychologists Discriminate against Applicants w/ Disabilities: Wyatt Ehrenfels

Psychology Professional Development at Odds with Adult Maturation: Wyatt Ehrenfels

Wyatt Ehrenfels Republishes Work of College Curriculum Critic and FOX News Writer Wendy McElroy: Wendy McElroy

Wyatt Ehrenfels Likens Psychological Research to Premature Ejaculation: Wyatt Ehrenfels

According to Social Psychologist Wyatt Ehrenfels, Diversity Is Skin Deep, Black-and-White at University of Michigan: Wyatt Ehrenfels

Wyatt Ehrenfels Dismantles Psychology's Standard Defenses against Criticism: Wyatt Ehrenfels

Wyatt Ehrenfels Points to Hypocrisy in Terror Management Research: Wyatt Ehrenfels

Wyatt Ehrenfels Releases Revitalized Pocket Memo: Wyatt Ehrenfels

Wyatt Ehrenfels Publishes Critique in Revolution Issue of New Therapist Magazine: Wyatt Ehrenfels

Is Psychology at Odds with Itself?: Wyatt Ehrenfels

Wyatt Ehrenfels Says Campaign Not Intend to Offend Psychology Majors: Wyatt Ehrenfels

Why Community Access Television Is Coming Around to Wyatt Ehrenfels: Wyatt Ehrenfels

Overview of Wyatt Ehrenfels's Fireflies in the Shadow of the Sun: Wyatt Ehrenfels

Onion of Obstacles Awaits Psychology Majors: Wyatt Ehrenfels

Wyatt Ehrenfels Depicts Psychology Prejudiced against Psyche: Wyatt Ehrenfels

Newsweek Report Surveys Dream Research Wasteland: Wyatt Ehrenfels

Wyatt Ehrenfels Assails Culture of Student Character Assassination in Psychology: Wyatt Ehrenfels

Wyatt Ehrenfels Depicts Psychology as Bloated Minor: Wyatt Ehrenfels

Multicultural Fetish Belies Suppression of Individual Freedom, Ideas in Psychology: Wyatt Ehrenfels

Wyatt Ehrenfels Depicts Psychology Research as Games without Frontiers, ADHD Science: Wyatt Ehrenfels

Wyatt Ehrenfels Uses Evolutionary Theory, Natural Selection to Impugn D-Volving Psychology: Wyatt Ehrenfels

Wyatt Ehrenfels Reveals American Psychological Association as Lobbying Tour de Force: Wyatt Ehrenfels

Wyatt Ehrenfels Shares Bizarre Tale of Application for University Position: Wyatt Ehrenfels

Wyatt Ehrenfels Discusses Predictive Power of Tornado Dreams: Wyatt Ehrenfels

Wyatt Ehrenfels Releases Preface to Fireflies in the Shadow of the Sun: Wyatt Ehrenfels

In a Drugged States, New Mexico Legislators Give Psychologists Prescriptive Authority: Wyatt Ehrenfels

Fireflies in the Shadow of the Sun Press Release: Katheryn Moyer

Brad Jesness Exposes Malicious Stalking by Psychologists on Usenet: Brad Jesness

Psychology Majors Respond to Wyatt Ehrenfels fireflySun.com: Wyatt Ehrenfels

Wyatt Ehrenfels Offers Personality Taxonomy: Wyatt Ehrenfels

Wyatt Ehrenfels Offers Blueprint for Blighted Psychology: Wyatt Ehrenfels

From Position of Ignorance, APA Official Diverts Attention from/Urges Skepticism for, Wyatt Ehrenfels APPIC Discrimination Report: Wyatt Ehrenfels

Wyatt Ehrenfels Comes to Terms with Roiled Psychology Graduate Student and News Group Moderator: Wyatt Ehrenfels

Responses to Wyatt Ehrenfels Campaign to Reform Psychology: Wyatt Ehrenfels

Independent Publisher Offers Glowing Review of Fireflies in the Shadow of the Sun: Wyatt Ehrenfels

Wyatt Ehrenfels Teams with Psychotherapist Robert Roerich: Wyatt Ehrenfels

Wyatt Ehrenfels Says Psychology Professors Play Games with Rules: Wyatt Ehrenfels

Wyatt Ehrenfels Teams with Physicist Jeff Schmidt: Wyatt Ehrenfels

Malicious Stalking by Psychologists Abusing Psychotherapy News Group: Wyatt Ehrenfels

Wyatt Ehrenfels Reveals Groupthink, Abuse in Psychology Faculty Evaluation of Graduate Students: Wyatt Ehrenfels

Wyatt Ehrenfels Begins Sequel to Fireflies in the Shadow of the Sun: Wyatt Ehrenfels

Wyatt Ehrenfels Exposes Counseling Center Hiring Preference for Gays, Lesbians: Wyatt Ehrenfels

Wyatt Ehrenfels Diagnoses the Diagnosticians with the Shadow DSM: Wyatt Ehrenfels

Prominent UC-Davis Dream Researcher Dodges Wyatt Ehrenfels Draft of Reformers: Wyatt Ehrenfels

Wyatt Ehrenfels Teams with Management Consulting Maven R. Mallory Starr: Wyatt Ehrenfels

Overview of Wyatt Ehrenfels Dream Research with Cancer Patients: Wyatt Ehrenfels

Wyatt Ehrenfels Comments on the Short Falls of Teaching in Psychology: Wyatt Ehrenfels

Popular Psychotherapy All about Controlling Chaos: Wyatt Ehrenfels

Washington National Cathedral Site of Synchronicity in Novel by Social Psychologist: Wyatt Ehrenfels

Wyatt Ehrenfels Comments on the Value of a Degree in Psychology: Wyatt Ehrenfels

Wyatt Ehrenfels Offers Strategy for Self-Science of Dreams: Wyatt Ehrenfels

Wyatt Ehrenfels Attacks Psychology on Two Fronts: Wyatt Ehrenfels

Connie Vaughn Teams with Wyatt Ehrenfels to Explain Why She Is Not a Psychology: Connie Vaughn

Benjamin Willard Elected President of Wyatt Ehrenfels Fan Club: Benjamin Willard

Wyatt Ehrenfels Identifies Flaws in U.S. News Report of Psychology Employment Prospects: Wyatt Ehrenfels