Novel Fireflies in the Shadow of the Sun by social psychologist and psychology critic Wyatt Ehrenfels delivers truth about psychology science, psychology careers, psychology departments

Introducing the 2003 novel about the relationship between dreaming and waking experiences and the real-life struggle of four scholars to pursue the truth about dreaming in a university culture inhospitable to the study of dreams. Doubling as an expose and epic thriller, FIREFLIES sheds light on the industrialization and institutionalization of psychological phenomena as a subject of scientific research. Drawing from real dreams, real dream research, and real political drama ripped from student diaries, FIREFLIES gives us an insider’s look into the way academic policies & procedures behave like prejudices to thwart an exploration of dreams ... and into the academics themselves who lack the tools, temperament, and tendency to address fundamental questions about human nature. Join Wyatt Ehrenfels as he journeys into the heart of this social artifice and offers a peek into Psychology's organizational culture and distinctly communal life. Here, at the heart of a perfect storm of prejudice, politics, and professional training, a deep gulf exists between who each scholar, student, and research subject IS as an individual person and as a collective being -- who the person is and what he or she means/represents to the academic community. Socialized into a profession in which they are compelled to surrender their wits and freedoms for access to external sources of guidance, validation, and identity, psych professors can't manage this community and domesticate its human sources of serendipity and discovery without marginalizing and distorting the subject matter itself. We'll strip away the self-serving gloss, the so-called "science" and "professionalism," to reveal that nothing substantive, nothing truly scientific, and nothing human, lives beneath. The first book of its kind written by an insider, FIREFLIES depicts the dehumanization of four embattled graduate students whose inherent interest in the psyche conflicts with requirements for a career in Psychology.

Here -- on the site's surface -- you see information about the book. As you drill down, you will delve into the Unconscious of Modern Psychology itself, confronting its complexes and repressions. Welcome -- to the tension between scholarship and Professionalism -- between callings and careers -- between human nature and psychological law. Welcome to FIREFLIES IN THE SHADOW OF THE SUN.

"Psychology had no place for me" testifies co-expatriate Connie Vaughn in her tragic essay "Why I Am Not a Psychologist." Read how the search for one's soul differs from a search for one's car keys.	"You're right. I won't ever trust a psychologist again," replies Elderberry Press Publisher David St. John, who declares Fireflies in the Shadow of the Sun a "masterwork." Read his spirited review.	"Any discipline that cannot tolerate critique is probably not worth defending," concludes tenured university professor Dr. Leon Rappoport. Read his personal take on the plight of JW Ehrenfels in a Foreword in which he "confesses ambivalence" for the round indictment of Psychology.	"An end to the hotly contested election. Benjamin Willard is elected to his first term of office as President by FIREFLIES fan club. Read his statement"


"(They) dig at you until you bleed" -- Connie Vaughn. "In this solid earth do I build the foundation for my house. At present I have no house to show, but if only the professionals would let you into their house would you see it has no foundation. And some day soon, it will wash away or collapse under its own weight. Hopefully when it does, it will not be replaced by another such artifice. Unlike the academics I have nothing bold to claim, but then I have nothing to hide either -- JW Ehrenfels, Ph.D."

Fireflies in the Shadow of the Sun pierced the psychological community with publication in New Therapist Magazine. With reports of Operation Firefly circulating widely across professional listserves in August, Ehrenfels was tapped to compose his most concise, comprehensive, and compelling critique of Psychology to date.