Of ‘Psychopathic’ Children & Interventionist Clinicians

Researchers in New South Wales are on the hunt for ‘psychopathic’ pre-schoolers. Apparently, they have created a ‘diagnostic tool’ in which young children are shown images, either ‘distressing’ or ‘neutral’, in order to classify the child as either ‘healthy’ or ‘callous’ on the basis of their responses. The 10% of children who were found to be ‘unemotional’ can be targeted for early intervention.

On the Crisis of Reproducibility in Psychology

As we might expect, most results in psychology are not reproducible. As the authors who obtained these results say, ‘reproducibility is a defining feature of science’. From this, we could conclude, as have many in the field, that the answer is more experiments, tweaked statistics, metholodogical tinkering and the like. Or, we could make a point that is not so much epistemically radical as it is blatantly obvious, and that is that psychology is not a science at all. It does not resemble science except in the most superficial of respects. It isn’t just the failure of replication documented here, but the complete impossibility of findings in psychology ever being abstracted into formulae for precise prediction.

The Jargon of Authenticity

For those who are interested, I have a paper in Arena magazine wherein, via Adorno, I explore the links between so-called positive psychology and fascism, militarism and neoliberal ideology.

Winnicott on Behavior Management

Evaluation & Scientism

Eric Laurent, psychoanalyst, on ‘evidence-based practice’:

“There is no Us and Them”

Further to a Twitter discussion from today – there is a gulf between patient and clinician, between administrator and administered that cannot be wished away with the language of facile humanism. I have tried to touch on this point before, but as always, others say it better.

The Leftist Defense of Psychiatry

This article raises some typical points in service of a leftist defense of psychiatry. (NB: the post I am citing summarises rather than advocates for these positions). This defense hinges on the claim that if mental illness is held to be ‘socially constructed’, this conception may lead to a denial of the existence of certain forms of suffering. This denial is something that can then be exploited by contemporary governments increasingly eager to implement spending cuts and austerity measures. One person cited in the article was Tad Tietze, for whom ‘the logic of Szasz would empty hospitals and put the same people in prison’.

Thoughts – June 2015: Psychoanalysis, Psychology, Mindfulness, Sexuation…

Contrary to popular belief, psychoanalysis is least accessible to the very rich man, to the man who goes through life throwing money at his problems. It is precisely he who has no way to pay.

The Debate on Directive Treatments in Psychology

Here are some responses to points/questions that recently arose on twitter, in longer than 140 characters:

On “Borderline” Diagnoses

In retrospect, it is ironic, perhaps, that it was within psychoanalysis that the category of the ‘borderline’ was invented. More specifically, it derived from the ego psychology of the US, which situated the borderline as a category of exclusion between neurosis and psychosis. There are strong grounds for concern about the aims, ethical underpinnings and conceptual rigour of ego psychology (see here for a brief summary). As I’ve tried to point out elsewhere, the blunders of ego psychology did not prevent it from having a formative influence on many other forms of North American psychotherapy, including those that prevail in the Anglophone world today. In general, for an idea to have emerged from ego psychology constitutes a serious objection to it; if it is also taken up by bureaucrats and panel-beaters of the psyche, this amounts to a refutation.