#a clinical psychologist and academic researcher

[bsof-maarav]

Date: June 24 - 12:00 pm ET

Registration Link: https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_QAyx1OSLQ7S-DhvB9tkOBA#/registration

This webinar is intended for LGBTQ supporters of Israel and their loved ones and will address how discourse can impact an already marginalized community. There will be time for questions at the conclusion of the program, and attendees are encouraged to use the Q and A feature during the webinar.

Corinne E. Blackmer, PhD is professor of English and Judaic Studies and Director of Judaic Studies at Southern Connecticut State University, and an affiliate professor at University of Haifa. She has written numerous articles on a wide array of subjects, from Jewish ethics and pink washing to Jewish women’s graphic novels and modernism. She recently completed a book which won the National Jewish Book Award, “Queering Anti-Zionism: LGBTQ Intellectuals, Academic Freedom, and Israel/Palestine Campus Activism” and also edited (with Andrew Pessin) a collection of essays, “Poisoning the Wells: Antisemitism in Contemporary America.” She is currently completing a memoir about her maternal grandmother, who was a woman’s reproductive health advocate. The title is, “My Grandmother as an Abortionist before Roe.”

Joshua Simmons, PsyD is a Jungian psychoanalyst, licensed psychologist, and clinical supervisor. His past clinical research focuses on cultural trauma and the intergenerational transmission of trauma and resilience among ethnic minorities. He maintains a private practice in San Francisco, CA.

Support A Wider Bridge

[allthecanadianpolitics]

This is an email sent out by the University of Saskatchewan to its students today (May 16):

USask recognizes and appreciates the deeply painful environment that exists for those affected by the conflict in Israel and Gaza, and the tragic loss of life that has ensued. We are committed to supporting all students, staff, and faculty during these challenging times, as well as all members of the USask community who are being negatively affected by the current conflict.  

Our priority is first and foremost the safety of our students, faculty, and staff. We also want to curtail the disruption of academic activities, research and other vital campus undertakings.   

We are aware of an upcoming demonstration planned to take place this week on our campus. We have worked with organizers to ensure it is a safe and peaceful event and that our bylaws are understood and followed, just as we have done with previous demonstration organizers throughout the year.   

USask fully supports freedom of expression and academic freedom and will continue to allow demonstrations, as we have through our history and since the conflict in Israel/Gaza began. Policies, bylaws and laws must be followed.  

We will work with groups wishing to demonstrate through discussions with leaders, as well as our event/space booking processes.  

Please share these supports for students, faculty and staff who may need them.  

Students   

Student Affairs and Outreach has a team of social workers who can provide immediate support. You can speak with a member of the team by calling 306-966-5757 or emailing  student.outreach@usask.ca and requesting to speak with an outreach co-ordinator.   

The Student Wellness Centre is an interdisciplinary healthcare team that includes experienced counsellors, physicians and nurses. Some same-day appointments are available for urgent care. To access support, call 306-966-5768.   

Faculty and staff   

Telus Health App is USask’s Employee and Family Assistance Program (EFAP) provider, and offers a wide range of services including free and confidential counseling, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

 MindBeacon offers virtual mental health support.

For eligible employees, your benefit plan covers mental health supports including clinical counsellors, marriage and family therapists, psychologists, psychotherapists, and social workers.   

~~~~

[tallerthantale]

@kittynotakitty-blog You're very welcome!

Unfortunately no. But I can explain a bit more about why not.

My academic background and a sizable chunk of my professional background is in cognitive research psychology. My aspirations for this blog are to communicate and explain certain aspects of cognitive psychology that are well established by the field, but very deeply counter intuitive to people outside of the field. (Taller than tale is a play on 'truth is stranger than fiction.')

Because I am identifying myself as a person with academic knowledge of psychology in order to do that, certain ethical principles kick in. The first issue is that I am not assessing anyone's behavior with clinical or scientific means. That is not possible to do based off of a person's public statements / actions. There are some people who claim to be doing it scientifically, (IMO) they are hacks.

At the same time, I am a person with eyes. I form the same sorts of regular opinions that anyone else does. Those are just the same interpretations anyone else might make and they should have the same weight that would be given to any other person.

However, even with all the disclaimers in the world, most people are going to have an inclination to be like "a psychologist said this is what they were thinking / planning / intending, so that must be what's happening, a psychologist said so!"

I can't stop people from doing that. People can't stop themselves from implicitly doing that, even if they wanted to. So what I will do, is comment on what it looks like to me, point out things that might be worth paying attention to, and where something is glaringly obvious that anyone with eyes can see it, invite people to form their own opinion.

The second issue is that a big part of what we are talking about here are the particular psychological mechanics of how a person might come across as a helpful mentor figure to a vulnerable person, exploit them for years, and be paid, praised, and thanked for it.

I am not going to publish a guide to the internet on how to do that. Much like a person teaching about the law needs to be careful about not accidentally teaching people how to get away with crime better, I feel I need to be careful about not accidentally teaching people how to exploit, manipulate, and gaslight better.

My hope is that I can strike a balance where the information I give is more useful to victims than it is to perpetrators by teaching people how to recognize that exploitation is happening to themselves or to the people around them, and to teach people to not see the predictable impacts of being exploited as reasons to disbelieve victims.

It isn't simple to strike that balance. If you see a pop-psych video that's like, these are the 5 easy signs this person is being exploited! Guess who also sees that video. Guess what they are going to do to make sure bystanders think they are the victim.

So what I say will remain pretty heavily filtered.

[discountscholar]

hi! do you know what you want to do after uni is over? I’m having trouble figuring out what I want to do with my future psychology degree. I would really one day love to be a professor but I don’t know how realistic that is for me. I’m trying to find other jobs in the psychology field but I’m drawing blanks! do you have any resources or recommendations on what jobs are available for psychology majors? thank you so much!

hi there, thank you for sharing this with me. yes, i do have a good idea of the options i want to pursue after I'm done with my formal education.

it's a fairly common experience to struggle with the question of "what next?" when one talks of their future after their degree. most people i know (including yours truly) have struggled/continue to struggle with the same.

when deciding on a future job, there are certain key things you need to consider-

your skills

your strengths/weaknesses

what you want to derive out of your work

what the path to building a career in it looks like in the geographic place you want to settle in

being a professor sounds great! but if you still want to be looking for other career options within the field, that's absolutely okay. jobs available in psychology fields may look something like this-

school psychologist

clinical psychologist

industrial/organizational psychologist

counseling psychologist (this includes all the counseling subfields too)

sports psychologist

forensic psychologist

criminal psychologist

rehab psychologist

military psychologist

research/academic positions in psychology

psychology for marketing (using transferable skills here. not part of the core jobs in this field)

psychology for policy making

psychology for PR and communications

as to where i find opportunities for work in psychology-

linkedin (more like i find better opportunities for trainings and workshops here)

indeed

campus resources

network referrals

Instagram (you have to know what tags/people to follow for opportunities in your region)

twitter (i get more research info here like "call for papers" etc.)

contacting hospitals/rehab centers to see if they have vacancies for clin psy

you could also use social networking sites/blogs etc to build a nice, loyal community. it's a great way to put yourself out there and have the right people find you.

If you need me to elaborate more on any of this, please feel free to drop an ask about it! have a great time ahead! and remember- it's okay to be confused. you'll find what you like eventually!

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: Camilla Turner

Published: Apr 20, 2024

A public inquiry must be set up to examine the “pervasive influence” of transgender ideology in schools and the NHS, the Prime Minister has been told.

The treatment of “confused and vulnerable” children by medical professionals has been a “major scandal”, according to a group of more than 130 MPs, peers, doctors, psychiatrists and academics.

Kemi Badenoch, the women and equalities minister, is understood to back the calls for a public inquiry.

“In the wake of the Cass review, she feels that people need to be held to account,” a source close to Mrs Badenoch said. “She is particularly appalled by the fact that a lot of NHS clinicians refused to share data and refused to co-operate.”

The calls for a public inquiry come after a report by Dr Hillary Cass, a leading paediatrician, which found that the evidence for allowing children and young people to change gender is built on “shaky foundations”.

The landmark review said that social transitioning should be approached with “extreme caution” because “we simply do not know the long-term impacts”.

Dr Cass revealed that her research was hampered by the fact that adult gender clinics refused to disclose whether transgender people who started their treatment as children later changed their minds about transitioning, or went on to suffer serious mental health problems.

Following its publication, Victoria Atkins, the Health Secretary, met Amanda Pritchard, the chief executive of NHS England, to tell her “nothing less than full co-operation by those clinics in the research is acceptable”.

Public inquiries can be given special powers to compel testimony and the release of other forms of evidence. This means that if such an inquiry was set up, adult gender clinics could be forced to hand over data on their patients

In the letter to Rishi Sunak, the group of signatories said they were “gravely concerned” about the physical and emotional harm caused to children “in the name of gender identity ideology”.

They noted that some schools “teach gender identity ideology to pupils as if it were fact, often to the exclusion or denial of biological reality” and that medical interventions on transgender children “have been revealed as a major medical scandal”.

Signatories include Liz Truss, the former prime minister; Dame Andrea Jenkyns, a former minister; Miriam Cates and Danny Kruger, the leaders of the New Conservatives group of MPs; and 14 other MPs and peers from across the political spectrum.

Tavistock deemed ‘not safe’

Another signatory is Marcus Evans, a consultant psychotherapist and former governor turned whistleblower of the Tavistock clinic, which was the country’s flagship NHS gender identity service for children until it was shut down after it was deemed “not safe” for youngsters.

Dozens of consultant psychiatrists, clinical psychologists, psychotherapists, GPs, lawyers and academics are also among the signatories.

The letter explains: “Encouraging confused and vulnerable children to transition, socially or medically, including with puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones, has caused irreversible developmental issues, physiological damage (such as loss of bone density, infertility and sexual dysfunction) and significant social and relational harms.

“This has already had a direct and lifelong impact on child development, the true extent of which is not yet known.

“We believe this is a major scandal that requires a public inquiry. This should consider the extent to which state and non-state institutions have failed in their duty of care by supporting, encouraging or facilitating a model of ‘gender-affirming transition’ towards children who believe they are transgender.”

Inquiry ‘should examine all institutions’

The letter, co-ordinated by social campaigner James Esses, goes on to suggest that a public inquiry should examine “all institutions complicit in this harm”, including government departments, the NHS, private gender clinics, mental health bodies, schools and transgender campaign groups.

Writing in the Sunday Telegraph, Mr Esses said: “Society is, slowly but surely, beginning to wake up to the horrors caused in the name of gender ideology.

“Children and young people have been left scarred, emotionally and physically, in the name of gender ideology. Some have been left infertile. Others have lost parts of their bodies that they can never get back.

“As a society, we have failed in our duty of care towards children. We must secure justice for those who have been harmed. Crucially, we must ensure that no child again suffers the same fate.”

[ Via: https://archive.today/Vx57n ]

--

By: James Esses

Published: Apr 20, 2024

Society is, slowly but surely, beginning to wake up to the horrors caused in the name of gender ideology. Children have been harmed. Women have been erased. Free speech has been attacked. Reality has been undermined. 

Thankfully, the tide is starting to turn. The Secretary of State for Health, Victoria Atkins, made a landmark statement before Parliament. NHS England has halted the prescription of puberty blockers. Numerous sporting bodies have preserved fair competition for women. Many gender-critical litigants who suffered for speaking out have been vindicated in the Courts. 

However, we are not out of the woods yet. Not by a long way.

We still don’t understand why more young people than ever, particularly young girls and those who are same sex attracted, are presenting with a mental health condition causing them to believe they were born in the wrong body.

There are schools that continue to teach children that it is possible to change their sex. State and non-State institutions alike remain signed up to Stonewall’s biased schemes. Corporations continue to promote and glorify medical transitioning in their advertisements, in shameless pursuit of profit.

Therapeutic bodies continue to push a model of “unconditional affirmation” on clinicians. Private gender clinics continue to encourage vulnerable clients to transition. Those who raise concerns continue to be labelled as bigots and silenced, threatened or cancelled.

I know this only too well – I was expelled from my Masters’ degree in Psychotherapy and removed from my role as a counsellor at Childline – all because I expressed concern about child safeguarding.

Equally, there are those out there who seek to keep us shackled to gender ideology. We witnessed this through the number of NHS clinics which withheld material from the ground-breaking Cass Review. Schools are even being advised by activist groups to ignore the government guidance for children questioning their gender within schools. Clearly, guidance and reviews are simply not enough. 

That is why I, along with over 130 prominent signatories, have written to the Prime Minister, demanding a public inquiry into the failure of societal institutions to safeguard children from harm. An inquiry that considers these issues holistically is the only answer to an ideology that has managed to infiltrate an entire society. Crucially, a statutory public inquiry will be able to legally compel evidence and make concrete recommendations to ensure real change is brought about.

This letter has been signed by parliamentarians, clinicians, therapists, lawyers, social workers, detransitioners, academics, journalists, campaigners, and commentators.

Reading the full letter, you may be surprised by some of the names who, under normal circumstances, have nothing in common with one another. Our letter has signatures from across the political spectrum, including Conservatives, Labour, Reform, Green, Social Democratic Party and Alba. That is because this issue is not about left or right. It is about right and wrong.

The stakes could not be higher. Children and young people have been left scarred, emotionally and physically, in the name of gender ideology. Some have been left infertile. Others have lost parts of their bodies that they can never get back. 

As a society, we have failed in our duty of care towards children. We must secure justice for those who have been harmed. Crucially, we must ensure that no child again suffers the same fate.

Rishi – If you are reading this. Please do the right thing and set up a public inquiry as a matter of urgency. Our children’s wellbeing depends on it. 

[ Via: https://archive.today/TZGoL ]

[haggishlyhagging]

It is an interesting but limited exercise to show that psychologists and psychiatrists embrace these sexist norms of our culture, that they do not see beyond the most superficial and stultifying media conceptions of female nature, and that their ideas of female nature serve industry and commerce so well. Just because it's good for business doesn't mean it's wrong. What I will show is that it is wrong; that there isn't the tiniest shred of evidence that these fantasies of servitude and childish dependence have anything to do with women's true potential; that the idea of the nature of human possibility which rests on the accidents of individual development of genitalia, on what is possible today because of what happened yesterday, on the fundamentalist myth of sex organ causality, has strangled and deflected psychology so that it is relatively useless in describing, explaining or predicting humans and their behavior. It then goes without saying that present psychology is less than worthless in contributing to a vision which could truly liberate—men as well as women.

The central argument of my paper, then, is this. Psychology has nothing to say about what women are really like, what they need and what they want, essentially because psychology does not know. I want to stress that this failure is not limited to women; rather, the kind of psychology which has addressed itself to how people act and who they are has failed to understand, in the first place, why people act the way they do, and certainly failed to understand what might make them act differently.

The kind of psychology which has addressed itself to these questions divides into two professional areas: academic personality research, and clinical psychology and psychiatry. The basic reason for failure is the same in both these areas: the central assumption for most psychologists of human personality has been that human behavior rests on an individual and inner dynamic, perhaps fixed in infancy, perhaps fixed by genitalia, perhaps simply arranged in a rather immovable cognitive network. But this assumption is rapidly losing ground as personality psychologists fail again and again to get consistency in the assumed personalities of their subjects (Block, 1968). Meanwhile, the evidence is collecting that what a person does and who she believes herself to be, will in general be a function of what people around her expect her to be, and what the overall situation in which she is acting implies that she is. Compared to the influence of the social context within which a person lives, his or her history and 'traits', as well as biological make-up, may simply be random variations, 'noise' superimposed on the true signal which can predict behavior.

Some academic personality psychologists are at least looking at the counter evidence and questioning their theories; no such corrective is occurring in clinical psychology and psychiatry: Freudians and neo-Freudians, Nudic-marathonists and Touchy-feelies, classicists and swingers, clinicians and psychiatrists, simply refuse to look at the evidence against their theory and practice. And they supply their theory and practice with stuff so transparently biased as to have absolutely no standing as empirical evidence.

To summarize: the first reason for psychology's failure to understand what people are and how they act is that psychology has looked for inner traits when it should have been looking for social context; the second reason for psychology's failure is that the theoreticians of personality have generally been clinicians and psychiatrists, and they have never considered it necessary to have evidence in support of their theories.

-Naomi Weisstein, ‘Psychology Constructs the Female’ in Radical Feminism, Koedt et al (eds.)

[binaural-histolog]

Effectiveness of Inductions

So from what I can tell, experimental hypnosis is not sure that inductions actually do anything. (I originally was looking for evidence that deepeners were effective, but I think they fall under the "induction" uncertainty umbrella.)

The Paradox of Induction says:

In general, experimental evidence for the impact of induction on enhancing responsiveness to suggestions is weak. It appears that induction is neither necessary nor sufficient to enhance responsiveness to suggestions.

The Hypnotic Induction in the Broad Scheme of Hypnosis: A Sociocognitive Perspective says it's complicated:

In this article, we have taken note of the tremendous variability in hypnotic inductions and procedures that render it difficult to draw unambiguous conclusions and interpretations regarding the nature, role, intended purpose, and impact of inductions on hypnotic responding. We now suggest that the problem of disambiguating the induction from other elements of the broader scheme of hypnosis begins even prior to the hypnotic session. More specifically, it is difficult to disentangle the effects of an induction from information provided prior to even starting the hypnosis session in the informed consent procedures in a research context, or in the earliest informal or nonstandardized comments by the hypnotist in a clinical setting. Indeed, how the session is cast (e.g., what is the nature of hypnosis; why is it being used; what is the probability that it will help in a particular circumstance), as well as information about myths and potential risks, may vary widely among hypnosis sessions and studies and exert important and as yet often under-appreciated effects on hypnotic responding.

What Can a Hypnotic Induction Do? says maybe the scales suck:

Optimizing the usefulness of hypnotic inductions may require more systematic analysis of the various kinds of effects they could possibly have. In particular, we have argued that the induction may provide important cues about the expected modes of enacting suggestions and the expected nature of the interpersonal interchange in hypnosis. In addition, the induction may provide meta-suggestions that could enhance subsequent response to hypnotic suggestions, and it may also provide a clear transition to help allow new modes of behavior and new experiences to emerge in hypnosis. Hopefully, these ideas will serve as a framework for further empirical study to evaluate the extent to which the variations in inductions we have discussed actually produce the hypothesized effects. In past research, the specifics of hypnotic inductions may have seemed relatively unimportant because standardized hypnosis scales, as well as much of the research conducted with them, has focused on pass-versus-fail behavioral performance with little attention to variations in underlying mechanisms and phenomenology. Detecting potentially important effects of differences in inductions may require expanded, more detailed measures of the responses to hypnotic suggestions, including the strategies that people adopt in hypnosis and their subjective experiences about what they are doing.

Induction Technique: Beyond Simple Response to Suggestion says maybe the hypnotists suck:

We (Barabasz & Barabasz, 2016) recently noted that throughout our 40+ years in the field, we have observed not only academic researchers but sometimes acclaimed expert clinicians speed through inductions and then offer up suggestions without even a veiled attempt to assure that the participants were experiencing veridical hypnosis. Given such an inadequate induction technique, why would anyone expect to observe little more than what might be wrought by mere suggestion, compliance, and/or social influence without hypnosis?

and

“It is no surprise that inductions carried out by graduate students who may have had little or no training in clinical hypnosis from an academician psychologist who prizes suggestibility over hypnotic responsiveness per se and puts “hypnosis” in quotation marks in their writings obtains nothing more than mere response to suggestion or conscious compliance. No therapist, no matter how clever, can resonate with a patient while attempting to hide disbelief in the reality of the modality they are attempting to use (Newton, 2000).”

Relaxation Versus Fractionation as Hypnotic Deepening: Do They Differ in Physiological Changes? says deepeners do something to the body:

In conclusion, both fractionation and short-term relaxation may be appropriate techniques for deepening hypnosis. The final effect is full hypnosis in both cases. Both techniques seem to be stressing, increasing sympathetic tone. Fractionation is faster but significantly increases peripheral resistance.

Effects of “Deepening” Techniques on Hypnotic Depth and Responding says that it doesn't change hypnotizability though:

The initial analyses (along with the final t test analyses) would indicate that although the surreptitious manipulation of stimuli did result in a significant increase in number of items passed, it did not on the whole produce significant changes in subjective depth reports or realness ratings. This suggests an independence of hypnotic depth and hypnotizability, since the surreptitious stimuli affected pass percents but apparently not subjective depth or realness.

Bowers seems to think that depth correlated with suggestibility, with .79 correlation using initial state reports and suggestions, especially when state reports “were given instantaneously” (p102) which is not what I would have expected.

As per normal, everything is complicated and no-one is really sure.

Realistically, there's no cost to doing inductions and deepeners as usual, but you'd think this would be settled by now.

[zinderant]

Well, through an unfortunate sequence of events, the low-stakes extracurricular I volunteered for a year ago, thinking I would mostly sit in with meetings a few times per year, has hideously morphed into me being fully responsible for a two-day symposium with 25 other PhD students attending to listen to six invited speakers whose research focuses on the theme that I decided for this event. I think I'm still prepared enough for this but I resent that I need to be.

I'll walk you through how this happened. The committee I'm volunteering for organizes about six of these symposia per year, all themed around a certain subfield of experimental psychopatholgy, and said committee consists mostly of tenured academics. They ask for volunteer PhD students to assist with this, which, y'know, is good CV building and networking, but the first time I attended the meeting where they asked whether anyone had suggestions for themes for future symposia. Foolishly, I suggested having a symposium about the socio-cultural influences on mental disorders, because I had recently read The Geography of Madness. They liked this suggestion so much, that they promptly put me in charge of organizing it. That was uh... rather more responsibility than I had signed up for, but I figured, hey, I like this topic and I'll enjoy getting actually qualified researchers to discuss it, so let's do it.

The first problem with this is that the events are focused on experimental studies rather than clinical case studies, and most of the central examples of sociogenic and culturally sensitive psychopathology are described by clinical case studies. Social and cultural factors tend to be hard to experimentally manipulate, after all. This means that it's hard to find speakers who fit both the theme and the purpose of the event as education for experimental psychologists, but me and my co-organizer (thankfully a senior member volunteered to help) decided to address that by having a mix of more experimental and more clinical speakers, but it was still pretty difficult to find them. Still, over the course of a year or so, we managed to fill the roster including two speakers who had opposing views on sociogenic Tourette's syndrome, which was pretty much the ideal scenario. I had a good feeling about this.

Unfortunately, two days ago the clinician who studies Tourette's e-mails me that she suffered an accident and had to cancel. On top of that, my co-organizer could not attend, and another senior member was supposed to find me a replacement co-organizer... but it's only today, two days before the symposium is scheduled, that I find out she forgot to do that and so I am now without a co-organizer. God. Fine. How hard can it be? I have several colleagues from my own faculty who also attend (all PhD students) so I've managed to delegate a little, but this is still the first time being in charge of an event like this. I'm not nervous (yet) but I know it's going to be very stressful.

Students who attend a certain number of symposia over the course of their PhD and present at least once get a certificate from the graduate school so they better give me a goddamn medal for doing this on my own.

[luxe-pauvre]

There are two dominant models of the unconscious, the Freudian (or dynamic) unconscious and the cognitive or new unconscious. The former resembles a secondary personality or agency, insofar as it often seems to make independent decisions. It can, for instance, decide to stop particular memories from rising into consciousness. The cognitive unconscious is more mechanical, a substratum of mind where routines run their course in a more predetermined fashion, usually activated by specific environmental triggers. The term 'new unconscious' is something of a misnomer because figures like William James and his contemporaries had been referring to 'automatisms and reflex functions of the brain' since the nineteenth century? Victorian gentlemen scientists imagined an unconscious that could generate complex behaviour from processes that resembled the workings of a clock or a combination of knee jerks. These two models appeal to different academic constituencies and are considered mutually exclusive. But what is the fundamental difference? In 1992, Elizabeth Loftus and Mark Klinger published an article in American Psychologist titled 'Is the unconscious smart or dumb?' Psychodynamic psychologists believe the unconscious is smart, whereas cognitive psychologists believe the unconscious is dumb. The former tend to defend their position with evidence collected in clinics, the latter, laboratories. 'Smart and dumb are simple, everyday words that can help us to grasp the fundamental difference between dynamic and cognitive conceptions of the unconscious; however, they are practicable only up to a point. Some computer scientists, for example, maintain that a pocket calculator possesses a rudimentary form of intelligence. And according to Alan Turing, who was the inventor of the eponymous Turing Test, a convincing machine simulation of human intelligence is intelligence. Instead of thinking in terms of the presence or absence of intelligence, perhaps we should borrow a distinction made by Al researchers: the dynamic unconscious has general intelligence and the cognitive unconscious has narrow intelligence.

Frank Tallis, The Act of Living

[anghraine]

Do you have any advice for navigating chronic mental health stuff and grad school? How has your advisor handled it?

Background: I'm finishing my first year of a PhD. The classwork was fine/ easy, but the research was not, and my advisor isn't happy. Part of this is from my mental health slipping (the rest is normal research life); her reaction was that I need to either take a break until this is resolved or leave, since she's at a point in her career where she doesn't want to deal with unreliable students. When I mentioned getting tested for ADHD, she heavily implied I therefore can't cut it in the program. There are no other professors in my program doing research even slightly related to my field. I know this is illegal, but it also seems pretty normal for grad school. Have you seen advisors handle that sort of disclosure well?

No issues if this is too detailed/ you don't want to respond!

Oh, I'm sorry to hear that! That's super shitty, though I have heard of roughly similar things happening. However, it is definitely not my experience in my own PhD program with my advisor (except that my advisor was also my only real option as far as research goes).

My advisor has been extremely kind about my mental health, despite it causing a significant amount of inconvenience and concern for him personally. I didn't mind talking about why that is any more, but I'll put the longer version of the story under a cut. (Mind the tag.)

I had an awful breakdown from late 2020 up to the end of 2021/early 2022 (bipolar mood swings from "can't focus but lalalala" to "suicidally depressed for months" coupled with autism problems and extreme anxiety). My advisor and department chair didn't know what was going on, but they were concerned that I stopped responding to basically anything, and I nearly did have to leave the program.

But the one major university thing I did manage to do during this time was to get my clinical autism diagnosis confirmed through testing services and to consistently see a psychiatrist. Both the psychologist and psychiatrist I ended up seeing strongly recommended reaching out to my advisor, disclosing my conditions/their impacts on study, and seeing what my situation was at that point.

So (after considerable angst) I put together an email to him, and he quickly wrote back. He was fantastic. He just said he was glad to hear from me and know how I was doing, and handled a lot of the bureaucratic end of things. I did end up needing to disclose basically everything (except the suicidal ideation, which I did not mention to anyone except my psychiatrist) to the department chair and head of graduate studies, and it all turned out okay in the end.

That's a big part of the reason that passing my exams and getting advanced to candidate is so surreal and such a big deal for me. But I really am inexpressibly grateful to my advisor for helping me through an extremely rough patch, where he went well beyond what he really had to do. As a side note, our research only partly coincides, but I would not exchange him for anyone (he studies 18th/19th lit in English where I study 17th/18th British).

So I guess my takeaway is that, as someone with mental health problems, having a supportive, helpful advisor made a lot more of a difference than having common interests with him. Your advisor seems genuinely quite bad to me. I don't really have a solution for you, though taking advantage of student health services was helpful for me, personally, in having documentation I could direct people to.

And if you really do need to go on academic leave and she's willing to approve it, sometimes it can be helpful in recuperating from academic life for awhile if you can afford the delay. Alternatively, you might look for more helpful people to have on your committee if that's how it works at your institution. You might also go to the chair of your department with your concerns if you feel you can trust them (bearing in mind that it's kind of the nuclear option). If you're seeing a counselor and/or psychiatrist/psychologist, you might also ask them what they suggest, since they'll know your institution.

[compassionatereminders]

Hey Quinn! What was it like studying to be a clinical psychologist as a neurodivergent person, especially with schizophrenia being particularly stigmatized in my experience? Did you encounter a lot of ableism from your professors and/or classmates? Did you disclose your diagnoses at all?

I wasn't explicitly out to most of the people I was studying with. I think many of them did read me as neurodivergent, but we didn't really talk about it, and I don't think many people singled my oddities out as schizophrenia. I was absolutely the student who would prefer to sit on the windowsill instead of on the actual seats because when I did sit on the seats I would bounce my legs to a degree that would bother other people. I also didn't really manage to maintain the level of hygiene one would normally expect from a psychology student. On the other hand, I did have a reputation, both with other students and professors, of being unusually sharp academically, which earned me a begrudging level of respect despite my shortcomings in other areas. As far as ableism goes, I honestly feel that it wasn't that bad. Occasionally there would be some ableist comments from fellow students, but it felt like it was more ignorance than malice, and most people were willing to listen and learn. Obviously a big part of the study didn't focus directly on mental illness let alone schizophrenia in particular, and when it did I actually think that the professors did a good job. I specifically remember that the first time we talked about psychosis, the professor really stressed the idea that you are doing patients and clients a huge disservice if you forget the fact that we are all equally human and that you don't know their experience better than they do. He stressed that it's extremely important to stay humble and to listen without assuming that you know better because you have an education they don't have. I did tell some of my professors about my diagnoses when it was relevant and I was universally met with understanding and respect. My advisor through the bachelor thesis was a professor I really liked. I wrote my bachelor's about the psychosocial causes of psychosis and I told him that I myself was schizophrenic because I felt it was important in the context. In return he told me that he himself had bipolar disorder and we really connected over it. He really believed in my academic abilities as a researcher even when my mental health caused me to struggle to do the work. All in all I feel that I was extremely lucky and that a lot of other neurodivergent psychology students experience far more ableism than I did.

- Quinn

[diliwriter]

What is the Best Psychology Degree in Sri Lanka?

Choosing the best psychology degree in Sri Lanka involves considering several factors such as the curriculum, faculty expertise, research opportunities, and career prospects. With numerous universities offering psychology programs, finding the right fit for your academic and professional goals is essential.

1. Understanding the Scope of Psychology Programs

Psychology is a diverse field encompassing various specializations like clinical psychology, counseling, organizational psychology, and forensic psychology. When selecting a program, ensure it offers a comprehensive curriculum that covers fundamental areas of psychology and allows you to specialize in your area of interest.

2. Evaluating Curriculum and Courses

A top-notch psychology degree program should provide a balanced mix of theoretical knowledge and practical skills. Look for programs that include coursework in cognitive psychology, developmental psychology, abnormal psychology, and research methods. Practical components such as internships, lab work, and field studies are crucial for hands-on experience.

3. Faculty Expertise and Research Opportunities

The expertise and reputation of the faculty members are critical indicators of a program's quality. Research the faculty's academic backgrounds, publications, and areas of expertise. Additionally, consider programs that offer robust research opportunities, as engaging in research projects can enhance your understanding of psychological theories and practices.

4. Accreditation and Recognition

Ensure that the psychology program you choose is accredited by relevant educational authorities in Sri Lanka. Accreditation guarantees that the program meets specific quality standards and that your degree will be recognized by employers and other educational institutions.

5. Career Support and Opportunities

A strong psychology program should provide excellent career support services, including counseling, job placement assistance, and networking opportunities with industry professionals. Investigate the program's track record for graduate employment and further education placements.

6. Alumni Network and Community

An active and engaged alumni network can be a valuable resource for current students. Alumni can offer mentorship, career advice, and job opportunities. Programs that foster a sense of community and ongoing connections among graduates are beneficial for long-term career development.

7. Facilities and Learning Environment

Modern facilities, well-equipped laboratories, and access to psychological testing tools are essential components of a quality psychology program. A conducive learning environment that supports academic and personal growth can significantly enhance your educational experience.

For those seeking a premier psychology degree, NSBM Green University in Sri Lanka stands out as an excellent choice. With its state-of-the-art facilities, experienced faculty, and commitment to academic excellence, NSBM Green University provides a nurturing environment for aspiring psychologists to thrive.

NSBM Green University

[the-freckled-collective]

A few months ago(?) we found a post discussing an academic project with a system who has multiple degrees including one in psychology. The projects base was to help systems who did not have access to professional help or needed assistance in procuring that help. This could involve writing professional letters to mental health professionals discussing your plurality and getting help, writing letters to families to explain systems and how to best support them, or even just helping with denial. We signed up after having a biologist and a lawyer check it over for safety concerns.

Today we had the main interview type portion of this. We filled out a form previously and today we spoke with the head researcher on some questions and essentially just… did an intake to discuss whether they believe we’re in a system or not. The conversation was two hours long.

We…. Have an informal diagnosis… and are in the process of getting letters written based off our information for future therapists, our friends, and a mini guide on how to deal with what they labeled as “denial past the point of a clinical definition.”

I am feeling many things. Somewhat spiraling. (Souping since we forced separation@to do this interview and we’re sliding right back to it). Trying to find excuses like our information being too broad. But ultimately…. Relieved even if it doesn’t automatically fix things?…

We have an informal type of diagnosis… from an actual psychologist. (Or at least someone with a psych masters degree. *who is also a system*)

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

Note: the pre-print version has some minor differences. I haven't been able to get hold of the full published version.

If you feel like you just haven't seen enough stupid buzzwords crammed together into the most vacuous ramble you've ever encountered, "No More Building Resiliency" is the paper for you.

APA’s refusal to acknowledge white supremacy in current events is a display of white supremacy that advances its centuries-long arc of white supremacy. Positioning itself as the powerful savior, the magnanimous arbiter of scientific healing, while deleting its white supremacist origin story is yet another manifestation of its whiteness. APA’s statements provide a window into the profession’s history of racism and white supremacy, while capturing its active efforts to refuse and deny it. This paper challenges this refusal, redirecting collective attention back to the past to delineate the patterns shaping our unfolding present. Organized psychology is the foundation for implementing antiracist psychological practices. However, these practices—whether they are APA statements, clinical tools, or research protocols—cannot be reimagined as antiracist until the whiteness overpowering them is revealed. This process requires interrogating contemporary practices and situating them in the histories and systems of oppression that gave rise to them.

“No More Building Resiliency” takes aim at celebrated psychological frameworks that uphold whiteness, thereby bending the moral arc of the universe towards injustice. Encouraging resilience among the nonwhite, marginalized people assaulted by whiteness and its intersecting systems of oppression, rather than condemning the sources causing harm, is an injustice. American psychology’s narrow view and orientation to individual-level change, which renders itself ineffective at best (e.g., Price et al., 2021), is harmful in more subtle ways (Chen et al., 2021; Fadus et al., 2019). Pathologizing minoritized children for attachment deficiencies theorized by white psychologists while sidestepping the violent family separation forced by the legacies of slavery and colonization is another (Causadias et al., 2021; Coard, 2021).  Detouring away from oppressive legacies is the first, most important step in an antiracist journey. However, this sharp turn cannot transpire until American psychology’s sordid history is exposed and its contemporary threads are unraveled (Legha et al. 2022). This antiracist approach to psychological practice, therefore, offers seven historical themes illuminating the whiteness engulfing commonplace psychological practices. This historically oriented approach rejects seeking reductive answers through natural processes born from colonial social order (APA Div 45 Warrior’s Path Presidential Task Force [Warrior’s Path], 2020). There are no boxes to check or competencies to master, as is often the norm for psychological practice. Anchored by CRT, abolition, and decolonization, it, instead, inspires asking better questions that lack immediate answers. Each historical theme, therefore, begins with a question prompt to implicate clinicians in remaking psychology’s white supremacist history into an antiracist future. This prompt also positions the millions of clients receiving psychological services each year to hold their providers accountable by interrogating their clinicians’ practices. Everyone owns the past, present, and future of American psychology. By transparently exposing the past and present manifestations of oppression, this antiracist future becomes closer to being within reach.

There's literally no statistics, no evidence, no data, nothing to actually support the insane ramble of this paper. It's an unhinged mess working overtime to try to connect a dozen different events from the distant past and more recent events together into a single unified conspiracy, with the American Psychological Association at the center of it, based on literally nothing.

White saviorism is the white supremacist assault, thinly veiled by the language of “strengths-based,” “trauma-informed,” and playful acronyms suggesting “we got you.” Saving people from harm rather than eradicating the harm is the strategy to cover up and sustain the harm.

This complete disregard for evidence is thoroughly unsurprising when you encounter passages like the following:

Thus, objectivity, much like race, reveals itself to be a socially constructed weapon leveraged by (white) people in power to advance their (racist) contentions by claiming they are numerical and, therefore, indisputable.

and

The lesson is clear: measurement does not imply truth. “[N]umbers are interpretive, [embodying] theoretical assumptions about what should be counted, how one should understand material reality, and how quantification contributes to systematic knowledge about the world” (Poovey, 1998, p. 12). Data–a manifestation of power, not a construct free of it–demands interrogating what is being measured and what for, who is doing the measuring and to whom are they doing it, and what (personal) agenda they are advancing and what truths they are trying to obscure.

The tweet wasn't kidding when they described it as "Qanon-grade." It's paranoid, presuppositional and basis much of its claims on things that haven't been said or done.

But this is now published, and people can, and have, cited it. So now this deranged screed is "knowledge."

Locating health and pathology within individual psyches and bodies represents an active and deliberate erasure of oppressive histories and racist structures.

So, treating psychology as psychology is wrong, because it doesn't do anything to completely unmake and remake society.

American psychology needs a complete redo.

They call instead to reject everything we know about human psychology and advocate instead for a "historically oriented approach" (i.e. blame everything about today on people who are long dead, and events that nobody alive experienced) in which...

There are no boxes to check or competencies to master, as is often the norm for psychological practice.

That is, put activists in charge, rather than qualified, competent therapists.

The crux of the paper is really embodied in the title. Don't teach black people to be resilient, don't encourage them to build an internal locus of control, that they are largely in control of their own lives. Because when you want to disparage and impugn anything that works against you and your politics, just concoct some mental gymnastics to associate it with "white supremacy" and then say "George Floyd," "whiteness" and "slavery" a lot.

Resiliency, another rigged discourse, suggests that minoritized people have–or should have–a unique ability to live with and thrive in the face of oppression as a sign of wellbeing, rather than a violence they have no choice but to suffer (Wingo et al., 2010). It harkens back to theories of “racial resistance” contending Black bodies, including children’s, were stronger in order to justify their enslavement.

This is eerily similar to Xianity, as exemplified by this quote from a devout Xian pastor.

"Satan doesn’t whisper, 'Believe in me.' He whispers, 'Believe in yourself.'" -- Matt Smethurst

Predators benefit by encouraging people to be vulnerable and fragile, and denigrating anything that would get in the way of them leveraging that helplessness for their own purposes.

This paper wants black people to feel helpless and victimized, because happy people who feel in control of their lives are far less likely to engage in the uprising and revolution the scholars activists are looking to instigate. Marx came to the same conclusion, by the way.

[zimbardos]

I finished Infinite Jest.

(This post contains spoilers)

I'm proud of myself for doing it. And only in two months especially since English is far from being my native language. I used the Wiki to look up difficult words while reading.

I was very pleased with the ending. It was perfectly ambiguous enough to end there. I was sure Gately died in the hospital and got a flashback to his rock bottom, it seemed so open-ended in a good way.

And then I found out I was wrong about many things. I missed a lot of the plot (since it's not chronological or clear). It's definitely not spoon fed to you and you have to really research the timeline. I was extremely impressed at how the different plots connected to each other perfectly. It's so brilliant now that I get the inter-connectedness and the incredible Lost-style foreshadowing. I don't know how he did it. Nothing in the book is meaningless, everything serves a purpose and tells a bigger story. It's incredible.

I really feel like it was worth the effort. It was difficult but I feel so complete now in a way.

Infinite Jest really helped me on a personal level too, to come to terms with the way I see academic achievement. I watched the film The End of the Tour about two weeks before I started the book. I really loved the movie and I stayed up watching his interviews, discovered I like the way he looks at the world (keep in mind DFW obviously was a really shitty human being irl though) and I decided to order the book, which I rarely do (I don't really buy books before reading them because I often end up disappointed with the book and feel like I've wasted money on it). IJ came to me at a time in my life when I was very confused about achievement. I'm studying to become a clinical psychologist, in my country it's an extremely competitive, long and difficult journey where you're constantly evaluated and compare yourself to others. I thought a lot about how do I not care enough that if I fail on this journey my self esteem won't shatter, while simultaneously caring enough to work hard to achieve it.

During my first year, I was really anxious about getting on the Dean's List. No particular reason other the selfish need for affirmation that I was good (the fact that I NEED to be good to get to my dream job obviously contributed though so it's not all narcissism) an entire year of worrying about it intensely. A few days before I watched the movie, I got an email that I was on the Dean's List. Seeing my name there made me happy, but that high only lasted about 10 minutes. I was confused, sad and disappointed as to why the suffering was so long and the pay-off so short. I tried to make sense of it. Why wasn't I really happy? I naively thought I'd be happy when I get the email. My overall wellbeing during that year was great, but it had the caveat at the back of my mind of "This is good, but I'll be TRULY happy when I'm on the Dean's List". It didn't fulfill all my dreams. Is this what is going to happen to me when I become a psychologist? I saw videos of doctors who talked about finally getting to their M.D.s and realizing the day to day life as a doctor was just as gray and boring and grueling (obviously that doesn't mean that pursuing these careers isn't worthwhile, it's just not going to magically solve all your problems and you shouldn't look at it that way). It was scary in an existential way. A small crisis.

In the book, the Enfield Tennis Academy is a highly competitive place and they have a great philosophy that they try to teach the young players in order for them to be resilient to the difficult psychic struggles of being an athlete of this level. There's an emphasis on caring and not caring at the same time, not thinking about the potential future fame, only existing in the moment. I felt very validated and seen by Hal's struggle especially. DFW was deeply concerned with that kind of stuff. You hear from his interviews he was fascinated by the difficulty of dedicating your life to something and then failing (see also: "How Tracy Austin Broke My Heart").

The main thing I got from the book is to try to get to that point where you don't put all your eggs in the one basket of achievement, it alone won't bring you much happiness.

The achievement part is not the only reason to read the book. He also deals with entertainment in general (which is a whole 'nother conversation... especially since things in this regard are so much worse nowadays compared to the 90's when IJ was written. I would have loved his thoughts on how the internet changed the world. We live now more than ever in a world where you have the right to be entertained all the time, constantly, your mind never getting a moment of quiet for itself if you don't want it) and with drug addiction.

Anyway, it's a phenomenal book. I highly recommend it. I feel stronger now in my pursuit of personal academic milestones. I feel changed as a person, the way only truly great books can change you.