Letters
Responding to Lord Layard
I READ with interest the news item in November’s Psychologist on
Lord Layard’s radical vision to increase access to psychological
therapies. Layard argues that the evidence base around psychological
therapies is beyond doubt, and in the interest of both the well-being
and economic health of the nation such therapies must be available to
all in a timely fashion. He believes that this could be funded by
savings in invalidity benefits, by helping those with mental health
problems back to work.
These ideas are having a dramatic impact on both policy makers and the
providers of psychological therapy services. How should the Society
respond? The Division of Clinical Psychology has taken a proactive
stance, meeting with Lord Layard twice to discuss his ideas and also
attending a Department of Health/National Institute of Mental Health
‘visioning day’.
Some brief reflections on our discussions to date. Although the primary
focus has been perceived as assisting people’s return to work, the
current proposals encompass all clients in need of psychological
therapies irrespective of their age, whether they are on invalidity
benefit, and whether they also present with other problems (learning
disability or chronic health problem). Although he has suggested the
creation of treatment centres targeting anxiety and depression, the
needs of people with more severe and enduring mental health problems
would also need to be addressed. Whereas the evidence for the efficacy
of CBT interventions exists, the contribution of other evidenced-based
psychotherapeutic approaches could also be factored within the design
of psychotherapy services to ensure that clients have a real choice of
talking therapies on offer by the NHS.
There are many outstanding questions to be answered. What is the
structure of Psychological Treatment Centres? What is the skill mix and
competences of the staff that might work within them? What are the
workforce problems to be resolved to ensure that the right staff are
recruited in sufficient numbers? What are the implications for
education and training? What impact will the creation of these new
services have on existing service provision? If the money was found,
what assurances are there that it would get spent on commissioning the
right types of education and training, together with appropriate
service provision, and not just dissipated within the over-stretched
budgets of the primary care trust within the NHS?
Answers to these questions will be critical in ensuring the success of
this ambitious project, and the Society with all its membership
expertise is in a unique position to provide them. As a first step we
will continue our involvement in meetings with the key policy makers
charged with taking this programme forward. Second, within the Society
we need an opportunity for our own reflections and debate about these
proposals. I have proposed to the Professional Practice Board that we
set up
a Society-wide workshop in the new year to debate these ideas and
formulate a Society response as to how psychologists can help drive
this agenda forward. If you have an interest in participating in this,
either from a Society subsystem perspective or from your own expertise
within the area, please indicate your willingness to attend a PPB
seminar by e-mailing Nigel Atter, the PPB administrator, on
[email protected].
Graham Turpin
Chair, Division of Clinical Psychology
Ageism and euthanasia
ASK yourself this: If Harold Shipman had decided to murder children
instead of older adults, how many would he have succeeded in killing
before being found out? I doubt very much whether it would have been in
the hundreds, as we now suspect was the case.
Discrimination against older adults, and ageism generally, whether we
choose to acknowledge it or not, exists and is all about us.
Frequently, some of the worst expressions of ageism I hear come from
older adults themselves, who have internalised the message that they
hear repeatedly in their communities: that they have no worth and that
they are as a consequence socially invisible. I often hear this in my
practice in the form of depressed elderly patients saying to me,
‘Surely there is a younger person who deserves your attention more than
me.’
What worries me most with the euthanasia question, prompted by reading
of the possibility of psychologists being involved in the process
(‘Assessing the right to die’, News, November 2005) is that I can see
how easily some of my frail clients could be bullied into making a
decision as to whether to live or die by those they depend on most,
namely professionals or even family. This possibility I find
horrifying, and it is for this reason that I am implacably opposed to
assisted suicide where it carries no consequences at all for the
professionals involved.
By all means, if you feel on humanitarian grounds obliged to take this
course of action with a patient, do so. However, it should be evaluated
on a case-by-case basis within the courts, and you should be prepared
to have the courage to accept the consequences. Let us trust the
judiciary (or at least some wholly independent representative body),
however cumbersome this may be, rather than a carte blanche option for
professionals, where the potential for abuse may carry truly horrifying
consequences.
Stéphane Duckett
Royal Free Hospital
London
Falling into the prejudice trap?
WE are disappointed by the letter from Barker et al. (‘Countering
bi-invisibility’, November 2005), written in response to our September
letter on sexual orientation research. Our letter referred to a recent
study (Chivers et al., 2004) in which male bisexual participants only
showed a sexual response to one sex (most frequently, but not entirely,
men). We made the simple methodological point that the discrepancy
between stated identity and behaviour meant that it would be
problematic to include self-identified bisexual men in studies where
clear predictions are made about the behaviour of gay men and
lesbians.Barker et al. have sidestepped any discussion of the
scientific merits (or otherwise) of the Chivers et al. study, in favour
of the claim that such research renders bisexual people ‘invisible’,
that it echoes biophobic stereotypes, colludes with ‘outmoded
prejudicial practices’ and forces people into the categories ‘gay’ or
‘straight’. In our view, such rhetorical tactics are implicit
exhortations to not ask certain questions lest they cause politically
incorrect thoughts in the minds of others (in philosophical terms, a
kind of ‘epistemophobia’).
We ourselves deplore prejudice and bullying of any kind, but bullies
don’t need science in order to justify what they do – they do it
anyway. Bullies can use truth as well
as myths as the basis of their bullying, as is often the case when
people are taunted for being fat or having a big nose. And it seems to
us that the hectoring of some researchers for their alleged collusion
with prejudicial practices is little short of bullying itself.
We certainly defend the right of people to call themselves bisexual and
don’t want to make anyone ‘invisible’, but we also support scientific
research into sexuality – and not just sexual identity, which appears
to be what Barker et al. consider that sexuality research should be. We
also look forward to reading about the methodological problems that
Barker et al. refer to in relation to Chivers’ research, for without
criticism it is impossible for science to progress (readers interested
in this issue should also see Chivers, 2005).
Finally, we should apologise for our lack of mention of female
bisexuality. This is not because we are anti-bisexual bigots who wish
to render certain groups invisible, but rather for reasons of space.
Female bisexuality appears to differ from male bisexuality both in
frequency and in kind, so rather than extend this letter further in an
attempt to explain, we simply refer readers to Wilson and Rahman (2005)
and Chivers (2005).
David Hardman
London Metropolitan University
Tom Dickins
University of East London
Mark Sergeant
Nottingham Trent University
References
Chivers, M.L. (2005). A brief review and discussion of sex differences
in the specificity of sexual arousal. Sexual and Relationship Therapy,
20, 377–390.
Chivers, M.L., Rieger, G., Latty, E. & Bailey, J.M. (2004). A sex
difference in the specificity of sexual arousal. Psychological Science,
15, 736–744.
Wilson, G. & Rahman, Q. (2005). Born gay: The psychobiology of sexual orientation. London: Peter Owen.
'No sex please, we're asexual'
I WAS interested to read in The Psychologist about the recent
research linking sexual orientation to the production of ‘pheromones’
and to activation in a specific brain area (News, July 2005; Letters,
September 2005). However, I would like to support Peter Hegarty’s call
for the whole range of sexual identities to be included in future
research on sexuality: i.e. lesbians, as well as homosexual men, should
be of interest even if their sexuality does not involve men! Nor should
bisexuals be excluded because some research indicates that only one
sexual preference can be identified physiologically (Letters, November
2005). If these results are replicated in other studies, then future
research should be investigating other possible physiological and
psychological correlates.
I also propose the inclusion in sexual orientation research of the
recently identified category of ‘asexuals’. Asexuality is described in
an article entitled ‘Glad to be A’ in the 16 October 2004 issue of the
New Scientist (www.newscientist.com), in which a number of research
studies conducted in the USA were reported and also the creation of the
AVEN web forum (Asexuality Visibility and Education Network) at
www.asexuality.org.
From these studies it seems that asexuality can encompass varying
degrees of sexual attraction and arousal, from zero upwards, but the
connection is not made to ‘put them into practice’ with someone else.
Yet this feels ‘normal’ for that person. It could therefore be thought
of as a different sexual orientation or identity.
In our highly sexed society, it is difficult for asexuals to ‘come out’
but more individuals are beginning to do just that as they realise
there are others who feel the same. In a recent study estimating the
prevalence of asexuality in the population, Bogaert analysed the
results of a survey of sexual practices published in 1994, which
included more than 18,000 people in the UK. He found the incidence of
replies indicating asexuality was close to the rate for same-sex
attraction (New Scientist, 16 October 2004). However, many asexuals
seek emotional intimacy, some in romantic relationships and even
marriage, so they may not be obviously visible.
I hope British researchers will include ‘asexuality’ in their studies
and not dismiss it as of ‘uncertain status’, as bisexuality has been.
If these sexual orientations cannot be differentiated from others by
the physiological criteria used so far, then further investigations are
needed to add to our understanding of the psychobiological nature of
sexual identity. I believe there may also be a genetic/hereditary
connection.
Dee Williams
St Claire
1 Heath Farm Lane
St Albans
Finding sex differences
YOUR report from the British Association Festival (October 2005)
quoted David Skuse as saying: ‘The theory that autism is the extreme of
the male brain is not strongly supported by these data.’ These data
referred to Skuse’s new study that whilst girls were better than boys
at recognising emotions at age six, this sex difference had disappeared
by late adolescence; and that there was no difference at any age
in boys’ and girls’ ability to remember faces or to detect eye contact.
I think Skuse may be overstating things in the conclusions he draws
from this study.
First, finding a sex difference (female advantage) in
emotion-recognition at age six needs some explanation, and is in line
with the empathising-systemising (E-S) theory of sex differences as
proposed in my book The Essential Difference.
Second, there are many studies showing that this female advantage in
emotion recognition does persist and is found at older ages, including
adulthood. Just because Skuse didn’t find it in his study doesn’t mean
it doesn’t exist.
It could equally well reflect the test he used. For example, if he used
the same stimuli for six-year-olds and for late adolescents, then there
may well have been ceiling effects by the later age. Without more
information on the test itself, or the results, we cannot rule out that
the female advantage in emotion recognition exists across the lifespan.
Typically, sex differences are only revealed when the test is
challenging enough to produce a wide range of scores. Complex emotional
expressions (such as embarrassment or envy) would therefore be a better
test of this than basic emotional expressions (such as happy or sad).
No details of what emotional expressions were tested in Skuse’s study
were given. Tests obviously have to be age-appropriate, and sensitive
enough as instruments for measuring subtle individual differences.
It is of interest that when we were putting together the Mind Reading
DVD-ROM of brief video clips of every human emotional expression as
enacted by actors – and there are 412 distinct emotional expressions (www.jkp.com/mindreading)
– we had to audition 10 times as many male actors as female to find
actors who were able to produce convincing complex emotional
expressions. So the sex difference may extend to communicating emotions
as well as recognising these.
Third, memory for faces or detecting eye contact may not entail any
empathising, just good memory or being able to compute the geometry of
gaze direction. So the E-S theory would not necessarily predict any sex
difference on these aspects of face perception.
All this is not to criticise Skuse’s study, which sounds worthwhile and
interesting, but to caution what conclusions can be drawn from it.
Simon Baron-Cohen
Autism Research Centre
Cambridge University
Uncoolness of school: from the online forum
A recent posting on The Psychologist’s online forum (accessed via www.thepsychologist.org.uk) asked why academic achievement appears to be frowned upon by peers in UK schools: it’s uncool to be clever. Although to some extent this may have always been the case, there appears to be an added angle of homophobic bullying – boys who do well or try hard are not just teased as ‘geeks’, they are ‘gay’ geeks. The posting argues that this pervasive anti-academic atmosphere leads to children hiding or reducing effort, and is the major issue facing schools. Here is one of the responses.
THERE have been some investigations into this phenomenon, although none
(to my knowledge) that could be remotely considered empirical. They tend to focus on the following issues.
l Anti-authoritarian arguments. To be interested in
education would be to ally oneself with the ‘establishment’ and
authority. This is in itself not cool, as there in an element to
coolness that requires defying authority.
l Detachment. Being cool requires detachment and a
certain level of non-interest. To participate in any form of education
requires a certain amount of engaging and caring for the subject
matter, Ergo, this cannot be cool by definition.
l Popularity. Paul Graham’s essay delves into the
reasons why academic pursuit may conflict with the demands required to
secure peer popularity (a concept related to, but not necessarily
synonymous with, cool). Read it here: tinyurl.com/9kdut.
l Anti-intellectualism. There have been observations
of an anti-intellectual bent in Western society. Intelligence/knowledge
is sometimes considered as alienating from the experience of the
‘common man’. This is best observed in US politics with the success of
Jimmy Carter (the self-proclaimed ‘peanut farmer’), and Richard Nixon
(who derogated his opponent Adlai Stevenson by calling him an
‘egghead’). This is not necessarily linked to jealousy, but may be
related to a suspiciousness of erudition and an egalitarian mistrust of
anything that is not easily accessible.
l A dawning realisation that school’s primary
intention may not be to educate, but to facilitate obedience and
servility and act as an agent of domination. Arbitrary teacher control
in an undemocratic environment, combined with frequent summary
punishments, make some socially aware teenagers realise that fascism
didn’t end in 1945. Social control is never cool, and neither are its
lackeys/collaborators.
The issue of homophobic bullying may be related to perceptions of
differences and non-conformity. Ironically, the ultimate paradox of
coolness lies in its delicate balance of non-conformity and adherence
to certain social norms (e.g. blue jeans as a sign of individualism
despite most of the population wearing them). It should be that
belonging to a minority should make you more detached, thus more cool.
However, within coolness, there should be an understanding of the
object one is detached from, which may not be the case if something
(e.g. homosexuality) is too far removed for everyone else to easily
comprehend.
I agree it is a serious topic that should be discussed, but I do not
think that this issue ends at the school gates. Education is now a
commodity that is used for profit, rather than being an end in itself.
In an increasingly materialistic culture it seems inevitable
to me that the value of knowledge for its own sake
will diminish.
Ian Barkataki
Ed Stones (1922-2005)
PSYCHOLOGY in general and educational psychologists in particular
owe much to the greatly distinguished Professor Edgar Stones. Born in a
Yorkshire mining village, he attended a village school and then won the
scholarship which gave entry
to the newly established grammar school. Thus began Stone’s distinguished journey from impoverishment to academic acclaim.
At aged just fifteen an RAF apprenticeship enabled Ed to widen his
horizons, presenting opportunities to meet young people from all over
Britain. However, he did not react well to authoritarians demanding
blind obedience, or to the ‘stupidity of military systems’, and he
purchased a discharge. Ed applied to read psychology at Sheffield
University and graduated in 1951with a BA (Hons), rapidly followed by a
Diploma in Education and an MA in Education. Whilst teaching English
literature, Ed Stones took a very critical view of widespread practices
which used IQ tests as main criteria for the selection of children for
grammar school places. This interest led him to apply to Manchester
University, where he qualified as an Educational Psychologist.
Teachers, educational psychologists, academics and those interested in
the development of learning processes, intelligence and assessment are
internationally indebted to Ed Stones’ seminal work Introduction to
Educational Psychology, which broke new ground in its critical
appraisal of IQ testing, discussion of ways in which psychology might
support teachers and an emphasis on essential connections between
language development and learning.
Professor Ed Stones’ impressive body of published work and his
respected reputation amongst professional colleagues eventually
resulted in an appointment to the William Roscoe Chair of Education and
Director of the Institute of Education at Liverpool University, where
he founded the British Educational Research Association and the British
Journal of Teacher Education, which continues as a legacy to his
innovative approach to the facilitation of the study of education.
When
the British Psychological Society honoured Professor Ed Stones for his
distinguished contributions in the teaching of psychology in 1998, it
awarded further recognition of his eminence in the profession. However,
Ed felt that explanations
for a current neglect of his published work lay in political trends
which threaten teacher education in this country by favouring the
‘transmission culture,’ at the expense of encouraging children to
become independent thinkers and learners.
Professor Ed Stones founded JET (The International Journal of Education
and Teaching), and initiated its International Colloquium, attended by
leading educators from more than 50 countries. He leaves a legacy of
continuing challenges to an anti-intellectualisation, which Ed Stones
believed has driven the changes imposed by politicians on education in
the United Kingdom. The passing of this stubborn, resilient and
internationally esteemed academic – a persistent idealist to the end
and a good-hearted man who neither lost touch with his roots nor
suffered fools easily – will be mourned widely by free-thinking
psychologists with an enduring fondness for searching after essential
truths and justice. Ed is survived by his partner, his former wife and
a son and daughter. Liverpool University flew its flag at half-mast,
following his death on 27 September.
Golda Zafer-Smith
42a Beechwood Avenue
London N3
Disciplining plagiarists
I DISCUSSED the recent case of alleged plagiarism by a noted British
psychiatrist and psychologist with an American colleague, to whom I
sent the Guardian article on the matter (7 November). He made the
following very shrewd observations.
Who is going to check his past work to determine if similar mistakes
exist? He may have been doing it for years…and just got caught this
time. How would one even set out to do such checking? Who are his peers
who might recognise the work of others embedded in his own? How much of
this goes on? What do we do? If it’s a student we flunk them. If it’s a
colleague with tenure, we say tsk, tsk. If it’s a colleague without
tenure, we might send him/her away.
I think that those who are professional role models should expect to be
treated no less stringently than students – who should be firmly
penalised for plagiarism. I think the Society should certainly tackle
these matters.
J.M. Wober
Flat C, 17 Lancaster Grove
London NW3
Information
- I AM a trainee clinical psychologist and am currently designing a
study looking at client satisfaction in a CMHT in West Sussex. I would
be very interested to hear from anyone who has done similar research
and/or has any satisfaction surveys for use in CMHTs.Shona DaynesE-mail: [email protected]
- I AM conducting a qualitative research dissertation for the MSc in
Counselling Psychology titled, ‘The experience of counselling
practitioners and the Christian faith within the therapeutic
relationship’. I would appreciate your assistance by volunteering if
you are a Christian counsellor/ therapist and live in the London/Home
Counties area. Participation will take the form of an audio-taped
semi-structured interview.
Ellen Fraser
Tel: 07708 442330; e-mail: [email protected]
Why do you do what you do?
You may have noticed that we occasionally publish ‘Why I study...’
articles, where people write about why they got involved in a
particular area and what keeps them interested. These are tricky to
commission, because such stories are by their very nature personal. I’d
like you to get in touch if you think you might have one that fits the
bill.
The articles are usually (but not exclusively) written by senior
figures, as readers tend to be more interested in their personal
stories and there is more scope for writing about what has held their
interest throughout a career. Given their length (up to 1500 words) and
nature, they tend to be quick and easy to write. They are not reviewed
in the same way as our other articles, but there is no guarantee of
publication.
As always we are keen to receive more contributions from practitioners,
so don’t be put off by any academic feel to ‘study’: we would love to
receive ‘Why I work in...’ pieces as well. For other ways to contribute
see p.63. It’s certainly worthwhile: we reach the parts that other
publications cannot reach (over 41,000 of your peers).
Dr Jon Sutton, Editor ([email protected])
(Please note that some pictures may have been removed for copyright reasons)
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