Letters
Extreme pornography consultation…
WE write to express
our deep concern at the Society’s response to a Home Office
consultation paper on internet pornography. We are concerned that the
response was based on virtually no evidence of harm, yet recommends
extremely authoritarian measures.
The government is considering making it a crime to download sexually
violent pornography. This will extend the legislation on child
pornography to adult material that is defined as the realistic
depicting or acting of a scene that would, if acted out, cause grievous
bodily harm. This would include a variety of bondage and masochistic
scenes acted out by consenting enthusiasts, as well as images of the
notorious Spanner trial of a decade ago (in which consenting men were
imprisoned for sadomasochistic practices). Simply viewing the material
will now constitute a serious criminal offence. And anyone looking at
bondage scenes where somebody is wearing a mask and might suffocate (if
this scene were acted out ‘in reality’) must be prepared to defend
themselves in court. However, there is no engagement in the BPS
response with the complex issues of consent and agency.
The BPS was asked to cite evidence of harm. Only three papers were
cited, and the extensive literature pointing to no simple causal links
between viewing pornography and committing crimes was ignored. The
‘evidence’ focuses on the effects of pornography on either children or
disturbed offenders. We do not dispute that psychopaths may be
kick-started into action by all manner of things, including
pornography. But there is no evidence at all that those not already
predisposed to such action will be similarly affected.
In fact, the response is based not so much on evidence, but on
assertion and argument. This is mainly that pornography degrades women.
There is no mention in the response about violence towards and
degradation of men, indicating its partial and selective nature. The
proposed legislation will make the possession of photographs (but not
cartoons and text) an offence. The reason the government is concerned
about sexually violent pornography is that atrocious crimes may be
committed in the making of the material. But of course, this is already
a crime, and rightly so. The government’s aim here is to punish
consumers, not perpetrators.
Most worryingly, the report then goes on to recommend the toughest
option for this new offence: three years in prison. This cannot be
based on evidence (no evidence on the effects of imprisonment is
cited). We believe that the UK imprisons too many of its citizens; that
generally, only violent criminals who are a threat to society should be
incarcerated. We do not believe this as a result of evidence. It is a
political position. We find, however, that our Society takes a very
different and authoritarian position. One of us was involved in the
1980s in the STOPP campaign to abolish corporal punishment in schools,
and tried unsuccessfully to encourage the BPS to take a stance against
it. But this was deemed too political; any BPS response had to be based
on hard evidence. Since then, the BPS has refused to take a stance
supporting other liberal issues such as apartheid and gay marriage. But
it has rushed to support an authoritarian piece of legislation.
This response appears to have been made without any wide consultation.
It also seems to fly in the face of the Society’s guideline that no
recommendations can be made on the basis of partial or selective
evidence. If any of us were given the job
of refereeing this report for publication in a peer-refereed journal,
we would have to recommend rejection on the basis of an inadequate
literature review and insufficient rationale for the conclusions.
Vivien Burr, Trevor Butt, Nigel King, Kate Milnes
University of Huddersfield
Ralph Goldstein
Chair-Elect, Division of Counselling Psychology
John L. Smith
University of Sunderland
...and a reply from the President, Ray Miller:
To
put the above letter and this reply in context it may help to quote
from the Home Office consultation document on the possession of extreme
pornographic material, to which the Society responded (see tinyurl.com/hc5us):
This document sets out options for creating a new offence of simple
possession of extreme pornographic material which is graphic and
sexually explicit and which contains actual scenes or realistic
depictions of serious violence, bestiality or necrophilia. The material
in question would be illegal to publish, sell or import here under our
existing obscenity legislation...The material depicts activities which
are illegal in themselves and the participants may in some cases have
been victims of criminal offences… Any new offence would apply only to
pornographic material containing explicit actual scenes or realistic
depictions of: (i) intercourse or oral sex with an animal; (ii) sexual
interference with a human corpse; (iii) serious violence in a sexual
context; iv) serious sexual violence.
One of the measures of the success of the Society in advancing a
knowledge of psychology is the increasing number of requests for
responses to consultations. At any time some 30–40 may be under
consideration. We welcome opportunities to influence decision makers
and have established a Policy Support Unit (PSU) to assist members and
subsystems (Divisions, Special Groups, Sections and Branches) in
participating in responses.
On receipt of a request (sometimes we don’t wait to be asked) details
are circulated to the relevant boards and all subsystem representatives
on those boards. In addition all consultation exercises are logged on
the Society website (at www.bps.org.uk/tiny/zee5gf).
Any member can see what is current and the closing date for
contributions. Members are encouraged to communicate their views
through a subsystem, where appropriate, to ensure perspectives are
collated and comprehensive.
This particular consultation was circulated and posted on the website
with a closing date of 16 September 2005 for expressions of interest
and circulated by the PSU to all members of the Research Board on 31
August. Deadlines are set by government departments and we must respond
on time if we wish to be heard. Sometimes deadlines are tight. It is
important that subsystems and members keep abreast of issues of
interest and have effective ways of communicating so that opportunities
are not missed.
It is not clear how consultation could be much wider as every member
and subsystem has a chance to contribute. The more those with
particular knowledge and perspectives do so, the more assured we can be
that our responses will be truly representative.
Voluntary sector symbiosis
WE noted with interest the article on building partnerships with the
voluntary and community sectors (VCS), in the March edition. The
approach taken there had a strong research orientation. We should like
to add our support to the idea for building bridges with the VCS, but
from a rather different perspective.
For a number of years, as part of our undergraduate psychology
programme at Glasgow Caledonian University, we have been encouraging
our students to go out into the VCS to work as volunteers and helpers.
Our general aim has been to enable students to gain experience relevant
to their professional aspirations and academic development, and to
allow them to ascertain whether this type of work really is for them.
We also aim to help them to develop the supporting and interpersonal
skills which employers often assume psychology students will have, but
which few academically oriented courses seem to cultivate. We have now
developed working links with a number of relevant organisations,
particularly those specialising in support for people with special
needs, including physical, sensory, or mental disability.
Working for these organisations may involve our student volunteers in
tutoring, providing specialist information and guidance, or
befriending. We provide students with guidance on how to keep
systematic reflective logs of their work experience, and have an
honours module in which this, combined with writing critically about
the links between their voluntary work and the academic curriculum, can
contribute to their gaining academic credit. We hardly feel that we
need to spell out the potential benefits to students of psychology of,
say, working with youngsters with autism or needing special tuition in
reading or arithmetic,
or enabling someone who has lost the confidence to leave the confines
of their own home to go out regularly to tenpin bowling, the pictures,
or for a meal.
The VCS organisations with whom we have developed links provide
necessary (sometimes extensive) induction and training, and deal with
required legal disclosure checks. In return, they obtain a supply of
highly motivated helpers with
a useful and developing background in formal psychology; they are often embarrassingly grateful.
This is not an easy furrow to plough. It is time-consuming to develop
and maintain the necessary links with organisations, as well as to
monitor the use of the scheme, and it brings few Brownie points in
terms of RAE pay-off. Though improved contact with the VCS may lead to
enhanced research opportunities, this was not a primary aim in our
case. A work experience scheme of the type described requires to be
resourced, and the politics
of securing this can be, to put it mildly, frustrating. However, when
you listen to students who have gone through the voluntary work
experience, as they talk and write about their work and what they have
learned from it, you are left in little doubt as to its value.
This is work which gets behind the rhetoric of building bridges between
universities and their communities – it is about psychology students
and their departments making a real contribution to the lives of people
who desperately need support, and gaining a greatly enhanced
perspective on themselves and on their discipline in the process.
Douglas Forbes
Mike Wrennall
Rachel Mulholland
Glasgow Caledonian University
I WAS pleased to see the article ‘Building partnerships with the
voluntary and community sectors’. This is one area I feel hopeful
about, at a time when it is hard for a clinical psychologist to feel
anything other than cynical! The article concentrated largely on
building partnerships for the purposes of research, and increasing
knowledge. I would like to draw attention to the equally great
potential benefits for service providers and clients/patients/users.
In our spinal injuries service, patients overcome a range of
challenges, through the use of courage and information (with help from
a small army of assorted professionals, treatments, therapies and
gadgets). An important source of this courage and information is the
example set by other spinal cord-injured (SCI) people. Inpatients
benefit from mixing with other inpatients, especially those who have
done some rehabilitation, learned to live outside hospital, and
returned for a brief readmission. Inpatients also have opportunities to
meet representatives from voluntary sector organisations, who have
adjusted to their own injury to the point that they are working
together for the benefit of all SCI individuals. The unique support and
advice these representatives can provide, and the role model function
they also inevitably provide, are often highly valued by our patients
and their relatives.
The charities also provide teaching to us, the so-called experts, and a
link to services the public sector does not provide. They offer
community link schemes and accessible sports facilities, holiday
experiences, helplines, research programmes and web communities. Some
have well-developed strategies for informing and influencing government
policies, which have an impact on all disabled people and the ways in
which they are viewed.
Working with voluntary sector representatives can be challenging for
healthcare professionals. Structures for communication are not always
in place, and this can serve as an excuse for not involving them more.
The reality is that sometimes it is hard to admit to our limitations,
and to accept advice from individuals who may have very different
backgrounds and experiences from our own. By involving other
organisations we have to give away some of our power and our comfort.
Yet the benefits to our clients can be enormous.
Helen Smith
Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital
Stanmore
ADHD training gap
I RUN a clinic in the multiprofesssional assessment and management
of ADHD and other related neurodevelopmental difficulties, receiving GP
referrals from all over the UK and also from overseas. For some time
now I have been attempting to find – and advertising for – an
additional clinical psychologist sufficiently skilled in the
understanding of these conditions to work with us. Our search has
failed abysmally, and I am concerned that it appears to reflect the way
in which clinical psychologists in the UK are being trained. I
have recurrently found that fully trained clinical psychologists in
general appear to have very little real understanding of
neurobiological conditions. Frequently, I note that these conditions
are mentioned only nominally in their training. However, the slant of
the training still seems to be much more orientated to
psychosocial-only conditions, rather than the inclusion of biological
conditions in this remit. As a result, none of the applicants that we
have seen had appropriately relevant experience.
As a potential employer of suitably trained clinical psychologists, I
would appreciate feedback from the BPS that gets beyond the myth and
misinformation that has surrounded ADHD and related conditions, and
incorporates the reality of them and the enormous international
research base, the NICE report on ADHD (www.nice.org.uk) and the BPS report on ADHD of 2000.
I fail to see how clinical psychologists can be expected to be
effective in the management of mental health conditions unless their
training is adjusted to place more emphasis on such important and
well-validated conditions.
G.D. Kewley
48–50 Springfield Road
Horsham,
W. Sussex
Gill Nyfield 1953–2006
GILL Nyfield is probably best known as a Director of Saville &
Holdsworth Ltd, and author of many SHL tests. Her 30-year career was
devoted to furthering effective selection and development of people at
work.After graduating from Newcastle in 1974, Gill joined NFER, working with
Peter Saville on projects relating to testing in the workplace. After
joining the newly formed SHL in 1978, Gill threw her boundless energy
into creating radically different psychometric tests, which set new
standards worldwide. She supervised the extensive analysis required to
develop the OPQ. When off-the-shelf analysis programmes proved
deficient, she developed her own. Indeed, Gill was one of the earliest
to see the potential
of the computer in the delivery and interpretation of tests, and she pioneered such applications at SHL.
Gill was an expert in the selection of a wide range of staff – from
senior executives to train drivers. She was a world authority on the
selection of air traffic controllers; her work with the CAA contributed
directly to increased safety in our skies. As a senior executive of the
SHL Group (including sometime Deputy Managing Director) she was
instrumental in setting up SHL North America and South Africa, and was
responsible for IT and R&D.
Gill always demonstrated the highest professional, technical and
ethical standards. She took responsibility, and was dedicated and
tenacious. She was passionate about furthering scientific research and
often reflected that she would have enjoyed an academic career. She was
instrumental in setting up a research unit at UMIST, led by Professor
Ivan Robertson. She published widely, spoke at academic and
professional conferences worldwide, and trained thousands of HR
professionals in objective selection. Her energy and determination
helped build SHL into a world-leading force in occupational psychology.
Her unwavering commitment to the highest standards of practice inspired
those who worked with her.
Gill learned that she was seriously ill just as she had decided to
reduce her workload and enjoy life more. She dealt with illness as she
did everything else, with determination, courage and cheerfulness. She
continued to run training courses, travel the world, and enjoy her
golf, where her ability to play to her best under pressure made her an
effective and successful match player. In 2004 she was runner-up in the
Surrey Ladies County Matchplay tournament, for example. She balanced
her dynamic lifestyle with quiet pursuits, such as model building, and
she was an enthusiastic gardener. Many people she met had no idea how
ill she was, such was her positive outlook and continuing energy, and
that is how she wanted it.
She will be greatly missed by her colleagues and friends, and she
leaves behind Bob, her partner of 20 years, sister Sue and nephew
Callum.
Peter Saville
Helen Baron
Lisa Cramp
In support of The Experiment
SINCE the broadcast of The Experiment and the publication of Reicher
and Haslam’s analysis of their study, including in this publication
(‘Tyranny revisited’, March 2006), much of the debate has focused on
the methodology and ethics of their study. I would like to see the
debate shift now to the substantive issues raised by their findings.
First, though, let’s address these methodological and ethical concerns.
In terms of design, Reicher and Haslam’s study is almost unparalleled:
the range of forms of data collection, the amount of data collected,
and the longitudinal nature of the design, make it unique. The
criticism that the data were artificial because the participants knew
they were being observed needs to be offset by the appreciation of a
design which captures the best aspects of both experimental control and
naturalistic observation. Only a design like this could both capture
the dynamics of power (for experimental techniques characteristically
study power only as a static phenomenon, where they look at it all) and
measure its behavioural and experiential correlates (the usual
observational/field techniques offer only limited data-sampling
opportunities). Many of those who have carped at the involvement of the
media in this study would,
I would guess, themselves leap at the chance of designing a study with such resources.
On the question of ethics, too, The Experiment represents an
outstanding example of how research could and should be conducted. We
all have to run our plans past ethics committees (have to, but many
colleagues still do not, since most departments have no power of
sanction – let’s admit it). But how many of us have an ethics panel
overseeing the conduct of our studies every step of the way? Not many.
As for the substance of the study, it is a crucial contribution to a
debate that has been depressingly one-sided almost since the inception
of social psychology. Dominant approaches to the psychology of
collectivities set up a false opposition between the individual as a
bastion of rationality, moderate opinion, sensible judgement, sound
intelligence, and social responsibility, and the collective as a locus
of irrationality, extreme and unfounded opinion, emotion rather than
reason, rash judgement, uncritical social influence, and lack of
concern for others. Think of the doom-laden (and conservative) visions
of LeBon, Allport and Zimbardo, and the many pessimistic models of
small group processes – for example, ‘social loafing’, ‘groupthink’,
‘risky-shift’, and so on.
Over 20 years of social identity research have countered these negative
views, showing collective behaviour to be meaningful, controlled and
identity-based. What The Experiment adds is the connectedness between
the positives of collectivity (mutual aid, empowerment, collective
self-realisation, positive social change) and its potential negatives
and failures. The reactionary collective is not a primitive outburst,
but the failure of the liberatory collective to coalesce, realise or
impose itself. What social psychology has needed has been a way of
conceptualising reactionary or tyrannical collectivity without slipping
into the usual trap of attributing irrationality, mindlessness, etc.
(which would then serve to taint collectivity per se: Drury, 2002). The
analysis of The Experiment provides such a conceptualisation, and it is
precisely through its longitudinal and interactional design that it has
been able to do so.
John Drury
Department of Psychology
University of Sussex
Reference
Drury, J. (2002). ‘When the mobs are looking for witches to burn,
nobody’s safe’: Talking about the reactionary crowd. Discourse &
Society, 13, 41–73.
Say cheese!
AM I the only reader to have noticed that whenever a portrait of the
authors of any article appears in your publication, female contributors
tend to smile for the camera, while male authors tend to present a
sterner image? To test this hypothesis,
I asked some colleagues to rate a series of photos from recent issues
as smile/non-smile. The results showed that indeed this appeared to be
the case (see box).
SMILING/Non-smiling AUTHORS BROKEN DOWN BY SEX
Male Female
Smile 20 23
Non-smile 20 3
Analysis showed chi square, c2 = 10.266, p = .001
I am not an
expert in this field, and would welcome any explanation. My only
thought was that as Riley et al. (‘Institutional sexism in academia’,
February 2006) point out, women are underrepresented as authors in The
Psychologist and when photographed are genuinely pleased to have an
article accepted, while males are keen to present a cool image of
assumed superiority.
Jeremy Swinson
54 Duke Street
Formby
Liverpool
The editor, Jon Sutton comments: An interesting observation, but I’m
afraid we don’t take the photographs ourselves. Authors simply send
them to us, presumably just choosing one they like. They seem rarely to
have one taken specially for us, so any theory about the photos
revealing reactions to being published might need a bit of tweaking.
Any other explanations? Are men simply less likely to smile in any
photos?
Psychoanalysing fictional characters
IT seems to me that John Flood rather misses the point of
psychoanalytic literary criticism (Letters, April 2006). My own view is
that the endeavour of treating fictional characters as if they were
real is intended neither to illuminate the fiction as in traditional
literary criticism nor to explicate theoretical concepts. Instead,
discussing fictional characters neatly sidesteps the problem of
confidentiality and potential damage to ongoing treatment relationships
that might ensue if real case material were presented.
Psychoanalytic literary criticism is therefore an alternative form of
case presentation that is able to be disseminated to a wider public
with none of the difficulties that real case material might present.
And it is just because the material is fictional that
a wider ranging and fuller account of psychoanalytic case phenomena might be able to take place.
It is surely not unreasonable to applaud these attempts and to approach
them as potentially providing some insights into actual case histories
and the process of treatment. It could be argued, I suppose, that such
attempts are doomed to failure, a process of fiction meeting fiction,
leading to interpretations and claims that are further and further
divorced from reality. This is obviously a possibility. However, we
must also acknowledge that authors usually have an interest in making
characters and relationships as believable as possible, and people do,
indeed, read fiction partly to deepen their understanding of other
people and life in general. We must also trust that the imagination of
the psychotherapist is rooted in some clinical reality that meets the
fictional material at least half way.
Terry Birchmore
North End House
42 North End
Durham
Old news
I FELT some irony that a study from Liverpool John Moores
University, which showed the efficacy of praise in the classroom and
relative inefficacy of admonishment, was located under ‘News’ and the
heading ‘Praise pays’. As reported in The Psychologist (March 2006),
the result would not have been classed as news to B.F. Skinner, if he
were still with us, or to anyone familiar with his writings, which have
been available over the last 65 or so years. By comparison with
cognitive psychology,
I cannot imagine The Psychologist reporting as news the observation
that, say, an experiment had found choice reaction time to be slower
than simple reaction time, or that one arm of the Müller-Lyer illusion
appeared longer than the other.
My irony might seem like splitting hairs but I believe that the choice
of heading reveals a deep-seated problem within psychology. I do not
wish in any way to undermine the value of this important and refreshing
research, quite the contrary. However, I think that it is necessary to
put the reporting of it and the similar studies now frequently featured
in the popular media into the broader context of psychology and to
acknowledge the insights of Skinner. I imagine that what must be
genuinely newsworthy in the Liverpool research is some new slant or
grounds for advocacy or a different application of the basic
observation. Insight into why the basic principles of behavioural
psychology have been either ignored or misunderstood by mainstream
psychology and are only now being rediscovered or reinterpreted would
also be newsworthy.
Frederick Toates
Open University
Information
- AS part of my MSc in counselling psychology, I am looking to
explore the emotions of trainee counselling psychologist to various
forms of clients’ body languages. This would involve completing a 10-
to 15-minute questionnaire. If this is of interest and you feel you may
like to participate, please contact me.Natalie Perkins
[email protected]
- I AM looking to find voluntary work in the area of educational
psychology. Since gaining my psychology BSc in 2003, I have worked with
children in a variety of capacities. Including, spending time in
schools as a learning support assistant, and as a play-worker with a
charity specialising in autism.
I would be particularly interested in taking part in any work/research
involving autism or ADHD. I hope to apply for the doctorate course in
educational psychology in 2007.
Louise Stephens
North London
[email protected]
- WE are conducting a meta-analysis on the topic: ‘The effect
of applied prevention programs against prejudice, and/or
aggression/hate crime towards ethnic minorities’. In order to include
as many relevant studies as possible, the analysis will not be limited
to published documents only. Therefore, we are currently collecting as
many as possible eligible unpublished documents and
difficult-to-retrieve documents as well as documents in press. It would
be very helpful if those of you who have access to such documents could
make them available. Studies that did not produce significant results
and studies that produced results that did not correspond with
expectations are of equal interest to us as those that produced
significant results in correspondence with research hypotheses. For
more details see tinyurl.com/zxq8w.
In return for your help, we will be pleased to send you a copy of our meta-analytic results when we have completed them.
Gunnar Lemmer
Philipps-Universität Marburg
Germany
Tel: 0049 6421 2823654
[email protected]
- STARS in the Sky, the award-winning friendship and dating agency for
adults with learning difficulties, is looking for volunteers to help
with events in the Greater London area. If you’d like to get involved,
please e-mail [email protected] or visit www.starsinthesky.co.uk.
Alice Jones
Institute of Psychiatry
- I AM a PhD student at the University of Brighton and am seeking
practitioners who work with parents who have been subject to a
Parenting Order, due to their child's involvement in the youth justice
system. My thesis aims to explore parents’ narrative accounts of their
experiences via qualitative interviews. If there is anyone who has
professional contact with such parents and is willing to pass
information regarding this study on to them, it would be very much
appreciated.
Amanda Holt
[email protected]
- I AM currently compiling resources (hopefully for publication) on
‘selling psychology’. In particular I am interested in how
consultancies and other sorts of psychologically orientated businesses
identify and secure new clients. So far I have views from a number of
eminent marketing and communications experts, but would also like some
ideas from the sharp end! So if you offer your services on a commercial
or fee paying basis, and have thoughts that you are willing to share,
please contact me.
Mark Parkinson
[email protected]
- UNITED BioSource Corporation provides patient reported outcomes and
health economic research services to the pharmaceutical and medical
device industries, healthcare providers and government agencies around
the world. We are looking for an undergraduate psychologist to
fill the position of voluntary placement student in our London office.
Hours would be part time and flexible. For further details please visit
our website unitedbiosource.com/careers.aspx.
Health Care Analytics Group
United BioSource Corporation
London WC1
- I AM looking for a research collaborator to work on some large
clinical datasets (N > 3000) with an eye on investigating the factor
structure of some clinical symptom questionnaires. I need someone with
experience and expertise in using LISREL or an equivalent in order to
do some confirmatory factor analysis type work with. If you are
interested please get in touch.
Stephen Kellett
Barnsley PC NHS Trust
[email protected]
- I AM a trainee forensic psychologist intending to conduct some
research evaluating motivational enhancement
(Please note that some pictures may have been removed for copyright reasons)
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