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Kudos on the new Monitor
Let me express my enthusiastic appreciation for the new Monitor format. The old newspaper format has always been problematic for me, especially since I joined the bifocal set. Also, as Ray Fowler mentioned in his column, if you wanted to copy an interesting piece you were forced to cut and paste. Since I have returned to teaching I often copy relevant articles for students and it almost always literally required scissors!
Currently I am visually impaired due to complicated cataract surgery and the new format is especially easy on me.
Let me also express my appreciation for the fact that in the new format an article starts on a given page and goes on until the end of the article. Overall, a great improvement! I will read my Monitor more thoroughly now.
DARWIN A. DORR, PHD
Wichita, Kans.
THE NEW MONITOR IS A VAST improvement and is aesthetically wonderful! Not to mention the content, which fortunately is as helpful and informative as ever.
DAVID I. SOMMERS, PHD
Kensington, Md.
I JUST GOT MY NEW COPY OF the Monitor and I think it is great! I hate to admit this, but for the first time in 10 or 12 years of being a member I actually read through the entire issue. Keep up the good work
DANIEL J. KAUFFMAN, EDD
North Warren, Pa.
I JUST RECEIVED THE NEW Monitor and had to write and say that this is one of the best things I have seen from APA in my nearly 40 years as an APA member! Everyone involved is to be congratulated.
JAMES V. COUCH, PHD
Harrisonburg, Va.
A Century of Psychology
ONE FEELS CHURLISH TO CARP about the December Monitor. I cannot, however, escape noting that it views psychology as soulful, mindful but brainless....What happened to the history of physiological psychology? Biopsychology? Psychophysiology or cognitive neuroscience?
Puzzled.
EMANUEL DONCHIN, PHD
Champaign, Ill.
WHAT A NICE PIECE OF WORK Rand B. Evans, PhD, has done in summarizing a century of psychology's history. Well done!
DONALD W. GILLER, PHD
Austin, Texas
THE HISTORICAL OVERVIEW OF "A Century of Psychology" in the December Monitor was disappointing and misleading in its treatment of women and psychologists of color. The first nine pages pay tribute to the standard roll call of "great white men" followed by two final pages on women and "diversity." Furthermore, the operationalization of diversity was anything but diverse, limiting its focus to African-American men. A diverse array of women readily comes to mind: Else Frenkel-Brunswick, Leta Hollingsworth, Marie Jahoda, Reiko True, Inez Prosser, Ruth Howard, Martha Bernal, Carolyn Attneave, and Carolyn Payton to name a few.
A fundamental lesson we each have promoted as feminist scholars is that the full inclusion of subordinated groups cannot be realized with segregated afterthoughts. The psychologists identified on these final pages were integral to the development of psychol-ogy, and history is misrepresented if these psychologists and their works are not integrated into it.
Also, many of the major contributors pictured and highlighted in the series stand alone when their achievements drew heavily on their collaboration with women. Where would racial identity development be without Kenneth Clark and Maime Phipps Clark; psychodynamic theories of development without Eric Erikson and Joan Erikson; intelligence testing without Lewis Terman and Maud Merrill; and cognitive development without Jean Piaget and Barbel Inhelder? These women, and many others like them, remain behind the scenes...or mentioned on a page at the back.
NANCY FELIPE RUSSO
PHYLLIS KATZ
MELBA VASQUEZ
JANICE D. YODER
Div. 35. (Society for the Psychology of Women)
Sport psychology is not a game
I have just finished Lisa Rabasca's article on how "psychologists are supplementing their incomes by providing sport psychology services to local athletes." While the tone and scope of the article was positive and while the facts of the article were well presented, I found it disconcerting that there was no mention made of the fact that status as a psychologist does not automatically qualify one to provide quality services to athletes and teams. A thorough immersion in sport psychology itself, as well as a thorough immersion in sport and the nature of competition in this day and age are requirements for success, but few psychology programs provide this.
To blithely assume that one can seamlessly transition from practicing psychotherapy to sport psychology without going through a process of study and undergoing supervision is both dangerous and dishonest.
NATHANIEL ZINSSER, PHD
West Point, N.Y
All letters to the editor must be 250 words or fewer. Mail them to APA Monitor on Psychology, 750 First St., N.E., Washington, DC 20002-4242, or e-mail them to letters.monitor@apa.org.
We regret we cannot run all the letters we receive.
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