LETTERS

Political correctness run amok?

I READ 'HOW ARE PSYCHOLOGISTS PORTRAYED ON SCREEN?' with some interest. My feeling is that the efforts of Media Watch to help the media more accurately depict us is just another example of the trend toward political correctness run amok. Media Watch wants to sanitize our image by education in a way that sounds like censorship to me. The whole effort seems to indicate our continuing insecurity as a profession.

There is real dramatic impact in depicting a member of a respected profession as a secret criminal or somebody whose life is spinning out of control. This does happen in real life and it's fortunate that it happens infrequently.

Now that we've arrived in terms of numbers, political influence, and visibility, it's inevitable that we'll be used in ways that are unflattering for dramatic purposes. Somebody has to be the villain. Go to a meeting of mystery-suspense writers and you'll hear a real concern that fears of ethnic and occupational stereotyping are making the process of writing believable bad guys more and more difficult.

One group that can still be used with impunity are mental patients (every one an axe wielding maniac in a goalie mask). There is no anti-defamation group for these folks for whom we certainly should feel some responsibility.

It's shameful that we as a profession (along with psychiatry and clinical social work) haven't done more to combat the media linkage of murderous violence and mental illness. Maybe the Media Watch Committee (if they haven't already) could take on this task.

Jerome Siegel, PhD
Philadelphia

I THINK IT IS INAPPROPRIATE to try to 'censor' Hollywood. For one reason, I am not convinced the negative depictions of therapists on screen are so inaccurate. For example, dual relationships account for most of the ethical violations reported.

While I agree that it is important to try to ensure that therapists are accurately portrayed, it is also important to depict what is really going on in the field. Before we can become too concerned with portraying a better image on the big screen, it is important to concern ourselves making good impressions in our practices.

Also, if any area is to be targeted that inaccurately depicts therapists, I think talk shows should be targeted. That is, talk show hosts like Montel Williams and to a lesser extent Oprah Winfrey undermine what we as psychologists try to accomplish. They do this by implying that quick fixes are the norm in this field.

I think viewing audiences take home two major inaccurate views on therapy when they tune in to these shows: 1) with very little information, mental health professionals can 'fix' me; and 2) without professional training, people can go around professing expertise on psychological issues. Let's work on rectifying these fallacies.

Natasha Johnson
Lawrenceville, Ga.

It's not just in China

THE SEPTEMBER ARTICLE 'Chinese psychiatrists debate meaning of sex orientation' reveals that 'some countries, such as Kazakhstan still have laws punishing homosexual practices.' It is also necessary to note that approximately 40 percent of states in the United States still criminalize private, adult, consensual and same-sex behavior.

These laws continue to be used against gay men, lesbians and bisexuals in several ways, including legal decisions related to employment and child custody, which obviously have a direct impact on mental health. In the United States and abroad, as scientific evidence continues to accumulate about the psychological well-being-and resilience-of gay people, mental health practice and human rights policy will less likely be determined by social biases.

Richard Heid
Robbinsville, N.J.

HAVING JUST PUBLISHED an encyclopedia of shrink representations on the silver screen and the boob tube ('The Celluloid Couch: An Annotated International Filmography of the Mental Health Practitioner in the Movies and Television, from the Beginning to 1990,' Scarecrow Press, 1998), I read with amusement the article 'How are psychologists portrayed on screen?' Before my colleagues in pursuit of tinsel town verisimilitude get their dudgeon pumped up too high, let me recount a cautionary tale from my book.

In 1962, APA got hot under the collar about NBC-TV's show 'The Eleventh Hour,' for the 'false picture' it portrayed of psychiatrists and psychologists. APA claimed that 'the actions of the psychotherapists in this series often have little resemblance to the realities of today's methods for care and treatment of the emotionally disturbed,' and, moreover, insisted that the psychologists who appeared be addressed as 'doctors!' The network pooh-poohed the complaint, rightfully calling it a tactic in the turf war between psychology and psychiatry.

My unsolicited suggestions to the Media Watch bloodhounds are: (1) Keep in mind that there are a lot of us film buffs who still subscribe to Myrna Loy's great quip that, 'Some people think that movies should be more like life. I think that life should be more like the movies'; (2) Curb the angst about what screen shrinks do and spend the time ferreting out those mind mavens who engage in real life shenanigans far more destructive and contemptible than do their film compeers; and (3) If APA can't even cut a better deal with Hertz on a car rental, what clout do you think a cadre of tsk-tskers is going to have with the Hollywood Mafia? That's entertainment!

Leslie Y. Rabkin, PhD
Seattle

I LOVED YOUR ARTICLE about how poorly psychologists are portrayed on screen. I completely agree. It is about time that we started looking more closely at how the media presents our profession. I can't stand to watch films that show therapists being unethical or using wild treatment methods. It further perpetuates the stereotype of mental health professionals and continues the stigma of mental health problems. If there is any way that I can help with this project, please let me know.

Melissa Ann Bailey
Crystal Lake, Ill.

Animals' rights

IT WAS WITH DISMAY that I read Richard McCarty's editorial 'Making the case for animal research' in the November Monitor. In it, he asserts that 'many of the regulatory changes governing research with animals have in the long run improved the health and well-being of laboratory animals and the quality of data generated. However, others, I would argue, have done little more than inconvenience researchers and increase the cost of maintaining a laboratory animal research program within a department or research center.'

Well, I have little sympathy for increased costs associated with creating more humane environments for the animals who involuntarily give their lives for research. He uses examples of animal research that have led to greater understanding of psychological phenomena.

Quite frankly, I can not think of a single example of animal research that has seemed to me justified by what was discovered. Many of the animal research findings have led to useful concepts, but the means do not justify the ends.

I have yet to hear of what gives humans the 'right' to experiment on animals other than the fact that we can, and that, quite simply, is not good enough.

Ellie Berger
Oklahoma City, Okla.

On the 'President's column'

I RARELY HAVE READ much of the Monitor until you began contributing your column as president. Now I actively pursue your columns, which always deal with issues I find terribly important, are substantive, carefully reasoned and of course well written, a pleasure to read.

If I keep this up, the time spent reading and pondering your thoughts will likely prevent an entire publication from my lab. I calculate, though, that on balance I will gain more from your columns than the scientific world will lose by my missing publication.

My question is, can I include 'reading and pondering Seligman columns' on the progress reports for my NIMH and NIAAA grants?

Norman E. Spear, PhD
Binghamton, N.Y.

I JUST READ YOUR COLUMN in the November Monitor. It was heartening to see the facilitation of excellence featured as a task for psychology. I became involved in psychology as a way to help people and organizations achieve excellence-my field is I/O psychology. Every year when it comes time to renew my APA dues, I despair as the organization's focus shifts ever more quickly to the area of psychological ill. Not that I disparage mental health psychology. The world is a better place because of it. But, by focusing so heavily on that one thing the field gives up so much of its potential for improving quality of life.

Thanks for focusing a light on some of the other contributions we can make.

Martin M. Greller, PhD
Laramie, Wyo.

DR. SELIGMAN'S DECEMBER December column 'Why therapy works' highlights an issue that is important for education in all professions; namely, how to better specify and integrate research-based knowledge with practitioner-based knowledge.

Research and practitioner observation document that professional expertise relies on three core components:

1) Mastery of theory and research knowledge in a content domain (typically imparted through didactic instruction in the classroom);

(2) Developing knowledge of practice in the domain (typically acquired through clinical internship or field study and often tacit); and

3) Applying both types of knowledge efficiently to routine tasks and with creativity and insight to novel, complex, conflictual or ill-structured problems.

The challenge for professional education is to develop methods for depicting and integrating the formalized research-based knowledge with the often tacit knowledge of practice. Curricular efforts across a variety of natural science and social science-based professions to integrate these two knowledge domains include field study, case study, formal internships and many other forms of experiential learning.

What is missing from most of these efforts are methods for helping faculty better integrate didactic and experiential teaching methods, as well as more explicitly assess student learning of interrelated research-based and practitioner-based concepts.

My Cornell University colleague Dr. Katherine Edmondson and I are doing research and curriculum development on these issues.

Charles McClintock, PhD
Ithaca, N.Y.

All letters to the editor must be 250 words or fewer. Mail them to APA Monitor, 750 First St., N.E., Washington, DC 20002-4242, or e-mail them to letters.monitor@apa.org.

The Monitor regrets it cannot run all the letters we receive.





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