On The Record

Heard on the street

'I don?t schedule people during commute times because they will arrive 20 minutes late and feel very angry. If someone can only come during commute hours, I schedule them with another psychologist closer to the freeway.'
California psychologist Nancy Olesen, on the adjustment she?s had to make because of the Bay area?s rising traffic congestion (San Francisco Chronicle, March 2).

'Unless you are wealthy and can afford private doctors, you have to get arrested to get treatment.'
Psychologist Linda Reyes, Texas Youth Commission, on people with mental disorders being sent to jail instead of treated in psychiatric hospitals (New York Times, March 5).

'We are designed from birth to kill, if necessary. We are designed to engage in mortal combat. That is part of our instinctual stress response. The military simply organizes that [behavior.] It doesn?t program that.'
Psychologist James Campbell Quick, University of Texas, on the difference between acceptable war behavior and such atrocities as the My Lai massacre during the Vietnam War (MSNBC, March 16).

'To say that, when it comes to memory, women have more skill than confidence and men have more confidence than skill, is a simplistic way to put it?but we found it to be true.'
Psychology professor Robin West, University of Florida, on a study that shows women to have better memories than men (Washington Post, March 16).

Heard in the Monitor

'The attack on psychologists? ability to make medication recommendations is part and parcel of psychiatry?s effort to retaliate against psychology for its pursuit of prescriptive authority.'
Russ Newman, executive director for professional practice at APA, page 21.

'Women were starting to define strength not just as a process to endure, but also to enact. We have always had enacters in history. But for years the girls and women presented as models of strength were more the endurers. The widow who stayed a widow for 50 years. The young girl who endured being a victim. What we are seeing now is that we?re valuing enacting. We are valuing positive strength.'
Norine G. Johnson, chair, Task Force on Adolescent Girls, page 26.

'The standard, narrow notion of starting at entry level and building your status, rung by rung, is no longer typical. The notion of career is shifting to mean many different forms of work life.'
Fred Leong, Ohio State University