Psychologist – Page 37 – Mental Health Matters

On This Day … 27 May

Published on 05/27/202105/23/2021 by Andrew MarshallLeave a comment

People (Births)

1879 – Karl Bühler, German-American linguist and psychologist (d. 1963).

Karl Buhler

Karl Ludwig Bühler (27 May 1879 to 24 October 1963) was a German psychologist and linguist. In psychology he is known for his work in gestalt psychology, and he was one of the founders of the Würzburg School of psychology. In linguistics he is known for his organon model of communication and his treatment of deixis as a linguistic phenomenon. He was the dissertation advisor of Karl Popper.

Biography

Bühler was born in Meckesheim. In 1899 he started medical school at the University of Freiburg, where he received his doctorate in 1903. He continued working as an assistant, and started taking a second degree in psychology graduating in 1904. In 1906 he worked as an assistant Professor at the University of Freiburg with von Kries, and as an assistant to Oswald Külpe at the University of Würzburg.

He completed his Habilitation thesis at Würzburg in 1907, with the title Tatsachen und Probleme zu einer Psychologie der Denkvorgänge (“Facts and problems of the psychology of thought processes”). This text became foundational for the Würzburg School of psychology and sparked heated controversy with Wilhelm Wundt. In 1909 Bühler moved to the University of Bonn, becoming an assistant to Oswald Külpe.

From 1913 to 1918 Bühler worked as an associate professor in Munich. In World War I he performed military service as a doctor. During the war he married Charlotte Malachowski, a student of Edmund Husserl. In 1918 he was made a full professor of philosophy and education at the Technical University of Dresden.

In 1922 he became Professor of Psychology at the University of Vienna and the head of the Psychology Department. In the same year were also appointed as full professors Moritz Schlick and Robert Reininger who become president of the Philosophical Society of Vienna until its disbandment in 1938. Bühler participated in the founding of the Psychological Institute of Vienna as part of the city’s efforts to reorganize the school system on the basis of new scientific findings about child psychology. He also worked in the field of the philosophy of language as a prosecutor of the school of Brentano, Meinong, Josef Klemens Kreibig and Alois Höfler. Bühler’s wife, Charlotte Bühler, followed him and received a professorship in Vienna. Both taught at the University of Vienna until their common emigration.

On 23 March 1938, Bühler was briefly detained by the Nazis, which caused him to flee to London in 1940, then to Oslo. Finally he emigrated to the United States, where he worked from 1940 to 1945 as a professor in Minnesota and from 1945 to 1955 as a professor of psychiatry at the University of Southern California, Los Angeles.

In 1959 Karl Bühler was honoured with the Wilhelm-Wundt-Medal of the German Society of Psychology. He died in Los Angeles.

What was the Rosenham Experiment?

Published on 05/26/2021 by Andrew MarshallLeave a comment

Introduction

The Rosenhan experiment or Thud experiment was an experiment conducted to determine the validity of psychiatric diagnosis. The participants feigned hallucinations to enter psychiatric hospitals but acted normally afterwards. They were diagnosed with psychiatric disorders and were given antipsychotic medication. The study was conducted by psychologist David Rosenhan, a Stanford University professor, and published by the journal Science in 1973 under the title “On Being Sane in Insane Places”. It is considered an important and influential criticism of psychiatric diagnosis, and broached the topic of wrongful involuntary commitment.

Rosenhan’s study was done in two parts. The first part involved the use of healthy associates or “pseudopatients” (three women and five men, including Rosenhan himself) who briefly feigned auditory hallucinations in an attempt to gain admission to 12 psychiatric hospitals in five states in the United States. All were admitted and diagnosed with psychiatric disorders. After admission, the pseudopatients acted normally and told staff that they no longer experienced any additional hallucinations. As a condition of their release, all the patients were forced to admit to having a mental illness and had to agree to take antipsychotic medication. The average time that the patients spent in the hospital was 19 days. All but one were diagnosed with schizophrenia “in remission” before their release.

The second part of his study involved a hospital administration challenging Rosenhan to send pseudopatients to its facility, whose staff asserted that they would be able to detect the pseudopatients. Rosenhan agreed, and in the following weeks 41 out of 193 new patients were identified as potential pseudopatients, with 19 of these receiving suspicion from at least one psychiatrist and one other staff member. Rosenhan sent no pseudopatients to the hospital.

While listening to a lecture by R.D. Laing, who was associated with the anti-psychiatry movement, Rosenhan conceived of the experiment as a way to test the reliability of psychiatric diagnoses. The study concluded “it is clear that we cannot distinguish the sane from the insane in psychiatric hospitals” and also illustrated the dangers of dehumanisation and labelling in psychiatric institutions. It suggested that the use of community mental health facilities which concentrated on specific problems and behaviours rather than psychiatric labels might be a solution, and recommended education to make psychiatric workers more aware of the social psychology of their facilities.

Pseudopatient Experiment

Rosenhan himself and seven mentally healthy associates, called “pseudopatients”, attempted to gain admission to psychiatric hospitals by calling for an appointment and feigning auditory hallucinations. The hospital staff were not informed of the experiment. The pseudopatients included a psychology graduate student in his twenties, three psychologists, a pediatrician, a psychiatrist, a painter, and a housewife. None had a history of mental illness. Pseudopatients used pseudonyms, and those who worked in the mental health field were given false jobs in a different sector to avoid invoking any special treatment or scrutiny. Apart from giving false names and employment details, further biographical details were truthfully reported.

During their initial psychiatric assessment, the pseudopatients claimed to be hearing voices of the same sex as the patient which were often unclear, but which seemed to pronounce the words “empty”, “hollow”, or “thud”, and nothing else. These words were chosen as they vaguely suggest some sort of existential crisis and for the lack of any published literature referencing them as psychotic symptoms. No other psychiatric symptoms were claimed. If admitted, the pseudopatients were instructed to “act normally”, reporting that they felt fine and no longer heard voices. Hospital records obtained after the experiment indicate that all pseudopatients were characterized as friendly and cooperative by staff.

All were admitted, to 12 psychiatric hospitals across the United States, including rundown and underfunded public hospitals in rural areas, urban university-run hospitals with excellent reputations, and one expensive private hospital. Though presented with identical symptoms, seven were diagnosed with schizophrenia at public hospitals, and one with manic-depressive psychosis, a more optimistic diagnosis with better clinical outcomes, at the private hospital. Their stays ranged from 7 to 52 days, and the average was 19 days. All but one were discharged with a diagnosis of schizophrenia “in remission”, which Rosenhan considered as evidence that mental illness is perceived as an irreversible condition creating a lifelong stigma rather than a curable illness.

Despite constantly and openly taking extensive notes on the behaviour of the staff and other patients, none of the pseudopatients were identified as impostors by the hospital staff, although many of the other psychiatric patients seemed to be able to correctly identify them as impostors. In the first three hospitalisations, 35 of the total of 118 patients expressed a suspicion that the pseudopatients were sane, with some suggesting that the patients were researchers or journalists investigating the hospital. Hospital notes indicated that staff interpreted much of the pseudopatients’ behaviour in terms of mental illness. For example, one nurse labelled the note-taking of one pseudopatient as “writing behaviour” and considered it pathological. The patients’ normal biographies were recast in hospital records along the lines of what was expected of schizophrenics by the then-dominant theories of its cause.

The experiment required the pseudopatients to get out of the hospital on their own by getting the hospital to release them, though a lawyer was retained to be on call for emergencies when it became clear that the pseudopatients would not ever be voluntarily released on short notice. Once admitted and diagnosed, the pseudopatients were not able to obtain their release until they agreed with the psychiatrists that they were mentally ill and began taking antipsychotic medications, which they flushed down the toilet. No staff member reported that the pseudopatients were flushing their medication down the toilets.

Rosenhan and the other pseudopatients reported an overwhelming sense of dehumanisation, severe invasion of privacy, and boredom while hospitalised. Their possessions were searched randomly, and they were sometimes observed while using the toilet. They reported that though the staff seemed to be well-meaning, they generally objectified and dehumanised the patients, often discussing patients at length in their presence as though they were not there, and avoiding direct interaction with patients except as strictly necessary to perform official duties. Some attendants were prone to verbal and physical abuse of patients when other staff were not present. A group of patients waiting outside the cafeteria half an hour before lunchtime were said by a doctor to his students to be experiencing “oral-acquisitive” psychiatric symptoms. Contact with doctors averaged 6.8 minutes per day.

Non-Existent Impostor Experiment

For this experiment, Rosenhan used a well-known research and teaching hospital, whose staff had heard of the results of the initial study but claimed that similar errors could not be made at their institution. Rosenhan arranged with them that during a three-month period, one or more pseudopatients would attempt to gain admission and the staff would rate every incoming patient as to the likelihood they were an impostor. Out of 193 patients, 41 were considered to be impostors and a further 42 were considered suspect. In reality, Rosenhan had sent no pseudopatients; all patients suspected as impostors by the hospital staff were ordinary patients. This led to a conclusion that “any diagnostic process that lends itself too readily to massive errors of this sort cannot be a very reliable one.”

Impact

Rosenhan published his findings in Science, in which he criticised the reliability of psychiatric diagnosis and the disempowering and demeaning nature of patient care experienced by the associates in the study. In addition, he described his work in a variety of news appearances, including to the BBC:

I told friends, I told my family: “I can get out when I can get out. That’s all. I’ll be there for a couple of days and I’ll get out.” Nobody knew I’d be there for two months … The only way out was to point out that they’re [the psychiatrists are] correct. They had said I was insane, “I am insane; but I am getting better.” That was an affirmation of their view of me.

The experiment is argued to have “accelerated the movement to reform mental institutions and to deinstitutionalize as many mental patients as possible”.

Many respondents to the publication defended psychiatry, arguing that as psychiatric diagnosis relies largely on the patient’s report of their experiences, faking their presence no more demonstrates problems with psychiatric diagnosis than lying about other medical symptoms. In this vein, psychiatrist Robert Spitzer quoted Seymour S. Kety in a 1975 criticism of Rosenhan’s study:

If I were to drink a quart of blood and, concealing what I had done, come to the emergency room of any hospital vomiting blood, the behavior of the staff would be quite predictable. If they labeled and treated me as having a bleeding peptic ulcer, I doubt that I could argue convincingly that medical science does not know how to diagnose that condition.

Kety also argued that psychiatrists should not necessarily be expected to assume that a patient is pretending to have mental illness, thus the study lacked realism. Rosenhan called this the “experimenter effect” or “expectation bias”, something indicative of the problems he uncovered rather than a problem in his methodology.

In The Great Pretender, a 2019 book on Rosenhan, author Susannah Cahalan questions the veracity and validity of the Rosenhan experiment. Examining documents left behind by Rosenhan after his death, Cahalan finds apparent distortion in the Science article: inconsistent data, misleading descriptions, and inaccurate or fabricated quotations from psychiatric records. Moreover, despite an extensive search, she is only able to identify two of the eight pseudopatients: Rosenhan himself, and a graduate student whose testimony is allegedly inconsistent with Rosenhan’s description in the article. In light of Rosenhan’s seeming willingness to bend the truth in other ways regarding the experiment, Cahalan questions whether some or all of the six other pseudopatients might have been simply invented by Rosenhan.

Related Experiments

In 1887 American investigative journalist Nellie Bly feigned symptoms of mental illness to gain admission to a lunatic asylum and report on the terrible conditions therein. The results were published as Ten Days in a Mad-House.]

In 1968 Maurice K. Temerlin split 25 psychiatrists into two groups and had them listen to an actor portraying a character of normal mental health. One group was told that the actor “was a very interesting man because he looked neurotic, but actually was quite psychotic” while the other was told nothing. Sixty percent of the former group diagnosed psychoses, most often schizophrenia, while none of the control group did so.

In 1988, Loring and Powell gave 290 psychiatrists a transcript of a patient interview and told half of them that the patient was black and the other half white; they concluded of the results that “clinicians appear to ascribe violence, suspiciousness, and dangerousness to black clients even though the case studies are the same as the case studies for the white clients.”

In 2004, psychologist Lauren Slater claimed to have conducted an experiment very similar to Rosenhan’s for her book Opening Skinner’s Box. Slater wrote that she had presented herself at 9 psychiatric emergency rooms with auditory hallucinations, resulting in being diagnosed “almost every time” with psychotic depression. However, when challenged to provide evidence of actually conducting her experiment, she could not. The serious methodologic and other concerns regarding Slater’s work appeared as a series of responses to a journal report, in the same journal.

In 2008, the BBC’s Horizon science programme performed a similar experiment over two episodes entitled “How Mad Are You?”. The experiment involved ten subjects, five with previously diagnosed mental health conditions, and five with no such diagnosis. They were observed by three experts in mental health diagnoses and their challenge was to identify the five with mental health problems solely from their behaviour, without speaking to the subjects or learning anything of their histories. The experts correctly diagnosed two of the ten patients, misdiagnosed one patient, and incorrectly identified two healthy patients as having mental health problems. Unlike the other experiments listed here, however, the aim of this journalistic exercise was not to criticise the diagnostic process, but to minimise the stigmatisation of the mentally ill. It aimed to illustrate that people with a previous diagnosis of a mental illness could live normal lives with their health problems not obvious to observers from their behaviour.

On This Day … 25 May

Published on 05/25/202105/22/2021 by Andrew MarshallLeave a comment

People (Births)

1860 – James McKeen Cattell, American psychologist and academic (d. 1944).
1941 – Uta Frith, German developmental psychologist.
1947 – Catherine G. Wolf, American psychologist and computer scientist.

James McKeen Cattell

James McKeen Cattell (25 May 1860 to 20 January 1944), American psychologist, was the first professor of psychology in the United States, teaching at the University of Pennsylvania, and long-time editor and publisher of scientific journals and publications, most notably the journal Science. He also served on the board of trustees for Science Service, now known as Society for Science & the Public (or SSP), from 1921-1944.

At the beginning of Cattell’s career, many scientists regarded psychology as, at best, a minor field of study, or at worst a pseudoscience such as phrenology. Perhaps more than any of his contemporaries, Cattell helped establish psychology as a legitimate science, worthy of study at the highest levels of the academy. At the time of his death, The New York Times hailed him as “the dean of American science.” Yet Cattell may be best remembered for his uncompromising opposition to American involvement in World War I. His public opposition to the draft led to his dismissal from his position at Columbia University, a move that later led many American universities to establish tenure as a means of protecting unpopular beliefs.

Uta Frith

Uta Frith (née Aurnhammer; born 25 May 1941) is a German developmental psychologist working at the Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience at University College London. She has pioneered much of the current research into autism and dyslexia, and has written several books on the two subjects arguing for autism to be considered a mental condition rather than being caused by parenting. Her book Autism: Explaining the Enigma introduces the cognitive neuroscience of autism. She is credited for creating the Sally-Anne test along with fellow scientists Alan Leslie and Simon Baron-Cohen. She also pioneered the work with child dyslexia. Among the students she has mentored are Tony Attwood, Maggie Snowling, Simon Baron-Cohen and Francesca Happé.

Catherine G. Wolf

Catherine Gody Wolf (25 May 1947 to 07 February 2018) was an American psychologist and expert in human-computer interaction. She was the author of more than 100 research articles and held six patents in the areas of human-computer interaction, artificial intelligence, and collaboration. Wolf was known for her work at IBM’s Thomas J. Watson Research Center in Yorktown Heights, NY, where she was a 19-year staff researcher.

In the late 1990s, Wolf was diagnosed with Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), better known as Lou Gehrig’s disease. Despite a rapid physical deterioration, Wolf was still able to communicate with the world via electronic sensory equipment, including a sophisticated brain-computer interface. Remarkably, with almost no voluntary physical functions remaining, she published novel research into the fine-scale abilities of ALS patients.

On This Day … 24 May

Published on 05/24/202105/22/2021 by Andrew MarshallLeave a comment

People (Births)

1878 – Lillian Moller Gilbreth, American psychologist and engineer (d. 1972).

People (Deaths)

2012 – Jacqueline Harpman, Belgian psychoanalyst and author (b. 1929).

Lillian Moller Gilbreth

Lillian Evelyn Moller Gilbreth (24 May 1878 to 02 January 1972) was an American psychologist, industrial engineer, consultant, and educator who was an early pioneer in applying psychology to time-and-motion studies.

She was described in the 1940s as “a genius in the art of living.” Gilbreth, one of the first female engineers to earn a Ph.D., is considered to be the first industrial/organisational psychologist.

She and her husband, Frank Bunker Gilbreth, were efficiency experts who contributed to the study of industrial engineering, especially in the areas of motion study and human factors. Cheaper by the Dozen (1948) and Belles on Their Toes (1950), written by two of their children (Ernestine and Frank Jr.) tell the story of their family life and describe how time-and-motion studies were applied to the organisation and daily activities of their large family. Both books were later made into feature films.

Jacqueline Harpman

Jacqueline Harpman (05 July 1929 to 24 May 2012) was a Belgian writer who wrote in French.

She was born on 05 July 1929, in Brussels, Belgium, and was later well known for her books written in French. She also worked as a psychoanalyst and lived in Etterbeek, Brussels. She died on 24 May 2012, in Brussels, Belgium, after having been severely ill for a long time. She was 82.

What is the American Psychological Association?

Published on 05/21/2021 by Andrew Marshall1 Comment

Introduction

The American Psychological Association (APA) is the largest scientific and professional organisation of psychologists in the United States, with over 122,000 members, including scientists, educators, clinicians, consultants, and students.

It has 54 divisions – interest groups for different subspecialties of psychology or topical areas.

The APA has an annual budget of around $115m.

Brief History

Founding

The APA was founded in July 1892 at Clark University by a small group of around 30 men; by 1916 there were over 300 members. The first president was G. Stanley Hall. During World War II, the APA merged with other psychological organisations, resulting in a new divisional structure. Nineteen divisions were approved in 1944; the divisions with the most members were the clinical and personnel (now counselling) divisions. From 1960 to 2007, the number of divisions expanded to 54. Today the APA is affiliated with 60 state, territorial, and Canadian provincial associations.

Dominance of Clinical Psychology

Due to the dominance of clinical psychology in APA, several research-focused groups have broken away from the organisation. These include the Psychonomic Society in 1959 (with a primarily cognitive orientation), and the Association for Psychological Science (which changed its name from the American Psychological Society in early 2006) in 1988 (with a broad focus on the science and research of psychology). Theodore H. Blau was the first clinician in independent practice to be elected president of the American Psychological Association in 1977.

Profile

The APA has task forces that issue policy statements on various matters of social importance, including abortion, human rights, the welfare of detainees, human trafficking, the rights of the mentally ill, IQ testing, sexual orientation change efforts, and gender equality.

Governance

APA is a corporation chartered in the District of Columbia. APA’s bylaws describe structural components that serve as a system of checks and balances to ensure democratic process. The organisational entities include:

APA President:
- The APA’s president is elected by the membership.
- The president chairs the Council of Representatives and the Board of Directors.
- During his or her term of office, the president performs such duties as are prescribed in the bylaws.
Board of Directors:
- The board is composed of six members-at-large, the president-elect, president, past-president, treasurer, recording secretary, CEO, and the chair of the American Psychological Association of Graduate Students (APAGS).
- The Board oversees the association’s administrative affairs and presents an annual budget for council approval.
APA Council of Representatives:
- The council has sole authority to set policy and make decisions regarding APA’s roughly $60 million annual income.
- It is composed of elected members from state/provincial/territorial psychological associations, APA divisions and the APA Board of Directors.
APA Committee Structure, Boards and Committees:
- Members of boards and committees conduct much of APA’s work on a volunteer basis.
- They carry out a wide variety of tasks suggested by their names.
- Some have responsibility for monitoring major programmes, such as the directorates, the journals and international affairs.

Good Governance Project

The Good Governance Project (GGP) was initiated in January 2011 as part of the strategic plan to “[assure] APA’s governance practices, processes and structures are optimized and aligned with what is needed to thrive in a rapidly changing and increasingly complex environment.” The charge included soliciting feedback and input stakeholders, learning about governance best practices, recommending whether change was required, recommending needed changes based on data, and creating implementation plans. The June 2013 GGP update on the recommended changes can be found in the document “Good Governance Project Recommended Changes to Maximize Organizational Effectiveness of APA Governance”. The suggested changes would change APA from a membership-based, representational structure to a corporate structure. These motions were discussed and voted upon by Council on 31 July 2013 and 02 August 2013.

Organisational Structure

APA comprises an executive office, a publishing operation, offices that address administrative, business, information technology, and operational needs, and five substantive directorates:

The Education Directorate accredits doctoral psychology programmes and addresses issues related to psychology education in secondary through graduate education;
The Practice Directorate engages on behalf of practicing psychologists and health care consumers;
The Public Interest Directorate advances psychology as a means of addressing the fundamental problems of human welfare and promoting the equitable and just treatment of all segments of society;
The Public and Member Communications Directorate is responsible for APA’s outreach to its members and affiliates and to the general public;
The Science Directorate provides support and voice for psychological scientists.

Membership and Title of “Psychologist”

APA policy on the use of the title psychologist is contained in the Model Act for State Licensure of Psychologists: psychologists have earned a doctoral degree in psychology and may not use the title “psychologist” and/or deliver psychological services to the public, unless the psychologist is licensed or specifically exempted from licensure under the law. State licensing laws specify state specific requirements for the education and training of psychologists leading to licensure. Psychologists who are exempted from licensure could include researchers, educators, or general applied psychologists who provide services outside the health and mental health field.

Full membership with the APA in United States and Canada requires doctoral training whereas associate membership requires at least two years of postgraduate studies in psychology or approved related discipline. The minimal requirement of a doctoral dissertation related to psychology for full membership can be waived in certain circumstances where there is evidence that significant contribution or performance in the field of psychology has been made.

Affiliate Organisations

American Psychological Association Services, Inc. (APASI) was formed in 2018 and is a 501(c)(6) entity, which engages in advocacy on behalf of psychologists from all areas of psychology.

Awards

Each year, the APA recognises top psychologists with the “Distinguished Contributions” Awards; these awards are the highest honours given by the APA.

APA Award for Distinguished Scientific Contributions to Psychology.
APA Distinguished Scientific Award for the Applications of Psychology.
Award for Distinguished Contributions to Psychology in the Public Interest.
Award for Distinguished Contributions to Education and Training in Psychology.
APA Award for Distinguished Professional Contributions to Applied Research.
Award for Distinguished Professional Contributions to Independent Practice.
Award for Distinguished Professional Contributions to Practice in the Public Sector.
APA Award for Distinguished Contributions to the International Advancement of Psychology.
APA Award for Lifetime Contributions to Psychology (APA’s highest award).
APA International Humanitarian Award.

Publications

The American Psychologist is the Association’s official journal. APA also publishes over 70 other journals encompassing most specialty areas in the field; APA’s Educational Publishing Foundation (EPF) is an imprint for publishing on behalf of other organisations. Its journals include:

Archives of Scientific Psychology.
Behavioral Neuroscience.
Developmental Psychology.
Emotion.
Health Psychology.
Journal of Applied Psychology.
Journal of Comparative Psychology.
Journal of Experimental Psychology.
Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied.
Journal of Family Psychology.
Journal of Occupational Health Psychology.
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.
Psychological Bulletin.
Psychological Review.
Psychology and Aging.
Psychology of Addictive Behaviours.
Psychology of Violence.
School Psychology Quarterly.

The APA has published hundreds of books. Among these books are: the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (and a concise version titled Concise Rules of APA Style), which is the official guide to APA style; the APA Dictionary of Psychology; an eight-volume Encyclopaedia of Psychology; and many scholarly books on specific subjects such as Varieties of Anomalous Experience. The APA has also published children’s books under the Magination Press imprint, software for data analysis, videos demonstrating therapeutic techniques, reports, and brochures.

The Psychologically Healthy Workplace Programme

The Psychologically Healthy Workplace Programme (PHWP) is a collaborative effort between the American Psychological Association and the APA Practice Organisation designed to help employers optimise employee well-being and organisational performance. The PHWP includes APA’s Psychologically Healthy Workplace Awards, a variety of APA Practice Organisation resources, including PHWP Web content, e-newsletter, podcast and blog, and support of local programmes currently implemented by 52 state, provincial and territorial psychological associations as a mechanism for driving grassroots change in local business communities. The awards are designed to recognise organisations for their efforts to foster employee health and well-being while enhancing organisational performance. The award programme highlights a variety of workplaces, large and small, profit and non-profit, in diverse geographical settings. Applicants are evaluated on their efforts in the following five areas: employee involvement, work-life balance, employee growth and development, health and safety, and employee recognition. Awards are given at the local and national level.

APA Style

American Psychological Association (APA) style is a set of rules developed to assist reading comprehension in the social and behavioural sciences. Used to ensure clarity of communication, the layout is designed to “move the idea forward with a minimum of distraction and a maximum of precision.” The Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association contains the rules for every aspect of writing, especially in the social sciences from determining authorship to constructing a table to avoiding plagiarism and constructing accurate reference citations. “The General Format of APA is most commonly used to cite sources within the social sciences. General guidelines for a paper in APA style includes: typed, double-spaced on standard-sized paper (8.5″ x 11″) with 1″ margins on all sides. The font should be clear and highly readable. APA recommends using 12 pt. Times New Roman font.” The seventh edition of the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association was published in October 2019.

Databases

APA maintains a number of databases, including PsycINFO, PsycARTICLES, PsycBOOKS, PsycEXTRA, PsycCRITIQUES, PsycTESTS, and PsycTHERAPY. APA also operates a comprehensive search platform, PsycNET, covering multiple databases.

PsycINFO is a bibliographic database that contains citations and summaries dating from the 19th century, including journal articles, book chapters, books, technical reports, and dissertations within the field of psychology. As of January 2010, PsycINFO has collected information from 2,457 journals.

Divisions

The APA has 56 numbered divisions, 54 of which are currently active:

Society for General Psychology – the first division formed by the APA, in 1945, concerned with issues across the subdisciplines of psychology.
Society for the Teaching of Psychology – provides free teaching material for students and teachers of psychology and bestows many awards.
Society for Experimental Psychology and Cognitive Science.
Currently vacant – initially the Psychometric Society, which decided against becoming an APA division.
Quantitative and Qualitative Methods – previously named Evaluation, Measurement, and Statistics.
Behavioural Neuroscience and Comparative Psychology.
Developmental Psychology.
Society for Personality and Social Psychology.
Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues (SPSSI).
Society for the Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity and the Arts.
Currently vacant – initially Abnormal Psychology and Psychotherapy, which joined division 12 in 1946.
Society of Clinical Psychology – established in 1948 with 482 members, in 1962 it created clinical child psychology as its first section.
Society of Consulting Psychology.
Society for Industrial and Organisational Psychology.
Educational Psychology.
School Psychology – originally formed as the Division of School Psychologists in 1945, renamed in 1969.
Society of Counselling Psychology.
Psychologists in Public Service.
Society for Military Psychology.
Adult Development and Aging.
Applied Experimental and Engineering Psychology.
Rehabilitation Psychology.
Society for Consumer Psychology.
Society for Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology.
Behaviour Analysis.
Society for the History of Psychology.
Society for Community Research and Action: Division of Community Psychology.
Psychopharmacology and Substance Abuse.
Psychotherapy.
Society of Psychological Hypnosis.
State, Provincial and Territorial Psychological Association Affairs.
Society for Humanistic Psychology.
Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities / Autism Spectrum Disorder.
Society for Environmental, Population and Conservation Psychology.
Society for the Psychology of Women.
Society for the Psychology of Religion and Spirituality.
Society for Child and Family Policy and Practice.
Health Psychology.
Psychoanalysis.
Clinical Neuropsychology.
American Psychology-Law Society.
Psychologists in Independent Practice.
Society for Family Psychology.
Society for the Psychological Study of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Issues.
Society for the Psychological Study of Ethnic Minority Issues.
Media Psychology.
Exercise and Sport Psychology.
Society for the Study of Peace, Conflict, and Violence: Peace Psychology Division.
Society of Group Psychology and Group Psychotherapy.
Society of Addiction Psychology.
Society for the Psychological Study of Men and Masculinities.
International Psychology.
Society of Clinical Child & Adolescent Psychology.
Society of Paediatric Psychology.
American Society for the Advancement of Pharmacotherapy.
Trauma Psychology – addresses issues of trauma with projects, working groups and via collaborations.

APA Internship Crisis for Graduate Students

The APA is the main accrediting body for US clinical and counselling psychology doctoral training programmes and internship sites. APA-accredited Clinical Psychology PhD and PsyD programmes typically require students to complete a one-year clinical internship in order to graduate (or a two-year part-time internship). However, there is currently an “internship crisis” as defined by the APA, in that approximately 25% of clinical psychology doctoral students do not match for internship each year. This crisis has led many students (approximately 1,000 each year) to re-apply for internship, thus delaying graduation, or to complete an unaccredited internship, and often has many emotional and financial consequences. Students who do not complete an APA accredited internships in the US are barred from certain employment settings, including VA Hospitals, the military, and cannot get licensed in some states, such as Utah and Mississippi. Additionally, some post-doctoral fellowships and other employment settings require or prefer an APA Accredited internship. The APA has been criticised for not addressing this crisis adequately and many psychologists and graduate students have petitioned for the APA to take action by regulating graduate training programmes.

Warfare and the Use of Torture

A year after the establishment of the Human Resources Research Organisation by the US military in 1951, the CIA began funding numerous psychologists (and other scientists) in the development of psychological warfare methods under the supervision of APA treasurer Meredith Crawford. Donald O. Hebb, the APA president in 1960 who was awarded the APA Distinguished Scientific Contribution Award in 1961, defended the torture of research subjects, arguing that what was being studied was other nations’ methods of brainwashing. Former APA president Martin Seligman spoke upon the invitation of the CIA on his animal experimentation where he shocked a dog unpredictably and repeatedly into total, helpless passivity. Former APA president Ronald F. Levant, upon visiting Guantanamo Bay, affirmed that psychologists were present during the torture of prisoners, arguing that their presence was to “add value and safeguards” to interrogations. Former APA president Gerald Koocher argued, referring to allegations of continuing systemic abuse by psychologists, that such allegations were originating from “opportunistic commentators masquerading as scholars”.

When it emerged that psychologists, as part of the Behavioural Science Consultation Team, were advising interrogators in Guantánamo and other US facilities on improving the effectiveness of the “enhanced interrogation techniques”, the APA called on the US government to prohibit the use of unethical interrogation techniques and labelled specific techniques as torture. Critics pointed out that the APA declined to advise its members not to participate in such interrogations. In September 2008, the APA’s members passed a resolution stating that psychologists may not work in settings where “persons are held outside, or in violation of, either International Law (e.g., the UN Convention Against Torture and the Geneva Conventions) or the U.S. Constitution (where appropriate), unless they are working directly for the persons being detained or for an independent third party working to protect human rights.” The resolution became official APA policy in February 2009. However, the APA has refused to sanction those members known to have participated in and, in some cases, designed abusive interrogation techniques used in Guantanamo Bay, Iraq, and Afghanistan interrogation centres.

The APA directive was in contrast to the American Psychiatric Association ban in May 2006 of all direct participation in interrogations by psychiatrists, and the American Medical Association ban in June 2006 of the direct participation in interrogations by physicians. An independent panel of medical, military, ethics, education, public health, and legal professionals issued a comprehensive report in November 2013 that “charged that U.S. military and intelligence agencies directed doctors and psychologists working in U.S. military detention centers to violate standard ethical principles and medical standards to avoid infliction of harm”. One group of psychologists in particular, the Coalition for an Ethical Psychology, has been very harsh in its criticism of the APA stance on its refusal to categorically prohibit members from participating in any phase of military interrogations. They recently stated their continuing disagreement with APA leadership in an open letter posted on their website on 31 October 2012, in which they reiterated their condemnation of torture and enhanced interrogation techniques, and called for the APA to require its members to refuse participation in military conducted interrogations of any kind.

Amending the Ethics Code

In February 2010, the APA’s Council of Representatives voted to amend the association’s Ethics Code to make clear that its standards can never be interpreted to justify or defend violating human rights. Following are the two relevant ethical standards from the Ethics Code, with the newly adopted language shown in bold:
1.02, Conflicts Between Ethics and Law, Regulations, or Other Governing Legal Authority

If psychologists’ ethical responsibilities conflict with law, regulations, or other governing legal authority, psychologists clarify the nature of the conflict, make known their commitment to the Ethics Code and take reasonable steps to resolve the conflict consistent with the General Principles and Ethical Standards of the Ethics Code. Under no circumstances may this standard be used to justify or defend violating human rights.

1.03, Conflicts Between Ethics and Organisational Demands

If the demands of an organisation with which psychologists are affiliated or for whom they are working are in conflict with this Ethics Code, psychologists clarify the nature of the conflict, make known their commitment to the Ethics Code, and take reasonable steps to resolve the conflict consistent with the General Principles and Ethical Standards of the Ethics Code. Under no circumstances may this standard be used to justify or defend violating human rights.

In its 2013 “Policy Related to Psychologists’ Work in National Security Settings and Reaffirmation of the APA Position Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment the APA condemns the use of any of the following practices by military interrogators trying to elicit anti-terrorism information from detainees, on the ground that “there are no exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether induced by a state of war or threat of war, internal political instability or any other public emergency, that may be invoked as a justification.”

Hoffman Report

In November 2014, the APA ordered an independent review into whether it cooperated with the government’s use of torture of prisoners during the George W. Bush administration, naming Chicago attorney David H. Hoffman to conduct the review. On 02 July 2015, a 542-page report was issued to the special committee of the board of directors of the APA relating to ethics guidelines, national security interrogations, and torture. The report concluded that the APA secretly collaborated with the Bush administration to bolster a legal and ethical justification for the torture of prisoners. Furthermore, the report stated that the association’s ethics director Stephen Behnke and others had “colluded with important Department of Defense officials to have the APA issue loose, high-level ethical guidelines that did not constrain” the interrogation of terrorism suspects at Guantanamo Bay. The association’s “principal motive in doing so was to align APA and curry favor with DOD.” An APA official said that ethics director Stephen Behnke had been “removed from his position as a result of the report” and indicated that other firings or sanctions might follow.

On 14 July 2015, the APA announced the retirement of its CEO, Norman B. Anderson, effective the end of 2015, and of Deputy Chief Executive Officer Michael Honaker, effective 15 August 2015, and the resignation of Rhea K. Farberman, APA’s executive director for public and member communication. Anderson had been CEO since 2003.

Ban on Involvement

For at least a decade, dissident psychologists within and outside the APA, including the group WithholdAPAdues, had protested the involvement of psychologists “in interrogations at CIA black sites and Guantánamo”. Prior to the release of the Hoffman report, which undermined the APA’s repeated denials and showed that some APA leaders were complicit in torture, the dissidents were ignored or ridiculed.

On 07 August 2015, just weeks following the release of the Hoffman report, the APA council of representatives met at the association’s 123rd annual convention in Toronto, Ontario. At that meeting, the APA council passed Resolution 23B, which implemented the 2008 membership vote to remove psychologists from settings that operate outside international law, and banning the participation of psychologists in unlawful interrogations. With 156 votes in favour and only one vote against, the resolution passed with the near unanimous approval of council members. The adoption of Resolution 23B aligned the APA’s policy with that of the American Psychiatric Association and that of the American Medical Association by prohibiting psychologists from participating in interrogations deemed illegal by the Geneva Conventions and the United Nations Convention against Torture.

IMPLEMENTATION OF THE 2008 MEMBERSHIP VOTE TO REMOVE PSYCHOLOGISTS FROM ALL SETTINGS THAT OPERATE OUTSIDE OF INTERNATIONAL LAW (NBI #23B)

Council is asked to approve the substitute main motion below that includes a revised resolution with a new title, Resolution to Amend the 2006 and 2013 Council Resolutions to Clarify the Roles of Psychologists Related to Interrogation and Detainee Welfare in National Security Settings, to Further Implement the 2008 Petition Resolution, and to Safeguard Against Acts of Torture and Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment in All Settings. This resolution further aligns the APA policy definition for “cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment” (in the 2006 and 2013 Council resolutions) with the United Nations (UN) Convention Against Torture and ensures that the definition applies broadly to all individuals and settings; offers APA as a supportive resource for ethical practice for psychologists, including those in military and national security roles; prohibits psychologists from participating in national security interrogations; clarifies the intended application of the 2008 petition resolution… and calls for APA letters to be sent to federal officials to inform them of these policy changes and clarifications of existing APA policy.

The ban will not “prohibit psychologists from working with the police or prisons in criminal law enforcement interrogations”.

Class Action Lawsuit by Members Claiming Deceptive Dues Assessments

In 2013 a class action lawsuit was brought against APA on behalf of approximately 60,000 of its 122,000 members who were licensed clinicians. Those members paid an additional $140 practice assessment fee as part of their membership dues every year beginning in 2001 to fund the lobbying arm of APA, the APA Practice Organisation (APAPO). The lawsuit accused APA of using deceptive means by representing that the assessment was mandatory for APA membership even though payment of the assessment was only required for membership in the APAPO. In 2015 APA settled the case by establishing a $9.02 million settlement fund to be used to pay claims made by members of APA who paid the practice assessment, as well as attorneys’ fees and certain other costs. APA agreed to change its policies to make clear that the APAPO membership dues are not required for membership in APA.

On This Day … 21 May

Published on 05/21/202105/19/2021 by Andrew MarshallLeave a comment

People (Births)

1912 – John Curtis Gowan, American psychologist and academic (d. 1986).

John Curtis Gowan

John Curtis Gowan (21 May 1912 to 02 December 1986) was a psychologist who studied, along with E. Paul Torrance, the development of creative capabilities in children and gifted populations.

Graduating from Thayer Academy, Braintree, Massachusetts, in 1929, John Gowan was only 17 when he entered Harvard University, earning his undergraduate degree four years later. A master’s degree in mathematics followed; he then moved to Culver, Indiana, where he was employed as a counsellor and mathematics teacher at Culver Military Academy from 1941 to 1952. Earning a doctorate from UCLA, he became a member of the founding faculty at the California State University at Northridge, where he taught as a professor of Educational Psychology from 1953 until 1975, when he retired with emeritus status.

Dr. Gowan became interested in gifted children after the Russians gained superiority in space with the 1957 launch of Sputnik. He formed the National Association for Gifted Children the following year. He was the group’s executive director and president from 1975 to 1979 and over the years wrote more than 100 articles and fourteen books on gifted children, teacher evaluation, child development, and creativity.

While at Northridge, he developed a programme to train campus counsellors, was nominated in 1973 as outstanding professor, and had been a counsellor, researcher, Fulbright lecturer, and visiting professor at various schools including the University of Singapore, the University of Canterbury in Christchurch, New Zealand, the University of Hawaii, and Connecticut State College. He was a fellow of the American Psychological Association and was also a colleague of the Creative Education Foundation.

Besides his work in Educational Psychology as specifically related to gifted children, he also had an interest in psychic (or psychedelic) phenomena as it relates to human creativity. His work in this area was inspired by the writings of Aldous Huxley and Carl Jung. Based on his work in creativity and with gifted children, Dr. Gowan developed a model of mental development that derived from the work of Jean Piaget and Erik Erikson, but also included adult development beyond the ordinary adult successes of career and family building, extending into the emergence and stabilisation of extraordinary development and mystical states of consciousness. He described the entire spectrum of available states in his classic Trance, Art, & Creativity (1975), with its different modalities of spiritual and aesthetic expression. He also devised a test for self-actualisation, (as defined by Abraham Maslow), called the Northridge Developmental Scale.

On This Day … 20 May

Published on 05/20/202105/19/2021 by Andrew MarshallLeave a comment

People (Deaths)

2014 – Sandra Bem, American psychologist and academic (b. 1944).

Sandra Bem

Sandra Ruth Lipsitz Bem (22 June 1944 to 20 May 2014) was an American psychologist known for her works in androgyny and gender studies. Her pioneering work on gender roles, gender polarisation and gender stereotypes led directly to more equal employment opportunities for women in the United States.

Education and Career

Bem attended Margaret Morrison Carnegie College, now known as Carnegie-Mellon University, and majored in psychology. She recalls the head of the counselling centre, Bob Morgan, encouraging her to study to become a psychiatrist. This was the first time such a high-status career had ever been suggested to her. Subsequently, she entered the University of Michigan in 1965 and obtained her Ph.D. in developmental psychology in 1968. Her dissertation focused primarily on cognitive processing and problem solving with young children. Her main influence while at the University of Michigan was experimental psychologist David Birch. Her early work focused on the behaviour of young children and their ability to solve problems, and utilize self-control and instruction.

After obtaining her Ph.D., Bem got a full-time tenure-track position as a professor at Carnegie-Mellon for three years and then moved on to work at Stanford University, where she worked until 1978. She left Stanford University because her application for tenure was denied. She and husband Daryl Bem both took tenured teaching positions at Cornell University in 1978, where she became a psychology professor and the director of the women’s studies programme. While at Cornell, Bem focused research on gender schema theory, sexuality, and clinical psychology until she retired in 2010.

Influences on the Field of Psychology

Bem was an American psychologist known for her works in androgyny and gender studies. Bem and her husband Daryl Bem advocated egalitarian marriage. The husband-wife team became highly demanded as speakers on the negative impacts of sex role stereotypes on individuals and society. At the time, there was a lack of empirical evidence to support their assertions because this was uncharted territory, and so Sandra Bem became very interested and determined to gather data that would support the detrimental and limiting effects of traditional sex roles. In her early career, she was heavily involved in women’s liberation movement, and she did work on sex-biased job advertising. Her involvement led to being a contributor to landmark cases concerning recruitment of women in the work force against companies such as AT&T and the Pittsburgh Press.

Early on in Bem’s career she created the Bem Sex-Role Inventory (BSRI), which is an inventory that acknowledges that individuals may exhibit both male and female characteristics. The BSRI is a scale developed to determine what kind of sex role an individual fulfils. It is a self-report inventory that asks participants how well 60 different attributes describe themselves by using a seven-point scale. These attributes reflect the definition of masculinity (20 questions) and femininity (20 questions), and the remaining 20 questions were merely filler questions (Bem, 1993). In this inventory the feminine and masculine items were chosen on what was culturally appropriate for males and females at that time in the early 1970s. The BSRI was later used to measure psychological flexibility and behavioural indicators. Bem also developed the gender schema theory. According to the gender schema theory, “the child learns to evaluate his or her adequacy as a person in terms of the gender schema, to match his or her preferences, attitudes, behaviours, and personal attributes against the prototypes stored within it.” This theory states that an individual uses gender as a way to organize various things in a person’s life into categories. Her research questioned the social beliefs and assumptions that sex roles are opposite, bipolar, and mutually exclusive. The data she collected were supportive of a merging of male and female traits to enable a person to be a fully functioning, adaptive human over an emphasis on gender stereotypes.

She asserted that masculine and feminine dimensions could be divided into two spheres, rather than one: A person with high masculine and low feminine identification would be categorised as “masculine”. A person with high feminine identification and low masculine identification, would be categorised as “feminine”. A person who had high identification with both characteristics would be categorised as “androgynous”. A person who has low identification with both dimensions would be considered “undifferentiated”.

One of Bem’s main arguments was that traditional gender roles are restrictive for both men and women, and can have negative consequences for individuals as well as society as a whole.

As previously mentioned, a person could be categorised as “androgynous” when taking the BSRI. Androgyny is defined as “the integration of both masculinity and femininity in a single individual”. Androgyny allows one to freely engage in both masculine and feminine behaviours. According to Bem, people’s behaviour can demonstrate what she defined as situational appropriateness. Situational appropriateness is demonstrated when behaviour is reflective of one’s environment. For example, a woman demonstrating knowledge of sports at a basketball game is appropriate. Androgyny may also blend modalities. An example of androgyny blending modalities would be a woman being both assertive and compassionate when firing someone from a job.

Awards and Honours

Sandra Bem received many awards for her research. Her first was the American Psychological Association Distinguished Scientific Award for an Early Career contribution to Psychology in 1976. In 1977 she was awarded the Distinguished Publication Award of the Association of Women in Psychology and in 1980 she received the Young Scholar Award of the American Association of University Women (Makosky, 1990). In 1995, she was selected as an “Eminent Woman in Psychology” by the Divisions of General Psychology and History of Psychology of the American Psychological Association. Critics of Bem’s work generally argued against the political nature of her theories and her objectivity in the material which she studied.

On This Day … 19 May

Published on 05/19/202105/16/2021 by Andrew MarshallLeave a comment

People (Births)

1920 – Tina Strobos, Dutch psychiatrist known for rescuing Jews during World War II (d. 2012).

People (Deaths)

1987 – James Tiptree, Jr., American psychologist and author (b. 1915).

Tina Strobos

Tina Strobos, née Tineke Buchter (19 May 1920 to 27 February 2012), was a Dutch physician and psychiatrist from Amsterdam, known for her resistance work during World War II. While a young medical student, she worked with her mother and grandmother to rescue more than 100 Jewish refugees as part of the Dutch resistance during the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands. Strobos provided her house as a hiding place for Jews on the run, using a secret attic compartment and warning bell system to keep them safe from sudden police raids. In addition, Strobos smuggled guns and radios for the resistance and forged passports to help refugees escape the country. Despite being arrested and interrogated nine times by the Gestapo, she never betrayed the whereabouts of a Jew.

After the war, Strobos completed her medical degree and became a psychiatrist. She studied under Anna Freud in England. Strobos later emigrated to the United States to study psychiatry under a Fulbright scholarship, and she subsequently settled in New York. She married twice and had three children. Strobos built a career as a family psychiatrist, receiving the Elizabeth Blackwell Medal in 1998 for her medical work, and finally retired from active practice in 2009.

In 1989, Strobos was honoured as Righteous Among the Nations by Yad Vashem for her rescue work. In 2009, she was recognised for her efforts by the Holocaust and Human Rights Education Centre of New York City.

James Tiptree Jr

Alice Bradley Sheldon (born Alice Hastings Bradley; 24 August 1915 to 19 May 1987) was an American science fiction author better known as James Tiptree Jr., a pen name she used from 1967 to her death. It was not publicly known until 1977 that James Tiptree Jr. was a woman. From 1974 to 1977 she also used the pen name Raccoona Sheldon. Sheldon was inducted by the Science Fiction Hall of Fame in 2012.

She studied for her bachelor of arts degree at American University (1957-1959), going on to achieve a doctorate at George Washington University in Experimental Psychology in 1967. She wrote her doctoral dissertation on the responses of animals to novel stimuli in differing environments. During this time, she wrote and submitted a few science fiction stories under the name James Tiptree Jr., in order to protect her academic reputation.

On This Day … 17 May

Published on 05/17/202105/16/2021 by Andrew MarshallLeave a comment

Events

1990 – The General Assembly of the World Health Organisation (WHO) eliminates homosexuality from the list of psychiatric diseases.

People (Deaths)

1964 – Nandor Fodor, Hungarian-American psychologist and parapsychologist (b. 1895).

Nandor Fodor

Nandor Fodor (13 May 1895 to 17 May 1964 in New York City, New York) was a British and American parapsychologist, psychoanalyst, author and journalist of Hungarian origin.

Fodor was born in Beregszász, Hungary. He received a doctorate in law from the Royal Hungarian University of Science in Budapest. He moved to New York to work as a journalist and to Britain in 1929 where he worked for a newspaper company.

Fodor was one of the leading authorities on poltergeists, haunting and paranormal phenomena usually associated with mediumship. Fodor, who was at one time Sigmund Freud’s associate, wrote on subjects like prenatal development and dream interpretation, but is credited mostly for his magnum opus, Encyclopaedia of Psychic Science, first published in 1934. Fodor was the London correspondent for the American Society for Psychical Research (1935-1939). He worked as an editor for the Psychoanalytic Review and was a member of the New York Academy of Sciences.

Fodor in the 1930s embraced paranormal phenomena but by the 1940s took a break from his previous work and advocated a psychoanalytic approach to psychic phenomena. He published sceptical newspaper articles on mediumship, which caused opposition from spiritualists.

Among the subjects he closely studied was the case of Gef the talking mongoose.

On This Day … 16 May

Published on 05/16/202105/08/2021 by Andrew MarshallLeave a comment

People (Births)

1952 – James Herndon, American psychologist and academic.

People (Deaths)

1943 – Alfred Hoche, German psychiatrist and academic (b. 1865).

James Herndon

James Neil Herndon (born 16 May 1952) is a media psychologist. He received his Ph.D. in Educational Technology from Arizona State University.

His early experimental research focused on new methods of personalizing training materials. More recent work explores the use of media psychology research in digital public relations. His qualitative research tool, Affective Encryption Analysis, has received press notice as a trend analysis methodology.

He writes for LewRockwell.com, primarily on the topics of Ron Paul, United States presidential politics and the Federal Reserve System. He is co-author of the book, Ron Paul: A Life of Ideas (2008), where he explores Paul in the modern media landscape. He has also authored two books on depression (mood), which he views as primarily a media-driven phenomenon. His company is Media Psychology Affiliates.

Alfred Hoche

Alfred Erich Hoche (01 August 1865 to 16 May 1943) was a German psychiatrist well known for his writings about eugenics and euthanasia.

Hoche studied in Berlin and Heidelberg and became a psychiatrist in 1890. He moved to Strasbourg in 1891. From 1902 he was a professor in Freiburg im Breisgau and was the director of the psychiatric clinic there. He was a major opponent of the psychoanalysis theories of Sigmund Freud. Hoche’s body of work on the classification system of mental illness had great influence. He also published poetry under the pseudonym Alfred Erich.

According to Michael Burleigh’s book “Death and Deliverance”, he was married to a Jewish woman and left his post in Freiburg after National Socialists came to power. He was privately critical of the Nazis’ euthanasia programme after it claimed one of his relatives, despite its rationale being based on his own ideas. After losing his only son in 1915 he became increasingly taciturn and depressed and his death in 1943 was probably due to suicide.