Carole Wade
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Barriers to Critical Thought in Psychological Practice
First, consider some developments within psychology itself that are working against us.
One is the growth of nonscientific approaches to psychological problems. When psychol-
ogy was established as a formal discipline in the late 1800s, psychologists hoped to replace
explanations of behavior based on whim or wishful thinking with explanations based on
rigorous standards of evidence and reasoning. Scientific psychology was designed as an
antidote to superstition and a way to test the worthiness of one’s hunches. It was aimed at
helping people, including scientists, overcome what is probably the most entrenched bias
in human thinking, the confirmation bias: the tendency to seek and remember informa-
tion that confirms what we already believe, and to ignore or forget information that chal-
lenges our beliefs.
From the beginning, of course, scientific psychology had many pseudoscientific com-
petitors to contend with, ranging from astrology to graphology. In the 20th century, with
the growth of technology, we saw the introduction of nonprofessional therapies that
added scientific-sounding language: neurolinguistic programming, right-brain training
programs, the Transcutaneous Electro-Neural Stimulator, the Brain SuperCharger, the
Whole Brain Wave Form Synchro-Energizer. The appeal of such psychobabble is not sur-
prising; people have a great need for easy answers that promise escape from uncertainty
and that do not require them to think too hard.
In the past two decades, however, an ominous development has taken place; increas-
ingly, psychobabble has been infiltrating the professional field of psychology itself. People
with PhDs are making unsubstantiated and sometimes ludicrous claims that can affect
people’s lives. This is the result of a worrying trend: the split in the training, methods, and
attitudes of scientific psychologists and a growing number of mental-health practitioners
(Beutler, 2000; Lilienfeld, Lynn, & Lohr, 2003).
Science and clinical practice have always had a somewhat uneasy relationship, which is
why the scientist-practitioner model of training first came into being. Many practitioners
are still trained according to this model; indeed, it is thanks in large part to their efforts
that we are learning not only why and when therapy is effective, but which therapies are
most effective for which problems. But the scientist-practitioner model has been easier to
honor in word than in deed. In some free-standing psychology schools around the coun-
try, schools unaffiliated with any institution of higher learning, students are now being
trained to do therapy with little grounding in methods or research findings. Reviewing the
evidence on graduate training in clinical psychology, Donald Peterson (2003) found that
the poorer quality programs are turning out increasing numbers of ill-prepared graduates.
In the late 1980s, I had the misfortune to teach a course in one such school, and nearly
had a rebellion on my hands when I tried to discuss research methods. Most of my stu-
dents wanted just a grab bag of techniques.
As a result of this trend, a growing number of practitioners have little appreciation for
the importance of empirical evidence. Indeed, one survey of 400 clinicians conducted
in the 1990s found that the great majority paid little attention to empirical research, stating
that they gained their most useful information from clinical work with clients (Elliott &