PSYCHOLOGISTS AND PHYSICIANS IN THE BORDERLANDS OF SCIENCE, 1900-1942 By WADE EDWARD PICKREN A DISSERTATION PRESENTED TO THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF THE UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA 1995 For my mother: WILLIE MERLE PICKREN, and in memoriam, BILL PICKREN, You taught me to love and work. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I wish to express my deepest gratitude to the chairman of my dissertation committee, Donald A. Dewsbury. Dr. Dewsbury has, from the beginning of this long project, been a model of encouragement, kindness, and unfailing generosity. He has shared his time, his great breadth of learning, his editorial ability, and his materials with me. My understanding of the history of psychology has been greatly deepened by our conversations. I also wish to acknowledge that Dr. Dewsbury has helped me to understand that data is a plural! Dr. Wilse B. Webb has also stimulated much thought in me about what I was doing and where I was going with my ideas. Although I did not avail myself of his wisdom as oft as I would have liked, his voice and his sharp eye were always with me. I hope that, in the future, time will allow me a greater opportunity to benefit from his great knowledge and experience. Both near at hand and from afar, Dr. Toby Appel has blessed me with the keenness of her insight . Her acceptance and friendly corrections of my halting efforts to write history have been much appreciated. One of my most pleasant memories of this experience is that of sitting at a table at iii Cafe Gardens talking about the history of biology or psychology, while hoping to hear some Van Morrison on the house music system. Those were the days! I must acknowledge that all the members of my committee have been supportive. I salute Drs . Griggs and Capaldi for their willingness to support me as I attempted something new in our psychology department. Dr. Fred Gregory was always willing to listen, even though he was inundated with his own work and students in the Department of History. I wish to express my appreciation to him. I also wish to thank the archivists at the National Academy of Sciences, the National Library of Medicine, and the Rockefeller Archive Center. Their helpfulness and thoughtfulness made my task much easier. Friends have been helpful in many ways. For my friend, Bob Swoap, no words can describe what his friendship has meant to me over the last six years. To you, long-waisted cowboy! April O'Connell has been a faithful friend and a wise colleague. Margret Cook offered her gentle wit and kindness, as well as her eagle eye, on earlier drafts of this manuscript. Thank you! To my many brothers and sisters, I offer thanks for their support and patience with me. It is great to be part of such a good family. I thank them for making me laugh so often and so well. I also wish to thank my mother, whose love has been my IV ! foundation all my life. Her belief in me has been my inspiration. With all my love, thank you. Finally, I must reserve my greatest appreciation and thanks to Jane, Emily, and Graham. Their love and support has been incredible throughout this long endeavor. Thank you As Van Morrison once said, "It's too late to stop now!" v TABLE OF CONTENTS page ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS m ABSTRACT viii INTRODUCTION 4 Disciplines, Boundaries, and Borderlands 3 Borderland Science and Foundations 9 Boundary Work in Psychology 12 Historiographic Note 28 Notes 30 CHAPTERS 1 FELLOW LABORERS: CULTIVATING THE BORDERLANDS OF PSYCHOLOGY AND PSYCHIATRY, 1900-1920 38 Introduction 40 Invitation to a New Borderland of Science 48 Boundary Expansion: Psychologists and Psychopathy g g Psychology and Medical Education 74 Psychologists' Research on Medically Relevant Topics 106 Conclusion 144 Notes 445 2 CONTROLLING SEX IMPULSES: PSYCHOLOGISTS AND THE COMMUNITY OF SEX RESEARCHERS, 1921-193 0 166 Introduction 170 The Founding of the Committee for Research on Problems of Sex 181 Psychological\Psychobiological Approaches to Sex Research 200 Conclusion 264 Notes 269 vi 3 MEDICINE FOR MODERNS: PSYCHOLOGISTS AND THE FASHIONING OF PSYCHOSOMATIC MEDICINE, 1930-1942 293 Introduction 295 Psychoanalysis and Experimental Psychopathology. 306 Convergence of Pathways to Psychosomatic Medicine 33 8 Psychosomatic Medicine 354 The New Field of Psychosomatic Medicine 359 Conclusion 3 62 Notes I!!!!!.*.*.’!!.'.’!!.’.’ 357 EPILOGUE 384 Links to Post-World War II Clinical Psychology. 384 Psychosomatic Medicine and Health Psychology. 389 * Notes 3 92 APPENDICES A ROBERT YERKES' PROPOSED SEX RESEARCH PROGRAM. ... 394 B FRANK LILLIE'S PROPOSED SEX RESEARCH PROGRAM.... 398 BIBLIOGRAPHY 401 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH at,o Vll Abstract of Dissertation Presented to the Graduate School of the University of Florida in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy PSYCHOLOGISTS AND PHYSICIANS IN THE BORDERLANDS OF SCIENCE, 1900-1942 By Wade Edward Pickren May 1995 Chairman: Donald A. Dewsbury Major Department: Psychology The central argument of this dissertation is that psychologists availed themselves of opportunities offered to them in the first four decades of the twentieth century to expand the boundaries of their discipline. The expansion of the boundary between psychology and medicine through the creation of shared "borderlands" is the focus of this study. Three case studies are used to illustrate the interaction of multiple factors in the development of these borderlands. The first case is located in time in the years, 1900-1920. Psychologists responded to the invitation of psychiatrists to work with them in the explication of mental disorders. Psychologists were able to move beyond the parameters of the invitation to secure a niche for their expertise in psychiatric settings. The second case study presented here is the work of viii psychologists during the 1920s in the borderland of sex research created by social concerns and philanthropic interests in social engineering. Although this area had traditionally been the preserve of medical expertise, psychologists were able to establish themselves as important contributors to the scientific understanding of sex and as competent managers of a large scientific enterprise. The third case study concerns the work of psychologists in the development of a new borderland of science in the 1930s: psychosomatic medicine. Psychologists' contributed to this new field in two ways. First, they utilized an experimental methodology to investigate theories about human mental dysfunction. This work served as a bridge to physicians who were also interested in psychological factors in human illness. Secondly, psychologists contributed organizational leadership that provided an institutional framework for psychologists and physicians to jointly develop psychosomatic medicine. This study takes a contextualist approach to the understanding of psychologists' involvement in borderland science. Attention is given to the social, intellectual, and practical contexts of this involvement. I rely on primary, archival, and secondary sources to fashion a narrative about a hitherto unexplored part of the modern story of psychology. IX . INTRODUCTION All natural sciences aim at practical prediction and control, and in none of them is this more the case than in psychology today. We live surrounded by an enormous body of persons who are most definitely interested in the control of states of mind, and incessantly craving for a sort of psychological science which will teach them how to act . What every educator, every jail-warden, every doctor, every clergyman, every asylum-superintendent, asks of psychology is practical rules. Such men care little or nothing about the ultimate philosophic grounds of mental phenomena, but they do care immensely about improving the ideas, dispositions, and conduct of the particular individuals in their charge 1 (William James, 1892) The extension and expansion of psychology along a boundary shared with medicine through opportunities offered and taken by psychologists in the first four decades of the twentieth century is the concern of this work. The central argument of the chapters that follow is that these opportunities sprang from particular social contexts and that the growth of the relationship between psychology and medicine was due to the complex interaction of social, intellectual, and institutional factors. The three case studies used to illustrate this interplay are the movement of psychologists into psychiatric settings in the first two decades of the twentieth century, the involvement of psychologists in sex research in the 1920s, and the 1 2 contribution of psychological research in experimental psychopathology to the fashioning of the new interdisciplinary field of psychosomatic medicine in the 1930s. These three case studies illustrate the importance of social and institutional factors in the growth of the discipline of psychology. The importance of disciplinary intellectual ideals in shaping that growth is also demonstrated in these three cases. I wish to show that these case studies are particularly good examples of disciplinary expansion through applied science. The move to application represented by these cases is indicative of the convergence of social and intellectual interests in the first part of the twentieth century and this history is a needed addition to the existing scholarly literature on the development of psychology as a science-based profession. Recent scholarship in the field has moved from general histories of psychology to more specialized studies of particular facets of the discipline. These studies have tended to be sensitive to the social context of disciplinary growth. The expansion of psychology through application has been the focus of much of this recent, critical scholarship. Psychology's expansion along borders shared with education, forensics, advertising, and industry has been the subject of several recent studies. Scholarly studies of psychologists' interactions with physicians in mental testing, 3 developmental studies, and the neurosciences have added to our understanding of the growth of psychology through application.