The “Two Cultures” in Clinical Psychology: Constructing Disciplinary Divides in the Management of Mental Retardation

The “Two Cultures” in Clinical Psychology: Constructing Disciplinary Divides in the Management of Mental Retardation Andrew J. Hogan Creighton University Isis, Vol. 109, no. 4 (2018): 695-719 In a 1984 article, psychologist Gregory Kimble lamented what he saw as the two distinct cultures of his discipline. Writing in American Psychologist, a prominent professional journal, he noted, “In psychology, these conflicting cultures [scientific and humanistic] exist within a single field, and those who hold opposing values are currently engaged in a bitter family feud.” 1 In making his argument, Kimble explicitly drew upon British scientist and novelist C.P. Snow’s 1959 lecture The Two Cultures, in which Snow expressed concern about a lack of intellectual engagement between scientists and humanists, and about the dominant position of the humanities in British education and culture. Kimble used Snow’s critique to help make sense of what he perceived to be a similar polarizing divide between “scientific” and “humanistic” psychologists. 2 As Kimble described it, humanistic psychologists differed form their scientific colleagues in placing their ambitions to enact certain social policies and to promote particular social values- based ideologies ahead of the need for the scientific validation of these approaches. Kimble demonstrated his purported two cultures divide in psychology using survey data he collected from 164 American Psychological Association (APA) members. Each was part of either APA Division 3 (Experimental Psychology) or one of three other Divisions, which represented special interest groups within the psychology field. His results, illustrated on a spectrum from scientific to humanistic orientation, showed a purported divide between experimental psychologists on the scientific side, and their humanistic colleagues in the other three Divisions (See Figures 1,2). 3 As a prominent member of Division 1 (General Psychology), Kimble expressed a commitment to unifying the discipline, and hoped that all psychologists could find common ground in a general, unified behavioral theory. Kimble’s particular vision of disciplinary unity suggests that he fell closer to the scientific side of his spectrum.4 Throughout this paper, I draw upon Kimble’s formulation of the scientific vs. humanistic divide in psychology, along with other purported two cultures divergences in the discipline, to examine varying perspectives on mental retardation. 5 Fractious divides were not limited to differences in orientation between APA Divisions. They also permeated multiple specialty areas. Professionals who studied mental retardation—an interdisciplinary field that included clinical psychologists, educators, and sociologists— identified similar divergences. In a 1987 editorial titled “The Two Cultures Revisited”, Louis Rowitz, a sociologist who specialized in mental retardation, argued, “There is an inherent conflict between the service side and the research and academic side of the [mental retardation] field. Each side has developed its own culture, its own value system, and its own interpretation of the direction of the field.”6 Having identified this purportedly polarizing divide in his specialty, Rowitz argued for a third way, based in a common set of overriding values, which would put the priorities of people with mental retardation ahead of professional interests. Notably, Rowitz, and many others who adopted the two cultures framework, did not limit their focus to describing rifts in terms of scientific vs. humanistic cultures, as Snow and Kimble did, but rather used the construction to identify a variety of purported divisions in their fields. Snow’s “two cultures” concept was a well-known trope in postwar America, and widely mobilized in scientific and clinical literature during the 1980s and 1990s. However, references to the two cultures frequently showed little familiarity with the details of Snow’s argument and its reception.7 Professionals who identified a two cultures divide in their discipline or specialty often sought to highlight divergences that went beyond methodological preferences. Indeed, many 2 academic fields accommodate both quantitative and qualitative specialists, as well as data-driven and theory-focused practitioners, who all still subscribe to the same paradigmatic interests. The “two cultures” rhetorical construction was intended to suggest a deeper rift: one that frequently began early in professional training, just as cultural immersion starts in childhood or in the first weeks of a new job. When Kimble and subsequent psychologists pointed to another “culture” in their own discipline, they did so in part to open up a conversation about what it meant to be a psychologist, and what was the purpose of doing psychological research. 8 Central to this was a consideration of the discipline’s fundamental and longstanding identity, ambitions, and goals.9 References to the “two cultures” across many scientific and clinical disciplines and specialty areas during the late-twentieth century reveal similar rhetorical uses of this concept outside of psychology. Among these articles, those focusing on a single discipline, such as nursing, ecology, biochemistry, or medicine, also invoked the two cultures construction to encourage discussion about the foundational values and aspirations of their field. This explication frequently led to a focus on the nature of professional training, as the authors considered where discipline specific attributes were established, and how they could be passed on to, or improved upon, in the next generation. When a two cultures divide was identified in a interdisciplinary area, such as animal ethics, alcoholism research, or biomedicine, the authors questioned how differences—in vocabulary, level of analysis, and markers of professional achievement—could be overcome to identify shared values and ambitions.10 Historians of science and medicine have studied various theoretical and methodological debates and trends in the twentieth-century “psy” professions, which include psychiatry, psychology, and neurology.11 Among these important contributions, coverage of postwar clinical psychology has largely been limited to examining professional skirmishes with psychiatry over 3 training, the practice of psychotherapy, and the prescription of pharmaceuticals. 12 This paper adds to our historical understanding of postwar psychology by examining the construction of multiple purported disciplinary divisions, with a particular focus on clinical psychologists and other mental retardation specialists. I highlight a debate over the role and value of residential institutions. While some argued that all residential institutions should be closed because they were stigmatizing and dehumanizing, others believed that at least some institutions should be reformed—with the assistance of scientific assessment and validation—because their services would always be necessary for certain individuals, especially the most profoundly affected. Previous work in the history and sociology of science has compared the differing cultures of scientific disciplines, demonstrating that there is no one, unified scientific method or culture. Rather than examining debates about mental retardation in terms of a single, polarizing “two cultures” divide, like those characterized by Snow, Kimble, and Rowitz, this paper examines the rhetorical construction of, and intersections between, multiple overlapping “cultures” in psychology.13 I explore three such divides, as defined and characterized by psychologists: humanistic vs. scientific/empirical, individual vs. community/social system oriented, and etiological vs. level-of-impairment focused. Psychologists identified and described these divergences from specific viewpoints, and with certain end goals.14 I argue that divergent views among clinical psychologists about mental retardation, and crucially the localization of its causes—in individual bodies, minds, and genomes or within social institutions—reflected their position among the multiple “cultures” of psychology. Importantly, differing perspectives on the origin and nature of mental retardation led to divergent beliefs about its proper management, in particular whether a continued role for residential institutions could benefit some of the affected. 4 “Two cultures” debates in psychology were frequently animated by longstanding concerns about the discipline’s perceived scientific legitimacy. My analysis of articles referencing the two cultures from across scientific and clinical fields, as described above, makes it clear that the sense of identity, prestige, and purpose among professionals was influenced in part by the expectations of other closely related disciplines. In the case of psychology, two cultures narratives often involved a consideration of whether the discipline was—or should be— more like the natural sciences and medicine, or the social sciences. Discussions about the scientific legitimacy of psychology have existed since the nineteenth century, and for many late- twentieth century psychologists, the status of psychology in the hierarchy of scientific and clinical professions remained an important issue.15 Other psychologists accused their colleagues of “physics envy” and a desire for gaining “hard science” legitimacy through a commitment to experimental methods and universal laws of human and animal behavior.16 As I show, these status concerns directly impacted professional perspectives in psychology on the localization of mental retardation’s

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