the psychologist vol 29 no 5 may 2016 www.thepsychologist.org.uk Are we punching our weight? Ella Rhodes asks whether psychology is truly having impact letters 326 arts-based research 354 news 332 making brain waves in society 358 careers 390 our struggle with pseudoscience 362 looking back 406 buried in bullshit? 368 Contact The British Psychological Society the psychologist... 48 Princess Road East Leicester LE1 7DR ...features 0116 254 9568 [email protected] www.bps.org.uk The Psychologist www.thepsychologist.org.uk www.psychapp.co.uk [email protected] Are we punching our weight? 350 tinyurl.com/thepsychomag Our journalist Ella Rhodes asks whether psychology is having the desired impact, @psychmag through the media and policy Download our app via Arts-based research – radical or http://tinyurl.com/psychmagapp conventional? 354 David Carless and Kitrina Douglas make the Advertising case for an alternative methodology Reach 50,000+ psychologists at very reasonable rates. 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Tom Farsides and Paul Sparks smell trouble 358 ISSN 0952-8229 letters 326 Cover rethinking practitioner roles; biological factors in www.muralswallpaper.co.uk mental health; felt presence and the ‘hard problem’; and more © Copyright for all published material is held by the British Psychological Society unless specifically stated otherwise. As the Society is a party to the Copyright Licensing Agency (CLA) agreement, articles in The The Psychologist is the monthly publication of The British Psychological Society. It provides a forum for Psychologist may be copied by libraries and other organisations under the communication, discussion and controversy among all members of the Society, and aims to fulfil the main object terms of their own CLA licences of the Royal Charter, ‘to promote the advancement and diffusion of a knowledge of psychology pure and applied’. (www.cla.co.uk). Permission must be obtained from the British Psychological Society for any other use beyond fair dealing authorised by copyright legislation. For further information Managing Editor Jon Sutton Journalist Ella Rhodes about copyright and obtaining Assistant Editor Peter Dillon-Hooper Editorial Assistant Debbie Gordon permissions, e-mail Production Mike Thompson Research Digest Christian Jarrett (editor), Alex Fradera [email protected]. The publishers have endeavoured to Associate Editors Articles Michael Burnett, Paul Curran, Harriet Gross, Rebecca Knibb, trace the copyright holders of all Adrian Needs, Paul Redford, Sophie Scott, Mark Wetherell, Jill Wilkinson illustrations. If we have unwittingly Conferences Alana James History of Psychology Matt Connolly, Alison Torn infringed copyright, we will be pleased, on being satisfied as to the owner’s Interviews Gail Kinman Reviews Kate Johnstone Viewpoints Catherine Loveday title, to pay an appropriate fee. International panel Vaughan Bell, Uta Frith, Alex Haslam, Elizabeth Loftus, Asifa Majid the psychologist vol 29 no 5 may 2016 the issue ...reports ‘Everything is crumbling’, proclaimed a recent Slate headline new approach to hostels; latest twists on replication; Cambridge Science Festival; above a piece on the latest twist in Wellcome Book Prize and new Hub residency; Psychology Research Day; sugar tax; the tale of psychology’s ‘replication opening Skinner’s box; and more 332 crisis’. A touch of melodrama, chosen mainly to go with a photo of ...digests some cookies, or a wake-up call for our discipline? ultra-running; narcissistic leaders; online data; and much more, in the latest from This issue is littered with two our free Research Digest (see www.bps.org.uk/digest) 344 themes, if you care to pick them up: one, that much of what passes as ...meets psychological research is rubbish, and two, that many people are trying interview 372 to clean up. we meet Sophie von Stumm, who runs the Hungry Mind Lab at Goldsmiths, If this debate smacks of navel University of London gazing, it’s important to note that the ‘clean-up’ can and should involve careers 390 innovative and modern ways of we meet Michèle Down, to talk about life on doing things, of engaging the public, the fringes of psychology; Liz Hollis casts a of seeking genuine ‘impact’. There journalistic eye over our discipline; and are plenty of examples this month. Nadine Mirza describes a culture shock So let’s not be downbeat. These one on one 408 problems may be rife throughout with Peter Kinderman, University of Liverpool science: psychologists are unusual and incoming Society President in their willingness to thrash it out in public. Debate makes us stronger, and psychology can punch its weight. As incoming Society President Peter 408 Kinderman says in his ‘One on one’, ...reviews ‘we can still choose how to respond; how to fight against creation’. Inscription, Diagnosis, Deception Dr Jon Sutton and the Mental Health Industry; Managing Editor @psychmag My Beautiful Broken Brain; 8 Keys to Forgiveness; Muhammad Ali at the O2; Employable Me; Calculating Kindness; Anomalisa; and more 398 398 ...looks back Happiness then and now 406 Sandie McHugh and Jerome Carson describe two happiness surveys from Bolton, 76 years apart …more The Psychologist and Digest Go to www.thepsychologist.org.uk Editorial Advisory Committee for exclusive content, and download Catherine Loveday (Chair), Emma Beard, our new iOS / Android app via Phil Banyard, Olivia Craig, Helen Galliard, http://tinyurl.com/psychmagapp for Big picture centre-page pull-out Harriet Gross, Rowena Hill, Stephen special editions and more poetry as a mental health McGlynn, Peter Olusoga, Peter Wright resource; words and poem by Helena Dunthorne; and we launch our second annual poetry competition read discuss contribute at www.thepsychologist.org.uk Rethinking practitioner roles LETTERS We write as counselling psychologists who find ourselves The clinical reality for working in traditional clinical, forensic, paediatric and academic psychology is rather different, contexts. This experience has led us to query the role, utility with client needs that often and validity of the historical and current taxonomy of our can be met by more than one profession. area of speciality. For In 2009 the Health and Care Professions Council became example, a client’s anxiety in the statutory regulator of practitioner psychologists. This the area of physicality might process involved consultation of key stakeholders in order to be addressed either by a identify who should be regulated and the knowledge and skills health, clinical or counselling that would determine the standards of proficiency for psychologist. How do we practitioner psychologists. An unintended consequence of this define our area of expertise? More significantly, how relevant was the cementing of historical role titles and reinforcement of are these labels to clients’ own phenomenological experiences. tacit beliefs related to an arguably outdated discourse of In the workplace we increasingly employ a biopsychosocial difference. perspective in the organisational and clinical setting. Through The demand on psychology appears to have now shifted an understanding of systemic models we engage with human focus going beyond the interdisciplinary boundaries defined function and distress aiming to understand psychological by the parameters of the service organisation and the needs of manifestations of struggle in the wider context of the lived their client group. New Ways of Working (BPS, 2007) saw the experience. If we are seeking an integration of therapeutic traditional roles expanding in favour of psychological modalities with a view to achieving a more holistic and consultancy in multidisciplinary teams, not least due to responsive service for our clients, should we not also be holding a shortage of skilled psychologists available service-wide. the same lens up to ourselves? Perhaps the question is: Why at Unintentionally the BPS added to the confusion in 2011 by a time when psychology is under increased threat from budget putting in place a requirement for all clinical psychology roles cuts do we not attempt to rethink our role? to be opened up to counselling psychologists. With this came an In the meantime the BPS takes cautious steps in engagement increase in the ‘Clinical/Counselling’ title being integrated into in an International Declaration on Core Competences in job descriptions and job specifications. The move though did not Professional Psychology (BPS, 2015). With a concern being reflect in the roles of health and forensic psychologists. raised that the International Declaration ‘as it currently stands, Don’t ignore biological factors I am unsure which part of the scientific or clinical advocating for continued in the encephalitis/psychosis/ my letter (‘Keep looking for validity of schizophrenia, or tolerance of the potentially (diagnosis of) schizophrenia biological causes’, February,