the psychologist vol 28 no 6 june 2015 www.thepsychologist.org.uk Better not look down… Leading neurosurgeon Henry Marsh reflects on mistakes, mystery and the mind letters 430 opening up to disclosure 458 news 438 youth unemployment 462 careers 492 methods: confidence intervals 476 reviews 502 does psychology have a gender? 508 Contact The British Psychological Society the psychologist... St Andrews House 48 Princess Road East ...features Leicester LE1 7DR 0116 254 9568 [email protected] www.bps.org.uk The Psychologist Better not look down… 466 www.thepsychologist.org.uk Leading neurosurgeon Henry Marsh reflects www.psychapp.co.uk on mistakes, mystery and the mind [email protected] tinyurl.com/thepsychomag This is improbable too 452 Marc Abrahams with more research to make @psychmag you smile and think Advertising Opening up to disclosure 458 Reach 50,000 psychologists Anna Ruddle and Sarah Dilks consider at very reasonable rates. whether therapists should talk about Display Aaron Hinchcliffe themselves in therapy 020 7880 7661 466 [email protected] Youth employment – the missing facts 462 Recruitment (in print and online Angela Carter looks to a better understanding at www.psychapp.co.uk) Giorgio Romano 020 7880 7556 of young people by employers [email protected] P HILIP New voices: Deception – understanding lies May 2015 issue W with collaboration 474 OLMUTH 46,467 dispatched Emma Williams with the latest in our series / REPORTDIGITAL Printed by Methods: Building confidence in Warners Midlands plc confidence intervals 476 on 100 per cent recycled . Graham Smith and Peter Morris encourage paper. Please re-use or recycle. CO . UK you to rely less on significance tests ISSN 0952-8229 ...digests Cover 462 artwork by Mercedes Uribe seduction by superfluous neuroscience; autistic www.mercedesuribe.com children’s sensory experiences, in their own words; and much more, in the latest from our Research Digest (see www.researchdigest.org.uk/blog) 446 © 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, Charlie Lewis, trace the copyright holders of all Wendy Morgan, Paul Redford, Mark Wetherell, Jill Wilkinson illustrations. If we have unwittingly Conferences Alana James History of Psychology Nathalie Chernoff 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 the psychologist vol 28 no 6 june 2015 the issue ...debates If I make a mistake in my job, I may feel mortified (see p.503), but nobody letters 430 dies. Maybe that’s why I was so behaviour change; prisons; voter engagement; impacts of the social care market; gripped by leading neurosurgeon Scarred FOR Life exhibition; and more Henry Marsh’s memoir Do No Harm: Stories of Life, Death and Brain ...reports Surgery. Marsh echoes René Leriche’s view that every surgeon news 438 carries about him ‘a cemetery of new disclosures on psychologists and torture; Wellcome Book Prize; Society’s bitterness and regret, of which he Annual Conference; The Psychologist at Latitude Festival; REF; TEDS at 20; and more seeks the reason for certain of his failures’. It’s a frank, touching, society 482 horrifying, funny book, and so I Professor Jamie Hacker Hughes’s first President’s column; review of Member invited Henry to tell us more about Networks; speaking out on mental health; and more how he views the psychology of his mistakes, and how his perspective ...meets on the brain has been altered by interview 472 many years of looking down on the Gail Kinman meets Anna Machin to discuss close physical stuff of life, hopes and fears relationships, fatherhood, and more mapped out below him. As ever, there’s loads of content careers 492 in this issue and plenty of exclusives we meet occupational psychologist Almuth McDowall, at www.thepsychologist.org.uk. But and Ann Wood shares her reflections on running a I would particularly like to draw your spirituality group attention to an announcement on one on one 512 p.441: The Psychologist’s first festival with Lydia Hopper, from Lincoln Park Zoo, Chicago appearance, at Latitude! With news 492 of a very special Research Digest live event to follow next month, I’m ...reviews proud to be looking onwards, upwards and outwards. The Falling; The Jinx; Force Majeure; Dr Jon Sutton books and more. For opportunities to Managing Editor @psychmag contribute, see our website or follow us on Twitter @psychmag. 502 502 ...looks back Does psychology have a gender? 508 Alexandra Rutherford, Kelli Vaughn-Johnson and Elissa Rodkey Three years ago Go to www.thepsychologist.org.uk for our archive, The Psychologist and Digest the psychologist Editorial Advisory Committee vol 25 no 6 june 2012 including a look at Big picture centre-page pull-out Catherine Loveday (Chair), Phil Banyard, psychology in the The winning entry in our first ever Olivia Craig, Helen Galliard, Harriet Gross, bathroom poetry competition, ‘A Wonder World Rowena Hill, Stephen McGlynn, Tony for Enid’, from Lynne Cameron, Wainwright, Peter Wright accompanied by her own artwork Toilet psychology Nick Haslam on why psychologists should open the door conference 418 tall poppies and schadenfreude 434 careers 462 defining learning disability 440 Incorporating Psychologist Appointments £5 or free to members of new voices 472 opinion: the brave psychologist 446 The British Psychological Society looking back 476 psychology in the Arab world 448 read discuss contribute at www.thepsychologist.org.uk Changing behaviour – taking a broader LETTERS Leafing through the BPS Annual Report for 2014, my attention was caught by an item on behaviour change from the Society’s Behaviour Change Advisory Group (BCAG). The group was set up to advise policy makers on how to get people to change their behaviour. Behaviour is central to psychology – who better to advise policymakers than psychologists? The article (and the five briefings it refers to) mentions behaviour change at individual, community or societal levels. But the focus of the briefings is almost entirely on individual behaviour. Not only that, social problems and policy implementation are framed in terms of individual behaviour. Only the briefing on energy conservation highlights the potential drawbacks of not taking a broader perspective, referring to the DEFRA report Carrots, Sticks and Sermons. There’s little consideration of the possibility that policies themselves might lead to unwanted behaviours: that educational policy might have an adverse effect on school attendance, that transport policy could have resulted in less physical activity, or that financial policies might have reduced tax revenues or encouraged people to borrow. When I was an undergraduate in the 1970s, social scientists were acutely aware of the impact of social, political and economic systems on individual behaviour. So were governments. That awareness problems in terms of individual behaviour – doing so appears to have dimmed somewhat. conveniently diverts attention from any unintended and It’s politically expedient for governments to frame social unwanted outcomes of policies themselves. The BCAG briefings Cutting services in prisons I would like to thank Michelle Lowe and a variety of psychological interventions substances as a way of managing their Bob Balfour for their excellent article ‘The for these men who meet the criteria for distress. In addition, because they have unheard victims’ (February 2015). I have complex trauma and not exclude them offended and ended up in prison their managed a primary care psychological because they do not meet the criteria for disclosures can often be met with even service in a male local prison for eight PTSD, because they may have personality more disbelief than those men who have years and have attempted to promote the disorder diagnoses, or because of their been sexually abused and who have not needs of men in prison who have been understandable difficulty in trusting offended. sexually abused. We have been in the others and resorting to coping strategies Sadly, our service, like a number of fortunate position of being able to offer such as self-harm and the use of illicit primary psychological services in prisons THE PSYCHOLOGIST NEEDS YOU! …and much more We rely on your submissions throughout the publication, and in return we help you to get your message across to a large and Letters contribute diverse audience. These pages are central to The Psychologist’s role as a forum for communication, discussion and controversy among all ‘Reach the largest, most diverse audience of psychologists in the UK members of the Society, and we welcome your contributions. (as well as many others around the world); work with a wonderfully Send e-mails marked ‘Letter for publication’ to [email protected]; supportive editorial team; submit thought pieces, reviews, interviews, or write to the Leicester office.