Hi there Barbara, and the other correspondents...I'm essentially a 'dullard', with little formal education, or life skills, for that matter. I'm a Veteran, an ex Prison Officer , and now a retired copper. As a former screw and copper, I've had occasion to deal with quite a few of these various 'ologists etc. And recently, with a couple of them at the 'Vietnam Veterans', Counselling Service too. Personally,I have found most to be very nice people, and for the main, easy to get on with. However professionally, they are generally of little or no value, in my humble view. Often they leave their client/patient more confused and depressed than if they had not intervened at all! During my police service, I spent four or five years, as a law instructor (powers), at the police academy. There, I found those recruits who possessed an undergraduate degree, with a psychology major, the least able to express their thoughts and comments on paper, at examination time. Basic spelling and syntax, seem to escape them completely. So too their practical skills. Prima facie, they seem to have a substantial foundation in formal education, but lacked basic common sense and judgement, at the coal face. Neither could they speak or communicate with ordinary people, in a crisis situation (domestic violence). And on the job, when we were required to bring in the 'on-call', CRT team, for a potentially high risk situation, (threats of suicide et al) more often than not, we had to pull them (the CRT) out, for fear that they'd exacerbate the problem, and antagonize the player/s involved. Seriously though, they obviously have their place, within the healthcare profession...where though, I really don't know?

You are right, the reliability of information presented is something we need to question more. Once the world was flat, and during those times, psychotherapists got results with maybe 20% of clients, and Freud said that his talking therapy cure would take a long time and be very expensive. How far we have come…

I find it ironic, that the people who pride themselves in the knowledge of the mind and how it works, can't come up with a way for people to become aware of the 'interesting and reliable information' - perhaps it's all really powerful stuff that people have no interesting in learning about,

Also, for someone who is dishing personality profiles such as the largest personality profiling tool in the world (Myers-Briggs - and please spell it correctly), would even suggest that psychologists would know the personality types that are prone to PTSD, and have "extensive research as to who they are likely to be". Let me see now, would that be via some profiling test you do? Oh, that's different..

Psychologists who support that cruel joke of Phonics should be ashamed of themselves. In the UK over the last 30 years phonics has destroyed the lives of many children, who grew up not knowing how to spell at all, and ended up with disgusting labels such as dyslexia, ADHD, and other useless tags, so that child psychologists could create a nice constant flow of clients in the future. For gods sake, you can't even spell phonics using phonics

I do have a suggestion: Find some clients to work with that can't afford to pay you. You might find that the only self-help books they can afford at the very ones you question.

Of course, I don't really mean this, I just want your reaction, in a way that will allow you to think twice before penning again. Oh, long live the power of psychology

To O Sung Woo.

I accept that your experiences with pschologists as you worked as both a police officer and prison officer, has given you a jaundiced view of the whole profession. But psychology has been of great benefit to law enforcement officers through the now widely accepted forensic science of criminal profiling.

Serial killers are a growing problem in modern societies, and such “motiveless” crime, usually inflicted on perfect strangers by psychopaths, often leaves little or no evidentiary leads for investigating police to follow. In such cases, police psychologists (profilers) are often the only means which investigating police have of obtaining a general description of the offender, his motivations, and patterns of behaviour. FBI trained criminal profilers are widely respected, and if my memory serves me correctly, an FBI profiler was loaned to the NSW Police during the hunt for serial Killer Geoffrey Glover (The Granny Killer).

Similarly, psychologists have conducted valuable research into the causes of criminal behaviour and have confirmed what many police have always suspected. That criminal behaviour does indeed have a genetic link, can be inherited, and is primarily caused by low intelligence. Would you agree that most criminals you have dealt with during the course of your careers are pretty dumb, and often come from "criminal" families?

Would you also agree that “intelligence” (or lack of) is usually considered a genetically inherited condition?

If you agree with the above premises, then despite your own day to day experiences with psychology trained students and psychology trained social workers, would you now consider that the Profession of Psychology has been of overall benefit to law enforcement officers?

Good morning to you redneck...
The only empirical evidence I can offer is from my own observations, and the observations and comments from those with whom I've worked. Personally, I've received treatment at both the Repat. and the VVCS. for PTSD and Depression. Though the psychologists involved, were nice people and apparently well qualified, I sincerely believe,that in my case, the treatment offered had more of a iatrogenic effect, rather than that which was at all beneficial.
Further redneck, I've also attended two Bureau courses in the US, (Tactical) and the Agents with whom I've spoken and interacted, don't hold these 'profilers' in particularly high regard. Some even suggesting that they (the profilers) would better fall within the aegis of, Special Agents 'Mulder & Scully' of that forgettable TV show. I can't remember the title? Anyway, they do concede that they've had their successes. But what we (the public) don't know, is the many many failures. Nothing beats 'dogged' at the coal face, police work. Ask any 'working' detective !

I've been fascinated by 'the proud scientific tradition' of psychology ever since my first university course when I and my fellow students had every psychopathology going. Then I found out about Freud and penis envy. I can't imagine how Freud ever got the idea we actually wanted to have a penis - play with one now and then maybe, but not have one all the time.

But seriously. Barbara rejects Myers-Briggs out of hand, and she may be right that Myers-Briggs Type Indicator has been poorly used as a hiring practice. This is not a fault of Myers-Briggs - it's simply bad employment practice. The flavour of the month in employment has moved on now to 'assessment centres', some of whose practices are as dubious as Myers-Briggs for making hiring decisions. I recently saw some 'integrity assessments' from an assessment centre. The results give themselves a scientific veneer by providing an 'integrity score' - how much integrity the person has based on their answers to the test - and a 'reliability score' - how much you can trust the results. I know the statistics behind these scores, but I wouldn't depend on them when hiring someone.

People involved in Myers-Briggs have done an enormous amount of research (eg see www.capt.org), and if used properly, Myers-Briggs does have a role. For instance, it can give people an insight into their own - and other people's - preferred styles, the strengths and weaknesses of those preferences, and the benefits of having a range of preferences in a work team.

I have also seen neurolinguistic programming used effectively in clinical counselling - helping a friend manage her fear of lifts, and in my own case to deal with a distressing memory. The people who developed NLP were very aware that memories can be altered by questioning. The technique that helped me to 'remember' my memory without pain isn't a million miles from what Barbara was talking about in relation to questioning and memories.

Psychologists often reject things like NLP and Myers-Briggs, forgetting that psychology itself has come a long way since penis envy.

Well said Maximus.

Cheers
Kay