The Psychologist April 2017

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the psychologist

psychologist april 2017

april 2017

Five depictions of the brain Andrew P. Wickens considers their historical significance

www.thepsychologist.org.uk

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13/03/2017 11:02

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the psychologist

psychologist april 2017

april 2017

contact The British Psychological Society 48 Princess Road East Leicester LE1 7DR 0116 254 9568 mail@bps.org.uk www.bps.org.uk the psychologist www.thepsychologist.org.uk www.bps.org.uk/digest www.jobsinpsychology.co.uk psychologist@bps.org.uk Twitter: @psychmag Download our iOS/Android apps advertising Reach 50,000+ psychologists at very reasonable rates.

CPL, 1 Cambridge Technopark Newmarket Road Cambridge CB5 8PB recruitment Matt Styrka 01223 378 005 matt.styrka@cpl.co.uk display Michael Niskin 01223 378 045 michael.niskin@cpl.co.uk march 2017 issue 56,298 dispatched design concept Darren Westlake www.TUink.co.uk cover Believed to have been copied from a much earlier illustration in Salerno, around 1250. From Sudhoff 1908, plate 2. With permission from University of Basel (Basel University Library, Sign D II, fol 170). printed by Warners Midlands plc on 100 per cent recycled paper. issn 0952-8229 (print 2398-1598 (online) © 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 Psychologist may be copied by libraries and other organisations under the terms of their own CLA licences.

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Five depictions of the brain Andrew P. Wickens considers their historical significance

www.thepsychologist.org.uk

The Psychologist is the magazine of The British Psychological Society It provides a forum for communication, discussion and controversy among all members of the Society, and aims to fulfil the main object of the Royal Charter, ‘to promote the advancement and diffusion of a knowledge of psychology pure and applied’

The Psychologist needs you!

We rely on your submissions throughout the publication, and in return we help you to get your message across to a large and diverse audience.

For details of all the available options, plus our policies and what to do if you feel these have not been followed, see www.thepsychologist.org.uk/contribute The main message, though, is simply to engage with us.

Contact the editor Dr Jon Sutton on jon.sutton@bps.org.uk, tweet us on @psychmag or call / write to us at the Society’s Leicester office.

Managing Editor Jon Sutton Assistant Editor Peter Dillon-Hooper Production Mike Thompson Journalist Ella Rhodes Editorial Assistant Debbie Gordon Research Digest Christian Jarrett (editor), Alex Fradera

Associate Editors Articles Michael Burnett, Paul Curran, Harriet Gross, Rebecca Knibb, Adrian Needs, Paul Redford, Sophie Scott, Mark Wetherell, Jill Wilkinson Conferences Alana James History of Psychology Alison Torn Interviews Gail Kinman Culture Kate Johnstone, Sally Marlow Books Emily Hutchinson, Rebecca Stack International panel Vaughan Bell, Uta Frith, Alex Haslam, Elizabeth Loftus, Asifa Majid The Psychologist and Digest Editorial Advisory Committee Catherine Loveday (Chair), Emma Beard, Phil Banyard, Helen Galliard, Harriet Gross, Rowena Hill, Stephen McGlynn, Peter Olusoga, Richard Stephens

10/03/2017 14:45

the

psychologist april 2017

22 The creative navigator’s compass

Nicky Clayton and Clive Wilkins

on memory and perception –

and how we know which way

we are facing

02 Letters Fame

12 News Awards; research; and more

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30 Five depictions of the brain Andrew Wickens, a Society Book Award winner, considers their historical significance

40 Chocolate cake, sex, and valuing behaviour Jonathan Myers on choices

66 One on one… …with Martin Seager

48 Building spatial skills in preschool

Nora S. Newcombe looks

beyond numeracy and literacy

Interview 54

Lisa Feldman Barrett talks

to our editor Jon Sutton about

emotions, and fairy tales of

the brain

Culture 80

Revolution in Russian art; robots; Moonlight; and more

60 Careers Samuel Landau, trainee psychologist and rabbi; plus featured job/latest vacancies

72 Books We talk to Sarita Robinson about Doctor Who; Brian Hughes rethinks psychology; plus reviews

88

A to Z

I’ve just made a small change to The Psychologist website which I think has a big impact. Obituaries, formerly collected under ‘Looks back’, are now at thepsychologist.bps.org.uk /obituaries. It was a shock to see how many incredible psychologists we have lost in recent years. But it also means that our ‘Looking back’ articles, more than 100 of them (now open access), stand alone at thepsychologist.bps.org.uk /lookback.

I’m very proud of this resource – many fascinating pieces dealing with the history of psychology or the psychology of history. It’s important to look back in order to look forward, and there are colourful tales still to be told. If you’re interested in contributing, get in touch.

This month’s historical piece is from Andrew Wickens, with five depictions of the brain.

Elsewhere, there’s our usual mix of the professional and personal.

We’re still finding our feet after being ‘reborn’ in January, and I thank you again for your support along the way.

Dr Jon Sutton Managing Editor @psychmag

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Last month, The Psychologist carried extracts from a new book called Scientists Making a Difference. I was one of the contributors, and you can find my chapter as an extra in the online version on The Psychologist website. In it, I discuss my most noted contribution to psychology, and of course it’s lovely to be in the midst of such eminent company. But will I be remembered when I’m gone?

Will any of us?

Here is a test that may shock you. Try it on a graduate class, an introverted seminar group, or a conference meeting. Ask people: ‘Who would you nominate as the most important psychologist of all time?’ Having done this a few times I have noticed the following. People do not know who is alive or dead. Few name any female psychologists. Americans have no idea there are any European psychologists. Older people recall quite different, even obscure people. Academic psychologists are blinkered by their own specialisms. Most are pretty incoherent about the criteria they used. But perhaps most interestingly, there are very few truly ‘famous’ psychologists, dead or alive.

Fame, at least academic fame, is extremely capricious. Both my wife and I had very famous supervisors when at Oxford. Both have been dead around 15–20 years and both almost forgotten. Donald Broadbent, a brilliant experimental psychologist, would be horrified to learn that his most quoted paper is one published in a clinical journal on ‘correlational psychology’, namely his Cognitive Failures Questionnaire.

And take a look at Thorndike’s 1955 article where American Psychological Association fellows were asked to nominate the psychologists who had most made a contribution to the discipline. Half at least are names few could now recall.

Of course, fame is a fickle animal and I am not advocating its pursuit. But perhaps increasingly in our social media, image-driven world, it will be possible to achieve notoriety.

Key sources We need to be able to distinguish this from a lasting legacy based on merit.

Furnham, A. (1990). Quantifying quality: Just as one can distinguish between An argument in favour of citation leader emergence (the ability to stand counts. Journal of Further and Higher out) and effectiveness (do a good job), Education, 14, 105–110. we can perhaps better assess who Furnham, A. & Bonnett, C. (1992).

British research productivity in is good at ‘acquiring fame’ and who psychology 1980–1989. Personality and genuinely deserves it.

Individual Differences, 13, 1333–1341.

So here are some tips on how to Simonton, D.K. (2016). Giving credit get known. Critics of others do better where credit’s due. Perspectives in than those who have original ideas.

Psychological Science, 11, 888–892.

Schmoozers and sycophants get Sternberg, R. (2016). ‘Am I famous yet?’ Judging scholarly merit in promoted and remembered more than psychological science. Perspectives in real contributors. Those who claim to Psychological Science, 11, 877–881. have started trends, rightly or wrongly, Thorndike, R. (1955). The psychological get quoted most. Popular books get value systems of psychologists. noticed more than academic papers: American Psychologist, 10, 787–789. if you’re writing one, consider these

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Tim Sanders/www.timonline.info

Fame – who’s gonna live for ever?

rules I set out some years ago (in relation to business books, but they are widely applicable): • Simplicity: The book should have a key concept/ process/tool that solves all problems, supported by plenty of memorable anecdotes, vignettes and stories.

• Changeability: Stress that human behaviour is (relatively easily) changeable, if (and only if) your magic pill is swallowed.

• The individual is the key: You must be psychological (not sociological) in your focus on people, underplaying organisational, economic and political factors that self-evidently shape our world. Pretend that you change everything by changing individuals, by making them more emotionally intelligent, engaged or agile.

• Control: There may be a lot of talk about autonomy, empowerment and the like, but it is the agenda of the managerial and ruling elite that is all-powerful.

• List of steps and principles: Provide a road map, a paint-by-numbers approach, a flowchart which becomes the title of each chapter.

• Universality: No multicultural or diversity stuff in a bestseller – the idea is that the secret formula works everywhere for all groups and for all time. After all, you want world sales.

• Short-termism: The book must claim or demonstrate some short-term payoff or benefit (‘quick win’). Think diet books.

• Success stories: Provide lists of happy customers… can be your friends or clients, or just ‘made up’ folksy tales of people who followed your advice and went from darkness into light; poverty to wealth; gloom to unbridled happiness.

• Self-confirmation: The book must not be counterintuitive. Self-confirming approaches endorsing prior ideas and beliefs are essential. Here is the rub: the book should not have radically new ideas. Best repackage common sense but using the metaphors and catchphrases of the day.

• Unitary perspective: Stress that all stakeholders have ultimately shared goals and mutual benefits from applying your brilliant and deceptively simple ideas.

13/03/2017 10:25

the psychologist april 2017 letters

Playing the Trump card If you’re ever waiting at an airport, see how many authors have followed this formula. But do you really hanker after airport bookshop fame? The more mature debate has moved on to recognition and legacy (Simonton, 2016; Sternberg, 2016), but perhaps this too falls short. Are we too obsessed by measuring ‘scientific’ merit rather than rewarding work that leads to the wider betterment of people?

Last month in these pages, Robert Sternberg spoke of ‘impact’, which the British government regulators define as consequences for the service of society. We all have to supply ‘data’ that fulfils that criterion, but that is very difficult to measure. Criteria tend to divide into three types of data: Observation, being the ratings of others (awards, references); Output (quality and quantity of papers); and Income.

I am deeply suspicious of awards, having seen ‘close up’ how cabalistic, nasty and petty academics are.

I am also unhappy about grants, as these are too often determined by fad and fashion. (A colleague suggested a measure called ‘taxpayer value-for-money’. One’s citation index is multiplied by 1000 and divided by grant money income. Why does it take Professor X nearly 10 times as money to achieve what Dr Y has done?) So perhaps the criteria that are least open to ‘distortion’ and ‘personal manipulation’ are citations, though those too have their detractors. Hurrah for the simple h or versions of it?

Perhaps all are inevitably imperfect measures, so I am left to conclude only with advice based on personal experience. If you want success, citations, recognition, perhaps even fame and a lasting legacy: • Get into a new area early.

• Devise and validate a good psychometric test (of any sort).

• Do a few good meta-analyses and/or systematic reviews (and update them), making sure they cover all the papers for a set period.

• Get hold of a large longitudinal population sample to look at causal effects over time. Make sure the population is followed: this may take serious resources but literally 1000s of papers can result.

• Read the historical literature for inspiration and cautionary tales. Don’t chase fads, because by the time you get into this crowded space it will probably be too late. Inspiration comes from wide reading and curiosity.

We know from the Just World literature that the rain falls on the just and the unjust alike. Some people deserve their recognition and fame. Others do not. The best you can do is have original ideas or theories; devise novel and robust measures; take stock of the literature; and help other people.

Adrian Furnham University College London

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mental health, a more caring attitude I was disturbed by the short is required. Is President Trump not news item in the March issue of allowed to have such conditions The Psychologist about experts because it would somehow devalue speculating on the mental health of the status of those who have been Donald Trump. The Psychologist is more properly and professionally straying dangerously close to tabloid diagnosed? Is everyone else with tactics here: seemingly reproaching a mental health problem beyond an individual or group for some reproach? wrongdoing as a backdoor means In a science-based discipline, of publishing the very allegations it it is acceptable to raise debate purports to condemn. In this case, but not by resorting to emotive US psychologists, psychiatrists and and inflammatory language. The psychotherapists have knowingly Psychologist should not be used behaved unethically. 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'playf nt source material referred is apparently live in a ‘post-truth’ age e swer a little and u g l fictio n A se ing prone n' of ise and en comp cond gro to black joy th rehen up sh Christ h e for u ow si mour. on an available for anyone to discover but we should, first, be worried about ia d the ed moder Diges n Jarrett at lowes t fo t sick e To re www.bps. r the Res ad th org.u but the implications of that and, secondly, themselves, e Psychologist k/dig earch tinyu The es rl.com full journ al arti t /gmr3 cle se hao e should, I feel, be more circumspect maintain our scientific integrity. about relaying it without some The article further quotes considered comment about the Professor Kinderman, in amongst breaches of professional conduct that some politically loaded phrases as are the core of the article. Publishing follows: ‘We should not smear those such material in this raw form, I feel, of us struggling with psychological devalues our Society, profession and problems by association with people The Psychologist as a publication. of the calibre of Donald Trump.’

Bill Gall Surely if we have any genuine Liverpool concerns about the (US) President’s er

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What’s the cure for an academic epidemic?

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position paper that outlined five ‘diseases’ prevalent in scientific publishing has been catching the attention of scores of academics. John Antonakis, a psychologist by training, writing as new editor of The Leadership Quarterly, succinctly outlined the problems with academic publishing, often discussed within psychology, and what can be done by publishers to combat these.

The problems in academic publishing can’t be wished away; and while it’s often said that science is self-correcting, Antonakis argued this won’t be the case if publishers aren’t properly managing the process of publication. He added: ‘For whatever reasons, including failure to robustly replicate research, there are simply too many findings that become “received doctrines”… or “unchallenged fallacies”.’

The very system of academic publishing is causing issues; where academics aim for the highest-impact journals, which in turn tend towards publishing novel, sparkling and significant findings (particularly in psychology), the most robust or policy-relevant findings aren’t necessarily seeing the light of day. Antonakis wrote that although he can’t give a definitive diagnosis of the broader issues in academic publishing, a likely explanation is to do with the conditions and incentives in place to reward success in the production of research.

Antonakis outlined the five ‘diseases’ that are stifling the publication of useful research: significosis, neophilia,

theorrhea, arigorium and disjunctivitis. The first refers to the tendency for statistically significant research to be published over that with non-significant results; the second is a propensity for novel or innovative research to be published often ignoring null results or replications.

Theorrhea, Antonakis described as a ‘mania for new theory’; arigorium refers to a lack of rigour in theoretical and empirical work; and disjunctivitis is the propensity to produce high volumes of ‘redundant, trivial and incoherent works’.

These problems are probably familiar to many in the academic world, particularly within the social sciences, and questions about the best approach to tackle them have been tossed back and forth for years. Antonakis makes a number of recommendations to change this status quo, changing publication incentive structures and our ways of thinking about what makes a useful contribution to a given field. Indeed, as editor of The Leadership Quarterly Antonakis will now accept a broader range of articles, including replication and null-results studies, and registered reports, where researchers log their experimental methods and hypotheses with journals prior to carrying out the research. er To read Antonakis’ full paper, ‘On doing better science: From thrill of discovery to policy implications’, see tinyurl.com/jk6scek

10/03/2017 14:57

the psychologist april 2017 news

‘If it’s my theory, it must be true’ If you look at the research literature on self-serving biases, it’s little surprise that critical thinking – much needed in today’s world – is such a challenge. Consider three human biases that you may already have heard of: most of us think we’re better than average at most things (also known as illusory superiority or the Lake Wobegon effect); we’re also prone to ‘confirmation bias’, which is favouring evidence that supports our existing views; and we’re also susceptible to the ‘endowment effect’, which describes the extra value we place on things, just as soon as they are ours.

A new paper in the Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology

by Aiden Gregg and his colleagues at the University of Southampton documents a new bias that combines elements of these three. Gregg’s team have shown that simply asking participants to imagine that a theory is their own biases them to believe in the truth of that theory – a phenomenon the researchers have called the Spontaneous Preference for Own Theories (SPOT) effect.

Across three studies, the researchers asked hundreds of participants to imagine a fictional planet in a distant solar system, inhabited by various creatures some of which are predators and others prey. Focusing on two of the creatures on the planet – Niffites and Luppites – the participants were either told to imagine that they (that is, the participant himself or herself) had a theory that the Niffites were the predators and the Luppites were their prey, or that somebody called Alex had this theory. This background scenario was chosen to be neutral and unconnected to existing beliefs, and the hypothetical ‘ownership’ of the theory by some of the participants was intended to be as superficial and inconsequential as possible.

Next, the researchers presented the participants with a series of seven facts relevant to the theory. The first few were mildly supportive of the theory (e.g. Niffites are bigger), but

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the last few provided strong evidence against (e.g. Luppites have been observed eating the dead bodies of Niffites). After each piece of evidence, the participants were asked to rate how likely it was that the theory was true or not.

The way the participants interpreted the theory in the light of the evidence was influenced by the simple fact of whether they had been asked to imagine the theory was theirs or someone else’s. When it was their own theory, they more stubbornly persisted in believing in its truth, even in the face of increasing counter-evidence.

This spontaneous bias toward one’s own theory was found across the studies: when different names were used for the creatures (Dassites and Fommites); whether testing happened online or in groups in a lecture room; regardless of age and gender; and also when an additional control condition stated that the theory was no one’s in particular, as opposed to being Alex’s. The last detail helps clarify that the bias

is in favour of one’s own theory rather than against someone else’s.

Surprisingly perhaps, the bias wasn’t found to be stronger in participants who scored higher for other forms of self-serving bias such as narcissism or claiming to be familiar with nonexistent words.

The size of the bias participants showed toward their ‘own’ theory was modest, so the practical implications are probably limited (though the basic principle – that we’re biased towards our own theories – seems relevant to understanding our supposed ‘post-truth’ world). Gregg and his colleagues said the theoretical implications were more important.

The fact it was so easy to induce this bias in the participants, even based on such minimal personal connection to the theory, ‘only underlines how exquisitely sensitive to selfenhancing biases the human mind actually is’, they said.

Dr Christian Jarrett for the Research Digest www.bps.org.uk/digest Read the article: tinyurl.com/gpnpnal

Research news Research into psychotherapy has a problem with undeclared bias, according to a review of the field. Few journals ask researchers to state whether they have an allegiance to a particular approach to therapy, and even when they do, such admissions are rarely forthcoming. BMJ Open To renew your faith in human nature, the research on altruism in toddlers is a great place to look. A new study suggests that two-year-olds find helping others as rewarding as helping themselves, as judged by recording signs of pleasure in their face and body language. Developmental Psychology Where do teenagers pick up a negative attitude towards immigrants?

A longitudinal study suggests their parents’ own prejudices may have a particularly lasting influence, more so than their friends. But crucially, having immigrant friends seemed to act as a buffer against being raised in a prejudiced household. British Journal of Psychology In today’s media climate, critical thinking skills are so important. Perhaps it’s time our textbooks led by example. A new survey of abnormal psychology texts found that half featured the highly flawed Rosenhan classic ‘On being sane in insane places’ but rarely included any criticism or alternative interpretation.

Teaching of Psychology These studies were covered, along with many more, by Dr Christian Jarrett and Dr Alex Fradera on our Research Digest at www.bps.org.uk/digest

10/03/2017 14:57

Call to end benefits sanctions The government should suspend its benefit sanctions system as it fails to get people back to work and damages their mental health, according to five leading UK psychological therapy bodies. They highlight evidence that sanctions, or the threat of sanctions (benefit cuts following a claimant’s failure to comply with jobcentre conditions, e.g. missing an appointment with their work coach) can result in destitution, hardship, widespread anxiety and feelings of disempowerment.

The call came in a joint response to the government’s consultation, ‘Improving Lives’, from the British Psychological Society, the British Association of Counselling and Psychotherapy, the British Psychoanalytic Council, the British Association for Behavioural and Cognitive Psychotherapies and the UK Council for Psychotherapy.

Findings from the National Audit Office show that there is limited evidence the sanctions system actually works, or is cost-effective. The bodies argue that the government needs to change focus from trying to make unemployment less attractive, to trying to make employment more attractive.

BPS President Professor Peter Kinderman said: ‘We call for the benefits sanctions regime to be suspended until the completion of an independent review of their impact on people’s mental health and wellbeing.

While there is evidence that the sanctions process is undermining mental health and wellbeing, there is no clear evidence that it leads to increased employment.

Vulnerable people with specific multiple and complex needs are being disproportionately affected by the increased use of sanctions.’

In order to improve mental health, the response also called for: • jobcentres to care about the quality of work they provide – citing evidence that bad jobs can be more damaging to mental health than unemployment; • the development of statutory support for creating psychologically healthy workplaces; • increased mental health awareness training for jobcentre staff; and • review and reform of the work capability assessment (WCA), which may be psychologically damaging and lacks clear evidence of reliability or effectiveness.

Technological innovation and health

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We’re currently living through a healthcare revolution, with more and more innovative technology and apps being used across numerous conditions. The work of psychologists, and many others, in this field have been honoured in the shortlist of this year’s AXA PPP Health Tech and You Awards across six categories.

An app developed by clinical psychologist Dr Nihara Krause has been shortlisted in the AXA PPP Health Tech & You Challenge category.

The Calm Harm app is aimed at children and young people by giving them tasks to help them combat self-harm urges through selfcontrol, care for themselves rather than harm, express their feelings in a different way or provide ideas for alternatives to self-injury. Users can also add their own tasks, and the app is entirely private and passwordprotected.

The shortlist for the Trending Award included MyAsthma, an app that helps people to understand their condition, its triggers and treatment. Another shortlisted entry, Kardia Mobile, is a device that can be attached to a smartphone and is smaller than a credit card, which allows people to check their heart rhythm regularly – particularly useful for people with arrhythmia or other heart problems.

The Future Award recognises products, services, systems or devices that address future health challenges. This year’s shortlist included some truly futuristic health technology, Sensewear: clothes and accessories that aim to stimulate and improve awareness of the senses, while training people to better use them all. Some Sensewear items are designed to mute physical sensations, some to sharpen them.

This technology has been inspired by therapies applied to sensoryprocessing disorders and developed with the help of therapists who work with people affected by autism.

In the Health Tech & Age Award,

aimed at technology to help people post-retirement, was Memrica Prompt, a platform that helps people who are anxious about forgetting people and places, by linking photos, videos and shared histories to reminders to help users prepare for each day. The system also delivers a summary of each day to embed recall, learns users’ patterns of behaviour and can begin to predict what information will be needed, delivering it when required without having to set a reminder.

Finally, the Wow! Award includes pieces of technology entered into other categories that the judges saw to be truly ‘standout and disruptive’ innovations that will get everyone talking. This year included HealthUnlocked, the largest social network for health in the world, which includes hundreds of online support communities and patient advocacy groups and charities to help people with certain health conditions find support and expertise. This year’s winners will be announced at a ceremony in London’s Design Museum on April 27. er

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the psychologist april 2017 news

‘Clear basis for change’ on social justice There has been an increasing groundswell of social justice movements within psychology in recent years, as well as more focus on diversity and inclusivity. Recently, British Psychological Society members audited the current state of social justice work among its Member Networks.

The Society’s Strategic Plan explicitly reflects that social justice, inclusivity and diversity is integral to the work of members. It is notable, then, that in its 116year history only 13 of the 95 BPS Presidents have been women, not including current President Elect Nicola Gale. Whilst there are currently 645 Fellows only 148 are women. In terms of race and disability the membership does not adequately reflect either the wider national demographic or that of the service user groups that many psychologists work with.

In June 2014, in recognition of the importance of social justice, inclusion and diversity, the Society’s Board of Trustees asked the Membership and Standards Board to explore this further. A task-and-finish group was created to consider how to promote social justice and inclusion values, and enhance communication and influence in this area. Led by the chair of the Ethics Committee, Professor Kate Bullen, and with representation from the Society’s Divisions, the group sought to assess and understand how social justice is incorporated into the work of Society members.

The agreed starting point was a baseline assessment of social justice activity within the BPS. This, in turn, inspired a group audit project developed and carried out by participants of the BPS Leadership Development Programme, Tasim Martin-Berg, Neha Malhotra and Simon Toms. A questionnaire of six open-ended questions was developed and sent to 39 BPS Member Networks (Divisions, Sections, etc.) of whom 23 responded. After a thematic analysis eight themes emerged: policy, broad aims, specific activities, motivation and rationale for activity, obstacles, success, awareness of other groups, and perceptions of the audit.

The most notable finding in relation to policy was that two thirds of Member Networks did not possess their own specific policies; rather, participants frequently discussed how overarching BPS policy and values were often applied to various ‘network-specific’ aims around social justice, inclusivity and diversity. Many specific activities were also reported in the audit, often conducted within or between Member Networks. Some examples included members’ efforts to raise awareness through dialogue and social media campaigns, public engagement, development of an inclusivity strategy, through consultancy work with the government and commissioners. However, the audit also recorded a number of Member Networks are not currently engaged in social justice work specifically.

What motivated social justice work? The audit found values, principles and professional purpose as core motivational factors and a desire to address and improve knowledge, participation, and awareness also came up frequently. Work was often in alignment with the

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specific area of focus of the member network. One of the networks said in its response: ‘The motivation [for social justice work] is built into our professional purpose.’

The audit also revealed obstacles, with participants pointing to limited time and resources, BPS bureaucracy, a lack of member or societal awareness, and differences in priorities perceived as standing between individuals and social justice work. Respondents were also asked to describe the successes, impact and future aims of their social justice, equality, diversity and inclusion work.

A positive message emerged: broadly speaking Member Networks saw such work as a successful and something to expand and build upon in the future.

The team said the audit provided a basis for further exploration into social justice, equality, diversity and inclusion work. They also suggest the development of an Inclusivity Officer position within the Society, to address obstacles outlined in the audit and investigate how social justice is supported in training. Simon Toms told us: ‘This audit provides clear and up-to-date evidence of social justice work within the Society as well as examples of good practice. At the same time it confirms the absence of work and explicit policies in this area for certain Member Networks, which is just as valid to acknowledge.

There is a great deal to celebrate and build on, and there is a clear basis for change within the Society.’

The project team will present a summary of the audit at the BPS Annual Conference in Brighton on Thursday 4 May, alongside the Social Justice Task Force. er

‘A complex, difficult, and crucial journey’ Representatives from the British Psychological Society were among leading organisations who met with the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Prescribed Drug Dependence recently. The organisations, which also included members of the UK Council for Psychotherapy and the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy, agreed to create professional guidance for their members when working with clients who are taking, or withdrawing from, psychiatric medications.

The organisations discussed the lack of awareness among both clients and practitioners of the harms and benefits of psychiatric drug use, particularly over the long term. There is also the impact of medication on the therapy itself, and lack of awareness on how best to support a client wishing to withdraw from their medication.

President of the British Psychological Society, Peter Kinderman, said that the BPS was well aware of the harm inappropriate medication could cause. He added: ‘There’s an urgent need to ensure that people are afforded clear, practical and evidence-based guidance when the decision is made to withdraw from prescribed psychiatric medication.

This is a complex, difficult, and crucial journey and it is unacceptable to watch from the sidelines whilst people attempt to navigate it.’

Kinderman said that therapists should be enabled to give the most appropriate support with each individual client. He added: ‘I am sure that this initiative will prove to be a significant help for the many thousands of people.’ er

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Are women becoming less stereotypically ‘feminine’ and more dominant?

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True gender equality may be a work in progress, but since the Women’s Liberation Movement beginning in the 1950s and 60s, there has been a lot of positive change, at least in most industrialised nations: a shift towards women having more control over whether and when to have children, for example, increased opportunities in education and careers, and less tolerance of sexism (though of course it hasn’t gone away). How might these cultural and social changes have influenced women, in terms of how much they act in stereotypically ‘feminine’ ways?

A new study by Constance Jones and her colleagues at California State and San Francisco State Universities and published in the Journal of Adult Development tried to find out by comparing two cohorts of women, one born in the 1920s and the other featuring ‘Baby Boomers’ born in the 1950s. The findings support past work that has shown how women tend to change through their lives, and they provide evidence for a generation effect: over time, at least in California, women seem to be becoming less stereotypically feminine – that is, less deferential, and more confident and ambitious.

The 180 women born in the 1920s took the same California Psychological Inventory five times over as many decades, beginning when they were in their 30s and through into their 80s.

The researchers were particularly interested in how they scored on the 32 items of the Inventory that measure femininity defined ‘as being gentle and warm, but also being dependent, and needing reassurance from others’, and how they scored on the 36 items measuring dominance, defined as ‘being confident, ambitious, assertive, and enterprising’.

Meanwhile, 190 women born in the 1950s (actually daughters of the older participants) answered the same questions about their own femininity and dominance, first in the 1980s when they were in their 30s, then twice more in their 40s and 50s/60s (taking us up to 2006).

Jones and her team found evidence of lifespan

changes in both cohorts. Women in both groups tended to become less stereotypically feminine as they got older (with some return to more femininity later in life) and both groups showed signs of greater dominance with increasing age. Statistically speaking, the magnitude of change was modest in effect size. ‘[The] women appeared to drop constraining negative aspects of the feminine gender role and take on positive cross-gendered qualities with age,’ the researchers said.

Comparing across the two cohorts, the women born in the second half of the 20th century scored lower on femininity when they first completed the inventory in their 30s as compared with the femininity scores of the women born in the 1920s when they were the same age (a modest group difference in terms of effect size). ‘Most likely reacting to the Women’s Movement zeitgeist, [the younger cohort] entered young adulthood with less obligation to take on feminine gender constraints in the first place,’ the researchers said.

Moreover, the rate of increase in dominance shown by the second generation women through their lives was more rapid than that shown by their mothers. Because of this difference in speed of change, the researchers said ‘we can expect the younger cohort women to be higher than the older cohort women in dominance when they reach later adulthood’.

It would be fascinating to see if and how these trends have continued in Generation X and Millennials. If you reflect on your own family – for example, how you or your sisters compare in femininity and dominance (as defined in this study) with your mother – bear in mind the implications of the parallel changes in these traits through lives and across generations. A young woman today might not seem a lot more dominant and less feminine than her mother is today, but that might be because of the way her mother has changed through her life. The chances are that the young woman is more dominant and less feminine than her mother was at the same age.

The study has some issues, including a reliance on how participants rated themselves and missing data from some of the survey points, which meant the researchers sometimes had to extrapolate from the scores they did have. Also both cohort samples were fairly small, and perhaps the observed generational changes are unique to the Bay Area of California. That said, Jones and her team pointed out that it was ‘rare to be able to examine personality change across such as expansive portion of the lifespan (age 20s through the 80s) and to be able to tie two historically important cohorts together.’

Christian Jarrett for the Research Digest www.bps.org.uk/digest To read the full journal article see tinyurl.com/jd2vzyr

10/03/2017 14:57

the psychologist april 2017 news

Two lifetimes of achievement The BPS Professional Practice Board has announced two Lifetime Achievement awards for 2017.

Narinder Kapur is Visiting Professor of Neuropsychology at University College London and Honorary Consultant Neuropsychologist at Imperial College NHS Trust. He is a past President and a founder member of the British Neuropsychological Society and has published articles in a wide range of fields including neuropsychology, patient safety, NHS management, unconscious bias and clinical excellence. He has written or edited four books in the field of neuropsychology, including the award-winning The Paradoxical Brain. One of the first researchers to document the condition known as transient epileptic amnesia, a term that he coined, he also played a pioneering role in documenting the neuropsychological profile associated with variant Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease.

Kapur said: ‘I am honoured and delighted at the recognition given to me by my peers in the British Psychological Society. I acknowledge with deep gratitude those who have helped and supported me during my career, including those I worked with during my training in Belfast and Boston, former colleagues at the Wessex Neurological Centre in Southampton, former colleagues at Addenbrooke’s and in Cambridge research labs, and especially my current colleagues at University College London.’

He said the award would encourage him to continue his current work, which includes supporting the development of neuropsychology services in India and applying psychological principles to improve patient safety and NHS management. [Look out for more from Professor Kapur on this in next month’s edition.]

Tom McMillan, Professor of Clinical Neuropsychology at the

University of Glasgow, works as a consultant adviser for brain injury rehabilitation for NHS Greater Glasgow & Clyde and was the first Professor of Clinical Neuropsychology in the UK – at the University of Surrey – and founded what is now the Society’s Division of Neuropsychology. Over a 35-year career Tom McMillan has engaged in clinical and research work in head injury and neurorehabilitation and has almost 200 publications.

He has received lifetime achievement awards from the Division of Neuropsychology and the International Neuropsychology Society. He has particular interests in the interplay between brain injury, psychological consequences and lifestyle in determining late outcome and in the development of evidencebased interventions. McMillan said working with people with brain injury and their families over the past four decades had been a ‘tremendous privilege’. er

Narinder Kapur

Tom McMillan

Virtual learning for autistic children The Blue Room, a unique immersive virtual reality that helps children with autism overcome their fears and phobias, is now being offered on the NHS. Research on the treatment, published in PLOS One, revealed eight out of nine children treated with this technique were able to tackle the situation they feared and some were found to have completely overcome their phobias, even a year later.

Developed by researchers at Newcastle University and Third Eye Technologies, the room can be used to create personalised scenarios. Accompanied by a psychologist, a child is completely surrounded by audio-visual images representing the ‘real world’ in the 360-degree seamless screened room with no point of external reference. This means they do not have to wear a headset or goggles, which children with autism can find distressing.

They move around the scene using iPad controls, allowing them to fully interact with and navigate through the environment. Scenarios tested already include getting on a busy bus, crossing a bridge, going shopping or talking to an avatar shop assistant. Supported by a psychologist, they are given breathing and relaxation exercises in the controllable and safe virtual environment to help them to learn to cope with that situation. They are observed by their parents via a video-link, which enables them to watch the techniques used to help their child.

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Now the treatment is available as an NHS service, where there is funding by the children’s Clinical Commissioning Group, and each child referred will receive four sessions at the facility in County Durham. The flexibility of the Blue Room means scenes can gradually build in complexity and noise level, allowing a graded exposure and control that can’t be achieved in real life.

Dr Jeremy Parr is a Clinical Senior Lecturer specialising in Paediatric Neurodisability at Newcastle University and works within the Northumberland, Tyne and Wear NHS Foundation Trust, which is providing the service. He said: ‘Situation-specific anxieties, fears and phobias can completely stop a child with autism taking part in normal family or school life, and there are very few treatment options for them. Currently, the main treatment is cognitive behaviour therapy but that often doesn’t work for a child with autism as it relies on their imagination.

People with autism can find imagining a scene difficult, so by providing it physically in front of the child’s eyes we can sit alongside them and help them learn how to manage their fears.’

A larger-scale clinical study is being carried out to examine the long-term effectiveness. er To find out more, see tinyurl.com/ze7twb8

10/03/2017 14:57

‘The minute you can talk about it is when you can do something to help’

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Ella Rhodes reports from The Suicide Prevention: New Frontiers conference held in Penrith aimed at helping healthcare staff on the front line understand the latest research into suicide prevention.

Suicide is a catastrophic event for the people who die in this way, and the scores of people who knew and loved that person. At a conference organised by the Health Science Network North East and North Cumbria, researchers explored whether we’re getting any better at predicting who will go on to die by suicide and whether prevention is possible.

Professor Rory O’Connor, who leads the University of Glasgow’s Suicidal Behaviour Research Lab, spoke about the myriad genetic, psychological, socio-economic and biological risk factors for a person dying by suicide.

The picture is deeply complex, and researchers are still mystified by what makes a person go from thinking about suicide to taking their own life. Although suicide is more commonly seen in those who experience persistent negative life experiences and deprivation, and in those who are more impulsive and have little hope or positivity when thinking about the future, our actual ability to predict who will go on to die by suicide is around chance levels. As O’Connor pointed out, suicidal thoughts and behaviour can affect anyone.

Given this complex picture, O’Connor developed a three-part model to be used clinically – the Integrated Motivational-Volitional Model (IMV). Part one describes the background upon which suicidality may emerge – this could be biological or personality vulnerabilities.

A person’s environment is also key. Part two describes the motivational phase, which co-exists with feelings of humiliation and defeat along with thoughts of suicide.

In this phase it’s also important to consider a person’s feelings about their past and future and how they might ruminate. The third, volitional, phase describes the transition from thoughts of suicide to attempts. O’Connor said if a person has the means, or is impulsive, or has had a family member who has died by suicide, they will be more likely to act on those thoughts.

Professor Ellen Townsend (University of Nottingham) said understanding self-harming behaviours is a key part of suicide prevention. Data from the National Confidential Inquiry into Suicide and Homicide revealed around 50 per cent of young people who die by suicide have previously self-harmed.

There’s a complex mix of reasons and triggers, thoughts, emotions and circumstances under which people go on to self-harm, but this complexity presents us with countless opportunities to intervene, Townsend said. Dealing with this complexity from a research

perspective, however, presents a particular challenge.

While research has looked into the effects of many factors, including self-esteem and attachment, much of the data isn’t longitudinal and can’t reveal much about causality. It seems likely that multiple factors can build and fluctuate over time, and Townsend wanted to looked more deeply into this through the development of a CardSort Task for Self-Harm (CaTS). Participants were asked to look through 117 cards which state certain thoughts, feelings, events and behaviours, and sort these over a timeline covering before, during and after their first and most recent episode of self-harm. Young people who had experience of self-harm were consulted in order to develop the content of these cards, and there were also blank cards for participants to write on and add to the experimental set.

After participants (aged between 13 and 21, half of whom had experience of being looked after), carried out the task, Townsend and her colleagues analysed the sequences of thoughts, behaviours and events that can lead people to self-harm. Some of the most commonly selected cards said: ‘I felt depressed and sad’, ‘I couldn’t speak to anyone’, ‘I hated myself’, ‘I isolated myself from others’, ‘I felt worthless’, and ‘I felt like a burden’. Some of these didn’t change over time, between the first episode of self-harm to the most recent.

Impulsivity and having the means available, both predicted a transition from self-harming thoughts to actual self-harming. After the first-ever episode of selfharm people reported feeling better afterwards. However, when looking at the most recent episode, self-hatred emerged as an important factor. The ‘feeling better’ that many experienced after their first episode had subsided, and thoughts of wanting to die had become more prevalent. Townsend said this holds huge implications for practice: even if someone doesn’t have suicidal intent during their first self-harming episode, this should be monitored over time. CaTS, she added, could help start difficult conversations with young people in clinical settings, and be used to track a person’s thoughts and feelings over time.

Townsend also explained that the evidence base for self-harm protection is sparse: only 11 studies worldwide have investigated self-harm prevention in young people, and many of these are under-powered. Distressingly, a survey of looked-after young people asked them to rate a number of services in terms of how useful they were

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the psychologist april 2017 news

Professor Rory O’Connor and Dr Olivia Kirtley at a panel discussion at the end of the conference in reducing self-harm and distress. The lowest rated items were largely services such as GPs, counselling, self-help books and psychiatrists – the young people just didn’t find them helpful. So there is much to be done, but Townsend is now trying to develop CaTS for collaborative assessment and hopes to use it eventually as an intervention to prevent self-harm.

Postdoctoral Researcher Dr Olivia Kirtley (University of Ghent) began with some frightening statistics: more than 804,000 people worldwide die by suicide each year.

Each one of those suicides is estimated to affect 115 other people, and this exposure by itself can make a person more likely to go on and also die by suicide. It remains difficult to explain why some people act upon suicidal thoughts and others don’t. We know, Kirtley said, that people who die by suicide are more impulsive, but exposure to the suicide of others, or social modelling, is another very important factor. In her own research Kirtley found that exposure to the self-harm of others is more strongly correlated with self-harm than impulsivity is. Kirtley suggested that while you share similar backgrounds or values with friends and family members who may have harmed themselves, it also might create a norm for individuals or ‘legitimise’ suicide or self-harm.

It’s important to understand that while there are well-known mechanisms that lead to self-harm, such as relieving emotional pain, feeling worthless or wanting to escape, reading about it or seeing it in the media can also be a mechanism. Kirtley suggested that promoting positive messages about recovery when a person is in distress could counter the effects of this exposure.

Socially modelling better solutions than self-harm could also have a real impact.

Dr Alys Cole-King, a Consultant Liaison Psychiatrist and Clinical Director of Connecting with People, which provides training and awareness about self-harm and suicide, emphasised the desperate need for dismantling stigma around suicide and having those difficult conversations. She referred to stigma as a ‘life-limiting condition’ as it makes people feel unable to speak up.

She said although healthcare professionals are sometimes thought of as uncaring for not openly talking about suicide or suicidal thoughts with clients and patients, the real problem is people are unsure of how

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to have those conversations and are fearful of doing something wrong or being blamed. The not-for-profit group Connecting with People provides training in having those conversations and what to do if someone comes to you with thoughts of suicide.

Cole-King said there were inherent problems with identifying people as at high or low risk of suicide: while low-risk patients may get a referral to their GP at most, many very high-risk patients are sometimes even excluded from certain services. She argued that identifying and characterising risk shouldn’t be seen as the most important thing, but that it is the diligent identification of risk factors, needs, protective factors, assets and intervention that is important in improving practice. We should also think about awareness, compassion and eradicating stigma. A small amount of compassion may help a struggling person to hold on, even if only by a thread. She also emphasised the importance of self-care among practitioners: ‘The best resource the NHS has is us, the tool by which people’s lives are saved… do we really look after ourselves as we should?’

Cole-King also presented a comprehensive idea for a safety plan, co-produced by the person in distress to help them build up their cognitive, emotional and social strategies. It is a list of things they can do for themselves and people to contact on their next episode of feeling suicidal, or if they feel the need to self-harm. The list includes identifying reasons for living, how to make their homes safer (by getting rid of access to means), things that can lift the mood and distract them, as well as friends, family, community support, third sector and local support services for easy access during a difficult period. She and other experts in the field have created the SAFETool Triage, a short assessment and safety plan to be used within GP surgeries, which could easily fit into a 10-minute consultation. Cole-King even suggested that everyone could use a safety plan such as this, as suicidal thoughts and feelings can affect anyone. A sample of GPs who have used this short-version plan have said it’s useful and so far has led to fewer referrals to crisis teams – although this work is in the early stages.

Cole-King ended a very hopeful talk on an appropriate note: ‘Suicide isn’t an inevitable outcome of suicidal thoughts. You can save someone’s life until the final moment. The minute you can talk about it is when you can do something to help a person.’

If you need support with any of the issues described in this article contact Samaritans on 116 123 or email jo@samaritans.org News online: Find more news online, including: an exclusive comment and extract from Wellcome Book Prize nominated author Jo Marchant; previews of the Edinburgh Science Festival and Dying Matters awareness week; a report from a conference on ‘Mental health in Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Queer Communities: Building resilience’, part of De Montfort University Pride month; our ‘find the missing psychologists’ campaign; and more.

See www.thepsychologist.bps.org.uk/reports.

Do you have a potential news story? Email us on psychologist@bps.org.uk or tweet @psychmag.

10/03/2017 14:57

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13/03/2017 11:16

Five depictions of the brain Andrew P. Wickens (a winner of the Society’s Book Award) considers their historical significance The history of neuroscience is rarely taught in universities, and few books trace developments from the ancient past to the present. Here, I present five of my favourite illustrations from my book, A History of the Brain, and consider their importance for contemporary understanding.

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T

he first illustrations of the human brain are believed to have been drawn in Alexandria around 300bc, the only place in which anatomical dissection of corpses was allowed between Antiquity and the early European Renaissance. This practice appears to have been sanctioned by Ptolemy, a possible half-brother to Alexander the Great, who declared himself king of Egypt in 323bc. Although it helped advance medical knowledge, the practice of human dissection only lasted for a short period of time, perhaps no more than 20 or 30 years. One researcher taking advantage of this situation was Herophilus.

He noticed the body contained thread-like pathways, which he recognised as the nervous system, possibly the single most profound insight into the workings of the body made by any individual. He also elucidated the internal anatomy of the human brain, including its ventricular system. Another renowned anatomist in Alexandria was Erasistratus, who compared the surface of the cerebral hemispheres with the coils of the small intestine. Believing these to be more extensive in humans than in animals, Erasistratus reasoned (according to the later writings of Galen) that they correlated with intelligence. Both men are known to have written several books, presumably on papyrus using reed pens, although only small extracts have survived.

It would be surprising if neither Herophilus nor Erasistratus drew what they had observed, although no such drawings exist or are referenced in ancient texts.

Nonetheless, a group of drawings known as the ‘five figure series’, believed to be copied from a much earlier source, are found in a number of Eastern and Western medical manuscripts. According to the medical historian Karl Sudhoff, the originals were composed in Alexandria. If he is correct, it is possible one of the

Figure 1.

One of five drawings found in a number of Eastern and Western medical manuscripts which are believed to be derived from a much earlier source – possibly Alexandrian circa 300bc.

This example is believed to have been copied from another illustration in Salerno around 1250. The insert shows a depiction of the brain.

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From Sudhoff 1908, plate 2. With permission from University of Basel (Basel University Library, Sign D II, fol 170)

the psychologist april 2017 looking back

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five figures showing the body’s venous system presents us with the earliest depiction of the brain. This can be seen in Figure 1, which was copied onto parchment in Salerno around 1250. The sketch shows two vessels entering the brain, identifiable by the wrinkled outer surface of its cortex. The text accompanying the drawing also attributes the brain with imaginativa, logistica and memoria, thereby showing knowledge of a medieval doctrine known as the cell doctrine. In this, each ventricle of the brain was attributed with a mental function. It is assumed the text was added at a later date than the original drawing.

The depictions portrayed in the five figure series can hardly be said to be realistic or aesthetically pleasing since all have an odd, splayed posture with no sense of depth. Much later in the 15th century, however, a new understanding of perspective allowed greater realism, initiating a revolution in art. This was one of the key developments of the Renaissance, and it led some artists to take a new interest in the human form. Arguably, the greatest was Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519), who was even famous in his own lifetime for paintings such as the Mona Lisa.

Leonardo’s talents took in many other disciplines, including engineering, mathematics and mechanics, and his fertile imagination contemplated subjects far ahead of their time, including armoured vehicles, parachutes and flying machines. But the artistic pursuit that interested him the most was drawing the human body, and he took this interest to extraordinary lengths, obtaining permission as a young artist to undertake dissection of human corpses at the medical school in Milan. This began a quest lasting many years, resulting in over 700 anatomical drawings that were to remain largely secret for over 200 years. Leonardo’s obsession was not just for art’s sake: it was to reveal the design and purpose of the human body, especially its physical mechanics. This is highlighted by his extensive anatomical folios that contain detailed commentaries about his sketches. For Leonardo, drawing was to understand and, when asked about his genius, he was known to reply ‘saper vedere’, meaning to see what others don’t. This new vision also extended to the brain.

Some of Leonardo’s earliest anatomical drawings date from 1487 to 1493 and they include depictions of the head, skull and brain’s surface. They are sketched in chalk, ink and crayon. In one famous drawing, where he compares the scalp’s layers to those of an onion, Leonardo provides us with a diagrammatical representation of the ventricles, drawn as three

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Supplied by the Royal Collection Trust/© Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2016

Figure 2.

Drawings of the ventricles

by Leonardo da Vinci after he had assessed their shape from making a wax cast (circa 1508). The two lateral ventricles are labelled with the word imprensiva, the middle ventricle is designated as the sensus communis and the posterior ventricle is given the function of memoria. The bottommost drawing shows the base of the brain and the rete mirabile.

connected round cavities inside the head. The anterior cell is illustrated receiving channels from the eyes and ears, presumably representing the visual and auditory nerves. From this, it is apparent that Leonardo was acquainted with the cell doctrine, which remained the standard explanation of brain function at the time.

Another important concern of medieval psychologists was the location of the sensus communis – a term derived from Aristotle denoting the site where all the senses were believed to merge. In line with other medieval writers, such as Avicenna and Albertus Magnus, Leonardo placed this in the first cell. But Leonardo was interested in the sensus communis for another significant reason: he believed it was the place where the soul resided. Or as he put it: ‘The soul seems to reside in judgement, and the judgement would seem to be seated in the part where all the senses meet; and this is called the sensus communis’. Another drawing of the period leaves no doubt where Leonardo thought this confluence of senses lay, for he would draw the interior of the skull and place a large cross to pinpoint its location.

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Breaking the stranglehold of tradition Although the brain’s ventricles had been described in ancient times, their true intricate shape and connectivity was not fully appreciated since they were difficult to visualise once the brain was sliced open.

This was largely because there were no effective fixative methods available to enable the brain to be sufficiently hardened for serial cutting and slicing. This problem was overcome by Leonardo in his second Milanese period (1508–1513) when he made a cast model of the ventricles. He did this by injecting molten wax into the middle ventricle of an ox, after it had been prepared with two vent holes allowing the internal fluid and air to escape. Once the wax had hardened, Leonardo cut away the soft tissue to expose the cast, which modelled the shape of the ventricular system. By this method, Leonardo was able to draw, or perhaps more accurately imagine, the interior of the brain in a highly naturalistic way. An example of this is shown in Figure 2. Here, the two lateral ventricles nestling in each cerebral hemisphere are linked to a middle ventricle that feeds into the posterior ventricle. Interestingly, it is the middle ventricle that is now labelled as the sensus communis, showing Leonardo had changed his mind regarding its placement in the brain.

If any one year can be said to mark the point at which the medieval world ended and the modern one began, a strong case can be made for 1543. In this year, two books were published, within one week of each other, which helped break the stranglehold of

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Wellcome Library, London

traditional thought that had held sway in the West for several hundred years. The first was De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium (On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres) by Copernicus, a work denying the Earth lay at the centre of the universe – a truth that greatly undermined the prevailing Aristotelianism and Christian teaching. The second was De Humani Corporis Fabrica (On the Structure of the Human Body) by Andreas Vesalius (1514–1564). This ridiculed the teachings of Galen, sacrosanct at the time, and led to a thorough revision of concepts concerning the structure and function of the human body.

The son of a doctor with royal patronage, Vesalius

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was so intent on learning anatomy as a young boy that he dissected small animals caught in the fields near his home. Later, as a student, he collected human bones, some of them taken from public cemeteries, an activity enabling him to recognise any bone in the body by touch alone. His obsession with anatomy also led to a lecturer’s position at the University of Padua when only 23 – a remarkable achievement, for Padua was the greatest medical university of its day, and famed for its demonstrations of human dissection that took place in a purpose-built theatre. Vesalius soon built himself a reputation as a teacher, taking scalpel in hand rather than reading from notes, and typically using

Figure 3. Plate 68 from De Humani Corporis Fabrica (On the Structure of the Human Body) by Andreas Vesalius (1543).

The two lateral ventricles are now coming into view with the corpus callosum (L and M) more anteriorly. Most of the other letters refer to areas of grey and white matter.

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Wellcome Library, London

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Key sources Clarke, E. & Dewhurst, K. (1972). An illustrated history of brain function. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

Finger, S. (1994). Minds behind the brain.

Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Finger, S. (1994). Origins of neuroscience.

Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Herrlinger, R. (1970). History of medical illustration. Nijkerk, The Netherlands: Pitman Medical and Scientific.

McHenry, L.C. (1969). Garrison’s history of neurology. Springfield, IL: Charles C. Thompson.

Wickens, A.P. (2015). A history of the brain: From Stone Age surgery to modern neuroscience. Hove: Psychology Press.

Figure 4. Figure from Cerebri Anatome showing the base of the brain drawn by Christopher Wren.

It illustrates the circle of Willis (E), the olfactory bulbs (D), the corpora quadrigemina (Y), and the cerebellum (B).

The origin of 10 pairs of cranial nerves can also be seen.

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staunch churchman and Royalist several cadavers at the same time in during the English Civil War, Willis various states of dissection for his was appointed Sedleian Professor of demonstrations. This was a time Natural Philosophy at Oxford when when Galen’s works formed the main approaching his 40th birthday. He basis of all anatomical education would use this opportunity to study and many believed further progress the brain and nervous system. was impossible. But Vesalius began Indeed, Willis set about this task to have doubts, and in 1540, when with remarkable fervour, forming asked to translate Galen’s great work what can be regarded as the first On Anatomical Procedures, which Full list available online neuroscientific interdisciplinary had remained beyond reproach for research team, including over 1300 years, he realised with Christopher Wren, who drew many of the illustrations astonishment that Galen had never dissected a human (actually engraved on copper plate, which provided body. Instead, he had extrapolated all his anatomy from cattle, pigs and monkeys. Vesalius’ response was to write far superior detail than woodcuts); Robert Boyle who discovered new ways of preserving and hardening the De Humani Corporis Fabrica (On the Structure of the brain with alcohol; and Richard Lower, responsible for Human Body) – in which over 200 instances of Galen’s much of the dissection. Keen to use every corpse at work was shown to be in error. his disposal, Willis confessed he became ‘addicted…

The Fabrica is one of the most magnificent to the opening of heads’. Fortunately, Oxford had been collections of anatomical drawings ever produced. given Royal dispensation to claim the body of anyone Comprising over 700 folio pages with 83 anatomical executed within its boundaries, and plates made up of 420 illustrations, Willis took full advantage – often it attempts a complete study of the dissecting in the inns and houses human body. Vesalius also went to “Oxford had been given where the dead bodies lay. great lengths to employ the best Royal dispensation to artists and wood-block cutters of The result of his endeavour was claim the body of anyone a book of 150 folio pages, along his day, and this resulted in highly realistic illustrations, many of with 15 plates of illustrations, executed within its which filled a complete page. For devoted exclusively to the brain boundaries, and Willis example, the first illustration of the and nervous system, entitled took full advantage” seventh chapter shows a head with Cerebri Anatome. Written in Latin the skull’s roof removed to leave and published in 1664, the book the brain exposed to observation. abounded with so much new The brain’s gyri and sulci are realistically portrayed as information it was to be authoritative for the next two are the blood vessels and sinuses, along with the tough centuries and would pass through 23 editions. Unlike fibrous outer layer known as the dura. This type of Vesalius, Willis removed the brain from its cranium and detail had not been seen before. Another innovation used knives to cut it open – a procedure enabling him of Vesalius was to make a series of horizontal slices to use magnifying glasses to examine it in great detail. through the skull with the brain left in situ (see Figure This technique led to the discovery of a number of 3). This way of cutting the brain was effective in new brain areas, with many anglicised terms from the exposing the ventricles at different levels while also Anatome entering the English vocabulary and remaining helping to reveal the surrounding areas of grey and in use today. These include, for example, the anterior white matter. Using this method, Vesalius illustrated commissure, corpus striatum, and inferior olives. Willis several brain regions for the first time including the also used the Greek word neurolgia, which was later thalamus, striatum, colliculi and stria terminalis. translated into English as ‘neurology’ by Samuel Pordage The 17th century is generally recognised as an age in 1681, who defined it as the doctrine of the nerves. of transformation in which the intellectual landscape For many, the highlight of Cerebri Anatome is its of Britain was radically redrawn by the rise of modern depiction of the blood vessels at the base of the brain. science. It also saw the founding of the Royal Society, These had proven controversial in the past, with Galen with one of its most distinguished members being confusing them with a vascular network in oxen called the English physician Thomas Willis (1621–1675). A the rete mirabile – a mistake rectified by Vesalius.

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Wellcome Library, London

Figure 5. An illustration of the pigeon’s cerebellum using the Golgi stain drawn by Santiago y Ramon Cajal, which appeared in the first edition of his journal Revista Trimestral de Histologia Normal y Patologica, published in 1888. It shows a number of cell types including the heavily branched stellate cells (D) and mossy fibres (E).

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Although the human brain had no rete mirable, Willis showed it did have a large ring of arteries (see Figure 4) which received blood from the two ascending carotid arteries. Importantly, Willis also recognised the ring’s functional significance – realising the arteries were arranged in this way to ensure a constant supply of blood to the brain, even when part of it was occluded. Today it is known as the Circle of Willis.

Another significant feature of Cerebri Anatome was its innovative use of research techniques – including one used to trace the course of blood vessels through the brain. This was achieved by injecting ink, using a syringe made from a quill and a dog’s bladder, into the carotid arteries of a cadaver, leading to small dark spots appearing on the outer surface of the cerebral cortex.

After this, there was little doubt that blood flowed into the brain from the arteries: it was then distributed throughout its tissues in a vast network of very fine vessels. This was a very important finding in providing a new understanding of stroke, and helped dispel the idea, still held by some, that the condition resulted from a blockage of animal spirits rather than blood.

If one person above all others can be regarded as the father of modern neuroscience, then it is surely Santiago Ramón y Cajal (1852–1934). The son of a struggling country doctor from northern Spain, Cajal experienced a life-changing event in 1887 when shown glass slides of nervous material stained by

Golgi’s silver impregnation method. This histological technique, discovered by the Italian Camillo Golgi in 1873, was unique for it only highlighted a small percentage of nerve cells in any given sample. This was far from being disadvantageous, as it allowed the few neurons that had taken up the stain to be seen in their entirety. This was one of the biggest breakthroughs in the history of neuroscience, since the full structure of the nerve cell with is tree-like dendrites, cell body and axons could now be visualised – something that had not happened before. The Golgi stain, however, often produced inconsistent results and Cajal’s first attempts were disappointing. Undaunted, he set about improving the technique by developing a more intense colouring reaction, and used it primarily on fetal and immature nervous tissue, taken before the myelination of the axons had taken place. This procedure was successful in allowing the nerve fibres and connections to be visualised much more clearly.

At this point, Cajal engaged in a feverish burst of research activity. He also began publishing a journal so his findings could be disseminated to scientists abroad.

The inaugural copy appeared in 1888 and its first paper concerned the anatomy of the bird’s cerebellum (see Figure 5). Although much of this was already known, Cajal’s genius lay in the way he illustrated the cerebellum’s fine structure, showing the different types of cell and the way they were joined together.

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the psychologist april 2017 looking back

‘I’ve always tried to incorporate historical themes into my teaching: it helps add a narrative, and allows students to understand where ideas have originated and what further developments might occur. Some ten years ago it dawned on me that there were no neuroscience textbooks that traced the flow of historical development from the ancient past to the present. The seeds were sown for my recent book, A History of the Brain.’

in 1891 by Wilhelm Waldeyer), whose basic tenet was that nerve cells form the fundamental structural and functional unit of the nervous system. In addition, Cajal observed that the axon endings nearly always terminated in the grey matter, where dendrites were known to be located. This would lead to another profound insight, as Cajal realised information must flow in one direction through a neuron, from the dendrites, through the cell body, to the axon. This was a revolutionary idea since it implied the dendrites served as the receptive part of the nerve cell, whilst the axon transmitted the nerve impulse – a position totally at odds with Golgi, who believed dendrites only Andrew Wickens is Senior had a nutritive role. But this also Lecturer at the University of led to a baffling question: How Central Lancashire could information flow within an awickens@uclan.ac.uk ‘infinitely fragmented’ nervous system? One person to offer an answer was Cajal’s great friend Charles Sherrington, who believed there was a point of contact between the axon ending and dendrite, which he called a synapse.

The cellular structure of a brain region had never been It would take many years before this idea was fully illustrated in such precise detail before, and Cajal proven, and recognition of the existence of chemical was to show each region had its own distinct neural neurotransmission in the CNS took longer still, but organisation. In fact, his illustrations were a composite Cajal and Sherrington’s conception of nervous function of many different drawings, based on long hours would be vindicated. of meticulous microscopic examination, and then If these were Cajal’s only achievements then they expressed with some degree of artistic imagination. alone would have placed him in the pantheon of the Moreover, one would never see such an image peering greatest anatomists of all time, but there was much down a microscope. Nonetheless, they captured more. He undertook pioneering work on axonal perfectly the complexity of the brain’s structure. Even growth and nerve regeneration, and discovered today, over 130 years later, Cajal’s drawings of the neurofibrils, dendritic spines, growth cones and nervous system have not been significantly improved many types of different cell. Cajal also wrote several upon. books, including his magnificent Histologie du Système When Cajal first started his research, most anatomists including Golgi were reticularists, believing Nerveux in 1911. Containing nearly 2000 pages and 887 intricate illustrations of nearly every region in the the nervous system contained a continuous network brain, it cannot fail to impress even the most informed of interconnected fibres with fused axons. However, right from the very beginning, Cajal could not find any contemporary reader today. He also won the Nobel Prize along with Golgi in 1906. After Cajal’s death evidence to support this idea. Instead, each neuron in 1934, the Italian neurologist Ernesto Lugaro in an appeared to be an independent unit much like any obituary wrote that Cajal had contributed more to other cell in the body. Indeed, Cajal’s observations neuroscience than all the efforts of his colleagues put would be shown to be correct and led to the general together. It is hard not to agree. acceptance of the neuron doctrine (a term invented

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10/03/2017 15:58

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13/03/2017 10:33

Lisa Feldman Barrett ‘Many fairy tales about the brain still propagate through our field’ Our editor Jon Sutton poses the questions on the eve of the publication of Lisa Feldman Barrett’s new book, How Emotions Are Made

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Your new book is called How Emotions Are Made.

Can you explain that word ‘made’?

For much of recorded history, scholars have been battling over two different views of emotions. One view, the classical view of emotion, proposes that happiness, sadness, fear and several other emotions are built into your brain and body from birth, i.e. they are natural kind categories. Scientists who take this view ask questions like ‘Which brain region contains the circuit for fear?’. The question assumes that fear lives in a specific set of neurons within the brain. They also ask ‘What is the facial expression for fear?’ and ‘What is the bodily state of fear?’. These questions assume that fear has a physical fingerprint (a pattern in the face and body) that is specific to fear, and that this fingerprint can objectively identify when fear has been triggered.

The other approach, what I call the constructionist view of emotion, proposes that an emotion like fear is not a natural kind category, but is, instead, a population of highly variable instances. For example, you can tremble in fear, jump in fear, freeze in fear, scream in fear, gasp in fear, hide in fear, attack in fear, and even laugh in the face of fear. In each case, your face and body might take on a different pattern. Each instance of fear (or any other emotion category) is created in the moment, for a specific situation, from more basic ingredients – core networks in the brain that are wired, in part by the kind of body we have and the social surroundings we live in. Scientists who take this view ask more contextual questions, such as ‘What does fear look like in this situation, when a person is trying to achieve this particular goal?’. They also ask computational questions, such as ‘How does the brain create this specific experience of fear?’ without presupposing a single implementation of fear in the brain such as a dedicated circuit.

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the psychologist april 2017 interview

Which argument is winning out?

The scientific evidence that supports the classical view of emotion sits within a much larger body of evidence that disconfirms it. In the last 10 years neuroscience evidence has pretty definitively handed the victory to construction, thanks to the discovery that the brain is a predictive organ, not a reactive one (called predictive coding) and that psychological phenomena cannot be localised to particular blobs in the brain, but are instead built with intrinsic brain networks that are multipurpose. Emotions are made, not built-in. However, the news hasn’t yet reached the public – hence the need for my book.

What specifically have we – as psychologists and as everyday students of our selves – been getting wrong?

Many fairy tales about the brain still propagate through our field. Here’s one myth: the brain contains circuits that sit in the ‘off’ position until something in the world flips them to the ‘on’ position. In reality, your neurons fire all the time – this is known as intrinsic brain activity – and sensory input from the world only briefly perturbs the patterns of activity, like spitting into an ocean wave.

Here’s another myth: that cognition and emotion are separate in the brain, and the former regulates the latter. Back in the 1950s Paul MacLean proposed a model of the brain with a reptilian core for appetites, such as hunger and sex, cloaked in a mammalian ‘limbic system’ for emotion, which itself is controlled by a cerebral cortex for rationality.

This model, called the triune brain, is a fantasy.

It’s Plato’s allegory of the charioteer and his two horses, tattooed on the brain. But the brain didn’t evolve in layers like sedimentary rocks. Rather (in the words of the neuroscientist Georg Striedter), brains evolve like companies do – they reorganise as they expand. The brain regions that MacLean considered emotional, which he referred to as the ‘limbic system’, are now known to contain major hubs for general communication throughout the brain. They control the various systems of the body, and they’re important for many phenomena besides emotion, such as including language, concepts, stress, and even the coordination of the five senses into a cohesive experience.

And here’s a new myth, based on a very old idea: pattern classification, a technique from artificial intelligence, has supposedly discovered the neural essence for each emotion. Scientists who make this mistake examine many brain scans for, say, fear, and compute a statistical summary. But then they point to the summary and say, ‘Look, the essence of fear in the brain!’ That’s a gigantic logical error. They’re mistaking a mathematical average for the norm.

Some other popular misconceptions are that Charles Darwin wrote that facial expressions are functional products of natural selection, and that

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William James described how every type of emotion has a distinct bodily state. These ideas are taught as facts in universities, but neither scientist made these statements. I provide the full story in my book.

How do others respond to your view of emotion? Do you see it is a positive and liberating one?

Engineers and computational neuroscientists find my view intuitive. Many psychologists respond initially with disbelief, because their experiences guide their beliefs about how nature works. Emotions feel given, and so it seems common sense that marvellous experiences like surprise and gratitude would be physically distinct, built-in, and even universal. But our personal experiences do not reveal how nature works, any more than our experience of watching the sun cross the sky means that it revolves around the Earth. The brain is a master of sleight-of-hand.

To believe otherwise is naive realism.

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Once people understand my theory of constructed emotion, they find it positive and liberating. You have much more control over your emotional life than the classical view of emotion would imply, with its stories of emotion circuits that trigger automatically and are regulated after the fact. If emotions are constructed from more basic ingredients, you can alter the ingredients and change your life. For example, you can make yourself more emotionally intelligent by learning more emotion words, giving your brain new concepts to predict with, so you can deal more flexibly with a broader range of situations. That kind of change is within your control. I want to be clear that control does not mean overcoming a reflex reaction in the moment. By cultivating experiences to curate your concepts, including emotion concepts, you can tweak your brain’s automatic control of your future experiences and behaviours. In a literal, brain-wiring sense, the concepts you learn today influence your life tomorrow.

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more complex constructions that involve a person’s past experience. The theory of constructed emotion in my book provides a more evidence-based approach to building machines that perceive emotion.

To find emotion’s ‘fingerprints’, do psychologists need to focus on different methods?

It’s always a good idea to use multiple methods in any scientific study. But using a menu of methods won’t suddenly reveal support for the classical view.

An emotion, like anger, is not a thing. It is a category of events. Any two instances of, say, anger may be constructed by entirely different sets of neurons and be associated with entirely different bodily states and facial movements. Variation is the norm. We know this from meta-analyses of hundreds of studies and tens of thousands of test subjects. The theory of constructed emotion explains why this is the case, and how highly variable emotions are made.

If psychologists want more bang for their buck, they should start asking different questions. For starters, they should stop asking questions about emotion that begin with ‘where’, such as Where is happiness located in humans?, Where is the fear circuit in a rat?, and instead, ask ‘how’. How are instances of happiness and fear created?

Can you give me some other practical implications of this view of emotion?

Suppose you’re in a doctor’s office, complaining of pain in your chest. If you’re a woman, you’re more likely to be diagnosed with anxiety and sent home, whereas if you’re a man, your symptoms are more likely to be understood as the first signs of a heart attack and you’ll I note in the book’s acknowledgements you say you receive lifesaving preventive treatment. As a result, wrote it for your daughter, ‘to understand the power women over age 65 die more frequently of heart attacks of your own mind… You are an architect of your than men do, because the perceptions of healthcare experience, even in times when you feel buffeted professionals are shaped (wrongly) by classical view by the world.’ That seems like a pretty empowering beliefs that they can objectively detect emotions like message, but I guess some people would just find it anxiety and that women are more emotional than men. overpowering?

Another example – companies are spending The theory of constructed emotion, when compared billions building devices and apps to objectively detect with the classical view, is an ambassador for a radically emotion, in the mistaken belief that we can read other different view of what it means to be a human being. people’s emotions simply observing Part of that view, which I lay out their facial movements, heart rate, in the book, goes like this: We are and so on. These ideas are the not victims of primitive, animalistic “The stereotyped facial classical view’s bread and butter, emotion circuits. Your brain expressions for emotion but they are not supported by the actively constructs your emotional – e.g. scowls for anger, majority of scientific evidence. The experiences, even those that feel stereotyped facial expressions for out-of-control. If you understand pouts for sadness – emotion – e.g. scowls for anger, the construction process, you can that are used in pouts for sadness – that are used learn to influence it. I guess it’s experiments were in experiments were stipulated by possible that some people may find scientists, not discovered by them. this message overpowering, but to stipulated by scientists, No study has ever found the elusive me, it’s freeing. not discovered by them” bodily state that is unique for each emotion – one that is consistently Talking of the acknowledgements, specific to that emotion – despite that’s got to be one of the longest the fact that hundreds and hundreds of studies have acknowledgements sections I’ve seen. Does that been searching for the last century. Once you become suggest you’re someone who wears their heart on aware of the full range of scientific evidence, it their sleeve? becomes clear how much of the money and effort that Every sole-authored paper in science is an illusion – fuel the emotion economy is wasted while other, more no scientist works alone. Every scientific discovery viable, scientific questions are ignored. Emotions can’t is made in the context of other working scientists. I be found in facial movements and heartbeats alone. believe it’s important to give credit where credit is due.

They are not simple body signals. Emotions are far I have been fortunate to have colleagues, students,

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the psychologist april 2017 interview

research program officers, and so on, who have created a context for me to write How Emotions Are Made, and it is a pleasure to be able to offer my thanks in a formal way. Also, keep in mind that the research behind my book comes from multiple disciplines. I began my career as a clinical psychologist but have since gained expertise in social and personality psychology, physiology, cognitive science, neuroanatomy, neuroscience, evolutionary biology, and more recently in computational methods. Each transition was made possible by generous colleagues (and funding agencies). The theory of constructed emotion could never have taken shape without their support.

But would you say you are somebody who enjoys experiencing the extremes of emotion – I hear you have a ‘haunted house’ in your basement?

Yes, my family, in conjunction with my lab, runs a haunted house for charity every Halloween, donating all the proceeds to our local food bank. My colleagues, students and staff become wandering monsters in the haunted house, and we use our research knowledge of fear to scare the daylights out of kids and adults. We never use gore or cheap thrills, just careful positioning, ambiguity and misdirection. It is a team-building exercise for the lab. Everyone has a lot of fun, ghouls and guests alike. I enjoy creating contexts where the people I care about come together in community.

Who are your inspirations in the psychology community, the roots of your approach?

Historically, I’d say William James, Wilhelm Wundt, Hermann von Helmholtz, and, of course, Charles Darwin (for On the Origin of Species, not The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals).

As for the modern day, I am inspired by so many people who appear in the acknowledgements of How Emotions Are Made. Jim Russell for his mentorship, for his concept of core affect, and for creating the affective circumplex, which is so ubiquitous now that people no longer cite him for it. Larry Barsalou for his theory of grounded concepts that solidified my theory of constructed emotion. Barb Finlay for knowing, basically, everything about everything. For a more complete list, see the book.

You say your husband often asks ‘Is this for the 1 per cent?’, as in your scientific colleagues as opposed to a general audience. Any tips on how to handle that balance?

When explaining how science works, or what scientific studies have revealed, my natural inclination is to include all sorts of details. That’s what we are trained to do, as scientists. Often, I think the details are fascinating. Sometimes, I’m defending a counterintuitive idea that people find provocative, and so I want to offer a slew of evidence. But good writing is knowing what to leave out.

For example, much of the neuroscience in my book concerns visceromotor circuitry in the brain, which is

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largely responsible for regulating your body’s energy needs via the autonomic nervous system, the immune system, and the endocrine system. ‘Visceromotor’ is a mouthful, however. This circuitry is also called ‘limbic’, a shorter name but loaded with historical baggage.

After much deliberation (and some agony), I discarded both names and opted for something simpler. The body has a multifaceted energy budget, much like a financial budget, and visceromotor regions of the brain operate kind of like a company’s financial division by overseeing that budget. So I invented the phrase ‘bodybudgeting regions’ to explain the functions of these brain regions more intuitively.

Perhaps the best tip I have is: Aim for the number ‘1’. Each paragraph should contain just one idea. Each phenomenon should be called by only one name (even if scientists have 12 different names for it). Each talk should have one punchline. ‘1’ is still a struggle for me.

In my academic writing and speaking, I still end up closer to ‘2.5’.

That’s why it’s helpful to have someone else to keep you honest. For me, that was my husband, first and foremost. But I was also fortunate to have several close friends who were dedicated readers, plus my editors at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt and the New York Times. If you decide to write about science for the public, make sure to get feedback from plenty of non-academic test readers, and edit, edit, edit. When you believe you are finally done, edit one more time. I wrote three complete drafts of How Emotions Are Made before settling on the final narrative. There is no shortcut to effective writing.

What does the future hold?

I remain hopeful that my future contains a beach vacation where I can sleep late every morning and read novels all day. But when it comes to the science of emotion, I hope that in the coming years, we’ll all see fewer and fewer news stories about brain blobs for emotion in people or rats or fruit flies, and more about how brains and bodies construct emotion.

More broadly, I am confident that neuroscience will reveal the brain to operate even more via construction than we now know it does. I hope this progress continues to promote a full scale scientific revolution in psychology. I’d like us to finally trade in psychology’s 17th-century theory of mental faculties (where every phenomenon has its own process), its 19th-century stimulus-response approach to experimentation (which forces the brain into an unnatural state that is rarely encountered in the real world), and its 20th-century reductionist search for universal laws. We will create a more powerful, robust science if we better appreciate that experiences and behaviours derive from populations of time-varying, context-dependent brain states. This, along with a new philosophy of psychology that is modelled on modern biological concepts of population thinking, emergence and complexity, will go a long way toward solving psychology’s so-called ‘replication crisis’.

13/03/2017 10:40

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This is our paramount duty and reason we exist.

As an organisation that is social work owned and operated we place children and families at the centre of everything we do. We won’t compromise on our principles and only undertake work if we consider it to be in the interests of the children and families it affects.

If you share our values then get in touch with us today by sending your CV to marney@willispalmer.com, registering on our website www.willispalmer.com or call 01206 878178

www.willispalmer.com

13/03/2017 10:46

South Gwent Children’s Foundation (Sparkle Appeal/ Big Lottery Fund) Sparkle Clinical Psychologist Hours of work: 26 hours per week Salary: £40,028 (pro rata – Band 8a, Point 1) Fixed term contract to: 31st March 2019 Base: Serennu Children’s Centre An exciting opportunity has arisen to explore, develop and deliver a Psychological Therapies Service within the Serennu Children’s Centre in Newport, South Wales. This unique, beautiful state of the art building, just off the M4, is home to an integrated day centre for children with disabilities/ developmental difficulties between the ages of 0 and 18, providing health, social care and leisure opportunities in one location. It has been built in a joint initiative between the South Gwent Children’s Foundation charity (Sparkle appeal) and ABUHB and acts as a support network for the whole family unit with a wide range of facilities and leisure activities on offer.

This post has been developed by the Sparkle Appeal and is funded by The Big Lottery Fund.

It was developed following a consultation process with parents regarding the identified need for therapeutic support. The successful applicant will be based at the Serennu Children’s Centre and will be responsible for providing specialist psychological services to children and families at the centre, in particular supporting parents and siblings in the form of group work and parents in the context of a recent diagnosis.

The post holder will be committed, dynamic, innovative, extremely flexible and responsive to the needs of families. The development of this post will be shaped through close consultation with Service users, South Gwent Children’s Foundation Trustees and the Heads of Clinical Psychology for the Gwent Child and Family Psychological Health Service.

The post will be line managed by the Serennu Children’s Centre Manager with Gwent Child and Family Clinical Psychology Service providing professional support and supervision ensuring that the post holder is clearly supported in all aspects of their development. They are a strong, enthusiastic team who meet regularly for peer review, support and supervision, with a strong sense of fun and belonging.

For an application form please contact Carla Hopkins on 01633 748092; email Carla.hopkins@ wales.nhs.uk. For further information please contact Donna Morgan, Serennu Children’s Centre Manager on 01633 748001; email donna.morgan8@wales.nhs.uk Please note that the job will close following receipt of sufficient applications. Interviews will be scheduled for April.

Mae cyfle cyffrous wedi codi i archwilio, datblygu a chyflwyno Gwasanaeth Therapiau Seicolegol yng Nghanolfan Blant Serennu yng Nghasnewydd, De Cymru. Mae’r adielad unigryw yma ychydig oddi ar yr M4, yn gartref i ganolfan ddydd integredig ar gyfer plant ag anableddau / anawsterau datblygiadol rhwng 0 a 18 oed, gan ddarparu cyfleoedd iechyd, gofal cymdeithasol a hamdden mewn un lleoliad. Mae wedi ei adeiladu mewn menter ar y cyd rhwng yr elusen y Blant De Gwent Sylfaen (‘Sparkle Appeal’) a ABUHB ac yn gweithredu fel rhwydwaith cymorth ar gyfer yr uned teulu cyfan gydag amryw o gyfleusterau a gweithgareddau hamdden ar gael.

Mae’r swydd hon wedi cael ei datblygu gan y ‘Sparkle Appeal’ a chaiff ei ariannu gan y Gronfa Loteri Fawr. Fe’i datblygwyd yn dilyn proses ymgynghori gyda rhieni ynglŷn â’r angen a nodwyd ar gyfer cymorth therapiwtig. Bydd yr ymgeisydd llwyddiannus yn gweithio yng Nghanolfan Blant Serennu a bydd yn gyfrifol am ddarparu gwasanaethau seicolegol arbenigol i blant a theuluoedd yn y ganolfan, yn enwedig cefnogi rhieni a brodyr a chwiorydd ar ffurf gwaith grŵp a rhieni yng nghyd-destun diagnosis diweddar.

Bydd deiliad y swydd yn ymrwymedig, yn ddeinamig, yn arloesol, yn hynod o hyblyg ac yn ymatebol i anghenion teuluoedd. Bydd datblygu’r swydd hon yn cael ei siapio drwy ymgynghori’n agos â defnyddwyr gwasanaethau, Ymddiriedolwyr Sefydliad Blant De Gwent a Blaenau’r Seicoleg Glinigol ar gyfer y Gwasanaeth Iechyd Seicolegol Plant a Theuluoedd Gwent.

Bydd y swydd yn atebol i Reolwr y Ganolfan Blant Serennu gyda Gwasanaeth Seicoleg Glinigol Plant a Theuluoedd Gwent yn ddarparu cefnogaeth broffesiynol a goruchwyliaeth gan sicrhau bod deiliad y swydd yn cael ei gefnogi glir ym mhob agwedd ar eu datblygiad.

Maent yn dîm cryf, brwdfrydig sy’n cyfarfod yn rheolaidd i adolygu cymheiriaid, cefnogaeth a goruchwyliaeth, gydag ymdeimlad cryf o hwyl a pherthyn.

Am ffurflen gais, cysylltwch â Carla Hopkins ar 01633 748092 neu anfon e-bost i Carla. hopkins@wales.nhs.uk. Am ragor o wybodaeth, cysylltwch â Donna Morgan, Rheolwr Canolfan Serennu Plant ar 01633 748001; e-bost donna.morgan8@wales.nhs.uk Noder y bydd y swydd yn cau ar ol dderbyn digon o ceisiadau. Cynhelir cyfweliadau yn cael eu trefnu ar gyfer mis Ebrill.

Please send completed application forms to: Carla Hopkins, Sparkle Appeal, Serennu Children’s Centre, off Cwrt Camlas, High Cross Road, Rogerstone, NP10 9LY

Email: carla.hopkins@wales.nhs.uk

Salary: £37.000-£45.000 dependent on experience Area: Complex Child and Family/ LAC Based: Warwickshire Full-time, Car essential

To check the latest jobs please go to www.jobsinpsychology.co.uk To discuss the opportunities for advertising and promotion in The Psychologist, www.jobsinpsychology.co.uk and Research Digest, please contact Kai Theriault on 01223 378051 or email kai.theriault@cpl.co.uk.

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Phoenix Psychology is a well-established and respected independent provider of psychological services based in the Midlands. We pride ourselves on our ethical, clinician lead services focused on excellence.

Phoenix are working closely with Local Authority Fostering Teams in Warwickshire. We are looking for an experienced Clinical Psychologist to take this exciting project forward and to join our team specialising in complex Child and Family work on a permanent basis.

The role will be based partly within the Fostering Team offering psychological consultation, training and support to Foster Carers and Social Workers. The post-holder will be familiar with trauma and attachment informed approaches and will take a key role in shaping this project. The post holder will also be based at our clinic in Honiley (near Kenilworth, Warwickshire) and will benefit from being part of our tight-knit and supportive team of Psychologists.

Much of our work is with looked after and adopted children and the service is very much informed by Dyadic Developmental Psychotherapy (DDP).

Experience with DDP is desirable, but we have a track record of investing in training and supporting Psychologists to advance their skills. Phoenix provide a wide range of services, so there would also be the opportunity to be involved in other aspects of our complex child and family work to suit your skills.

Phoenix Psychology offers a supportive, positive and motivating workplace and we value our team and we believe this post offers a varied role and quite a unique opportunity.

Applicants please send a covering letter and CV to Ruth.Billingham@ phoenixpsychology.com. If you have questions contact Dr Liz Gillett (Director) or Dr Billy Smythe (Head of LAC and Adoption Services) on 0845 8380952.

Closing date: 6th April 2017

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Job Title: Clinical Psychologist Employer: West Kirby Residential School

West Kirby Residential School

Specialist SEN College & National Support School

‘This is a developing role’ says Nicky Tolley, Head of Therapy and Additional Support Services at West Kirby School, a specialist non-maintained day and residential SEN college for pupils with complex needs. ‘We aim to become a centre of excellence, so this role offers real opportunities to a clinical psychologist who generates creative, flexible solutions.’

The school can take up to 115 children – the youngest at the moment is seven, the oldest 19. ‘Pupils stay from one to four nights a week and come from all areas of the country.

We are developing 52-week residential provision, which will also develop the role. We employ four speech and language therapists, an occupational therapist, a pastoral care team, a school nurse and other staff: around one hundred staff in all. This enables us to provide a full multidisciplinary, individualised and structured approach for every child. ‘ There is a full job description and person specification on the school’s website. Rather than repeat this information, Nicky described some of the highlight issues. ‘This is not merely a consulting role; he or she must be prepared to work closely within a multidisciplinary team. We work with pupils and families over long periods of time, so we can be more creative and go much deeper than in many NHS roles. It’s a three-day-a-week, term-time role, so it might suit someone with a private practice or who is interested in teaching, writing or supervision.

‘Most of our pupils have comorbid diagnosis and approximately 80 per cent have a diagnosis of autistic spectrum condition, increasingly with mental health issues.

The clinical psychologist must have experience working with this client group. We’re looking for someone who can use and interpret a range of assessments, integrate them and help other staff apply them. Mental capacity assessments are important to protect young people and help them transition from children’s to adult services. The Clinical Psychologist will be really involved here.

‘The behaviour of traumatised pupils can be distressing and other staff need support from the Clinical Psychologist.

We also believe the role can help the pastoral care team in more stringent behaviour analysis and interventions.

Behaviour is a form of communication, and we are always looking to understand the pupils better and provide personcentred approaches.’

What personal qualities will be most valuable? ‘Humour, hard work, energy, loyalty and resilience in what is an emotional and sometimes stressful environment. In return you’ll work with really inspiring people and get a chance to shape our future. This is also a superb area of the country.’

And images of West Kirby confirm that last point. It’s a seaside resort on the Wirral Peninsula, with a Victorian promenade, a marine lake offering water sport, and good road and rail access to the rest of Wirral, North Wales and Liverpool. ‘Where we are allows us to offer a lot of outdoor activities.’

One final point from Nicky. ‘You’ll be the only Clinical Psychologist here but you won’t be isolated in what’s a vibrant, energetic team.’

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Meols Drive, West Kirby, Wirral, Merseyside CH48 5DH

Clinical Psychologist Salary equivalent to Band 8a • 3 days per week Required September 2017 or as soon as possible This is an exciting opportunity for a Clinical Psychologist to join a dedicated multidisciplinary team working with young people with complex special needs and mental health issues. Over 80% of the pupils have a diagnosis of Autistic Spectrum Condition plus other co-morbid diagnosis, so it is important that the successful candidate has experience with this client group. The majority of pupils are verbal and there is a wide range of cognitive and functional ability.

The role includes offering a range of assessments, including cognitive, behavioural and mental capacity in order to be able to support and advise parents/carers and school staff and to manage a caseload.

For an informal discussion or to arrange a visit please contact Mrs. Tolley, Head of Therapy and Support Services.

For further information and applications details please see the school’s website www.wkrs.co.uk in the first instance or contact Mrs Rachel Kennedy on 0151 632 3201 or email: rachelkennedy@wkrs.co.uk Closing date: Thursday, 6th April 2017.

The School is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and young people and expects all staff and volunteers to share this commitment. The successful applicant will be subject to rigorous recruitment checks.

Equal Opportunity and Race Equality Principles are applied throughout the school and we strongly support staff development and training.

13/03/2017 10:46

Algorithms and alchemy Rabeea Saleem, writer and psychology student based in Pakistan

Hit Makers: How Things Become Popular Derek Thompson Allen Lane; 2017; Hb £20.00

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n Hit Makers, The Atlantic’s Senior Editor Derek Thompson attempts to decipher the alchemy of hits.

His investigation is expansive in terms of scope and time, encompassing things that gained popularity after the turn of the century – from the advent of tabloids and Mickey Mouse to present-day success stories of Star Wars, Instagram and Pokémon Go. What piques our interest?

In the first section – ‘Popularity and the Mind – Thompson explains key cognitive and social psychology terms like metacognition, cognitive disfluency and confirmation bias and applies them to phenomena as diverse as Adele, Fifty Shades of Grey and Buzzfeed.

Events such as last year’s US elections are a backdrop for Thompson to explore how media and exposure works.

Many of Thompson’s ideas are encapsulated in the theory of MAYA (Most Advanced Yet Acceptable) –

a term coined by Raymond Loewy, hailed as the ‘Father of Modern Design’. He designed everything from the CocaCola bottle and Lucky Strike cigarette packs to some of the most iconic locomotives and automobiles. According to Loewy, MAYA is that elusive amalgamation of familiarity with a hint of challenge in the form of newness. This theory is supported by one of the most verified findings in psychology: the ‘mere exposure effect’, according to which familiarity breeds preference.

Nowadays, so many products are jostling for our attention. According to Hit Makers, this is a contest between neophilia (attraction to new things) and neophobia (resistance to the unfamiliar). The product that manages to attain the intangible ‘golden mean’ between the two succeeds in grabbing our attention.

The book then focuses on other, more subjective factors that affect our choices like disfluency and nostalgia. These concepts are important as they show that for all the algorithms and mathematical formulas, no one can predict sure success – much of what we like is based on the associations we form with that product and our mental state at that moment.

The second section – ‘Popularity and the Market’ – expands its focus to study the effect of networking, information cascades and broadcasting on our choices.

The central idea is mainly based on the concept of homophily – you are like the people around you. In today’s world of shrinking attention spans and bombardment of competing stimuli, effectively targeting the desired audience is no mean feat for any person or company aiming to become popular. Thompson talks to the minds behind success stories like Etsy, Pandora and Facebook to understand how such giant businesses, who are dependent on social feedback for success, continue to thrive in the face of constant competition.

In Hit Makers, Thompson doesn’t only include the psychology, but also the logistics and economics of hits.

He is quick to point out that the hits are always more than the sum of its parts – people should not look at this book as a manual for a hit maker but rather as the story behind them.

Inevitably, in analysing the popularity of such disparate elements as vampires, cable news and Spotify, the narrative can get a bit disjointed. And I could have done with even more sociology and psychology. But Hit Makers is an engaging study on the science behind popularity, what makes people click and why.

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the psychologist april 2017 books

Give it to me straight, Doc You either love or you hate the Doctor. Like the royal family, Brexit and Jose Mourinho, there are very few people who are neutral on the subject.

As for me, growing up with a neighbour who was a fanzine editor and leading light of the appreciation society (fan club? Please!), I had met Jon Pertwee and Bakers Tom and Colin before I was out of my teens. There was no way I wasn’t going to take a peek at this book.

Delightfully, Katy Manning, the actress who played his assistant Jo Grant in the very first episode I saw, at the impressionable age of six (‘The Daemons’, fellow Whovians!), lends Doctor Who an introduction to the tome.

Psychology: Rather disconcertingly, given A Madman the programme’s very British with a Box credentials, editor Dr Langley and Travis Langley his intrepid contributors are all (Ed.) American. Were they up to the job?

Sterling; 2017; Affirmative, as K-9 would say. In Pb £9.99 fact, this is a cracking read.

They know their Who inside out and the science is impeccable.

Much of it concerns subjects close to my heart and they hit the bullseye every time. In exploring the Doctor’s personalities (he keeps regenerating, of course), the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator is rightly exposed as being of low reliability and thus, inevitably, validity, but it is still presented as useful for shorthand descriptions. Personality factors are revealed building to ‘The Big Five’ and beyond. Post-traumatic stress disorder’s effects on the Doctor when the series returned to our screens in 2005 shine a light on his behaviour. Jungian archetypes are evoked in finding out why those weeping angel ‘statues’ that attack you when you blink are so damn scary.

In fact, dipping into the index gives an idea of the book’s sheer scope. It veers from ‘death’ to ‘cuddle hormone’ and from ‘evolutionary perspective on love’ to ‘reconsolidated memory’. This isn’t the first time Dr Langley has pulled this kind of thing off. He has taken the same approach to Game of Thrones, Star Wars and Trek plus other phenomena, while those who came before him tackled Harry Potter and The Simpsons.

Nevertheless, this is an exceptional example of what must now be regarded as a legitimate genre.

So, I’ll race you to write a book on the psychology of Shameless, The League of Gentlemen, Happy Valley and, naturally, Doctor Who Part Two. I could get Steve Pemberton to do the foreword. He’s been in all of them.

Reviewed by Dr George Sik, a Consultant Psychologist at eras ltd

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Q&A We speak to Dr Sarita Robinson, Senior Lecturer at the School of Psychology, University of Central Lancashire, whose chapter from Doctor Who Psychology ‘Who makes a good companion?’ can be found on our website In psychological terms, what does the Doctor get right in how he selects companions?

Psychologically, the Doctor’s companions tend to be outgoing and enjoy meeting new ‘people’. Considering that the Doctor is always travelling, it is essential that his companions have great interpersonal skills. The Doctor is also keen on helping people out in times of crisis and so his companions need to have a high degree of empathy but also to be resilient.

Sometimes the Doctor doesn’t seem like the kind of person who would be overly bothered about having a companion. Why does he?

The Doctor has nearly always travelled accompanied. On the rare times we see him without a companion he has appeared to become less empathetic. We know that friendship networks are very important to help us remaining mentally healthy. Interestingly Missy (the female regeneration of the Master) has suggested that the Doctor’s relationship with his companions is not 100 per cent equal and the Doctor sees his companions more as a type of faithful pet. However, psychologists have found that having pet ownership can improve your physical and mental health. So even if the Doctor does not think of his companions as equals, they still serve an important role in his life.

What other parallels are there with psychological research on companions?

Nearly all of the Doctor’s companions have a positive experience as a result of travelling and appear to grow as a result of being exposed to new cultures and civilisations. Even the Doctor’s companions who have been through a marked period of trauma appear to show evidence of post-traumatic growth. For example, after the death of Adric, Nyssa leaves the TARDIS but chooses to work on the hospital ship Terminus to help formulate a cure for Lazar’s disease. The Doctor is very emotionally attached to his travelling companions and does want the best outcome for them. For example, even though Donna has had her memory wiped of her travels with the Doctor, the Doctor returns on her wedding day and gives her a winning lottery ticket as a wedding gift.

Am I right in thinking you have your own Doctor Who claim to fame?

Well, I’m in a DVD extra on the Day of the Daleks talking about our memory of old TV shows.

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The Way We Die Now Seamus O’Mahony Head of Zeus; 2016; Hb £14.99

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Caring for the dying This engaging book takes us on a personal journey with a doctor, reflecting on the meaning of death, both within his personal life, but also as a construct within an overburdened hospital system, one often said to leave clinicians pressured to offer ongoing treatment to frail patients, for fear of retribution from devastated and saddened families.

Unnecessary medical interventions are said to be an avoidance of ‘the difficult conversation’ altogether, adding to the clinicians’ dilemma of offering treatment despite death being imminent, contributing to a medicalised death far removed from any dignity or grace.

These very same clinicians are frustratingly expected to be both spiritualist and miracle worker, offering ways to outsmart death a bit longer, and yet this miracle eludes us still.

The author explores how we have evolved our understanding of death, how historically it was ‘tamed’ through ritual, but conversely society seemed now to have lost the ability to look death in the eye. We are said to avoid the animalistic understanding of death as absolute, and depend on the healthcare system to teach us how to die. The book explores our apparent insistence in describing dying as ‘fighting a battle’ or ‘not giving in’, and yet there could be more dignity and respect for the dying in knowing when to lay down the sword.

The role of language is explored further in bias identified in advanced directives where the language used could manipulate the choices made, or cause poor understanding of what these choices truly meant. Although the laid-back writing style could lure you into thinking this could be an easy read, it presents us with challenging but necessary questions.

It’s crucial we debate death and its impact on us as caregivers and clinicians, and as fragile creatures who inevitably will be visited by death.

Reviewed by Dr Levina Smook CPsychol, Senior Applied Psychologist, Clinical Health Psychology, Dudley

Q&A ‘Psychologists should rethink their duty as defenders of empiricism’ We speak to Professor Brian Hughes about his new book, Rethinking Psychology You write about the tension between science and pseudoscience which threatens psychology. How has this come about?

Psychology appeals to many audiences, not all well versed, or even interested, in science. Most psychology graduates build their careers outside the research-oriented university environments they were trained in. And psychologists themselves often identify more with the helping professions than they do with science.

Psychology’s empirical ethos can slip easily from people’s minds, if indeed it is ever there.

There is always tension between rigorous science and the applied relevance, public sympathy, and vocational instinct pursued by most psychologists. Even full-time researchers are constantly urged to emphasise the ‘relevance’ of their work. Therefore, people interested in psychology – and many psychologists – often focus on the products of research rather than the process.

Pseudoscience is a philosophical term for describing activities that claim to be, but are not really, scientific. When psychologists champion psychology but ignore the nuts and bolts of research, they benefit from psychology’s scientific status without truly valuing the science. To me, this at least resembles, if not constitutes, pseudoscience within psychology.

In the battle between sense and nonsense, who’s winning?

If we take sense to mean ‘assertions we can confidently defend (because they incorporate both evidence and logic)’ and nonsense to mean ‘assertions we cannot confidently defend (because they lack evidence and/or logic)’ then we must admit that psychology displays plenty of both. In my view, nonsense is winning at this moment.

Sense involves hard work, ethics, self-evaluation and vigilance.

Nonsense is frictionless. Therefore, nonsense is more successful.

Sensational trashy newspapers are read far more than staid academic journals. In this era of fake news, post-truth, and alternative facts, popular antipathy towards evidence-based knowledge represents a significant cultural threat.

Psychologists should promote empiricism and criticise poor research.

In the extract you have online, I discuss self-report methods. But throughout Rethinking Psychology I argue that experimental and biological

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the psychologist april 2017 books

Sure to resonate

psychologists also drift towards pseudoscience. We draw unwarranted conclusions about evolutionary influences on behaviour, and we oversell brain-imaging research.

How should the average psychologist rethink their discipline?

We should view psychology as a research discipline that can be applied, rather than an applied discipline that is based on research. Psychologists should champion the principle that all genuine knowledge must be traceable to sound evidence. We should see ourselves as part of an intellectual movement that promotes rationality, logic and defensible knowledge.

Secondly, psychologists should rethink their duty as defenders of empiricism. We should consider the relevance of psychology outside the academic or mental health bubble. Psychology gathers evidence that resolves uncertainties about how people think and behave. We should be able to inform public debate on many issues.

Finally, psychologists should not critique other disciplines until they adequately critique themselves. We should ask whether psychology has become too tolerant of non-rigorous research.

Psychology is a public good well worth defending. If we seriously rethink what we are doing and how we do it, we can make a genuine contribution to humanity.

To read an extract from the book, see tinyurl.com/hughesrethink For your chance to win a copy, keep an eye on @psychmag on Twitter.

Highly Illogical Behaviour John Corey Whaley Faber & Faber; 2016; £7.99

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Psychology of the Digital Age offers a compelling analysis of human behaviour in an increasingly digital world.

John Suler, a respected internet researcher, leads the reader through his view of various facets of the internet, including the architecture of websites and online social relationships.

This book largely draws on Psychology the psychodynamic tradition of of the Digital psychology; a classic discipline Age: Humans that is given a refreshing update as Become Electric Suler applies it to internet studies.

John R. Suler Meanwhile, each chapter is grounded Cambridge with anecdotes from the author’s University Press; personal experiences online and 2016; Pb £24.99 frequent references to popular internet applications. This style gives the book a contemporary feel, which should make it easy to digest for novice readers whilst including valuable insights for students and experts in this field.

Suler provides in-depth accounts of different interactions he has observed online. His chapters detailing online talk and deviant exchanges are particularly enlightening, considering his seminal work in this field. In addition, Suler’s insights are interesting as he has studied the use of the internet growing and adapting as online access has become more prevalent. However, at times this book can be overly reliant on description as there are limited references to wider bodies of literature or empirical work. This may be disappointing for students seeking a nuanced view of psychological internet behaviours.

Ultimately, Psychology of the Digital Age challenges the reader to consider and analyse how they personally utilise the online world. As our lives are becoming increasingly digital, the arguments presented in this book are sure to resonate with readers.

Reviewed by Dr Lydia J. Harkin, Postdoctoral Research Assistant, Division of Psychology, Nottingham Trent University

Warm your heart ‘He was afraid of the world, afraid it would find a way to swallow him up.’ Solomon Reed is a 16-year-old who hasn’t left his house in over three years due to his agoraphobia. Although he has sought therapy and medication, he finds Star Trek leaves him feeling much better. Inside his house, Solomon has a garage that looks like a holodeck (the virtual reality facility from Star Trek); it allows him to re-imagine his anxieties.

Then intervenes Lisa Praytor who, years ago, watched Solomon’s panic attack unfold before he disappeared from school. Her motives are slightly convoluted but she means no harm through her naivety; she’s instinctively a caregiver. Together as a team, she and her boyfriend Clark, an easygoing jock, charm their way into Solomon’s

home and life. Solomon is altogether delighted to find supportive friends. When Solomon casually refers to himself as the ‘crazy gay kid,’ Lisa sternly points out, ‘Those are two things about you out of a million. Don’t box yourself in.’

In this light-hearted contemporary novel, Whaley not only destigmatises mental illness but also realistically depicts family dynamics, sexuality, friendship and social support through relatable characters that inevitably warm your heart.

Reviewed by Sanaa Hyder, who is a research assistant for the Saudi National Mental Health Survey in Saudi Arabia

13/03/2017 10:54

Isaak Brodsky, ‘V.I.Lenin and Manifestation’, 1919

Salute the leader – mask the masses?

Sally Marlow and Mike Thompson collaborate at an exhibition of monumental change

exhibition Revolution: Russian Art 1917–1932 Royal Academy until 17 April

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Mayakovsky’s 1921 stencil ‘Blacksmith’

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hat better way both to commemorate the centenary of the Russian Revolution, and to offer an insight into how revolution changes countries, lives and cultures, than to look at the art of the period? Revolution also changes art and artists as they look towards the Brave New World, or try to find new ways to interpret the past. Many have argued that periods of intense and monumental social change can also bring unprecedented creativity, as all the rules are broken, and the radical and previously unimagined is embraced.

The old ways of doing things are no longer any good.

Indeed, thinking about this period, the word revolution hardly does justice to 1917–1932. The revolution (two revolutions, if we’re to be accurate) may have started the ball rolling in 1917, but hot on the heels of the revolution came civil war, Lenin’s death, Trotsky’s exile, the New Economic Policy, the rise of Stalin, and his Five-year Plans, all of which impacted the lives of the Russians in different ways.

One hundred years later, and in the spirit of collectivism, two comrades from The Psychologist visited the exhibition together: Dr Sally Marlow, Associate Editor of Culture, and Mike Thompson, Psychologist Sub-Editor/ DTP Designer, to see how Russian artists of that time interpreted and presented these monumental changes.

We wanted to know what the art selected as ‘good’ and ‘bad’ by Russia herself could tell us about the nation at that time. What is more, would this exhibition in the Royal Academy reflect and illuminate Russia, her politics, her upheavals and her art, in terms of the pieces on display, but also in terms of its narrative?

It’s important to declare our subjective interests here.

It’s fair to say Sally is a naif when it comes to both the history and the art of this period, whereas Mike has more than a passing interest in both. Sally’s politics are left of centre, and Mike’s are left of Jeremy Corbyn. There was another question for us: Would the exhibition speak to us in different ways based on our preconceived ideas? And what, if any, would be the common ground between us?

Certainly we agreed that there is little sign of revolutionary art in the first room ‘Salute the Leader’, where rather predictably red walls provide the setting for

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the psychologist april 2017 culture a series of portraits of mainly Lenin, and several of dead Lenin at that. Forgive us if we’re wrong, but didn’t Lenin die in 1924, seven years after 1917? Trotsky was notable by his absence, his image literally cut out of the corner of a handkerchief in one exhibit. Some of the paintings had hints of religious iconography about them; others were decorated porcelain with an almost folksy feel to them, following in the footsteps of long-held Russian artistic traditions, but not exactly revolutionary. In fact, the art in this room was more reminiscent of the type of work that tends to spring up around dictators – the Cult of Lenin, if you will.

Whereas no one would deny that Lenin was absolutely pivotal in this period, it seems strange to enter an exhibition that takes as its starting point a revolution, yet it doesn’t begin with art reflecting that revolution, or even art that sets the context for that revolution – Mike pointed out there was nothing of ‘land, bread and peace’, and the mass involvement in the ‘festival of the oppressed and the exploited’. Mike also placed a nagging thought in Sally’s head… the Russians were well-known for their use of art as propaganda, but could the curation of this exhibition itself also be a form of propaganda?

We moved on. It was clear that in the early years after the revolution there was no single state-imposed acceptable art. Debates raged between various schools and styles of art – from the relatively conventional figurative painting of Brodsky, to the demands by Constructivists, such as Lyubov Popova, that easel paintings be abandoned. Mayakovsky’s 1921 stencil ‘Blacksmith’ showed us literally how the leadership of the Bolsheviks urged artists to use their art as a hammer to shape the new world. Alexander Deineka’s ‘Textile Workers’, 1927, is in direct contradiction to the images of iconified leaders, depicting superhumans with steely determination to fulfil this month’s production quota. This painting is almost futuristic, with its android-like women and its spotlessly clean factory. In yet another contrast, Mike noted the complex and innovative formation of

Alexander Deineka’s ‘Textile Workers’, 1927

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Pavel Filonov’s 1920–1921 oil painting ‘Formula of the Petrograd Proletariat’, which is much more open to interpretation. He read it as showing the process of individual interest and concerns beginning to come together into a collective, moving from being a class in itself, to being a class for itself.

The artists of the avant-garde exploited this diversity and lack of prescribed structure, and this exhibition tries to capture that by dedicating a room to a recreation of a 1932 government-sponsored hang of 30 works by Malevich. It includes a version of his famous ‘Black Square’ (first shown in wartime Petrograd in 1915, but little mention that this work was created pre-revolution).

The Malevich room is impressive in its scope, but hard to fathom. Malevich had been denounced by the Soviet authorities in the late 1920s, as in their view his abstract work failed to express social realities, however by 1932 he was back in the fold. Some have explained this by pointing to his later paintings of farm workers with blank faces as being more representational, but their interpretation is open to question – lost identity, or symbolic of unity?

More avant-garde comes in the shape of the recreation of a Tatlin bike/plane. This work hangs alone, suspended from the ceiling like an enormous prehistoric bird of prey, and the irony of what was a prototype of a worker’s vehicle suspended in the semi-darkness in a room sponsored by Maurice Wohl (British businessman and philanthropist, born co-incidentally in 1917…) is lost.

Other works of note include Boris Kusotdiev’s 1920 oil painting ‘The Bolshevik’, used as the image to market the exhibition overall, and which has been described variously as comic, lumpen, treading on the workers, emerging from the workers, and as the workers. Konstantin Yuon’s 1921 tempera painting ‘New Planet’ creates a sense of empowerment, continued through to Alexander

Boris Kusotdiev’s 1920 oil painting ‘The Bolshevik’

Kazimir Malevich, ‘Peasants’, c.1930

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Samokhvalov’s 1928 ‘Tram Conductor,’ showing each trolley worker, man or woman, could be a superhero.

If you go to this exhibition looking for the big names advertised though, be warned – Chagall is there, but with only two works, and Kandinsky with one.

The revolution pushed the idea of making art accessible to the masses into a reality. Vladimir Mayakovsky urged artists, ‘Art must not be concentrated in dead shrines called museums. It must be spread everywhere – on the streets, in the trams, factories, workshops, and in the workers’ homes.’ Mike felt the curation seeks to return the vibrant living art of the Russian Revolution back into a dead shrine – and to seek to ensure it does not spread, gives it an entrance fee of £18!

For Sally there was one work that above all else shows the confusion of this exhibition. The Room of Memory is a perfectly good installation, a box inviting visitors to sit inside it and see photos of some of the victims of Stalin during his purges. The audio guide talks about how these images are testimony to the horror of Stalin’s regime, and it is a moving display of human lives destroyed, lost and wasted. However, it felt out of place here. It is not an installation that was created during the period. Nor does it focus exclusively on the persecution of artists or those in the art world – we saw nurses, engineers, economists and ordinary citizens. Plus we are back again to problems in the timeline of this exhibition – the Great Purge, the most extreme of Stalins’ purges, was 1936–1938. It begs the question, what was the Room of Memory there to do? Educate? Inform? Manipulate?

Whatever the answer, it perhaps belonged in another exhibition, not this one.

This exhibition not only took as its starting point the Revolution, and the period of 1917–1932, but also looked for inspiration to an enormous exhibition of revolutionary

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Konstantin Yuon’s 1921 tempera painting ‘New Planet’

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Alexander Samokhvalov’s 1928 ‘Tram Conductor’ art held in Leningrad in 1932, where 2640 works of art were displayed. The RA has tried to capture some of that size and scope, but we are left with something that didn’t feel cohesive. Admittedly, Mike as an admirer of much of this period, by his own admission may have been unable to look at the exhibition objectively: for him the sense of continuity the curators tried to impose on the exhibition undermined the sense of liberation of the period. Sally on the other hand came to the exhibition as a veritable tabula rasa, but left confused. Following a linear narrative is often frowned upon in curation – it’s seen as the safe option, and somehow lazy, or as not properly engaging with materials and context. However, a themed exhibition spanning a period where many extraordinary things happened surely demands a coherent narrative.

We left feeling we had seen some outstanding works of art, but that our appreciation was despite the curation, not because of it. Go to see those works, but take your time, don’t be led by the curation.

It might be unusual to end with a quote from someone else’s review, but in the Winter 2016 Art Quarterly Professor John Milner wrote ‘Artists including Kandinsky, Chagall, Malevich, Rodchenko and Popova seized power, turning the storm of the revolution into Europe’s most radical experiment in art and society.’ This may be true, but somehow this exhibition doesn’t quite capture it.

See www.royalacademy.org.uk/exhibition/ revolution-russian-art

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the psychologist april 2017 culture

film Mad to Be Normal Robert Mullan (Director)

Beyond madness I have more than a passing interest in the life and work of R.D Laing. I am diagnosed with schizophrenia, I live in Glasgow next to the blue plaque honouring his birthplace, and I sometimes work within spitting distance from where the rumpus room once stood – a place where people diagnosed with schizophrenia could escape the mundanity of the 1950s ward and have some fun.

Laing is undoubtedly Scotland’s most famous psychiatrist, and was either a brilliant revolutionary or dangerous charlatan, depending on whom you ask.

The biography film Mad to Be Normal opens at the height of Laing’s fame during the 1960s. His books are selling well, America is calling, and Kingsley Hall is up and running in London. Kingsley Hall is at once both a spiritual successor to Glasgow’s rumpus room, and a therapeutic refugee community for people with mental illness. It is a stark alternative to the psychiatric care available at the time. The whole visuals of the piece appear to have been filmed through some sort of haze or smoke, and the colour palette and soundtrack have been painstakingly chosen to remind us that this is the 1960s.

The focus of the film is inevitably Laing himself (David Tennant). The impact of Laing’s work that resonates most heavily today is that madness is an understandable response to

‘unlivable situations’; he would even describe extreme mental states as a ‘voyage of self-discovery’.

However, these passionate beliefs aren’t demonstrated in any of the Kingsley Hall characters, and I found their portrayal lacking. One scene that briefly portrays some of the childhood trauma experienced by the elderly Sydney (Michael Gambon) feels like an unexplored subplot. It is more a device to highlight that Laing gave LSD to his patients, rather than an acknowledgment that madness can be justified, valuable, or indeed a reasonable and understandable response to certain circumstances of human existence.

The story about how R.D Laing once joined a ‘rocking naked mute schizophrenic’ on the floor of her room has passed into legend. He took off his clothes and rocked alongside her, until she spoke for the first time in months. Here, he just takes off his trousers. Whilst the original story demonstrates a compassionate desire to find common ground, the film scene loses this. It becomes a tool with which to demonstrate that Laing’s abilities as a psychiatrist were at a level far beyond those of any common practitioner, and presents an image of Laing as a healer with almost mythical abilities.

But the viewer learns nothing about the girl.

Despite the flaws of the film,

Tennant is believably energetic and charismatic as Laing. More rock star than academic, he chainsmokes, curses at the psychiatric establishment, and dishes out LSD like sweeties. Societal stigma towards people with mental health issues is embodied in the fearful locals who throw bricks through the windows, and jeer at the Kingsley Hall residents. This sets up one of the most powerful scenes of the film, in which a furious Laing sets out to defend the people he has chosen to share living space with. Historical accuracy is played with once again to give Tennant’s portrayal emotional depth beyond madcap antics. His daughter’s death from cancer is brought forward to coincide with the Kingsley Hall period, despite the fact that she died years after it had shut.

I am unconvinced that this somewhat unsatisfying biopic will make newcomers to Laing develop any great desire to seek out his work. But although some of his ideas have perhaps not aged so well, his spirit lives on in those who look for explanations of madness beyond a simple medical model.

Mad to Be Normal is on general release from 6 April (see also tinyurl.com/zr2huaf) Reviewed by Stephanie Allan, a finalyear undergraduate and peer research associate at Glasgow University

The ‘dark rainbow’ of dementia Colin say, regarding David with something approaching The ‘dark rainbow of dementia’ – the complicated wry disdain. and wide-ranging spectrum of the disease – was laid While David later emphasised that his dad has bare last week by the comedian David Baddiel. Colin always been slightly foul-mouthed, swearing, Baddiel, his father, has Pick’s disease – a type aggression and social inappropriateness are also of frontotemporal dementia characterised by some of the symptoms associated with Pick’s changes to behaviour and social cognition.

TV disease. Sexual disinhibition was emphasised Baddiel Jr talked candidly about his dad’s The Trouble in the programme – and we see instances of ‘punk dementia’ in an hour-long documentary, with Dad emotional lability, anosognosia and musicophilia The Trouble with Dad. It was poignant, touching Channel 4 too. David noted that Colin has developed a habit and shockingly funny in places. With the help of repeatedly blowing his nose – an example of David’s brothers Ivor and Dan, we gained an of an obsessive behaviour that can often happen with insight into the world of the Baddiels after Colin received frontotemporal dementia. this devastating diagnosis.

We also saw David and Ivor meet two other people ‘What am I supposed to do? Smile? He’s a fucking living with Pick’s disease. Ken greeted them with a full idiot, a total tit,’ are some of the first words we heard

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Find more ‘Culture’ online, including Jon Sutton on a production of Joe Orton’s ‘What the Butler Saw’ at Curve in Leicester.

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rendition of ‘Nessun Dorma’, while Lindsey – later on in the course of the disease – was essentially mute. The constellation of symptoms associated with Pick’s was thrown into sharp relief; early in the programme, we saw Ken crying inconsolably in the middle of a café. But later on, Ken’s daughter Sarah showed the Baddiel brothers footage of her father yelling at her.

The scope of the programme didn’t extend to covering neuroanatomy or genetics, both of which are complex but highly important. In around a third of cases of frontotemporal dementia, there is a significant genetic component, which can have huge ramifications for the children and relatives of those with the disease. It would have been useful for lay audience members if a neurologist or expert had explained these points.

film Moonlight Barry Jenkins (Director)

Based on an unperformed play, In Moonlight Black Boys Look Blue by Tarell Alvin McCraney, Moonlight is a story of a black boy growing up in a not-so-nurturing environment in Florida, left to fend for himself.

As a boy, his nickname of Little (Alex Hibbert) resonates with his growing experience of neglect and bullying. He lacks a sense of security, and is in a tangled relationship with his narcotic-addicted mother Paula (Naomi Harris). He learns to find trust and solace in Juan (Mahershal Ali), as well as Juan’s partner Teresa (Janelle Monae). The viewer may perceive Juan at first as an undesirable mentor, due to his unsociable activities which are in place to ensure his survival. However, the relationship that ensues is one of profound grounding for Little.

At the same time as finding a haven, Little becomes aware of, and takes on a socially constructed sexual identity born out of, a sense of submission to the life he has been dealt. He is unsure what this may look like, and seeks answers and reassurance from the relationships he has somehow managed to create,

To tie in with April Fool’s Day, we have been asking ‘What makes psychologists laugh?’.

Visit tinyurl.com/psychlaugh to see the contributions, and to add your comment.

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Reviewed by Chris Hardy, PhD student at University College London

Identity, experience and context

What I seek… when I need a laugh

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But that said, part of the programme’s charm was in its simplicity. It wasn’t overly sentimental, but still very touching. We were simply given a window onto a devastating condition that traditionally hasn’t received much attention, allowed by the Baddiels to consider the impact of the disease on family members and friends too. While many people have a very narrow idea of what dementia is, the film showed us the full rainbow of the condition, with all its different shades.

We run Rare Dementia Support groups for people affected by frontotemporal and other rare dementias. For more information, see www.raredementiasupport.org/ftd

in particular with his friend Kevin (Jaden Piner).

The film is told in three parts.

In the second part we see the boy in his teenage years, responding to his real name Chiron (Ashton Saunders), but no more in control.

Chiron is exposed to intimate experiences that neither affirm nor disprove his sense of identity and/or sexuality. He learns quickly that trusting relationships can, and indeed do, lead to betrayal.

In the third part he is a man with a different nickname, Black (Trevante Rhodes). Black has not forgotten his moment of intimacy: he accepts and forgives his abandonment, but re-enacts his childhood history.

The complexity of his childhood experiences is embedded within his attachment to the other, and supersedes any societal differences and prejudices that dictate the person he becomes.

The viewer is drawn in to the plot to align positively and/or negatively with a particular character, depending on one’s own experience of the world. The story also shines light on the experience of a lone mother who feels the injustices of her circumstances. Paula is unable to comprehend the cycle of destruction and the impact of her inability to consistently provide reliable emotional care, as she drowns in the waves of self-destruction.

My clinical experiences as a counselling psychologist suggest the

use of ‘panoramic lenses’ in viewing Chiron’s life experiences. It is not enough to examine the psychological effects of loneliness, anger, love, hate, betrayal, bullying and neglect.

It needs to be seen in the context of Chiron’s history, his understanding of internal models of relationships, and how these enable him to survive.

It is an interesting film to watch because it highlights how easy it is to make interpretations from a place of privilege when working with a client who may present as Chiron. For me, the reality of the choices he has made enables him to assume a position of control and power that is not bound up in culturally defined ideas of sexuality and/or sense of identity.

Can clinical discourses encourage an exploration of attachment style, as well as a deconstruction of unhelpful dichotomies such as being ‘black’ and ‘gay’, whilst also remembering how the socio-economic environment in Chiron’s world played a part in his upbringing?

Reviewed by Dr Yetunde Ade-Serrano, who is a counselling psychologist

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the psychologist april 2017 culture

Much to learn about ourselves The new Robots exhibition at the Science Museum in London charts 500 years of our desire to build our artificial equivalents. Robots are a very specific form of artificial intelligence in that they are embodied – and the focus here is the human version of these machines. Although the field of robotics came to fruition only in the 20th century, the history is much, much older, stretching back to classical myth and later manifesting itself in the automata of the medieval period. The exhibition charts this development with beautiful, captivating examples: the clockwork monk, the silver swan, the mechanical Turk – right through to some of the most advanced humanoid robots we have today.

Robots is a fascinating and informative immersion into the robotic landscape but the truly compelling part of this exhibition is the exploration of what it means to be human. It starts with birth. On entering the gallery, the first exhibit encountered is an incredibly convincing animatronic baby, upright against a wall and enshrined in light, slowly moving its limbs. It’s an eerie reminder of the theory of the uncanny valley – the unsettling gap where we are drawn to, and yet repulsed by, something that looks like us, but is not us.

The narrative of Robots is split into five sections by date: Marvel (1570–1800), Obey (1800–1920), Dream (1920–2009), Build (1940–present), and Imagine (2000 and into the future). At each stage, the story is framed in terms of our understandings of ourselves. Marvel, for example, explores the 16th-century notions of clockwork in the movement of the heavens and the movement of the

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body. In Obey, the idea of the human worker as automaton is mirrored in the mechanisation of factory work. Dream draws together science and science fiction, examining our hope and fears around our mechanical counterparts.

Build charts the cybernetic age and the work of the past 75 years that has brought us to this point. Lastly, Dream looks at the natural human–robot interaction we can expect in the future and speculates on what our relationships with these machines might be.

For me, it is Build that is the richest of all of these in terms of learning more about ourselves. This is where the research into robotics and artificial intelligence has branched out into psychology and philosophy, leading to the rise of cognitive science. Here the emphasis is on the importance of embodied cognition and the need to have a physical body in order to learn about the world. It’s the difficulty in building a machine with human abilities that highlights so clearly the fundamental gaps in knowledge about how we ourselves think and act. By showing the robots of recent years in terms of their capabilities and limitations, it’s a wonderful insight into how much there is to learn about our own cognition before we attempt to construct an artificial alternative. Robots may dominate the media but they are still a long way from dominating the world.

exhibition Robots Science Museum

Robots is at the Science Museum in London until 3 September https://beta.sciencemuseum.org.uk/robots Reviewed by Dr Kate Devlin, who is in the Department of Computing, Goldsmiths, University of London

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AZ the

psychologist to

D ...is for Deception

‘Deception is intriguing… it can be deliberate or inadvertent, large or small scale (think military tactics or a magician), it’s evident throughout history, but still very contemporary (fake news!); it’s both a topic for psychological study, and sometimes even a method used in studies.’

In his very honest June 2015 article, neurosurgeon Henry Marsh confessed ‘It was difficult to escape the conclusion that my self-esteem relied on selfdeception, a self-deception in part driven and supported by my patients’ need to believe in me.’

‘All psychological research is deceptive in some respects’, concluded Allan Kimmel in his August 2011 piece for us.

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The 2016 Ig Nobel prize for psychology was won by a study asking a thousand liars how often they lie, and for deciding whether to believe them.

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Karla Novak

Suggested by Fiona Almond, Visiting Fellow at the Ways of War Centre, University of Reading, and a research manager in the civil service (@Fiona_Almond)

‘Paltering’ is using a truthful statement to create a misleading impression. According to research covered by Alex Fradera on our Research Digest in January, ‘perpetrators can enjoy a sense of plausible deniability… but the harm they cause to their relationships is no less palpable.’

We psychologists are often accused of messing with people’s minds, and in 2016 research led by Jay Olson and covered by guest blogger Vaughan Bell on our Research Digest, psychologists used a cocktail of magic and fMRI to ‘implant’ thoughts.

A to Z Tweet your suggestions for any letter to @psychmag using the hashtag #PsychAtoZ or email the editor on jon.sutton@ bps.org.uk

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