Who Stole Psychology?

On November 5, 2005, Dr. Helen had a post about how the psychology profession is overwhelmingly liberal and has little tolerance for other viewpoints:

I read recently that 93% of all psychologists are left leaning; that explains a lot about my profession. I wish that in the 1980's when I started studying psychology that I had been given the list of rules and regulations outlining the political views I was being signed up for, without my consent. But at that time, I wasn't aware of the "rules"--maybe they were different then, or maybe I just didn't get the memo. If I had, I would have just walked away.

Somehow, in my misguided youth, I was under the impression that in the field of psychology I would study the science of the mind and behavior. Instead, I found myself and other students put on trial for the correctness of our personalities and political beliefs. In my first program in New York, I was in a European style program that had students take a series of exams after their Masters and prior to going into the PHD program. I was in an externship with several of the students who were preparing for these doctoral exams and studied their behavior. They often kissed up to the professors early on and acted as if they held their views in high regard. I realized that my anti-authority attitude was going to get me nowhere and decided another program would be better, and it was, but now I had to contend with political beliefs that I neither believed nor wanted to hear about.

Many of my classes centered around women's rights and multiculturalism. I would find myself seething in class over the liberal views but at the same time, I was unable to speak. I did not see women as victims, but as autonomous beings who were responsible for their own behavior. I felt that affirmative action was unfair and that people should be judged on their merits. I sensed that if I spoke up, the career that I had put so many years into could be cut short; and I was right. A male student in the program made a politically incorrect remark; he was gone a week later. I kept my mouth shut for the most part, until it came time for my dissertation. One of my committee members held up my defense with one trivial change after another. One day, she told me that since I was a woman, I would have to do a dissertion that was better than any man's to prove myself. This, she said, was the way the world worked. (Apparently stabbing your own gender in the back was part of the way the world worked in her eyes.) With my most cold and threatening gaze, I told her that I would do the worst dissertation that any student in my program had ever done who received their degree. She never bothered me again.

On December 21, 2006, I responded with this comment:

I know you wish you could redo your college experience, but I think it is good that you stayed in Psychology. It allows you to expose the left and interject new ideas. Plus it is probably really dangerous if patients are only exposed to liberal ideas. My mom's first cousin (about 30) is earning his PhD in Psychology right now; I think he wants to be a professor. I'm not sure of his political beliefs, but he did seem opposed to the Iraq war. He is a Mormon, so that probably helps somewhat to keep him grounded (though it doesn't seem to work for Harry Reid).

I think that other Psychology student who was released from the program should have sued the university for discrimination. You might as well use liberalism against itself. I think you would enjoy the psychologist in the movie "12 Monkeys." One of the earlier anonymous posters mentioned liberalism in Anthropology. I took an introductory class as a requirement and enjoyed it, but I could tell the professor was a liberal based on some comments she made about homosexuality and religious fundamentalists.

When I was in college I found a girl from the same school while I was on a message board. One time she e-mailed me and said that I might be a predator. I don't think I said anything, but I should have confronted her and said she could also be a predator for all I knew. She was also one of those types that was questioning her sexuality. Probably because all men are evil and there is no way that a sexually liberated woman could be attracted to a man.