Category: Psychology

After yesterday’s optimistic utopian visions, it is only fair to provide some balance with the reviews of two book that have more skeptical outlooks. Both authors are reaching the end of long careers and are firing warning shots across the bows of future generations.

Steven Rose asks some searching questions of neuroscience in his new book, The 21st Century Brain: Explaining, Mending and Manipulating the Mind. Rose is unimpressed with the way modern neuroscience pokes around randomly in the hope of stumbling on useful drugs and brain mechanisms. He criticises the ‘laughably crude’ models of the brain that neuroscience employs. To this I only have the age-old retort: Does he have a better idea?

Meanwhile, Dr. Peter C. Whybrow criticises our materialistic culture. In, American Mania: When More Is Not Enough, Whybrow’s central ideas is that in our search for money, we are ignoring the one thing that can truly make us happy: our relationships with other people. He suggests that each individual needs to take a close look at their lives and see what comes first, money or people. The sad thing is that we frequently delude ourselves about our priorities – while the majority will say people come first, they still behave as if it is money. It’s probably hard-wired.
The New York Times review of Dr. Peter C. Whybrow’s book
The Guardian Review review of Steven Rose’s book

There are two lectures at the intellectual heart of this intelligent biopic of Alfred Kinsey, the sex researcher who dared to turn a scientific eye onto our sex lives. These reveal the two most important parts of Kinsey’s professional persona: His need to catalogue and collect and his desire to disseminate and educate.

The first lecture, given as a 30-year-old zoologist, was about the gall wasp. In describing his continuing obsession with collecting and cataloguing these insects, he demonstrates their infinite variety. In doing so, he prefigures his future findings on human sexual diversity.

Years later, after Kinsey marries and his interests have spread beyond gall wasps, he is giving a lecture on human sexuality – called a ‘marriage class’ to mollify prudish attitudes of the day. He asks a seemingly loaded question of a quivering undergraduate.

“Which part of the human body is able to increase in size by a factor of ten?”
“I’m sure I don’t know,” the shocked young woman replies.

Kinsey quickly puts her out of her misery, supplying the answer – the iris – as well as the warning that she may be in for some considerable disappointment in future.

While the second example may well involve some artistic licence, it is characteristic of the warmth and humour with which this frequently shocking movie is infused. And shocking it is. Despite the passage of some fifty years since the publishing of Kinsey’s reports into human sexual behaviour we seem to have become much more knowledgeable about human sexuality, but perhaps no wiser. Much of the information that Kinsey gathered is now relatively common knowledge, but many of Kinsey’s methodologies would still be frowned upon.

Kinsey has been endlessly profiled in the build up to the release of this movies. Some of these are obsessed with addressing whether Kinsey was, in some sense, a hypocrite. The objective scientist is set up in opposition to the moral bankrupt. This is a nice juicy dichotomy for the writing of a feature article but relatively unimportant compared to what the film highlights; Kinsey’s impressive determination to scientifically catalogue human sexual behaviour, a genuine compassion for his participants and a single-minded determination to take us out of the sexual dark ages.

Whatever Kinsey’s faults – and a person is inevitably not perfect in every aspect of their lives or work – he should be judged on his best work. It’s always easy to criticise, to pick holes and knock things down. Having the strength to build a project of this magnitude from scratch and having the vision and courage to follow it through, that is something we can all aspire to.

Read a summary of Kinsey’s findings

The neurologist Dr Oliver Sacks provided a window into a mystifying parallel world of mental dysfunction in his book, “The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat”. The descriptions of his neurological patients inspired myriad plays, films and other artworks, and probably untold numbers of young neurologists and psychologists – including me. The profile in this weekend’s Guardian tells the story of his science-obsessed family and his remarkable life.
→ From The Guardian Review

A panic attack is a frightening experience – your heart begins to race and you feel as if you are about to die. The sufferer does not usually have a real reason to panic, the dangers are ‘all in the mind’, but the experience is very real. Research in the US has found that, of the patients arriving at A&E thinking they are having a heart attack, one in four is actually having a panic attack.

In treating panic attacks, cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) has proven extremely effective. The treatment consists of two parts. The cognitive part addresses the question of why the patient feels they are about to die. For example I may be convinced that if I go outside I will die. At a rational level I may well realise that this will not happen. At another level, the causality might seem very real to me. The therapists job is point out the inconsistencies in my thought processes.

The behavioural part of the therapy is all about training the body to relax, rather than allowing the sensations of panic to spiral out of control. Think of this as akin to Pavlov teaching his dog to salivate when he rang a bell.

Researchers are still not quite sure whether it is the behavioural part or the cognitive part of the therapy that is most effective. Either way, when combined, the therapy has been shown to be extremely effective in treating panic attacks.

How much money will you have next week? How much time will you have next week? Chances are you are thinking much more time than money according to a study published this week. And if you’re unemployed then you’re probably right. Otherwise you’re probably wrong. To the human mind, time really doesn’t equal money – we treat the two quantities in quite different ways.

→ From The New York Times (Free registration required)

The link between height and earnings is well established. Studies in the US have shown that people earn an extra £500 a year for each additional inch in height. Now, here’s the same research, but this time for babies.

You can see this principle informally on any urban underground line as it travels rapidly between areas of differing affluence. As the train moves into the more affluent areas, the passengers boarding the train get significantly taller.

A note of caution: This type of research only shows an association, it doesn’t mean that one thing causes the other. So don’t put your children on the rack – unless they’re really annoying you.
→ From BBC News