Has Clinical Psychology Gone Astray?

Lilienfield, Scott O.
Lynn, Steven Jay
Lohr, Jeffrey M. Eds.
McNally, Richard J.

SCOTT O. LILIENFIELD, Department of Psychology, Emory University.
STEVEN JAY LYNN, Department of Psychology, State University of New York at Binghampton.
JEFFREY M. LOHR, Department of Psychology, University of Arkansas.
RICHARD J. McNALLY, Department of Psychology, Harvard University, 1230 William James Hall, 33 Kirkland Street, Cambridge, MA 02138. E-mail: [email protected]

PsycCRITIQUES 49(5):p 555-557, October 2004. | DOI: 10.1037/004796

Originally published in Contemporary Psychology: APA Review of Books, 2004, Vol 49(5), 555–557. Reviews Science and Pseudoscience in Clinical Psychology (see record 2003-04530-000). It is noted that a growing contempt for evidence in some sectors of clinical psychology has spawned an epidemic of what Scott Lilienfeld, Steven Lynn, and Jeffrey Lohr call pseudoscience. As editors of this volume, they have assembled an impressive group of scholars who tackle different aspects of this serious problem. Because of the considerable number of topics covered, this book unavoidably has more breadth than depth. Fortunately, many contributors have addressed their topics in detail elsewhere. Accordingly, readers wishing to delve further into a specific issue will find relevant citations in the reference sections of the chapters. I am fully in sympathy with the spirit of this excellent and important book: Clinical psychologists must provide evidence for the efficacy of their methods. However, I must confess to my ambivalence about the term pseudoscience. This term strikes me as little more than an inflammatory buzzword that fails to help us distinguish acceptable from unacceptable practices in our field. Are the practices debunked in this book the future of clinical psychology? Or are they the dying embers of our field's prescientific past? Answers to these questions rest on whether the contributors to this volume can win adherents among young people entering the field today and tomorrow. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2006 APA, all rights reserved)