Newsgroups: bit.listserv.psycgrad
Date:         Sun, 13 Dec 1992 15:52:01 EST
              <PSYCGRAD@UOTTAWA.BITNET>
From:         jlbugg@UCCS.EDU
Subject:      RE: Colorado cocaine addicts

My high school journalism teacher - and the only one from whom I've
ever been given any journalistic ethics advice - told me never to
respond to a letter coming in response to your own; i.e., if you've
had your say then 'shut up.'  I will respond anyway - because you all
know that I really can't help myself - I always have an opinion.

Todd and Larry,

I AGREE with you!!! That's why I wrote the letter.  Indeed, I did
learn the hard way - I did too much for this woman and now I then
I felt guilty and resentful.  But to answer Julie's question,
yes, I would do it again - and here's why...

I don't have any qualms about doing the stats or data collection, etc.
for another person's work (prof or not), providing adequate compensation
BECAUSE the conceptual work, as Todd called it, would be their own.  Or
the work of both of you, in the case of professors.  The "meaning" and
importance of what the topic covers - the ways in which the results
alter human behaviors and perceptions in professionals and laypersons
alike - come from their mind (not my own).

The problem is, in this particular case, they didn't.  I'd like to say
that this person did her own lit review - but her topic, The Willingness
of Mental Health Professionals to Counsel the Terminally Ill, had virtually
no literature to work from - which is why it probably was not significant -
she didn't let her dissertation topic spring from a body of literature
that she had been reading and conceptualizing.  She simply designed an
experiment, a survey, off the top of her head.  She has no neuropsychology,
no cognitive psychology, and I doubt any social.  Just some developmental
stuff in class and an office with kleenex and some barbie dolls, etc.

Larry, if you really want to get frightened, you should know that she
doesn't just work with "Colorado Cocaine Addicts," she works with
*adolescent addicts*.  But here is what I think is scary about that...
We need immediately some legally more stringent rules to govern who gets
to be a "psychologist" and who must be under supervision.  These universities
without walls are accredited by the APA - or at least that what she told
me - and they have to GO!  They do not require enough that their students
should be considered competent to work with the vulnerable and fragile
populations that they do.  This woman had her masters in counseling
psychology from the school of education.... and was in private practice.

Good grief - that's what my mother does.   She is a high school counselor
with enough *human* ethics (as APA means nothing to her) to know that
she is not qualified to do private practice (nor did she ever really
want to which is why she went into education).  At UCCS they put the
ed counselors into the grad psychopathology class with us - these folks
are asking questions like "What's aphasia" and "What does perseveration
mean" (the word, not the pathology).  Then they graduate, rent office
space, and screw up another generation of people with problems.

What's more is that these couns. students are rather blatent with the
facts that 1) they are in their program because they want the easiness
of the job (private, nicely decorated office, set own hours, make $110
on the hour, etc.) and 2) they can get an ed. psyc. degree and "get in
through the back door" - they never have to take statistics.  They declare
that statistics has nothing to do with "helping people talk about their
issues."

Perhaps this is what so irritates me about the concept of clinical
psychology - that those who seem to enter the field are not at all
concerned with the complexity of human life - but are concerned with
making 56 G's a year.  Obviously I'm not against making a great living,
but many don't seem to realize that making the great living is
compensation for doing something great, rather they just see making
a great living as their right.  Give me my eighty dollars and you can
emote on me for an hour - how is this different from prostitution?

See, I think that those who moan about not wanting to take statistics
and that it has no point are those who just don't like math, don't like
homework, and want to get out of it in the same way that they tried
to get out of their typing requirement in high school.  Maybe I'm being
cynical; our university just dropped the foreign language requirement
for everyone.  Colorado Springs seems to be having trouble understanding
that a person should try to explore cultures outside their own - whether
it is the culture of the academically elite (and statistically knowledgeable),
the gay community, or those who speak languages other than English.

Larry, please, please, please don't consider my statement about single
motherhood to be an excuse for unethical behavior in the name of quick
cash - I was merely trying to end my letter cleverly.  I have some
non-politically correct opinions on single motherhood - and among them
are that it isn't an excuse for anything.  I wouldn't want to raise my
child burdened by the fact that he provided mom with an easier life.

When they dropped the foreign language last week, a professor was
quoted as saying, "our students have trouble with the English language,
why should we make things more difficult by giving them a foreign one?"
Gosh, if my cohorts stop studying for statistics.....

Jennifer
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