Oliver James (psychologist)
Oliver James is a British psychologist, author, journalist, television producer and broadcaster. Career. After studying Social Anthropology at Magdalene College, Cambridge, James trained as a child clinical psychologist at the University of Nottingham and worked for six years at the NHS Cassel Hospital in Richmond, London, in a clinical psychologist post. Speaking on Channel 4's 2013 "Psychopath Night", James described the credit crunch as a "mass outbreak of corporate psychopathy which resulted in something that very nearly crashed the whole world economy". Reception of work. During his career in psychology, James has attracted controversy with his  views on the nature versus nurture debate. Stuart Ritchie, a psychologist at the University of Edinburgh, wrote a strongly critical review of James's book "Not In Your Genes". He described the book as a "straw man made flesh", "a compendium of psychological myths and legends", and "bending over backwards to avoid awkward conclusions". Ritchie wrote, "Few books risk such damage to the public understanding of science as those by Oliver James", and accused James of "scientific illiteracy". Ritchie described the book's thesis as "children are born with brains of soft clay, their mental makeup unaffected by genes and  infinitely mouldable by their parents", and that "DNA has no effect on the mind or mental health, whereas parenting reigns supreme". Ritchie described a variety of evidence which contradicts this view. Ritchie also responded to a letter from James in "The Psychologist" magazine, following which James and Prof Richard Bentall of the University of Liverpool engaged him in argument. James responded to Ritchie's criticisms in an article in "The Guardian" in March 2016.