How To Tell If Your Therapist Is Crazy
(Part Three: A Questionable History Lesson)

Historical Roots of the Modern Crazy Therapist

It has been said that psychology is a young science. Nothing could be further from the truth. Most of the people I know who practice psychology are, in fact, old. Some of them are also crazy. This is in keeping with psychology’s long developmental history: two steps forward, one step back.

To understand today's crazy therapists, we must examine the personalities who helped shape psychology. The pioneers of my profession probably did interesting things, but mostly they talked -- a lot -- which we continue to do, except that now we call it “processing.”

Earliest psychologists, however, eschewed “processing” in favor of “grunting” due to the lack of language. You see, the effort to repair the minds of clan members who just won’t fall into line no matter how many times you hit them with a stick! dates back to the earliest, single-celled psychologists. Let us now remember those pioneers fondly, as we begin a brief history of a little thing I like to call “my job.”

Cave Shrinks: Psychology’s Hairy Forefathers

Some people will tell you that psychology was born in 1879, at approximately 3:30, when Wilhelm Wundt discovered the first psychology laboratory. (It was next to the barber shop on 42nd. Strange that nobody had noticed it before.) Do not believe those people, for they are lying dirtbags.

The earliest psychologists dwelled not in plush offices equipped with the most modern candles and spittoons, but in caves where they were forced to “process” in darkness and spit directly onto the floor.

Coincidentally, the world’s first crazy therapists made their appearance in those caves. Like their modern contemporaries, they used wacky, new-age treatments. For example, drilling into someone’s skull with a Black and Decker model 402 hammer drill ($119.95 at Sears; see figure 1).

Skull-drilling, or “trephination” as it was called at the time, was based on the idea that evil spirits, who had been bouncing around helplessly inside a skull with no exits, would escape if provided with a wide hole bored deep into the patient’s brain. These spirits were either fat or stupid, otherwise they would have simply exited through a nostril. The operation was frequently successful, as judged by the long and peaceful slumber that patients enjoyed afterward.

We now laugh condescendingly at such simple-minded interventions. Modern psychology has outgrown such barbarism, aside from a brief 40-year period during the latter 20th Century when astute mental health professionals subjected patients to brain-severing procedures, or “lobotomies” as they were called at the time. Oh, and we also tied up schizophrenic patients in wet blankets and beat them with sticks. But I digress. Let us return to the Stone Age.

Which brings us to the Renaissance.

The Thinkers

	Figure 1. Early cave drawing. Source: Modern Psychologist, issue I, slate 3.

One cannot discuss the intellectual roots of psychology without remembering the philosopher Immanuel Kant (as in, “I kan’t understand what the heck this guy is talking about”). Kant, who was born in 1724 and I’m pretty sure is dead by now, is best remembered for writing long, complicated sentences with many big words. The mere mention of his name takes be back to my carefree days as an undergrad when I avoided Kant like a crack whore avoids Johnny Law. Ah, the wispy memories of yesteryear.

In contrast to his inscrutable contributions to ethics, theology, aesthetics, and logic, Kant’s contribution to psychology was relatively scrutable. He believed that the processes of the mind took place over time, but occupied no space. If you want a remarkably sloppy example of what he was talking about, and I’m not sure why you would, read this essay by yours truly. Clearly, Kant was copying me, the hack.

But there’s more! In addition to inventing radical new ideas, Kant invented the first case of obsessive-compulsive disorder through painstaking efforts to structure every moment of every day. From his 5:00 AM (sharp!) awakening to his 3:30 PM stroll (during which he refused to interact with others or breath through his mouth), Kant gave birth to a disorder that would be enjoyed by countless followers for years to come.

Jumping backward a bit, we stumble over the intellectual grave of Bishop George Berkeley.

Berkeley (just off I-80 as you cross the Bay Bridge) had brilliant insights into the workings of the human mind. For example, his theories on perceptual development were centuries -- perhaps millions of years -- ahead of his time. Naturally, that is not what he is remembered for.

Berkeley is best remembered and mocked for his belief that physical matter is a threat to religion. “Material reality is an illusion,” he would shout. A sad, wretched illusion for which we should be deeply ashamed.

Berkeley did his most influential work before the age of 28. After that, he spent his time organizing “die-ins” at the future site of the U.C. physics building, thus beginning a long tradition of impotent Bay Area political demonstrations. He died, this time for real, in 1753.

After Berkeley, but Before Kant, there was David Hume. And he was Scottish! As a child, Hume commanded little respect. He was considered to be, like some evil spirits, fat and stupid. But at the age of twelve, he was accepted to the University of Edinburgh. “That’ll show ‘em,” he was heard to mutter.

By 23, he had already invented the first nervous breakdown, a disorder which would be enjoyed by countless followers, when he realized how much he really, really hated law school. He dropped out, became a philosopher, and decided to find out where new ideas come from.

Dissatisfied with Microsoft’s answer to that question (“we steal them from Apple”), Hume created one of psychology’s defining moments when he invented this idea: something about causation not applying to the mind, yadda, yadda, the study of correlation being the best substitute, etc. It gets pretty dry from there.

And, come to think of it, he never really told us where ideas come from.

The point is, Hume transformed himself from a lazy, pasty, Nancy-boy to a red-blooded, full-fledged, skirt-wearin’ man. You gotta respect that!

There were other great thinkers, many of whom were named Tom for some reason.

The Doers

Nothing goes with mental illness like a glitzy, Vegas-style show!

That was the deeply held conviction of Dr. Franz Mesmer. You may recognize his name from the word “mesmerize,” which means to be separated from one’s money while in a daze.

Mesmer, born in 1734 to a family of modest means, was smart enough to marry into money. After that, he enjoyed a life of leisure pursuits and scientific inquiry.

Mesmer believed that mental problems are caused by misalignment of the body’s “animal gravitation,” which can be realigned using magnets. To cure the afflicted, the good doctor would gather his patients in a dramatically lit parlor. He would then appear from behind velvet curtains wearing flowing robes and carrying a giant, rod-shaped magnet.

Using sophisticated techniques of showmanship (such as playing spooky music in the background), Mesmer would begin each session by bringing his patients, one by one, to a “crisis” that involved fainting, shuddering, and rolling one’s eyes back in one’s head in a theatrical fashion. He would then pretend to cure them with his giant rod. The patients, in turn, would pretend to get better, so it was a win-win situation.

Mesmer died in 1815, a very wealthy man.

One of Mesmer’s contemporaries, Franz Joseph Gall, also earned a quick buck on the lecture circuit hawking the “science” of phrenology. Gall believed that personality and character were reflected in the size and shape of bumps on the outside of the skull. He is rumored to have arrived at that belief when he noticed that some of his bug-eyed friends happened also to have good memories.

Using only the latest, state-of-the-art logic imported straight from U.C. Berkeley, he concluded that the extra memories stored in his friends’ brains must have been causing their eyes to protrude. And really, when you think about it, how could you conclude anything different?

	Figure 2. Gall's phrenology. For a fun project at home, use this chart to pinpoint the source of your partner's faults.

Gall made two significant contributions to psychology. First, though he is rarely remembered for it, he was a top-notch anatomist. For example, he was the first to notice that signals from the right side of the body cross over to the left brain hemisphere. His attention to such detail created a boost of knowledge that carries forward to this day.

Unfortunately, Gall was about as logical in his thinking as your average politician in heat. In order to prove phrenology, he cherry-picked cases that fit his theory. For example, he would sort through criminals until he gathered a collection that had the right type of bump on the backs of their heads.

Occasionally, people would challenge him with cases that contradicted his theory -- imagine a sweet, innocent nun with a criminal-type bump. Gall would explain those cases away by arguing that the person would have been a criminal had that trait not been outweighed by others. He would then point to the “Sweet, Innocent Nun” area of the skull and say, “see, she has a prominent Sweet, Innocent Nun Bump! Neener neener!”

His utter irrationality led to Gall’s second, inadvertent contribution to psychology. Others in the field were so offended by his fallacious thinking that they set out to prove him wrong. In so doing, they discovered that he was pretty much right: there are areas of specialization in the brain, even if they don’t cause bumps on the skull. “Well, shit,” they were heard to say, “that really chaps my hide.”

The Rat Jabbers

At some point, psychologists decided to stop “processing” and conduct some actual experiments. Conveniently, the Age of Experimentation (a term I just invented!) showed up right on time.

The Age of Experimentation was ushered in by Wilhelm Wundt, who relied mainly on one of those pointy flashlights you find in theaters. (You know, the kind that look like little light sabers which made me really want one as a kid but the local theater wouldn’t hire me which is why I never became a researcher.) Anyhoo, Wundt wanted to complete lots of experiments with minimal effort, and so he invented something he called “graduate students” and subsequently oversaw more than 200 doctoral dissertations.

Using these “graduate students,” Wundt was able to complete many titillating psychological experiments such as: what happens when “graduate students” listen to a metronome for hours on end? The students gladly participated in the experiments, which Wundt called “introspection.” The purpose, he told his students while barely containing a case of the giggles, was to unmask the workings of the mind through painstaking and detailed examination of inner experiences.

Little did the students realize that Wundt and his buddies were watching them from behind a two-way mirror, laughing and enjoying a pint. “Ha ha! This is great!” his friends would whisper. “See if you can make them look for a left-handed monkey wrench!” However, the wily students got the last laugh when they surreptitiously discovered a way to make the experiments much more fun: they invented a device called the “bong.”

	Figure 3. Snickers, the white rat that became the bane of Little Albert's existence. Subsequent experimentors sought to include a more culturally diverse representation of rodents.

At about the same time that Wundt was tormenting graduate students, John B. Watson was born. Never to be outdone, Watson developed a thriving career in tormenting little children.

One of the universe’s first behaviorist, Watson is best remembered for his experiment on Little Albert, who was a living, breathing human baby. The experiment involved pairing a white rat with a loud, frightening noise. Predictably, Little Albert quickly learned to fear white rats, in addition to all manner of other fluffy white things. As you can imagine, Christmas time was a bitch around the Little Albert household, and some wondered if the kid would be scarred for life. Naturally, activist groups protested Watson’s experimental use of animals. (Seriously.)

Cruel experimentation was taken to a new level by Stanley Milgram who, in 1963, invented the Nazi.

In a paper titled Behavioral Study of Obedience, Milgram described an experiment in which unsuspecting patsies were instructed to administer severe electric shocks to other participants, called “learners.”

The purpose of the experiment was to see how easily people could be pushed to harm others. Whenever the learner (who was actually a confederate walled off in the next room) answered a question incorrectly, the experimenter would command the participant to deliver an electric shock. The participant was also ordered to increase the intensity of the shock with each wrong answer.

As the voltage increased, the learner would protest more loudly, eventually screaming and begging for mercy (while barely containing a case of the giggles). A surprising number of participants continued to deliver shocks, even after the confederate had ostensibly fallen unconscious or dead.

That’s pretty much the gist of Milgram’s experiment: at the cruel urging of a severe-looking man in a lab coat, participants were pushed to the point of killing another human being. Of course, no one was actually harmed, except for the real participants who bore profound psychological scars for the rest of their lives.

And that brought the Age of Experimentation to a grinding halt, thank God.

The Bronze Age of Psychology

Psychology now seems to be in its Bronze Age: it’s a damn sight better than living in caves, but we certainly hope that things become more orderly. One of the characteristics of this modern era is the division between academic and applied psychologists.

That division has become heated at times. It reached an ugly pitch in 1988 when a rebel faction of academics broke away from the American Psychological Association and formed the American Psychological Society. (Ali versus Foreman this was not. Watching psychologists argue is like watching tree sloths vie for a spot in the shade.)

Despite our differences, we need each other.

	Figure 4. A triumphant two-toed tree psychologist basks amongst the cool, refreshing spoils of war.

Applied psychologists, like me, interact with real humans in workplaces, schools, clinics, and at the grocery store when we can’t find the hummus. Academic psychologists, on the other hand, live in plush ivory towers with many supple “graduate students” who compete for their professors' affection. They provide us working stiffs with an endless stream of useful information. A good example of a typical academic is Noam Chomsky.

Chomsky is a famous for being a “nativist” and for being the only person in modern times who actually understands what the heck Immanuel Kant was talking about.

A nativist is someone who was born in this country and believes that abilities can be traced to specialized mechanisms in the brain. For more than a lifetime, Chomsky has searched for a grammar mechanism that allows children and some dogs to speak. Unfortunately, scientists have been unable to locate this mechanism, despite having invested hundreds of dollars in tiny submarines.

Chomsky’s ceaseless devotion to the elusive grammar mechanism has made him one of the world’s foremost experts on American economics and foreign policy. This should be obvious to anyone. Using his repository of hard-won knowledge, he has written many even-handed commentaries, including America: Land of Rat Bastards and Americans Are Shit-Heads.

To this day, American students flock to Chomsky’s politically-charged lectures which, ironically, are delivered in Americanese. Sadly, Chomsky will be forced into retirement after his students decide to form The People’s Committee To Become Offended By The Word “Nativist.”

And so, you can see why clinicians like me rely heavily on such research. Of course, we applied psychologists have our issues, too, but I’ve already beat that horse to death here and here. Two steps forward, one step back.

-IS