Defining "Not Empirical" as Not Psychology?

This Letter to the Editor was written in response to Cynthia McLoughlin's article  On Mandatory Continuing Education and was published in the newsletter of the Michigan Society for Psychoanalytic Psychology in February 2001. It is reprinted here by permission of the author.

In the October issue of the News, I wrote a letter raising questions about how decisions made by the APA about Continuing Education (CE) credits could impact the work of psychoanalytic psychologists. I expressed concern that a CE requirement for licensure would likely be accompanied by standards for “appropriate content” of CE programs and that such standards might eventually translate into a mandate to practice in accord with some organizational definition of “appropriate content.” Shortly after my letter was published, the National Psychologist (Vol. 9, No. 5) published an article entitled, "Quandary Develops About Thought Field Therapy (TFT) After Arizona Psychologist Is Reprimanded." This article reports that, within one year of the APA’s decision to discontinue accepting CE credits for courses or workshops offering TFT, the Arizona licensing board disciplined a psychologist "for using these long-tested therapies." According to this article, the Arizona Board held that if a therapy method: (1) is not accompanied by research evidence that defines it as a "viable approach to psychological healing," and (2) makes claims for treating various problems in living "without empirical basis," that methodology no longer meets accepted APA practice standards, and its practice "cannot be called psychology."

Interviewees for this article are cited as being "quite surprised" to hear that a colleague had been sanctioned for practicing a type of therapy the APA no longer recognizes as "appropriate content" for CE credit. Given the reported rationale for this decision, the possibility that psychoanalytic study and practice (or some forms thereof) could also become re-defined by the APA as "not psychology" immediately emerges.

At a recent professional meeting a discussion of pros and cons of offering CE credits prompted the response that there is no reason for concern about the APA denying approval for CE credits offered by psychoanalytic organizations. The reason given was that, unlike TFT, psychoanalysis has a strong scientific foundation, and therefore persons practicing psychoanalysis in accord with its scientific standards do not risk similar reprimand. This response assumes that there is only one version of psychoanalysis and that its claims to knowledge are grounded in empirical science. Even the briefest survey of psychoanalytic literature yields a much broader picture in which psychoanalysis is viewed not only as science, but also as a hermeneutic, semiotic, and linguistic discourse, as well as other conceptual frameworks. These well-established ways of viewing psychoanalysis are not necessarily amenable to being tested through the methods of empirical research. Are they therefore subject to being branded as “not psychology”?

If CE becomes mandatory in Michigan, what would be the standards according to which “appropriate content” would be determined? Would the licensing board make use of APA standards? And if APA (or other) standards were adopted and enforced how long would it be before the practice of all other methods of psychotherapy become defined as non-standard, subjecting the practitioner to a fate similar to that of our Arizona colleague? This question begets new and related questions, such as:

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