I have 2 doctorates in psychology

[Psy]

Ask me anything about psychology

Sure? My opinion is just that.

I appreciate sanity more and more as I get older.

OP, I think you should maybe better clarify where your expertise from your doctorates lies. I've a PhD in a different type of psychology to you and I'm conscious that The British Psychological Society reminds us not to go beyond our scope of knowledge and practice in giving advice or offering opinions as qualified psychologists. Obviously, we still have views on other issues, but, for example, I wouldn't claim my PhD makes me particularly knowledgeable about occupational psych.

I'm not working as a psychologist, and I'm not here in a professional capacity. I'm allowed to talk about my life and experience and I'm allowed to talk about psychology. I think I'm being pretty clear about the limits of my knowledge. Is there anything I've said that you think I shouldn't have?

I'd suggest treading very carefully around the mental health questions people have been posing as neither of your doctorates are in that area. If you do an AMA titled "I have two doctorates in Psychology," people will assume your answers to their questions reflect doctoral level study of the topic.

Which questions do you mean? I don't think I saw any personal questions about mental health.

I absolutely would never study this particular field of interest. I never question anything that I think. I don’t ever analyse or get anxious. I just do what I think is right (or might be wrong!).
I know lots of people who have studied psychology. I also don’t care what other people think, and I’m aware that others think on different planes to me. Why were you interested in this area?

What were the specific focus of your doctorates/PhDs?

How long ago and in which country did you study?

Why did you start this thread?

When I got my PhD, we were told at graduation the charming notion that everything we've learned is pretty much useless because the science has moved on so much in the meantime...
How has psychology developed since you graduated?- does it resemble the field you first fell in love with?

My family are like you! As my brother has said many times, psychology is only for navel gazers or crazy people who want to figure themselves out. I definitely agree that many if not most well-functioning people don't obsess about other people's thought processes.

I see psychology as an extension of philosophy which addresses all the big questions, what is reality, what is time, what is love, from the perspective that everything we think is constructed, that is, it emerges from our brain processes. In that way, it's the most basic science. Many other disciplines, physiology, pharmacology, computer science, politics, economics, literature even, end up oozing into psychology. They can't avoid us.

It's moved on a lot. One of the biggest changes was the replication crisis and now people are doing preregistrations. That's a good change imo. A bad thing has been bibliometrics - academics are forced to publish a certain number of papers per year, which has resulted in a drop in quality per paper, and there are just way too many papers. Now everyone's insisting on meta-analyses, but unless everything's preregistered, they are very subject to publication bias. I dislike analyses that give the impression of precision when the underlying data don't allow it, always a problem in psychology and still.

I feel like the big problem in psychology measurement - has not really shifted much.

I'm pretty isolated though. Possibly, everything I think is out of date. What do you think the big changes have been?

This thread is pretty outing, which is why I changed my user name, but I want to keep it vaguely deniable.

I've always avoided personality, gender and individual differences. And, up until recently, social psychology. My work is mostly in work, health, cognitive and developmental psychology. Psychology of normal lives and systems.

I started the thread because I was thinking about how everyone is an expert on human thought and behaviour. Everyone has lifelong experience with it. So what extra knowledge do we have from studying psychology? There are some small skills that are helpful, like statistics and human factors. But on a bigger scale, I'm not sure what we know. As a PP said, it's not as if psychologists are obviously better at human interaction than other people. It's sometimes the opposite.

So I was curious if there was anything I'd gained from years and years of postgraduate study that would be of general interest. Or really, if people had questions.

Sorry, I really don't know. Things have changed so much since I was an undergraduate.

I'm not working at the moment. My project ended and my supervisor has disappeared. I'm thinking what to do next.

When I was working, I did a lot of statistics and qualitative analysis, which is categorising people's comments from focus groups and interviews into predefined categories. A lot of report writing and sometimes literature reviews.

I did like my job but I have never managed to maintain a good work life balance with research, so I'm in two minds about it.

OK I've got a question. I've been to two different psychologists, and each one showed me some pictures of ink blots having sex, or getting ready to. They both said I was obsessed with sex. Isn't that a bit rich, considering they were the ones that had had those filthy pictures printed?

Interesting, especially about us all being experts on human thought - not sure I agree with that (experiencing something doesn't necessarily equate to expert-level understanding) but I get what you mean - so thank you for your replies.

I think some posters including myself are struggling with your comments about PhDs being free and easy to access, which doesn't align with other people's experiences (not that that means it's not true!), and your comments about autism and PD. You've said yourself these are not your areas of study or practice, but by dint of starting an AMA on the basis you've 2 doctorates in psychology and choosing to answer questions in that context, you are kind of setting the tone that your opinions on these subjects somehow carry significant professional weight or authority, when they don't as they outwith your scope of knowledge & practice.

I don't mean to be combative, and I've found much of this thread thoughtful and intriguing, but the tone here is a bit...odd, at times... (or maybe that's just me 😄).

😂

Well, I checked PhD acceptance rates and they are much lower than I thought. I had honestly never met anyone who applied and failed to get a PhD place. I just assumed everyone got in, but they clearly don't so I got that wrong. Selection bias, obviously.

What do you disagree about in relation to autism and PDs? That diagnosis is based on patterns of symptoms is uncontroversial, isn't it? There are no biomarkers. Nobody thinks there's a single underlying cause for each disorder do they? Or are you talking about something else? I hope everyone reading this feels free to jump in evidence and arguments against what I have said.

I don't think it's just you. Responses on this thread are not what I expected! I've been on this site for a while, and normally people don't go after me like this, so I think it's the doctorates that are bugging people. Of course, it's reasonable to be suspicious of anonymous people online, and there are plenty of false threads on here, so that's fair enough, I suppose. Not much I can say in response though.

The idea that I should stfu because I didn't specialise in clinical seems unreasonable. I can't really follow that argument.

😁

Thank you. Ich werde das machen.

I'm expressing scepticism. To anyone with a background in this area of experience of the processes involved in getting the qualifications you claim to have, this all sounds like nonsense. Obviously people make things up online and we should all be wary of relying on MN posts so I wouldn't usually comment on smelling a rat, but as you're discussing sensitive subjects and purporting to give careers advice, I think it's worth flagging up.

background in this area or experience of the processes involved

In Italy, if someone has corrected you in some patronising way, you can say 'Mi scusi, dottore'.

@Psy I don't think people are going after you due to the doctorates, I think they are rightly sceptical about you claiming PhDs are a) easy to get on to and b) free. They may well be government subsidised in some places but generally they are not truly free, you take a huge drop in wages as you are restricted in your available working hours. Also funding is hugely competitive and difficult to get. You are right in that unis will accept most people on a PhD, but that's an exploitative thing for self-funders and hugely unethical. I'm lucky in that my PhD is funded, but I'm still massively out of pocket and my earning capacity is stunted.

With a doctorate we end up with a huge amount of knowledge on a very small topic, I certainly wouldn't be inferring to know anything outside of my own specialism....

It's not that unusual for psychologists or psychotherapists to have a professional doctorate and an academic PHD.