What I learnt at the History and Philosophy Psychology Section Conference

Yesterday, 16 May, I got back from the annual conference for the History and Philosophy of Psychology conference. I am going to write a slightly more formal report of the event for the Psychological Sciences blog, but here I am going to reflect on the stuff that I found out at the conference, that I think is really interesting.

This section conference is a really friendly meeting, and I was pleased to see a number of students and a high ratio of international delegates. The day prior to the main event there was a workshop about the ways that Historians, Psychologists and Philosophers can work together. That was also an excellent event but here I am going to concentrate on the main event.

Almost all of the papers were of a very high standard.

Andrea Von Hohenthal taught me about the World War One history of German Psychology, but more particularly about the way that the British and German psychologists almost immediately at the cessation war scientific exchange once more.

Katherine Hubbard taught me about how the projective test movement in the 1950s acted as a site of liberatory practice for women and lesbians.

From Alison Torn I found about a 19th century project at New York Lunatic Asylum, to create a patient's periodical, and of the circumstances around being allowed to write for the periodical, what people were allowed to write and how power worked within the Asylum.

Natasha Bharj's paper on continuing colonial and racist discourses in contemporary psychology taught me about how the individualist versus collectivist  categorisation of societies can be racist. It also reinforced the need not to see racism in psychology as a problem in the past.

John Hall is doing really interesting work in being part of creating a critical history of clinical psychology in the UK. Also, and very interestingly, the way the clinical psychology trainers are beginning to see the need for teaching their students about CHiPs.

Philip Thomas reinforced my antipathy to some of the poorly conceptualised usages of functional brain images, this time in the field of psychosis.

John Jackson's presentation taught me about the ontological gerrymandering that Evolutionary Psychologists have done in creating their caricature of how the social sciences work, which they call the "Standard Social Science Model".

Peter Hegarty's wonderful presentation on "The Denaturalisation of Sexuality in 21st Century Time" taught me lots, especially how much I need to update to do a currently relevant course on the Psychology of Gender and Sexuality. Also it taught me much more about the linkages between some of the biological determinist work on (mostly male) gay sexuality and the struggles for equal rights in the USA.

Natalia Loginova's paper on history of psychology in Russia a fascinating insight into what is very often a hidden history to anglophones.

Elena Demke's paper on the role of psychologists acting as expert witnesses for the defense in cases of child abuse was an important lesson about the potentially very damaging consequences of psychologists trying to prove their professional status at the expense of children's well being.

Finally from Katrina Roen I had a thorough education in problems around using surgery to create normality for children in two cases, cochlear implants and Hypospadias. 

All in all a very good conference for me.