Psychology Is Not Witchcraft

Radio Record, Volume VII, Issue 4, 4 August 1933, Page 45

Psychology Is Not Witchcraft

Credulity and Fear Seem to be Man’s Attitude Toward Psychology --What is Needful for Salvation?

‘THE following paragraphs were specially written for the "Radio Record" by Dr. R. BP. Anschutz as a guide tu his series of talks now being given from 1YA, Auckland, on Thursday evenings at 7.30, B ® @ HERE have been a number of sermons and addresses in Auckland recently in which the "new psychology" has been described as the enemy of anorals and religion. And we must all be familiar with some, at least, of the ‘claims that have been made for the ‘new psychology" in education, eriminal administration, business management, medicine and "life" generally. But remarkably little informatiou seems to have been provided with all this talk. A few technical psychological terms have been adopted, and used rather recklessly, in common speech: "inferiority complex," "conditioning," "repression," "sublimation." But the average man remains as ignorant of psychology as he does of witchcraft And his attitude to psychology seems. sometimes, to be much the same as his ancestors’ attitude to witchcraft-ar unrensonable amalgam of extravagant credulity and extravagant fear. = * s HIS is obviously a very undesirable state of affairs for which, equally obviously, there is only one cureknowledge. It is not very difficult to find out something about psychology. And, fortunately, a very little knowledge lays the bogy of the "new

psychology." It is sufiicient to point out that it doesn’t exist. es x * "THE scientific study of psychology is as old as most of our other scientifie studies-as old as the ancient Greeks. Aristotle wrote the first psychology _ treatise and the study of psychology has been continuous since his time. It has had its ups and downs, of course, like everything else. It went down, with everything else during

the Dark Ages. It went up, with nenrly everything else, at the Renaissance. And, then, it flared up in the nineteenth century, with biology, and it’s still flaring. ie = & Now it has happened quite regularly that whenever psychology has been on the upgrade, people have started to

talk of the "new psychology." That happened, to go no farther back, three hundred years ago, a hundred years ago, fifty years ago, just as it is happening now. And, of course, the "new psychology" has been different each time. xr % % Ber it- has never been as different as it is to-day, because previously there has always been one system of psychology which has had general acceptance. And that is just what is lacking now. There is no "new psychology" now, but, at .a conservative. estimate. half a dozen "new psychologies." * gS

Ber the layman will be going about his pursuit of psychology in quite the wrong way if, acting on this information, he decides to read forthwith the authoritative statements of the leaders of these various schools to decide for himself which has had _ the truth revealed to him. These men are indeed rivals for the centre of the stage but, although they sometimes have that appearance, they are not perpetual antagonists. And none, if you question him at all closely, claims to have discovered the whole truth about psychology, as rival theologians claim to have discovered all that is needful for salvation. 2 2 s PoE position is rather that each has found some method of dealing with a few of the facts of psychology and is trying to push that method as far as it will go (and farther) in the explanation of other facts. The disagreements of contemporary psychologists are conflicts of method rather than of creed. And to understand their methods it is first of all necessary to consider their observations and. more particularly, their experiments. These are their solid achievementswhat they have done, and not (to put it crudely) what they have said. Their experiments will still be quoted when their generalisations are regarded as curiosities. And it is on a consideration of their experiments that any teal appreciation of the contemporary position in psychology must be based, . EE

7 that is not all: You cannot! understand the contemporary: achievements of psychology without knowing something about those past achievements which have become the stock-in-trade of the téxt-books, "The: contemporary schools are not starting :. from the beginning, but with two thou: . sand years of psychological study be: hind them. Hach of them claims tle; privilege of continuing and advancing : what has been achieved in those two‘ thousand years. And each of them is. largely indebted for its outlook and procedure to the statements and hints of previous workers. McDougall, for, instance, the leader of what is’ sometimes called the "Instinct Sehool,": owes a great deal to Aristotle, ‘and so do a great many other contemporary | psychologists. . {t is its experiments, then, that con- ' gtitute psychology like any other. seience. And it is hoped that a des-: eription of a few of the more famous: experiments will .do something to dis-" pel the ignorance that is only too evi--dent in both the eulogies and the de- | nunciations of the "new. psychology" and, indeed, in the very use of the expression. "

Psychological Books for the Student The following books are recommended by Dr, Anschutz for the student of the ‘‘new psychology.": Galton’s ‘Enquiries into Human Faculty" (Everyman Series). (Typical nineteenth century observations an the most diverse subjects). Woodworth’s ‘Psychology’ (Methuen). (The best textbook). Woodworth’s "‘Contemporary Schools of Psychology" (Methuen). (This will provide ample references for further reading in Freud, McDougall. Watson, Kohler and so on).