Psychology And Psychology. False Psychologists

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

In this article we will talk not only about psychology, psychodiagnostics, fate analysis and scientific methods. I would like to acquaint readers with the position of a person whom a large number of experts in academic circles rightfully consider the flagship of personality psychology in the Russian Federation. In addition, I have long wanted to meet personally with Lyudmila Nikolaevna Sobchik and discuss with her such a topic as the problem of false psychologists. I am sure that the position of Lyudmila Nikolaevna will not only be interesting, but also useful for colleagues, novice specialists and ordinary people

So, let me introduce my interlocutor: Russian psychologist, doctor of psychological sciences, leading specialist in the field of psychodiagnostics and personality psychology - Sobchik Lyudmila Nikolaevna.

Lyudmila Nikolaevna, please tell me how many years have you been doing depth psychology?

I began to study personality psychology when I was already more than thirty years old and to this day I practice the creation of methods for diagnosing personality traits and the development of the theoretical foundations of personality psychology.

Please tell us about your first candidate work

My PhD was related to the practice of applying test methods. This was an event for Russia because it happened for the first time. In particular, the base of the well-known MMPI test was improved, which I adapted and modified. My adaptive version of the MMPI test methodology - the SMIL test, consists of 375 statements. Each statement is understandable, easily perceived and works for the personal characteristic that corresponds to it.

And to this day in Russia, this test version is quite widespread.

In what professional fields is it most widely used today?

He is especially popular in personnel selection, career guidance, in the Department of Employment of the Population. It is also very successfully used in the Prosecutor's Office, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Ministry of Emergency Situations and such large organizations as Lukoil and Gazprom. For the last thirty years, many methods, original author's, as well as those that were adapted by me, are widely used by pedagogical psychologists and school psychologists to visualize the pedagogical process.

Lyudmila Nikolaevna, what can you say about the theory of personality?

At the time when I began my research activity, there was still no single view of the integral personality in Russian psychology. Perhaps only Leont'ev's Theory of Activity. The Russian theoretical approach was dominated by an approach in which it was necessary to avoid references to innate characteristics of people. They tried to attribute all features to convective, emotional, behavioral characteristics, which appeared as a result of upbringing, social environment and social factor. Although, at the same time, the famous Leningrad psychologist Ananiev said that all three components should be taken into account: biological, psychological and social. In this I am his associate. This is the approach I use in my work. In my work, I have always paid more attention to the roots, the origins that shape the personality. I took into account the genetic background and innate characteristics. The typology of personality traits developed by me highlights such basic properties as sensitivity, anxiety, aggressiveness, emotiveness, extraversion and introversion, pedantry, and spontaneity. It is these eight basic typological properties that underlie personal interpretation. However, these properties of character are manifested in behavior as a direct manifestation of character. A mature personality is distinguished by an adequate self-esteem and a pronounced control of consciousness, which determines the purposefulness of actions. I would like to draw your attention to the fact that this approach is quite universal. Applying this approach when conducting a comparative analysis of different indicators of several methods, you can get the most reliable results.

Lyudmila Nikolaevna, I know that your new book will be published soon?

Yes that's right. Soon my new book will be released, which is called "Psychology of personality. Theory and practice of psychodiagnostics". This is an enlarged reprint of this book, which was first published in 2000. I also plan to start writing the next book with a medical psychological bias about women's fate and work with adolescents in the very near future.

In which countries and who is using your methods?

My methods are used by both practical psychologists and research institutes in Russia, Latvia, Ukraine, Belarus, Georgia, Kazakhstan.

Are you planning to hold seminars or refresher courses?

Undoubtedly. On April 4th I will give an 80 hour course for psychologists. This course is very comprehensive and informative. In such courses, I share all my practice and knowledge that I have acquired during all my scientific activities in the field of psychology and psychodiagnostics. One of the main goals that I set for myself is to help psychologists master and acquire practical skills when applying psychodiagnostic techniques. After my training, psychologists who work in various fields know and, most importantly, can apply this data in their practice.

Lyudmila Nikolaevna, have you ever been to the homeland of Leopold Sondi? Perhaps you are familiar with Mr. Juttner?

Unfortunately, I didn’t have a chance to visit Szondi’s homeland and I didn’t get to know Mr. Yutner. Although I have certainly been to Europe and even lived in London for several years. My husband was a diplomat. It was then that I learned languages. In addition, I had a unique opportunity to study rare books of foreign colleagues.

Lyudmila Nikolaevna, what do you think a person should be who calls himself a psychologist?

A psychologist must be an educated person. He is morally and in his erudition must be head and shoulders above the others. Only then does he have the right to bear the title of psychologist and to invade the inner world of another person. Such a person should have a wide range of knowledge and an appropriate depth of knowledge, not only in psychology, but also in literature and philosophy.

You know that as a journalist, I am interested in the topic of false psychologists. How could you describe such a phenomenon and how widespread do you think it is today?

Unfortunately, many people who have barely learned to read and write have decided that they are psychologists. Sometimes they discuss everyday understandable topics at the level of common sense. People are taught how to live in order to be happy, in harmony with themselves and the world around them, but this has nothing to do with scientific psychology. False psychologists mislead people who seek help from smart people in order to overcome everyday difficulties concerning their spiritual world and communication with others. When it suddenly became fashionable to turn to psychologists, some smart people realized that this was a great opportunity to make money.

Frankly speaking, I have not met such false psychologists who would not try to make money on it. Perhaps the exception is the ambitious graphomaniac. There are simply no such ones. They have many ways of acting - for example, write a book that is popular, but at the same time has nothing to do with academic science. There is also a form of some kind of appeal from psychologists: "Come to us! We will tell you everything and show you the way to happiness! We will tell you how to achieve everything!"You see, they hit very painful points such as ambition, human dissatisfaction, and these are the vulnerable zones of a person and for pseudo-psychologists they are open and the easiest to influence them. Well, then according to the known plan. People come, people believe, they pay big money. But all this does not bring the expected success. Those works and techniques with which I was familiar, most often were delusions and the desire to present their own thinking and demagogy as the ultimate truth.

But in all this there is no knowledge from real scientific psychology. In the vast majority of cases, pseudo-psychology is based on an unscientific approach. They confer titles and academic degrees to themselves, which is not confirmed by the facts of their existence. Due to their lack of enlightenment in the field of psychology, people pay huge amounts of money to such would-be specialists. As you understand, such "psychologists" only make money. They are not going to help anyone. There is only a mercantile interest. Unfortunately, this has become a trend today. The consequences of the actions of such false psychologists are extremely deplorable.

Once again I would like to thank Lyudmila Nikolaevna for a meaningful conversation. In my opinion, all sane people should listen to the words of such specialists, because the worst evil is that pretending to be good. In order not to become a victim of pseudo-psychologists, it is worth distinguishing this phenomenon and learning how to make the right decisions when choosing not only methods, but also specialists. To be continued…