Book - Psychology's Quiet Conservatism, 2025, Brian Hughes

Nightsong

Nightsong

Senior Member (Voting Rights)
Brian Hughes has a new book out called "Psychology's Quiet Conservatism" (Amazon link; for those with academic access, the chapters are also downloadable here).

The Monbiot/LC/Sharpe story is discussed in ch14 ("Hierarchies and Hysteria"), and ME/CFS also makes an appearance in ch21 ("Pathology and Protectionism"), with an account of the NICE guideline and the politics of the biopsychosocial model.

(I have not been able to read through properly, just search, but at first glance it seems an interesting exploration of the intersection of psychology and politics.)
 
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About this book​

What if psychology isn’t as liberal as we think?

Psychology is often seen as a progressive discipline — a champion of social justice, diversity, and liberal values. But this provocative book challenges that assumption. It argues that psychology, from its historical entanglements with eugenics and colonialism to its modern-day focus on individualism, has long served to reinforce the status quo.

Even as many psychologists identify as politically liberal, the field’s methods, theories, and institutions often promote a worldview that downplays inequality, pathologizes dissent, and resists structural change. Psychology’s emphasis on personal responsibility, resilience, and self-help frequently aligns more closely with conservative ideals than with progressive ones.

This book explores how the myth of a “liberal bias” in psychology has been weaponised in today’s culture wars — and how it distracts from the field’s real political blind spots. It asks: what would it mean for psychology to truly live up to its promise of promoting human welfare?

Accessible, deeply researched, and sharply argued, Psychology’s Quiet Conservatism is essential reading for anyone interested in how science shapes society — and how society shapes science.
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At a glance, it seems like the same kind of thing that Hunt has argued:
 
For any of our newer members or readers unfamiliar with Brian Hughes, he is an Irish professor of psychology.

He has written and given talks about the problems with the BPS approach to ME/CFS, including some terrific blog posts on his blog called The Science Bit, published papers with David Tuller and others, and wrote a chapter in a previous book about problems with the PACE trial.
 
This is the blurb about the book on Amazon:

Psychology’s Quiet Conservatism: How a Supposedly Woke Science Promotes Capitalism and Protects Privilege​

by Brian M. Hughes (Author)


What if psychology isn’t as liberal as we think?

Psychology is often seen as a progressive discipline — a champion of social justice, diversity, and liberal values. But this provocative book challenges that assumption. It argues that psychology, from its historical entanglements with eugenics and colonialism to its modern-day focus on individualism, has long served to reinforce the status quo.

Even as many psychologists identify as politically liberal, the field’s methods, theories, and institutions often promote a worldview that downplays inequality, pathologizes dissent, and resists structural change. Psychology’s emphasis on personal responsibility, resilience, and self-help frequently aligns more closely with conservative ideals than with progressive ones.

This book explores how the myth of a “liberal bias” in psychology has been weaponised in today’s culture wars — and how it distracts from the field’s real political blind spots. It asks: what would it mean for psychology to truly live up to its promise of promoting human welfare?

Accessible, deeply researched, and sharply argued, Psychology’s Quiet Conservatism is essential reading for anyone interested in how science shapes society — and how society shapes science.
Click to expand...
 
On other threads we have had discussion about good and bad researchers and research methodologies. Brian Hughes writing provides very useful sources on scientific methodology. Though primarily aimed at psychology it is very relevant to critiquing the research on behavioural and psychological interventions for ME/CFS, which more often than not torture their methodologies to produce untenable conclusions, despite being upheld as good science by many who ought to know better including Cochrane.
 
In my experience psychology looks down on people who think they are a victim of injustice because that's seen as a bad attitude (whether or not it is true seems to be of no interest). We're supposed to believe that we forge our own destiny and be blind to the fact that we're profoundly influenced, sometimes negatively, by the systems we interact with and by other people.

Its goal of rehabilitation is work. We're supposed to "take responsibility" even if taking responsibility did not work or is not realistic because you never had control over the thing you're supposed to take responsibility of. We're supposed to adapt to the system, not point out that it's failing us and asking ourselves how it can be made to function better.

Psychology the way I experienced is not neutral in its ideology and dedicated to helping people find their own way, rather it sees itself as educational, and is aligned with its own values.
 
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Hoopoe said:
You're supposed to "take responsibility" even if taking responsibility did not work because you never had control over the thing you're supposed to take responsibility of.
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This is something I was getting at in another thread yesterday. This idea that you are responsible if you don't get better is so toxic. You see it so often now in discussions of mental health. X person doesn't deserve sympathy for their struggles because they are not being a good little patient and 'taking responsibility' i.e. taking every medication they are offered without question and devoting themselves to whatever program their psychs have devised. There is no acknowledgement of the fact that frequently none of it works.
 
There is also some hypocrisy. In psychotherapy I had the impression that "independence" from the therapist was not desired, and the "social skills" and "communication" in a form that is critical or not in the self-interest of therapists is discouraged. If one spends too much time in these systems there may be some risk that they shape one into a person that is obedient towards and dependent on that system.

Yet speaking up about things that bother me, in a relationship, is an important social skill. But with my therapist I found that this was just dismissed and she was unable to acknowledge any flaw or mistake on her part. It turned into a relationship where one person was in a position of superiority and used her status and my diagnosis to belittle or dismiss things that she didn't like.

It's just too easy, ironically, to place all the responsibility for problems in the patient-therapist relationship on the patient.
 
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Trish said:
For any of our newer members or readers unfamiliar with Brian Hughes, he is an Irish professor of psychology.

He has written and given talks about the problems with the BPS approach to ME/CFS, including some terrific blog posts on his blog called The Science Bit, published papers with David Tuller and others, and wrote a chapter in a previous book about problems with the PACE trial.
Click to expand...
Is Brian Hughes a member of his forum?
 
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