Brian Hughes (2018): Psychology in Crisis

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In his delightful book, Psychology in Crisis, Hughes explains that there is little momentum to change because the discipline has taken over a century to build the mould. “The fact that the majority of those who teach psychology see no problem with the status quo, and so say nothing about it, does not indicate that their discipline is healthy. If anything, it implies the presence of groupthink. One might even consider it an instance of a mass delusion.” (p. 148, my italics).

A mass delusion! Strong words, but fully justified. The biggest delusion of all is the claim that Academic Psychology is a Science. There is no justification for this claim if Hughes’ allegations are true. Which they are.
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very short. no reference to the PACE content but I think the ship might be;)

https://davidfmarks.com/2018/09/21/psychology-in-crisis/
 
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I forgot to tell you that I received a positive reply on my request to one of the two nearest libraries.(*)

Now one of the largest libraries in Central Europe has Brian Hughes' new book. Or soon will have it again when I will have returned it ;-)

I have read most parts, found it convincing and a pleasure to read. Regarding the subchapters on the thePACE trial I am not as qualified as other forum members to judge them. If I saw it properly all forum members who contributed to the Journal of Health Psychology's special issue are being quoted. So I think it is not only convincing to me, but also objectively should be quite sound.

The PACE trial is dealt with in two subchapters of the chapter "exaggeration crisis" and does not appear on the table of contents. The title of the subchapter introducing the criticism of the PACE trial is "Chronic fatigue Syndrome", not put in quotation marks, but within the text the term "Myalgic Encephalomyelitis", "CFS/ME" or ME is used, and to me it seems that ME is the term preferred by the author.

I hope I soon someday will be able to write on some content-related aspects I found interesting.

Brian Hughes himself provides a good summary on Psychology Today:

https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/homeostasis-disruptor/201809/psychology-is-still-in-crisis

Independent from ME related psychological research, I find the paradigm crisis most relevant. If the theoretical premises of an entire science are that muddled, how can any sound empirical research emerge in this field?

(*) For those who want to practice Business German, here is the reply:

Sehr geehrte Frau [MSEsperanza],

haben Sie besten Dank für Ihren Anschaffungsvorschlag und das dadurch ausgedrückte Interesse an den Beständen der [xyz] Bibliothek.
Die Beschaffung des von Ihnen gewünschten Titels werde ich umgehend veranlassen.
Für Rückfragen stehe ich Ihnen jederzeit gerne zur Verfügung.

Mit freundlichen Grüßen
[Titel, Name]
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(Only physically the book is a bit difficult to handle for me. I use a reading stand when I read books lying in bed because I am not able to hold a book for a satisfying amount of time. However, on the reading stand the pages are cambered to such an extent that the text near the binding is not entirely visible without additional pressure on the fold. Many paperbacks bear this problem. It then is helpful when the text layout has bigger inner margins.)
 

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One new thing I learned from the chapter on PACE in Psychology in Crisis, is that not only was the PACE trial the largest trial so far within CFS/ME, but also one of the largest within psychology, which is a much more established research field. That was a surprise to me.
 
@Brian Hughes
Only a few years ago, a team of physicists were researching the properties of neutrinos, and they recorded a measurement that seemed to show that a signal had travelled faster than the speed of light. After they checked and rechecked all their equipment they repeated the experiment and got the same result. So they published it.

This set off a frenzy of interest amongst theoretical physicists the world over. Was this the first evidence of travel through one of the extra dimensions of spacetime necessary for theories of super-symmetry and quantum gravity? Sadly, not. An independent team set up the same experiment and repeated it without finding any breach of the 'old' physics. When the original team re-examined their equipment they found a hairline crack in a long fibre optic cable which had marginally delayed the signal running along it.

I mention this not to cast scorn on physicists, but as an example of empirical science working as it should. The touchstone is 'can it be replicated'? If it can't, why should we believe it?

This is a point Brian Hughes hammers home throughout his book. With reasons why most psychological 'research' is not replicable, but still gets published. And delightfully chosen examples which were my chief joy in reading this book. Wherein the PACE trial is shown to be no more reliable than the finding that female hurricanes are more deadly than male hurricanes.

The example of PACE comes naturally quite late in the book, when it serves as an example of many of the mushy ideas and dodgy practices which have already been exposed.

This book was, for me, a non-scientist, a delight to read, even though it left me amazed, incredulous and angry.
 
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Stewart, L.G. (2019). Psychology in Crisis.[Review of the book]. International Journal of Educational Psychology, 8(1),105-107, http://dx.doi.org/10.17583/ijep.2019.4065

http://hipatiapress.com/hpjournals/index.php/ijep/article/view/4065/Stewart

The real-world implications of exaggeration in psychology (particularly in neuroscience) are addressed in chapter 6 with examples relating to inaccurate claims in brain-imaging studies, and the controversial ‘Pacing, graded Activity and Cognitive behaviour therapy: a randomised Evaluation’ trial on Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (White et al. 2011). Non-equivalent control groups, lack of blinding and adjustment of assessment criteria revealed that the effectiveness of the intervention for treating Chronic Fatigue Syndrome was exaggerated—perhaps one of the most striking examples of poor research in the book.
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