My visits to USP psych dept. 2015

These are my personal notes.

Thank you.

Note - at the end of this file I explain why I believe this is so important.

 
Here are some of my notes from talks with several students. I don't claim this is some kind of formal study or that they necessarily represent the views of all their classmates, but I learned enough to feel quite concerned.

- Professors don't know their students. Often, they don't even know their names.

- But they have huge control over their lives, with the ability to pass them or fail them. This can affect their whole lives.

- I believe if someone is going to control us they have to know us. They have to ask us how we feel, what we need, what we believe. I believe they also have to care about us. Control without knowledge and caring is dangerous and unhealthy, possibly even deadly, I believe.

- Some students tell me things like they are depressed and have bad relationships with their parents, but their professors don't know this.

- Several students told me I know more about their lives after talking to them for approximately 30 minutes than any of their professors do after many months or even years of classes.

- Students are not being taught how to help each other. Yet they are the biggest source of informal emotional support for each other. I asked one student who told me he has been depressed for 8 or 9 years if he has gotten any help for his depression since he entered the university. He said yes but only from other students on a very informal basis. This is common all around the world, as are many of the things I found at USP actually. I have seen for years that the best help for depressed students is their friendship network.

- One student told me one of the cleaning staff was the best listener and showed the most empathy of anyone she has talked to from the university

- Students are stressed. One told me he only got 2 hours sleep the night before because he was working all night on an assignment. As we talked he was smoking and drinking coffee

- Another was smoking heavily because he was stressed about an exam he had in a few minutes.

- They are not getting outside views, outside input.

- Professors don't "hang out" with the students in the student room.

- There is a big separation between the students and the professors. And a separation between the various faculties in the university. There are prejudices between them. I would recommend a cultural exchange.

- Students are not getting practical experience. They have not talked to high school students who have been sent to mental institutions for example. They are not offering any peer support to high school students or other students on campus.

- They haven't heard of many important psychologists such as Carl Rogers or alternative psychologists/doctors such as Gabor Mate, Bruce Levine or Daniel Mackler. Few knew who Noam Chomsky was or what his message is.

- They believe the university does not care about them.

- I would assume few are being educated about the anti-psychiatry movement, but I have not asked any students yet.

 

 

 

   
I talked with some students about Paulo Friere's ideas about education. I am not very familiar with his work but one student said Friere suggests people learn what they want to learn. So I asked one student what he wanted to learn and he said art therapy and psychodrama.

So I had the idea students could learn on their own and then offer to lead classes on those topics. I believe the current professors should be used more as references, not as people who have the power to pass or fail the students.

We talked a bit about democratric schools. None of the students seemed to have heard of this idea or to know much about it. So I have an idea that they could go visit some of the democratic schools in Sao Paulo and some alternative schools like the Montessori schools.

 
   

 

 

\Why is this so important?

I believe it is especially important that psychology departments are models of good emotional health and caring places. The students will become future psychologists and with that title they will have the power to make decisions which affect many people's lives. I know for example, in the USA at least, and I assume in Brazil, a school psychologist can make a decision to send a young person to a mental hospital either with their consent or against their will. They also have the power to have them removed from an emotionally unhealthy or abusive home, again either with or without the voluntary consent of the young person. These decisions are literally life and death decisions.

Psychologists also have power to affect social policy, such as educational programs. Psychologists are quoted and sought for their opinions about important issues. Yet there is no outside agency who is actually measuring the mental health or competence of the psychologists themselves. Psychologists receive their credentials and authority by passing academic exams, not practical ones. And once they are given a license to practice psychology, it is difficult to remove it. My personal belief is that if intelligent, sensitive teenagers could test the psychologists, many would fail. I also believe that the psychology profession in general has already failed because it has failed to stop youth self-harm, depression and suicide. It has done little to make real and needed changes to society. In my opinion, the majority of psychologists seem to be mostly about maintaining the status quo. They seem to generally tell a depressed teenager that there is something wrong with the teen, and never something wrong with the society. In this this way they are oppressing the voices that we most need to listen to.

Also, many students choose to study psychology because they have personal problems, in particular problems in their families. But these problems are almost never addressed in any psychology departments I have visited around the world.

Another problem is that psychologists are the new "preachers" as someone once said. In other words, they help to maintain the status quo in any society. In the past if your child was rebellious and difficult to raise within your culture's system, you sent them to the preacher, or to the church for "guidance", Now you send them to the psychologist. And you trust that this person is qualified to help your child or teenager. If the psychologist gives you and your child the wrong advice, it can literally mean the death of your child.

So it is for these reasons I believe that was is happening inside university psychology departments is of vital importance to us all.