IN THE THREE DECADES since PSYCHOLOGY TODAY published its first
issue,candor has become an increasingly scarce commodity. The words of
public figures reach us now through a whirl of "spin," a media looking
glass that distorts as often as it reflects. PT's approach is more
straightforward: we have carried on conversations with the interesting
and the important, and presented these conversations just as they are.
You hear what we hear: voices that are skeptical or hopeful, reassuring
or provocative, passionate or analytical. These voices speak on the big
issues and the microscopic details, the whole world and the small
universe of psychology Their number has expanded in recent years to
include not only noted psychologists, but others--writers, actors,
scientists-- with insight into the human condition.
It still comes down to questions and answers, to two people and a
tape recorder. For 30 years, PT has delivered direct to its readers the
voices of psychology. We hope you've enjoyed listening.
--Annie Murphy Paul
B. F. SKINNER, PSYCHOLOGIST
"I despair of teaching the ordinary parent how to handle his child.
I would prefer to turn child raising over to a specialist. I just can't
believe that an ordinary parent can do a good job. What has happened in
the past is that a culture has set up a routine way of handling kids. You
spank them for what is wrong; you don't spank them for what is good; and
so on....But we don't have stable cultures any more, so the average
parent doesn't know what to do. The books on child care are more
confusing than anything else because you can't apply what they recommend:
"Go and love your child." That would be all right, but you can't go and
buy three ounces of love at the store. And if the child really isn't
lovable, you simply have to fake it."
--September 1967
PETER DRUCKER, MANAGEMENT CONSULTANT
"Here I am, 58, and I still don't know what I am going to do when I
grow up. My children and their respective spouses think I am kidding when
I say that, but I am not....Nobody tells [young people] that life is not
that categorized. And nobody tells them that the only way to find what
you want is to create a job. Nobody worth his salt has ever moved into an
existing job. That's for post-office clerks."
--March 1968
ROLLO MAY, PSYCHOLOGIST
"The sacrament of marriage no longer has meaning in our society.
People get married and they have their goddamn fingers crossed. Because,
though they hope it's going to work, nobody puts their heart into it. And
life, real life, consists of throwing yourself into something."
--September 1967
JONAS SALK, INVENTOR OF POLIO VACCINE
"I think that mankind is suffering from a lot of symbolic
autoimmune diseases, as well as from some symbolic cancers....We seem to
be suppressing the very creativity and ingenuity that we need for
survival. The human mind has gone through a whole series of evolutionary
stages, and at each stage it has found ways of dealing with the
challenges posed by its environment. The time has arrived in which we
have to realize that we are all parts of a single organism, and develop
some new kinds of responses and relationships."
--March 1983
ANNE QUINDLEN, NOVELIST AND FORMER NEW YORK TIMES COLUMNIST
"The idea that we have to divide the world into what happens at
home and what happens out in the orbit of the professions and of politics
is specious, because I don't think anybody lives that way....Most of us
ricochet wildly from thinking about Paula Jones to thinking about whether
our kids ought to go to private or public school. I fail to see why our
newspapers, in some sense, shouldn't reflect the way we live now."
--October 1994
ROBERT COLES, PSYCHOLOGIST
"We in the upper middle class have lots of substitutes for
religion. The readers of PSYCHOLOGY TODAY belong to many cryptochurches.
We have family counselors, guidance counselors, sex counselors, group
therapists, authorities on the formation of T-groups [encounter groups].
We have a collection of secular experts who write books and tell parents
at every stage of their lives, and the lives of their children, what is
the correct rhythm of life. These experts give sanction to the people of
the upper middle class by assuring them that if they live in a certain
way then they are somehow in accord with the tenor of the times....And
then there are the theologians of the upper middle class. I'm talking
about the psychiatrists and social scientists who peddle formulas and
theories and generalizations. Such is their business, and in a society
that has given up on religion and philosophy but is nonetheless looking
for answers, the generalizations of social science become objects of
faith, guideposts, bones of contention."
--November 1975
RAY BRADBURY, SCIENCE FICTION WRITER
"The so-called realists are trying to drive us insane, and I refuse
to be driven insane. I [agree] with Nietzsche, who said: `We have art so
that we do not perish in the truth.' That's what art is for. In our daily
lives, we are making do. Things get rougher as we go along, but we make
do. We lose love; we lose people; we lose jobs. And the remarkable thing
about the human race is the ability to survive. We survive by
fantasizing. Take that away from us and the whole damned race goes down
the drain."
--April 1968
OLIVER STONE, FILMMAKER
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