Psychology Today has redefined psychology.
Or rather, it has firmly reconnected psychology to its roots, and made clear its future.
On the one hand, "psychology" sometimes descends to blowhard analyses of people and their behavior based on. . .well, nothing. In this view, anyone can say anything about human behavior; all thinking is equally valid.
On the other hand, some people—including many academic psychologists—now regard what was called psychology as a placeholder for reputed neuroscientifc advancements that "hold out the promise of alleviating, or even eliminating, such age-old medical bugaboos as pain, drug addiction, and, among other mental illnesses, schizophrenia." These are the words used by Richard Restak, a neuropsychiatrist, not a researcher, in 1977. Restak continues to make these claims, nothing daunted by the reverse trends that are arguably occurring in all three areas. Scientific American labels Restak "one of the world's most important scientific thinkers."
But it is easy to find psychologists who mouth exactly the same words and beliefs as Restak, a neurologist by training. In fact, they frequently occupy the leading posts in academic psychological circles.
Psychology Today has a different focus. It offers acute (for the most part) psychological thinkers—ones who rely on grounded theory (for the most part), research, and rationale thinking to describe and explain why people act, feel, and believe what they do, as individuals, as group members, and as a species. PT bloggers frequently refer to the latest research, data-based trends, and—God bless them—common sense in describing what we all see, and yet which public comment and popular thought often grossly misconceive.
In other words, psychology has a continuing, enhanced role to play in a modern era with a drug-based, neuroscientifically focused, mechanistically conceived idea of how humans function. And no organization identifies this critical, necessary niche in thinking and research better than Psychology Today and its website.
Rather than retracting its attention from areas thought to be rapidly yielding their secrets to neuroscience, Psychology Today is expanding its scope. Take a look at the areas that PT has highlighted for attention by its bloggers and writers: political personalities, cheaters (in marriage and otherwise), race and mental health, sexual attraction, pair bonding as the basis for human social organization, child rearing in individual families and society-wide, and just about every current event that makes it onto the radar. What other institution has taken on such essential human topics in such thoughtful—bold, yet empirically grounded—ways?
When I began blogging for PT, people would often comment, negatively, about the topics I chose to address, and my way of doing so ("I am shocked that PT would publish someone like you, and I'm never going to read any more of its blogs").
They don't make such comments anymore (okay, maybe once in a while).
Why not?
Because Psychology Today has redefined for its readers, for the blogosphere and the public, what psychology is legitimately about.
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