Anger in the Age of Entitlement

Cleaning up emotional pollution.

Steven Stosny, Ph.D., treats people for anger and relationship problems. Recent books: How to Improve your Marriage without Talking about It, and Love Without Hurt. See full bio

October 3, 2008, Anxiety

Political Opinion and Professional Ethics

How can we trust psychologists?

There is a serious ethical issue with political opinions expressed in these blogs under the guise of psychological expertise. Psychologists may have the right to express political opinions and make partisan interpretations as much as anyone. But posting them on the Psychology Today website implies that they are something more than opinion and interpretation.

Other blogs and even legitimate news media can recycle sensational quotes from psychologists about so and so being a psychopath or depressed or a congenital liar or suffering PTSD or afflicted with anger or anxiety problems. When a professional psychologist expresses these opinions they necessarily imply clinical expertise and empirical support, which, of course, they do not have.

No ethical clinician or researcher would make a diagnosis of someone he or she has not examined and tested or about whom he/she has strong emotions or biases. And none would want to give the impression that personal opinions have professional expertise and empirical research supporting them.