Looking to tell stories of outsight

I thoroughly enjoyed the September issue of The Psychologist and its consideration of the many ways to communicate science. I was particularly interested to read Dr Richard Stephen's theorising about the psychology underlying reader experiences of science and the power of narratives over scientific texts.

I was pleased, too, to read Kathryn Waddington's piece, naming and attempting to demystify academic bullshit. However, what seemed missing from this great special issue was the consideration of another type of bullshit. Whilst Waddington focuses on writing style, acronyms and jargon, there is plenty of published research content out there in the world which does not stand up to scrutiny. 

Yet when bundled up and packaged into stories told through our newspapers, social media and online worlds, it has a profound influence on our national narratives. This should be of great concern when it comes to research into mental health and psychological therapies, my own area of psychology. Often, the story that gets told, and sold to the public, is not the whole truth.

The leading article, 'Does a 'good story' get in the way of the truth?' by Marcus Munafò, was an engaging introduction to the topic of telling a good scientific story. It also raised some important questions, such as 'How much is it our job as psychologists and researchers to change minds?' However, it never asked a perhaps more fundamental, and indeed ethical, question: how much is it our job as psychologists and researchers to uncover and tell the truth, as far as we know it, through the current state of the research?

Munafò touched on the problem of publication bias, the distinction between informing and persuading, and the selective use of data, highlighting the potential for corruption, due to incentive structures in academia. But there was no mention of another motive, that of trying to sell something, nor the political backdrop which encourages some stories whilst silencing others. 

It was great to see some of this articulated in the interview with Sally Marlow, about the need to communicate what we already 'know about the population, about society, about the way we are configured, which means that the odds are stacked more against some people than they are against others'.

The Midlands Psychology Group has written extensively about problems with psychological research, the overselling of psychological therapies and the story told about the need for insight, through therapy. In June 2022, we published an academic text, Outsight: Psychology, Politics and Social Justice. 

A key message of this book is that it might be more helpful for people to develop outsight, the awareness of what is wrong with the world, over insight, the awareness of what is apparently wrong with ourselves. We live in an increasingly precarious world, as described by Marlow: 'We don't house our people properly. 

We have people who are starving, living in poverty, we have a gig economy which is creating massive amounts of instability for our young people. We have a housing market which puts houses out of reach'. These are the true stories which all psychologists should be communicating widely.

Dr Penny Priest
Member of the Midlands Psychology Group and former Consultant Clinical Psychologist, NHS Western Isles