A rise in psychological pseudoscience is putting people at risk, psychologists have warned, with social media and celebrity endorsements partly to blame.
The goal of this article is to promote clear thinking and clear writing among students and teachers of psychological science by curbing terminological misinformation and confusion. To this end, we present a provisional list of 50 commonly used terms in psychology, psychiatry, and allied fields that should be avoided, or at most used sparingly and with explicit caveats. We provide corrective information for students, instructors, and researchers regarding these terms, which we organize for expository purposes into five categories: inaccurate or misleading terms, frequently misused terms, ambiguous terms, oxymorons, and pleonasms. For each term, we (a) explain why it is problematic, (b) delineate one or more examples of its misuse, and (c) when pertinent, offer recommendations for preferable terms. By being more judicious in their use of terminology, psychologists and psychiatrists can foster clearer thinking in their students and the field at large regarding mental phenomena.
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To the Editor:
Beverly Gage and Emily Bazelon propose a number of remedies for certain aspects of our electoral system. We believe that an essential additional corrective measure is evaluating the mental health and psychological stability of presidential candidates before the primary voting process.
It is highly probable that if three commonly used and reliable psychological assessment evaluations (Rorschach Inkblot Test, Thematic Apperception Test and Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-2) had been administered to Donald Trump when he was a candidate, his now manifestly evident mental aberrations would have been discovered.
Now is a most advantageous time to correct this significant and potentially dangerous omission in the presidential candidate vetting protocol.