Incoming Communications Chair – Introduction
Greetings APA Division 24 members,
My name is Micah Ingle, and I am currently a PhD Candidate at the University of West Georgia’s Psychology: Consciousness and Society program, scheduled to graduate this Spring semester. It is my pleasure to take up the mantle of the division’s Communications Chair, which includes the position of Newsletter Editor. Many of you may not know me, as I have spent more time in APA Division 32 over the years. That said, I do have experience with Division 24—my first in person academic conference presentation (not including student posters or local presentations) happened to be at the 2019 Midwinter Convention in Nashville. I also published a newsletter submission for the division in 2021 titled “Thinking community and communal thinking: A role for theoretical and philosophical psychologists?”
I would be remiss not to mention my gratitude to a number of friends and colleagues in Division 24, including former Newsletter Editor Ayurdhi Dhar, PhD. In addition to her aid in becoming acquainted with my new responsibilities, Ayurdhi is a good friend and was an excellent scholarly peer at the University of West Georgia. I also want to acknowledge David Goodman, PhD and previous Communications Chair Justin Karter, MA for their support during this onboarding process. Justin and I have worked together for the Mad in America Foundation for several years. David Goodman, although we only formally met recently, has already (as I am sure many of you are already aware!) proved himself to be a wonderful, compassionate colleague and asset to me and the division as a whole. Expanding beyond that, I have found him to be an important advocate for bringing greater recognition of and collaboration within the psychological humanities, human science approaches, and related schools of thought.
Briefly I would like to mention my primary areas of research, as a further introduction to my work and as a connecting point with this newsletter’s theme. Following that, I will provide a cursory exploration of some of the other articles in this newsletter, as well as announcements and reminders for upcoming events.
My dissertation is grounded in hermeneutic phenomenology/poststructuralism, particularly the work of Michel Foucault. In addition, I am relying on the work of philosopher Gilbert Simondon, “post-psychoanalytic” thinker Felix Guattari, and liberation psychologist Mary Watkins. This work considers alternative methods of constructing what I am tentatively naming a “community hermeneutics of subjectivity.” I am interested in what groups and communities can do to co-construct their own hermeneutic horizons and associated modes of both understanding and praxis—from the most intimate relation to self to larger sociopolitical struggles. At present this work consists of a combination of thematic analysis and then further exploring the data through a synthetic theoretical analysis based on several of the thinkers mentioned.
My goal is to better understand the dynamics of the relationship between individual and collective processes and the power of group-oriented forms of healing. The individuals I interviewed had experiences in—and I hope this begins to show the connection with this newsletter’s theme—alternative forms of community healing and community support outside the normative structures of the psy-complex. Many of the participants expressed feeling alienated, misunderstood, and further wounded by the psy-complex and its often formulaic, heavy-handed, exclusionary, profit-driven approach, which too frequently impacts some of society’s most marginalized and stigmatized.
Inherent to my work is the belief that a psychological humanities can serve as a necessary antidote to the mechanistic, often coercive/colonizing, and too rigidly atomistic approach of so much of psychology in its naturalistic guise. The necessity of reconsidering how best to understand the human is relevant, I believe, in academic, clinical, and other fields of psychology.
Newsletter Contributions
Providing an overview of this newsletter’s wonderful contributions, we have an open-ended statement from David Goodman, PhD on the significance of a psychological humanities—why do we need this approach, what might it look like, and who might it serve? These essential questions set the scene for us to think further about the future of these endeavors. From incoming president Gary Brill, PhD we have a balanced examination of the different modes of psychological inquiry, giving traditional experimental methods their due, while ultimately asking: “if we want to study the experienced, meaningful lives of persons, including our own selves, then causal models of mechanistic interactions, most STPP members would agree, are inadequate to address our most important questions.” Brill also asks us to “deeply reflect” on the pragmatic dimensions of a psychological humanities. In his own words, asking excellent questions which align with Goodman’s: “What will we be able to accomplish with the results of our work? Who benefits, and whom might be harmed? To whom will these results generalize? For how long? Who will provide the resources that sustain psychological humanities projects? What structural barriers must be overcome, and who will resist the dissemination of the results?” From Sara Dellantonio, PhD we have an announcement that the open access, no-fee, peer-reviewed Italian/English journal Rivista internazionale di Filosofia e Psicologia will be publishing their own special issue on the psychological humanities in 2023. Dellantonio introduces more critical questions as the psychological humanities seek further disciplinary clarification: “This special issue on psychological humanities will...interrogate what main lines of research that characterize this field, the type of psychology they endorse, and the challenges they face.” She acknowledges the vastness of the humanities as an umbrella discipline and states that this issue will focus on philosophical and theoretical concerns as they relate to psychology. Finally, George S. Howard, PhD’s submission addresses, in academic as well as personal fashion, psychology’s replication crisis and the “file-drawer” effect, in which non-significant results too often end up being excluded from publication. Additionally, Howard argues for a reinvigoration of the “final cause” dimension of Aristotle’s theory of causality. For Dr. Howard, considering “final causes” is the most appropriate way to understand human action, with its emphasis on focused intention—an example of a humane approach to psychology from philosophical antiquity. He links the emphasis on “final cause” to the humanities, because of the restrictions present in natural science psychology which often reduce themselves methodologically to forms of causality more suited to other fields of study.
Announcements – Upcoming Events
To conclude this editor’s column, I would like to remind Division 24 members of the upcoming Spring Meeting to be held at Boston College in Chestnut Hill, MA. Although we encourage in-person attendance, efforts are being made to create a hybrid in-person/online structure for those presenters and attendees who cannot make the travel. The dates of the conference run from Friday through Sunday, April 21-April 23, 2023. The presidential theme for this conference is Constructing the Psychological Humanities and we are excited to host several invited speakers in the psychological humanities and adjacent areas: Derek Hook, Richard Kearney, Lynne Layton, Zenobia Morrill, and Brent Slife. For more information, you can visit the conference's webpageopens in new window, or email conference chair A. Taiga Guterres.
In addition, we have the Psychology and the Other conference coming up later in the year: Friday through Sunday, October 6-8, 2023. Notifications for those who submitted proposals will be sent out in late April. Like the Division 24 Spring Meeting, Psychology and the Other will also be a hybrid in-person/online format. Arthur Kleinman, MD will provide the keynote address, while several distinguished plenary speakers will also be present. To find more information, you can visit the conference websiteopens in new window or reach out through email.
I look forward to meeting many of you, as well as working alongside colleagues with similar interests in the future!
Sincerely,
Micah Ingle, MA, PhD Candidate, APA Division 24 Communications Chair
Author's Bio
Micah Ingle received his MA in psychology from the University of West Georgia, where he is now a PhD Candidate in the same department. His research interests include hermeneutics/poststructuralism, liberation psychology, group/community work, and depth psychology. In addition to his academic work and publications, he has done group therapy consultation, community work around critical masculinities, and occupied multiple positions in different APA divisions.