Psychology Department -> Undergraduate Office ->
The University of Texas Psychology Department
Graduation Ceremony
Commencement Address
May 2005
M. Gene Ondrusek, Ph.D.
Clinical and Consulting Psychologist
Class of 1978
There is no greater honor than to be recognized by one’s professional peers….and, in this case, soon-to-be peers than through an opportunity such as this one, where it was requested that I provide “7-8 minutes of commentary that is pithy, thought-provoking, inspirational, and, above all, humorous,” for the graduating class of 2005. When asking Michael Domjan, your Chair, why this opportunity had fallen to me, he indicated that he felt “my unusual and interesting career” might prove interesting to people just starting out. So, I guess one man’s existential journey is another man’s interesting and unusual career!
This got me to thinking, though, that my career as such has actually followed a path that is quite nontraditional, and, I like to think, one that resonates with the development of psychology as a discipline and field of study over the same time period. And perhaps this will allow me to throw down a gauntlet to you to continue this quest to take psychology further into the murky frontiers of postmodernism.
I found in my research for this talk a good infrastructure provided by Robert Kegan’s discussions of development as applied to a wide range of constructs, from society as a whole to various scientific disciplines to the individual human mind. These “Orders of Development” can be briefly defined as a move from Traditional to Modern to Postmodern levels of development. The most basic orientation, labeled as Traditional, is characterized by an unquestioning loyalty to group values, dictated by Authority that is not to be challenged, but unswervingly followed. Ways of conduct and behavior are delivered by those in authority or through dogma and philosophy, and interpreted by those in authority. As this orientation proves inadequate to sustain growth, Modern values begin to dominate. Here, authority is questioned and answers must be worked out by individuals and “truth” determined through personal investigation and by gathering “evidence” to support positions and theories. The agenda is to determine “truth” through scientific methods and principles, a rational approach. With increasing complexity of concepts, though, this ultimately gives way to postmodern modes of thinking, where the entire concept of “truth” is dismantled and “truth” is seen as socially constructed, relativistic, and evaluated based purely on benefit, utility, and usefulness. There is no longer a search for the actual “truth,” rather there is a search for systems and connections that underlie various dichotomies and interpretations of reality. It is easy to see how one can get in over one’s head at this stage. But, we can see how various scientific and secular disciplines have morphed in this fashion. The world of physics was initially dominated by religious doctrine that did not welcome suggestions that the earth was not the center of the universe and that the sun did not revolve around the earth. Compelling evidence, of course, forced the field to embrace a more scientific view championed by pioneers such as Galileo and Newton, and the world of evidence-based physics allowed new dimensions of exploration and understanding about how things worked. Of course, we all appreciate that increasing complexity seen at the fringes of this discipline which led Einstein and others to upset our applecart with theories of relativity and quantum mechanics. Now, all but a few of us are in over our heads at this stage of this discipline’s development.
The field that we share a love for is certainly not exempt from this same dynamic. I note with bemusement that when I am lecturing at SMU in Dallas, the Department of Psychology there is still housed in the same building as the Departments of Religion and Philosophy, underscoring the beginnings of our discipline. We still recall the dogma of psychoanalytic theory as espoused by Freud, as something to be acquired and assimilated, and not questioned, despite the lack of any scientific evidence for its validity. As the limits of these theories proved impossible to ignore, psychology moved into its Modern period, with the laws of human behavior increasingly revealed via the scientific method. Psychology-as-Science was born and a more rational view of the “truth” of human behavior became dominant. The last several years however, has seen the postmodern revolution overtake discourse in psychology, and we are faced with a dizzying array of concepts that challenge the entire notion that there is a unifying “truth” about human behavior that we are all seeking to uncover. There are just various social constructions that provide different “versions” of the “truth” about humans and their behavior, from feminist interpretations to ethnic interpretations and so on, often leaving us with a very nihilistic sense of futility towards ever figuring out anything “real,” much less meaningful.
Of course this increasing complexity has also led to some exciting growth in our field, which I have had the distinct pleasure of not only observing, but participating in as well. I have followed our field, as a clinician and practitioner, from one dominated by a mental health model of “deficiency,” where a model of deficiency informed our practice, and we were charged with figuring out what was broken, why it was broken, and “fixing” it, to one of positive psychology, where there is a new emphasis on human development, with work in the areas of performance enhancement and optimization. I have here (holding a publication) a copy of the DSM-II that I used early in my career as a clinician, a 72-page handbook published in 1968 compiling and classifying all the known mental disturbances under our purview. I am also holding (raising with the other hand) here a new copy of the DSM-IV-R, the latest edition of this work, which forms the core of our database about mental disorders. This is a 782-page tome that vividly illustrates the increasing complexity of our knowledge of mental illness. A lot to get your head around, or perhaps evidence that there are just many more ways to have psychological problems these days!
When I attended grad school here at UT, I punched my dissertation data onto IBM cards that were hauled to the computer center in long boxes. We had a discussion in Statistics about whether it was OK or not to use these new-fangled gadgets called hand held calculators in class. And, part of my dissertation grant was used to fund a typist to type the final copy! Yes, on a typewriter. Certainly a sea change to today’s world! Now when someone asks me “What kind of psychologist are you,” I typically respond, “Well, hopefully an effective one.” They are asking a question born out of traditional or modern value systems about my particular orientation. In reality, I have to be able to hold many theories of human behavior in my head, some of them quite contradictory, and select them based on utility and not “truth.” Often I will work – for considerable periods of time - under the label of psychologist without having any of the traditional trappings of this profession. My clients aren’t “mentally ill.” In fact, a large number are high achieving executives who are a lot healthier mentally that I could ever hope to be. I do not have a couch. And my office often is my phone in the car, on the freeway. I will work sometimes with individuals I have never met, face-to-face – with coaching being done via Instant Messaging, email, or teleconference.
Looking back, I can see where I was typically dissatisfied with status quo. My doctorate here was a combined one, in psychology and pharmacology. I wanted to bridge that space between biology and behavior, and wanted to use the tools of pharmacology to do it. I fancied myself a “psychopharmacologist,” and completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the UNC School of Medicine in Chapel Hill. I was looking for those connections between disciplines. When the ratio of “one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration” was no longer satisfying enough to sustain my role as a research psychologist, I again went on an interdisciplinary search and attended business school at NYU’s Stern Graduate School of Business. I found – and still do – that the worlds of leadership and business have a connection to psychology, and I am quite proud to work in this field of enhanced human performance. I did not intend to surf that postmodern leading edge of an evolving discipline, but here I am, nonetheless. What Mike Domjan calls an “unusual and interesting career.”
Perhaps the most off the wall of these endeavors of mine, though, came when I was approached by CBS, who at the time was launching a new entertainment product that was an “unscripted reality show” to be called Survivor. They indicated that they “needed a psychologist” for this project, due to the risks and novelty of using real people rather than trained actors to produce a broadcast product. But they weren’t quite sure just what for or how to leverage our discipline. Thus I embarked on a whole new realm for psychology, wherein our technologies and skills are used to make entertainment products for a mass viewing audience. I became what I now call a “Casting and Profiling Specialist,” where I use testing and assessment tools as well as social and group theory to help networks create new television offerings, known as “those reality shows.” Truly a new frontier that takes psychology where it has never really been before. And for this, I had to evolve even further, to inform and serve a client base in a totally new way.
As an example, I had to learn a whole new way of writing and communicating. I had a familiarity with the skills of writing diagnostic and treatment reports, as well as doing executive selection reports for the hiring of executives. But a casting report for producers required an entirely different vocabulary. For example, I might describe someone as “highly extraverted, extremely garrulous, with periods of pressured speech and periodic tangentiality and circumstantiality” if I were writing for a clinical audience. That would become “highly interpersonally oriented and socially proactive, with a style that can work a room and make charismatic impressions, sometimes highly positive, but at other times somewhat challenging” for an executive clientele. But for a casting report, she becomes “ a pixie on speed, tending to bounce off the walls, having absolutely no filters between her brain and her mouth – a loose cannon with an invisible fuse who will endear herself to some of the viewing audience, and provoke the rest.”
I did find it interesting when I would get input from colleagues, especially from social psychologists, pointing out that these unscripted shows often suggest some interesting and compelling research designs, but that none of these ideas would ever survive the Ethics Committee at the university. A true irony in our field is that the networks can create a compelling social psychological experiment for ratings and profit, when doing legitimate research would invite a lot more barriers. At the same time, if you appreciate the implications of Phil Zimbardo’s Stanford Prison study, it isn’t hard to understand the strength and draw of reality television. And, it isn’t a very big leap to go from there to a way of understanding Abu Ghraib, is it?
But, before everyone leaves, I do have for you one more cognitive exercise, just to keep your thinking moving ahead. Now, I want you to pick a number between 1 and 10. Got it? Ok, now multiply that number by 9. Now you have a two-digit number, so add the two digits together to get a single number. Now then, subtract 5 from that number. OK, now you have to assign a letter to this number…..as in, A is 1, B is 2, 3 is C, etc. OK, now that you have that letter, chose a country whose name begins with that letter. Got, it? Ok, now, take the second letter of the name of that country and choose the name of an animal that begins with that letter. Got that? OK….excellent…..but, just know that there ARE no elephants in Denmark!
So, there you have either psychology as a party trick, or a way of appreciating that something that at first appears quite complex is actually simple. And I hope for all of you that this is what your study of psychology has given you – a way to think, and a way to think critically – and a way to understand the world. You will find that whatever pathway you choose, even if it is not deeper into psychology, that your lives will be amplified by your understanding of this discipline. And, know that you have chosen to devote several years of your life to earn a degree that doesn’t guarantee you anything- not a job, position, or career. So, you have not completed a process, you have prepared yourself to begin one. You may not have answers to a lot of questions, but you will all have better ways to ask better questions, wherever your life takes you. And, hopefully know what the better answers are in this postmodern world.
And, in a final harmonic convergence, it didn’t escape me that when I was out where you are in 1977, it was the also premier weekend for the first of George Lucas’ tour de force, the “Star Wars” series. Bob Helmreich actually loaned me his Porsche to take a date to the movies! No Porsches on a grad student income. And, here I am again, with this distinguished faculty, now on the other side of the podium. And, George is once again premiering – this time the sixth and last episode of his mythology that has spanned almost 30 years. I’ve come through quite a circle. So, I won’t be so trite as to end with “May the Force Be With You, but perhaps I can challenge all of you to go out there and BE the Force!”
Thanks again for the opportunity!
