Parapsychology PhD programs?

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Azure1

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Hello,

I was wondering if there is a graduate program somewhere that specializes in parapsychology, or does anyone know any prominent researchers in this field?


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Check out Jonathan C. Smith at Roosevelt University--he's written at least one book on the topic, although I must warn you that it is very critical. If that is the approach you're looking for, it may be good to check him out. He's not an active researcher, per se, but it may lead to some people who are...
 
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OP, you will find little to any support for 'parapsychology' on here or in the field at-large. We are trained to be clinical-scientists, and parapsychology is often in direct contrast to that training because the underlying topics have very little if any peer-reviewed and repeatable research support to back them up.
 
I love the post. Read Alejandro Jodorowsky's, Psychomagic: The Transformative Power of Shamanic Pscyhotherapy. Then, go to Latin America and study with people who are sensitive to the hubris of the clinical "scientists."
 
Perhaps I should have been more specific.

Has anyone watched through the wormhole - is there a sixth sense?

I was thinking more along the lines of "morphic fields", "blindsight", "precognition" etc
 
I recently watched a documentary about the VERITAS lab at U. of Arizona. They've done research on mediums like John Edward and Allison DuBois. Not sure if they're a clinical psych lab or take students, but maybe check that out.
 
Not sure about a Ph.D., but I know that Naropa University offers an M.A. in Transpersonal Ecopsychology that may be similar to what you are looking for. Someone there may be able to point you in the right direction if you are already at the Masters level and looking to go further. Look into some of the work of John Davis.

Hope this helps, and don't be discouraged by the naysayers. Just because this line of thinking is not accepted by the status quo, that doesn't mean that it is not a worthwhile avenue of inquiry. While this area may have a history of pseudoscience, you could change that...
 
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becomethelight said:
Not sure about a Ph.D., but I know that Naropa University offers an M.A. in Transpersonal Ecopsychology that may be similar to what you are looking for. Someone there may be able to point you in the right direction if you are already at the Masters level and looking to go further. Look into some of the work of John Davis.

Hope this helps, and don't be discouraged by the naysayers. Just because this line of thinking is not accepted by the status quo, that doesn't mean that it is not a worthwhile avenue of inquiry. While this area may have a history of pseudoscience, you could change that...
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Who employs a MA in "transpersonal ecopsychology"?
 
I'm not sure that transpersonal ecopsychology has anything to do with parapsychology (?). The OP is asking about the study of psychic phenomena. Maybe I'm wrong, but transpersonal ecopsychology appears to be just a from of humanistic psychology that tries to integrate various cultural aspects.
 
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FadedC said:
I'm not sure that transpersonal ecopsychology has anything to do with parapsychology (?). The OP is asking about the study of psychic phenomena. Maybe I'm wrong, but transpersonal ecopsychology appears to be just a from of humanistic psychology that tries to integrate various cultural aspects.
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voyeurofthemind said:
+1. And for that matter, what is transpersonal ecopsychology. Sounds like a bunch of mumbo jumbo to me :eek:.
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From John Davis' website: "Transpersonal psychology stands at the interface of psychology and spiritual experience. It is the field of psychology which integrates psychological concepts, theories, and methods with subject matter and practices of the spiritual disciplines. Its interests include spiritual experiences, mystical states of consciousness, mindfulness and meditative practices, shamanic states, ritual, the overlap of spiritual experiences and disturbed states such as psychosis and depression, and the transpersonal dimensions of relationships, service, encounters with the natural world, and many other topics."

Transpersonal psychology is essentially a subfield of parapsychology.
 
Therapist4Chnge said:
These fringe/tinfoil hat topics have no place in the field of psychology; we should only associate outselves with real science.
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I agree with you, although Daryl Bem's paper did provide an interesting catalyst for debate last year, particularly as it relates to research methods and replication.
 
OP, also look into Pacifica Graduate Institute, you may find something that fits your interest at the doctoral level.
 
OP, what kind of jobs are you thinking of pursuing with your degree? Research? Therapy? Consulting? What sorts of jobs are out there for someone with a parapsychology degree? If you pursue a traditional Ph.D. or master's, you might have both a better job outlook and a better grounding in research methodology, and I'm sure a non-para degree won't be a barrier to a parapsychology career if you do find an opportunity, since parapsychology degrees seem to be quite rare and the people already in the field likely don't have them, either. Otherwise, you might be setting yourself up for debt and unemployment.

All these posts and no one has mentioned ravens. Have we collectively agreed that the joke is dead? Also, raven raven raven.
 
From that description, I'm not sure that I agree that's it would be what the OP was looking for. Things like mindfulness and meditation are frequently incorporated into even the most clinical psychological practices, while it's not uncommon for humanistic or psychodynamic psychology to try to tie in the importance of religious culture, ritual and beliefs to psychological study and practice. I've definitely read a psychodynamic text book which compared the power of social agency granted by the psychologist, with that granted by a shaman or other spiritual figure in a different culture.

It would only be a subfield of parapsychology (at least as the OP defines parapsychology) if it studied things like shamanistic trances not as element of culture and ritual as i relates to the human psyche, but to see, for example, if the shaman really could communicate with the dead, or improve crop harvests. I didn't get that from your description, or from what I've read about it online, but I could be wrong.

becomethelight said:
From John Davis' website: "Transpersonal psychology stands at the interface of psychology and spiritual experience. It is the field of psychology which integrates psychological concepts, theories, and methods with subject matter and practices of the spiritual disciplines. Its interests include spiritual experiences, mystical states of consciousness, mindfulness and meditative practices, shamanic states, ritual, the overlap of spiritual experiences and disturbed states such as psychosis and depression, and the transpersonal dimensions of relationships, service, encounters with the natural world, and many other topics."

Transpersonal psychology is essentially a subfield of parapsychology.
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Qwerk said:
All these posts and no one has mentioned ravens. Have we collectively agreed that the joke is dead? Also, raven raven raven.
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I have been restraining myself with great difficulty.
 
Maybe with the right training someone can channel the salmon from The Dead Salmon study, and we can ask what it thinks about the Raven research. Everyone knows that the dead salmon won't pull any punches.
 
Generally speaking, I think most folks engaged in parapsychology research do so as a "side interest" (e.g. Daryl Bem) rather than a primary line of work. Its certainly controversial, tends not to be taken seriously (understandably so in my eyes), and at the very least guarantees enough negative results and difficulty publishing it will make it difficult to receive tenure. I actually take little issue with people studying it (academic freedom and all that), as long as its done well - though it often isn't.

If its truly something you want to pursue, I'd actually recommend expanding the search to simply top-notch experimental methodologists. Learn methodology/stats from the best of the best and then apply it to parapsychology on your own. This would ensure you will be somewhat in demand since as others have pointed out this is not going to be a very marketable "specialty" and if its your focus could make it very difficult to get hired at most legit locations.
 
It doesn't have to be related to the paranormal in the sense of telekinesis etc. I was more talking about precognition (unconscious) or psychophysics, for example. I guess saying "paranormal" was the wrong word because it has just a strong pseudoscientific connotation, but there are enough interesting things in the realm of reality for now.
 
I'm pretty sure that psychophysics is a perfectly well respected field, although I wouldn't in any way associate it with parapsychology. I believe some more neuropsych based programs study it in more detail.

As for precognition, If your just talking about the mind picking up details subconciously, and not claiming that it's the result of psychic powers, then that would probably viewed with a lot more respect as well. Sounds a bit like the book Blink, which was always a favorite of mine.

Azure1 said:
It doesn't have to be related to the paranormal in the sense of telekinesis etc. I was more talking about precognition (unconscious) or psychophysics, for example. I guess saying "paranormal" was the wrong word because it has just a strong pseudoscientific connotation, but there are enough interesting things in the realm of reality for now.
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OP, I have heard from multiple sources that Hogwarts University (HU) has a very well respect program.
 
It's nice to know that scientism is alive and thriving among the members of this message board.
 
becomethelight said:
It's nice to know that scientism is alive and thriving among the members of this message board.
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Otherwise known as science? On a set of forums dedicated to careers in applied science? So weird.
 
becomethelight said:
It's nice to know that scientism is alive and thriving among the members of this message board.
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You, um...you do know that if paranormal phenomena were researched using standard scientific methodology and shown to be real, that would be science, right?
 
We had a week or two on parapsych in our hx of psych class. It did not go over well with grad students.

Psychophysics was considerably more palatable to folks (although it was difficult for many to grasp some of the concepts) and not at all considered to be within the same "realm" as parapsych. It was a lot more interdisciplinary: we saw more with physics (obviously), neuroscience, engineering, computer science, etc. here.
 
becomethelight said:
No. Scientism in brief.
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Yes. I know what you are pushing, I was being dismissive because, again, SDN is a set of forums focused on careers in applied science. That means we are attempting to offer services that are more effective than faith healing by validating techniques through 'radical' methods like observation and repeated measurement. Those techniques have a track record[in many fields, across hundreds of years] of bringing about better solutions than 100% faith-based action and so have gained the public trust. The science-based world only asks that people outside these methods not try to to cloak themselves in science(to gain the public trust) when they actually reject the scientific approach.
 
Darnit, I hate when people lump mindfulness in with this stuff. Mindfulness is empirically-supported! D:<
 
Mindfulness is just one of many great examples of why it's important to keep an open mind to temper skepticism and not get entrenched in this dogmatic thinking about science. It's far easier to create a straw man, label it as pseudoscience, then pat your back all in the name of science than to remain open minded and think critically about ideas that challenge your assumptions.
 
becomethelight said:
Mindfulness is just one of many great examples of why it's important to keep an open mind to temper skepticism and not get entrenched in this dogmatic thinking about science. It's far easier to create a straw man, label it as pseudoscience, then pat your back all in the name of science than to remain open minded and think critically about ideas that challenge your assumptions.
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I think both of the following are pillars of science:

(1) Remaining open minded and thinking critically about ideas that challenge your assumptions.

(2) Skepticism (aka science is a conservative process)

Perhaps they are somewhat in opposition but it needn't lead you to reject the process of science entirely. They can be resolved through replication, questioning and testing alternative explanations.
 
becomethelight said:
Mindfulness is just one of many great examples of why it's important to keep an open mind to temper skepticism and not get entrenched in this dogmatic thinking about science. It's far easier to create a straw man, label it as pseudoscience, then pat your back all in the name of science than to remain open minded and think critically about ideas that challenge your assumptions.
Click to expand...

Mindfulness is a FAAAAAAAAAAAAAR cry from say...telepathy or clairvoyance. It is up to the alternative view to prove itself in the face of skepticism, not up to the scientific community to accept the alternative view without rigorous independant review and emperical support.
 
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roubs said:
I think both of the following are pillars of science:

(1) Remaining open minded and thinking critically about ideas that challenge your assumptions.

(2) Skepticism (aka science is a conservative process)

Perhaps they are somewhat in opposition but it needn't lead you to reject the process of science entirely. They can be resolved through replication, questioning and testing alternative explanations.
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Agreed. Let's apply that here. And as responsible scientists, I think we should encourage those who are interested in these ideas to take them seriously and engage in a scientific discourse to verify them, not devalue them and push them further to the fringes.
 
becomethelight said:
Agreed. Let's apply that here. And as responsible scientists, I think we should encourage those who are interested in these ideas to take them seriously and engage in a scientific discourse to verify them, not devalue them and push them further to the fringes.
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The problem is that no one has any reason to suspect that things like telepathy or remote viewing exist in the first place. These ideas have no basis in anything anyone has observed. Research usually happens when a phenomenon demands explanation, but there's nothing in the world that a paranormal hypothesis explains (other than perhaps the televised claims of Sylvia Browne), nor do they answer any salient questions in psychology. Furthermore, every single reliable study and test of the paranormal has come up with nothing. At a certain point, you have to say, "Let's put our effort into something that might actually produce useful results."
 
becomethelight said:
Agreed. Let's apply that here. And as responsible scientists, I think we should encourage those who are interested in these ideas to take them seriously and engage in a scientific discourse to verify them, not devalue them and push them further to the fringes.
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The result of science is that it does push things that do not hold up to scientific scrutiny into the fringes. This is not an unfortunate side-effect, it is the point of scientific progress. We place value in things that work and discard what doesn't work. Things like astrology and telekinesis and telepathy deserve to be on the fringes. When a phenomenon has repeatedly failed to demonstrate any valididy whatsoever, we have to stop awarding people degrees in science and then allowing them to investigate these practices with an uncritical eye--as if ignoring all the science that has come before is a good thing.
 
becomethelight said:
Agreed. Let's apply that here. And as responsible scientists, I think we should encourage those who are interested in these ideas to take them seriously and engage in a scientific discourse to verify them, not devalue them and push them further to the fringes.
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Agreed. I might go further in saying that the vocational dogmatism cloaked in the banner of "science" appearing on these boards contributes to an anti-intellectual environment that paints the psychologist as simply another technocrat...
 
Zebra F701 said:
Agreed. I might go further in saying that the vocational dogmatism cloaked in the banner of "science" appearing on these boards contributes to an anti-intellectual environment that paints the psychologist as simply another technocrat...
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No...yours is the the fall back position for every zealot and whack job who cries that the "anti-intellectual environment" is hiding the "truth." You can't power a car with water, evolution is fact, and you can't read my mind. Not giving credence to the ridiculous is not "anti science,"....It's is not the place of science to disprove ghosties and ghoulies. The place of science is to increase knowledge. If you want to waste your time exploring things that have absolutely no documented basis in fact, knock yourself out and have a good time. But please don't come to a forum where people who practice real science spend time to share their thoughts and bemoan the fact that you are laughed at.
 
I'm also a bit confused by the mention of psychophysics. It is very different from some of the other topics mentioned...many vision science/perception researchers fall under that domain, and it includes things like studying how radiologists detect tumors on digital images for purposes of developing new methods and/or recognition software. That's fairly run-of-the-mill cognitive psych stuff and (to my knowledge) not the least bit controversial.

As for some of the other posts - I'm perfectly fine with people directing cries of "scientism" at me, and I'm quite happy to direct cries of "quackery" and "con-artist" back at them. We'll see who comes out ahead in the long run, but I know I'll sleep better at night and be able to look myself in the mirror each morning with my approach. That said - as I note above I'm actually perfectly fine with people researching these things, as long as it is held to the same standard we would anything else. It doesn't get a pass because its "magic" and we want it to be true. If we want to have a serious intellectual discussion about what current scientific methods can actually show and what those results actually mean than great. I wish we had more conversations like that here - though a warning that such a conversation necessitates one actually have a solid background in science so it doesn't just become "We can't operationalize it" with no further explanation. If we just want to pout about how unfair those scientists are being by expecting folks to back things up with more than vague, esoteric belief systems, that's not likely to fly with many. I'm okay with that, regardless of how much name-calling people want to throw my way.

Either way - its going to be tough since, as others have pointed out, there is virtually nothing that remotely suggests this is a viable field right now. Pursuing a field of study that if nothing else, guarantees an extremely high proportion of negative results means it would be wise to have a backup plan and other lines of work. Putting aside the issues above - what is your motivation for pursuing parapsychology? What intersecting lines of work could you see, and what are your career goals? I'm a fan of high-risk research and actually think we need more of it in psychology, but there are limits. This is likely one of them depending on your specific goals, what you hope to accomplish, and how you want to approach it.
 
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NHPilot said:
No...yours is the the fall back position for every zealot and whack job who cries that the "anti-intellectual environment" is hiding the "truth." You can't power a car with water, evolution is fact, and you can't read my mind. Not giving credence to the ridiculous is not "anti science,"....It's is not the place of science to disprove ghosties and ghoulies. The place of science is to increase knowledge. If you want to waste your time exploring things that have absolutely no documented basis in fact, knock yourself out and have a good time. But please don't come to a forum where people who practice real science spend time to share their thoughts and bemoan the fact that you are laughed at.
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First of all, take it easy. Nowhere did I suggest some scientific conspiracy against truth, I am sorry you read it that way. As for suggesting I leave the forum because I am concerned about the state of our pursuit for psychological knowledge, again.... take it easy. I'm no zealot and I assume that you're no technocrat. These are ideas, let's discuss them and debate them, but let's not exclude each other. What is so threatening about this topic?
 
Therapist4Chnge said:
Mindfulness is a FAAAAAAAAAAAAAR cry from say...telepathy or clairvoyance. It is up to the alternative view to prove itself in the face of skepticism, not up to the scientific community to accept the alternative view without rigorous independant review and emperical support.
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It's usually important to stay away from that word when we are talking about scientific theory. It needs to be falsifiable and it needs to provide empirical support for itself, but nothing can ever be proven really. Maybe some "laws" of physics (e.g., gravity) could be considered absolute, but as we know, most things aren't.

What's up with this thread? It's like it really strikes a nerve with some people. I personally don't mind research on para- phenomenon. It's just that there really isn't a much good research on it out there at all. People are right to question methods and results, but the mockery is probably not well-suited. I tried to post an article earlier in the thread that was recently at the center of this debate, and we had awesome discussions about it in courses I taught. What gives?
 
Zebra F701 said:
First of all, take it easy. Nowhere did I suggest some scientific conspiracy against truth, I am sorry you read it that way. As for suggesting I leave the forum because I am concerned about the state of our pursuit for psychological knowledge, again.... take it easy. I'm no zealot and I assume that you're no technocrat. These are ideas, let's discuss them and debate them, but let's not exclude each other. What is so threatening about this topic?
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Who said anything about asking you to leave...I just said you are going to be laughed at. As for being "concerned about the state of our pursuit for psychological knowledge"...wizardry and magic don't really have a place in psychology, so I wouldn't be to concerned about that. And no, these aren't ideas....these are fictions...there really is no need to debate them. It is akin to demanding equal time to the teaching of intelligent design.
 
NHPilot said:
Who said anything about asking you to leave...I just said you are going to be laughed at. As for being "concerned about the state of our pursuit for psychological knowledge"...wizardry and magic don't really have a place in psychology, so I wouldn't be to concerned about that. And no, these aren't ideas....these are fictions...there really is no need to debate them. It is akin to demanding equal time to the teaching of intelligent design.
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Are you laughing or just scolding? Can't we learn from the medicine men/women, shamans, and psychomagicians? University laboratories are an excellent source of knowledge, I agree. But it is arrogant, naive, and culturally insensitive to assume that we have done away with the wisdom of our ancient ancestors in the last 100 years of this our "scientific" psychology.
 
Zebra F701 said:
Are you laughing or just scolding? Can't we learn from the medicine men/women, shamans, and psychomagicians? University laboratories are an excellent source of knowledge, I agree. But it is arrogant, naive, and culturally insensitive to assume that we have done away with the wisdom of our ancient ancestors in the last 100 years of this our "scientific" psychology.
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Not really. But I don't think you should equate that kind of knowledge. If you are talking about applying scientific research design to "parapsychology" then I think you'll find some takers. If you are suggesting that folks just accept it as fact, then you won't.

Think 'religious studies" vs. "theology" - totally different "ways of knowing" and I know that academic religious studies folks don't like being equated with theologians. Totally different areas.
 
I am talking about seriously engaging the knowledge passed down to us from folk wisdom. Run its claims through SPSS or don't, but lets not pretend there is no place for it in psychology.
 
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