The Docsplainer

I tell my students starting on Day One that “Psychology is not all between your ears!” I tell them that it is geographic, historical, legal, environmental, gendered, racialized, economic, and, yes, political. So, while professors try to keep their personal politics out of the classroom, teaching psychology is not and cannot be apolitical. (It is different.)

In the news this week is President-elect Trump’s intention to appoint Robert F Kennedy, Jr. to his cabinet as head of Health and Human Services (HHS). This is as prominent an example of how psychology is political as I could possibly have given them this semester. I tell them that what makes this political is that we elect people who represent what we want to see this country and our local communities be and do. Voting is politics! And that includes mental health research, prevention, and care, as well as a host of other domains that don’t seem psychological (climate change, war, policing, the courts, the economy, the food supply, just for a few) but have profound effects on the population’s mental health just the same. 

I have to say this because every four years a handful of students will tell me that politics has nothing to do with them. They don’t care about it. They don’t pay any attention to it. And they don’t vote.

I explain, because some of them don’t seem to know, that whoever wins the Presidency every four years chooses his cabinet first thing, of course mostly filling it with people who share his vision of what this country should be and do, and the Senate confirms them if they fit their vision (or at least if they appear capable and of good character–that’s the ideal, anyway). The Senate, of course, was elected through the same process, so at least theoretically my students’ Senators represent the majority’s wishes, hopes, and dreams and will vote for or against nominees accordingly. 

Which means we create HHS by our votes. We thus create mental health policy and control spending on it by our votes.

Thus, psychology is political and, so while who they vote for is none of my business, I do want them to vote. And I want their votes determined, where relevant, by what they learn about community mental health in this class.

The nominee under discussion is skeptical of Big Pharma, distrusts the food industry, and believes that chemicals in the water make people trans and vaccines cause autism. One way in which this matters is that HHS controls massive amounts of research grant money and so determines in large part who can study what, the results of which studies in circular fashion come around again to influence policy and law. The grant-making process has historically been more or less immune to party politics (Alexander Hamilton set up the Civil Service specifically to protect career civil servants and, by extension, their “customers” — us — from that influence), although of course as a major U.S. institution HHS inevitably reflects changing societal values and priorities as well as the philosophy of the incumbent President and his Cabinet. So it’s never been completely immune to politics in that sense.

The incoming administration’s agenda, however, specifically proposes the removal of existing guardrails so that, even more than is usual, I think we can expect hot-button issues like vaccine and LGBTQQI-related research to be profoundly affected in the coming years. How will it affect autism research? It is hard to know but, as my students will have seen by this point in the semester, our theories of development, personality, and the causation and treatment of the disorders are inextricably inter-related. So where Kennedy thinks these things come from is bound to have some effect downstream. 

So as this is a psychology class, and part of what I’m tasked to do is teach them to apply what they are learning outside the classroom, I asked them to discuss. My prompts were:

1. HHS is also, as part of the Executive Branch, a regulatory agency. What might change in that domain? And what downstream effects, for good or ill, do you foresee? 

2. What do Kennedy and President-elect Trump think of other psychological issues or the causes, prevention, and treatment of other disorders? What implications do these views have for HHS? For you? 

3. What are your questions? (I’m sure I haven’t thought of them all: This was new-ish as of about 48 hours before I posted to the class discussion boards.)

And then I thought I’d ask you. Whaddya think, Readers? (I know, I only have about two, but hey.)

No pro- or anti-Trump arguments here, please: Keep it to science and policy! And keep it civil or be reported and blocked.