Smart Talk Online
alternative talk show

SmartTalkOnline.com

"Welcome  to Smart Talk Online"
Introductory essay by Reginald B. Humphreys, Ph.D.

There are a few attempts in the public marketplace to provide an alternative to the poor quality talk shows that pervade the television and radio networks. Most talk shows are like most pop psychology books, in that they are geared to and meant for individuals who read at the 8th grade level.

It is critical to understand that having this publishing bias has controlled the popular publication market for decades, so that the average reader of psychology has not seen any good popular psychology in years.

What, then, is the public getting instead? The answer, unfaceable to many, is that most of the public has been tricked into believing that weak pop psychology approaches are a valid basis for understanding one's life, or for making life choices. The concepts that the average layperson is likely to use in coping with life difficulties are woefully inadequate, although publishers and pop psychologist-pretenders have certainly made many fortunes in selling the public junk psychology and trash psychology.

The only sophisticated psychology publishing has been in the academic area, in which psychologists write to and for each other. This much smaller academic publishing field is controlled by an entirely different set of forces, but like trade psychology publishing, it is essentially a "closed-shop" industry, where newcomers are definitely not welcome, and where the obstacles to publishing may seem equally insurmountable.

In trade psychology publishing (pop psychology) truth-in-publishing values are routinely sacrificed for the sake of profitability. Pop psychology books are never published for the sake of their truthfulness or helpfulness to the public. Pop psychology books are always a business proposition, in which the publication of books which are not controversial, and which can be broadly accepted by the largest calculable audience, are the overriding criteria which usually determine a book's publishability.

Once a publisher has decided on a "numbers" approach, which involves deciding to only sell books which appeal to large numbers of buyers, then the next step is to restrict the level of difficulty of any book to a maximum of an 8th or 10th grade reading level. Complex sentences, new terminology, and any degree of abstract discussion, are all prohibited, as these are seen as "inaccessible" to the general reader/book buyer operating at an 8th or 10th grade reading level.

Not all sophisticated psychological concepts can be boiled down to an 8th grade level of reading and comprehension. Therefore, sophisticated psychological concepts have disappeared from American pop psychology publishing. This has been referred to as the "dumbing down" of America, the systematic communication to the American public of ideas which lack conceptual sophistication or validity. Especially in the case of pop psychology publishing, the American public has been fed a diet of progressively worsening concepts, so that the typical "pop-psychology-informed" citizen is not informed usefully at all, and in addition, is full of ill-advised beliefs incorporating invalid psychological concepts. These invalid concepts can make the individual so non-receptive to valid psychological approaches that they may be blocked in any attempts at self-correction through counseling or psychotherapy. As much effort (and expense) can be spent upon persuading a client to abandon their pop-psychology-induced beliefs and concepts as is devoted to actual treatment of the real psychological or emotional problem.

The client, who may have started out with an actual problem of some type, now has two problems: (1) the original problem at its original intensity or even worse, and (2) the new (and possibly greater) problem of having adopted an invalid set of psychological concepts and beliefs. The user of pop psychology may apply the false concepts and beliefs to many aspects of life, and may thereby contaminate their entire life with the false beliefs and ideas. What may have started out as a limited problem, such as an occupational problem on the job, or a temporary relationship dysfunction, may have changed the person's life for the worse in a much larger sense. There is no real way to overestimate the destructive impact of adopting a set of shallow or invalid beliefs, as are usually contained in most pop psychology approaches.

I can hear the reader's protests   "How about some specifics? Enough generalizations! Exactly which ideas should be accepted, and which are truly shallow? And isn't depth or shallowness a highly subjective matter anyway? Who are you, or anyone else for that matter, to say what is or is not 'shallow"?

Such ideas are highly seductive, and hard for many to see through. All I can say to you, as reader, is that if the foregoing arguments really make sense to you, then 8th grade level pop psychology is probably about your speed. Belief in the "subjectivity of everything" is what has led to the pathetic situation that pop psychology has put the American public in already. On that same flimsy basis, every pop psychology book that ended up as junk or trash was originally justified. If everything is subjective, then publishing any nonsense as pop psychology is also justified.

Nowhere else is there a field so thoroughly populated with pretenders than the field of psychology. Everyone seems to want to play psychologist in the media, especially in the area of talk shows. Why is it then, that every example of a prominent talk show host is of a person who gives the impression that they could never qualify legitimately as a psychologist or counselor because of possessing the personal defects of weak intellect, corrupt belief system, or abusive demeanor?

When the talk show hosts' statements and conduct are just as crude as those of the "guests", then the thin facade of the talk show structure collapses. It becomes apparent that it seems impossible for a show production to be a vehicle for promoting any kind of awareness, when the show itself is conducted without any visible evidence of awareness present. It becomes obvious that talk shows were never designed to be a vehicle of awareness, but instead, to be vehicles of stimulation, which sells better.

Talk shows and pop psychologists are "strange bedfellows". Suffice it to say that before talk shows, all the pop psychologists had little opportunity to sell their junk ideas and promote their junk books. Without talk shows, false psychological "experts" would never have taken over media psychology. And talk show hosts themselves are so fond of pretending that they are rendering a service, it is clear that both pop psychology writers and talk show hosts share a dedication to the activity of pretending to be psychologists to achieve media celebrity and profit.

MEDIA PSYCHOLOGY IS PURELY A BUSINESS AND AN ENTERTAINMENT ACTIVITY, WHICH BEARS NO RELATIONSHIP TO LEGITIMATE PSYCHOLOGY OR TO VALID APPROACHES TO HEALTH AND LIVING. THEY ARE FOR "ENTERTAINMENT ONLY", AND ARE FORMS OF PRETEND-THERAPY, DESIGNED TO DRAW IN THE UNEDUCATED NON-READER, WHO HAS NO CHANCE OF HAVING EVER BEEN EXPOSED TO LEGITIMATE PSYCHOLOGY BEFORE, AND THEREFORE CANNOT TELL THE DIFFERENCE.

Back to specifics!  This introductory article is at an end, but the purpose of our site is now more fully disclosed.

This site exists to provide an alternative to the unintelligent and damaging orientation of broadcast talk shows, by offering discussion on critical topics in contemporary coping, especially topics which we see "butchered" by regular talk shows. A frequent editorial column, by myself, will report on recent misinformation disseminated in talk shows, entitled JUNK PSYCHOLOGY TODAY.

In addition to JUNK PSYCHOLOGY TODAY, a regular array of articles and features are provided, all devoted to elevating the level of discussion of contemporary psychological problems beyond the deplorably low level of sophistication found in broadcasting and pop psychology publishing.

Please feel invited to enter our regular site entry page, which you will probably use as your entry point in the future.

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