Episode 117: Mesmer, Gall, and Modern Pseudopsychologies

Psychosocial Distancing

Episode 117 of our book read/podcast covering major topics in various fields of psychology moves us into a continuation of the Year of Clickbait with PSEUDOSCIENCE! This Spring we are going to be talking about pseudoscience. Who believes it? Why do they believe it? Is there a kernel of truth to some of the pseudoscientific beliefs people have? And more…

In this episode Daniel and Thomas discuss more psychology related pseudoscience: phrenology and hypnosis. We focus mostly on hypnosis and the truth and fiction behind it. We also muse on phrenology, the lack of truth behind it, the ways in which is inspired good science, and what could be considered “modern phrenology”. All this and a question of the week from Ask Psychology on Reddit.

Warning: This episode contains some graphic information and all season we will be talking about some less than savory topics.

PSD Website: https://psychosocialdistancingpodcast.com/

Thomas' Webpage: https://sexography.org/

Thomas' Twitter: https://twitter.com/TBrooks_SexPsy

Daniel's Twitter: https://twitter.com/ScienceInChaos

Intro and Outro Theme and Bias Jingle by Jordan Jones

Articles:

https://research.gold.ac.uk/id/eprint/29294/

https://skepticalinquirer.org/2019/09/the-new-phrenology/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6PSj1S0kjSY&feature=youtu.be

Ask Psychology Question of the Week: Why is there no concept of species identity in psychology (as separate from biological species)?