La pseudo-psychologie dans les médias

The media portrays psychology as a form of common sense rather than a science because it shows the psychologist as a person that is only available to listen to the problems of others, without having any scientific approach whatsoever. Indeed, the psychologist in the media does not provide his patients reliable facts and theories to help them understand what they are going through after having them observed, or any solutions to overcome their issues. In fact, they do not follow at all the scientific approach and only sit in front of their client in silence nodding their head. For instance, I have seen for myself this sort of portrait of the psychologist in the 2012 movie LOL directed by Lisa Azuelos when Demi Moore (as Anne, Lola’s mother) experiences some troubles in her life and seeks the help of a psychologist, only to end up more frustrated then before because of the passiveness and the disregard of her psy towards her problems, standing still to what she has to say in silence. Therefore, in many sphere of the media, psychology is mostly perceived as common sense because the psychologist is not shown as a scientific with a particular method but more as someone who is there to listen and who could be replaced by anyone who has a good ear.

The media only present the counselling psychologist that is most of the time passive like in the example given earlier, and who deals with everyday problems. The clinical and research or academic aspect of psychology is not all shown, nor is the school psychologist presented. The very popular video game Grand Theft Auto 5 displays throughout the whole game a counselling psychologist, Dr. Friedlander, which the protagonist, Michael, consults regularly only to rant about his life without getting any constructive feedback from his counsellor and being asked for his money right after he finishes his monologue. Hence, not only does the media suggests a distorted image of what a counselling psychologist does, but they also omit to present the other specific areas of psychology.

Self-proclaimed experts are also very common on the web, explaining by themselves psychological theories without having the competence to do so. With that said, many false information circulates in the media, contributing in this way to what we call pseudo-psychology. In fact, some sources found on the internet might look reliable by the way they are written or simply by the arguments they are presenting, but many have no scientific validity behind it. For example, when searching on google reasons why a person might experience some difficulties with his/her concentration, the first four links that appear on google are from blogs or forums, written by self-proclaimed experts who have absolutely no skill. Thus, people have to be careful when searching for scientific information on the web because the media rely more on self-proclaimed experts.