Dafermos, D. & Marvakis, A. & Triliva, S. (2006) ‘(De)constructing Psychology in Greece’,
Annual Review of Critical Psychology, 5, pp. 180-191 www.discourseunit.com/arcp/5
Manolis Dafermos, Athanasios Marvakis, Sofia Triliva1
(De)constructing Psychology in Greece
1.
The emerging discipline/field
The past 20 years have brought a great deal of change in the making of psychology as a
subject matter and a discipline in Greece. For a long period prior to these developments,
psychologists (academics, practitioners, researchers) completed their education in psychology
and obtained their degrees from various universities abroad (GB, Germany, the United States,
and France predominantly) and evidently aspired to bring to fruition their social reproduction
by practicing this ‘imported’ and ‘exotic’ profession. In order to come to some understandings
as to the how and why did the last 20 years’ developments come about it is important that we
refer to the history of the discipline and profession of psychology in Greece.
Greece has a long history as a cultural context but a much shorter history as a modern nationstate. The same can be said for psychology in Greece; there is a long and ancient history of
psychology as a set of concepts and understandings about the human condition (the works,
words and narratives of Homer, Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle), a 70-year history as academic
subject offered within departments of philosophy, a 20-year history as a subject area of study
at the university level, and a mere 12-year ‘official’ history of psychology as an applied
professional practice. The ancient history of (the) psychology in the Greek cultural context is
far beyond the scope of this presentation. It may suffice to say that there was no continuation
of those traditions, understandings, or epistemologies until very recently when
epistemological discourses such as narrative psychology, positive psychology, emotional
intelligence, and philosophical psychology became more popular and got acceptance in the
United States and elsewhere and were then imported and (re)produced back into the country
and the culture where their roots lay dormant for centuries. The motifs of (up)rooting,
engulfing, incorporating, and (re)producing play prominent roles in the history of psychology
in Greece.
Psychology is a relatively young discipline and profession in Greece. Its contribution to the
national context at large is equivocal if one takes the lack of contextualization of its theory
production, research and applied practices. In its great hurry to establish itself as a discipline
and a profession the field did not delineate or identify its role within the Greek societal
context but adopted and took on the roles, practices, and methods of psychology in other
nations, mostly North American countries (i.e., primarily the United States) and Northern
Europe (primarily, Great Britain and Germany). This was perhaps inevitable in that the
majority of the people in academic positions and settings were educated abroad and brought
with them the models and paradigms they learned in their respective educational settings. But,
as we all know as teachers, knowledge needs constant refining, tools need to be re-designed
and epistemologies need re-working in different historical, social, economical, and political
contexts. In order to take root and to grow, Greek Psychology’s assumptions and practices
1
Contact: mdafermo@psy.soc.uoc.gr & marvakis_ath@psy.soc.uoc.gr & triliva@psy.soc.uoc.gr
180
have to be immersed in and affected by the Greek cultural, historical, and societal forces (of
Greece). Only when it is fully rooted, grounded, and immersed into these societal forces could
its knowledge become suitable and fitting for those that use it. Knowledge and know-how
needs to be digested (reflected upon, re-worked, nurtured in, applied and understood in its
workings within a context), not swallowed (whole) and (re)produced as a whole. Otherwise it
is relegated to the realm of ideology, becoming a-historical, a-social, de-contextualized, and
a-political. And in these ways, it loses the realities of its subjects.
TAKING ROOT
Psychology as an academic discipline in Greece began to emerge, but not quite take root, in
the first quarter of the 20th century and more specifically in 1926 when Theofilos Voreas
(1873-1954, who had completed his doctorate in 1897 with W. Wundt as his advisor) began
to teach one course at the Department of Philosophy in the University of Athens. At
approximately the same time Voreas established the first laboratory in psychology at the
University of Athens, Dr. Sakelariou did the same at the University of Thessaloniki where he
was elected on the chair in Psychology and established an independent laboratory (in 1937).
In 1939 this newly-founded chair in Psychology in Thessaloniki was uprooted and the courses
and lab were engulfed by the department of philosophy. Despite the efforts of some people,
the Greek academic community was not ready or did not want psychology to be separate and
distinct from philosophy as an academic discipline. Psychology was considered somewhat of
an amalgamation of philosophy or perhaps psychiatry for this long period in Greece, and the
ground was not fertile for such a hybrid.
It was not until 1964 that there were some stirrings in the dormant ground when a chair in
General Paychology was established within the Thessaloniki School of Philosophy. At
approximately the same time a chair in Child Psychology was established. These stirrings, in
the so far dormant ground, led to the openings of similar chairs in several Schools of
Philosophy around the country. It was not until 1987 (first year of students to be enrolled)
however that an independent department of psychology was established in Greece, realized
within the School of Social Sciences at the University of Crete. It was the first academic
department whose graduates obtained a degree in Psychology. In the 1990’s independent
departments or programs were founded at the Panteio University in Athens (1992), the
University of Thessaloniki (1993) and the University of Athens (1993). Very interesting at
this point is the fact that starting from the following academic year (2005-2006) and on the
basis of interdisciplinary studies, the students/officers of the Thessaloniki Higher Military
School are offered the opportunity to gain a degree in psychology by attending appropriate
courses co-organized by the Psychology Department at the University in Thessaloniki.
The establishment of these departments undeniably marks a new age in the (re)production of
psychology in Greece, primarily since psychology is now officially recognized as an
academic discipline, a discipline to invest in socially. In this fashion, the conditions for the
construction of the psychological scientific and professional community are now set. Having
said these few words about the history of the routing of Psychology in Greece, let us now take
a look at the different discourses surrounding the construction of this ‘modern’ and ‘new’
discipline and what was really taking root.
181
PSYCHIATRIC DISCOURSES AND HYBRIDS
The issues surrounding the construction of psychology in Greece received some attention in
both the international and domestic fronts between the years 1966 and 1992. Some very
influential psychiatrists were the first to focus their attention on what was happening in the
field of mental health in Greece.2 In the published articles3 there is a blurring of boundaries of
what constitutes psychiatry and psychology on the one hand and psychiatry and neurology on
the other. Furthermore, if psychiatry was to disentangle itself from the tentacles of neurology
and to use the surplus of power left over from not being strangulated any more to finally set
forth what would constitute “mental health services” in the country, it is understandable that
with this surplus of power, the domination and the control of the field would not be difficult.
In this sense, though the blurring of epistemic boundaries was well attested for, there was no
blurring of hierarchies, and without doubt the hegemony of psychiatry reigned in all kinds of
mental health service provision or academic dialogues (Bouhoutsos & Roe 1984); and to a
large extent it still reigns. At the time this hegemony was readily justified on the basis of the
‘newness’ of the psychological field in Greece, its lack of ‘modernity’, the absence of
‘independent’ departments of psychology, and the influence that ‘philosophy’ exercised upon
it in academic settings and, particularly, in the social sciences (Harper 1971; Housiadas 1976).
2.
Applying/applied psychology in Greece
Psychology, which was the new and possibly hybrid variety (or “species”), and maybe still is,
was not developing roots officially. Yet something needed to take root when it came to mental
health services; and psychiatric services definitely did. With the advent of ‘new’ and
‘imported’ pharmacological therapies of the 1950’s and 1960’s, the medically or
psychiatrically oriented practices took hold in the “iatro-paidagogica” (literally meaning
“medical-pedagogical”) and ‘mental health’ centers that rooted around the nation. We would
like to, at this point, to refer to the publications of Thanasis Tzavaras and Thanasis Karavatos,
both psychiatrists, to get a glimpse of what transpired. Tzavaras (1983) writes about the
blurring of epistemologies and boundaries of what constitutes mental health:]
This vagueness “maintains (and is maintained by) a chorus of pseudopsychotherapists, psycho-researchers, parapsychologists, etc. This universal
phenomenon emphasizes one more time the idiosyncrasy that exists in psychic health
and illness. If we were to take the area of physical health, we can attest that there
exists a conceptual and functional division between scientific and non-scientific
therapeutic methodologies (so to say between the Pasteur Institute and The Church of
Virgin Mary in the island of Tinos). In mental health one discovers a continuum, with
one end being the fortune-teller and the other the professor of psychiatry.”
Ten years later the psychiatrist Thanasis Karavatos attests that this continuum still exists:
“… it has been ‘modernized’ and updated at both ends: ‘from the myriad of gurus all
the way to the professor of neurology’. Irrationalism and (neo)positivism is the
response to the everlasting crisis in our psychiatry.”
2
Some of them are P. Hartocollis, G. Vassiliou, Th. Tzavaras, Stephanis, Christodoulou and Madianos.
See Vassiliou & Vassiliou 1965; Hartocollis, Georgas & Katakis 1966; Christodoulou 1970; Stefanis &
Madianos 1981; Tzavaras, 1999.
3
182
“Today nonetheless the impasse that exists in the country’s ‘anti-psychiatric
movement’ is detoured by the different ‘spiritual’ and ‘esoteric’ therapies that have
literally blossomed, and the stalemate of the half-baked modernizations is fomenting
the social dissemination of different types of ‘new’ therapies which are mostly also
imported and packaged with instructions for use.” (Karavatos 1991, 13f.)
These ‘modernizations’ and the ‘new packages of therapies with instructions’ arrived in
Greece and took root. As Vanger (1986, 924) observed, psychic health “is being dominated
by the psychiatric and medical establishment in practice.” And this “dominant role of
neuropsychiatrists in providing psychological services” was and is obvious to even external
researchers (Theodore et al. 2002, 149; Nikolopoulou & Oakland 1992, 47).
Somehow the packaging was just the right type of seed to take hold in the fertile soil of Greek
therapeutic practices. Was it the packaging? Was it the easy way to follow instructions? Or
perhaps the easy access to ‘psychotropic’ and other medications? Was it the fact that
psychological practice became inextricably associated with the medical model that helped in
the rooting process? These questions have not even been posed, never mind clarified. The
outcome however is: the (ab)use of medically prescribed substances - ‘drugs’ - has increased
exponentially in Greece. The ease in obtaining ‘psychotropic’ medications was established
quite early. For example the following comments were made 20 years ago in the “American
Psychologist”:
“… getting one’s hands on a variety of drugs in Greece (from antibiotics to
antidepressants, anxiety reducers, or stimulants) is as easy as getting a cup of Greek
coffee – or for those colleagues who live in the United States, as easy as getting a Big
Mac.” (Piperopoulos 1985, 475)
Fifteen years later the psychiatrist Thanasis Tzavaras (1999, 315) still talks about the “…
incalculable use of psycho-pharmacological agents (also) in Greece” and adds that “…
psychotropic substances along with antibiotics add exponentially to the passivity during
therapies...”
Hence, it seems that what took hold in Greece is the passive installation and incorporation of
psychiatric pharmacotherapy (with their power and control) and the medical model of
understanding people’s problems and even their entire subjectivity.
Essentially that which rooted was that which can ‘easily’ be incorporated, consumed, and
engulfed without much reflection, contemplation, and dialogue. Did the same occur with the
subject matter and the discipline of psychology? In order to address this question it is
essential to take a look at the publications dealing with psychology as an academic discipline
in Greece.
PSYCHOLOGY AS AN ACADEMIC DISCIPLINE
Publications and discussions over psychology per se and issues involved in the
‘modernization’ of the field in Greece, surrounding psychology as a distinct subject started to
appear in national and international literature around the 1970’s. It is difficult to summarize
the contributions and the discussions in these publications in a few words but we shall try in a
couple of paragraphs:
183
The articles by Harper (1971) and Housiadas (1976) describe the state of affairs in academic
institutions where “some courses in psychology” are taught. Both authors point out that
psychology, at that time, was taught in undergraduate programs to students registered in the
School of Philosophy in Ioannina and in Thessaloniki. As with all students within the Greek
academic system, an undergraduate degree in just about every field was to be cashed in for a
job upon graduation. The students who graduated from the schools of philosophy became
teachers of classics, history, and Modern Greek in the Gymnasium and Lyceum levels of
secondary education. The authors conclude that “the available undergraduate courses in
psychology … are not sufficient to form the basis of adequate professional training in the
subject.” (Housiadas 1976, 184). The lack of adequate funding and infrastructure is
underlined by these articles as is the imperative that “philosophers and psychiatrists recognize
(that psychology) can make useful contributions in understanding human behavior” (ibd.,
187-188), and that “empirical research … help rectify the idea, common among both the well
informed and the not so well informed, that psychology can be identified with either
philosophy or psychiatry” (p. 186) and psychologist’s “contributions … be appreciated by
government agencies, which, at present, work on the legal definition of psychology as a
profession in Greece” (p. 188).
Hence, gaining recognition, bolstering ‘public image’, and ‘expanding roles’ are called for.
However, practical-organizational or political or other modes of action for succeeding in
meeting these lofty goals are few in these publications. The one thing that is mentioned is
Greek psychologists’ relationships with ‘influential and modern world others’ and conducting
‘scientific’ or empirical research. More specifically, Harper (1971), and the publication from
the American Psychological Association that he refers to, extensively recommend that
“international agencies”, “Greeks trained abroad” and “the United States Office of Naval
Research” provide “a channel through which support may be attained” (p. 44). NATO’s
“collaboration” with the University of Thessaloniki through Professorships and funding for
the University’s Laboratory is documented in Harper’s paper. This paper and the APA
publications cited point to the influential roles that Orlinda Childs Pierce College, an
“American Foundation” where psychology is taught and private centers played upon
psychology as a subject matter; the latter started out as “research centers” and, eventually,
operated as psychotherapy training facilities.4 The call for NATO’s and ‘the United States
Office of Naval Research’ collaboration is not surprising in that such recommendations are
being made at what can be ‘dubbed’ the appropriate historical moment: Greece was under a
Military Dictatorship at this same historical period where these papers formulating these
recommendations were written.
Other publications of that period focus also on ‘opening up the subject’ area. Issues of
‘modernizing’ psychology in accordance with the now ‘rapidly becoming modern nation’ are
discussed and the ‘emerging’ state of affairs is described. Haritos-Fatouros (1973) describes
how the ‘imported’ and ‘modern’ practices of testing and measurement are being used in
Greece. However, what still evades proper attention is the diverse historical backgrounds as
well as contemporary traditions with regard to the understanding of human intelligence and
abilities; tests that were initially constructed, standardized and published mostly in the USA
on the basis of the American history and academic tradition, were merely “adopted/translated”
in Greece without being re-standardized (Nikoloupoulou & Oakland 1990; Triliva & Stalikas,
2004).
4
The Athenian Institute of Anthropos and Center for Mental Health and Research (see Harper 1971; Housiadas
1976)
184
Two more papers (Bouhoutsos & Roe 1984; Nikolopoulou & Oakland 1990) underline the
‘imported’ understandings, practices, and knowledge in the establishment of psychology as a
field of study and a profession in Greece. More specifically Nikoloupoulou & Oakland,
describing the state of affairs in school psychology, they state:
“School psychologists are often practitioners who are prepared elsewhere, have
specializations in other areas (e.g. clinical, developmental), and are unprepared to
work in schools. This diversity prevents the establishment of professionalism and
promotes disagreements among psychologists with regard to preferred practices and
services. This diversity is displayed in testing practices.” (p.151)
It is not surprising that in the reviews of Haritos-Fatouros (1973), Nikolopoulou & Oakland
(1990) and Triliva & Stalikas (2004), many of the core tests used in psychometric evaluations
in Greek public and private institutions were the same5 and that many of them continued to be
not standardized for the Greek population. Twenty-one years, three different studies, and the
findings were very similar: ‘intelligence’ and ability tests were not used as readily as in other
countries; they were just translated into the Greek language and not adequately standardized
to fit the cultural context;6 and many of the professionals who used these measures were self
trained in their applications.
Could this kind of ‘knowledge transfer’ and installation of what constitutes intelligence,
personality, and abilities and their measurement be harmful? Could ‘professionals’ be forming
opinions and making generalizations and recommendations about peoples’ lives that are not
likely to be correct? When it comes to the use of tests that were originally developed and used
in specific populations Robert Sternberg (2004) makes a strong case for their lack of
appropriateness for different socio-cultural contexts. Could the consistent findings that testing
is not used as often as it is in North America, imply something of how the culture and the
professionals who serve it view testing, measurement and evaluation, as opposed to what is
being ‘installed’ as the ‘right and scientific course of action’? These are questions that remain
un-addressed. Yet what has become obvious is that with the ‘installation’ of such claims came
the installation of such practices and as Nikolopoulou & Oakland (1992) put it:
“Since professional psychologists have gotten their training in foreign countries they
have imported into the country a series of fundamental assumptions that are
segmented, unconnected and which do not have the requisite relationship with Greek
reality.” (p. 55)
The paper Markoulis & Demetriou’s (1992) take offence to the criticisms offered by other
authors (like Bouhoutsos & Roe, Vagner and Katakis) and try to show how the field of
psychology in Greece has made “progress” in “quantity, quality, and objectives of
psychological research.” They cite 175 studies in six fields and state that “study in individual
differences is undoubtedly one of the most popular research areas for Greek psychologists.”
(p. 79) They cite the tests used, the very tests that in the papers mentioned above were dubbed
“not standardized for the Greek population”. And even in this favorable review the authors
had to concede that there are difficulties in establishing culture free tests.
5
Intelligence and projective tests being predominant, the former being used primarily when required for
documenting Mental Retardation.
6
The only exception to this was the standardization of the WISC-R in 1998.
185
Could there be a culture free test or a culture free subject matter in a field and discipline that
studies human beings, their lives, their relationships, their institutions, and their
subjectivities? Why the focus on individual differences, testing, measurement, and evaluation
in both research and practice? Is it because by these means, it is easy to categorize and
dichotomize and in this fashion offer (categorical) meta-descriptions? And by offering such
‘prevailing truths’ making it easy to assume that the researcher or practitioner in not merely
describing and understanding what he or she has in her/ his mind, but rather, s/he is offering a
tidied-up summary description (truth and scientific) of what ‘intelligence’ (or any other
construct) means to the Greek culture, community, or group. Could this be the ‘scientific’
packaging, the type that is shiny, pretty, and neat and (that) sells readily and is offered for
immediate consumption or internalization?
However, given the lack of consensus among various theorists and researchers on what the
defining features of intelligence are, even for one culture (the same holds for most
psychological constructs), any single meta-descriptive claim intended as a representation of
the prevailing psychological understanding of the construct is bound to be inaccurate. Yet,
constructs, understandings, prevailing practices, and procedures were adopted in Greece. In a
much latter paper by Theodore, Bray, Kehle & Dioguardi (2002) this ‘installation’ is
complete (and they state):
“American school psychology has influenced the development of school psychology
in Greece … Considering the analyses of the effects of special education in the United
States (research is cited in the original) it is tenable to assume that the Greek
restructuring of special education and the provision of school psychological services
will result in similar outcomes as those found in the United States. That is to say there
may be no appreciable, and perhaps even a negative effect, on children’s academic and
social functioning.” (p. 153)
3.
Organizing and (re)producing psychology in Greece
Modernization, image-making, and gaining legitimacy through the use of ‘scientific’
(although imported and poorly fitting) concepts, methods and practices are the predominant
foci of the above mentioned papers. What is conspicuously absent from the publications about
psychology in Greece is the state of affairs regarding:7
What could define psychology in the Greek academic setting,
What constitutes specialization in a subject area,
What are the needs of the people and
What are the institutions needed within the country and
How can psychologist respond to them, and
What should constitute the educational requirements for the making of a ‘professional
psychologist’ within the Greek context? That is specializing and getting a license to practice.
Licensure law was first passed in Greece in 1979, but licenses were not granted until 1993. It
is within the span of these years that the ‘internal to the country’ discourses became animated.
Moreover, and more crucially, what is most clearly absent in the ‘reviews’ published abroad
and as we shall see in the ‘animated conversations’ within the country, is the Greek subject in
context, a context rich in traditions, metaphors, paradigms, epistemologies and cosmologies.
7
All these actually mean a discussion over the initiation and establishment of psychology as a discipline.
186
Being that these crucial issues are absent in the discourses, taking into account that theories
and methods were (re)produced, undigested and not designed to fit the Greek context, and that
the supposed urgency was to ‘produce’ psychologists, is it surprising that students easily
baptized themselves ‘psychotherapists’ adhering to the predominating medical model? 8
Would it be paradoxical to insinuate (using Paulo Freire’s and Martin-Baro’s emphasis) that
this would be a psychology ‘for’ the people and not ‘from’ or ‘of’ their clients? And lastly,
would it be preposterously presumptuous to hypothesize that there would be a viable power
differential in the positioning of these professionals, a positioning that does not bring them
alongside their clients but makes them the dispensers of ‘advice’ or knowledge (very much
like the psychotropic medicines their colleagues the psychiatrists dispense), making them and
their clients passive and automated receptors and receptacles, which can function and operate
within any context?
In the early 1980’s there was political change in Greece. With it the National Health System
was founded (Law 1397/1983), the overhauling of the educational system was called for
(democratization, construed as broadening the access to higher education for non-privileged
citizens), and the expansion of the buying power of consumers was to be assisted. The
production of professional psychologists who would provide services in hospitals, institutions,
schools, counseling centers, and national committees was a fundamental part of the
mechanisms and strategies involved in the making of the a nation that places the welfare of its
populace as a paramount goal. ‘New’ master discourses were being imported and adopted and
along with these came what were the sovereign and preponderant discourses in psychology, in
this ‘new and modern’ discipline that was being established in the newly founded Department
of Psychology at the University of Crete and was to be assisted by the new text for
psychology in the Lyceum.
But it is idiosyncratic to Greece that there is a lack of correspondence between the fast pace of
developing and opening university departments in the social sciences and the
underdevelopment of critical reflection and research in the field. The reflexive appraisal and
knowledge of epistemological understandings that designate the composition, functions, and
development of the social sciences field are still at a neophyte stage in Greece. Knowledge of
the social and epistemological context that would aid the development of the social sciences is
often relegated to the realm of ‘useless luxury’ (of course this fits within the prism of market
logic and its values) and is also focused upon as being a dangerous inquiry that threatens the
master discourses and the status quo of the field.
Idiosyncratic is also the structuring of the social organization, production, and reproduction of
academic psychology in Greece. This idiosyncrasy has also very effectively deterred the
building of a scientific and professional community (and still continues to do so). The most
common and obvious, but simultaneously the most invisible characteristics in this determent
are specific “grouping” mechanisms and processes: Dialogue, argument, and conflict do not
take place in a context of some agreed upon political or/and epistemological objective,
criterions or goals. But they are based upon (partial, fluid and arbitrary) informal social
networks, cliques, etc., that do not have a steady theoretical or epistemological cohesiveness
and are being held together through “social reasons” or other motives non-specific to
psychology as scientific field and professional community. Such fluid informal networks and
cliques usually use and make reference to ‘scientific’ claims and, furthermore, they appeal to
the interests and the stakes of the profession or discipline when, in reality, such references
Some getting training in the primarily private ‘therapy’ training institutions, that are mushroomed all over
Greece since the 1990s.
8
187
promise the promulgation of their own group claims. ‘Science’ or ‘profession’ seems to have
their value as mere vehicles for promoting group claims. An example of this kind of
organization and (re)production of the profession/discipline is found in the following quote in
the American Psychologist. The publication date of this comment – mid 1980s – indicates
also the diachronic quality and power of this observation:
“As for the role of academic psychologist in Greece, very little can be responsibly said
because getting and keeping an academic appointment in Greece has always been an
‘extremely political matter’. The Association of Greek Psychologists (SEPs) should be
viewed more as a lobby for the procurement of governmental favors for a handful of
its executive committee members than as a professional body working for the interest
of the profession.” (Piperopoulos 1985, 475)
Apart from being a ‘political matter’, as mentioned in the above comment, academic
psychology is also a matter of publishing ones work in North Atlantic, ‘high impact’ and
‘prestigious’ journals, and we are sure that all of us know and understand what this
requirement implies. As an anecdote to this, this paper and the information it contains could
not have been put together if one of the authors was not on sabbatical in Canada. We would
not have access to the journals and papers that these Greek authors published abroad if we
were all in Greece! Furthermore, the lack of cohesiveness and open dialogue is also evidenced
by the fact that there is no database of publications, there is actually only one journal, and
although there are at least three professional and dozens of other related organizations for
psychologists, there is little communication between them and hence a lack of understanding
as to their respective professional goals, functions, and actions.
With the exception of one ‘inter-departmental’ meeting in 1995 (!) there was no (open and/or
public) academic dialogue on what is the subject matter, what kind of graduate programs are
essential, and what should be the requirements for licensure?
But it was in 1993 that all the gates were opened, the by now thousands of candidates with a
4-year, not specialized undergraduate degree, with poorly supervised practica have the license
to practice. The question that arose/arise and that nobody posed/poses nor answered/answers
was/is “practice what?” Dialogue on such issues is absent. Meanwhile many graduates
‘become’ professional psychologists and hang out their shingles to practice Clinical
Psychology, to conduct psychosocial evaluations, to administer intelligence tests, to do
research, to work in the settings where psychologists offer their services. Anybody with a
four-year degree can call him or herself a clinical, social, developmental psychologist and
most call themselves clinical psychologists and psychotherapists. 9 In 2001 the Ministry of
Health decided that psychologists’ professional role and functioning must come under
scrutiny. It is interesting to note that the Minister of Health at the time was Dr. Stephanis, one
of the prominent psychiatrists mentioned earlier. Two committees were set up to address and
make recommendations regarding the following questions:
- What are the different disciplines of professional psychology and which are the
requirements for granting licenses in these disciplines?
- And what should be the requirements for licensure as a ‘psychotherapist?’
As it is evident from newspaper advertisements, ‘professionals’ with varying ‘expertise’ and academic
backgrounds, practice as psychotherapists.
9
188
Difficult, practical but also ‘political’ questions surely these were, keeping in mind that
almost 10 years had passed since the licensure law was applied. Many controversial issues
had to be confronted and it is not surprising that the difficult - now political - decisions were
not made.
Greek psychology’s rush for scientific recognition and social status as a profession emulates
and recapitulates the history of the making of psychology in the North America at the
beginning of the twentieth century. As the late social psychologist and Jesuit activist in San
Salvador Ignacio Martin-Baro (1994, 20) put it, there was and is a ‘scientific mimicry’ in
North American psychology of the ‘sciences’, a mimicry of methods and concepts, that is/was
supposed to help in quickly legitimatizing it as a ‘true’ science. Moreover, as Martin-Baro
(1994) describes
“Latin American psychology looked to its already scientifically and socially
respectable ‘Big Brother’, and, borrowing his methodological and practical conceptual
tools, hoped to gain from the power structure in each country, a social status
equivalent to that attained by the North Americans.” (p. 20)
This description parallels and describes what occurred in Greece: an uncritical swallowing
and engulfment of the theories, methods, parameters, models and practices from abroad. A
‘cut and paste’ – often deficient - of concepts and methods that essentially covered the long
and rich history of the Greek peoples and their subjectivities. Using Greek lenses to process
ideas, paradigms, and methodologies has not been considered at all.
Is it paradoxical that these undigested principles were a poor fit for Greek society and cultural
milieu?
Or that people bought into them as they would buy into any commodity that promises quick
fixes and is imported and made by ‘scientists’ from abroad?
Or that it is debatable if the profession of psychology has gained the ‘social status’ it coveted?
4.
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