I find it interesting that we live in a time when Scientists have never stood more assured in their outright claims on… everything really. It seems to me, if you look around, we’ve never gotten our practices more wrong in the history of the modern, documented world. Yet we continue to follow suit, sold on this idea of what should be and the way to obtain it – as if there were any one standard that society should ever fall into. It was in the Spring of 2015, I had the most amazing opportunity to witness Dr. Carl Hart speak and to meet him. Dr. Hart, the first African-American tenured professor of Columbia University has multi-specialties as it relates to neuropsychology, pharmacology, and the way social policy has influenced behaviors. His incredibly unique perspective on the subject is derived in his roots, which was an upbringing in the hood in Miami, FL. During the Q&A of his speech directed towards “the science” of the topic at hand, I found his response most provocative. This was to say, “The data is there, you can trust the science in the data. What you cannot trust is the story that the Scientist is trying to tell.” It was the prior Fall when I had taken a course rooted in his own scientific research on Drugs & Behavior. Much of his science is supportive to the social scandals revealed in the infamous work, The New Jim Crow. Instructions from my professor who taught on behalf of his science was to “follow the money”. After more than a decade in pursuit of sensical answers, I have found one glaring and obvious truth. This is that we are doing things incredibly wrong. Through current practices, we have failed to encapsulate the needs and realities of the majority of Americans. This is the seventy-five percent of adult Americans who do not pursue a bachelor’s degree or higher.
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The buzzword phrase of “Evidenced Based Practices” is being sold as a Golden standard of which I assure you it is not. It provides a false sense of security to the voluntary participation in experimental practices – which is exactly what ALL soft sciences represent. Over the course of my undergraduate Psychology studies, the importance of research methods, understanding validity and reliability, and especially the deep understanding that a correlation study is not enough to indicate causation – which is almost impossible to verify with certainty. A concept continuously referred to is analyzing the framework for “hard” versus “soft” sciences. The “hard” sciences are the ones that might be expected, chemistry, algebra, geometry, biology – the fields where a specific value can be assigned and observed without much, if any need for further assessment. The “soft” sciences are going to frequently be represented by the social studies of psychology, anthropology, theology, and more. These tend to be more philosophically rooted and require a substantial explanation for understanding. This has led to more room for the creative scientist to impose their will on how the information is shared rather than the presentation of pure fact. Currently, we have largely been subjugated to the long-term impacts of limitations placed on research through the avenue of participating in a Corporate Capitalist society. This includes the need to have a job weighing on the shoulders of a researcher, more prominently than ever. It also means keeping that job, which means providing results your financer might be interested in. And one of the largest shortcomings, in my opinion, is the need to sacrifice sample sizes which accurately reflect the population and sub-populations as a whole for the sake of convenience. What I mean by this is that the evidence based practices are secure – for those who fall within the population tested. These are often exclusively college students and/or targeted to more densely populated urban and suburban areas. This means most all of these studies have extreme limitations for their ability to be applied in an effective way to many small communities who are deserving and in need of quality care and attention. In my graduate studies for my masters in social work, the first professor I had once boldly declared the fact that sometimes she will write and idea and then go to look for a source to back it up. She outright admitted to being a biassed researcher showing limitations to her ability to remain a true scientist which by definition would remain unbiased and open to shifting from facts presented.
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When we are considering these young, collegial level researchers, getting excited about learning in the hopes they could make a career of it, we have to wonder the pressure they also face. These are the complications of needing to be published to continue well in the profession. The thing about getting noticed from a publication source is they want something to report on. This means to get published, it takes results. With this in mind, when presented with “cutting edge” and “breakthrough research” that is not longitudinally based, it is more likely to be a fluke than what it is declaring itself to be. We must remember for research to hold and show real value, one must observe the repeated results again and once more, repeatedly. When it comes to modern medicine and current practices, one can observe the discovery of penicillin to have been most revolutionary. This took place in 1928, more than one-hundred and fifty years after the American Medical system began to form. What we must remember when it comes to this event is that it happened by accident. My fall back on Evidenced Based Practices as they relate to mental health especially is that yea, they are cool and all – but never forget that we would never have made the discovery of penicillin had the scientist not left his lab dirty for the weekend. We have only been allowing mental health conditions to be admitted to the hospital since 1911. So, over a little more than one-hundred years of the modern medical, evidenced based practice approach to mental health treatment and I will argue we are far worse off compared with how we managed the first several millennia.
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It has far passed the time where the higher educated need to release what they think they know and humble themselves to what they may not know. The process to become enlightened is not what it once was. In it’s origin, it was a state of being that had to be strived to attain. The foundations of our education system and medical system were once intertwined beneath a cloak of excellence. The Corporate Capital effect to this has been to make the education process a means to train for a job. By maintaining the status quo, the reward is then to operate a standard of living above anyone you may serve while accessing privileges that were tailored to those who have chosen likeways of life to your own. Through the participation in this accepted mainstream culture, one validates the class system they participate in, acknowledging those working below them understand less and are deserving of less. I am not saying those in the Elite level are vocalizing this, I am saying they are displaying it through their actions. Those who’ve received their higher education and further have oppressed the masses through a lack of humility. In reflection of current Evidenced Based Practices, one can observe the impact as those who research is written for not only benefit from the services but stand in judgment to the seventy-five percent who are not represented by the majority services offered and often do not find the same positive outcome from similar services.
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