Psychological solutions
Strategies and programs for a changing profession
Archived article from Sep 28, 2001
By Stacey B. Hersh
Meet the dean
In July, Stanley B. Messer was named dean of the Graduate School of Applied and Professional Psychology (GSAPP), taking over from Sandra Harris, who has turned her attention to research and teaching. He spoke with Focus about his career and goals.
Focus: When did you realize that psychology was the career for you?
Messer: I realized this in high school. I was always intrigued with why people behaved the way they did -- their motivations, what made them tick. I wanted to get below the surface because I didn't think that appearances were all there was to human functioning.
Focus: What was the defining moment of your career?
Messer: After finishing my Ph.D. at Harvard in 1968, I came to Rutgers as an assistant professor in the Graduate School. I was 26 years old, with little clinical experience, and I was teaching second-year graduate students in clinical psychology, several of whom were older than I. I was very anxious and compensated for my feared inadequacy by assigning 200 pages a week of dense reading, which probably drove my students crazy.
I began to realize that I needed some clinical seasoning. So, at the end of my second year, I took a leave of absence and entered a postdoctoral program at Hillside Hospital in Glen Oaks, N.Y., and for two years immersed myself in clinical activities. I returned to Rutgers with a much more sophisticated background in therapy and assessment and a more informed but relaxed teaching style. Certainly there have been challenges since then but none as career-defining as this one.
Focus: How is the profession different from when you first began?
Messer: There is a greater emphasis on using prescription drugs to treat mental disorders, and so psychologists are seeking prescriptive privileges. There has been a shift from an intrapsychic way of formulating problems, which focuses on the inner conflict within the individual's personality, to a systems point of view that analyzes the individual as well as the organizations, activities and environment he/she is affiliated with to try and solve the problem. And, in clinical psychology, there is less emphasis on testing and assessment and more on treatment.
Focus: What is the biggest challenge faced by your profession today and over the next decade?
Messer: The challenge is to get people to recognize that many of the ills in society -- school violence, child abuse, addictions, tense racial and human relations in the workplace -- are caused not only by biological and sociological factors. They are also psychologically based and often require psychological solutions. The new generation of graduates will be challenged to create new intervention and treatment programs and to assess the value of these programs.
Focus: How is the profession likely to change in the next decade?
Messer: Financial pressures and managed care will shift traditional one-to-one therapy and counseling to master's level practitioners from a variety of different professional backgrounds, not just psychology. Doctoral psychologists will focus more on treating difficult cases, supervisory roles, and developing and evaluating assessment, prevention and treatment programs in health settings, schools and business organizations.
Focus: Is there one question in your field that you hope to answer in your lifetime?
Messer: We know that 80 percent of people who go into therapy are better off than if they hadn't, but we need to understand more about what it is that leads to progress in psychotherapy. What are the features of the therapist-client relationship -- the therapeutic techniques employed and the personalities involved -- that interact to create a healing, transforming, interpersonal environment?
Focus: If you couldn't be a psychologist, what profession would you choose?
Messer: I would want to be a philosopher, because philosophers deal with the most profound issues in life, such as the nature of good and evil, ethics and morality. They study the very foundations of knowing and consciousness, as well as scientific logic and method. As it happens, some of my writing has been on philosophical aspects of psychotherapy.
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