Does the practice of clinical psychology vary by generation? To tackle this question, INSIGHT gathered four faculty representing different specialties, different campuses, and different generations. Joining in the dialogue were Dr. Nancy Newton, professor, Business Psychology, Chicago Campus; Dr. Matthew Wadland, assistant professor, Clinical Counseling, Chicago Campus; Dr. Clive Kennedy, associate professor, Forensic Psychology, Southern California Campuses; and Dr. Gerardo Canul, associate professor, Clinical Psychology, Southern California Campuses.

INSIGHT: We are starting with the premise that psychology— like so many other things—has changed, or perhaps taken on different focuses, different emphases, with each generation. We assume that it is as true for those of you who practice psychology as it is for clients. The four of you represent a range of generations, so I’d like to start by asking each of you what brought you into the field? What made you want to go into psychology?

Dr. Canul: There are two factors. One of them would be having been born and raised in Los Angeles and being quite aware as a child and then as a young person/adult of social-political issues. Then, when I went to graduate school, I was aware that psychology provided the opportunity to do research, to teach about social issues, and that we could provide services to help those with emotional health and mental health problems.

Dr. Kennedy: I am a Boomer and this was in the ’70s. Initially I was a theater major and psychology was my fall-back position, but I was amazed at how many different roles psychology could play, especially with social-political kinds of issues. Throughout my training I have been interested in the study of cultural issues and ethnicity, and in the ’70s there wasn’t a lot written. Part of it evolved from the generation, but watching the field grow from primarily a male field to a female-dominated field has been one of the observations I have made over the last 30 years.

Dr. Newton: Like Clive, I am a Baby Boomer and finished college in 1971. One of the issues for me was the notion of being in a profession that was new to women. I am the first woman in my family to graduate from college, so the idea that I could have a professional path, go on to get a doctorate degree, and all the exciting things that were happening in the psychology of women in the 1970s really shaped my decisions and my career path. The other exciting change was the emergence of the community mental health center movement and the deinstitutionalization movement. My first internship during my master’s program was a two-year internship at a state hospital that was in the process of deinstitutionalizing, you know, sending people out; and then my first job was in a young community mental health center. There was funding for that, so that was a pretty exciting time.

Dr. Wadland: I can relate to Clive as well, maybe for different reasons. When I initially went into undergrad, I wanted to be an architect. Psychology I liked—but for some reason I didn’t really want to make a career out of it. There was actually a moment—I worked at a bookstore—I ended up talking to this woman who had just started working there, and we talked for three and a half hours about a slew of different things and I remember realizing in that moment—along with some work I had been doing with some children who had been diagnosed with autism— that this was it. This was the thing I really wanted to do. I started graduate school in 2002. So I am technically part of Generation X—I was born in ‘77, so it puts me right at the cusp. But, the more readings I do, the more I realize that I relate to Generation X and sometimes I don’t—I relate more to the Millennials. So, I straddle both.

I was there when there was enthusiasm and hopefulness that something really important could happen. It has been very painful to watch the process never reach its fulfillment.

Dr. Kennedy: It was so exciting listening to you, Nancy. I was in California, and we had a governor named Ronald Reagan—you may remember him. I attributed a lot of the change that was taking place to him. So it is exciting to hear that this was happening somewhere else. I watched the state hospitals close, and I was really excited about this new community health movement, which I had a lot of enthusiasm about. And which would have worked if we had had the funding. But after the hospitals closed, the funding dropped off and there were individuals in the community who needed help and there wasn’t a lot of support for them. So, I had really strong feelings about this process, and it’s interesting that you introduced it as different in a different state.

Dr. Newton: A different state, but a very similar experience. I was there—it sounds like you were too—when there was enthusiasm and the hopefulness and the idea that something really important could happen. I worked in community mental health in Ohio and there was a short period of time when we thought it could be realized. For me personally it has been very painful to watch that process never reach its fulfillment and for us to be in a situation now. Boy, and with all the cuts in the state of Illinois and no funding for community services, it has really been a crime. When you talk about generational issues, I think it is that when people are entering adult life in their 20s, what’s going on in the culture and in the country makes a huge difference. Research suggests that people in their 20s are more impacted by what’s happening socially, politically, than any other generation. The difference in the culture in ‘71 versus the culture now is probably the biggest variable in terms of why people in different generations are different. The times, the healthcare, everything is different now as it impinges on the healthcare system and the stress on people’s lives and work experiences.

Dr. Wadland: I think for my generation of psychologists there is this negative spin to community mental health. Not negative in the fact that the services aren’t needed and necessary and wanted, but that the funding isn’t there. We don’t have that context of what could have been… the hope and the excitement you are talking about.

Dr. Kennedy: I have always interacted with colleagues at various stages and my students that I teach—or those that I supervise—are different cohorts. And so, I hope I do share my perspectives and my frustrations, and I’ll use Nancy’s term, “pain,” with what could have been in doing the work that we do.

INSIGHT: Do you see a difference in the younger psychologists who have come into the field who don’t have that context?

Dr. Kennedy: You mean who don’t have the bitterness? I don’t know. I tend to be very inclusive in my work, and so I never had thought about that… except the technological challenges that I have to deal with. You know, I came from a generation of using computer cards.

Dr. Newton: I don’t know that I see a difference. My sense is the people coming into psychology who are in their early 20s, they want to be helpful, they want to make a difference. I feel badly for them because the challenges of doing those good things are much harder. When I went to graduate school, my education was funded—the state paid for it, teaching assistantships— I didn’t come out of my Ph.D. program $100,000 in debt. Young people today seem caught between the jobs that will pay well but seem hard to find, and this debt from their graduate education. It is more difficult to live out dreams and visions than it was when I was in my 20s.

This generation has a tendency to look inward, self-analyze. Looking at the folks that came out of the 1940s, it was really about sucking it up and doing what you can for your family, your community, your country

Dr. Wadland: I agree completely. I want to do the social justice work where I am not necessarily getting compensated monetarily for that work, but I also know that a bank that will not be named is looking for payment every month. You have to take care of the more basic, daily things, and so your ideals get compromised in some way. The other part is that I was trained in a time when you just assumed that insurance companies are difficult to deal with… that wasn’t always the case.

INSIGHT: Do you feel that the perspective that each of you brings to psychology reflects your generation and impacts the way that you work?

Dr. Kennedy: I guess I was a flower child and very idealistic and community-focused, and so I think I bring that to the table in my work in the way I see families. At that time, I trained in a very strict behavioral program, and I kind of wandered onto the dark side of touchy-feely family therapy work as well. I think growing up in the ’60s and ’70s has certainly affected my perspective— not only with clients, but on a macro-level with the way I see communities as well. I think it is also a little different growing up as an African-American. I tend to have a more inclusive view of the world than someone else, but it’s just another type of diversity that I include in my life and my work.

Dr. Canul: As a Generation Xer, there was a lot accomplished in the ’60s, and some of that was passed on to the next generation of psychologists to continue to make progress for diversity. What I find is that a lot of students are willing to at least embrace a discussion and that’s really different from maybe five or ten years ago. I feel that we need to continue to benefit from that, and continue that struggle.

Dr. Newton: That is a really good point. I was thinking about how the financial situation is a constraining factor that makes it difficult on younger people, but I agree that there is such a huge change in the models of psychology. There is really no comparison between what they were when I went into graduate school and now. In the early ’70s, research showed that mental health professionals gave the same descriptors of healthy adults that they gave of men. When asked to describe a healthy adult, they would say they are assertive, they are independent. And when you ask them to describe a typical man, they would describe him exactly the same. If you asked them to describe a typical woman, they would say she is needy, dependent, and pathological. The whole view that there were ways of being female and being psychologically healthy wasn’t even on the map. And as off the map as women were, other minority groups weren’t even in the room. Unless you were there, it is hard to realize how the field itself has really been revolutionized in a way that makes it much more applicable, human, and practical.

Unless you were there, it is hard to realize how the field itself has really been revolutionized in a way that makes it much more applicable, human, and practical.

Dr. Wadland: When I was in graduate school, the world was my oyster. It was all about what model seems to fit you. It was clear that there were different ways of thinking about help—not just this male, white, middleclass way of thinking about it.

Dr. Kennedy: As I age, I tend to contextualize everything. For example, when I teach History and Systems, I talk about how it wasn’t that long ago that women were only allowed to go into professions like home economics and more traditional female roles. And the impact that had on the development of math and science as careers for women. As Nancy was talking, I was really listening to her trying to put things in perspective. I don’t know if that is a product of my generation or if everyone does that.

Dr. Canul:In graduate school, there was a real common theme, a male-dominated theme—I think it is still there in our profession— that’s shifting to be more inclusive, to embrace the issues of diversity. In each new generation of students and early-career psychologists, there is more openness and a willingness to incorporate different perspectives that may not be male-dominated. That, I think, is what makes the field so exciting.

INSIGHT: There is research that says the Millennial generation is the most depressed one yet, or that the Gen Xers are the most stressed. Do you have any perspectives on that from your research or from your personal experiences.

Dr. Canul: I think that this generation has a tendency to look inward, self-analyze— you get that from the media, whether it is Dr. Phil or Oprah. Looking at folks that came out of the 1940s, that generation was really about sucking it up and doing what you can for your families, your community, your country. As psychologists, we train and work with a variety of populations.

Dr. Wadland: When I’ve worked with individuals in their 30s and 40s versus late teens and 20s, their perspective of psychology and therapy is so much different. You are walking down the street and you see a client and I’ve had so many Millennials scream across the street, ‘Hey! How are you?’

INSIGHT: That’s not something you would expect from an older generation?

Dr. Wadland: I think it’s that stigma about mental health. But I guess there is that Millennial focus of, ‘I want to do something about it.’ There is more of a proactive approach.

Dr. Kennedy: From the 1900s to the 1940s. there was an ingrained scare of being associated with mental illness. It probably wasn’t until the ‘90s that there was a real loosening… an interest in wellness, emotional health, taking care of your body, taking care of your mind. This recent generation has had school-based mental health programs—a good example of how we have loosened up in the context of stigma. You have mental health (practitioners) come in and provide home-based services and parenting programs… good examples of how families, communities, educators got away from thinking about mental health as just pathology and more about helping people get along, function more effectively.