The Formation of a Professional Identity

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1982

The Formation of a Professional Identity The Formation of a Professional Identity

Richard H. Dana Portland State University

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The Formation of a Professional Identity

Richard H. Dana

University of Arkansas

A book or a course has too often been presented as an isolated act of science

or profession, a product with apparently no history in the person. However,

the psychohistory of any intellectual product is always more than the sum of

its content and methodological ingredients. The product is an expression of

the author, a statement of where he/she is in the rites of intellectual passage

and an outgrowth of a history of personal involvement and commitment to an area

of endeavor. This particular product has personal origins and these roots will

be explicitly incorporated as a legitimate inquiry into the assumptions and sub­

stance of the ideas themselves. This is especially pertinent here since the

thrust of this exposition is toward a human science model for studying personality ,

and as such warrants a personal as well as intellectual history.

The author as an undergraduate majored first in French and English largely

due to a preoccupation with poetry, especially the writing of poetry and the study

of the linguistic formats for conveying a meaning representation with conciseness,

clarity, and beauty. Poetry, in this context, is method~ an exercise in precise

renditions of meaning fused with feeling and conveyed by applications of a learned

rule system that differs from prose communication. Training in psychology was

primarily Social Psychology in which content of relevance was combined with sharp­

ly focused and highly prized methodology.

Graduate school in an early Boulder model program (Illinois)was an immersion

in learning theory, especially that of Clark Hull under the tuteledge of Robert

Grice and Charles Osgood. Hull's theory was Big Theory, formal and elegant, con­

ceived with the notion that deductions from this theory when tested by systematic

The Formatioh of

2

research would provide the basis for understanding human beings. Coupled with

theory was a continuous practice of methodology as the royal route to research

sophistication. The writing of sonnets in lieu of undergraduate lecture notes

was replaced by the creation of research designs, grandiose and limited by know­

ledge of statistiCs Qnd·practicalities. These exercises in methodology - fabri­

cation and play with variables and statistical consequences - were analagous to

exercises with the forms of language that constitute traditional poetry idiom.

These endeavors had immediate progeny in theory construction (Dana, 1954a) and

research (Dana, 1954b), two papers which in retrospect appear as personal reac­

tivity to graduate experience.

Clinical training (in a VA-hospital setting remote from campus) included

an injunction by the supervising psychiatrist to keep away from "pre-oedipal"

material in psychotherapy and a license to conceptualize and describe persons

with minimal supervision because reports were well written (not because they

were useful or of demonstrated predictive validity). Psychotherapy practice

in this hospital was a systematic rendition of Miller and Dollard ~ super­

vision with patients who were considered "hopeless" and consequently beyond damage

due to ineptness, ignorance, or too much risk-taking with their institutional

lives. Psychological treatment was, therefore, to be discovered in practice using

a self-taught application of learning principles. As such it was a practice of

method ostensibly based upon conceptualization (assessment).

Such bifurcated professional identity was not rare in early Boulder !

model

programs. It was not until the process of the Diplomate examinations (1958-1960)

that I realized I had become - for that generation - a maverick who functioned

largely beyond the constraints of consensus in clinical practice primarily be­

cause I was unaware of the ingredients for a more conventional practice. None­

theless, what was probably a very early rendition of growth therapy for well

.. - ­

The Formation of

3

functioning young professionals was coupled with treatment of disturbed persons

whom other professionals preferred not to see in their practices. The major

professional. outcome was a change in location to West Virginia University, a

setting that not only provided more feedback from peers for clinical practice

but less psychotherapy - practice and more research opportunity. I became rea­

quainted with graduate statistics as well thanks to Art Thomas, a very coherent

teacher of statistics.

In persona~ity research. method variety was to prevail over content

specialty. Studies encompassed the unlikely companion areas of person percep­

tion. repression-sensitization, verbal-numerical discrepancies and personality.

ego strength. and the Brunswik Lens model for clinical judgment! However, assess­

ment research provided the main theme with more than 40 empirical studies prior

to 1969. While the early focus was on Rorschach and TAT stimulus characteristics,

objective tests were increasingly represented. Repeated attempts to make sense

out of empirical studies (e.g •• Dana. 1955 L Dana, 1962; Dana, 1963a; pana, 1966a;

Dana, 1968a; Dana 1968b; Dana~ 1969a) were augmented and replaced by review

articles in the 5th, 6th, 7th, and 8th-Mental Measurements Yearbooks and else­

where (Dana, 1977, Dana, 1980~. Finally~ a process or model by which tests and

other data were used to describe persons was presented (Dana, 1966c; Dana, 1970)

and a variety of empirical studies were accomplished which discredited this

inference model, a finding in keeping with Walter Mischel's concurrent research.

Obviously much of this research was accomplished with students for they

have been responsible for my growth and identity no less than I have participated

in some of their professionalization. I have always been deliberate in eschewing

a systematic research area, partly because of my own interests, but primarily

because I prefer to learn where students are going and share that discovery

rather than enjoin them to follow my preplanned research program. The implicit

The Formation of

4

message from my published research is a people story of sharing enthusiasm,

hard work, and a growth of relationships, respect, and understanding. For me,

at least, this process then outweighed the value of the research contributions

themselves.

Professional identity from the early 1950s to 1968 was an uneasy compart­

mentalization of method applications, an increasingly behavioral concern in

therapy and research, and continuing practice of conceptualization in assessment.

There was no unifying theme except for a persistent outcropping of seemingly

unrelated papers, essentially humanistic-existential in tone, beginning about

1960 and finding some fulfillment in occasional publications in atypical outlets

(Dana, 1961; Dana, 1965; Dana,1966biDana, 1967). ~n fact, a refrain among West

Virginia graduate students of that era was, "If you cannot publish in an Ameri­

can journal, try Darshana!1l A paper on causality and alienation (Dana, 1969b)

presaged a transformation which was to coalesce the separate areas of research,

training, and practice into a professional unity. Causality and alienation

were more than themes for an intellectual discourse, they were the hallmarks of

my experience and embodied a search for means-end relatedness in the face of a

pervasive accumulation of divers strands of experience.

The major event here was a diagnosed cancer of the pancreas and a subsequent

preparation for death. The diagnosis was surgically proven inaccurate, but there

was a transition away from the fragmented existence of an urban psychologist

dealing with administration, consultation~ teaching, and research with an assur­

rance that was belied by the inconsistencies across these domains. Leaving the

city for a rural teaching existence, the first endeavor was an unpublished

statement, A New Clinical Psychology (Note 1), of how the components of profes­

sional existence were to be put back together once again. For the very first

time a paper was written that was not intended for publication, but existed as

The Formation of

5

a credo and a reminder that values were the glue that put separate components

together and made them consistent and related. And everything thereafter has

been a reaffirmation of these values in research, teaching, and clinical prac­

tice.

It is no accident that a critical incident in research preceded this pa­

per. The incident occurred following a deception study using replicated Latin

Squares. College women were trained to present their standard Rorschach pro­

tocol under neutral, sexy and hostile conditions to male graduate assessment

students who were persuaded to believe that all of these Rorschach were bona

fide (Dana, Dana, and Comer, 1972). One day Rick Murphy and Paul Griswold ­

two of these examiners - upon seeing a !lsubjectl! in the Student Union called

her by different names. She ran directly to my office with the two graduate

students in pursuit. The research 11game" was over for me at that point and pub­

1ishabi1ity and design probity became clearly secondary to other issues.

I look back upon the stranger I have described in these preceding para­

graphs and although I know him, I do not experience the fragments of profes­

sional identity as a person. In a clinical sense I have bestowed a professional

identity that did not exist by comp11ation ll categorization, and documentation.

Such is our practice. We conceptualize persons and the product seems to be inte­

gumented~ to cohere, to actually become that person. But it is not so: an

intellectualized, after-the-fact representation may be elegant, comprehensive,

lucid, but it is not the person. Thus, the second portion of this professional

lifetime provides another way in which the strands of identity may be put together

so that the result is not intellectual but experienced and behavioral.

A profession for a person is a way of life, a commitment to more than pro­

viding services for financial reward. Ideally, the professional acts should

make an identity statement that describes the person's values and his or her

The Formation of

6

humanity. We have no doubt, for example, of who Erik Erikson is simply by

readin'g his statements of what other persons - Martin Luther and Gandhi ­

are ostensibly like as seen through his eyes and his human condition. We do

not need Robert Coles to tell us who Erikson is, although Robert Coles needs

to tell us who he is by describing Erikson. While this may seem like playing

with words, the point is compellingly behavioral: we are what we do.

Throughout the first portion of my professional life meaning was conveyed

by format, method, style, or technique. A poet's poet with a special personal

idiom, or a psychologist's psychologist attempting purvey the recondite exercise

" I would submit that suchof meaning through the form of the research metier.

"exercise" or "practice" by means of form is secondary to the values that under­

gird the performance and are responsible for it. This simple truism was not

apparent to me until 1969. If I had stopped the frenetic professional pace to

listen to what Maslow would describe as my "inner core", I would have exper­

ienced the clarity, certainty, and unity of realization at an earlier time.

Meaning is thus predicated on values and only subsequently exposed in

method. The method is plastic and variable rather than immutable and a condition

of our science of psychology. This statement does not excuse poor or inadequate

method, but subordinates the choice of method to the values inherent in what one

is doing professionally. A '~ettern method C:better" in terms of the present

canons of our science) that dehumanizes persons called subjects is not to be

preferred to a less rigorous mode of inquiry that preserves the human status of

the person as coworker or partner in a research process. This is clearly a

value judgment and a value issue that every psychologist must confront and

engage in research and clinical practices.

The Format£on of

7

The problems that we - as psychologists, persons, and citizens - face are

simply too overwhelming for our professional behaviors to demonstrate dalliance,

personal image building, egocentricity, dilettantism or conservatism-conformity.

These problems are of persons in environmental contexts and speak directly

to survival and to the quality of our own lives. What we can do (about the

state of ourselves and our society) is related to our stage of personal ego

development. Training or practice should (ideally) be related to growth pro­. css, a change idiom that is predicated on becoming more like what we can be,

more sensitive, more open, more caring; in a word, more humanized (Dana, 1974;

Dana, 1978b).

If values are the sine qua non of professional acts, personal responsibility

is the c~talyst for their implementation. The impact of such responsibility

for me occurred in an exquisitely minor contribution on social responsibility

to the Vail Conference (Dana &Meltzer, Note 2)~ and in awareness that psycho­

logists had no corner on helping behaviors (Dana, Note 3). C61lege students

are effective helpers of other students (Dana, Heynen & Burdette, 1974) and persons

from all walks-of-life are found to be potent self-helpers (Dana &Fitzgerald,

1976; Dana~ Note 4; Dana & Gilliam, Note 5). Marital or living partners could

help one another (Dana &Turner, Note 6). Persons can be readily trained to

enhance paraprofessional skills (Dana, Brian &Tabor, Note 7) and trainers may

also be trained to continue giving away psychological skills to the public

(Dana, Turner & Fitzgerald, Note 8;_ Dana, Tabor & Brian, Note 9).

Accountability is not to be found in the Barnum literature where all subjects

are deceived with bogus personality information (Dana & Graham, 1976). There is,

however, demonstrably more to genuine psychological assessment reports than Bar­

num statements (Dana & Fouke, 1979). Accountability in psychological assessment

The Formation of

8

is more likely to occur in face-to-face feedback with assessees and referral

source persons. Such feedback techniques can and should be communicated as

part of assessment training for graduate students (Dana & Lunday, Chapter 17

in Dana~ 1981) and in continuining education for prqfessiona1 psychologists

(Dana~ Erdberg & Walsh, Note 10). There is a basis for the belief that such

practices are mandatory for ethical clinical psychologists (Dana &Leech, 1974;

Dana, 1975).

Inevitab1y~ there was a spread from these specific training efforts to

more general issues of training (Dana, 1966b; Dana, 1980b) and the competence

of clinical psychology graduate students (Dana, Gilliam &Dana, 1976). Case

studies of "good" training programs evidence the effects of student ownership

of their own training experience and of benevolent caring as program mandates

(Dana~ 1978a). Research on internship evaluation speaks to the relatedness of

intern affects to their activites, practice settings and other persons. Explicit

separation of person and setting characteristic affect values provides feedback

that is relevant for individual interns and for program management (Dana &Mc­

Arthur, Note 11). That interns complete internships and move on to the larger

professional society is being documented by the specific, components effects

of internship experiences upon subsequent clinical psychology practice (May &

Dana, Note 12).

Of even greater generality are the issues of method involved in program

evaluation research. If one abjures psychic or physical violence to the person

as subject, one also believes that organizations profit from their own exper­

tise, initiative,.and self-study. Enabling, monitoring and focus may result from

external aegis, but essentially involved is a confrontation with their own

agency strength and capacity for intact functioning (Dana, 1964 ; Dana, Note 13).

The 'Formation of

9

A university counseling center and two social service agencies explored

their own viability and potential for growth within this research paradigm.

These separate strands pertain to the values involved in professional prac­

tices, the care and training of the person as nonprofessional or professional

helper, and the revitalization of the agency or organization to approximate

more closely their human service missions. Implicit in this panorama is an

ideology of growth, an abiding concern with the person and with the environment

as expressed in quality of life. For me this is psychology: a human science

slowly creating its own methods and identity out of concern for human beings.

Similarly, I construct my own identity out of my own history and try to place

myself (rather than to discover myself) in What I do as a professional. I

encourage my acts to be relevant to my beliefs and consistent over time such that

whatever I do is a public exposition of what I am and a set of behaviors for

which I can be responsible and accountable. Long ago (Dana, 1963b). I wrote

about responsibility preceding human acts rather than following them. That

intellectual awareness became the basis for the experience of inseparability

between psychologist and person~ between thought and word and deed, between

credo and behavior. Thus, this prologomenon is considered to be a necessary

groundbass for all that follows.

The Formation of

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Reference Notes

1. Dana, R. H. A new clinical psychology. Unpublished manuscript, 1969.

(Avaiblable from Psychology Department, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville,

Arkansas, 72701).

2. Dana, R. H. &Meltzer, M. Social responsbility and the clinical psychologist.

Prepared for the Council of University Directors of Clinical Psychology input

to the National Conference on Levels and Patterns of Professional Training

in Psychology, Vail, Colorado, July, 1973.

3. Dana, R. H. Colloquium -- College students as therapists for individuals and

society; The nonprofessional helping world of today and tomorrow. Northern

Kentucky State College, Highland Heights~ Kentucky, March 28, 1973.

4. Dana, R. H. Manual for a Course-in-Oneself. Fayetteville: University of

Arkansas Printing Services, 1915.

5. Dana, R. H., & Gilliam, M. Self-exploration and self-appraisal: A Course­

in-Oneself. Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Printing Services, 1975.

6. Dana, R. H., &Turner, J. Couplin8~ An exploration in living and loving.

Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Printing Services, 1975.

7. Dana, R. H., Brian, C. E., &Tabor, G. L. A training manual for paraprofessional

helping skills. University of Arkansas Printing Office, 1978.

8. Dana, R. H., Turner, J., & Fitzgerald, J, Workshop: A Course-in-Oneself,

Hot Springs Rehabilitation Center~ Hot Springs, Arkansas.

9. Dana, R. H., Tabor, G., & Brian, C. Paraprofess~onal training: Goodness-of­

fit between persons, roles, and jobs. Mini-workshop presented at the meeting

of the Southeastern Psychological Association, March 1978, Atlanta, Georgia.

11

The Formation of

10. Dana, R. H., Erdberg, S. P., & Walsh, P. J. The joint-feedback technique:

A new model for the integration of assessment findings into the treatment

process. Workshop presented at the midwinter meeting of the Society for

Personality Assessment, March 1978, Tampa, Florida.

11. Dana, R. H., &McArthur, M. Program evaluation: An evolving methodology

and an internship example. Unpublished manuscript, 1978.

12. May, W. T., &Dana, R. H. Professional clinical psychology practice and

internship experience. In preparation.

13. Dana, R. H. Shoestring adventures in program evaluation: A model, methods,

data, and applications. Symposium presented at the meeting of the American

Psychological Association~ Toronto, August 1978.

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References

Dana, R. B. Personality Orientation: An organizational focus for current

research, Journal of Psychology, 1954, 1r. 139-150 (a).

Dana, R. H. The effects of attitudes toward authority on psychotherapy.

Journal of Clinical Psychology. 1954. lQ. 350-353 (b).

Dana. R. H. The objectification of projective techniques: Rationale.

Psychological Reports, 1955. 1, 98-102.

Dana, R. H. Psychology: Art or science? Darshana~ 1961.-1.91-97.

Dana. R. B. The validation of projective tests. Journal of Projective

Techniques, 1962. 26, 182-186.

Dana. R. H. Clinical skills: Obsolete or neonate? Journal of Projective

Techniques &Personality Assessment, 1963. 27, 423-429 (a).

Dana. R. H. From therapists anonymous to therapeutic community. Journal of

Individual Psychology. 1963,1!. 185-190 (b).

Dana, R. H. The impact of fantasy on a residential treatment program.

Corrective Psychiatrx & Journal of Social Therapy, 1964, lQ, 202-212.

Dana, R. H. Psychopathology: A developmental interpretation. Journal of

Individual Psychology, 1965. ~, 58~65.

Dana, R. B. Eisegesis and assessment. Journal of Projective Techniques &

Personality Assessment. 1966, 30. 215-222 (a).

Dana, R. H. The clinical psychologist! A generalist with specialist training.

Psychological Reports. 1966. 1!, 127-138 (b).

Dana, R. B. Foundations of Clinical Psychology: Problems in Personality and

Adjustment. Princeton: D. Van Nostrand, 1966 (c).

Dana, R. H. Anxiety and humanization. Psychological Reports. 1967. ~,

1017-1024.

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Dana, R. H. Six constructs to define Rorschach M. Journal of Projective

Techniques & Personality Assessment, 1968, 138-145. (a).

Dana, R. H. Thematic techniques and clinical practice. Journal of Projective

Techniques &Personality Assessment, 1968, 32, 204-214. (b).

Dana, R. H. The validation of tests and clinicians. In R. H. Dana (Ed.)

Readings in personality assessment. New York: MSS, 1969. (a).

Dana, R. H. Causality and 'alienation. Transactions, 1969, 1, 27-29. (b).

Dana, R. H. A hierarchal model for analysing personality data. Journal of Gen­

eral Psychology, 1970, 82, 199-206.

Dana, R. H. Psychotherapist into person: Transformation, identity, and practices

of social feeling. 'Journal of Individual PsychOlogy, 1974, 30, 81-91.

Dana, R. H. Ruminations on teaching projective assessment~ An ideology, specific

usages, teaching practices. Journal of ,Personality Assessment, 1975, 39,

563-572.

Dana, R. H. Thematic Apperception Test. International Encyclopedia of Neuro­

logy, Psychiatry, Psychoanalysis & Psychology. New York: Human Sciences

Press, 1977. Pp. 140-142.

Dana, R. H. Comparisons of competence training in two successful clinical

programs. Psychological Reports. 1978, 42, 919~926. (a).

Dana, R. H. Personal growth and societal function. Journal of Thought, 1978,

.!1,(2), 117-124. (b).

Dana, R. H. Receptivity to clinical interpretation. In R. Woody .cEds). Ency­

clopedia of Clinical Assessment. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1980. (a).

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Dana, R. H. A Human Science MOdel for Personality Assessment with Projective

Techniques. Springfield~ Ill.: C. C. Thomas, 1981.

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.. Dana, R. H., & Fitzgerald, J. Educational self-assessment: A Course-in-

Oneself. College Student Journal, 1976, 10, 317-323.

Dana, R. H., & Fouke, H. Barnum statements in reports of psychological

assessment. Psychological Reports, 1979, 44, 1215-1221.

Dana, R. H., &Graham, E. D. Feedback of client-relevant information and

clinical practice. Journal of Personality Assessment, 1976. 40, 464-469.

Dnan, R. H., &Leech, S. Existential Assessment. Journal of Personality

Assessment, 1974, 38, 428-435 • . ­Dana, R. H., Dana, J., &Comer, P. Role-playing effects on Rorshcach scoring

and interpretation. Journal of Personality Assessment, 1972, 36, 435.

Dana, R. H., Gilliam, M., &Dana, J. Adequacy o~ academic-clinical preparation

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Dana, R., Heynen, F •• &Burdette~ R. Crisis intervention by peers. Journal of

College Student Personnel, 1974, 11, 58-61.