Teaching non-psychologists: The third step. Comment on Dutke et al.,2019

Psychology for non-psychologists is both a challenge and an opportunity. It is a great merit of the EFPA Board of Educational Affairs that it addresses these aspects. What’s more, Dutke and colleagues (Dutke et al., 2019) formulate guidelines for teaching that clearly demonstrate the added value of psychological knowledge and psychological competences in non-psychological disciplines. This is important for the image of psychology in other sciences and professions. But it is also important for the development of those we teach psychology to. In fact, all should be grateful for their knowledge to be extended through a psychological perspective. Why is this not always the case? For non-psychologists, the psychological perspective increases the complexity of their subject and questions their own professional identity. At best, people react with curiosity, at worst with defense and anger. Different identities meet. The fact that students are still in the process of developing their professional identity does not make the task of imparting psychological knowledge any easier. Finally, it is important to convey to students that psychology makes sense for their future profession, even if they themselves are only just beginning to know their future profession. Practitioners must also “unlearn” traditional ideas of psychology. Not everything that non-psychologists know about psychology—even if they may have learned it at school—suits psychology as an empirical science or an evidence-based, ethically reflected psychological practice.

Universities claim that they not only impart knowledge, but also develop competences and promote the personality development of their students. Thus, they often offer psychological lectures or seminars that aim to serve personal growth and social competence. These offers are usually unconnected with other learning objectives of the respective degree program. The authors rightly point out that the aspiration must be different. It must become clear that psychology, with its broad knowledge, can also make its own contribution to the respective subject and the specific profession. To decide what teaching content this can be, psychologists must look at their own subject from the perspective of students or practitioners from other disciplines. Surely it is difficult for students or psychological laypersons to say what might be interesting about psychology if they know little about their own subject and even less about psychology. Part of the decision will therefore always lie with those who define the goals, contents, and didactics of psychology teaching. However, taking the needs of the target group into account is a good maxim. But which ones might those be? For students it would also be obvious not only to address subject-specific issues, but also to address questions “in the here and now.” This is not only for motivational reasons, but also because psychology teaching offers an opportunity to promote health and well-being via psychological knowledge and psychological skills. In engineering degree programs, topics such as “examination anxiety” or “cooperation in project groups” may at least address the current concerns of students. The ideal way would then be to build a bridge between the reference to the “here and now” and future professional practice.

At large universities the psychological institutes are asked to offer seminars in other study programs. Often, however, psychologists are also located at non-psychological institutes. Frequently these colleagues are isolated in their responsibility for soft skills or social competences. It is a great merit of this contribution that the task of psychological teaching at psychological institutes is seen with a further claim. The whole breadth of the subject is required when it comes to the expectations of a subject-specific contribution for, e.g. engineering sciences, architecture, languages, and much more. To do justice to this, we also need a dialogue between the subjects, which includes questions of didactics. For this we have to deepen our knowledge of the other subjects. And we must make it clear that in all this we also want to do justice to our own claim to psychology as an empirical science and evidence-based practice. This also requires the theoretical reflection of psychology teaching for non-psychologists and the scientific evaluation of different didactic approaches, which consider individual learning biographies as well as educational, social, and cultural conditions.

In the 1960s, the demand was made: “Give Psychology away” (Banyard & Hulme, 2015). The aim was to make psychological knowledge available not only to the elite, but to all. This was coupled with the expectation that psychology would have a greater impact on society. Many years later the discussion about psychological literacy followed. This is seen as a competence to reflect on human behavior and mind based on personal experience, but also on psychological knowledge. One core goal is democratization in the sense of a psychological citizenship. With the contribution of Dutke and his colleagues (Dutke et al., 2019), a third phase has now been initiated: the promotion of specific psychological competences in non-psychological professions. It stands for expertise in specific psychological content in the non-psychological occupational field. However, this occupation-specific use of psychology will not stop there. The expectation is that field-specific education will also promote general psychological literacy and thus the impact of psychology on society. The experience that psychological knowledge makes sense, even for a non-psychological profession, corresponds to the conviction that psychology helps us to better understand our own behavior and experience as well as that of others. “Our impact then will not be measured by academic output and conference presentations but by our effect on public perceptions of what is humanly possible” (Banyard & Hulme, 2015, p. 99).