What a Kaleidescopic Experience!

Or maybe a roller coaster would be a better analogy. If I'd posted on the first day of the APA meeting it would have been pretty bleak, but I've had enough ups and downs now to qualify it as worth the money. Wish I'd done more socializing, but partly I didn't really get the hang of how the social hours worked and partly I wanted to spend a little time with AR at the end of each day. Next year in Boston I'll have a better strategy. I'll also join at least one division so I can get linked in better network wise.

Yesterday I missed seeing Albert Bandura speak. Damn!

Today though, I saw Dr. Herbert Spiegel, one of the doctors who saw Sybil. He believes strongly that her case was iatrogenic, meaning her therapist created it (and he is in large part responsible for the widespread belief that there is no such thing as MPD/DID at all), and there were two other panelists who presented alternative information about both the condition and Sybil's particular case.

Then I also saw Dr. Elyn Saks, the woman who wrote The Center Cannot Hold: My Journey Through Madness. INCREDIBLE presentation! Standing ovation with lots of tears and endless questions.

Another highlight today was a forensic presentation called Actual Innocence: Contributions of Psychological Science to the Correction and Prevention of Wrongful Convictions. That one was a fascinating discussion by two presenters; the first talking about false confessions and the second about mistaken eyewitness identifications. In both cases many of the wrongful convictions were a result of inappropriate and uniformed behaviors, whether intentional or unconscious, by law enforcement. It became even more fascinating when, during the q & a session at the end an FBI agent stood, identified himself (he'd given a talk at the meeting on a similar topic earlier, apparently) and contributed his perspective on how law enforcement was trying to combat this problem.

There were many other fascinating talks as well, and then a whole bunch of horridly dry and boring ones. Some were not what I expected and some were simply cases of interesting material made unbearably yawnful by inept presenters. I am getting a strong impression that Psychologists, on the whole, are not good presenters. Sadly there were also a few outright bad studies presented, which disappointed me, since I expected a higher level of professional competence at this meeting. I.e., I figured every presentation would be based on peer reviewed, published, or about to be published, studies. WRONG!!!

Half a day to go still. The conference is over at 2pm tomorrow. Shall see if I can score some half price books as I've been told the publishers start unloading them cheap b/c they don't want to haul them all away.

Oh my aching back and feet and BRAIN. Tomorrow I will definitely try to schedule in a free massage from a place in the exposition hall that's been there the the whole time. I never can seem to just STOP already! Not as good at self-care as I could be. : )