Shaping Psychology

Shaping Psychology: Perspectives on Legacy, Controversy and the Future of the Field is a 2020 book written by Tomasz Witkowski.

The book is a collection of comprehensive conversations with influential psychologists from the early 21st century. The book features interviews with notable figures who have significantly impacted the field, covering a broad spectrum of specializations from research, mental health, critical psychology, to neuroscience and the Open Science movement. Interviewees include Elizabeth F. Loftus, Jerome Kagan, Michael I. Posner, Scott O. Lilienfeld, Robert J. Sternberg, Robert Plomin, Susan J. Blackmore, Joseph E. LeDoux, Noam Chomsky, Roy F. Baumeister, Erica Burman, Brian A. Nosek, Vikram H. Patel, Daniel Kahneman, and Carol A. Tavris. These experts discuss the controversies, crisis, and future prospects of psychology, sharing their views on the challenges in the field, their careers, and their formative experiences.

Reception
In her review for Science-Based Medicine and Skeptical Inquirer, Harriet Hall offered insights into the book. She notes: "Tomasz Witkowski’s new book [...] provides an intriguing look at the current state of psychology, its problems and possible solutions, and hopes for the future. [...] I have met several of the people Witkowski interviewed, but now I feel as if I have spent more time with them and know them better. And I have learned a lot from them. If you want to meet these psychologists and learn about the current state of psychology, this book is a great way to do it. Witkowski’s unique approach has resulted in a very readable, entertaining, and very informative book."

Michael Heap, editor of the Skeptical Intelligencer, commented in his review: "Amongst the issues about which Witkowski is most concerned are the quality, utility and validity of much of the research being published nowadays; the ‘replication crisis’; the efficacy of many psychotherapeutic practices that psychologists seem willing to embrace; and the failure of psychologists to mount a sufficiently strong challenge to their psychiatric colleagues’ fetish for diagnostic labelling. [...] The picture that emerges from the book is quite representative of the discipline as a whole."

In his review of the book for Skeptiker, Rouven Schäfer writes: "An enlightening journey through the contemporary world of psychology.The book conveys refreshing perspectives and also optimism since it has been stated several times that, especially among young scientists who are still at the beginning of their careers, the awareness of the necessary change is already very pronounced. It remains to be seen whether psychology will burn in the flames of its massive criticism or whether it will rise again like a phoenix from the ashes and armed with better research methods. An unusually impressive reading pleasure that gives you goosebumps at one point or another and provides important impulses."