How Activism Is Replacing Clinical Judgment in Psychology - JD Haltigan (#6)
27 March 2025
With J.D. Haltigan
Global
Developmental psychologist J.D. Haltigan examines how ideological activism has displaced scientific rigour in psychology, from the erosion of diagnostic categories to the normalisation of distress as identity. For Irish practitioners and patients navigating HSE mental health pathways, the question of whether clinical decisions reflect evidence or political pressure is anything but academic.
J.D. Haltigan is a developmental psychologist whose career inside academic institutions gave him an unobstructed view of how the discipline changed, particularly from around 2016 onwards. In conversation with Stella O'Malley and Bret Alderman, he describes a field increasingly shaped by activist ideology rather than empirical inquiry — a shift whose consequences extend well beyond university departments and into the consulting rooms and clinics where real patients receive care. A central theme is what Haltigan calls the feminisation of psychology — not a remark about sex as such, but about the prioritisation of emotional validation over analytical rigour. He argues that empathy, however important as a clinical tool, has been elevated into an organising principle in ways that crowd out critical thinking. When a field rewards affirmation above questioning, the capacity to identify and challenge harmful patterns in clinical practice is weakened. Professional associations, funding bodies and academic journals begin to police acceptable conclusions rather than test them. The episode examines a trend Haltigan terms pathology normalisation — the process by which behaviours once understood as symptoms of distress are progressively redefined as legitimate identities to be affirmed rather than explored. Diagnostic categories exist to guide effective treatment, but they have been selectively loosened under political pressure. The clinical distinction between dimensional and categorical diagnoses matters: whether a presentation sits on a spectrum or represents a discrete condition directly shapes how a practitioner should respond. When that distinction is blurred for ideological rather than scientific reasons, the risk of harm to vulnerable patients rises. Haltigan also addresses the impact of social media on child and adolescent development. Young people who construct multiple online identities can find themselves embedded in peer communities that reinforce distress rather than relieve it. The speed at which ideas now spread through adolescent networks has outrun the evidence base for understanding and responding to these effects. Ireland's children are as exposed to these dynamics as any in the English-speaking world, and services such as the HSE's Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services face the downstream consequences without always having robust, evidence-grounded clinical frameworks to call on. The conversation also covers Haltigan's decision to leave formal academic structures and what that departure made possible. Working outside institutional constraints opened space for intellectual honesty and for collaborations — including with Jordan Peterson — that would have been professionally costly within a conventional university setting. His experience points to a broader pattern: candid engagement with contested evidence is increasingly happening outside the bodies nominally responsible for setting professional standards. For anyone in Ireland watching how clinical psychology adapts — or fails to adapt — to the current ideological climate, this conversation is a substantive reference point. The questions Haltigan raises about scientific standards, diagnostic integrity and institutional trust are not abstract. They bear directly on whether the frameworks guiding Irish mental health services are built on the best available evidence or on the most politically acceptable positions of the moment.
