Science / Medicine : Reporter’s Notebook : No Mystery Too Arcane at Psychologists’ Convention

“Thousands of psychologists descend upon Atlanta!” panted a tremulous newscaster, apparently anticipating extraterrestrials. Then they landed, 13,000 strong, amid a blizzard of abstracts for the 96th annual convention of the world’s largest society of psychologists.

There were psychologists of the clinical, experimental, developmental stripes. Forensic, sport, engineering psychologists. There were “personologists,” sociologists, publicists, scribblers, even the official behavior writer for Delta Airlines’ in-flight magazine.

They had come here 10 days ago to talk about AIDS, anger, cognition, envy, humor, infidelity, masochism, moods, sleep, condoms, daydreaming, architecture, expert witnesses, fire-setting, Iran-Contra, life meaning, seat belts and zoo management.

Among other things.

“Sodomy laws affect you,” warned a flyer for a symposium on sodomy law repeal. Remarked a weary therapist, pondering a chili dog and the unfolding American Psychological Assn. convention, “It’s somewhere between a hurricane and Disneyland.”

To the unsuspecting conferee, the Big Peach is a city of 40-story lobbies and chandeliered ballrooms refrigerated to just above freezing. Visitors beetle about, wearing badges and goose pimples. Huge glass elevators, shaped like giant lozenges, perpetually soar and plummet.

Elevator passengers divide into two types: Those who peer out, exhilarated, noses kissing the glass and those who stare in, grim-faced, eyes fixed on the door. Hurtling past floor 33 one afternoon, an empathic psychologist offered an acrophobe hope:

“You know, the behavioral stuff is really good for this,” she assured him.

“I know, I know,” he moaned. “It’s just that I’ve got other issues to deal with.”

Friday night’s entertainment was the film “Fatal Attraction.” Glenn Close plays a maniac who seduces a married man and then boils his child’s rabbit. Hundreds of psychologists filled Grand Ballroom B for the screening and discussion of “the relational issues” put forth.

A victim of incest, a speaker pronounced the Glenn Close character. Her victimizing father had pulled away when she was young, leaving her resentful. When he then died, she blamed herself but repressed her guilt. A few decades later, presto, the creature in the film.

She was sliding into a major depression, another speaker said. (Note the half-empty Haagen-Dazs container on her bed.) She should have been hospitalized, medicated, put in therapy. Maybe even electro-convulsive therapy.

B. F. Skinner, the famous behaviorist, aged 84, drew standing-room-only crowds. Captain Kangaroo, a.k.a. Bob Keeshan, was honored. Dolores French, a former protegee of the Mayflower Madam and author of a new book on prostitution, spoke on prostitutes and AIDS.

Some theories tendered seemed to cut against the grain. Keeping a stiff upper lip may have benefits over venting, after all. A federal researcher disparaged the quality of the evidence being marshalled to support the increasingly popular view that personality affects health.

Other findings seemed strikingly underwhelming: AIDS is straining relationships between gay men, researchers announced. Others presented data supporting the startling finding that politicians and their wives see different benefits and drawbacks in political life.

“That’s a problem with the entire profession,” mused a clinical psychologist from North Carolina. “We don’t know that the sun rises in the morning until a psychologist proves it empirically.”

On a cluttered bulletin board hung a scribbled cartoon. Two psychologists, squiggly and Thurber-esque, were taking a break. “Why did people quit my lecture so early?” she wondered. “Simple!” he answered. “Respondent behavior.”

“Any fellow Bahais, please call me at home,” read another message. “Would love to get together.”

A psychologist from Indiana was advertising for someone to take over a 14-year project. The topic: The psychological effects of pollution. A cynical passer-by had added a curmudgeonly graffito: “Also, a paper on personal space invasion.”