While Mr. James W. Anderson is a licensed clinical psychologist affiliated with The Chicago Institute of Psychoanalysis, my experience with him was during a course titled Psychobiography which he taught at Northwestern University's School of Continuing Studies in Evanston during the Winter 2008 quarter (on Wednesday nights).
First off, please be advised that the APA (American Psychological Association) has an Ethics Code with an imperative for psychologists to avoid harm, right? Well, Northwestern's own version of the infamous "Dr. Phil" is fully licensed within the State of Illinois and ought to know better, but he sat in front of an entire class full of witnesses and publicly objected to a student who had run a verbal disclaimer that she was "not suicidal, or anything" just because she selected Edgar Allan Poe as her research paper topic. She had stated that she liked spooky and detective stories, and that was the reason she selected this literary personality as her subject. Now, the reason she ran the verbal disclaimer was because Mr. Anderson, who appeared to be heavily into that long-controversial and often discredited Freudian psychoanalytic theory, for which there is little empirical support (it's theory, not solid science), had been teaching that if you selected a "grandiose" personality, it might be that you had "grandiose" personality traits yourself. So, sensing she was in trouble for having selected Poe, who apparently attempted suicide in his time, the student said to Mr. Anderson and the entire class that "I'm not suicidal or anything, " to which Mr. Anderson immediately OBJECTED (yes, that's right, in truly horrifying fashion, he sat there and made the student look bad) right in front of the entire class full of students!
Since when does a legitimate clinical psychologist infer, via negative innuendo surrounding a verbal OBJECTION to a statement that one is "not suicidal" that perhaps they might be? This loser is like the "Dr. Phil" of Illinois, only he's actually licensed to practice!
Furthermore, he was overheard making some disparaging comments about the student to the Northwestern School of Continuing Studies Student Advisory Board President, Mrs. Arlene Rumbaugh, who was also a student in the same class! Now, these students are not paying $1250 per Northwestern SCS class to sit in front of a group of classmates and peers and be publicly embarrassed by some Freudian psychoanalytic crank who, in my personal opinion, engages in possibly slanderous behavior (I'm not an attorney, so I don't know if negative innuendo via objecting when someone tells you, outright, that they are not suicidal is actionable as possible defamation or invasion of privacy), but what was truly horrifying was that he was behaving quite arrogantly about it, as if you could not question his professional judgment.
Now, if this student were to have a defamation attorney subpoena Mrs. Arlene Rumbaugh to force her to testify as to just what Mr. Anderson said to her about this student, who had never before met this man in her life (let alone been a patient of his where he could speak from some experience) and had never been suicidal, what kind of hot water might Mr. Anderson have brought upon Northwestern's School of Continuing Studies? Aren't they liable for the conduct of their instructors if there's anything defamatory going on?
And while Mr. Anderson has offices affiliated with The Chicago Institute for Psychoanalysis, he teaches psychology at Northwestern University, a top-ranked research university. He should not be embarrassing the school by acting like an irresponsibly unprofessional "Dr. Phil" type of character who sits in a group setting and attempts to publicly embarrass a non-suicidal student in front of her peers. And if someone truly were suicidal, I doubt inferring they might be suicidal in public is the proper course of action under the APA's avoidance-of-harm imperative.
Furthermore, this man's utter lack of respect for the privacy and dignity of students (and probably his own patients, too, based on what I saw of his classroom behavior) was further evident when he repeatedly put graded tests out on a table for all to see, which is a clear violation of FERPA, the federal student privacy rights law that governs institutions that receive federal funds. People were going to the dean repeatedly to get this jerk to knock that off, and he only did so on the absolute last day of the class, after someone had chewed out the dean about the negative innuendo that someone might really be a depressed suicidal just like Edgar Allan Poe just because they picked Edgar Allan Poe.
For the sake of your mental health, run, don't walk, as far away from this creep as you can. And for the love of God, do not sign up for his classes (the idiot dean over at Northwestern SCS apparently just signed a new contract with this crank, so I'm guessing Mr. Anderson will continue to teach over there, as well as practive over at The Chicago Institute... Possibly indefinitely, or until someone finally sues the living daylights out of this jerk for defamation if he doesn't couch his negative innuendo as carefully in the future).
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