Requirements of an Aviation Psychologist

Who are those people that appear as aviation psychologists, claiming that they are specialists in the assessment of new pilot candidates and thus recommending aviation companies and flying training schools new suitable pilot trainees?
I have not always the answer of my question, but I have some guding principles about this issue. Here are my advices about the requirements of a professional aviation psychologist:
1. He (or she, below just marked as “he”) has to be a licensed or registered psychologist (or a behaviour scientist, specially educated and trained within the field of aviation psychology).
2. He has to work professionally within the field of aviation psychology all year around, meaning that he has to work as a fully employed aviation psychologist or, if he is a free consultant, having several assignments and tasks from several clients in the aviation industry (companies, training schools and individuals).
3. He has to be very experienced and well trained in general assessment techniques and procedures, working with such duties all year around.
4. He has to be updated in the development of the aviation industry, well informed about all important aspects of flying and Human Factors, of CRM training and such things.

The requirements of professional airline pilots are very high. To maintain their certificates they have to fly a certain amount of hours all year around and pass recurrent trainings all their professional lives.
Why should the requirements of an aviation psychologist be less than that?
Who are those people assessing your personality and your suitability for pilot work? You´d better try to check it out. They are the judges and decision makers of your future!

Crisis for people as herd animals

The financial crisis will hit harder and harder and harder and we are very close to the scenario from late 1920´s and early 1930´s. Mass work unemployment and ongoing dips in the stock market. People are herd animals which in this case is a risky thing because if the leaders are not able to arrange green grass and a hope for a future wealth to the commoners these will sooner or later appear as the unruly mass. An unruly mass could become prepared to do anyting, may it be good or bad. It was not just by chance that the Nazis grew like they did during the 1930´s in Germany. Warning bells, folks! Some youngsters have already started their terror careers in Sweden, burning shopping malls just to demonstrate their anger and desperation, directing their violent thoughts against USA, a nation they have agreed upon and pointed out as the real bad guy in this global drama.
We are herd animals and in times of crisis there are more heavy requirements for leadership than ever. Will Barack Obama prevail? Let us hope for that. He is bright enough not to lead us in any cul-de-sac.
But still: warning bells are sounding. Take care and increase your attention of the young ones. They are naturally impatient and worried as hell and could do anything for money and for something that looks better for them in the near future.

What science is not

General science can not yet be stated as the interpreter of the ultimate and universally applicable truth. Science has to be looked upon as a set of tools, most of them very well developed, to strengthen our human senses in order to grasp as much as possible of the aspects of what we call reality. All tools are related to fundamental scientific theoretical systems, which in their turn are related to philosophical thesises. We can say that we are doing the best we can to detect the spheres for our curiosities. But doing the best we can is not the same as to say that we have found what we have been looking for. Science will always be a never ending story. The universe is too complex and so is this tiny planet with all of its living creatures.
It happens that I become angry and frustrated when I meet people who tell me that they have been finally diagnosed based upon evident scientific methods that must not become questioned. All scientific methods must always be questioned and all results must also be questioned – up to a point when there is absolutely nothing more to prove. Sometimes I, just as an example, meet young airline pilot trainee candidates who have been examined by psychological tests and who have become fed up with arguments as “tests are telling the truth about you”. But there are no tests that have powers like that. The very best result achieved is a result based upon a series of different information parts: previous school results, information of family matters, test results, observations of lots and lots of behaviour patterns and thinking habits, of attitudes, fields of interests and many such things. If all this is finally evaluated by a serious, professional behaviour scientist that has own very critical senses directed to his or her own methods – then, but only then, it will be possible to reach quite a bit towards something that we can call the truth. Which is not exactly the same as the final truth. Don´t trust the preachers that tell you that they are the owners of the final truth!

Quality – what is that?

There is a loud debate going on in Sweden about the meaning of quality in art. A student at a University College of Art and Design in Stockholm has made a short movie about himself when he is running around like hell in a Stockholm Underground station, blowing black paint on the walls, on the floor, rushing into a train with passengers onboard, continuing to spray the wagon with his black grafitti, ending by destroying a window, from where he jumps out on the platform.
Art? He says so. The College says so. It is an art installation. The College says that this was the student’s work that had to be admitted by the school. This kind of so called artistic work movie has now been sold to two buyers.
From my point of view, and I may be quite narrowminded, I can not see anything else in this but a series of criminal actions.
So what about quality? How do you measure or assess quality?
How about these criteria:
Quality is met when a detailed, specified goal has been reached and when the methods used to reach the goal are built on carefulness, consideration, judgement and precision.
Yes, I admit that quality in art could be difficult to assess related to such a criteria, or…???

Thila means darling – a book about Thailand

The late Swedish professor Arne Trankell was one of the most influential Scandinavian persons for the fast growing Thai Airways International (THAI). He had already in 1965 been hired by THAI to implement one of the aviation world’s safest airline pilot selection models, for many years practised by SAS. Professor Trankell was a true psychologist, self trained to detect and to further examine all serious deviations in the candidates’ tales about their qualifications, in their way of utilize their mental resources and in the other important parts of their personality development.
In 1977 Arne Trankell published a fascinating book, written in a mix as a fiction novel and a documentary, about Thailand, Thai people and the growing tourist exploitation of the nation. The book is in Swedish and has the title Thila means darling. The publisher is Norstedts. It might be possible to find the book in some second hand store or in some libraries.
I had the privilege to work close together with Arne Trankell from 1967 up to his decease in January 1984. After that I was honourably requested to act as his successor wthin the aviation companies SAS and THAI, a position I maintained in THAI up to 2007.
My recommendation – if you are interested and if you are able to read Swedish – try to get hold of the book Thila means darling.

And this part of life is also very important

Darwin

Several modern researchers say that Charles Darwin is the one behind the most fascinating scientific idea ever (so far). His further studies and most later archeological and biological and genetical and geographical (and more) research findings support Darwin’s extraordinary enlightening theories. We know from where we, human beings, have come, and we know a lot of the origins of all other living creatures. Charles Darwin would have celebrated his 200 birthday today if he had been still alive. And he and his books and thesis’s are of course very much focused all around the globe today. And our granddaughter, six months old, has three given (first) names: Freija, Jeanette, Darwin… Her parents are true Darwinists and so am I.

Lumbago!

Pain! In my back! I have severe difficulties to move today. Why so? From where did I get it?
No, it has certainly nothing to do with carrying my 14 months old grandson on my left arm yesterday. He is not that heavy. And I have not been lifting other heavy things around lately.
It feels as if I have been stabbed in my back. No, I have not – not literally. But…symbolically…well, yes…now and then. You know, people I have met and trusted, people who suddenly and unexpectedly…but I am not so sure of that either.
Back pain may arise from your internal system, for example your intestines, or from your back muscles that have become too strained not by lifting things, but by exposed to some poison. I don´t mean that I have eaten poisonous food, but I could have had too much meat lately, red meat. And the outfall of eating too much read meat that contains some heavy proteins could lead to waste products like uric acids that your body try to get rid of, and one place to put is your back muscles, which will become rigid and stiff and sooner or later start aching.
This is a very tough day for a man who is also trying to act as an aerobic leader…I had of course to cancel the class today.
Pity me.

Everything is connected to everything

Basically your eyes and your brain neurons and your skin cells and your hair cells and everything within you are built of exactly the same material as the creations of flies, worms, snakes, cats, dogs, elephants…whatever. There is no specific you apart from the fact that the cells in your body have by centuries of selection processes formed you to one of the most dangerous predators this tiny world in this enormous universe has ever seen.
Everything is connected to everything within you – and around you. Every change you carry out and accomplish will also affect you in a more personal sense: in the long run your body as an ongoing work station, your mind, your thinking habits and thereby your relations to all other people around you.
You could be very strong – and very vulnerable – in the same time.
The moral is: don´t just rush away! Think, prepare, make plans, find out the consequences – and then start to do what you really want to be done – for the sake of you and for the sake of everything around you.

Phobia – and where is the analysis and where the questions?

Psychological interventions for people suffering from phobia have ceretainly become a technique based upon something that I would call engineering psychology. The main aspect of this kind of interventions is that the psychologist does not examine the roots of the phobia, at least not in a deeper sense. It is taken for granted the the fear (for spiders, buses, trams, open spaces, cats, horses, airplanes or whatever) is caused by a previous learning disorder. And if something is learned wrongly you can create magic by relearning it. Ten or twelve steps in the instruction and off you go. Sometimes you don´t even need a living psychotherapist during the lessons. A computer could be enough!
These modern engineering psychologists seem not always to understand that every object, may it be living or dead, has a symbolic, often very emotionally pregnant impact. A spider is not just a spider. An open place is not just an open space. An elevator is not just an elevator. All these objects have certainly a special meaning for the client, and this meaning is most often associated to a string of other objects, living or dead. And if this kind of analysis is not done my hypothesis is that even if the specific phobia is treated the deeper problem is still there and will stay there. And one day, sooner or later, it will turn up as another symtom.
But OK, the phobia was perhaps gone after some 3 or 4 or 10 sessions of relearning.