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Oliver James | |
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| Born | 1953 |
| Alma mater | Eton College |
| Occupations | |
| Years active | 2013-present |
| Notable work |
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| Website | theselfishcapitalist |
Oliver James (born 1953) is a British pop psychologist, author, and television producer.
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Oliver James | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1953 |
| Alma mater | Eton College |
| Occupations | |
| Years active | 2013-present |
| Notable work |
|
| Website | theselfishcapitalist |
Oliver James (born 1953) is a British pop psychologist, author, and television producer.
Oliver James was born in 1953 to parents who were psychoanalysts. [1] He was educated at Eton College. [2] [3] He took a degree in Social Anthropology at the University of Cambridge and one in Psychology at the University of Nottingham. [4] He was awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Staffordshire in 2007. [5]
He trained as a child clinical psychologist at the University of Nottingham, then worked at the NHS Cassel Hospital in Richmond, London, in a clinical psychology post. [4] He is registered as a therapist at the John Bowlby Centre [6] and as a Chartered Psychologist at the British Psychological Society. [7] He is registered with and regulated by the United Kingdom Council for Psychotherapy. [8] In 2009 Mary Fitzgerald of The Guardian described James as a "prolific pop-psychologist. [9]
Speaking on Channel 4's 2013 Psychopath Night, James described the credit crunch as a "mass outbreak of corporate psychopathy which resulted in something that very nearly crashed the whole world economy". [10] In 2013 he was interviewed by Bob Hopkins of transitionnetwork.org about his books Affluenza and The Selfish Capitalist: The Origins of Affluenza. [9] [11]
In 2016, writing for The Guardian about his book Upping Your Ziggy: How David Bowie Faced His Childhood Demons and How You Can Face Yours, James said "There are many ways for us to take charge of our personas, be it simply by self-reflection, with the help of friends, by writing novels or creating art, or through therapy. We simply need to get a dialogue going between our different parts." [12] [13] [14] Speaking at the Market Research Society annual conference, Impact 2017, he urged the audience to "embrace their multiple personas, just as the late David Bowie did", saying: "To a degree we all have multiple personality disorder – it shouldn't be called a disorder." [15] James spoke on the subject at the 2016 Hay Festival. [16]
James is a patron of Mothers at Home Matter [17] and has been a trustee of the UK charities Contented Dementia Trust, [17] [18] National Family and Parenting Institute, [4] [19] and Home-Start UK. [4] [20]
 | This article's "criticism" or "controversy" section may compromise the article's neutrality .(October 2024) |
Some have criticised James' research methods and writing and his thoughts and opinions have attracted controversy. Deborah Orr of The Guardian described his views on the nature versus nurture debate as hypocritical, "If he was confronted with a mother doing exactly that to her child, I'm sure James would consider it abusive". [21]
Stuart J. Ritchie, a psychologist at the University of Edinburgh, wrote a strongly critical review of James's book Not In Your Genes. He described the book as a "straw man made flesh", "a compendium of psychological myths and legends", and "bending over backwards to avoid awkward conclusions". Ritchie wrote, "Few books risk such damage to the public understanding of science as those by Oliver James", and accused James of "scientific illiteracy". [22]
Ritchie described the book's thesis as "children are born with brains of soft clay, their mental makeup unaffected by genes and infinitely mouldable by their parents", and that "DNA has no effect on the mind or mental health, whereas parenting reigns supreme". Ritchie described a variety of evidence which contradicts this view. [22]
Ritchie also responded to a letter from James in The Psychologist . [23] following which James and Prof Richard Bentall of the University of Liverpool engaged him in argument. [24] James responded to Ritchie's criticisms in an article in The Guardian in March 2016, where he argued, "... mental illness is often caused by maltreatment and social disadvantage. In one study, a person who had suffered five or more kinds of maltreatment was 193 times more likely to become schizophrenic compared with someone who suffered no maltreatment. It's the same for other mental illnesses. In the best study following children from an early age, nine out of 10 who were maltreated had developed a mental illness by the age of 18." [25]
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