Everyday Heroism in Practicing Psychology

Who Is a Hero?

It has been said that the difference between a coward, a fool, and a hero rests on how they differentially deal with fear: the coward experiences fear and runs, the fool fails to experience fear when it is warranted, while the hero both experiences and courageously faces fear. Similarly, differentiating altruism from heroism, the altruist gives to others without expecting anything in return, whereas the hero gives not only without expecting anything in return but also with the recognition that the return might well be quite personally costly, including the hero’s own death as one possible ultimate cost. The shadow side of heroism is thus aligned with many commonsense aphorisms, such as “no good deed goes unpunished,” as heroic acts must carry significant risk potential to rise to the level of being seen as authentic heroism. Consequently, an act must both be altruistic and require a major risk to be heroic (also see Franco, Blau, & Zimbardo, 2011). Without placing so-called “skin in the game,” an act can be altruistic but not heroic.

Heroic acts occur during a “moment of truth,” a term used in the bullfighting ring to describe when matadors put their lives on the line. Essentially, there are uniquely defining moments in people’s lives (see Glover & Friedman, 2015). During these times, people may or may not be cognizant of the gravity of their predicament or the risk they might take, but their cumulative choices during these moments shape the person they become. Some may be primed to step forward in heroic ways should the moment arise, such as through having heroic self-narratives that anticipate and embrace such stances (McAdams, 2008). Others might be surprised at their own heroic actions, underestimating their own mettle during such moments, but perhaps leading to revisions of their self-narratives.

However, such moments can be immediate or prolonged. I do not think the term “hero” should be restricted to only people who perform dramatic life-defying feats in a singular moment of truth, as everyday helping acts that involve significant risk to a person may extend across considerable time and still reasonably count as heroism. For example, people who devote their remaining lives to be caregivers of disabled loved ones can be seen as engaging in heroic acts, as they risk the rest of their days in potential altruistic sacrifice. This quiet type of heroism seldom gets recognized, and could also apply to any number of people who literally put their skin in the game out of altruism in a way devoid of ostensible drama, such as anonymous organ donors who accept the medical risks of undergoing invasive procedures that could take their lives in order to save others.

There are other limits that might beneficially be imposed on the definition of heroism. For example, there seems to be an exponential use in that term, as it now includes all sorts of mundane acts devoid of any significant potential for risk to the alleged hero. Just a few days before writing this article, I saw an emblematic news report stating, “Police officers are being hailed as heroes for saving a man’s life when he had a heart attack at a CrossFit gym” (“Caught on Cam,” 2016). These so-called heroes, whose job is to protect the public, found a man who had collapsed in a gymnasium and simply applied cardiopulmonary resuscitation as they had been trained to do—and without any obvious threats to themselves in the doing. This usage erodes the important meaning of heroism, which requires someone putting life and limb—or at least livelihood, on the line through an extraordinary act of altruism. Of course, words are always evolving in their meanings, such as how “awe” has grown from referring to a profound sense of fear in the face of something overwhelming to its newer diminutive use referring to something mainly positive but often trite, as connoted by the now ubiquitous term “awesome” (Bonner & Friedman, 2011). Consequently, the change in the meaning of the word hero is not unique to that specific term, but it can be lamented as trivializing actions risking severe consequences during moments of truth that can constitute a manifestation of the highest qualities of self. And I believe having a proper word that means something, and not everything, provides a useful delineation for promoting something so valued as heroism.

Another danger with the term is that it can lead to a cult of heroism. Heroism is not necessarily just an isolated personality trait that defines an individual as extraordinary, but it always occurs in a context. For example, psychology as a profession offers a context in which moments of truth calling for heroism occasionally arise, and that can be, but is not usually, seen as part of the expectations for anyone following this path. By looking situationally across people’s lives at moments when they acted heroically, as well as in a cultural context, there can be a shift from glorifying an individual as a hero to a view of heroism that is embedded in larger meanings. In this regard, engaging in a profession such as psychology can be viewed as a potentially heroic undertaking, although not every psychologist would see it that way or act accordingly. Considering this, everyone has opportunities to act heroically during their life course, and most heroic acts are never recognized as such. As professionals in an area in which these opportunities might be more likely to arise than in some other endeavors, the potential for heroism is embedded within that context. However, it is important to note the frequent failure of people to risk putting skin in the game during moments of truth in which the call for heroism goes unanswered, including ignoring such opportunities within the profession of psychology.

This perspectival shift challenges the individualistic Western approach to heroism. For example, the more individualistic West is known to pay its corporate leaders significantly higher amounts of money than is paid to its ordinary workers, as if a singular leader makes all of the difference in a company’s success; this contrasts to the flatter payment hierarchies for corporate leaders within the more collectivistic East. Seeing individuals as heroes in corporate settings is common in the West, but this prevailing orientation to celebrate selected leaders as heroes is a cultural trap that ignores the system supporting heroic deeds (Glover & Friedman, 2015). Again, a more balanced approach might involve looking at everyday opportunities to exhibit heroism, rather than extolling the few who happen to stand out as heroes—or debasing the term to its more trivial manifestations.

As an academic and practicing psychologist for many years, and one now writing for a psychology journal, I focus on opportunities for such everyday heroism in my profession. Practicing psychologists often encounter dilemmas requiring choices that affect people’s lives in the deepest ways, such as in dealing with suicidal and homicidal clients. Occasionally the dilemmas facing psychologists jeopardize their, and even their loved ones’, lives, but more commonly involve less drastic, but still possibly very significant, risks. Common costs that may be risked by psychologists who stand up heroically include potential loss of their licenses to practice and their secure positions within institutions, both affecting their livelihood. Those who violate laws for a possible higher good may also jeopardize their freedom through risking legal travails and even going to jail. In fact, occasionally following ethical guidelines prescribed within psychology might contradict with abiding by a law, requiring a psychologist to face a moment of truth in navigating a bind between contradictory professional and legal expectations, risking a negative outcome for whatever choice is made. And then, there are cases involving individual integrity in which both choices, following either an ethical code or a law, seem unjust and might require a heroic response. Beyond possible losses of livelihood and freedom in these matters, the ultimate high cost can occasionally be put on the line during the everyday practice of psychology, namely loss of life. The willingness to face such potential sacrifices in an altruistic way can be heroism, whereas running from them can be cowardice—and not recognizing when they present can be foolishness.

Facing risks is part of a social bargain that psychologists make, as taking on potentially serious risks often accompanies the privileges that inure to any professional role, the practice of psychology being no exception. In this article, I explore a variety of professional dilemmas I have personally faced in my practice as both an academic and applied psychologist during occasional moments of truth across my career span. These professional examples start with my first encounter as a newly declared undergraduate psychology major and continues into the present. In discussing these dilemmas, and especially by bringing myself into the discussion, I do not want to elevate myself in any particular way as some extraordinary hero. Rather, I am merely using my own career trajectory to illustrate how such opportunities present in everyday life. How these can be faced with integrity or ignored with its lack are illustrated by a few personal moments of truth based on what I know best, my own experience, and I share them only to drive home the points I want to make.

Psychology as a Profession in Relationship to Heroism

Psychology is a profession, and this involves two criteria, acquiring specialized competence through extensive socialization and receiving relatively high pay for services (Friedman, 2014). Amateur activities imply less competent (e.g., lower quality or less efficiently performed as compared with professional) work, and work that might be provided with little or no compensation. However, working within a profession differs from working in an occupation, which is a role that is passively occupied. It even differs from working in a vocation, which is a role toward which one is called (as in hearing a sacred voice, related to the etymology of vocation) leading into purposeful work. As compelling as a vocational calling might be, the role of profession implies a deeper commitment, as it is the answer to such a call with a professing, an expressed commitment to accept the call toward upholding a larger good. This aligns with the famous teaching story of three workers building a sacred structure (note: it can be a church, mosque, temple, or whatever—depending on the tradition in which the tale is told). When asked what role they were performing, the first stated, “I’m laying down bricks and mortar.” The second replied, “I am earning an honorable living to support myself and my family.” The third, however, profoundly answered, “I am building a great cathedral to serve my community and honor the sacred.” These levels of answers parallel Maslow’s (1943) famous needs hierarchy, the first relating to physiological, the second social, and the third self-actualizing. To be a professional requires not just playing an occupational role to survive or making an honorable living to support oneself and loved ones, but to work for the larger good. Professionals originally were seen as those trusted to perform competently in furthering the interests of those they served, and the clergy were the first considered to be professionals and were differentiated from guild members who were thought to be more self-serving (Friedman, 2014). Unfortunately, professional psychologists often are concerned more with protecting their own vested interests than those of their clients or the general public, and this is where opportunities for everyday heroism might emerge within the profession of psychology. For example, Wright and Cummings (2005) wrote that psychology “has veered away from . . . compassionate practice in which the welfare of the client is paramount” (p. xiii) under the sway of market forces, such as managed care. Professionals are granted special rights, such as to bill insurance and government payers for their services and to have their research and applied work given more respect than nonprofessionals; but this is not merely a gift that inures cost-free to professionals, since it is expected that professionals also will uphold their end of the bargain by not just serving their own vested interests, including through performing occasional acts of heroism that might have a high cost.

Just as the term “hero” has grown to include many acts that do not seem to rise to heroic proportions, the term “professional” has also veered from its original meaning. It now is used to describe a plethora of occupations that make no pretense of having lofty standards to serve the public. Those working in trades, such as electricians, and business, such as real estate sales, do not hesitate to call themselves professionals, evidencing how language evolves. Of course, trades and businesses often hold goals quite at odds with professional ideals. So, somewhere between glorifying as heroes only those who throw themselves on hand grenades to save their fellow soldiers and trivializing firemen who rescue cats seems to be a good place for examining the phenomenon understood loosely as heroism.

Precareer Socialization Experiences With Heroism

There are many myths within psychology that thwart heroism, and these limits heroic expression. Perhaps the most insidious is the notion that psychology is somehow a value-free science where, in fact, it is thoroughly pervaded with values throughout (Robbins & Friedman, 2017). One early moment of truth for all psychologists involves taking the step toward entering the profession. For those embarking on this path as an undergraduate student, this often involves the choice to major in psychology.

For me, this choice was high stakes. I had no particular liking for most of the professors in my rather conventional psychology department at Emory University in the 1960s, then a very parochial Southern school in many ways. For example, I was quite an activist back in that era, both for expansion of civil rights and against the Vietnam War—and this was an unpopular stance on that campus. I remember arguing with one of the then psychology faculty members, as he dismissed my activist values through using psychoanalytic undermining by calling these “rebelling against father.” However, there were a few really creative and open psychology faculty, but they tended to get denied tenure and move to other schools. Consequently, although attracted to psychology, I gravitated more toward the humanities. But something happened, as I was ready to graduate with a bachelor’s degree in English. I had a contract enabling me to keep my draft deferment by joining the Teacher’s Corps, similar to the Peace Corps (which rejected me), and I agreed to teach at an Indian Reservation through this program and thus avoid going to what I saw as an unjust and racist war. Having managed to complete all my degree requirements in 3 years at the age of 19 years, I was prepared to serve in this teaching role in lieu of military service when I heard bad news, the Teacher’s Corps had lost its funding—and I was losing my draft deferment. Desperate to not fight in this war, I had an opportunity to take a fourth year to graduate by changing my major from English, but to what? I searched through the possibilities at Emory and found literally only one field in which I could complete a new major in the one additional year allowed: psychology. This was due to all other majors having cumulative levels of prerequisite courses, but psychology had no such limitation, so I could take all the additional psychology courses needed for a major simultaneously during a fourth year. But this had a problem, namely the one required psychology research course had a mandatory animal laboratory involving “sacrifice” of small mammals.

All students in this one course were required to train rats to solve different types of mazes—and then kill the little critters to look at their brains for different biological signs that learning had occurred. I was given a dilemma, as I had recently become a vegetarian (after an LSD [lysergic acid diethylamide] experience that enable me to see a hamburger for the bloody reality it is), and I simply could not condone killing even a rat for something as meaningless as a class exercise. But I also needed a way to escape being drafted so, for me, this was a moment of truth. I challenged this requirement in that conservative psychology department by appealing to the chairman, who happened to be called by students as the man who had killed more dogs than anyone else in America in his work as a well-known Pavlovian researcher. I came within a dog’s hair of throwing away my one opportunity to avoid the draft because of my principles, and I literally felt my life was on the line, but I would not budge from my antivivisectionist values. As I look back, this was a formative moment for me, as the chairman granted me a waiver, but only after a heated argument in which I put a lot on the line. And so, I became a psychology major. It is also an ironic coincidence that years later, I am now actively involved in doing research on, of all things, dogs, but this is in a way totally nonharmful to the canines, as I am only looking at human’s ability to read emotions from dogs’ faces and am leaving their brains intact (e.g., Bloom & Friedman, 2013). The point is not that I was some extraordinary hero for my value commitment, but that how anyone chooses to become a psychologist, embracing the years of sacrifice that path entails, involves some major life choices. These can be based on finding a way to earn a living, for supporting a family or otherwise doing good for others, or for perhaps even larger purposes.

When entering graduate school in clinical psychology, I had a number of similar moments of truth. One involved selecting transpersonal psychology as my area of specialization. I had transferred to Georgia State University, which had a newer and less prestigious psychology program than Emory’s, but was known for supporting more innovation. In fact, a number of the more creative Emory faculty who were denied tenure found their way to Georgia State, and that helped draw me from the comfort of a rich suburban campus with a comfortable fellowship requiring no labor on my part to an urban university in the heart of a then dilapidated downtown with only a teaching assistantship requiring significant effort for only a small amount of pay.

However, as intellectually open as that school’s psychology program claimed to be, transpersonal psychology was nevertheless still held with great suspicion. For me, studying transpersonal psychology was make or break, as I did not want to be a psychologist in the mold of the mainstream psychology I had encountered and detested. I went through lots of travails to stick to my purpose and came very close to being tossed out of that program, a story I told elsewhere (see Friedman, 2013). This too was a moment of truth for me, and I fought hard to maintain my integrity in studying psychology on my own terms. And less ironically than my coming round lately to have my career go to the dogs, I made a solid long-term commitment to transpersonal psychology that has paid off well, such as by co-editing one of its major integrating books (Friedman, 2015/2013), serving as senior editor of its most popular journal (the International Journal of Transpersonal Studies), and having developed the construct of self-expansiveness, which founded one of its most solid scientific approaches (Friedman, 1983, 2015/2013). Again, the point is not that I was some special hero for this decision to study what I thought was most important, but to illustrate that whatever anyone chooses to study in becoming a psychologist, there are opportunities that may involve significant risks to one’s career and livelihood. Following one’s passion is typically not without sacrifice, including potential costs that can rise to heroic proportions.

Early Career Experiences as a Practicing Clinical Psychologist With Heroism

Once adorned with a PhD and the right to use the preface of doctor, as an early career clinical psychologist in private practice in a relatively conservative area, I had many challenges which called on me to test my mettle. For example, during the early days of the so-called AIDS epidemic, no one knew what caused this disease or how it was transmitted. A medical doctor specializing in infectious diseases was married to a neurologist colleague of mine, and he was perplexed by the many AIDS patients he was treating. Many of these patients were suicidal, thinking this diagnosis was a death sentence that should be ended with dignity before too much suffering, but this infectious disease specialist could not find any mental health professionals willing to help them. I was contacted and had a moment of truth: Do I serve these hurting people, even though it could risk not only me, but my wife. After agonizing, I finally decided that, taking needed precautions due to the uncertainty, I could not turn away these patients, even though my colleagues had all declined to serve them. Most were low or no pay referrals, and many were looked down on by the medical and mental health establishment as pariahs, such as gay males and female prostitutes from minority backgrounds. Perhaps being willing during that time of AIDS panic to work with these patients involved some degree of heroism, but it illustrates the moments of truth that I am sure all psychologists occasionally face.

As another opportunity, there were large groups of underserved children and adolescents with desperate mental health needs in my community. To work with these youth as a psychologist was a financially losing proposition, whereas work with the elderly could be very lucrative. Literally, Medicaid that covered many of the poor youth paid half as much as did Medicare that covered most of the elderly. In addition, Medicaid was very scary, as it was known to discourage service providers by conducting harsh audits requiring payback of funds later disallowed for trivial reasons. Medicaid could also puncture the so-called corporate shield by holding individuals personally responsible for paybacks provided through corporate entities. I had all the Medicare-funded clinical work I could handle, and was financially thriving, but I saw no one at the time helping these youth. I see this as another moment of truth.

Consequently, I set up systems of care to serve them at great risk and little profit to me personally, which led to receiving in 2003 the Florida Psychological Association’s annual award for “Outstanding Contributions in the Public Interest.” I have written about some of these programs in a number of publications (e.g., Garrett & Friedman, 2016) and offer these as examples of my having accepted potential risk as part of being a professional psychologist. And I had many sleepless nights fearing that the “Medicaid police” would punish me for this good deed.

Setting myself up for this risk did result in a type of pushback. The government regulates Medicaid and aggressively tries to control costs. In fact, private auditors are often paid a percentage of what they can recoup, and the youth mental health programs I created were expensive for the government to fund. Youth do not vote, and poor minority youth in particular have little voice, so services for them are given short shrift. Consequently, although all youth I served through Medicaid had been vetted by private psychiatrists who had seen each one individually to diagnose and approve a treatment plan, the state hired a consulting psychiatrist, who never saw any of the youth but, based on a record review, disallowed the diagnoses of most of the youth being served. In one “fell swoop,” these programs were shut down. Although these programs were not sustainable in a political climate that does not value youth, especially those of color, I like to feel good about having made a difference in the lives of several thousand youth, despite the risk and even losses this required.

Becoming an Activist in Midcareer Moments of Truth

These adventures in facing moments of truth led me in my midcareer to becoming a more consistent activist. Rather than passively being open to engaging in so-called heroic acts when they happened to occur, I became armed with the knowledge and skills to actively stand up to injustices. And I encountered no shortage of such opportunities once I began to recognize them better, and was better equipped to handle them.

One example involved consulting work I conducted as a prison psychologist. My role was to visit several rural prisons weekly to evaluate high-risk inmates, as well as to provide supervision to master’s-level mental health staff who were employed full-time in that setting. The medical, including mental health, services in the Florida prisons where I consulted had recently been privatized. Consequently, there existed a monetary incentive to deny needed services to inmates, which put me in a position of clear conflict. I evaluated inmates to consider placing them into more protected, and expensive, settings (e.g., inpatient mental health), and my recommendations were often denied. In addition, vacancies in the mental health staff I supervised were often not filled in a timely way, resulting in inmates not receiving adequate services. The gravity of this involved suicidal inmates not being adequately treated, and severely mentally impaired inmates being left in general populations to be abused by other inmates or punished by security staff for not being compliant with orders, as they often were too impaired to comply. The politics involved was filled with intrigue, as my role was mandated by the federal courts, while the state government supported the privatization of prison medical services—and did not want to know any of the sordid details. These private companies were among the main contributors to the campaigns of those in the highest state offices, and big dollars were involved, fueling this unjust system.

At first, I had chosen to work with this population because it did not tie me down. I could come and go pretty much as I pleased, and the pay was good for the effort required. I also enjoyed the many outrageous experiences I obtained in this setting. However, when I recognized that inmates were in danger, I had a moment of truth. I could resign and walk away from this mess, or I could fight it surreptitiously.

In this case, I decided to fight, even though it put me in personal danger in the highly volatile prison situation (e.g., all it would take to get “shanked” would be for the “privateers” profiting from this racket to arrange that a dangerous inmate would be improperly supervised during an interaction with me), as well as in financial jeopardy, as my consulting contract was quite rewarding and could be cancelled for any number of trivial reasons if I were to become known as a “troublemaker.” I was able to gain the support of an attorney I knew who was seeking political office on a platform of cleaning up government corruption, and I arranged various undercover stings that clearly documented the abuses, while keeping my head down. When the time was appropriate, I came forth with the evidence, and the company for whom I consulted lost its multimillion dollar contract. However, it can be questioned whether my decision to continue to accept money from a company while building a case against it was ethical, and this illustrates a judgment I made in which I believe there may be a higher need to work within a corrupt system, even while benefitting from it, in order to try to stop its further abuse.

Another similar example involved working for a private for-profit university. I had taught a few classes for this school part-time, and was invited to apply to become its doctoral clinical psychology program chair. As a teacher, I did not notice any blatant abuses, although I did notice that many students were underprepared for graduate school and were not making adequate academic progress. Things were arranged well for me, and this school paid better than most adjunct positions I had held, so I simply did my job, and I had a number of creative and talented students with whom I enjoyed working. However, I accepted the role of chair and then began to see what was really happening. Essentially, the school’s own rules were not being followed, such as upholding admissions standards. There were minimum standards set to ensure students were adequately prepared for doctoral studies, but these were systematically waived as a so-called experiment to test whether less prepared students could do as well as the students admitted under the standards. In fact, large numbers of unprepared students were admitted through this loophole, and almost all did poorly, but this provided huge revenue to the school.

One astounding fact I discovered once in the chair role was that there were more than a thousand doctoral students in that clinical psychology program, and yet there were only two full-time faculty. Both were graduates of this very school, and one was not even a clinical graduate but had her doctorate in general psychology—and neither were licensed as psychologists. All other faculty in this program were adjuncts, like I had been, and presumably worked contentedly in oblivion to abuses that I immediately saw as the new chair. Although I could never nail down the exact graduation versus attrition rates, I noticed very few students graduated from this program, and many were left with “unforgiveable” (i.e., could not be relieved through bankruptcy or other usual legal means) student loan debts in excess of $200,000 without having obtained a degree. Consequently, I saw this as another moment of truth, and collected data as best I could and, then, went to the school’s accreditor as a “whistle-blower.” Unfortunately, the outcome was not satisfying as the accreditor chose to turn a blind eye to these abuses. I note that this school has amazing wealth and power, with close political ties at the highest level of federal, not just state, government, and threatened me with legal consequences, so I did not push any further. I made this decision on a pragmatic basis, as I thought I had little further chance of fixing this problem and I took the legal threat very seriously (as the school had the motive and means to carry it out), which links into the difference between being a hero and a fool, as to sacrifice oneself for a lost, even if laudable, cause seems more foolish than heroic.

Remaining an Activist in Late Career Moments of Truth

As a retired professor and psychologist in my late career, I remain active in a number of professional roles. Some of these involve moments of truth, but seldom any longer require my putting significant skin in the game. After all, I no longer need to make a living by holding a job or depend on upholding some stilted reputation to do exciting professional things.

One example of such a moment of truth involves debunking dubious scientific findings. I was approached by a master’s degree student who was new to psychology, but thought something he was being taught in his graduate program was bunk. He was looking for a senior psychologist who could help him demonstrate this, and I was the last in a long list of people from whom he had sought help, many before me having turned him down. Seeing this as a moment of truth, he and I formed a research team, initially with a prominent mathematician as we were examining a mathematical claim, in which we looked closely at one of the most highly respected findings made by positive psychology, namely that there is a tipping point in the ratio of positive to negative emotions that bifurcates flourishing from languishing in a variety of settings. The discovery of the so-called “critical positivity ratio” was published in the American Psychologist, the flagship journal of the American Psychological Association (APA; Fredrickson & Losada, 2005), and was precisely defined as 2.9013; this dubious claim resulted in large numbers of scholarly citations (nearly a 1,000), a huge number of Google hits (nearly a million), and numerous applications, many involving big dollars (e.g., the largest ever social science research program, namely the Comprehensive Soldier Fitness Program, which exceeded $100,000,000 and was partially based on this claim; Friedman & Robbins, 2012), all accompanied by huge amounts of international publicity. Our team was able to show that the mathematics behind this claim was simply wrong (Brown, Sokal, & Friedman, 2013), and resulted in a correction to the scientific record being published. What was interesting in terms of a moment of truth involved APA’s initial refusal to review our critique, as well as its subsequent foot-dragging. All of this had to be addressed with a variety of appeals and even legal threats, but in the end, this debunking was published. The skin in this game, incidentally, was less salient to me in late career, whereas an early career academic would have had to risk making powerful political enemies by challenging the scientific establishment for its “romantic scientism” (Brown, Sokal, & Friedman, 2014). And there was at least one possible retaliation, as I submitted a comment on a different topic that was initially rejected without a review by the American Psychologist. This was an outcome I accepted, at least until I discovered that the very person whose work I had previously debunked was copied on the rejection letter—and might have been involved in the rejection decision in some editorial capacity. I only suspect this involvement because, when I mentioned this to the journal’s managing editor by appealing my article’s rejection as being a possible conflict of interest, my article was promptly peer reviewed and subsequently published (see Friedman, 2015b).

Rather than welcoming that science is self-correcting, and despite that the critical positivity ratio clearly warranted debunking, many within positive psychology considered this to be a hostile act, and argued that this mathematical error was simply an anomaly involving an isolated incident, despite its gravity. Consequently, the team composed of Brown and me, along with some new colleagues, challenged two other high-profile studies from the same first author of the critical positivity claim that had also garnered significant media attention (see Brown, MacDonald, Samanta, Friedman, & Coyne, 2014; Heathers, Brown, Coyne, & Friedman, 2015). Our critiques led to both being corrected (note: another article we similarly critiqued has not yet earned a correction—see Brown, MacDonald, Samanta, Friedman, & Coyne, 2016). Again, all of these efforts involved considerable political wrangling in the face of strong vested interests resisting the correction of the scientific record. Responding to Brown’s appeal for help was a moment of truth, but at late career, it did not hold significant risk to me. The risks his request required for those still in the so-called trenches of earning a living as a psychologist is why I speculate that some of the others whom he had approached before me declined to help him (note: I was told this by several people who declined to help and want to remain anonymous).

The last case I share involves the Florida Psychological Association. In asking a simple question about an important issue, I was told “wrong” information by its then president. I challenged this misrepresentation, but to no avail—and the result was my membership in that organization to which I had belonged for nearly four decades was terminated. I was also labeled with a number of unflattering terms, all for expecting a professional psychological organization to be truthful. As a moment of truth for me, I could have walked away. Instead, I chose to fight this, and am now pursuing legal action to force this affiliate of the APA to act honorably. Such a legal action has little likelihood of any significant monetary gain, but it does not really require much skin in the game, as it only risks my possibly losing some legal costs. To decide to fight such a battle to help the profession of psychology operate with integrity earlier in my career would have exemplified what I think fits the definition of everyday heroism, but these days, I see it just as another opportunity for giving to my profession by demanding its honesty.

Conclusion

Psychologists often face dilemmas during moments of truth that offer opportunities for enacting everyday heroism. In doing so, they can also develop broader knowledge and skill related to heroism, which can be applied to domains beyond the narrow confines of professional practice. As an advocate for social justice and environmental sustainability (Friedman, 2014), I have successfully engaged in a few important battles, such as helping stop the building of a coal-burning power plant adjacent to a fragile wilderness area and working toward reconciling various social conflicts. I have also take some lumps not involving coal, as many of my efforts have not resulted in the desired effects and have incurred costs, and even the ones that had good outcomes were often accompanied by penalties. For example, many of my neighbors saw the coal-burning power plant as an opportunity for creating jobs that were sorely needed in the rural area where I live, and did not appreciate my environmental concern, whereas I focused on these environmental concerns over their felt needs. From a more visceral level, I often have had sleepless nights and other anxious symptoms while second-guessing my own motives and the relative cost-to-benefit ratio of the risks I took that involved not only me but also the welfare of my family and others close to me.

In this regard, I speculate about the implications of my experiences for new psychologists entering the field. I can hardly fault anyone who chooses to operate within the usual ethical and legal parameters of the profession, while actively avoiding any heroic involvement. However, this is not part of my self-narrative, although I strive to be neither a coward nor a fool.

I also lament some of the profession’s institutional structures that promote a culture discouraging heroism. For example, risk management continuing education programs actively discourage anything approaching heroism, as these are often sponsored by professional liability insurance companies whose vested interest is on their corporate profit and not on public service or the welfare of those covered by their policies. I also sadly reflect on what I see as a growing conservativism within psychology as a profession. Psychotherapy can be used as a vehicle for oppressive social control as well as for powerful liberation, while science can be used to accomplish great good or misused to support destructive purposes. When people with legitimate grievances regarding social and environmental injustices are told to manage their internal stress rather than to become activists for change, I think psychology loses its legitimacy by becoming a tool supporting what is often a corrupt status quo. The profession of psychology as a science and a practice can thus serve to both stymie and promote heroism. I hope my sharing a few examples in which I took risks during my career might stimulate others to consider how heroism might play a role in their everyday opportunities within psychology.

Last, I want to share how the “larger picture” related to heroism can be understood through transpersonal psychology, and for me, this is through the construct of self-expansiveness (Friedman, 1983, 2015/2013) in which boundaries between self and other, and even self and the world (including the cosmos as a whole), can be seen as permeable. Viewing others as an alternate manifestation of oneself can promote heroism, as one’s individual life is not viewed as separate from what might need heroic protecting through an expanded identification with broader Self-interests (the capitalized “S” in “Self” refers to the potential of embracing a transpersonal sense of union with all that exists, perhaps even beyond time and space). As part of my being an advocate for social justice, and my learning how to fight to do good things in the world, I also ground my views in scientific transpersonal psychology (Friedman, 2002, 2015a). To be able to seize opportunities to engage in everyday heroism is a gift that being a psychologist often allows, and this reflects my worldview that being radically interconnected with the cosmos as a whole requires such action.