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My dear friend Dr. Gary Namie, co-founder of the Workplace Bullying Institute, states what I regard as an ultimate compliment when he says that I’m one of the most “psychologized” law professors and lawyers he’s ever known. By that, he means that I’ve repeatedly shown an ability and inclination to apply psychological insights to law and public policy. Much of his observation traces to our shared commitment to prevent, stop, and respond to bullying at work.
Striving to understand the dynamics of workplace bullying has indeed led me to become more grounded in pertinent aspects of psychology. This includes comprehending not only the organizational and social aspects that feed into bullying behaviors at work, but also the clinical aspects that shed light on the psychological states of both aggressors and targets. This, in turn, has critically informed my work on drafting and advocating for legal protections against workplace bullying.
In fact, I credit my psychological dives into workplace bullying for leading me to therapeutic jurisprudence (“TJ”), the multidisciplinary field of legal theory and practice that examines the therapeutic and anti-therapeutic properties of law, legal procedures, and legal institutions. In 2017, I served as the founding board chair of the new International Society for Therapeutic Jurisprudence, a non-profit, learned society established to support TJ-related public education, scholarly work, and best practices in the legal profession and judiciary.
I have found myself steadily advocating for the deeper psychologizing of law and public policy. Last year, for example, I penned a blog piece, “A Case for Therapeutic Jurisprudence in Legal Education and the Legal Profession,” calling for the wider mainstreaming of TJ. In 2020, I examined whether public policy should center on society’s overall sense of well-being in an essay appearing in The American Commentator. I have presented about the need for trauma-informed law and public policy and have a law review article in the works about it.
Now, I also wish to call for the wider application of psychological insights to our political realm. Regardless of what happens at the ballot box next week, this inquiry should examine how our civic culture has become so toxic and how Donald Trump — a man utterly without compassion or conscience — stands a respectable chance to regain the White House. This campaign season alone has provided a bounty of significant and disturbing reportage and commentary on the psychological health of our presidential candidates and of the electorate in general.
In sum, this tripartite perspective on psychologizing law, public policy, and politics covers a lot of important ground. It ranges from a broad inquiry into the civic health of our world writ large, to a more specific focus on topics such as bullying at work.
I look forward to sharing more plans for this work during the months ahead.