The Strange Start of Psychology at the National University of Singapore (NUS Department of Psychology, 2021), showcases the history of the NUS Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences' Department of Psychology, Singapore's oldest psychology programme. The programme, which kicked off during the 86/87 academic year at the Department of Social Work (renamed the Department of Social Work and Psychology), became a department in 2005.

Author Dr John Michael Elliott (1945-2019), who was at the time a psychologist at the then Ministry of Social Affairs, joined the programme six weeks after it began and retired in 2018.

As the book explains, in Singapore, historically psychology was viewed more as clinical work that supported psychiatry, and mental health care was deprioritized. Instead, during the island's colonial era, patients requiring mental health treatment were institutionalized in The Insane Hospital, which commenced operations in 1841 with 30 beds. This hospital evolved into The Lunatic Asylum (1862, 100 beds), followed by The New Lunatic Asylum (1887, 300 beds), and then the Mental Hospital in 1928, which became Woodbridge Hospital in 1951.

 

In 1993, Woodbridge Hospital moved to Buangkok Green, becoming the Institute of Mental Health's new inpatient facility.

There was a definite need for trained psychologists in Singapore, as well as a programme to train them, since, post-independence, all psychologists in the country completed their education abroad. When the NUS psychology programme got started in July 1986, however, the discipline was still often seen as non-Asian and more as medical training than a social sciences course, and also as a luxury in the realm of social work. The Department of Social Work was an ideal place for the new programme, Dr Elliott notes, as it would contribute to the department's own development, enabling it to offer an honours degree in social work and psychology.

 

 

The NUS psychology programme's initial cohort had 72 students and 1 staff and grew rapidly. There are currently around 900 students in the introductory psychology module and 220 honours graduates annually. At its inception 35 years ago the programme offered a three year general degree with a competitive fourth year honours degree. In 1989, 50 students received a general degree, 11 of whom went on to get an honours degree. Today, the department's own clinical psychology master's programme graduates approximately 15 annually, and psychology graduate students can also obtain a Master of Social Sciences or PhD.

The NUS Department of Psychology ranks 16 out of 303 on the Quacquarelli Symonds list and psychology is a well recognized and respected course of study in Singapore. Many graduates go on to engage in psychological work in the public sector, such as in Singapore's Ministries of Health, Defense, Home Affairs, and Social and Family Development. A number of graduates are also employed in private sector positions involving psychological work like human resource management and marketing, or in private practice in the fields of clinical, counselling, and industrial-organisational psychology, among others.

 

We discussed the The Strange Start of Psychology at the National University of Singapore, which has an online launch on Friday, 10th December at 11 am, with Associate Professor Winston D. Goh, the current NUS Department of Psychology Head, and Emeritus Professor S. Vasoo, who led the then NUS Department of Social Work and Psychology from 1987 to 1999.

 

 

 

 

 

A/P Vasoo Q & A

1. What were your most memorable experiences developing the new psychology programme during your term leading the NUS Department of Social Work and Psychology?

I have been teaching students and working with academic staff for about 50 years. In the course of these years, I always encouraged and advised them not to look back on events that had surpassed them. This is because memorable matters would not come back and one would not be able to deal with the bygones. No point spending time lamenting over things that have gone past as it can be emotionally costly and tiring. I always encourage students and academic staff to look ahead on events that will be forthcoming as these can be managed as they unfold and are within their control. I am of the opinion that various human issues that we can grasp at hand are largely solvable as long as we persistently tackle them with empathy. It is only with good empathy that we can have clearer insights to deal with human issues and relationships.

 

I recall that one of the challenging tasks that I had to deal with as the Head of the Department of Social Work and Psychology was to quickly recruit a group of Psychology academic staff to deliver the undergraduate psychology programme in 1986. I had selected staff with diverse psychology training such as a developmental psychologist, a cognitive psychologist, a social psychologist, an experimental psychologist, a clinical psychologist, and a psycholinguist. You can imagine with these varied backgrounds coming together to agree on a basic undergraduate curriculum was not easy. Each of them had different hobby horses to ride, which was understandable while mind-boggling, as there were protracted views within the group and at times heated arguments that I had to mediate. I brokered a deal as a non-partisan and drew a consensus among the different psychological academic personalities for the need to develop a top-notch undergraduate psychology programme based on the best psychology departments in the United Kingdom and United States. The foundation laid for the early phase of the psychology programme saw the fruition of some of our top psychology scholars in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. I am indeed proud to witness that some of these accomplished scholars have become lead anchors of the NUS Department of Psychology and later appointed Heads. The nurturance of these top scholars have helped stabilize the psychology programme and provided succession of leadership. They also supported the Deanery of the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences.

 

2. What can psychologists learn from social workers, and what can social workers learn from psychologists?

To put it simply, both psychology and social work are non-identical twin disciplines with each having to deal with human behaviour and social issues. As a psychologist, one has to understand human behaviour and the cause of such behaviour, and as a social worker, one has to understand the cause of social and human problems and then enable people to find ways to problem solve. Both disciplines deal with human and psychosocial issues, and human behaviour requires a multidisciplinary focus. I would say that no single discipline is adequate to solve human life course issues. I must add that a good psychologist will require social work lenses and a competent social worker needs to have helpful psychological lenses. As one will appreciate, we are all human beings and are ecologically bounded. Therefore both psychological and social work analyses are critical to better appreciate human behaviour and social interactions, and these can contribute to effective human and social problem solving.

 

3. What do you see as the most notable impacts in practice of social work and psychology in Singapore so far and in the future?

Psychology graduates as well as social work graduates are making robust contributions in public service, private enterprises, and non-governmental organisations. Psychologists hold highly respectable positions in areas such as clinical services, rehabilitation, health, human resources, education, the armed forces and the police, besides others. Increasingly, psychologists are needed to contribute psychological solutions to strengthen our psychological defences against various societal crises.

Likewise, social workers are also appointed in highly regarded positions in fields such as social services, rehabilitation, health, social research, counselling and mental health, education, the armed forces, and childcare, among others. Both psychologists and social workers have so far given valuable suggestions and inputs to policy changes to the care and protection of children, youth, and women, and in the support of the vulnerable and the promotion of inclusiveness of people with special needs.

Singapore like the rest of the world will be confronted with serious social and ecological changes, including the consequences of unabated climate change. In view of these changing scenarios, our future psychologists will have to be equipped with psychological skills in assessing the impact of human behaviour on mitigating issues related to the environment and climate change as well in order to have good insight into the social and psychological consequences of an ageing Singapore community. Trainee social workers can be better equipped with social analytical skills, which will make them more versatile in predicting specific vulnerable sectors of the community. Thereby, the future social workers can enhance their community problem solving capacity by building more support networks to build a socially healthy community. Specifically, more attention can be paid by both social workers and psychologists to deal with the social and psychological implications of the growing social divide between the haves and have-nots, and find more innovative ways to deliver services to enable the less well-off to move up.

 

A/P Goh Q & A 

1. What are some of your fondest memories of Dr John Elliott, first as a teacher, and later as a colleague?

John encouraged critical thinking and we always had very illuminating discussions during his tutorials (see photo on page 28); of course, tutorials at that time only had between 5 and 7 students, so very difficult to hide! He was quite a tough marker though - never got an A from him for my term papers; but then again, As were given out very sparingly during that period (and there were no CAs at that time; the term paper grades were not counted). As a colleague, he was always willing to give advice to young hires, and his experience helped me immensely in the crafting of exam questions when I first started helming my own modules. I also remember he was very particular in signing or agreeing to legal documents - he once refused to upload materials into IVLE (the forerunner of LumiNUS) because he felt NUS did not provide enough protection for staff.

 

 

2. What motivated you to study psychology at NUS as an honours and then Masters student, and what prompted you to return to the department to teach and carry out research projects?

I was in the pre-med programme in junior college, so the path seemed straightforward for me. But I started reading about psychology as a course in various government information booklets and thought this was more interesting than medicine - I also didn't do well at the A levels, so perhaps this was fate telling me to take another path. However, this meant you had to go overseas as there was no psychology programme offered locally and my parents could not afford an overseas education. So when I was accepted in FASS, I was set to major in the closest one at the time - Sociology. I didn't start right away as I had to serve National Service; and in my second year of NS, I found out that NUS had started a psychology programme (again, fate may have been looking out for me!). Fortunately, I did well enough in the aptitude test (required then) to be allowed to major in Psychology. Everyone was hoping to do Honours, and at the time, you had to be invited, so I was elated when the Department of Social Work and Psychology offered me Honours, no motivation required. As for the Masters, I worked as an RA after completing my Honours, so I wanted to see if a research and academic career appealed to me, and decided to do my Masters while I was a TA for the Department. After that, NUS funded my PhD overseas on a staff development scheme, so I was obligated to return to serve a bond. In a sense, NUS Psychology has been my home since I started as an undergrad student, for I never left!

 

3. What future plans are in the works for NUS Psychology and how do they connect to the need for scholars and practitioners of the discipline in Singapore and the region?

Top psychology departments in the world are very well resourced with research spaces, laboratories, and facilities; so we hope to move in that direction and provide all of our research-active staff dedicated lab spaces to do research that will benefit Singapore and the discipline in general. We will also need to see how many more students (we have always been one of the more in-demand majors since inception) will want to be Psychology majors with the advent of the College of Humanities and Sciences, and perhaps develop various teaching innovations to serve an even more expanded student body (the days of 5-7 pax tutorials, or a 10-student Honours cohort in my year, are long gone). But we have very good educators in the department, so I am not worried about that. Our Clinical Psychology Masters programme is also in very high demand, given the focus on mental health needs nowadays. So we will need to see how we can support training for manpower needs in the public and private sectors in terms of workshops for associate psychologists, in additional to training people to be professional clinical psychologists.

 

Thank you very much for your time and answers, Prof Vasoo and A/P Goh! Readers can learn more about the history of the NUS Department of Psychology here. Watch the book launch that took place on Friday December 10th at 11 AM on  FASS' YouTube channel.

Order the book here or scan the QR code. 

View the flyer here.