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Wikipedia:WikiProject Deletion sorting/Psychology

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This is a collection of discussions on the deletion of articles related to Psychology. It is one of many deletion lists coordinated by WikiProject Deletion sorting. Anyone can help maintain the list on this page.

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For further information see Wikipedia's deletion policy and WP:AfD for general information about Articles for Deletion, including a list of article deletions sorted by day of nomination.

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See also: Behavioural science-related deletions


Psychology

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Robert Gordon (psychologist, born 1944)

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Robert Gordon (psychologist, born 1944) (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View AfD | edits since nomination)
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Non-notable psychologist. I don't think he meets WP:GNG or WP:NPROF. Gheus (talk) 02:32, 31 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Leiden school

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Leiden school (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View AfD | edits since nomination)
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I looked for reliable independent sources to improve the article with and came up empty. As it stands, it is supported by a single paper by one of the members of said school. My conclusion is that the topic does not meet WP:NOTABILITY requirements.

The passing mentions of the Leiden school I was able to find in academic literature that concern some of the same scholars, such as Frederik Kortlandt, refer to them in light of their ideas in historical linguistics, a topic completely different from the memetic conception of language described here (as the article itself currently notes). This is not enough to save the article by pivoting it to this angle because these mentions of a "Leiden school" are trivial and do not constitute significant coverage. Otherwise, these authors and their contributions are already thoroughly covered on Wikipedia.

Another common mention I could find is that of the Leiden school of anthropology. The article Structural anthropology mistakenly links to this article as the main article on the Leiden school of anthropology. This is a completely different and unrelated topic, which might be notable enough for its own article under the name Leiden school of anthropology (per WP:UCRN).

This article was previously proposed for deletion. I think the deprodding was hasty and done as a misunderstanding of my justifications for deletion. I don't think the article can be improved. The Leiden school's memetic conception of language seems to have been ignored by linguistics scholarship and therefore received no significant coverage in papers other than their own. Antibabelic (talk) 13:40, 30 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Patrick Casale

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Patrick Casale (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View AfD | edits since nomination)
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completely non-notable "therapist" - 0 independent reliable sources covering them either academically or in any other fashion. also complete and total nonsense promo. COOLIDICAE🕶 18:05, 26 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I am rewriting the content for a more objective and encyclopedic approach, and to properly illustrate it's significance as public information. Archiealibasa (talk) 18:09, 26 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The person is a notable activist and advocate for neurodivergence sensitivity, affirmation and acceptance in the community. This is illustrated by his invitation to give a TedX talk to discuss his experience living a neurodivergent/autistic/adhd/audhd individual. Archiealibasa (talk) 18:11, 26 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
That doesn't change the 1.) lack of notability, 2.) lack of sourcing to support notability elsewhere and 3.) your inability to appropriate disclose your affiliation to the subjects you've written about, so instead we're forced into this bureaucratic nonsense. Also TedX talks are worthless for notability. COOLIDICAE🕶 18:11, 26 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
If you call Wikipedia's fair process as "bureaucratic nonsense" then you're not fit to review and place judgment on other people's output. Find another job. Archiealibasa (talk) 18:13, 26 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Please keep the personal attacks to yourself please. Yes the process is bureaucratic, could it be better? Probably, but it's what we have to work with. Oaktree b (talk) 20:04, 27 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
He is well known in the neurodivergent and mental health community. Most of us don't know him, specially the reviewers here, but he is well-known, appreciated and a champion of neurodivergent inclusion and acceptance in their fast-growing community. Archiealibasa (talk) 18:12, 26 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Being well known but with no sourcing to show it doesn't help the situation. If he's in a fast-growing community, that seems to indicate that the person isn't yet notable. Oaktree b (talk) 20:31, 26 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Source assessment table
Source Independent? Reliable? Significant coverage? Count source toward GNG?
      Just a generic blurb submitted by the subject/their PR team if they have one, it's nothing more than a promotional place holder ✘ No
      as established in many prior deletion discussions, Voyage____ is basically an interview publishing that is only pay for publishing (I can link proof, again, if needed) ✘ No
      interview, from an unreliable, unknown "profit first" (lol) publication on a medical professional? ✘ No
  podcast   it's reliable for things like "my favorite color is blue"   obviously ✘ No
  his own website   reliable in that it exists and he exists   ✘ No
  same as 5, except it's a third party, or maybe second party?     ✘ No
another paid for placement in an unknown, unreliable publication     ✘ No
  probably not, this is just a medium-esque blog   see above   ✘ No
  just a listing for his services     ✘ No
  see 1     ✘ No
  podcast featuring the subject     not coverage ✘ No
  another interview     ✘ No
  probably not independent but in any case, it's not significant or relevant   just a random blog   ✘ No
  absolutely not independent, it's a podcast featuring him and it's not even a notable podcast   someone talking about themselves is not reliable for anything other than basic information like their favorite color   ✘ No
  just an apple podcast link     ✘ No
  not even about him, but it's an interview with someone else     ✘ No
  see 15     ✘ No
  see 15,17 and everything else     ✘ No
  see WP:TEDX     ✘ No
  another link to a self promo website     ✘ No
      i don't need to explain this anymore, let the giant "Enjoy 6 Days & 5 Nights on the Beautiful island of Crete, Greece. Chania is breathtaking. It's Time To Put Yourself First" pop up add do it for you ✘ No
Error: a source must be specified ? Unknown
This table may not be a final or consensus view; it may summarize developing consensus, or reflect assessments of a single editor. Created using {{source assess table}}.

COOLIDICAE🕶 20:07, 26 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Holographic consciousness

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Holographic consciousness (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View AfD | edits since nomination)
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Seemingly fringe/not notable. Went through all the citations and they are mostly irrelevant, fringe, or not reputable (at least those dealing with the supposed topic). For example, starting with the introduction; 1 and 2 don't count as they are referring to actual physics hasn't to do with the topic. 3 is a paper with 7 citations. 4 is a quackish website by the looks of it. 5. has 0 citations. 6 doesn't even mention the topic (or the word holography).

Going through the rest of the article, its all rather fringy, with no real notable citations. Pretty much all the references have less than 10 citations if they are papers at all (only 8 has more (43) and that was published in 1977). Most are random websites or books. Some are explicit fringe journals like citation 21 in the "Journal of Cosmology" which is explicitly a disreputable journal.

As for the content, seems like fringe to me, at least from a physicists perspective (definitely has no real physical basis. At most handwavy conjecture). But the main point against it stands that nowhere is there a citation that shows that this article is notable in any way in the field of consciousness research. OpenScience709 (talk) 13:54, 24 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  • Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Health and fitness and Psychology. WCQuidditch ☎ ✎ 16:19, 24 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete - the first two sources define a hologram; the rest are all primary sources. There doesn't appear to be any secondary coverage. Ping me if you find any. Bearian (talk) 13:03, 26 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep and improve. There is considerable secondary coverage of the concept in reliable sources if you look at the concept rather than the exact term "holographic consciousness." Bohm's work on it in particular, while not widely accepted, is taken seriously and has been discussed at length, although often in relation to holomovement (see here: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8632281/) The discussion of holomovement often touches explicitly on holography as a model for consciousness, but not necessarily using that exact terminology. The relation between consciousness and holography in literature on holomovement is extensive, but holomovement itself is a much broader concept. A lot of the references in the article draw on this literature and do explicitly use the term holographic consciousness, so it can require going a bit deeper than cursory perusal of references.

Likewise, a lot of the discussion of Pribram's work explicitly deals with the concept without mentioning it by name (for example: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10889214/)

A lot of the discussion of consciousness in the context of the holographic principle also directly touches on holographic theories to explain aspects of consciousness, or that relate to the idea of universal fields of consciousness of which local human consciousness is an instance or subset.

Focusing solely on the term "holographic consciousness" misses a lot of the broader discussion on the concept of holography as a model for explaining consciousness. There may be a better title for the article (anyone is welcome to propose one), but there is no question that this concept is discussed at length in dozens if not hundreds of reliable secondary sources.

Just because the concept got more attention in the 1970's has no bearing on its notability, as per WP:NTEMP.

Furthermore, the number of citations is not a sufficient metric for judging whether an article can establish notability or not. Some of the articles, such a Models for the Brain by Van Heerden, appear in reputable journals and are cited by reputable journals. Even an article with a few sources by reputable authors and journals carries more weight than an article with numerous low quality sources.

There is no denying a lot of the discussion is fringe, new age, pseudoscience etc., but considering the concept itself rather than the term alone, even this may be notable, although it might be necessary to explicitly state that it is not an accepted scientific theory, as per WP:FRINGE.

It's difficult to draw the line here between mainstream research and commentary, Eastern philosophy, and new age theories, but the proper way to deal with this is to edit it according to the guidelines of WP:UNDUE, not deletion. WP:PRESERVE applies here. Chagropango (talk) 06:28, 27 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

You have still failed to demonstrate that the topic is notable enough for Wikipedia. The reason I looked at citation numbers is not to check if the work is accurate (many low citation papers are perfectly valid academic works), but rather it was to check notability, since none of the other references showed notability as secondary sources. The only one that really could have was the summary citation 6 which seemed a review work. But that didn’t even mention the topic, or the word holography for that matter, and so failed to show that it’s notable. The two references you provide in your reply each have around 10 citations so again don’t show that this topic is notable. Additionally, since holomovement already has a page, then any argument for the notability of holographic consciousness must also be distinct from stuff relating substantially to the holomovement. As for distinguishing between mainstream research, new age movements, and pseudoscience, yes that is a slightly separate topic from notability. Although it’s one that the current article abjectly fails at, explicitly having sections dedicated to blatant pseudoscience. OpenScience709 (talk) 13:29, 27 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
To reiterate, it's necessary to distinguish between the concept and the term "holographic consciousness." What I was trying to communicate is that the concept is discussed at length under various names. If there is a term that can better represent the concept (and there may well be) then proposing to change the title of the page would be appropriate. Making a judgment on notability would require having knowledge of these various terms and reviewing the literature that uses them.

As per my understanding of WP:GNG, citation counts (or lack thereof) are not a definitive criteria for proving notability. Rather, significant coverage in reliable secondary sources is. I mentioned that secondary coverage of Bohm's work discusses the concept at length; to be more specific, Pribram's books have some review chapters which are not elaboration of Bohm's theories, but rather reviews of large bodies of primary research. For example, see the first fifty pages of Brain and Perception: Holonomy and Structure in Figural Processing. Another example of this kind of secondary coverage is Theories of Associative Recall by Longuet-Higgins.

Admittedly, this kind of coverage is much more reputable than a lot of the papers published by a range of new age institutes marginal to mainstream academia. The correct approach would be to elaborate on the more reputable research while explicitly positioning it as a speculative theory with limited traction in mainstream psychology and neurobiology and reducing the coverage based on the more fringe papers, as per WP:UNDUE. Chagropango (talk) 04:53, 29 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
1. Once again, it is your responsibility as the initial author of the article to show notability. Which the current article does not do. The approach of “trust me it is notable you just have to go look for yourself” isn’t admissible.
2. Secondly, once again, i used citation count as a proxy due to the lack of a better option (since your article once again does not demonstrate notability using secondary sources).
3. Finally you provided something that can be considered valid secondary information (Pribram, Longuet-Higgins). The question is why haven’t these been references in the article at all. And now you also need to find such viable sources for all the little subtheories you mention in the articles.
4. Now this is more concerning; it is your responsibility to be able to distinguish between legitimate research and new age nonsense and pseudoscience. The fact that you blatantly failed to do that in the current version is deeply concerning, and makes me question your ability to do so in general.
5. The correct approach isn’t to say that fringe is speculative and somewhat deemphasizes it. It is to delete it. At most one can state that there is a lot of fringe out there. But not to go into any detail on it.
6. As the article currently stands, pretty much all of it can be practically deleted since as far as I can tell, and as far as you demonstrated in the article, it’s all fringy (or not notable) or explicit pseudoscience. So if there is a legitimate article to be written on holographic theories of consciousness, this is not it and there seems to be too little if anything to salvage here. At least that’s how I currently see it. To write a proper article you need to write one on legit research, such as associated to the aforementioned secondary sources you provided in your reply (but are absent from the article). The rest can go. OpenScience709 (talk) 09:05, 29 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
My view (and apparently the initial reviewer concurred) was that the work of Bohm, Pribram, Penrose, and Hameroff relating to the concept and the broader discussion of that work (such as this or this) were sufficient to establish notability, and that there was no issue with including the various theories and practices built upon that work, although they were based upon primary sources that would not be sufficient to establish notability on their own.

I did not thoroughly check the background of each journal or conference to assess their standing in the mainstream scientific community because I was simply trying to summarize the various theories that built on Bohm and Pribram's foundational work. I was aware some were more fringey, but I didn't think it mattered since they were only getting short mentions in subsections rather than being presented as established theories in the lead section. The lead section, "Origins," and "Motivation" are based upon the work of Bohm, Pribram, Penrose and Hameroff. All of the more fringe stuff is under "Theories" and "Applications."

I don't see why the lead and first two sections should be deleted as they are based upon the aforementioned works. As for the last two sections, I can definitely see your concern, but again editing them down as per WP:UNDUE would be the appropriate approach for this situation. Chagropango (talk) 12:53, 30 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
If the article were indeed about Bohm, Pribram, Penrose/Hameroff, then you would have a point about it being notable (with articles on the relevant topics already existing holomovement, Holonomic brain theory, Orchestrated objective reduction, respectively). But the article does not talk about any of this. What you need to demonstrate is that holographic conciousness is a genuine topic of interest in the field of conciousness research in the same way that the articles demonstrated that they are notable. One proxy for this (although again secondary sources are cruical) is the citation count on some of the papers in the field, such as those that started the topic. For example,:
1. Bohm: "Wholeness and the Implicate Order" has over 10,000 citations.
2. Pribram: "Brain and Perception: Holonomy and Structure in Figural Processing" has over 1,500 citations.
3. Penrose/Hameroff: ""Consciousness in the universe" has over 1,800 citations.
Citations are a good proxy to see whether a topic is at least notable within the field (assuming its citations from within the field). That's how research works. If something is useful/interesting people build on it and therefore it is cited.
The fact that you can't point to a work that is notable in that sense in the entire article is the problem. An alternative would be to provide a wider review work by concinousness researches which mentions holographic conciousness as a legitimate area of research. Therefore you have failed to show notability. What you currently have in the "Theories" section is pretty much entirely just some quacky ideas that some people had that no one cared about, reflected by the fact that the papers have less than 10 citations usually, if any citations at all! Wikipedia is not here to list random stuff people came up with that no one cares about.
Once again, please provide me widely cited legitimate references or legimitate review works showing that holomorphic conciousness is a legitimate area of research that people care about. They have to be distinct from holomovement or holonomic brain theory since those topics already have an article. Failing that, you have not shown notability.
"I don't see why the lead and first two sections...": They should be deleted if holomorphic conciousness is not a notable area of research as then you don't have an article. Considering that so far all the "Theories" and "Applications" are pretty much fringe/not notable, you currently don't have an article.
OpenScience709 (talk) 13:36, 30 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The articles in the "Theory" section were never meant to prove notability. If you think they should not be included or that they are receiving too much coverage in the article, the place to discuss that it is the article's Talk page, not AfD.
If you take the time to read works of commentary on Bohm and Pribram, it will become very quickly clear that they extensively discuss the topic of holographic consciousness. I have already provided seven secondary sources that illustrate this:

  • Lifting the veil on Bohm’s holomovement by Lohrey and Boreham
  • Holographic Brain Theory: Super-Radiance, Memory Capacity and Control Theory by Nishiyami et al.
  • Models for the Brain by Van Heerden
  • Brain and Perception: Holonomy and Structure in Figural Processing by Pribram
  • Theories of Associative Recall by Longuet-Higgins
  • Reflections on David Bohm’s Holomovement (a chapter in A Physicist’s Model of Cosmos and Consciousness) by Renee Weber
  • Tuning the Mind in the Frequency Domain: Karl Pribram's Holonomic Brain Theory and David Bohm's Implicate Order by Shelli R. Joye

You mentioned that "Brain and Perception" by Pribram has a high citation count; some sections of the book are not original work but rather reviews of existing literature that also discuss holographic theories of consciousness and their foundations, and these sections would qualify as secondary coverage. Also, I just checked Theories of Associative Recall and found it has 93 citations per Google Scholar. Models for the Brain has 36 citations.

In any case, articles with low citation counts may be part of significant coverage in reliable, independent sources, but I would agree that if the theory were only mentioned in two or three papers with very low citation counts that that might be insufficient to demonstrate notability. However, that is not the case here.

Also, I just did a search for articles on it and found that Popular Mechanics published an article on holographic consciousness yesterday.

I think this is all beside the point though, because the discussion in books alone would probably be enough to satisfy WP:N if considered carefully and in depth. Chagropango (talk) 15:20, 30 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Again. You need to demonstrate that there exists impactful papers/research on specifically holographic conciousness. For example point me to a highly cited work on holographic conciousness. Notability in science/research is largely based on citation count, at least its a very good proxy. Like pretty much give me any Wikipedia article (say in theoretical physics which is my area of expertise) and I will be able to point to highly cited papers on it showing its notability and/or I would be able to point to notable secondary sources like classic textbooks. Give me that for this topic.
Let's go through the 7 things you just sent:
1. Seems to focus more on Bohm and either way has 12 citations.
2. 12 citations, so hardly impactful.
3. One page of text with 36 citations in 60 years so not particularly impactful either.
4. The impact of this is due to holonomy theory, not anything it may have to do with holographic conciousness.
5. This one is a bit better with 93 citations. Hardly enough to call for a Wikipedia article though.
6. This is a book on the holomovement rather than holographic conciousness, also low citation so would'nt convince me of notability at all.
7. 7 citations and dealing with holonomic brain theory.
None of this seems to show that there is any significant work being done on holographic conciousness, at least not distinct from anything relating to holomovement and holonomic brain theory.
"discussions in books would probably be enough": Not if the books are largely irrelevant fringy books. I'm sure I can find a bucketload of books on fringe science topics. Donesn't mean that said topics are notable. To me this seems to be a quality vs quantity issue. You need to demonstrate quality: that there are well-cited papers out there concerning holographic conciousness distinct from the other two topics. This would indicate the existance of a wider body of research. So far all I'm seeing in terms of work on "holographic conciousness" is that there is a small amount of people who put forth some wacky theories over the years that are pretty much ignored.
Summary: At this point I'm also getting tired of this conversation so it may be best to see what others think. As I reiterated the current article fails to show notability, being filled with fringe and literal pseudoscience. Concerningly you yourself said you struggle to distinguish between pseudoscience/new age nonesense and genuine research in this topic. It fails to even clearly define what holographic conciousness is as distinct from holomovement or holonomic brain theory. Throughout this discussion you failed to provide anything that shows notability of the topic as a whole. So I'm still for deleting this article. OpenScience709 (talk) 18:52, 30 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
That's a good point - it would improve the article to distinguish it from holonomic brain theory (which is the biological starting point for many theories of holographic consciousness) and holomovement (which is more of a universal theory of which holographic consciousness is only one constituent component).

As for our differences, it seems we are at an impasse, because now the discussion would go back to my first reply, which was distinguishing the term "holographic consciousness" from the concept, which could include things like attempts to use holographic models to explain associative recall, etc.

So we can just leave it to other editors to consider. I would ask though that we put it up for discussion again, because the other editors who commented did not really add any perspective on our respective view points in this discussion and how they relate to Wikipedia policies. I would hope that we could get some editors involved in related projects such as those related to consciousness research to offer their opinion as well since they might be better acquainted with the literature than us.

Anyway, thanks for your attention to the article and for the lively discussion! Chagropango (talk) 17:05, 31 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Despite your contribution above, I do not wish to change my ivote below. - Roxy the dog 17:12, 31 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
That's too much SYNTH going on. If you have to explain it using a wall of text, it's not notable. Oaktree b (talk) 19:39, 31 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Sandstein 15:30, 31 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete: Seems like much SYNTH going on, I'm not overly impressed with the sourcing presented, as explained above. I'd be willing to revisit if others can comment, but it looks non-RS to me. Oaktree b (talk) 19:38, 31 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

--Setwardo (talk) 15:49, 24 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Proposed deletions

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