Parapsychologist?

Question

what is a parapsychologist?

what do they do?

Answer 1

someone who studies the evidence for such psychological phenomena as psychokinesis and telepathy and clairvoyance

Answer 2

It depends on how you use the definition. Technically a parapsychologist is someone that holds a doctorate degree in parapsychology. Just like someone is not a psychologist unless they have a doctorate degree.

However, most people use the word to mean anyone that is involved in parapsychology research. Most people working in the field of parapsychology hold doctoral degrees in a conventional science (psychology, physics, medicine, biology) and refer to themselves by those titles. For example Rupert Sheldrake (link below) conducts ESP experiments on animal but he is a biologist (and calls himself such) not a parapsychologist.

Parapsychology as defined by the Parapsychological Association (link below) is

"Parapsychology is the scientific and scholarly study of three kinds of unusual events (ESP, mind-matter interaction, and survival), which are associated with human experience. The existence of these phenomena suggest that the strict subjective/objective dichotomy proposed by the old paradigm (see below) may not be quite so clear-cut as once thought. Instead, these phenomena may be part of a spectrum of what is possible, with some events and experiences occasionally falling between purely subjective and purely objective. We call such phenomena "anomalous" because they are difficult to explain within current scientific models.

Parapsychology only studies those anomalies that fall into one of three general categories: ESP (terms are defined below), mind-matter interaction (previously known as psychokinesis), and phenomena suggestive of survival after bodily death, including near-death experiences, apparitions, and reincarnation. Most parapsychologists today expect that further research will eventually explain these anomalies in scientific terms, although it is not clear whether they can be fully understood without significant (some might say revolutionary) expansions of the current state of scientific knowledge. Other researchers take the stance that existing scientific models of perception and memory are adequate to explain some or all parapsychological phenomena."

(link below)

Psi

Answer 3

find rational explanations for the 'paranormal' spectrum

its a good interesting subject

Answer 4

A parapsychologists studies para-science, which is phenomena  or theories that don't qualify as science for a number of reasons. ESP, psychokinesis, clairvoyance, etc.

Psi