 Psychologist Robert A. Baker listed Wickland and Arthur Guirdham as early psychiatrists who preferred to "ignore the science and embrace the supernatural".Wickland founded the National Psychological Institute in Los Angeles, California to study psychic phenomena.A letter published in a 1918 issue of the journal "Science" criticized the institute's promotion of psychic research "under the name of psychology" as an example of "pseudo-psychology", adding that "the use of such a name involves bad taste and delusion."