I don’t mean to come off like a scientologist, but I truly agree that psychiatry is the most fraudulent discipline in all of health care. Naturopathy is more valid than psychiatry. These drugs they prescribe are dangerous and have NEVER been proven to correct ANY kind of “chemical imbalance”. In fact, the truth is that all psychiatric drugs work by DISRUPTING normal chemical processes in the brain. SSRIs do nothing more than dampen your emotions and make you complacent with your shitty existence. They do not enhance mental health- they merely cause you to become dependent on mind-altering drugs to keep you from smashing your nuts with a hammer.
As for psychology, I’m convinced that the entire field was born out of the need to have a cake major for dumb college kids who couldn’t hack it if they had to study something legitimate. Psychological “counseling” is so fabulously worthless. Most people just “think” that it helps because they enjoy having an opporunity to complain to someone about their shitty lives, but the counseling itself does nothing useful. Psychologists are not capable of providing any kind of theraputic intervention. They just sit their on their fat asses in their stupid psychologist chairs and pretend to have some kind of special perspective on life. Then they go home and snort coke like everyone else.
If the mind was simple enough for us to understand, we wouldn’t be able to understand it.
I’ve talked to alot of my friends who study the field, and they say half of the work is trying to figure out a way to justify the works existance.
One just finished his Masters, and he told me he thinks most of it is garbage; he only studied/now works in it because [he believes to be] it is profitable, and easy.
“Just give them a questionaire to fill out, pick it up at the end, count it, and tell them how ‘pyschopathic’ they are. Its great!”
This is the most retarded thread ever started. OK, maybe not. But it’s up there.
Do you have any knowledge whatsoever of the field? Do you have any point of reference?
By your token I can say that physics is a pseudoscience because it’s all theory.
Psychology grew out of Philosophy and Medicine and has a history that rivals Mathematics in age. It was not “Thought up to give dumb kids something to study”.
Pass Psych 3. Hell, pass psych 1. Come talk to me then.
Iffyboats, I think you’re off-base when it comes to psychology.
I may be wrong, but going by what you’ve said you seem to be suffering from misunderstandings about psychological science. This is quite common because most people are only exposed to psychology via the media and pop psychology books.
I suggest you read Keith Stanovich’s book “How to Think Straight About Psychology.”
Ignorance is a bless, I guess. It seems to give you paradoxically the right be a blunt know-it-all without having a single well-funded argument.
In no way I can see a glimpse of knowledge about the field in your post.
Did you ever followed a course of advanced statistical analysis, neurofysiology and -psychology, behavioral and learning psychology, logic reasoning, behavioral neuroscience, differential psychology, theoretical and experimental psychology, etc…?
If you have, you should know that we are trained in problemanalysis and -solving. We HAVE to generate hypotheses that we HAVE to test to reality with carefully designed and overall approved methods, and than still HAVE to ask us the question if the results are valid and evaluate the whole process.
This type of reasoning SHOULD be the cornerstone of everything done in psychology (experimental psychology, diagnostical psychology, every type of psychotherapy,…). If you don’t, you don’t have the competence to be a psychologist (IMHO).It sets the standard for what is good, usefull knowledge. Something I don’t see in your post.
[quote]iflyboats wrote:
I don’t mean to come off like a scientologist, but I truly agree that psychiatry is the most fraudulent discipline in all of health care. Naturopathy is more valid than psychiatry. [/quote]
Anything is more valid than psychiatry, even phrenology. In phrenology you always get the same answer a second time.
Now; what do you and Tom Cruise suggest we do with the millions that suffer from Schizophrenia, Severe Bi-Polar Illness, Deep Depression and Criminal Insanity?
Give them St. John’s Wort and tell them to go home, pray to the Nordic Gods on Vahala and let their body heal themselves?
How about just shoot and gas them all if that doesn’t work? (Ooops…that’s been tried…)
WHAT IS YOUR SOLUTION FOR THE MILLIONS SUFFERING FROM SEVERE MENTAL ILLNESS?
[quote]S-Lifter wrote:
Anything is more valid than psychiatry, even phrenology. In phrenology you always get the same answer a second time.
[/quote]
Getting the same answer a second time around doesn’t necessarily validate a science. Gait analysis is a great example; take the same motion capture data to 10 different doctors and you get 10 different recommendations and plans of action. Does this mean the motion capture is flawed? No, it means that there are a number of different answers that are more or less “correct.”
I agree that psychology/psychiatry are a bit wonky right now. I do have some first hand experience with it; I’ve been evaluated and had around 6 meetings with a psychologist who was trying to analyze me. It’s so easy to fool them it almost made me cry.
He thought I truly hated my mother and wanted to eat babies. Granted, I was completely fucking with him, but that should have been caught. Instead I was given a course of action to fix these supposed problems. Maybe I’m a good actor, I dunno.
I’ve also dated two psychology majors and known a few dozen others. They’re the most emotionally unstable and fucked up individuals I’ve ever met. I think the types of people the field attracts are a major problem as well.
I will say that the neurochem stuff is probably the most legitimate part of the field, though it’s still in its infancy. That’s probably where the most headway is to be had, since behavior in and of itself is such a wishy-washy area to study.
To the OP - do you even know how an SSRI works? They’re probably the best understood and most useful of all the so-called brain drugs.
Psychiatry/Psychology IS a fascinating study but I agree that its only practical application is the simple benefit of “talking about it” with an attentive/caring listener. The idea that a therapist can be “trained” to truly comprehend and repair another persons mental condition seems a bit ludicrous to me.
I rank the field right up there with religion: If you need it and it helps you, fine. Just accept the fact that you’ve chosen to off-load your own personal responsibilities in life onto someone/something else.
Man, you guys know that (for instance) to get over a depression is by get off your ass and be active (behavioral activation, has a lot of research to back it up)?? Not much talking there. Systematic desensitisation to overcome phobias…not much talking there. Off course we are aware of it’s limitations, but it’s our job to find a solution for that.
There’s a lot more to therapy than just talking in a couch. Look up behavioral and cognitive therapy. There are different schools of therapy, you know.
Therapy is not just talking about a problem. The purpose is to find the best way to overcome the limitations because of a problem. Itsure is not always possible to solve it completely, but that doesn’t mean that we just talk about it.
I went to a “marriage councellor” and I learned a lot about myself and how the mind works, why people behave the way they do, etc. It helped me to better deal with my spouse, parents, children, employees, customers, everyone I bump into in life, and that makes me more sucessful in every relationship I am involved in. I only wish I knew all this stuff a long time ago, and I know I still have a lot more to learn. Everybody should study psychology, they’d be a lot happier and more sucessful.
Whether you study Freud or Jung or some more recent literature, the whole issue of how the mind works and how it affects how everyone thinks and behaves is facinating and useful information, unless you intend to become a hermit.
[quote]iflyboats wrote:
I don’t mean to come off like a scientologist, but I truly agree that psychiatry is the most fraudulent discipline in all of health care. Naturopathy is more valid than psychiatry. These drugs they prescribe are dangerous and have NEVER been proven to correct ANY kind of “chemical imbalance”. In fact, the truth is that all psychiatric drugs work by DISRUPTING normal chemical processes in the brain. SSRIs do nothing more than dampen your emotions and make you complacent with your shitty existence. They do not enhance mental health- they merely cause you to become dependent on mind-altering drugs to keep you from smashing your nuts with a hammer.
As for psychology, I’m convinced that the entire field was born out of the need to have a cake major for dumb college kids who couldn’t hack it if they had to study something legitimate. Psychological “counseling” is so fabulously worthless. Most people just “think” that it helps because they enjoy having an opporunity to complain to someone about their shitty lives, but the counseling itself does nothing useful. Psychologists are not capable of providing any kind of theraputic intervention. They just sit their on their fat asses in their stupid psychologist chairs and pretend to have some kind of special perspective on life. Then they go home and snort coke like everyone else.[/quote]
[b]“A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.”
~Max Planck, A Scientific Autobiography and Other Papers, 1949[/b]
[quote]ElbowStrike wrote:
Nominal Prospect wrote:
This is a fantastic archive of articles on “real psychology”, the best I’ve yet encountered. http://www.heretical.com/main.html#directory
Complete with a reversed swastika and articles against race-mixing and “the Jewish conspiracy” nonetheless.
– ElbowStrike[/quote]
It’s a fascinating, brilliant, thought-provoking and controversial website. Read it sometime and maybe you’ll agree.
P.S. What were you expecting from “heretical.com”? The psychology/sociobiology articles are dead on…in my view.