Psychology is Bullshit

[Mikedamaniak]

Okay, i'm not just hating on psychology without a reason, but actually saying why it's an irrational study, not much better than Alchemy and astrology.

I don't know if anyone else notices this, but psychology is more of an art than a science, but society treats it like a science, and it doesn't sound like a good idea for artists to be allowed to diagnose people with a mental condition. That's a job for doctors and scientists.

Every art has a science behind it. Artists can tell you to get a good "feel for it", but a scientist can explain to you why that technique works. It's true that psychology has discovered some amazing things, but it took way longer to discover these things, and the explanations for these discoveries are vague. Neuroscience, the science behind the art of psychology can explain these thing a lot better

For example, Autism. Psychologists have noticed that some people are very smart, but not social at all, and that something's missing from them. To diagnose someone with autism, they do a bunch of complicated, wishy-washy, head-game, "tests", that often have false results. Neuroscientists can diagnose autism easily with a brain scan, that looks high activity right behind the forehead, the thinking part of the brain, and low activity in the back of the brain, which makes emotional responses. They can also do blood tests that look for low oxytocin, the main hormone that creates social responses. What's more, neuroscience has found that autism is in some ways just an oxytocin deficit, and can be treated by oxytocin nasal spray. When the body gets hit with oxytocin once every few days, the autistic brain begins to see what being social is all about, and starts to establish neuro-connections and make oxytocin on it's own.

It's popular to get small children psychologically tested and labelled with a personality type or disorder or something like that, but little Tommy will see through the test, and the test will not get good results. People only agree with the results because they look for ways that the results might be true, and forget to take the psychologist with a grain of salt.

[LouBerry]

Okay, i'm not just hating on psychology without a reason, but actually saying why it's an irrational study, not much better than Alchemy and astrology.

I don't know if anyone else notices this, but psychology is more of an art than a science, but society treats it like a science, and it doesn't sound like a good idea for artists to be allowed to diagnose people with a mental condition. That's a job for doctors and scientists.

Do you even know anything about Psychology? Where the Hell would we be without it? Medical doctors have no idea what to do about mental illnesses. And Scientists? Really? Yes, lets put the worlds mental heath on the shoulders of scientists. How about you go ask all the people who would be DEAD right now, if not for Psychiatrists, how they feel about that?

[ksdnfkfr]

Okay, i'm not just hating on psychology without a reason, but actually saying why it's an irrational study, not much better than Alchemy and astrology.

I don't know if anyone else notices this, but psychology is more of an art than a science, but society treats it like a science, and it doesn't sound like a good idea for artists to be allowed to diagnose people with a mental condition. That's a job for doctors and scientists.

And what methods are doctors supposed to use to
diagnose mental illness with other than psychology?
Most doctors refer patients with mental illness issues
to psychologists.

I have kinda bad autism and other stuff like depression.
I was unresponsive and did not talk until after the
age of three - and was still mostly unresponsive and
barely talked up until after age seven.
I was therapists who helped me progress as far as I have.
It was also therapy that helped me get over self harm.
My regular doctor did not do much along those lines except
refer me.

I do not think scientists have mental illness patients to
fix - they just run experiments and their results are used
by therapists to treat people.

[Mikedamaniak]

I admit my wording is way more harsh than I had planned.
I don't even preach what I am saying here, and am NOT trying offend ANYBODY.
These are just some of my ideas that I wanted to share and start a discussion.
If psychology makes you feel better about a situation, than for sure it is the best option.
Like I said it is an art
An art is definitely a good thing and can make you see things differently and feel better.

[Syvelocin]

Take a look at the definition of science: "the intellectual and practical activity encompassing the systematic study of the structure and behavior of the physical and natural world through observation and experiment." Science is an art. So sure, psychology is an art. It depends on your definition of art, because there are definitions of art that definitely encompass science. If you define it as I guess you're defining it, "something that is created with imagination and skill and that is beautiful or that expresses important ideas or feelings," I don't think fits psychology much more than science. I'm not implying you don't know this, but your post seems to be centred around mental illness which is a much smaller part of psychology. I can tell you I think a lot about mental illness and psychopharmacology is bollocks. The problem with diagnosing mental illness is that the goal is to treat the mental illness, often with drugs, which I would never recommend to anyone unless all other methods have been sincerely tried and proven ineffective for the patient, just because mental illness IS educated guesswork and medications can change your brain chemistry permanently.

What you're talking about with autism is the neurological disorders of course. These are disorders that are directly caused by structural, biochemical, or electrical abnormalities in the nervous system that can be logically diagnosed like that. Autism, narcolepsy, alzheimers, tourette's, epilepsy, etc. Here's the thing though: even though I think the broadening of mental illness criteria that's been going on is completely perverse, we still have other valid disorders that exist and cannot be diagnosed with something like a brain scan. Depression, for instance. Psychologists believe that serotonin is one of the main chemicals, because SSRIs have shown some good results when given to patients, the same with SNRIs and NDRIs with norepinephrine and dopamine. The issue is, with how many reactions are happening in our brains at any given moment related to mood, there's thousands of different things that could be happening to cause the depression, and so no two clinically depressed individuals are alike. And depression isn't low serotonin levels, or low dopamine levels, or low norepinephrine. It isn't that simple. It's a variety of different combinations of chemical imbalances with genetics, environment, life events, etc. which is why psychology is valuable to the process. These mental illnesses are bordering on constructs designed to treat people for things that society thinks is abnormal. What if they weren't abnormal? Medicine and therapy definitely helps coping, but I think psychology depends more on society than other sciences do. Even with that, it is still as much a science as anything.

But with all that, I have to go back and repeat that psychology is more than mental illness. Behaviour, learning, memory, emotion, motivation, development, personality, and communication. It isn't a written-in-stone science, but irrational? It tells us so many things about these functions that would benefit everyone if a basic psych class was on core curriculum. It teaches the WHYs of those things. It might be a lot of guesswork and assumptions, but they apply to many people and they can help you figure out the loopholes in your functioning and how to function better in society.

[sqishy]

Without psychology, I don't know where we would be. It is very useful, so I disagree. It does not matter so much in how 'real' and 'fake' something is, as long as it is useful. Anyways, what is real and what is not is for another time.

[ImCoolBeans]

Where did you learn about psychology?

Psychology is like alchemy and astrology? Please. That is one of the most rash statements I've ever heard. Psychology is absolutely a science -- it follows the scientific method and has a strict code of ethics to be followed at all times. The three main goals of psychology are to explain, predict and control behavior. Sound familiar? To me that sounds quite like some of the goals of the broader term "science"; swap out "behavior" and those goals are pretty relevant in any type of science. In psychology, studies are conducted on carefully observed and collected data to prove or disprove hypotheses about mental processes.

Every other function of the body has a science; endocrinology is the study of hormones, serology is the study of blood, dermatology is the study of skin, psychology is the study of the human mind and its functions. Can you explain how that one study is the only study of the body you are discrediting as a science?

How exactly does neuroscience making advancements in it's own specific field of study discredit psychology as a science? If you knew anything about psychology, you would know that psychology and neuroscience more or less go hand in hand. The two fields are very closely bonded for pretty obvious reasons -- they both deal with the brain and its functions -- neuroscience dealing more with the physical functions of the brain. In any basic psychology class, you'll learn all about the nervous system and it's functions because all of neuroscience's roots are within psychology. If you're going to discredit psychology as a science, it's very contradictory of you to use neuroscience as a counter example because it emerged from this hocus-pocus that you are calling psychology.

[The Trendy Wolf]

Okay, i'm not just hating on psychology without a reason, but actually saying why it's an irrational study, not much better than Alchemy and astrology.

I don't know if anyone else notices this, but psychology is more of an art than a science, but society treats it like a science, and it doesn't sound like a good idea for artists to be allowed to diagnose people with a mental condition. That's a job for doctors and scientists.

Every art has a science behind it. Artists can tell you to get a good "feel for it", but a scientist can explain to you why that technique works. It's true that psychology has discovered some amazing things, but it took way longer to discover these things, and the explanations for these discoveries are vague. Neuroscience, the science behind the art of psychology can explain these thing a lot better

For example, Autism. Psychologists have noticed that some people are very smart, but not social at all, and that something's missing from them. To diagnose someone with autism, they do a bunch of complicated, wishy-washy, head-game, "tests", that often have false results. Neuroscientists can diagnose autism easily with a brain scan, that looks high activity right behind the forehead, the thinking part of the brain, and low activity in the back of the brain, which makes emotional responses. They can also do blood tests that look for low oxytocin, the main hormone that creates social responses. What's more, neuroscience has found that autism is in some ways just an oxytocin deficit, and can be treated by oxytocin nasal spray. When the body gets hit with oxytocin once every few days, the autistic brain begins to see what being social is all about, and starts to establish neuro-connections and make oxytocin on it's own.

It's popular to get small children psychologically tested and labelled with a personality type or disorder or something like that, but little Tommy will see through the test, and the test will not get good results. People only agree with the results because they look for ways that the results might be true, and forget to take the psychologist with a grain of salt.

Psychology is a form of philosophy, and yes I agree that philosophy is an art in some aspects, but psychologists relate their studies to science to guarantee that their findings are true. However, psychology is a science in itself, and its findings are brought about through experimentation, observation, and analysis. It is the study of the mind, behavior, reactions, and the way we think in general. That is something that neuroscience cannot comprehend with the given technology of our time. Psychology allows for people to have access to RATIONAL answers to their emotional issues. It really helps people, but just a scientist cannot cure someone of their emotional distress simply through scientific evidence, as it is simply too "black and white" if you will, and people require an explanation that they themselves are able to relate to and fix on their own. It gives an explanation to the complex and misunderstood behavior of society and our very own reactions to certain events. Psychology is derivative of science AND philosophy, both of which are very similar studies. Philosophy and psychology are much more broad and science is simply why these broad ideas are true. Psychology is not "bullshit", it is absolutely necessary for people to understand themselves and others.

For example, psychologists have theorized that autism is an extreme form of the male brain. The male brain is commonly characterized as systematizing and connection. The female counterpart is characterized as being thoughtful of others and sympathizing. However, scientific evidence supported this theory and shows that 17% of males possess brain activity similar to that of the female brain, and 17% of women possess brain activity similar to that of the male brain, and this also may potentially explain why the majority of autistic children are male.

People shouldn't have to learn neuroscience to understand how to fix their emotional problems, mainly because it doesn't really explain how to change their lifestyles to benefit their own lives, and they need a way to solve it through their own simple ways of life and easily explained resolutions.