Psychology

[Solitary]

[induz]

it's evil.  

it's designed to oppress, belittle and label people.

[Shiranu]

it's evil.  

it's designed to oppress, belittle and label people.

Nope.

[Smartmarzipan]

I took a class in college, which was incredibly interesting, but I don't know much more on the subject. The human mind is incredibly complex. I think it accomplishes good things, though, on the whole.

[TrueStory]

Richard Feynman died in 1988 so this must be older than 1994.

26+ years later that whole quote is pretty much irrelevant to the field.  Just like all science, it continually improves based on research and the good ole scientific method.

Anytime some one starts talking about psychoanalysis and Freud it reminds me of theists that talk about Darwin.  It was 100 years ago, lets move on.

[mykcob4]

"The science of psychology. Psychoanalysis is not a science: It is at best a medical process, and perhaps even more like witch-doctoring. It has a theory as to what causes disease---lots of different "spirits," etc. The witch doctor (Are you reading this Sabrina?) has a theory that a disease like malaria is caused by a spirit which comes into the air; it is not cured by shaking a snake over it, but quinine does help malaria. So, if you are sick, I would advise that you not go to a which doctor  because he is the man in a tribe who knows most about disease; on the other hand, his knowledge is not science. Psychoanalysis has not been checked carefully by experiment, and there is no way to find a list of  the number of cases in which it works, the number of cases in which it does not work, etc.

The other branches of psychology, which involve things like the phycology of sensation---what happens in the eye, and what happens in the brain---are, if you wish, less interesting. But some small but real progress has been made in studying them. One of the most interesting technical problems may or may not be called psychology. The central problem of the mind, if you will, or the nervous system, is this: when an animal learns something, it can do something different than it could before, and its brain cell most have changed too, if it is made of atoms. In what way is it different?

We do not know where to look, or what to look for, when something is memorized. We do not know what it means, or what change there is in the nervous system, when a fact is learned.  This is a very important problem which has not been solved at all. Assuming, however, that there is some kind of memory thing, the brain is such an enormous mass of interconnecting wires and nerves that it probably cannot be analyzed in a straight forward manner. There is an analog of this in computing machines and computing, in that they also have a lot of lines, and they have some kind of element, analogous, perhaps, to the synapse, or connection of one nerve to another.

This is very interesting subject which we have not the time to discuss further---the relationship between thinking and computing machines. It must be appreciated, of course, that this subject will tell us very little about the real complexities of human behavior. All  human beings are different. It will be a long time before we get there. We must start further back. If we could even figure out how a dog works, we would have gone pretty far. Dogs are easier to understand, but nobody understands how dogs work."  Richard P. Feynman Six Easy Pieces.
If anyone has an update on this subject I would like to know what it is. This was written in 1994. There has been a lot of research done by neurologist with MRI's. You know, those coffin like things they stick you in to cause panic attacks.  :shock:  8-[  Solitary

I don't know what you have against psychology but I think it's unfounded. Unlike "witch-doctoring, psychology IS a recognized science or at least the process is. Psychologist and analyst use a sceintific method and do get results, albeit results are dependent on the patient to a great deal. The fact is psycology is a science that is largely unexplored much like physics was when Newton revealed the four great laws of nature. So psycology isn't voodoo or any mumbo jumbo as the typical scientologist would profess. It is a science!
http://www.simplypsychology.org/science-psychology.html

[SGOS]

I don't know what you have against psychology but I think it's unfounded. Unlike "witch-doctoring, psychology IS a recognized science or at least the process is. Psychologist and analyst use a sceintific method and do get results, albeit results are dependent on the patient to a great deal. The fact is psycology is a science that is largely unexplored much like physics was when Newton revealed the four great laws of nature. So psycology isn't voodoo or any mumbo jumbo as the typical scientologist would profess. It is a science!
http://www.simplypsychology.org/science-psychology.html

I agree.  Putting psychology in the same category as witch doctoring is a bit heavy handed.  Sure, there is room for charlatans, and therapists write books pitching their methods.  Freud didn't get it perfect, but owing to the complexity of the human mind, this process is still in it's infancy and evolving.  In the last 40 years or so, new drugs have been introduced to help people with depression and chemical imbalances, and they are marvelous, although over used.  Some people think drugs are the end all be all solution and now reject psychology as a worthless endeavor.  I think that's taking it a bit far.

[WitchSabrina]

I don't know what you have against psychology but I think it's unfounded. Unlike "witch-doctoring, psychology IS a recognized science or at least the process is. Psychologist and analyst use a sceintific method and do get results, albeit results are dependent on the patient to a great deal. The fact is psycology is a science that is largely unexplored much like physics was when Newton revealed the four great laws of nature. So psycology isn't voodoo or any mumbo jumbo as the typical scientologist would profess. It is a science!
http://www.simplypsychology.org/science-psychology.html

I agree.  Putting psychology in the same category as witch doctoring is a bit heavy handed.  Sure, there is room for charlatans, and therapists write books pitching their methods.  Freud didn't get it perfect, but owing to the complexity of the human mind, this process is still in it's infancy and evolving.  In the last 40 years or so, new drugs have been introduced to help people with depression and chemical imbalances, and they are marvelous, although over used.  Some people think drugs are the end all be all solution and now reject psychology as a worthless endeavor.  I think that's taking it a bit far.

I agree.  I think it has serious merit.  I also think there are just as many poor doctors in psychology as any other.  I went through 5 doctors before finding one who was talented/skilled enough to fix my neck....  there are differences with doctors in any field.   We Do expect more from medical professionals - but sometimes that isn't the case now is it?

[PJS]

A few points:

One common misperception is that psychology is mostly about disorders or abnormality. That is simply not the case. Disorders are a relatively small portion of the field.

Psychology is the scientific study of behavior and mental processes. That means it incorporates the scientific method and applies that to a wide array of topics-learning,memory,motivation,emotion,intelligence,personality,social/group dynamics, consciousness, disorders, treatments,...

Multiple perspectives apply -  biological, cognitive, behavioral, psychodynamic, socio-cultural, positive, etc.  Some are hybrids of the aforementioned.

[Solitary]

[Solitary]

[SGOS]

I think we should be cautious about assuming too much in this thread.  The title is simply Psychology.  The OP suggests a question, "Science or Myth?" But it focuses on psychotherapy, which as PJS pointed out, is but one very small branch of the overall field of psychology.  Take a college level Introduction to Psychology, and you won't find that it's a majority of  "head stuff", but lots of science about how our eyes and brains perceive things like color through cone sensors based on a lot of scientific research; Things like that.  At least this is what I recall from my intro class.

I'm not sure how much science is involved in psychotherapy, but I would agree that it seems more like an art than a science, and I think it should be.  If a person is suffering from depression, he might try psychotherapy.  It might work or not, just as Zoloft prescribed by a medical doctor may or may not work.  It's try it and see.  Personally, I'm guessing that a pill is the faster more effective way to treat that sympton, but also far from perfect, and that "science" is ongoing as well.  My father suffered from depression on and off, and whatever he took, he thought it helped, but he was still miserable to the day he died.

During my college days, I went through psychotherapy for two years, because it was just something I wanted to do, and best of all, it was free to enrolled students.  I'd like to give my view on what it is based on my experience.  I might have misconceptions, but first, it's not so much about curing things.  It may or may not cure some psychological disorder, but mostly it's just a way of learning things about one's self.  These things are often useful, and for me always a surprise, and delightful as well.

It's a way of expanding one's knowledge base about self, and lets face it, knowledge is a pretty good thing.  Are these insights one might have accurate?  <shrug>  I think they are, but I can't prove it, but they did seem to be logical explanations for things I didn't fully understand back then.  I still believe they were accurate, but I don't think about them much, anymore.  I've gone on with a different approach to life that just seems easier.  I take a lot of shortcuts.  But who I am now (a guy I'm pretty content with) is part of an ongoing process that was set in motion during those years in college.

One thing I learned and try to keep close at hand was that it's very easy for my mind to play tricks on me, and to shelter me from things I think I'm better off knowing about.   For me, that alone is worth the price of admission.  "Don't assume too much about how right you are, or how great you are."  Take some time to take an honest look first.

If there's more to psychotherapy than learning about self, I guess I've missed it.  But I think whether you're for it or agin' it has a lot to do with expectations about what you think it's supposed to be.

[TrueStory]

Richard Feynman died in 1988 so this must be older than 1994.

26+ years later that whole quote is pretty much irrelevant to the field.  Just like all science, it continually improves based on research and the good ole scientific method.

Anytime some one starts talking about psychoanalysis and Freud it reminds me of theists that talk about Darwin.  It was 100 years ago, lets move on.

That is the point of the quote---it isn't science to begin with---only neurology is science. Psychoanalysis is not based on the scientific method, it based on mere opinions and subjective experiences, not objective reality.  So because Darwin was 100 years ago it isn't still relevant?  Solitary

The quote is just not applicable today.  Just like wagging my finger at all of the mistakes Darwin made would be.  It's disingenuous to criticize something in 2013 based off of 1913 information.

So because Darwin was 100 years ago it isn't still relevant?

It's relevent to history but modern evolutionary theory doesn't need any of Darwin's reasearch, modern psychology doesn't need any of Freud's research.


And I agrees with SGOS, you can't just interchange pschology and psychoanalysis, it makes things a bit murky.

[mykcob4]

Richard Feynman died in 1988 so this must be older than 1994.

26+ years later that whole quote is pretty much irrelevant to the field.  Just like all science, it continually improves based on research and the good ole scientific method.

Anytime some one starts talking about psychoanalysis and Freud it reminds me of theists that talk about Darwin.  It was 100 years ago, lets move on.

That is the point of the quote---it isn't science to begin with---only neurology is science. Psychoanalysis is not based on the scientific method, it based on mere opinions and subjective experiences, not objective reality.  So because Darwin was 100 years ago it isn't still relevant?  Solitary

You obviously don't know much about psycology. It is a science. It follows the scientific method and it does far more than you would have anyone believe/

[Jason78]

You obviously don't know much about psycology. It is a science. It follows the scientific method and it does far more than you would have anyone believe/

It might have started off with a load of theories that didn't pan out.  But it has grown as a science.  Or we wouldn't have shit like this.

Spot the gorilla