On Sun, Jun 17, 2001 at 03:14:59PM -0400, Isaiah Weiner wrote:
> On Sun, Jun 17, 2001 at 03:22:22AM -0400, Paul M Foster wrote:
> > Ah, this is wonderful for the fields of psychiatry and psychology! More
> > and more and more money!
>
> If you choose to go to one, perhaps. There are lots of types of
> therapists -- family members, friends, registered therapists without
> degrees. I think you'll find the last group doesn't charge anywhere near
> as much as a psychologist or psychiatrist would.
>
Ooo, I'll bet there are a helluva lot of psychs who'd slap you silly for
suggesting that family members and friends could be "therapists" of any
kind! And if a "registered therapist without degrees" can affect the
same results, then why pay a psychiatrist? And if they can't produce the
same effect, what are they doing muddying up the field of psychiatry?
They could be giving bad advice and giving the field a bad name! (Oh
that's right-- it already has one. Don't believe me? Look at the way
psychiatry/psychology is portrayed in films and on television.)
> > Does everyone have troubles? Hell yes! Life's a bitch. But to say that
> > everyone needs treatment is a way of saying that everyone is incapable of
> > handling their own problems. Great for the psychs. Not so great for
> > everyone else.
>
> The syllogism could be presented that by our very evolutionary nature,
> humans are pack animals and dependant on the rest of our group _anyway_.
> So what's wrong with admitting it?
>
That's not the point. The point is that if we presume that "everyone
needs therapy" and then we set up the psychs as the guys who know all
the answers, it's a ready-made mechanism for making billions of dollars.
Which is exactly the point.
Besides which, we've developed into a society of victims who believe
that we need help in every facet of our lives to make it. But
"victim-ism" only serves to shift responsibility for our own lives to
someone else or some other entity. Your views about therapy only serve
to reinforce this unfortunate viewpoint.
> > Here's a field that's been studying humans for decades and been given
> > scads of money. Yet the morals of this society have taken a nose dive for
> > those same decades. Oh that's right. Psychiatry and psychology don't
> > concern themselves with morals. Thus they study human behavior in the
> > absence of one of the most important factors which influence it. This is
> > science?
>
> That's a pretty good point. On the other hand, you could apply the
> same thought processes to nuclear physics or any other science. At least
> psychiatry and not-so-much psychology (there are enough areas of study to
> include morals in psychology, in many cases) have the decency to scope out
> what they know they can observe and what they can not.
>
Okay, applying the same thought processes to nuclear physics, they study
the physical universe in the absence of ____________ which is one of the
most important factors influencing it. I don't know what to put in that
blank, and I therefore don't see the analogy to psychology/psychiatry.
And psychology/psychiatry can't observe morals and ethics? I can, so I'm
not sure what's keeping them from doing it.
As a matter of fact, psychology/psychiatry are anti-moral. Go back to (I
believe) the first president of the APA (I'm a little fuzzy on the
details here), Brock Chisholm. He publicly stated that the role of
psychology/psychiatry was to eliminate morals, ethics and religion, and
substitute instead the judgment of psychologists and psychiatrists. A
chilling viewpoint.
------------
Actually, this whole process of verbal fencing is fairly pointless. I
gather your father was a psychiatrist/psychologist, and you yourself are
steeped in that tradition. The chances are excellent that no matter what
I or anyone else says, nothing is going to persuade you that
psychology/psychiatry are a bad thing and that you should be against
it.
By the same token, I've observed and read a great deal about the field,
from the outside (some of it told from the viewpoint of an insider).
Nothing you have said, and nothing you could say will dissuade me from
the conclusion that psychology and psychiatry are the worst kind of junk
science, and that the field itself (if not many of the people in it),
has no desire to actually help anyone.
And a final word about "closed mindedness", since I know this will come
up. I had this discussion with Norb earlier, a great proponent of "open
mindedness". As far as I'm concerned, open-mindedness is equivalent to
an inability or unwillingness to decide. What is commonly known of as
"closed-mindedness" is primarily the acknowledgment that one has
examined the relevant facts and drawn a conclusion. No additional facts
are needed. This does not mean that additional facts can't be heard. But
they weigh only lightly against the already drawn conclusion. The
assumption is that the important facts have already been examined and
that the conclusion is a logical extension of them. Unfortunately, it
has become fashionable to describe anyone who has already drawn a
conclusion as "closed-minded", thus somehow denigrating their ability to
think and reason. The claim serves to make the "open-minded" feel better
and allows them to discount the conclusions of those who have truly
decided.
Paul
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