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> When your belly hurts, you go to a doctor. Why not ask to a doctor when something in your head hurts? Because when your belly hurts, science understands what
by Eliezer 17y ago
> When your belly hurts, you go to a doctor. Why not ask to a doctor when something in your head hurts?
Because when your belly hurts, science understands what the possible causes are. Your real medical doctor may be able to diagnose one of those causes and treat it.
When your mind hurts, the existing base of installed psychotherapists belong to a wide variety of non-evidence-based "schools" where "non-evidence-based" means "some guy made up some convincing crap and some other people believed him".
- j_baker 17y agoThat's simply not true. Psychology is based on evidence. The problem is that the human mind is a lot more difficult to understand than the stomach. As such, a good psychologist is a man with one eye in the land of the blind so to speak.
- DeusExMachina 17y agoPsychotherapy is even based on more evidence, since a psychotherapist is a doctor and not only a psychologist, and understands the psychological part as well as the physiological one.
- akgerber 17y agoYou're probably thinking of a psychiatrist. My dad is a psychotherapist and has an MCSW.
- DeusExMachina 17y agoUh, sorry, I'm thinking in terms of italian definitions. Probably in other countries these are a little different.
- Eliezer 17y agoOkay. Give me an example of a psychotherapeutic technique and cite the evidence it's based on. I know of one form of psychotherapy that has some evidence behind it. The rest has been repeatedly tested and found to work no better than talking to a sympathetic intelligent person with no psychology training.
- rms 17y agoScience may not know the underlying cause, but I would be willing to take a bet at unfavorable odds that methylphenidate or amphetamine would improve the OP's ability to get things done. Good therapy for the OP's likely condition, ADHD, is a lot more like having your own personal anti-akrasia trainer than sitting on a couch and telling someone about your problems. The current "in" schools of psychology are not Freudian or Jungian; they try to treat symptons rather than the underlying cause.