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This isn’t even the worst problem with psychology. The worst is it’s contextual loyalties against critiquing the relationsips people have with one another. Pow

This isn’t even the worst problem with psychology. The worst is it’s contextual loyalties against critiquing the relationsips people have with one another. Power struggles, to be particular.

apatters 8y ago
Can you elaborate on this?
- coldtea 8y ago
  "Let's not disturb the status quo and what's mainstream with our results, else we'll stop getting grants"
  - ativzzz 8y ago
    Isn't this applicable to most of academia and science and not just psychology?
    - coldtea 8y ago
      Physics and Engineering doesn't have many things that will annoy the status quo. While speaking against e.g. mainstream cultural tenets, or how we run society, or how we parent, etc., can lose you grants quickly, and those are all things psychology and sociology can get at.
- yyyymmddhhmmss 8y ago
  By premeditating that diagnosis will be of the individual, the society is assumed a constant. In science, we call that fraud. Effectively, clinical psychology serves apology for societal and economic ills by blaming the effects on the individuals themselves. The process is strikingly transparent from an objective standpoint, but ironically it’s precisely an objective standpoint that is undermined by the institution. These days, you can visit one and tell them just about anything, and they will diagnose your disposition as illness. I don’t blame psychologists themselves, and who is to say they don’t help people? Many surely do, but the institution is an absolute drag on our economy and society; something like a collective excuse for avoiding self-critique. Sociology theoretically steps in here, but it is merely a study, and some branches of it would result in a totalitarian nightmare. What’s needed is humanist sociology and humanist psychology. As we learned in kindergarten class, there is nothing wrong with us. Each of us are unique and beautiful in our own ways. The questions are about how to live with one another. Pyschology as a study is another thing, but as a medical malpractice it has proven antithetical to systems design from the start.
  - SolaceQuantum 8y ago
    If you have scientific studies to show your objective viewpoint on mental illness being merely a product of societal or economic ill, with definition of 'societal ill' and 'economic ill', I would be more than interested in seeing the data you derived these conclusions from. In the meantime, I would think the field of clinical psychology is a safer bet.
    - 50656E6973 8y ago
      >If you have scientific studies to show your objective viewpoint on mental illness being merely a product of societal or economic ill It's common sense, and there is no objective proof to the contrary. "Psychiatric diagnosis still relies exclusively on fallible subjective judgments rather than objective biological tests" -Alan Frances https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allen_Frances https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allen_Frances Psychiatry/psychology also admits that social environment has substantial effects on mental illness. But asking for a "scientific" study of that is silly, because it is impossible to have an indepedent variable or control group -- because it is impossible to separate an individual from societal influences.
      - SolaceQuantum 8y ago
        You are making the claim of an objective evaluation. It is your responsibility to provide proof of its objectivity. I otherwise an more willing to take something that at least has supporting evidence, dubious as it may be, to claims that have no evidence at all beyond ‘common sense’. I think that’s a pretty common sense position, but it’s clear we don’t agree.
        50656E6973 8y ago
        There is no objective proof that mental illness even exists, so the burden of proof is on those who claim it's just like real illnesses (psychiatrists and psychologists). They're the one's claiming to be scientific. I'm merely claiming they're not being scientific. There is plenty of evidence that disfunctional social environments often lead to disfunctional individuals.

This isn’t even the worst problem with psychology. The worst is it’s contextual loyalties against critiquing the relationsips people have with one another. Power struggles, to be particular.

apatters 8y ago

Can you elaborate on this?

coldtea 8y ago
"Let's not disturb the status quo and what's mainstream with our results, else we'll stop getting grants"
- ativzzz 8y ago
  Isn't this applicable to most of academia and science and not just psychology?
  - coldtea 8y ago
    Physics and Engineering doesn't have many things that will annoy the status quo. While speaking against e.g. mainstream cultural tenets, or how we run society, or how we parent, etc., can lose you grants quickly, and those are all things psychology and sociology can get at.
yyyymmddhhmmss 8y ago
By premeditating that diagnosis will be of the individual, the society is assumed a constant. In science, we call that fraud. Effectively, clinical psychology serves apology for societal and economic ills by blaming the effects on the individuals themselves. The process is strikingly transparent from an objective standpoint, but ironically it’s precisely an objective standpoint that is undermined by the institution. These days, you can visit one and tell them just about anything, and they will diagnose your disposition as illness. I don’t blame psychologists themselves, and who is to say they don’t help people? Many surely do, but the institution is an absolute drag on our economy and society; something like a collective excuse for avoiding self-critique. Sociology theoretically steps in here, but it is merely a study, and some branches of it would result in a totalitarian nightmare. What’s needed is humanist sociology and humanist psychology. As we learned in kindergarten class, there is nothing wrong with us. Each of us are unique and beautiful in our own ways. The questions are about how to live with one another. Pyschology as a study is another thing, but as a medical malpractice it has proven antithetical to systems design from the start.
- SolaceQuantum 8y ago
  If you have scientific studies to show your objective viewpoint on mental illness being merely a product of societal or economic ill, with definition of 'societal ill' and 'economic ill', I would be more than interested in seeing the data you derived these conclusions from. In the meantime, I would think the field of clinical psychology is a safer bet.
  - 50656E6973 8y ago
    >If you have scientific studies to show your objective viewpoint on mental illness being merely a product of societal or economic ill It's common sense, and there is no objective proof to the contrary. "Psychiatric diagnosis still relies exclusively on fallible subjective judgments rather than objective biological tests" -Alan Frances https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allen_Frances https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allen_Frances Psychiatry/psychology also admits that social environment has substantial effects on mental illness. But asking for a "scientific" study of that is silly, because it is impossible to have an indepedent variable or control group -- because it is impossible to separate an individual from societal influences.
    - SolaceQuantum 8y ago
      You are making the claim of an objective evaluation. It is your responsibility to provide proof of its objectivity. I otherwise an more willing to take something that at least has supporting evidence, dubious as it may be, to claims that have no evidence at all beyond ‘common sense’. I think that’s a pretty common sense position, but it’s clear we don’t agree.
      - 50656E6973 8y ago
        There is no objective proof that mental illness even exists, so the burden of proof is on those who claim it's just like real illnesses (psychiatrists and psychologists). They're the one's claiming to be scientific. I'm merely claiming they're not being scientific. There is plenty of evidence that disfunctional social environments often lead to disfunctional individuals.