One end of the spectrum: modern psychiatry turns out to be kind of like alchemy. Some fundamental ideas have merit to them (the material world shares a common b

One end of the spectrum: modern psychiatry turns out to be kind of like alchemy. Some fundamental ideas have merit to them (the material world shares a common basis, and it is theoretically possible to turn any matter into any other matter), while most of the models/practical implementations are just completely off the mark (if you draw the right symbols you can turn lead into gold), and it’ll take a few centuries of social and technological advances for a scientifically sound discipline that achieves the desired results to emerge. Other end of the spectrum: the human mind is such a weird complicated thing that it is ultimately impossible to build a systematic discipline that can effect meaningful change in what a particular cultural context considers a mental/behavioral “disorder”. The hyper rational, scientific part of me hopes for the former; but having worked a lot in education, particularly with children/teenagers who had suffered trauma/were actively suffering trauma, the latter feels truer to my gut.