4 ms·

There was a brief stint in college when I thought I wanted to be a psychiatrist. I think in retrospect it was an attempt to turn my philosophical inclinations t

There was a brief stint in college when I thought I wanted to be a psychiatrist. I think in retrospect it was an attempt to turn my philosophical inclinations to a practical purpose. But it quickly became clear, in my opinion, that the field does not fully understand itself; it is based on more unproven premises than probably any other field of science, or even 'social science'. With the exception of some kinds of disease (possibly schizophrenia), a psychiatrist's ability seems to vary independently of his education. Success comes from being wise and understanding human nature, knowing how to talk to people. Psychiatry doesn't understand that people have been caring about mental health for millennia, even if it wasn't called mental health, and so the field is not lindy at all. This sounds crazy but they should really be looking back to the roles/practices of priests, even shamans, just to try and get some semblance of an idea of what works and what doesn't...because they currently have absolutely no idea. I would except CBT from this critique...it does actually seem to be a remarkable treatment (it is also lindy).

Nav_Panel 6y ago
> the field does not fully understand itself > This sounds crazy but they should really be looking back to the roles/practices of priests, even shamans, just to try and get some semblance of an idea of what works and what doesn't These things are exactly what psychoanalysis did and has always done. That kind of historical and reflexive investigation appears in plenty of Freud's writings (as well as later theorists, like Lacan, who drew heavily on Levi-Strauss's anthropological work). Too bad that psychoanalysis takes shit for being "unverifiable" and "unfalsifiable" (as if what we currently have doesn't suffer from the exact same flaws, which I believe are inherent to any study of mental phenomena).
- watwut 6y ago
  Freud is not taken seriously anymore and for good reasons. I mean, his historical contribution was good, but it is outdated and basically bunch of nonsense as far as we know now.
  - Nav_Panel 6y ago
    Do you have any of those "good reasons" beyond "it's nonsense"? Most people who say things like that, in my experience, have lifted that opinion wholesale from their undergrad psychology professors and have never read the man's work.
    - watwut 6y ago
      Freud's penis envy would be best reason. The idea that if you claim family member sexually abused you, then you likely basically have crunch on him. Yeah, those are most popular easy things to point at, but the level of science at the time was "few patients and tons of imagination". We are further away now.
      - Nav_Panel 6y ago
        > Freud's penis envy would be best reason. > The idea that if you claim family member sexually abused you, then you likely basically have crunch on him. I've never heard the latter idea, but the former seems pretty real. I've spoken with plenty of women, all completely unversed in Freudian theory, who've related experiences that sound quite a bit like "penis envy" (usually some sort of early childhood situation, Freud never intended it to be taken as descriptive of adult women).
        ineedasername 6y ago
        To the extent that "penis envy" was ever a true assessment to beging with, it can be read much more easily as a desire for the same level of power in society that males had, not a desire for anything related to biology.
        Nav_Panel 6y ago
        No, it's pretty much literally like "I had a desire to marry my mother for a brief weird period when I was a little girl, until I learned that I couldn't do that". It's not about "power in society" at all, it's about the genesis of gendered notions in the child which leads to shifting identifications and relationships with parents. As a result it is a feminist concern, but of an entirely different order. And this is all in Freud himself! He was woke to gender!
- kafkabot99 6y ago
  These are good points, but I think they are more applicable to clinical psychology, at least in US and today. Psychiatry as a science and a field of medicine is committed to a certain view of mental illness as disease that precludes this kind of theorizing. Imo.
markdown 6y ago
> it is also lindy You keep using that word. I do not think we know what it means like you think we do.
- Bodell 6y ago
  You’ve never done the Lindy? Maybe you’ve done the mashed potato?
throw18376 6y ago
psychiatrists, as in MDs, in the US used to study psychoanalysis until about the 80s/90s. i think one factor that discredited it is that psychoanalysis does not have an adequate theory or treatment for diseases like schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. these both seem to be mostly biological, are attested throughout history and nobody had any way of really dealing with them before lithium and antipsychotics. (some would say that people with these disorders used to become shamans or priests, but I think that this is somewhat disputed these days.) anyway, as far as I know no amount of wisdom, compassion, or even complex theories of mind will treat psychosis, although they certainly all can help get somebody to stay on their medication. and i don't think it's a minor thing -- seems to me like the core problem a psychiatrist ought to be able to treat, even if in numbers depression and anxiety are way larger.

Nav_Panel 6y ago

> the field does not fully understand itself > This sounds crazy but they should really be looking back to the roles/practices of priests, even shamans, just to try and get some semblance of an idea of what works and what doesn't These things are exactly what psychoanalysis did and has always done. That kind of historical and reflexive investigation appears in plenty of Freud's writings (as well as later theorists, like Lacan, who drew heavily on Levi-Strauss's anthropological work). Too bad that psychoanalysis takes shit for being "unverifiable" and "unfalsifiable" (as if what we currently have doesn't suffer from the exact same flaws, which I believe are inherent to any study of mental phenomena).

watwut 6y ago
Freud is not taken seriously anymore and for good reasons. I mean, his historical contribution was good, but it is outdated and basically bunch of nonsense as far as we know now.
- Nav_Panel 6y ago
  Do you have any of those "good reasons" beyond "it's nonsense"? Most people who say things like that, in my experience, have lifted that opinion wholesale from their undergrad psychology professors and have never read the man's work.
  - watwut 6y ago
    Freud's penis envy would be best reason. The idea that if you claim family member sexually abused you, then you likely basically have crunch on him. Yeah, those are most popular easy things to point at, but the level of science at the time was "few patients and tons of imagination". We are further away now.
    - Nav_Panel 6y ago
      > Freud's penis envy would be best reason. > The idea that if you claim family member sexually abused you, then you likely basically have crunch on him. I've never heard the latter idea, but the former seems pretty real. I've spoken with plenty of women, all completely unversed in Freudian theory, who've related experiences that sound quite a bit like "penis envy" (usually some sort of early childhood situation, Freud never intended it to be taken as descriptive of adult women).
      - ineedasername 6y ago
        To the extent that "penis envy" was ever a true assessment to beging with, it can be read much more easily as a desire for the same level of power in society that males had, not a desire for anything related to biology.
        Nav_Panel 6y ago
        No, it's pretty much literally like "I had a desire to marry my mother for a brief weird period when I was a little girl, until I learned that I couldn't do that". It's not about "power in society" at all, it's about the genesis of gendered notions in the child which leads to shifting identifications and relationships with parents. As a result it is a feminist concern, but of an entirely different order. And this is all in Freud himself! He was woke to gender!
kafkabot99 6y ago
These are good points, but I think they are more applicable to clinical psychology, at least in US and today. Psychiatry as a science and a field of medicine is committed to a certain view of mental illness as disease that precludes this kind of theorizing. Imo.

markdown 6y ago

> it is also lindy You keep using that word. I do not think we know what it means like you think we do.

Bodell 6y ago
You’ve never done the Lindy? Maybe you’ve done the mashed potato?

throw18376 6y ago

psychiatrists, as in MDs, in the US used to study psychoanalysis until about the 80s/90s. i think one factor that discredited it is that psychoanalysis does not have an adequate theory or treatment for diseases like schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. these both seem to be mostly biological, are attested throughout history and nobody had any way of really dealing with them before lithium and antipsychotics. (some would say that people with these disorders used to become shamans or priests, but I think that this is somewhat disputed these days.) anyway, as far as I know no amount of wisdom, compassion, or even complex theories of mind will treat psychosis, although they certainly all can help get somebody to stay on their medication. and i don't think it's a minor thing -- seems to me like the core problem a psychiatrist ought to be able to treat, even if in numbers depression and anxiety are way larger.