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Psychological. Many early theories tended along the line that gender dysphoria was an extension of sexual fetishistic behaviour. We know now this to be very wro

by sarahj 12y ago

Psychological. Many early theories tended along the line that gender dysphoria was an extension of sexual fetishistic behaviour. We know now this to be very wrong, but there are still many who advocate for this position.

shaftoe 12y ago
I'm curious as to the distinction here. Can you explain? Either way sounds like something wired abnormally. I don't think people necessarily choose their sexual fetishes either, though gender dysphoria strikes me as more of a compulsion than a sexual thing.
- sarahj 12y ago
  Sure. Although it is a vary leaky abstraction :) We used to consider depression as a psychological phenomena. That is, we used to think that we could make a person think their way out of it. Either though CBT or some other kind of psychological treatment. Since then we have learned that neurological factors, in particular neurochemistry which are correlated with depression. We now know a person cannot think their way out of depression - we have developed treatments with varying success, although we still have a way to go.
  - learc83 12y ago
    CBT, and medication have fairly similar efficacy rates for treatment of depression. So it's not true that "We now know a person cannot think their way out of depression."
    - Amezarak 12y ago
      The argument doesn't make sense in the first place. Neurological problems are expressed psychologically and psychological problems are expressed neurologically. The brain will indeed literally rewire itself based on what you do and think. Which is not at all, of course, to say you can simply wish yourself out of depression. Indeed that's exactly what can make depression such a problem.
- bane 12y ago
  Neurological would mean it's a hardware thing. An analogy would be a CPU that's physically wired wrong. So no matter how good the software is, running it will produce errors. In the nature vs. nurture debate, this is a nature-side of things. Psychology would mean it's a software thing. The analogy would be software with some logic errors in it s.t. no matter how good the hardware is, you end up with the incorrect result. In a nature vs. nurture debate, this is a nurture issue. For example, childhood trauma might turn into some kind of aberrant behavior in adulthood. Either condition might produce similar or even equivalent results, but the root causes are different and "fixing" them requires different approaches. And then there might be poor folks with a combination of both factors.

by sarahj 12y ago

shaftoe 12y ago

I'm curious as to the distinction here. Can you explain? Either way sounds like something wired abnormally. I don't think people necessarily choose their sexual fetishes either, though gender dysphoria strikes me as more of a compulsion than a sexual thing.

sarahj 12y ago
Sure. Although it is a vary leaky abstraction :) We used to consider depression as a psychological phenomena. That is, we used to think that we could make a person think their way out of it. Either though CBT or some other kind of psychological treatment. Since then we have learned that neurological factors, in particular neurochemistry which are correlated with depression. We now know a person cannot think their way out of depression - we have developed treatments with varying success, although we still have a way to go.
- learc83 12y ago
  CBT, and medication have fairly similar efficacy rates for treatment of depression. So it's not true that "We now know a person cannot think their way out of depression."
  - Amezarak 12y ago
    The argument doesn't make sense in the first place. Neurological problems are expressed psychologically and psychological problems are expressed neurologically. The brain will indeed literally rewire itself based on what you do and think. Which is not at all, of course, to say you can simply wish yourself out of depression. Indeed that's exactly what can make depression such a problem.
bane 12y ago
Neurological would mean it's a hardware thing. An analogy would be a CPU that's physically wired wrong. So no matter how good the software is, running it will produce errors. In the nature vs. nurture debate, this is a nature-side of things. Psychology would mean it's a software thing. The analogy would be software with some logic errors in it s.t. no matter how good the hardware is, you end up with the incorrect result. In a nature vs. nurture debate, this is a nurture issue. For example, childhood trauma might turn into some kind of aberrant behavior in adulthood. Either condition might produce similar or even equivalent results, but the root causes are different and "fixing" them requires different approaches. And then there might be poor folks with a combination of both factors.