Doppelgänger
New
I'm probably going to regret writing this, but here goes. I'm just writing to you, Steve, and the problems I have had with psychology, esp at the uni level.
It would take a lot of time to explain, but we, as in my class at Uni, learned about the earliest psych (short for psychiatry and psychology theories) that always starts with Freud. I, personally, think Freud is full of shit, and I’m amazed at how much his “theories” have influenced thinking.
Then we go through Freud, Piaget, Skinner, Erikson, Maslow, Adler and others, but, curiously, Jung is never taken seriously or thought about, and we skip over him quite quickly. I find that depressing because Jung had a lot of interesting ideas (have you looked into his “Red Book"?), but in academia he is now ignored. He just gets a passing mention and then we skip over him for other ideas, like the awful “behaviorism.”
Clinical psychology was what really put me off. I thought it would be about how to treat potential patients. I was really surprised at how this subject was treated, especially given my previous treatment that I referenced in the DT thread.
I felt like I didn’t learn a thing that I didn’t already know.
And though the aforementioned men were an influence, we didn’t really talk about the issues with their ideas. And, again, it’s like Jung was missing, as though he was some sort of black sheep.
But Freudian ideas of sexualizing children. That’s okay. Skinner, Pavlov, Harlow, etc, torturing animals — that’s okay, and then they extrapolate the results to humans… that’s okay too!
Then you get into the DSM and its iterations (I think the Brit version of the DSM is called ICD?) wherein pharmaceutical and insurance companies get more and more of a say because every single deviation from the “norm,” which is not defined, can be “treated” or “medicated.”
I don’t know what it is in UK, but the DSM over the years has become narrower over what is a “mental illness” or a “problem.” (The DSM was invented so that doctors could have a definition or reason to charge insurance companies.)
Anyway, that is just the start of why I have a problem with psychology as currently practiced.
I have to sleep for a couple hours and then go to work.
It would take a lot of time to explain, but we, as in my class at Uni, learned about the earliest psych (short for psychiatry and psychology theories) that always starts with Freud. I, personally, think Freud is full of shit, and I’m amazed at how much his “theories” have influenced thinking.
Then we go through Freud, Piaget, Skinner, Erikson, Maslow, Adler and others, but, curiously, Jung is never taken seriously or thought about, and we skip over him quite quickly. I find that depressing because Jung had a lot of interesting ideas (have you looked into his “Red Book"?), but in academia he is now ignored. He just gets a passing mention and then we skip over him for other ideas, like the awful “behaviorism.”
Clinical psychology was what really put me off. I thought it would be about how to treat potential patients. I was really surprised at how this subject was treated, especially given my previous treatment that I referenced in the DT thread.
I felt like I didn’t learn a thing that I didn’t already know.
And though the aforementioned men were an influence, we didn’t really talk about the issues with their ideas. And, again, it’s like Jung was missing, as though he was some sort of black sheep.
But Freudian ideas of sexualizing children. That’s okay. Skinner, Pavlov, Harlow, etc, torturing animals — that’s okay, and then they extrapolate the results to humans… that’s okay too!
Then you get into the DSM and its iterations (I think the Brit version of the DSM is called ICD?) wherein pharmaceutical and insurance companies get more and more of a say because every single deviation from the “norm,” which is not defined, can be “treated” or “medicated.”
I don’t know what it is in UK, but the DSM over the years has become narrower over what is a “mental illness” or a “problem.” (The DSM was invented so that doctors could have a definition or reason to charge insurance companies.)
Anyway, that is just the start of why I have a problem with psychology as currently practiced.
I have to sleep for a couple hours and then go to work.