Is psychiatry bullshit ?

[WALKYRIA]

Hi, fellow INTP's...

I intend to be a Psychiatrist, but some doubts remain.. I know my family(mainly christians and *SJ*) is not gonna be happy with that. I know my professors won't be happy. And the claims are justified, Psychiatry is indeed a pseudo-science.
I just seen these videos; criticisms to psychiatry from psychiatrist.
What do you think of it? Is psychiatry serious? I'm seriously considering to not go in psychiatry lol..

check this out :


http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=JgikdLHaAcE


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nzdu3WQyIZg

 

[h0bby1]

the problem of psychiatry as to be a branch of neurlogy is that it can tend to erase a bit the philosophical and intelectual aspect of an individual, compared to more old school psychology and psychanalyze who was much more philosophical, even if maybe less accurate than what can be reached today with neurology , but neurology to be a bit too much mecanistic, and not always that much well informed and deep in their analysis of a person's consciousness and psychological in the larger sense =)

 

[Hadoblado]

There are problems inherent in much of the practice of psychiatry, but it's not as if you have zero degrees of freedom over the way in which you practice.

My psychiatrist is massively into natural remedies. It can get quite frustrating when I ask to see the science behind her recommendations. We frequently go over time.

If there are problems in a field that you can see, then certainly a good way to enact change would be to join the field in question and improve it? That's how I'm choosing my career. People need thinkers. I fail to see the moral dilemma.

 

[Jennywocky]

I intend to be a Psychiatrist, but some doubts remain.. I know my family(mainly christians and *SJ*) is not gonna be happy with that. I know my professors won't be happy. And the claims are justified, Psychiatry is indeed a pseudo-science.

I think Hadoblado makes a good point -- you can view your profession as making a contribution to a particular field rather than a display of allegiance to a currently existing body of ideas.

I also find it ironic that you are giving credibility to Christians and SJs to judge psychology a "pseudo-science," unless i'm misreading your syntax. Psychiatry isn't god; it's simply a body of knowledge and practice that can be helpful in people overcoming or coping with life problems. it's also more a "fuzzy science" than some other bodies of knowledge out there -- it's not all quantitative, there's a lot of intuition involved in treatment and the results are often more qualitative as well. As such, some of the ideas can be good and some rotten; some approaches will work for some people and not as well for others.

In the end, the question is to ask, (1) what do YOU want to do with YOUR life? and (2) can you respect/trust psychiatry enough to claim it as your particular tool that you'll use to help others? The opinions of other people ultimately don't matter; this is a "life" thing, involving your own personal satisfaction and values, and also I would suggest some of those opinions are as biased as the approaches they ridicule from the pulplit and pew.

 

[Cognisant]

Psychiatry is indeed a pseudo-science.

A neurosis, a disease and a disorder are all very different things and currently there's almost no way to conclusively test for them, to confirm one or rule out the others, so I'm hesitant to call psychiatry as a whole a pseudo-science, however it's well know that psychiatry/psychology are disciplines that attract a certain kind of person, ones who have good reason to question their own sanity, so it's no stretch of the imagination that there's plenty of pseudo-scientists in those fields.

 

[Absurdity]

All I know is that my friend's dad is one and he's the most jaded guy you'll ever meet

 

[Valentas]

I think that no one can help you with your troubles, except yourself. My mother's friend psychologist/psychiatrist did not make sense to me. I asked whether she helps people. She said, I just try to inspire them to take action over themselves. ;D In other words, if you become psychiatrist, then you're an inspiration for others, a little push that is needed to shake the person's awareness on himself.

UNLESS YOU BECOME A SLAVE TO PHARMACEUTICAL COMPANIES. I went to psychiatrist to check me up. Just in case. I knew there is nothing wrong with me. But, hey, the old lady started talk, ask me questions and said that I'm a bit mentally imbalanced. That I should go to her for further visits and pay a lot of money for it. I said to her that she is one of the most useless professional ever and her profession sucks and I asked what's wrong with me. She said that I'm arrogant and started blabbering again...I stood up and left lol. That was very very very illogical and she wanted me to put on the pills....whatever.

 

[Nezaros]

Psychology and psychiatry are often labelled pseudosciences because they are subjective by nature. Unless you're attempting to self-diagnose, all the pertinent information is secondhand, and in any case is filtered through the oft-unreliable human mind. If science is about objective understanding, psychology is about the furthest thing possible from a true science.

But I don't mean to say that it's useless. It may be inherently flawed but it's still the only methodology available for understanding the human mind, which I daresay is a fairly important topic.

 

[Jennywocky]

I think that no one can help you with your troubles, except yourself. My mother's friend psychologist/psychiatrist did not make sense to me. I asked whether she helps people. She said, I just try to inspire them to take action over themselves. ;D In other words, if you become psychiatrist, then you're an inspiration for others, a little push that is needed to shake the person's awareness on himself.

It depends on whether there is an actual biological component involved or not, but typically yes. I've seen one psychiatrist write about how frustrating dealing with people can be, because it's definitely one of the fields where the cure is basically in the hands of the patient (if anywhere) rather than the doctor.

 

[Ex-User (5841)]

In terms of the DSM, yes, it's pseudoscience. But medications do help some people, which is very much a science. As a psychiatrist, you'd have the opportunity to combine the science with the art of therapy (via recommendation), and you'd be one of those truly special psychiatrists who don't believe meds can fix it all and aren't poster children for big pharma, A.K.A. one of the good ones.

 

[Hadoblado]

I'm not sure how relevant this is to the current topic, but I find a lot of people have trouble accepting the veracity of psychology/iatry not because it doesn't work, but because it doesn't work 100% of the time. It's statistically empirical, but a lot of people want it to be concrete empirical. People are massively variable, and the treatments that are used may only help 60% of them. It's still better than doing nothing, it's the best course of action available.

 

[Beat Mango]

Bear in mind that it benefits the sufferer to have their "condition" identified and named. This allows them to claim very real benefits such as welfare, or time off work. It's also a quick-fix to have laymen understand the darker side of the human psyche. Most people simply aren't able to comprehend depressive thoughts, bipolar moods, autistic thoughts, etc. So labelling them as an "illness" enables fast empathy from the masses without going into all the gory details.

I would be surprised, however, if any INTP is satisfied that psychiatry explains mental illness coherently and completely.

 

[TimeAsylums]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VZGWqBR1D3E


http://prezi.com/kpjsnkvxhcly/freud-in-criminal-minds/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychology
Psychoanalytic theory and therapy were criticized by psychologists such as Hans Eysenck, and by philosophers including Karl Popper. Popper, a philosopher of science, argued that psychoanalysis had been misrepresented as a scientific discipline,[26] whereas Eysenck said that psychoanalytic tenets had been contradicted by experimental data. By the end of 20th century, psychology departments in American universities had become scientifically oriented, marginalizing Freudian theory and dismissing it as a "desiccated and dead" historical artifact.[27] Meanwhile, however, researchers in the emerging field of neuro-psychoanalysis defended some of Freud's ideas on scientific grounds,[28] while scholars of the humanities maintained that Freud was not a "scientist at all, but ... an interpreter."[27]

Theory

Criticisms of psychological research often come from perceptions that it is a "soft" science. Philosopher of science Thomas Kuhn's 1962 critique[69] implied psychology overall was in a pre-paradigm state, lacking the agreement on overarching theory found in mature sciences such as chemistry and physics.
Because some areas of psychology rely on research methods such as surveys and questionnaires, critics have asserted that psychology is not an objective science. Other concepts that psychologists are interested in, such as personality, thinking, and emotion, cannot be directly measured[70] and are often inferred from subjective self-reports, which may be problematic.[71][72]


might help: http://www.intpforum.com/showthread.php?t=16614

however, also important

Systemic bias

In 1959 statistician Theodore Sterling examined the results of psychological studies and discovered that 97% of them supported their initial hypotheses, implying a possible publication bias.[86][87][88] Similarly, Fanelli (2010)[89] found that 91.5% of psychiatry/psychology studies confirmed the effects they were looking for, and concluded that the odds of this happening (a positive result) was around five times higher than in fields such as space- or geosciences. Fanelli argues that this is because researchers in "softer" sciences have fewer constraints to their conscious and unconscious biases.

 

[WALKYRIA]

Thanks ya'll, sorry was doing exams... now done.

I think Hadoblado makes a good point -- you can view your profession as making a contribution to a particular field rather than a display of allegiance to a currently existing body of ideas.

thanx, I think ill still go there than... My pain is due to indecisiveness between initial goal(oncology) and latter goal(psychiatry). Since my "existential depression", I'm somehow attracted to the issues of the mind more than the physical issues. Psychiatry gives the opportunity to help people, to medicate and to do neuroscientifical research and to study LIFELONG about all and everything in relation with the mind(tiouches to philosophy, sociology, psychology, ..Etc) which is personnaly ++++. Oncology on the other hand was my goal before depression, It gives the opportunity to do research on cancer cells, and maintain my idealism(" the cancer cure") . As cancer is linked with aging, it also can give answers to humanistic questions such as: what is our maximal life span ever reachable? Is cancer induced by aging and thus normal? What is etiology of cancer? Is pollution directly involved in cancer? Is stress involved in cancer ?etc

Anyways, I guess I'll go in psychiatry... it's my natural penchant since I'm a wide achiever more than a high achiever. The broader, the better. And I consider myself nuts so it's a good deal.

http://www.romankrznaric.com/outrospection/2012/07/10/1659

I also find it ironic that you are giving credibility to Christians and SJs to judge psychology a "pseudo-science," unless i'm misreading your syntax.

I have poor english syntax indeed. And, I've longlife hidden my INTPness to my family, Ive been educated to be a somewhat regular IST*... so I do my best to appear normal to them. They think i'm the prototypical nice, quiet guy. They are already planning for me to find a wife and to settle somewhere and to live a regular life. They ignore that i'm a crazy mofo who takes a lot of risks...

Philosopher of science Thomas Kuhn's 1962 critique[69] implied psychology overall was in a pre-paradigm state, lacking the agreement on overarching theory found in mature sciences such as chemistry and physics.

Agree. This is because humanity is still young and ignorant;Things will be better When ethology(behaviourism) and neurobiology/neurosciences will be uncovered...


Anyways, thanx for your input and feel free to comment on why is psychiatry/psychology not as usefull... or usefull.

 

[Vrecknidj]

Some psychiatrists are bullshitters. Some are geniuses. Some are brilliant conversationalists. Some are great doctors but terrible at helping people. Etc., etc.

The field itself is not bullshit, but it certainly lends itself to foolishness, bogus interpretations, etc.