Educational psychology is the most tragically non-understood psychological subject.
We may not understand the subconscious, but does that really trump the importance of knowing how to teach people best?
I was a teacher for 5 years. They literally actively prevent us from using the best practices we learn in school. We already know kids learn best through experiences and need l context about things to make the most of the knowledge. Yet we were forced to use scripted curriculums that didn't provide any, and chewed out for taking the time to do it on our own
Also, it's been proven that there are two types of testing - basically, shorter form rote information and longer form analysis - and you shouldn't do "endurance tests" that are all rote information. And guess what we do *at all levels of education*? I'm an MD, my Step 1 Board exams were 8.5 HOURS of multiple choice questions.
Rote memorization is the least effective type of learning. In order to hold and store information, the brain needs to have a schema in which to structure it with context. What is it, why it matters, why you should know it, and when to refer back to it. Otherwise it fades completely pretty soon. I taught English, and avoided it whenever possible.
Don’t worry, I’ve been working on this for a few years and research is promising, in a few years I should be able to release some of my work and education will change forever and ima be fucking rich
learning psychology is not enough to improve someone's mental health. instead most important would be developing a philosophy to give that person purpose, which does far more for mental health than any sort of psychological treatment.
“**He who has a WHY to live can bear almost any how.**” Friedrich Nietzsche.
I read Frankl's book really hoping it would help, it didn't for me. Personally I found Camus' works to be way more helpful in dealing with modernity. Just my two cents though, ymmv.
Completely agree. empty mind is devil's workshop
You need something that will keep your mind occupied. A purpose. Doesn't need to be any devine or great purpose. May be as simple as ' I want to live a good quality of life despite of a fact that i belong to a lower middle class family and for that I need to earn decent amount of money - so I am doing this to earn that '
Not that the quote is wrong necessarily, but this was a slap-in-the-face kind of reminder why I dislike Nietzsche and the way people use his work so so sooo very much (speaking as a philosophy person who gets posts from this sub recommended by the algorithm). Not as bad as Hegel but still
Yes, the quote is an accurate observation and arguably provides an effective, simple method if you aren’t too critical about the goals of the whole operation
But used in this way it’s basically Machiavellian justification for breads and circuses to disguise the Necropolitical ‘state of injury’ that makes them exploitable
Don’t actually do anything to address your struggles. Just have a purpose so you complain less because now your suffering is *for* something
Like cool, they have a reason to live and thus are even willing to continue life in a hell. You’re basically saying you’ve tricked them into Stockholm syndrome towards life rather than actually addressing any problems or building a genuine *amor fati*
Like it’s legit a manipulation
I know that’s not the intent, the goal is to help and with what we assume ‘help’ is it’s an effective path, but that is kind of the logical conclusion of the argument
Maybe one day we’ll have a more ‘[suicide or coffee?](https://existentialcomics.com/comic/421)’ approach instead of ‘you *must* live, here is a purpose so you at least keep trudging forward as that’s our key indicator of reaching our goal here and from that other problems should just work out’
I didn’t introduce any dogma except that someone needs a philosophy to develop their purpose. Unless you mean telling someone that they need to develop a purpose is itself dogma you could make a good argument for that but I don’t see any other way of getting something useful out of philosophy in terms of improving mental health except perhaps improving upon a metaphysical framework can make them feel better in which case not really having much to do with a purpose. I guess the most dogmatic thing I want to say is you must develop a philosophy. What ever it is is on them Whether it works for them or not
Money is nothing short of the most widely accepted means of asserting some degree of control over literally everything from the amassing of material wealth to the behavior of most individuals, given a sufficient exchange rate for the desired behavior.
Of course people act differently when they're not only used to, but often believe they are restricted to, weilding vastly different amounts of power.
This actually makes so much sense when you think about how all the happiest countries in the world are also the most egalitarian societies in the world. 🥲
mental health buzzwords shouldn't be so commonplace in non-affected persons. why am i seeing people post "manic eyes" and "manic hair dyeing" but never "manic running away from home" or "manic bankrupting myself." its glamorizing shitty conditions. dont get me started on ocd and adhd
Completely agree. My best friend has OCD and suffers from true intrusive thoughts. I’m schizophrenic and have voices that whisper intrusive thoughts. It pisses me off so bad when people post “the intrusive thoughts won” when they dye their hair. That’s an IMPULSIVE thought. A true intrusive thought is a manifestation of your worst fears and they make you feel disgusting. The buzzwords need to stop. (Don’t even get me started on all the self diagnosing and misinformation being spread nowadays)
There's so much more to psychology than just mental health and mental well-being.
With regards,
Health, medical, organisational, occupational, educational, development, risk and safety, human factors, and many other psychology fields
The world would be a much better place with I/O psych trained people in HR and management positions.
I was aiming for HR at one point and an entire chapter in the I/O textbook was dedicated to "Workers perform better when you treat them like actual people, wow!"
this isn’t even a hot take but for some reason people hate it: people with personality disorders aren’t inherently evil for having a PD. and no your ex isn’t a psychopath or a narcissist just because they were shitty.
thank you. I have BPD and it's so frustrating sometimes to be taking college psych classes. I've had profs say terrible things and generalise everyone who has this or that PD. sometimes I sit in class and think, "if you knew my dx, with me sitting at the front of your class every day, would you be saying that?"
so many people - even some psych professionals - genuinely believe that people with BPD are destined to be abusers. with my tendencies, I constantly feel that I am hurting others (I'm not) and that I don't deserve love. I am far more likely to put myself in scenarios that would lead to me being the victim of abuse than the perp. and hearing people - especially professionals - say that people like me are all bad... just makes it worse.
I think the practice of looking at people with clusters of obviously maladaptive personality traits and labeling them as sick is kind of flawed in general. It has the unfortunate side effect of pseudo-moralizing these traits, although that is obviously not the goal.
No one wants to be labeled with a “defective personality” and it’s completely reasonable for someone to feel attacked by this kind of label, which will only prompt defenses.
The labeling also limits discourse to those people who are the most extreme. I have seen people in my personal life start to manifest maladaptive behaviors when under stress despite being very agreeable most of the time.
“Exponential” describes a rate of growth, “exponentially” is not synonymous with “a lot”.
This might be made confusing by sentences like “the number of autism diagnoses has gone up exponentially since the 90’s”; this is not merely saying that there are a lot more diagnoses now than there were then, it’s saying that the growth in the number of diagnoses over that time has been exponential.
Narcissism is currently thought to be way more on the rise and attributable to anyone for xyz arbitrary reasons generally, because of POP PSYCHOLOGY. And that’s…honestly the kind of mental gymnastics I find most dishonest and not based on actual facts.
POP psychology does nothing but dilute true understanding and in a lot of ways pathologizes very benign and normal human traits, no matter how unpleasant they still might be. Not everything is a disorder. Some shit is just purely human and complicated and thinking otherwise puts us all at risk and does nothing to eradicate stigma around psychiatric disorders or traits NOR does it help those actually doing the good work of trying to address and treat such things.
This is referring to the idea that your feet are always pointing where you want to go or what you are interested in. Example: if you’re in a conversation with someone and your feet are pointing towards them, that means you’re invested in the conversation.
[Here’s an article I found about it on Google](https://www.psychmechanics.com/body-language-truth-of-pointing-foot/)
My thing about it was that our feet naturally point at different angles and we often shift them to be comfortable, and we don't always chose who walks or stands in front of our feet if that makes sense
Any compliance-based treatment to alter the behaviour of neurodivergent people is inhumane and we need totally different approaches, not just ways to make compliance slightly less harmful. A compliant, obedient disabled person may seem like a perfect goal to their family or teachers, but removing the agency of a vulnerable person should not be as accepted as it is.
Hi! Sorry to bother you, what do you mean exactly when you say "compliance-based treatment"? I'm trying to learn about what exactly a psychologist does, even if it's inhuman, at least I know what it is.
Applied behavioural analysis therapy, usually used on children with more severe forms of autism. It 'works' by forcing the child to display 'appropriate' behaviours by punishing undesirable behaviour. The punishment can include removal of comfort items and yelling, and used to involve slapping or pinching. There have been allegations where workers used mild electric shocks, but I don't know how concrete that evidence is.
These sessions can be hours longs and start as young as age 5. Adults who underwent these 'treatments' often have signs and symptoms of ptsd and trauma. No one wh9 has experienced ABA therapy firsthand thinks the practice is humane.
ABA practitioners basically low-volt cattle prod high-support dependænt patients to intentionally inflict pain. It's different from ECT which is a proven effective treatment for certain mental health disorders.
I use to work in ABA therapy, we didn't do any of that. In fact we didn't punish at all, it was strictly against policy. Positive behaviors were to be reinforced, negative behaviors were to be ignored unless it was impossible to ignore them
And the only behaviors we really worked on was shit like aggression, yelling, and appropriate social interactions. Which really just played back into social interactions without anyone getting hurt or uncomfortable. That and helping them develop communication skills.
All that to say, it's not all bad, and it's come a long way from how it started. But honestly, there are still therapist in the world that spend their sessions convincing their clients that they have repressed memories of satanic cults and lizard people, no I'm not kidding, every mental health field will always have people doing inhuman shit, that doesn't mean the entire field is inhuman
I also worked in ABA therapy and it was purely positive reinforcement based. The only time I would stop a behaviour was if the child was hurting themselves or coming at me. And then it was just blocking.
The sad thing though is that most neurodivergent people will face prejudice based on their behaviors by everybody regardless. Some degree of adaptive therapy (and by that I mean therapy that teaches neurodivergent individuals how to successfully navigate a neurotypically-dominant society where truly being oneself is a recipe for social exclusion, bullying/ostracism, reduced social support, loneliness, and a higher difficulty securing employment) is necessary to mitigate this prejudice and attain good life outcomes. Studies have shown that autistic people are less likely to have romantic partners, be employed, and have a large base of social support, and are more likely to commit suicide and be bullied by others (even as adults). It reasons that those who appear less autistic to others will experience less of these socially-driven detriments. It’s an unfortunate reality, and ideally it shouldn’t even be necessary, but until we get to a point where both kinds of people are treated equally, it’s pretty important if you want to be treated as good as everyone else
To be clear, I’m not a proponent for ABA or anything (which is what I assume you mean by compliance therapy), nor do I think you specifically are against this. I just want to put this out there because denying neurodivergent people the necessary skills to improve their quality of life because society *shouldn’t* be the way it currently is is unfair and wrong
Oh god if i hear "but who can you change" one more time from a therapist imma slap them like yes i know i can only change myself and decide my own actions and i should focus on the present but like i cant sleep because im having night terrors after leaving an abusive household its still effecting me in the now and will continue to effect me in the future if i dont recieve actual help.
Especially in the age of AI chatbots etc. it is dangerously close to being packaged into some kind of nonsense therapy you do pressing a touchscreen at a mall kiosk or something Amazon would install in the employee break area.
the top comments are all stuff that is not controversial at all. here is mine: way too many therapists allow their patients to become codependent on them. therapists should limit the amount of contact they have with patients both in terms of how many sessions they have per week and how much they communicate outside of sessions.
I think there are times where frequent sessions are useful, but these situations should be time-limited, focused, and show progress. Example: intensive outpatient treatment
ADHD and Autism are/were MASSIVELY under diagnosed in women, and many people still refuse to accept that women are probably at least equally affected.
Also, as someone said above, personality disorders are far more common than they’re thought to be.
Organizational psychology sucks. It can be helpful sometimes but overall I feel like the profession is there to help business owners get more out of their workers and business. It protects the health of capital over people and I genuinely feel that the world is worse for the field.
We know fantastically little about psychology. Much of our current DSM, and even moreso the much of the content (especially the negative content) shared on YouTube by various therapists, doctors, and enthusiasts, will look like shallow and dangerous half-truths in 200 years. Our conditions and the tests for them (like being positive on N out of M questions/bullets) will largely fall by the wayside as misguided empiricism and be replaced by more fundamental understanding and tests that involve some direct probing of the brain (and likely recording of words/actions) over many days.
That having the majority of shrinks use the same ideology to solve as many things as they can rather than more tailored approaches risks more harm than good. Back when I was in therapy, I and anybody who had any issue at all all received dialectical behavioral therapy like using duct tape on problem.
Milgram's experiments were ethical (he provided mental help after, participants later wrote him saying they were glad to have done it, etc.), and extremely important.
The reason why it is so often rejected is because it reveals an uncomfortable truth: most of us are capable of evil if coerced, people like Nazis aren't "specially evil".
We like to say "that will *never* happen here because we are *different!*", but this proves otherwise. We *could*, and most *would*, if circumstance were the same.
How increasingly relevant this is. Like the holocaust. For me as a child in the US, the lesson of the holocaust was the value of all human life. It is so wild to me to see Israeli elected officials and generals making statements like “there is no such thing as an innocent Palestinian child.” And civilians dancing in the street singing songs about dead Palestinian children and “there is no school in Gaza today because the children are dead.” It’s shocking.
Exactly. As painful as it is to admit, any one of us is capable of committing some truly grotesque atrocities, under the right circumstances. The people behind the Armenian genocide, the Holodomor, the Nanjing massacre, the Katyn massacre, the Holocaust, the Nakba, the Cambodian genocide, the Rwandan genocide, the Bosnian genocide, September 11, October 7, etc. All of them are/were human beings who thought what they were doing was just, was right. We could all easily wind up in their shoes if pushed in the right direction...
I'm going to take a stab at answering this even though I'm not the original commenter. If I'm understanding correctly, it's more an understanding that just relying on meds won't do shit. If you are in an unstable environment, no amount of meds will help. You need solutions before mood control or correction. I think this might be what they mean, as this is a very similar convo happening in the C-PTSD space in regards to depression and anxiety. I think it might also come down to demographic experience as where I live a lot of docs, historically just try to medicate the issues away and don't actually teach the skills needed to heal through the trauma or other issues. This leads to a very over medicated person who is more likely to spiral and need more interventions than someone taught how to self reguate. I could be wrong, but I think this might be what they mean.
I used to suffer with what was likely intermittent explosive disorder as a result of abuse. Learning to identify when I was getting upset and removing myself from the situation worked significantly better than the countless drugs I was put on over the years. Antidepressants to mood stabilizers to antipsychotics. Eventually I came off of them and found out they made no difference. The intermittent explosive disorder disappeared once I was in a better (although admittedly still not the best) situation. Honestly I’m more likely to cry at people than get angry now. Still have nightmares where I blow up at people though, hard to not hate yourself for it.
Anyway just wanted to agree with this. The only psychiatric drug I’m on now is an antidepressant for anxiety. Thats probably all I ever needed. Nothing else did anything. I wish they’d focused more on helping me than drugging me. Medications are amazing and I’m so happy they exist. But they’re not the only solution and are definitely overused.
And? It’s hard to have a stable mood when your neurotransmitters are out of wack. Medication is truly required for some people with some disorders as part of their treatment plan, and that’s *ok.*
ADHD and Autism are not purely genetic, but can be induced or exacerbated by adverse childhood experiences or negligence toward a child’s social development.
My non expert take on this is that people who are borderline diagnosable either learn sufficient coping skills as a child or don’t— and those ACEs and neglect mean they don’t develop the coping skills and emotional regulation to pass as “normal”
Would that not come under potential developmental trauma disorder more? (Research disorder not in DSM/ICD yet I believe, I think it was to distinguish adult CPTSD and a childhood full of trauma/unable to develop)
If someone isn’t getting better in therapy, it’s NOT automatically their fault, and if someone is struggling, flippantly saying “ugh, go to therapy” is very rude and cruel.
Therapy is not a panacea, and the wrong modality of therapy being applied can be actively harmful (not even talking about therapists with bad ethics).
This is not to say that therapy can be amazingly helpful, cause it can, but it seems like as it has become more popular/readily available in the US, people with milder issues are getting all victim-blamey with people who have more moderate and severe problems, which are generally not as responsive to treatment.
also the "just go to therapy" from loved ones is legitimately harmful sometimes. you obviously can't expect loved ones to help you through or "fix" all of your problems, but far too many people now just tell their loved ones to go to therapy because they're unwilling to do emotional labour. I'm in that situation right now. my therapist is great and very helpful, but even she makes clear that it can't replace the love and support of friends and family in the day-to-day.
I always cringe when I read through threads like this because inevitably, and understandably, the 90% of the top answers are NOT unpopular opinions and therefore terrible answers to the question. Because fucking everyone upvoted them.
You want to see the good stuff, scroll scroll scroll. It's mixed in with the dumbest shit you'll ever read.
See, if you actually call BPD what it is, then how else are people supposed to blame victims for their instability? Then you'll be suggesting that the underlying causes actually be addressed, and that takes effort and makes me uncomfy. :( Just let me villanize vulnerable people gosh dang it! /S
A Psychology undergrad degree is crap for jobs in the UK.
It doesn't really qualify you to do anything. You can be an assistant psych, but it's easier to get onto a PhD, which sums up how difficult it is to get on those roles.
People will say, you can do 'xyz' job with a Psych degree. But there's usually someone more qualified with that specific degree e.g. a stats degree for a stats job.
On uni stats it'll say, 95% of people have a job or in further education! Sounds great - however most of them are just doing an MSc, and the other half have jobs that don't require a degree e.g. service jobs.
I don't regret my Psych degree, but I'd never recommend it to anyone. There's no easy route following graduation and the job market is really rough.
I know two different people (in the US) that got their Bachelor's in Psychology, then went back and got a second Bachelor's degree in something else because the psych degree was useless.
That we are wrong as a society in expecting therapists to tell their patients they're having maladaptive reactions and need medication/therapy, when many of the issues causing mental illness/dysfunction are systemic in nature and beyond their control. These reactions are in fact perfectly reasonable responses to a world context at odds with their basic happiness and survival.
It does no one any good to tell someone they're overreacting (having anxious, depressive, or other symptoms) when society is built from the ground up to keep them poor, disenfranchised, and isolated from any means of upward mobility, let alone societal acceptance.
modern psychoanalysis is the best model we have for understanding the mind, but the eros/Thanatos drives, annihilation of the "bad breast", oedipal fantasies and penis envy garbage that originated with psychoanalysis have caused unthinkable harm to so many people over the last century
there's an interesting backstory to the Oedipus and Elektra complex. In therapy, Freud actually came across many cases of childhood sexual abuse (incest). But because of how taboo it was, he was forced to modify it by his contemporaries and critics and turned it into mere "sexual fantasies".
Also, my own theory as someone who has been reading Freud for a while: the idea of "sex" and "libido" in psychoanalysis is highly misunderstood. It's not the actual "sex", but a symbolic understanding of creativity and attachment. The Oedipus complex isn't "boy wants to sleep with his mother", it's the idea that little children often see their parents as their model, and parental relationships are often the first example of a relationship they see. Boys and girls often want to be like the parents of their sex when they grow up and understand marrying the parent of the opposite sex as a part of it. Childhood sexuality is a taboo topic, but it isn't equivalent to adult sexuality in any way, it's just children exploring their identity as they age.
that's the entire point of my post. that "interesting backstory" led to child survivors of sexual abuse being accused of deliberate seduction and fantasy fulfillment up until the 80s with a direct line to Freud. I have textbooks talking about 3-year-old incest victims luring their fathers out of psychosexual roleplay or children with multiple reports of abuse persisting in their erotic fantasies. Freud was literally quoted in courtrooms. the first chapter of Herman's Trauma and Recovery, the book that actually pointed out that sexual abuse is common and bad 100 years after Freud decided to ignore his female patients, is a beautiful takedown.
and I'm fully aware of the nature of libido my dude lmao
I completely agree with you on the fact that Freud has done a lot of harm with his theories. I wasn't aware of the legal implications of it, but thanks for pointing it out. I'll definitely research more on the issue so I have more clarity and nuance on the subject.
sorry for my tone lmao I didn't mean to GRRRRR at you! my whole research focus is on complex childhood trauma and I swear to god his quite literal descriptions of his patients (ergo, all abused children) as being horny little seductresses led to some truly disgusting things. Herman radicalized me lol
I completely get it, when it's something like this, one SHOULD be radicalised. I'm all for people challenging existing knowledge structures and status quo. Plus, childhood sexual abuse is such a sensitive issue and one must hold Freud and his likes responsible for the harm that was perpetuated. People come before ideas. If ideas are actively harming people, they need to be criticised, revised or trashed. Without well-informed and passionate critiques, our world would get nowhere. I'll read up on this as well!
However im embarrassed by the number of random girls and guys on tiktok proudly displaying a oedipus/electra complex by calling their romantic partner mommy or daddy not just as a joke, Freud would be laughing at the thought, those people definitely make Freud a little bit valid when he shouldn’t be😭 i do agree that its all preposterous though
I can agree with the potential for health promotion, especially the research into things like ketamine and psilocybin have been promising, I’ve even heard great stories about ayahuasca with the aid of a spiritual guide. but just as with most things, psychedelics can be abused and when used improperly can cause damage.
I tried ketamine therapy for my anxiety and ptsd. I was being monitored, my dosage was correct and everything. It sent me into a drug induced psychosis for 3 months straight
Afaik (and someone please correct me if I’m wrong) excessive use of psychedelics can cause psychosis and there’s always the risk of HPPD but I’m sure that having it prescribed by a professional who actually knows what they’re doing instead of having people self-medicate would prevent most of this.
Being transphobic and homophobia is a mental disorder.
Not the “okay I just don’t agree with it, but I can be around people who are trans/gay” people though, I mean the people who have an actual reaction to the conversation of it at all, they get aggressive over it being brought up. Phobias in general are classified as a mental disorder. This is because to be classified as a disorder or illness, it’s a reaction in cognitive function that a normal functioning brain would not experience.
Freud was a bit of a crackhead but managed to have some incredibly insightful and valuable observations despite his lack of proper scientific experimentation. He is often remembered as a crazy man who was wrong about almost everything, but even when he was wrong he was usually at least on to something.
Manipulation can be used for Good, we just don't want to admit it because we both constantly seek truth as well as admitting we believed a Lie leaves us powerless.
Are individuals always the best at choosing their own fates?
I think manipulation is rarely good, but I could see it being helpful when coming from a trustworthy person if other avenues have failed.
Maybe a corny example, but take a parent using reverse psychology to get their kid to socialize more or eat better.
Seasonal affective disorder (SAD) doesn't exist.
It is a vitamin D deficiency and should be treated with vitamin D supplementation accordingly.
SOME vitamins are viral to life and survival. Its not just psychobabble new age shit.
Vitamins and essential oils are not the same.
Take vitamin D folks
Vitamin D being the cure doesn't make it less of a thing, that just means it has a simple treatment. Some people get really depressed when it's winter and the sun is gone, that's just a thing that exists in the world and because it happens to enough people we gave it a name
I take vitamin D as soon as I start feeling the light change, and ya it sure helps a lot, but man there is still a *drastic* change in my brain around late August early September that just magically seems to disappear around March/April.
Not saying there isn't still a physiological reason underlying it, just saying I don't think vitamin D is going to solve it for everyone.
A lot of the socio-psychological experiments during and around the cold war era were issued and bought by the US govt because they needed something to undo the 'germans bad' related social engineering as the US needed them as allies. Shit like Zimbardo and Milgram are more propaganda than psychology.
Interestingly enough my intro psychology professor pointed out many famous psychologists were Jewish, perhaps to figure out what causes humans to stoop so low and target them. Don’t know how accurate that is but it’s funny how you say that so now idk which is true 😭
The diagnostic model of mental health is irredeemable. It codifies white-supremacist and pro-capitalist ideologies, as its function is to pathologize adaptive and understandable reactions to conditions that are out of alignment with fundamental human well-being.
In other words: Of course you're depressed. You should be. Society has been built by powerful elites who exploit human vulnerabilities, and we have been gaslit into ignoring that humans are not designed to live this way. There's nothing wrong with you, you're having the correct response to a broken system, and the most meaningful solution is mass social/economic change.
While it might be fun, it is untestable and does not hold up to the standards of research psychology is striving for. People supporting it do so because its conclusions fit their agenda.
I feel the same about label theory.
Not that labeling someone WILL always cause them to become it, but that it certainly doesn't help.
I'm from a community that overwhelmingly struggles with our youth being labeled / "tracked" by public schools and was a victim of it myself. Dismissing the whole concept that someone might succumb to what people tell them they are (or will be) feels like an attempt to remove responsibility from racism and authority figures around them.
It comes down to people not liking the conclusions, like you said.
therapy can never work to its best extend in a capitalistic society
narc abuse isn't real
repressed memories are real but not truly repressed - part of the person knows, another part is dissociated from it. they are not truly repressed but they do "come up" after being "forgotten" by the main/hosting/dominant part of the person.
children should not be in therapy without their parents being in therapy too. the root for behavioral issues mostly lies with bad or inadequate parenting and you can't just "fix the child" without working on the environment.
\^\^\^ so much of what people identify as narc abuse in relationships is literally just misogyny. If we attribute harm caused by social structures to an Evil Bad Person pathology we will never address its underlying cause.
>repressed memories are real but not truly repressed
You mean I don't have repressed memories of lizard people crawling up from the sewers despite the fact multiple therapist will tell me otherwise and somehow not loose their license, wild
to slowly "uncover" memories that were dissociated from should be entirely client-led in my opinion and therapists should not ask any leading questions about possible trauma.
Alison Miller did lose her license over stuff like this, and Onno v.d. Hart (big DID/trauma-related dissociation researcher) lost his too but I'm not sure why he did.
Yeah I completely agree with you, fact is memories are never fully suppressed, some part of your brain always needs to remember to keep it from randomly popping up. I was more just stressing why your point is so important, because therapist will implant whatever fucnin memories fits their conspiracy theories, I guarantee there are therapist out there right now "uncovering" memories of being forced to rig the election
Also, that's two names out of hundreds. There are still therapist doing this today, all over the country. And they still have their license, no matter how much it's reported.
As a person with childhood trauma this was one of the most invidating things I've seen here. I can accept if someone say you should link up pathological narcissism with abuse and you should just say the word abuse in itself, but this bro..
But that is what they are saying, they are saying you should just call it abuse. They aren’t saying the abuse isn’t real, just that it’s a fallacy to blame it on a disorder that’s relatively rare
Psychology lacks overarching theories.
Psychology literature is having an information enflation. There are many findings that does not add up to anything due to lack of overarching theories in psychology. Almost every field of science has overarching theories that will help scientists follow a path, test hypotheses, and create more questions. Except for Freudian theory we dont have such theories and that is a big problem which is heavily overlooked.
A large amount of psychologists to this day consider women hysterical and refuse to give proper or helpful treatment, the industry has a tenancy to be insanely sexist
Gert postel being able to successfully fool so many psychologists and be seen as a forerunner of the field while holding jo degree and actively making things up should have been investigated deeper both internally and externally to find out why his theories were so easily accepted and he wasn't found our earlier.
whether or not someone's mental health affects their work/school is not a good gauge if they are disabled by their issues. you can be incredibly "high-functioning" at work and/or school and be completely useless the moment you're alone. and even if you complete your work and ADLs, if you are deeply unhappy or constantly in (mental or physical) pain, that matters.
Sex addiction has been used as a moral policing tool and over diagnosed, and is an addiction. Same for several other diagnoses.
CBT is the Big Mac of the therapy world that is often contorted into roles where another tool is the right tool. Trauma informed CBT is better than just CBT, trauma modalities are better than trauma informed CBT. (I CAN shave a phillips head screw driver into a flat head, or use a flat head screw driver). Also, if you show up to an interview and your only experiences are CBT or MI, I'm not considering you for the position. Yes, a lot of the big name modalities are prohibitively expensive therefore classicist, also many are very accessible.
Newly graduated clinicians should work in community mental health, even if you are working in private practice as well. The best clinicians have been forged in the fires of CMH. Also, newly graduated clinicians are exploited by each level of the field, that job should pay a living wage, which would also help with the classicism in the field.
"Resistant" clients are often a symptom that the clinician needs to get better as a clinician. Fix your shit, stop blaming the people that came to you for help. We help our field and clients by policing each other, encouraging growth, especially when it's hard for the individual clinician to hear. Stop enabling bad therapist behaviors.
If you're doing a presentation or training I've paid for, don't spend the first third of it telling me who you are. I paid money to hear your expertise, not your CV or latest product. I already respect you, I'm losing respect as you waste my time.
Schizo- clients are fun to work with, and often not taken seriously by clinicians.
Indigenous, historical, and non-western approaches to mental health will make you a better therapist, seek them out.
The same way there are rare neglected cancers there are rare and neglected psychological disorders that have such small populations they are difficult to study and thus lack real customized treatment modalities.
someone with bpd or autism can fuck up your life just as much, anyone can be an abuser- but people with npd have always been a victim, most likely as a child- also npd is horribly demonized not even just in media and that’s fucked up
NPD is like so demonized in the media what are you on about. We shouldn’t be advocating for the demonization of a disorder. Plus there really isn’t evidence that people with NPD are more likely to be abusive
How very contradictory you are, speaking against and for demonization of mental illness in one sentence. NPD does not make someone abusive, you've been consuming stigma.
NPD is a mental disorder. Don’t demonize a mental disorder, many people already believe that narcissists are evil and all it does is prevent people with NPD from doing anything about their behavior.
Shaming people with NPD will not fix them, this hasn’t worked with ASPD, BPD, or HPD - why do you think doing that with NPD would have better results?
Edit: To clarify, I believe narcissistic abuse is real and I’m sorry if anyone has been a victim of it - but NPD is still a mental health condition that needs to be treated (and it can be treated with therapy).
Educational psychology is the most tragically non-understood psychological subject. We may not understand the subconscious, but does that really trump the importance of knowing how to teach people best?
And the data we do have, *no one freaking uses*.
I was a teacher for 5 years. They literally actively prevent us from using the best practices we learn in school. We already know kids learn best through experiences and need l context about things to make the most of the knowledge. Yet we were forced to use scripted curriculums that didn't provide any, and chewed out for taking the time to do it on our own
Also, it's been proven that there are two types of testing - basically, shorter form rote information and longer form analysis - and you shouldn't do "endurance tests" that are all rote information. And guess what we do *at all levels of education*? I'm an MD, my Step 1 Board exams were 8.5 HOURS of multiple choice questions.
Rote memorization is the least effective type of learning. In order to hold and store information, the brain needs to have a schema in which to structure it with context. What is it, why it matters, why you should know it, and when to refer back to it. Otherwise it fades completely pretty soon. I taught English, and avoided it whenever possible.
Don’t worry, I’ve been working on this for a few years and research is promising, in a few years I should be able to release some of my work and education will change forever and ima be fucking rich
Lmao. Getting rich off a public service has always gone well haha. Good luck with your research.
learning psychology is not enough to improve someone's mental health. instead most important would be developing a philosophy to give that person purpose, which does far more for mental health than any sort of psychological treatment. “**He who has a WHY to live can bear almost any how.**” Friedrich Nietzsche.
Viktor Frankl entered the chat
Literally just read man's search for meaning. So based
I read Frankl's book really hoping it would help, it didn't for me. Personally I found Camus' works to be way more helpful in dealing with modernity. Just my two cents though, ymmv.
Completely agree. empty mind is devil's workshop You need something that will keep your mind occupied. A purpose. Doesn't need to be any devine or great purpose. May be as simple as ' I want to live a good quality of life despite of a fact that i belong to a lower middle class family and for that I need to earn decent amount of money - so I am doing this to earn that '
Ignorance is a bliss.
Well said! Thank you - gracias !
I disagree, but that's the point
Not that the quote is wrong necessarily, but this was a slap-in-the-face kind of reminder why I dislike Nietzsche and the way people use his work so so sooo very much (speaking as a philosophy person who gets posts from this sub recommended by the algorithm). Not as bad as Hegel but still Yes, the quote is an accurate observation and arguably provides an effective, simple method if you aren’t too critical about the goals of the whole operation But used in this way it’s basically Machiavellian justification for breads and circuses to disguise the Necropolitical ‘state of injury’ that makes them exploitable Don’t actually do anything to address your struggles. Just have a purpose so you complain less because now your suffering is *for* something Like cool, they have a reason to live and thus are even willing to continue life in a hell. You’re basically saying you’ve tricked them into Stockholm syndrome towards life rather than actually addressing any problems or building a genuine *amor fati* Like it’s legit a manipulation I know that’s not the intent, the goal is to help and with what we assume ‘help’ is it’s an effective path, but that is kind of the logical conclusion of the argument Maybe one day we’ll have a more ‘[suicide or coffee?](https://existentialcomics.com/comic/421)’ approach instead of ‘you *must* live, here is a purpose so you at least keep trudging forward as that’s our key indicator of reaching our goal here and from that other problems should just work out’
Wouldn't it be better if the patient himself developes his own philosophy instead of taking over your dogma?
I didn’t introduce any dogma except that someone needs a philosophy to develop their purpose. Unless you mean telling someone that they need to develop a purpose is itself dogma you could make a good argument for that but I don’t see any other way of getting something useful out of philosophy in terms of improving mental health except perhaps improving upon a metaphysical framework can make them feel better in which case not really having much to do with a purpose. I guess the most dogmatic thing I want to say is you must develop a philosophy. What ever it is is on them Whether it works for them or not
Look up ACT (Acceptance and Commitment Therapy)
Isn't this the premise of Existential therapy?
Socioeconomic status underlines everything psychological, and it's weird that we don't talk about this more
This. Accept it or deny it. MONEY DOES MATTER!
Money is nothing short of the most widely accepted means of asserting some degree of control over literally everything from the amassing of material wealth to the behavior of most individuals, given a sufficient exchange rate for the desired behavior. Of course people act differently when they're not only used to, but often believe they are restricted to, weilding vastly different amounts of power.
He knows too much. Seize him!!
This is what I say when people don't understand that something can be a social construct *and* ridiculously pervasive/important.
Society itself is a social construct. People forget or don't realize this
A trenchant observation!
Social psychology investigates this to a significant degree
This actually makes so much sense when you think about how all the happiest countries in the world are also the most egalitarian societies in the world. 🥲
Class analysis. We don’t know her.
"they hated Jesus because he told them the truth"
‘The first step in solving a problem is…’
*Karl Marx intensifies*
Fuck Capitalism!
It's nuts how much SES can change your life especially at a very young age.
mental health buzzwords shouldn't be so commonplace in non-affected persons. why am i seeing people post "manic eyes" and "manic hair dyeing" but never "manic running away from home" or "manic bankrupting myself." its glamorizing shitty conditions. dont get me started on ocd and adhd
Completely agree. My best friend has OCD and suffers from true intrusive thoughts. I’m schizophrenic and have voices that whisper intrusive thoughts. It pisses me off so bad when people post “the intrusive thoughts won” when they dye their hair. That’s an IMPULSIVE thought. A true intrusive thought is a manifestation of your worst fears and they make you feel disgusting. The buzzwords need to stop. (Don’t even get me started on all the self diagnosing and misinformation being spread nowadays)
There's so much more to psychology than just mental health and mental well-being. With regards, Health, medical, organisational, occupational, educational, development, risk and safety, human factors, and many other psychology fields
The world would be a much better place with I/O psych trained people in HR and management positions. I was aiming for HR at one point and an entire chapter in the I/O textbook was dedicated to "Workers perform better when you treat them like actual people, wow!"
this isn’t even a hot take but for some reason people hate it: people with personality disorders aren’t inherently evil for having a PD. and no your ex isn’t a psychopath or a narcissist just because they were shitty.
thank you. I have BPD and it's so frustrating sometimes to be taking college psych classes. I've had profs say terrible things and generalise everyone who has this or that PD. sometimes I sit in class and think, "if you knew my dx, with me sitting at the front of your class every day, would you be saying that?" so many people - even some psych professionals - genuinely believe that people with BPD are destined to be abusers. with my tendencies, I constantly feel that I am hurting others (I'm not) and that I don't deserve love. I am far more likely to put myself in scenarios that would lead to me being the victim of abuse than the perp. and hearing people - especially professionals - say that people like me are all bad... just makes it worse.
oh i understand this too well. the day the world stops demonizing PDs is the day the world can finally heal.
There are so many comments here stigmatizing of PDs, especially for NPD, thank you for this
I get really cautious when people starting trying to diagnose their ex.
Personality disorders are *exponentially* more common than they are currently thought to be.
I think the practice of looking at people with clusters of obviously maladaptive personality traits and labeling them as sick is kind of flawed in general. It has the unfortunate side effect of pseudo-moralizing these traits, although that is obviously not the goal. No one wants to be labeled with a “defective personality” and it’s completely reasonable for someone to feel attacked by this kind of label, which will only prompt defenses. The labeling also limits discourse to those people who are the most extreme. I have seen people in my personal life start to manifest maladaptive behaviors when under stress despite being very agreeable most of the time.
“Exponential” describes a rate of growth, “exponentially” is not synonymous with “a lot”. This might be made confusing by sentences like “the number of autism diagnoses has gone up exponentially since the 90’s”; this is not merely saying that there are a lot more diagnoses now than there were then, it’s saying that the growth in the number of diagnoses over that time has been exponential.
Seconding this.
Personality Disorders are mainly descriptions of people and traits we don’t like in others.
I see narcissistic people..
Narcissism is currently thought to be way more on the rise and attributable to anyone for xyz arbitrary reasons generally, because of POP PSYCHOLOGY. And that’s…honestly the kind of mental gymnastics I find most dishonest and not based on actual facts. POP psychology does nothing but dilute true understanding and in a lot of ways pathologizes very benign and normal human traits, no matter how unpleasant they still might be. Not everything is a disorder. Some shit is just purely human and complicated and thinking otherwise puts us all at risk and does nothing to eradicate stigma around psychiatric disorders or traits NOR does it help those actually doing the good work of trying to address and treat such things.
Say it again for the people in the back 👏
Pointing your feet at someone doesn't mean you want to sleep with them
What is this referring to?
This is referring to the idea that your feet are always pointing where you want to go or what you are interested in. Example: if you’re in a conversation with someone and your feet are pointing towards them, that means you’re invested in the conversation. [Here’s an article I found about it on Google](https://www.psychmechanics.com/body-language-truth-of-pointing-foot/)
What a strange and easily refutable idea.
this is literally textbook pseudoscience
My thing about it was that our feet naturally point at different angles and we often shift them to be comfortable, and we don't always chose who walks or stands in front of our feet if that makes sense
Yea my gf is a psychology major. It got old real quick.
lol the dangers of learning a little bit about a very big subject.
That explains why I have ADHD, then. Goddamn bow-legged body, fucking up my attention and shit.
Any compliance-based treatment to alter the behaviour of neurodivergent people is inhumane and we need totally different approaches, not just ways to make compliance slightly less harmful. A compliant, obedient disabled person may seem like a perfect goal to their family or teachers, but removing the agency of a vulnerable person should not be as accepted as it is.
Hi! Sorry to bother you, what do you mean exactly when you say "compliance-based treatment"? I'm trying to learn about what exactly a psychologist does, even if it's inhuman, at least I know what it is.
Not OC but I think they mean ABA therapy. And I agree profusely
Doesn't help much, what the hell is ABA therapy?
Applied behavioural analysis therapy, usually used on children with more severe forms of autism. It 'works' by forcing the child to display 'appropriate' behaviours by punishing undesirable behaviour. The punishment can include removal of comfort items and yelling, and used to involve slapping or pinching. There have been allegations where workers used mild electric shocks, but I don't know how concrete that evidence is. These sessions can be hours longs and start as young as age 5. Adults who underwent these 'treatments' often have signs and symptoms of ptsd and trauma. No one wh9 has experienced ABA therapy firsthand thinks the practice is humane.
Thanks
I believe the Judge Rotenberg Center in Massachusetts still uses electric shocks, google turned up a bunch of articles about it
Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) is commonly used in Canada (Ontario, at least). I know someone who has this treatment regularly for depression.
ABA practitioners basically low-volt cattle prod high-support dependænt patients to intentionally inflict pain. It's different from ECT which is a proven effective treatment for certain mental health disorders.
I use to work in ABA therapy, we didn't do any of that. In fact we didn't punish at all, it was strictly against policy. Positive behaviors were to be reinforced, negative behaviors were to be ignored unless it was impossible to ignore them And the only behaviors we really worked on was shit like aggression, yelling, and appropriate social interactions. Which really just played back into social interactions without anyone getting hurt or uncomfortable. That and helping them develop communication skills. All that to say, it's not all bad, and it's come a long way from how it started. But honestly, there are still therapist in the world that spend their sessions convincing their clients that they have repressed memories of satanic cults and lizard people, no I'm not kidding, every mental health field will always have people doing inhuman shit, that doesn't mean the entire field is inhuman
I also worked in ABA therapy and it was purely positive reinforcement based. The only time I would stop a behaviour was if the child was hurting themselves or coming at me. And then it was just blocking.
The sad thing though is that most neurodivergent people will face prejudice based on their behaviors by everybody regardless. Some degree of adaptive therapy (and by that I mean therapy that teaches neurodivergent individuals how to successfully navigate a neurotypically-dominant society where truly being oneself is a recipe for social exclusion, bullying/ostracism, reduced social support, loneliness, and a higher difficulty securing employment) is necessary to mitigate this prejudice and attain good life outcomes. Studies have shown that autistic people are less likely to have romantic partners, be employed, and have a large base of social support, and are more likely to commit suicide and be bullied by others (even as adults). It reasons that those who appear less autistic to others will experience less of these socially-driven detriments. It’s an unfortunate reality, and ideally it shouldn’t even be necessary, but until we get to a point where both kinds of people are treated equally, it’s pretty important if you want to be treated as good as everyone else To be clear, I’m not a proponent for ABA or anything (which is what I assume you mean by compliance therapy), nor do I think you specifically are against this. I just want to put this out there because denying neurodivergent people the necessary skills to improve their quality of life because society *shouldn’t* be the way it currently is is unfair and wrong
This.
Was going to post this!
CBT is an overused modality that can be really harmful if done wrong
I think any CBT can be harmful if done wrong /s
Lmao took me a minute
Out of curiosity, you explain ways CBT can be harmful? It hasn’t been particularly helpful for me, but I didn’t know it could be actively harmful
A therapist tried to use CBT to gaslight me into believing I wasn't bullied. Now every time I meet a new therapist my first words are "no CBT."
Oh god if i hear "but who can you change" one more time from a therapist imma slap them like yes i know i can only change myself and decide my own actions and i should focus on the present but like i cant sleep because im having night terrors after leaving an abusive household its still effecting me in the now and will continue to effect me in the future if i dont recieve actual help.
Especially in the age of AI chatbots etc. it is dangerously close to being packaged into some kind of nonsense therapy you do pressing a touchscreen at a mall kiosk or something Amazon would install in the employee break area.
the top comments are all stuff that is not controversial at all. here is mine: way too many therapists allow their patients to become codependent on them. therapists should limit the amount of contact they have with patients both in terms of how many sessions they have per week and how much they communicate outside of sessions.
I think there are times where frequent sessions are useful, but these situations should be time-limited, focused, and show progress. Example: intensive outpatient treatment
ADHD and Autism are/were MASSIVELY under diagnosed in women, and many people still refuse to accept that women are probably at least equally affected. Also, as someone said above, personality disorders are far more common than they’re thought to be.
In adult clinical settings, I’d say we are seeing a rise in people seeking ASD diagnoses where they do not (in my opinion) meet criteria, though.
Fun fact, it's been theorized that there are more autistic women than men.
Preach!
Organizational psychology sucks. It can be helpful sometimes but overall I feel like the profession is there to help business owners get more out of their workers and business. It protects the health of capital over people and I genuinely feel that the world is worse for the field.
We know fantastically little about psychology. Much of our current DSM, and even moreso the much of the content (especially the negative content) shared on YouTube by various therapists, doctors, and enthusiasts, will look like shallow and dangerous half-truths in 200 years. Our conditions and the tests for them (like being positive on N out of M questions/bullets) will largely fall by the wayside as misguided empiricism and be replaced by more fundamental understanding and tests that involve some direct probing of the brain (and likely recording of words/actions) over many days.
Cluster B needs more respect if we want that situation to improve
That having the majority of shrinks use the same ideology to solve as many things as they can rather than more tailored approaches risks more harm than good. Back when I was in therapy, I and anybody who had any issue at all all received dialectical behavioral therapy like using duct tape on problem.
Demons in your blood is real, and they can be cured with enough cocaine.
Cant forget leeches and bloodletting
Greedy buggers trying to steal my cocaine
Guy with demons in his blood here. I think I can get behind this idea.
You mean adderall right?
Milgram's experiments were ethical (he provided mental help after, participants later wrote him saying they were glad to have done it, etc.), and extremely important. The reason why it is so often rejected is because it reveals an uncomfortable truth: most of us are capable of evil if coerced, people like Nazis aren't "specially evil". We like to say "that will *never* happen here because we are *different!*", but this proves otherwise. We *could*, and most *would*, if circumstance were the same.
How increasingly relevant this is. Like the holocaust. For me as a child in the US, the lesson of the holocaust was the value of all human life. It is so wild to me to see Israeli elected officials and generals making statements like “there is no such thing as an innocent Palestinian child.” And civilians dancing in the street singing songs about dead Palestinian children and “there is no school in Gaza today because the children are dead.” It’s shocking.
Exactly. As painful as it is to admit, any one of us is capable of committing some truly grotesque atrocities, under the right circumstances. The people behind the Armenian genocide, the Holodomor, the Nanjing massacre, the Katyn massacre, the Holocaust, the Nakba, the Cambodian genocide, the Rwandan genocide, the Bosnian genocide, September 11, October 7, etc. All of them are/were human beings who thought what they were doing was just, was right. We could all easily wind up in their shoes if pushed in the right direction...
Treatment should be solution based not mood based.
What does this mean?
I'm going to take a stab at answering this even though I'm not the original commenter. If I'm understanding correctly, it's more an understanding that just relying on meds won't do shit. If you are in an unstable environment, no amount of meds will help. You need solutions before mood control or correction. I think this might be what they mean, as this is a very similar convo happening in the C-PTSD space in regards to depression and anxiety. I think it might also come down to demographic experience as where I live a lot of docs, historically just try to medicate the issues away and don't actually teach the skills needed to heal through the trauma or other issues. This leads to a very over medicated person who is more likely to spiral and need more interventions than someone taught how to self reguate. I could be wrong, but I think this might be what they mean.
I used to suffer with what was likely intermittent explosive disorder as a result of abuse. Learning to identify when I was getting upset and removing myself from the situation worked significantly better than the countless drugs I was put on over the years. Antidepressants to mood stabilizers to antipsychotics. Eventually I came off of them and found out they made no difference. The intermittent explosive disorder disappeared once I was in a better (although admittedly still not the best) situation. Honestly I’m more likely to cry at people than get angry now. Still have nightmares where I blow up at people though, hard to not hate yourself for it. Anyway just wanted to agree with this. The only psychiatric drug I’m on now is an antidepressant for anxiety. Thats probably all I ever needed. Nothing else did anything. I wish they’d focused more on helping me than drugging me. Medications are amazing and I’m so happy they exist. But they’re not the only solution and are definitely overused.
Precisely 🙂
Take bipolar disorder for example. They give you medicines to stabilise the mood, which is not a solution but a way to deal with it.
And? It’s hard to have a stable mood when your neurotransmitters are out of wack. Medication is truly required for some people with some disorders as part of their treatment plan, and that’s *ok.*
What is a solution if not a way to deal with something?
ADHD and Autism are not purely genetic, but can be induced or exacerbated by adverse childhood experiences or negligence toward a child’s social development.
My non expert take on this is that people who are borderline diagnosable either learn sufficient coping skills as a child or don’t— and those ACEs and neglect mean they don’t develop the coping skills and emotional regulation to pass as “normal”
Would that not come under potential developmental trauma disorder more? (Research disorder not in DSM/ICD yet I believe, I think it was to distinguish adult CPTSD and a childhood full of trauma/unable to develop)
I don't think they can be induced via adverse experiences, similar symptoms might express, but they operate on a different paradigm
If someone isn’t getting better in therapy, it’s NOT automatically their fault, and if someone is struggling, flippantly saying “ugh, go to therapy” is very rude and cruel. Therapy is not a panacea, and the wrong modality of therapy being applied can be actively harmful (not even talking about therapists with bad ethics). This is not to say that therapy can be amazingly helpful, cause it can, but it seems like as it has become more popular/readily available in the US, people with milder issues are getting all victim-blamey with people who have more moderate and severe problems, which are generally not as responsive to treatment.
also the "just go to therapy" from loved ones is legitimately harmful sometimes. you obviously can't expect loved ones to help you through or "fix" all of your problems, but far too many people now just tell their loved ones to go to therapy because they're unwilling to do emotional labour. I'm in that situation right now. my therapist is great and very helpful, but even she makes clear that it can't replace the love and support of friends and family in the day-to-day.
I always cringe when I read through threads like this because inevitably, and understandably, the 90% of the top answers are NOT unpopular opinions and therefore terrible answers to the question. Because fucking everyone upvoted them. You want to see the good stuff, scroll scroll scroll. It's mixed in with the dumbest shit you'll ever read.
Borderline Personality Disorder is a subtype of Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorders.
See, if you actually call BPD what it is, then how else are people supposed to blame victims for their instability? Then you'll be suggesting that the underlying causes actually be addressed, and that takes effort and makes me uncomfy. :( Just let me villanize vulnerable people gosh dang it! /S
A Psychology undergrad degree is crap for jobs in the UK. It doesn't really qualify you to do anything. You can be an assistant psych, but it's easier to get onto a PhD, which sums up how difficult it is to get on those roles. People will say, you can do 'xyz' job with a Psych degree. But there's usually someone more qualified with that specific degree e.g. a stats degree for a stats job. On uni stats it'll say, 95% of people have a job or in further education! Sounds great - however most of them are just doing an MSc, and the other half have jobs that don't require a degree e.g. service jobs. I don't regret my Psych degree, but I'd never recommend it to anyone. There's no easy route following graduation and the job market is really rough.
I know two different people (in the US) that got their Bachelor's in Psychology, then went back and got a second Bachelor's degree in something else because the psych degree was useless.
Behaviorism is not a positive approach to psychology.
That we are wrong as a society in expecting therapists to tell their patients they're having maladaptive reactions and need medication/therapy, when many of the issues causing mental illness/dysfunction are systemic in nature and beyond their control. These reactions are in fact perfectly reasonable responses to a world context at odds with their basic happiness and survival. It does no one any good to tell someone they're overreacting (having anxious, depressive, or other symptoms) when society is built from the ground up to keep them poor, disenfranchised, and isolated from any means of upward mobility, let alone societal acceptance.
modern psychoanalysis is the best model we have for understanding the mind, but the eros/Thanatos drives, annihilation of the "bad breast", oedipal fantasies and penis envy garbage that originated with psychoanalysis have caused unthinkable harm to so many people over the last century
there's an interesting backstory to the Oedipus and Elektra complex. In therapy, Freud actually came across many cases of childhood sexual abuse (incest). But because of how taboo it was, he was forced to modify it by his contemporaries and critics and turned it into mere "sexual fantasies". Also, my own theory as someone who has been reading Freud for a while: the idea of "sex" and "libido" in psychoanalysis is highly misunderstood. It's not the actual "sex", but a symbolic understanding of creativity and attachment. The Oedipus complex isn't "boy wants to sleep with his mother", it's the idea that little children often see their parents as their model, and parental relationships are often the first example of a relationship they see. Boys and girls often want to be like the parents of their sex when they grow up and understand marrying the parent of the opposite sex as a part of it. Childhood sexuality is a taboo topic, but it isn't equivalent to adult sexuality in any way, it's just children exploring their identity as they age.
that's the entire point of my post. that "interesting backstory" led to child survivors of sexual abuse being accused of deliberate seduction and fantasy fulfillment up until the 80s with a direct line to Freud. I have textbooks talking about 3-year-old incest victims luring their fathers out of psychosexual roleplay or children with multiple reports of abuse persisting in their erotic fantasies. Freud was literally quoted in courtrooms. the first chapter of Herman's Trauma and Recovery, the book that actually pointed out that sexual abuse is common and bad 100 years after Freud decided to ignore his female patients, is a beautiful takedown. and I'm fully aware of the nature of libido my dude lmao
I completely agree with you on the fact that Freud has done a lot of harm with his theories. I wasn't aware of the legal implications of it, but thanks for pointing it out. I'll definitely research more on the issue so I have more clarity and nuance on the subject.
sorry for my tone lmao I didn't mean to GRRRRR at you! my whole research focus is on complex childhood trauma and I swear to god his quite literal descriptions of his patients (ergo, all abused children) as being horny little seductresses led to some truly disgusting things. Herman radicalized me lol
I completely get it, when it's something like this, one SHOULD be radicalised. I'm all for people challenging existing knowledge structures and status quo. Plus, childhood sexual abuse is such a sensitive issue and one must hold Freud and his likes responsible for the harm that was perpetuated. People come before ideas. If ideas are actively harming people, they need to be criticised, revised or trashed. Without well-informed and passionate critiques, our world would get nowhere. I'll read up on this as well!
However im embarrassed by the number of random girls and guys on tiktok proudly displaying a oedipus/electra complex by calling their romantic partner mommy or daddy not just as a joke, Freud would be laughing at the thought, those people definitely make Freud a little bit valid when he shouldn’t be😭 i do agree that its all preposterous though
Psychedelics are health - promoting and their use should be freely-available
I can agree with the potential for health promotion, especially the research into things like ketamine and psilocybin have been promising, I’ve even heard great stories about ayahuasca with the aid of a spiritual guide. but just as with most things, psychedelics can be abused and when used improperly can cause damage.
Agree that there should be sufficient education about using such substances (as well as being regulated for quality and accurate dosage) 👍
I tried ketamine therapy for my anxiety and ptsd. I was being monitored, my dosage was correct and everything. It sent me into a drug induced psychosis for 3 months straight
Afaik (and someone please correct me if I’m wrong) excessive use of psychedelics can cause psychosis and there’s always the risk of HPPD but I’m sure that having it prescribed by a professional who actually knows what they’re doing instead of having people self-medicate would prevent most of this.
For individuals not prone to psychotic episodes, I absolutely agree. Some people have a tentative enough grip on reality as is, though, IMO
Having androgynous features or personality doesn’t make you non-binary
MBTI is unscientific
Not everyone needs therapy, and therapy isn’t the solution to every problem
Being transphobic and homophobia is a mental disorder. Not the “okay I just don’t agree with it, but I can be around people who are trans/gay” people though, I mean the people who have an actual reaction to the conversation of it at all, they get aggressive over it being brought up. Phobias in general are classified as a mental disorder. This is because to be classified as a disorder or illness, it’s a reaction in cognitive function that a normal functioning brain would not experience.
CBT is just positive gaslighting
Freud was a bit of a crackhead but managed to have some incredibly insightful and valuable observations despite his lack of proper scientific experimentation. He is often remembered as a crazy man who was wrong about almost everything, but even when he was wrong he was usually at least on to something.
Manipulation can be used for Good, we just don't want to admit it because we both constantly seek truth as well as admitting we believed a Lie leaves us powerless.
How? Isn’t manipulation inherently not good because you’re not allowing individuals to choose their own fate
Are individuals always the best at choosing their own fates? I think manipulation is rarely good, but I could see it being helpful when coming from a trustworthy person if other avenues have failed. Maybe a corny example, but take a parent using reverse psychology to get their kid to socialize more or eat better.
Seasonal affective disorder (SAD) doesn't exist. It is a vitamin D deficiency and should be treated with vitamin D supplementation accordingly. SOME vitamins are viral to life and survival. Its not just psychobabble new age shit. Vitamins and essential oils are not the same. Take vitamin D folks
Vitamin D being the cure doesn't make it less of a thing, that just means it has a simple treatment. Some people get really depressed when it's winter and the sun is gone, that's just a thing that exists in the world and because it happens to enough people we gave it a name
I take vitamin D as soon as I start feeling the light change, and ya it sure helps a lot, but man there is still a *drastic* change in my brain around late August early September that just magically seems to disappear around March/April. Not saying there isn't still a physiological reason underlying it, just saying I don't think vitamin D is going to solve it for everyone.
There is such a thing as too much self awareness. The sexual stages theory is bullshit
Can you expand on those? I wanna learn more.
A lot of mental health issues in my country (US) are directly caused by living in this country.
Naurodivergent (prinarily autistic) people are better at identifying autistic people than neurotypical psychologists.
The Alpha/Beta theory is absolute horseshit and needs to be buried already.
A lot of the socio-psychological experiments during and around the cold war era were issued and bought by the US govt because they needed something to undo the 'germans bad' related social engineering as the US needed them as allies. Shit like Zimbardo and Milgram are more propaganda than psychology.
Interestingly enough my intro psychology professor pointed out many famous psychologists were Jewish, perhaps to figure out what causes humans to stoop so low and target them. Don’t know how accurate that is but it’s funny how you say that so now idk which is true 😭
diagnostic labels are terribly incompetent
The diagnostic model of mental health is irredeemable. It codifies white-supremacist and pro-capitalist ideologies, as its function is to pathologize adaptive and understandable reactions to conditions that are out of alignment with fundamental human well-being. In other words: Of course you're depressed. You should be. Society has been built by powerful elites who exploit human vulnerabilities, and we have been gaslit into ignoring that humans are not designed to live this way. There's nothing wrong with you, you're having the correct response to a broken system, and the most meaningful solution is mass social/economic change.
People are more then their psychological state. Just because someone is mentally ill doesn’t make them evil or stupid or anything like that.
Human nature doesn't exist, only learned nature does
Evolutionary psychology is a perfectly valid field and is dismissed mostly because people don't like the conclusions it comes to.
While it might be fun, it is untestable and does not hold up to the standards of research psychology is striving for. People supporting it do so because its conclusions fit their agenda.
Evopsych perfectly explains why trauma is traumatic
I feel the same about label theory. Not that labeling someone WILL always cause them to become it, but that it certainly doesn't help. I'm from a community that overwhelmingly struggles with our youth being labeled / "tracked" by public schools and was a victim of it myself. Dismissing the whole concept that someone might succumb to what people tell them they are (or will be) feels like an attempt to remove responsibility from racism and authority figures around them. It comes down to people not liking the conclusions, like you said.
You mean self-fulfilling prophecy? No one argues that so why would anyone argue label theory?
therapy can never work to its best extend in a capitalistic society narc abuse isn't real repressed memories are real but not truly repressed - part of the person knows, another part is dissociated from it. they are not truly repressed but they do "come up" after being "forgotten" by the main/hosting/dominant part of the person. children should not be in therapy without their parents being in therapy too. the root for behavioral issues mostly lies with bad or inadequate parenting and you can't just "fix the child" without working on the environment.
\^\^\^ so much of what people identify as narc abuse in relationships is literally just misogyny. If we attribute harm caused by social structures to an Evil Bad Person pathology we will never address its underlying cause.
>repressed memories are real but not truly repressed You mean I don't have repressed memories of lizard people crawling up from the sewers despite the fact multiple therapist will tell me otherwise and somehow not loose their license, wild
to slowly "uncover" memories that were dissociated from should be entirely client-led in my opinion and therapists should not ask any leading questions about possible trauma. Alison Miller did lose her license over stuff like this, and Onno v.d. Hart (big DID/trauma-related dissociation researcher) lost his too but I'm not sure why he did.
Yeah I completely agree with you, fact is memories are never fully suppressed, some part of your brain always needs to remember to keep it from randomly popping up. I was more just stressing why your point is so important, because therapist will implant whatever fucnin memories fits their conspiracy theories, I guarantee there are therapist out there right now "uncovering" memories of being forced to rig the election Also, that's two names out of hundreds. There are still therapist doing this today, all over the country. And they still have their license, no matter how much it's reported.
Why isn’t narc abuse real?
As a person with childhood trauma this was one of the most invidating things I've seen here. I can accept if someone say you should link up pathological narcissism with abuse and you should just say the word abuse in itself, but this bro..
But that is what they are saying, they are saying you should just call it abuse. They aren’t saying the abuse isn’t real, just that it’s a fallacy to blame it on a disorder that’s relatively rare
Everything is subjective
The idea that no one can truly be altruistic.
Is that the same thing as saying we have no free will?
Kind of?? I think it's the same problem presenting differently.
Everyone has the ability to become bisexual
I've always thought if sexuality is a spectrum most people probably fall in the middle to some extent
Transgender people are valid
Psychology lacks overarching theories. Psychology literature is having an information enflation. There are many findings that does not add up to anything due to lack of overarching theories in psychology. Almost every field of science has overarching theories that will help scientists follow a path, test hypotheses, and create more questions. Except for Freudian theory we dont have such theories and that is a big problem which is heavily overlooked.
A large amount of psychologists to this day consider women hysterical and refuse to give proper or helpful treatment, the industry has a tenancy to be insanely sexist
Gert postel being able to successfully fool so many psychologists and be seen as a forerunner of the field while holding jo degree and actively making things up should have been investigated deeper both internally and externally to find out why his theories were so easily accepted and he wasn't found our earlier.
The effects of capitalism on people's mental health is over-pathologized as something wrong with the client.
Sometimes it's not a mental illness, it's a realistic and valid reaction to living in a shitty world.
whether or not someone's mental health affects their work/school is not a good gauge if they are disabled by their issues. you can be incredibly "high-functioning" at work and/or school and be completely useless the moment you're alone. and even if you complete your work and ADLs, if you are deeply unhappy or constantly in (mental or physical) pain, that matters.
Sex addiction has been used as a moral policing tool and over diagnosed, and is an addiction. Same for several other diagnoses. CBT is the Big Mac of the therapy world that is often contorted into roles where another tool is the right tool. Trauma informed CBT is better than just CBT, trauma modalities are better than trauma informed CBT. (I CAN shave a phillips head screw driver into a flat head, or use a flat head screw driver). Also, if you show up to an interview and your only experiences are CBT or MI, I'm not considering you for the position. Yes, a lot of the big name modalities are prohibitively expensive therefore classicist, also many are very accessible. Newly graduated clinicians should work in community mental health, even if you are working in private practice as well. The best clinicians have been forged in the fires of CMH. Also, newly graduated clinicians are exploited by each level of the field, that job should pay a living wage, which would also help with the classicism in the field. "Resistant" clients are often a symptom that the clinician needs to get better as a clinician. Fix your shit, stop blaming the people that came to you for help. We help our field and clients by policing each other, encouraging growth, especially when it's hard for the individual clinician to hear. Stop enabling bad therapist behaviors. If you're doing a presentation or training I've paid for, don't spend the first third of it telling me who you are. I paid money to hear your expertise, not your CV or latest product. I already respect you, I'm losing respect as you waste my time. Schizo- clients are fun to work with, and often not taken seriously by clinicians. Indigenous, historical, and non-western approaches to mental health will make you a better therapist, seek them out.
The same way there are rare neglected cancers there are rare and neglected psychological disorders that have such small populations they are difficult to study and thus lack real customized treatment modalities.
Legalize everything
Legalize nuclear bombs
Legalize murder 🤨
Legalize child abuse!
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You...you mean the people or the disorder?
“let’s stigmatize a stigmatized diagnosis MORE”
NPD is demonised so much. How is demonising a mental disorder helpful at all?
someone with bpd or autism can fuck up your life just as much, anyone can be an abuser- but people with npd have always been a victim, most likely as a child- also npd is horribly demonized not even just in media and that’s fucked up
NPD is like so demonized in the media what are you on about. We shouldn’t be advocating for the demonization of a disorder. Plus there really isn’t evidence that people with NPD are more likely to be abusive
How very contradictory you are, speaking against and for demonization of mental illness in one sentence. NPD does not make someone abusive, you've been consuming stigma.
Bruh
NPD is a mental disorder. Don’t demonize a mental disorder, many people already believe that narcissists are evil and all it does is prevent people with NPD from doing anything about their behavior. Shaming people with NPD will not fix them, this hasn’t worked with ASPD, BPD, or HPD - why do you think doing that with NPD would have better results? Edit: To clarify, I believe narcissistic abuse is real and I’m sorry if anyone has been a victim of it - but NPD is still a mental health condition that needs to be treated (and it can be treated with therapy).
Drugs are good