Psychologists pin all mental illnesses on mental malfunctioning. — Qwex

No we don't.

What's deemed "illness" or "disorder" in psychology isn't well defined, nor is "abnormal." It's not pinned on one thing. Of course anything considered to be causing suffering or impeding well-being in some way usually deviates from a statistical mean -- but so what?

I don't see your point here.

Mental Health laws force medication on some mentally ill people.

At this point (where medication is forced) it's deemed a mental malfunction, and not a statistical anomaly - like I projected.

Evidence: antipsychotics target a neuroreceptor called Dopamine.

Evidence: I'm on antipsychotic medication by law.

Partial Evidence: It has done nothing. Try a different one would be psychology advice.

Conclusion: it's a flaw in psychology.

Not all statistical anomalies can be cured, or ought to be cured by medication.

These laws are flawed.

These laws are flawed. — Qwex

interesting life-experience. I am sure you have a story behind this.

Is modern psychology flawed? — Qwex

In the SE Asian country where I live (or the countries where I tend to live), there is just a very small "psycho industry" that revolves around dealing with substance abuse, i.e. rehab facilities. They try to get the patient off the product that they abuse, and then, release them back into the wild, until they undoubtedly reappear again at the rehab facility, for a new round of hopeless work; assuming that their family keeps paying for that kind of help. Only wealthy families spend money on that kind of services. Everybody else will rather quickly end up repudiating the addicted individual because that is the cheaper solution.

Is modern psychology flawed? — Qwex

Modern psychology includes hundreds of approaches, different opinions about treatment, diagnosis, causes and more. I would also say it seems like your posts are more concerned with psychiatry than modern psychology in general.

Psychologists pin all mental illnesses on mental malfunctioning. — Qwex

What do you mean by 'mental malfunctioning'.

My argument is that mental illnesses are, most of the time, statistical anomalies. — Qwex

Mental illness could be both mental malfunctionng AND statistical anomolies.

Mental Health laws force medication on some mentally ill people. — Qwex

Though compared to pre-Reagan, not very many. What country are we talking about?

Evidence: antipsychotics target a neuroreceptor called Dopamine.

Evidence: I'm on antipsychotic medication by law.

Partial Evidence: It has done nothing. Try a different one would be psychology advice.

Conclusion: it's a flaw in psychology. — Qwex

You are saying that in your particular case, the treatment you have received, in this case a medication, is not working for you. Unless we are expecting perfection, this does not mean that psychology, or pharmacological treatments for mental illness, is flawed. I mean, I am extremely critical of the current over-medication of people and the general use of the chemical imbalance model for treatment emotional pain and more. But, it seems like you are trying to draw very broad conclusions from a single case. Your own.

Psychologists pin all mental illnesses on mental malfunctioning.

My argument is that mental illnesses are, most of the time, statistical anomalies.

The latter is that, if I crashed my car, it was a car fault.

If I have a mental illness, it is a mind fault. Is modern psychology flawed? — Qwex

I don't think so. The mind seems to be an object that deals with abstractions. Yes abstraction may be the result of neuron firing but they do have an existence in the mental world and are both cause and effect of other abstractions and where there is a causal matrix we may contemplate and theorize on the whys and hows.

You might want to distinguish psychology, which is mainly in the business of persuading you to vote for the tyrant and spend your pittance on the trash produced by Mammon Inc from psychiatry, which is a smaller organisation that deals with those few who refuse to conform.

Psychiatry is flawed in the sense that it cannot entirely control the miscreants. But your complaint is that it has too much success. And part of its success is to convince even most philosophers that sanity and madness are terms that apply to individuals and not relationships.

I exaggerate of course, and many people are of good will at least, and many who are dealt with by psychiatry are indeed troubled individuals, whose relationship with society is highly dependent and toxic to all parties. In a simpler society, one can chase out of the village those who will not play their part, and let them fend for themselves in the wilderness; when there is no viable wilderness, society has to confine such people with pills or chains or kill them.

I understand.

The world is messy, there are messy people who do no good.

I'm glad you agreed it's flawed.

I wouldn't go as far to say psychiatry is evil but it is evil to some...

That's the waste product of such an activity(referring to forced medication mainly).

Some valuable minds that would be better unntouched, exist.

If the case is near to what I've put, what does that say about the effect of antipsychotics, is the idea that too much dopamine is bad, one big charade? Are they drying my eyes out? Is a lot of dopamine a normal thing?

I don't disagree with psychiatry, I want to perfect it.



In this case, I don't understand. Which is unusual.

You seem to contradict yourself. It might be a neuron firing - it's thus the firer and neuron which are possible reasons.

Some car crashes are due to flat tires.



I'm not saying the medication is flawed.

I'm saying the law that forces medication (in the UK at least) is flawed. It treats too many cases the same way, and could be improved. There's a wealth of knowledge we're missing - I hoped to change that.

I fit the accepted description of insane.

I probably need help by the human book - but my own philosophy is that these bodies are extremely durable. Perhaps I won't fit in, but I can take a lot of pain and benefit from it. I grew wise in it. It isn't my world, it's ours - we make the rules.



I like this system more than the UK's. Thanks for the information.

I'm not saying the medication is flawed.

I'm saying the law that forces medication (in the UK at least) is flawed. It treats too many cases the same way, and could be improved. There's a wealth of knowledge we're missing - I hoped to change that. — Qwex

I'm not so familiar with the UK system. Was there a crime involved, is that how the compulsion came in? What criteria have to be met for a court to force medication? i assume they must do occasional blood tests.

No crime.

Arguments with family who are one phone call away from putting me in a mental hospital.

There was a small complication with a weapon and my Father, which was brought up for a long time. Like it was pinned to me.

You don't have to face court, just the doctrine.

They do do blood tests.

So, you are a minor?

I was, then.

I'm 28 now.

In this case, I don't understand. Which is unusual.

You seem to contradict yourself. It might be a neuron firing - it's thus the firer and neuron which are possible reasons.

Some car crashes are due to flat tires. — Qwex

Have I contradicted myself? Let's take your car example. None of its parts is anything that can be driven or used as transport but all together we get a vehicle. Now, I agree that without the parts there can be no car and if any of the parts fail, the car will break down. However, as a whole, with all the parts together, a car can acquire properties the parts can't: a sports car is a status symbol and being so it creates its own causal web based on that. Likewise, the goings on in the mind can be explained in terms of neurons firing but the result - ideas and thoughts - have a life of their own as part of a causal system where causes and effects are ideas and thoughts.

In a sense it is flawed, because we tend to have two people trying to achieve the same results. The psychiatrist and psychologist.

Is modern psychology flawed? Either it's perfect or it's flawed. It ain't perfect. Or, it's like asking if the roads in, say, the state of New York, USA are flawed. Some certainly are, and it's a good idea not to travel on them. The question becomes, can you count on good and competent guidance as to the quality of what you're about to take on. With roads, yes. Unfortunately with and for psychology, no.

Psychology includes bad psychology and bad psychologists. As a science working as a science, it's fine. But too much of it is no such thing. Trouble is, how do the rest of us tell the difference?!

But if you're attempting to judge some corner of it, best to first attempt to carefully define what it is you're looking at, to the end of seeing if the thing you're looking at conforms to your definition, and if you're thereby satisfied. This of course requires standards and criteria, and the courage to pay attention to what you learn from them. An example is at hand: the US president is a very, very bad man, and I think everyone knows it. But they have either never learned or are ignoring the fact that the bad man never does a good thing except by accident or coincidence - and are eventually hurt. The price of lessons ignored.

I am suprised they can have you committed. Of course I am from the US where it is much harder to get someone committed unless they are violent towards others or themselves.

I just did a quick look at UK policy and it seems like a family member can demand that you be assessed by a doctor. And then you can be detained. I assume you know about your right to a solicitor to fight this and also you can request a independent advocate.

I assume you have a diagnosis, so if your family calls the doctors look in their computers and see a standing diagosis and that's how the process can be rigid.

You're not really asking for advice, but it seems to me if you can manage, in these situations to remain calm, be a real pain in the ass. Request your advocate and the lawyer. Keep pressuring the system calmly and through your representation.

I don't know if you live on your own and work, but if you manage these things, it should be very hard for them to demonstrate that you should have your freedom denied.

You can also demand a second opinion about your treatment from another doctor after certain periods. My guess is doctors would be wary of disagreeing with colleagues, but again, calm, rational, pressuring the system may in the long term pay off.

They have these tribunals to evaluate detentions. If you keep appearing in the tribunals and are calm and rational and have no incidents they can point to - and arguments with family should not be enough - they may get tired of you.

Tire the system out, and don't give them anything that makes them nervous.

I see you are in the UK. Have you any contact with The Critical Psychiatry Network? If not you may find a sympathetic ear and possibly some useful information and even support...

I'm not in contact with them, no.

I will give them a try if I feel the need to discuss my treatment.

I have an appointment with the psychiatrist tomorrow; I will be discussing coming off the medication.

This thread was not a complaint, I was suggesting psychology/psychiatry could be improved.

I believe ways in which people live court exacerbate one's mental state, some evidence for this exists, such as how feeding or reinforcing negativity can lead to a confirmation bias.

Are you really a psychologist, Isaac? That's cool, what area do you work in?

As far as "flawed", I believe everything is flawed, but I tend to shy away from "attacking the whole system" lately.

:up: :smirk:

It's OK to give up.

That's something that does not get respected enough in society.

I'd argue that it treats symptoms in isolation, which would be the biggest flaw.

Akin to treating obesity without examing the patient's diet.

Is modern psychology flawed? — Qwex

Nope. It's flawless.

Are you really a psychologist, Isaac? That's cool, what area do you work in? — BitconnectCarlos

I'm (semi-)retired now, but I used to do research in social psychology. My wife's a child psychologist though, which is where my annoyance came from at the bland misrepresentation of psychology. There is an idea that psychology just treats all mental problems as those of the individual and it's grossly unfair. Yes, they talk about solutions the individual can enact, but what else are they supposed to do? If someone comes to a psychologist with, say depression, they can hardly say "Oh, that's because you don't have any meaningful employment, let me just pop off and get you a really rewarding job, back in a minute".

But it sounds like the OP is just confusing psychology with psychiatry, so my initial response was probably unnecessary - quite frankly, I'd join the line of people complaining that psychiatrists over prescribe medication and hospital treatment.

If someone comes to a psychologist with, say depression, they can hardly say "Oh, that's because you don't have any meaningful employment, let me just pop off and get you a really rewarding job, back in a minute". — Isaac

But, that's how they treated a Vietnamese farmer who stepped on a land mine in Vietnam. The psychologists bought him a dairy cow and his depression was resolved...

It was Cambodia, not Vietnam, and the man already had land (the most expensive bit of that whole system in our country) without which the whole intervention would have failed. Nice story, but one trotted out to try and blame the practitioners rather than the institutions they work in. It's like when people show how effective just talking through your patient's symptoms is to getting good treatment - just before cutting funding to the bone so that GPs have barely five minutes to get them in and out if they've any hope of getting home at all that day.

Yes, if we changed many aspects of society things would be better for those who have mental health issues. My entire academic career has been about the link between society and individual mental functions. I advise institutions on better ways to manage that. My wife advises schools and parents about better ways to deal with children who have psychological difficulties.

We (psychologists in general) do plenty, and I can honestly say, in my whole career, I've not even met a psychologist who doesn't campaign in one way or another to get various aspects of society to change such that people's psychological issues are less severe (even if I disagreed quite strongly with some of their proposals).

We work out what might help, we suggest it to the institutions who interact with these people, they suggest it to government, and government says "no" becasue their electorate are too fucking greedy to pay for it. So don't blame the psychologists for not handing out cows.