Why does one need science to understand the human mind. i believe understanding the mind comes from a gift of compatibility one has with the human race. For as long as psychology, therapy, psychiatry, are treated like science, there will be no advances in those fields. why do u think nobody ever wants to see a shrink?? cos they’re scientists and don’t know jack about the human mind,pain,feeling… the human mind is not an experiment. I reckon if someone is willing to accept that there are no logical explanations to everything in life, they can specialise in these fields. thats the problem with science. it a study of finding logic behind everything. Not everything in this world is logic.
Oh what do you base your claim that not everything in life is logic?
And if psychology isnt a science because of this premise, then why is …ohhh…biology? Or physics. Surely if there were things in this world that were illogical then these sciences would be invalidated as well.
because an interstine can’t tell u how it digests food. A circuit can’t tell u how currents flow through it and chemicals can’t tell u why some aren’t compatible. People can tell u why they feel the way they do. Its all about being able to coax stuff out of people. it requires social skills of some sort. All the neuron activity inside the brain doesn’t really do jack to help a psychiatrist help someone.
All those neurons in the brain are what make those emotions.
Ever hear of serotonin reuptake cells? They gather excess serotonin in the brain so that you don’t walk around high all day. Some people have too many serotonin reuptake cells. These people have depression. Drugs such as Lexipro, Effexor, and Prozac help to cure depression by flooding the brain with a chemical that plugs some of the serotonin reuptake cells and allowing more of the real serotonin to cause cemical reactions in the brain.
Ever hear of el dopa? It’s a neurotransmitter that controls how you recieve and organizes information. If you have too much of this in your brain, you’re going to get terrets and paranoid schizophrenia. If you have too little, you’re going to go into a coma. Having fluctuations causes bipolar disorder. Drugs like Welbutrin help fix this imbalance.
Knowing the brain and how it works can cure you from clinical mental illness. Now… complexes that were developed due to trauma and stress… that’s a different story… but it’s not at all “random” or “illogical”.
Ok fine. u win about the drugs. But talking to a shrink isn’t easy when he has a scientific perspective rather than a humane one. And i still think that not everything in life has to make sence.
Well, so long as you realize that not everything making sense is a measure of your own shortcomings and not of reality’s. Everything in reality MUST make sense. Just because it doesn’t make sense TO YOU doesn’t mean it’s irrational.
oh for f****'s sake!!! stop acting so self-righteous. So you’re saying everything in life makes sence to you? heck, even the greatest of scientists, can’t make sense of everything! and what the hell do u know about my shortcomings??
Nikol, you sound pretty misguided on this topic, and science generally. Things aren’t science just because someone says they are. And what do you know about what advances are happening in psychology?
I never said it made sense to me. I said that just because you do not understand it doesn’t mean it’s irrational. It may be that you’re not ready to understand the rationality of it.
For an example of such a case, re-read this thread.
Come on now people, let’s not let ignorance start another unnecessary conflict!
I believe that everything in the universe (and beyond if that’s the case) will eventually be described by some mathematical term. Logic - It’s just that, as a race, we have not yet found it. As far as Psycho-therapy goes, there’s a difference between psychiatry and psychology. Psychiatrists diagnose and prescribe, whereas psychologists interact with the feelings more, and this is not a science as yet. There are certain patterns in psychology, but I think that they are more complex that we (human scientists) can deal with at the moment.
its fairly clear to me, and to anyone else who studies this (psychology) seriously, that psychology is considered a science because it makes use of standard scientific methods. certain things in psychology (behaviors, responses to stimuli, neurotransmitter levels/interactions, etc etc this goes on forever) can be quantified and so they are subjected to all of the same parameters that something like chemistry or physics can be subjected to.
when you have data, you can make predictions, projections, conclusions, graphs, diagrams, etc etc… again, this goes on and on forever.
the more “humanistic” approaches to psychology have been (and are currently) being “weeded out” in favor of a more scientific approach, because the scientific approach just produces more useful and practical results. this is (in my opinion), a consequence of our western culture. however, i do think that there will always be a place (and a need) for a more humanistic approach (in counseling… and in general, in creating a holistic treatment plan for a patient). like, if you’re counseling a patient, you don’t just slap them in the face with piles upon piles of scientific facts and data. there’s room for both worlds, but currently the dominant methodology is the scientific one.
Read about some approachs such as logo therapy. I’d really recommend you read mans search for meaning by Viktor E. Frankl to help you come to understand how science and humanism are mixed together to study human behavior and the mind.
The observation, identification, description, experimental investigation, and theoretical explanation of phenomena… Such activities restricted to a class of natural phenomena and applied to an object of inquiry or study. 2) Methodological activity, discipline, or study.
Now if psychology, therapy, and psychiatry are not treated like in a scientific manner, which other method would you have suggested instead?
Also I think your original post in the thread poses many separate questions, namely a) Is psychology a science? b) Why does one need science to understand the human mind? c) Is finding a logic behind everything a problem with science? d) Is everything in this world based on logic?
a) I think DarkMagus’ post has mainly answered this question. The one I wonder about is political science, that one I’m not sure about.
b) What alternative method would you suggest to understand the human mind?
c) By its very nature, science tries to find a logical solution to a given problem.
d) Depends what you mean by logic, but I think the question is vague at best. Perhaps u mean to question whether everything in this world can be understood (by us)?
I agree with the Poli Sci comment. However, Poli Sci seems infantile to me in respect to the “science” part. Politics and sophistry are skills that have been taught for ages, however, as a science, the craft is rather new. We can already see the stunning results of such research, though, and it’s very very very dangerous. For instance, think of the propaganda tools, scare tactics, societal manipulation that has occured after 9/11. We’ve come a long way from Vietnam in terms of learning to sway the public opinions in one direction… on BOTH sides. We see media being used in new ways to almost program people into the citizens we want them to be.
This IS a science… but a young one. Sheesh, a few years ago I never considered Economics to be a science. After this past year, though, I see that it is indeed a science. Not only that, but since the recent advent of experimental economics, it is now an experimental science. economics.harvard.edu/~aroth/econsci.html
I do not see us being far away trom having experimental Political Science. It’s a combination of experimental economics and experimental sociology… both of which we have.
How might psychology fail to qualify as a science?
A science pays attention to observable events. Apart from behavior what other events can we observe in the field of psychology? How much of psychology involves unobservable events?
For instance, emotions that produce zero behavioral changes cannot get observed.
A science depends on accurate, reliable and valid measurement. What in psychology can we accurately, reliably and validly measure?
Concepts in psychology often lack a consensus definition. Terms in one sub-branch of psychology can have strongly different definitions from the same terms in another sub-branch.
Not much. Psychology is all about observed data and the analysis thereof. One can take an antirealist approach with respect to some of the phenomena in psychology, but then one can do that for electrons, fields, atoms, forces etc etc - things which aren’t “observable” in the colloquial sense. This does not, in my opinion, get anyone very far.
Unless you count the various kinds of brain activity that can be imaged, skin conductance responses, reaction times in implicit attitude tasks, lesion-induced emotional changes, chemical interference etc etc etc etc.
Brain activity by imaging, neural oscillations, neural modulation, ERPs, reaction times, gross error, task accuracy, individual differences etc etc.
No they don’t - the terms used are very specific. The only time one finds disagreement on such things is when a new term is being established, but that is very much a feature of science generally.
It would be more accurate to say interpretational analysis of behavioral patterns observed. Formal diangoses too often must fall under a clinician’s subjective interpretation.
Yes but these are all indirect measurements of concepts that are unquantifiable and simply cannot be measured: human consciousness, mental health, sense of wellbeing. Anyway, we’re getting tripped up over semantic silliness, here. Psychology and psychiatry are sciences, sure, but the main operator in distinction for our discussion should be inexact. Psychology is full of subjective diagnoses and new clinical disorders that get invented every year.
Raf, while Nikol_numb does sound a bit ill-informed in his assertions, you come off sounding “self-righteous” in this discussion because of the knowledge you claim to have and the manner in which you present it.
There has been vast research to suggest that the neurotransmitters serotonin, dopamine, and norepinephrine have a direct effect on mood. The SSRI class of antidepressants focuses on one such neurotransmitter (it’s “selective”), while others such as bupropion/Wellbutrin actually affect more than one neurotransmitter. So it is true that major affective disorder is a psychiatric condition often treatable with these new medications. However, the exact mechanisms by which they work is still largely speculative, educated guesswork.
Whew. Christ, this one’s so full of broad generalization that I wouldn’t know where to start even if I had the time! (I don’t have the time.)
Psychiatric disorders generally cannot be cured.
Why should it be? According to your thinking, everything is fixable with better living through chemicals!
Indeed, you are correct sir. Let’s try for “vague,” “nebulous,” “ethereal”… “hypothetical”… Hell I’ll even throw in “creative.” You must recognize the creative genius and marketing enthusiasm of a multibillion dollar pharmaceutical industry whose existence still finds us a curiously neurotic, psychohypochondriacal, and fussy people.
pure hard science is just a part of psychology
you can’t help people with psychological problems based on only the analysis of the human brain…
we simply don’t know enough about how it works, therefore, social skills and interaction are at least as important as scientific research
both help understanding and curing, but on another level…
both are important
i don’t think neural science is advanced enough to fully cover psychology, not by far,
you can help people much better mostly, by talking to em, trained social helpers may not know anything about neural activity, and yet help people much better than whatever drug…
Well, you choose to read things how you choose to read them. I was just saying, this person, who is obviously uneducated, has no place to make such assertions as he was making.
Fine, then you wouldn’t mind if I take a sledgehammer to your head and test the idea that neurons aren’t required for emotions?
… I was speaking to a layman.
And, at this point, Superstring Theory is merely guess work. Would you call Superstring Theorists crackpots because they haven’t proven anything yet?
The first step in “science” is forming hypothesis. The last step is reforming your hypothesis. When a direct correlation between taking these drugs and a cure is found, the next step is to make certain of why the work. No science is complete. Why hold Psychology to a higher standard than one would hold any other science?
Does that sound self-righteous to you?
Poor baby. Well, I’m sorry I wasn’t specific enough for you, but the idea wasn’t to go over the details. The idea was to illustrate that there are physical connections to emotions, thought patterns, and perceptions in the brain. That mission has been accomplished.
What is your mission, John? To expose me as a fraud? To cause trouble?
First off, I beg to differ. Most psychiatric disorders aren’t even biological, such as PTSD, most personality disorders, and even weird little programming bugs like phantom limbs. These can be cured, and have been time and time again. Drugs function as tools to aid in helping the patient resume normal thinking patterns.
Now comes the grey area that I think I meant “cure” to cover but didn’t in only YOUR mind. This is of remission. Most psychiatric disorders are known to go into remission. Bipolars, Schizophrenics, Depressives, they all have been known to pop in and out of bad thought patterns. Drugs are a way to keep these negative thought patterns in remission. Do you deny this?
I’m not certain what was going through your mind as you wrote that. I certainly hope it wasn’t, “Maybe if I act more anal, people will like me.” If so, then it’s clear that a majority of your knowledge on this subject is derived from first hand experiences.
Well, I never made that assertion. I’d appreciate it if you read what I say before you tell me what I said.
Sometimes, chemical treatments DO help with these disorders, correct. However, these are, in laymens terms more of a “software” problem than a “hardware” problem. Even if the biochemistry of the brain is balanced, sometime we talk ourselves into bad thought patterns. You have to “reprogram” you thought patterns to be normal, and that is much harder to do than pop a pill. This is why, in addition to these drugs, most people are told to see a therapist so they can work on the other issues that have to do with how your brain programmed itself. This, too, is a science. Brains operate on very similar programming, on the whole, and the disorders themselves can be talked through and fixed using proven techniques.
I hate the pharmaceutical industry… I also hate the insurance industry. Both of these industries are using tactics which I feel to be unethical or at least unconscionable. Psychiatrists are being given benefits for using one drug over another. For instance, my mother’s office, a particular psychiatrist has lunch delivered for their office from a different upper-crust resturaunt every week… who pays for this? The drug companies. This same person goes to Florida, California, Atlantic City, yadda yadda every few months for about a week. Who flys her to these places, pays for the hotel, the rental car, and gives her a few thousand dollars in spending money? Drug companies that want her to attend their workshops (read: sales pitch). She doesn’t even show up to the workshops most of the time because they really don’t give her any incentive to. She does, however, feel more inclined to prescribe medications to that company, though.
The pharmaceutical companies are crooks. However, they are crooks who sell a product which does a lot of good for a lot of people. Just because the pharmeceutical companies are conducting themselves wrongly does not mean that the drugs they sell are bad. If that’s what you’re trying to say, then I’d say your argument was fallacious.
“vague”, “nebulous”, or “etherial”… it works. I do not know why you want to claim that it doesn’t work. I don’t think you have empirical evidence on your side for that one, though. The alternative to taking these drugs is much worse.
Why the hostility? It’s coming off as rather suspect, you know.
more of a “software” problem than a “hardware” problem. Even if the biochemistry of the brain is balanced, sometime we talk ourselves into bad thought patterns. You have to “reprogram” you thought patterns to be normal, and that is much harder to do than pop a pill. This is why, in addition to these drugs, most people are told to see a therapist so they can work on the other issues that have to do with how your brain programmed itself. This, too, is a science. Brains operate on very similar programming, on the whole, and the disorders themselves can be talked through and fixed using proven techniques.