The Psychology Thread

"Cognitive adjustment" sounds really sinister, at least to me.

Why not simply "anti-autism procedure" or "counter-autism procedure"?

Schild und Schwert der Partei

"Adaptive socialising techniques"... or "adaptive systems of management". Bleeding "cures"... <shakes head>

Alternative cognitive processing for various brain activities can and will happen: not all of which are totally maladapted to any given culture. <_< I mislike "cure" and "prevention" very much as terms when aimed at "conditions" or "syndromes" like autism and schizophrenia. Seriously, I do.

Says more about society than the "illnesses", that. <_< Much like "curing" gays.

edited 1st Apr '13 5:47:16 AM by Euodiachloris

To quote/paraphrase Szasz, "a mental illness is a disease of the mind, not of the brain. You cannot operate on the mind. Only help can operate on the mind."

Also, this is a good place to put it: post-modernist psychology.

"Post-modernist psychology rejects the scientific principle and knowledge is merely a societal and subjective construct created using an illusion of objectivity, and that the data gained is shaped by the language used to describe it and the cultural context its in."

Anyone who has ever lived with someone suffering from a serious mental illness, such as manic-depression or schizophrenia, will know just how objectively real these conditions are, how much suffering they cause, and how important it is to develop more effective treatments, cures or prevention.

High-functioning autism is something else. Some of the people who experience the condition wish they could alleviate it, others value what they see as benefits to themselves. In any case our goal should always be to help people maximize their own self-determination.

Some cultures manage to make a positive out of schizophrenia, you know. <shrugs> (And, give an environment within which it can be managed and even accepted.)

"Witchdoctors" with mild or middling levels of schizophrenia are considered the best in parts of Africa and use various techniques to try keeping their level stable (and, it behoves them to keep an eye on those who cannot maintain such levels and look after them: they're still considered "powerful" rather than "pitiful"... but, still also "dangerous" — for obvious reasons.). It's a status thing to maintain it, even. Not saying it's the best method, but it's a method.

Families that produce a high number of witchdoctors are envied (even if they are also feared, just in case they produce the "powerful and deadly" type too often). <_<

edited 1st Apr '13 12:54:46 PM by Euodiachloris

Better yet, we can fine-tune the brain just the way the government wants it. That way we could save billions of dollars that would otherwise be spent catching terrorists, murderers, rapists, child pornographers, pot smokers, and people who torrented The Avengers.

Considering the state that most of Africa is in, maybe we shouldn't be looking to them as role models...

Join my forum game!

If there's one thing the Internet agrees on, it's that psychiatric drugs are bad. There may be several reasons why—maybe drugs are just a trick by Big Pharma greedy corporations (maybe even, all mental illness is); maybe drugs are a crutch—people who *aren't* weaklings use therapy and only therapy; maybe mental illness is mostly lying hypochondriacs trying to come up with an excuse for rudeness; maybe mental "illness" is just social prejudice and we need tolerance, not medicine—and any talk of a "cure" is genocidal homophobia.

All I know is—if I don't take my meds, I feel like killing myself most of the time. If I take my meds, I (usually) don't.

And I went 40 years without the meds, wanting to kill myself most of the time, so I don't need a lecture on willpower, thank you very much.

And yes, Internet, I know that makes me some variety of bad person. You remind me of that every time the topic comes up.

Oh, boy: colonisation and industrialised slavery left us sooooo much of the original nations, cities and cultures to judge with in total objectivity and great detail. And, had absolutely no impact on the state of modern Africa in the least.

PS — Some slight sarcasm may be detected in this post...

Oh, please: drugs are tools. They can be well used or misused. They're neither universally "bad" nor "good". <_< But, they are helpful. Not everybody on the internet thinks they're junk, you know. <_<

edited 1st Apr '13 3:39:02 PM by Euodiachloris

Psychiatric medicine is, if anything, over prescribed. I highly doubt the rates of ADD and ADHD have spiked as much as the use of ritalin indicates. I would think that it's more that children are getting their opportunities to work their energy out removed from their days.

I had a highly bipolar elderly neighbor who often refused to take her medication. She almost never had lucid days and she was highly dangerous to everyone around her in both depressive and manic states. She needed the medication. She's fine now, but she's living in a care home.

EDIT: Actually, I think it's mostly the ritalin thing and the few people who were wrongly prescribed more extreme medication. If your medication works without any major side effects, you aren't going to go on about it, are you?

edited 1st Apr '13 4:41:59 PM by Zendervai

Not Three Laws compliant.

Yeah. Medication is a godsend for me. I have clinical depression, due to (probably) genetic poor dopamine response. It's not a willpower matter. I have very little I should be depressed about at this point, it's a chemistry thing.

When I take my pills, I function, when I don't, I don't. Simple as that.

edited 1st Apr '13 4:47:52 PM by DrTentacles

I think we should just go back to using leeches.

Leeches fix everything.

And brain slugs.

edited 1st Apr '13 7:50:28 PM by Barkey

I prefer my placebos to be less... blood-sucking in nature. And, squirmy. <shudders>

Sugar pills for the win!

edited 1st Apr '13 8:08:35 PM by Euodiachloris

I'm not saying we should go back to trepanning, but we should definitely go back to trepanning.

Oh, I need a trepanation like I need another hole in my head.

I am not sure how to put this clearly, but:

What do you call the behavior or mindset in which you feel as if you are the only smart guy/girl and everyone else is a sheep who needs to wake up? Just a plain egotism? I think I've seen an XKCD comic on this.

I'm a (socialist) professional writer serializing a WWII alternate history webnovel.

Objectivism?

Aha, found the comic.◊

Objectivism...to be honest, all I know about it is that it is essentially an asshole apologetics. Obviously it is more complex than that, but that's what I know.

I'm a (socialist) professional writer serializing a WWII alternate history webnovel.

It's not more complex.

And I think the technically term would be Narcissistic Personality Disorder.

Either that or some form of sociopathy. Strictly speaking, sociopathy is simply not being able to relate to others.

Not Three Laws compliant.

Speaking of which, what is the difference between sociopathy and psychopathy?

I'm a (socialist) professional writer serializing a WWII alternate history webnovel.

First off, Psychopathy isn't actually an accepted thing. It's unclear if it really exists or if the examples are people who are really sadistic.

But basically, Sociopathy is where you can't make connections easily, but that tends to result in either isolation or apathy. If you're sociopathic, you're more likely to be asocial than anything.

Psychopathy is what you get when it gets actually dangerous. You don't care about others to the point that you would use them as playthings and so on.

edited 4th Apr '13 2:27:55 PM by Zendervai

Not Three Laws compliant.

Random question: what does the local psychologists (or wannabes) know/think of dysphasia?

If you mean aphasia, it sounds like it would be horrifying to have, and there isn't really any good ways to treat it.

Not Three Laws compliant.

Not really, more like Specific language impairment.

Aphasia is something else entirely.

Okay. My Abnormal psych textbook conflates the two.

Not Three Laws compliant.