Psychology is a criminal profession

Post Reply New Topic

The adult psychologists who work in the private sector in areas like marital counseling tend to be out to rip you off but the ones who work in public schools or the DMH, where they do not earn as much derive pleasure from other's misfortune.

So you're feeling distrust towards psychologists in general. Why do you think you feel that way? That'll be 100 dollars.
That's all they do, rephrase what you said into a question then charge you like crazy so they can pretend to care about problems.

I believe your generalization is too broad to be accurate.

You're not a scientologist by any chance, are you.

While I agree that many areas of psychology borderline on quackery, I don't think its proper to attribute the heinous malicious intent that Scientology does to those who practice it. At worst, its merely misguided in a few areas, and as I like to refer to it, is the "secular study of the soul". It does not take into account the many spiritual realities that affect human beings and works off an entirely naturalistic premise. But scientologists though - they think that psychologists are outright evil and some even claim they are being controlled by aliens with an evil agenda....

My therapist does a lot more than that. She's helps me understand why NTs do the things they do. I've forgiven a lot of things done to me with her help. She helps me look for solutions to problems and to put my feelings into words. She has helped me move away from angry, cynical, self-absorbed Rose toward kinder, gentler, happier, more engaged Rose, the Rose I want to be! You're absolutely right that there are jerks in the psychiatric profession, just as there are in any profession. If you're psychiatrist or psycologist is a jerk, you have every right to refuse to see them again and go find someone who is in the business to help people! (My parents sent me to a horrible psycologist when I was 13 and 14...I didn't know I had the option to say, "This isn't working, find me someone else." When I was 17, they sent me again, at my request, but to a different therapist. She was wonderful; you just have to find the right match!)

Most psychologists I've met are less intelligent than me;

Many of us have a boundless personality can not be ascertained with the laws of Freud and Pavlov

If not for the mental health profession, people with autism would still be locked up like animals in nasty institutions. You would not even be able to post complaints about them on the internet.

I take the good with the bad. Some psychologists and psychiatrists are more messed up than their patients. Some do great work.

Caveat Emptor.

Think about the soul crushing therapies that some of those people have come up with, in the past.

no kiddin'

But I finally found one that doesn't just dump on me a bunch of praise of my "intelligence." Too bad I only get to see him every three or four months for a half hour.

Psychology is wide open to abuse because "fixing the mind" is such a nebulous goal. Also, psychology can be "used on" people to dupe them into behaving in ways they wouldn't have done if they'd been asked honestly and directly.

I think it all depends on the psychologist's attitude. I saw a fascinating study from the 1950s in which it was concluded that housewives were mostly terrified of getting the housework wrong - bedclothes and worktops not quite clean, etc. They'd found this out very cleverly by asking them to write down how they would advise a new housewife how to cope - next they analysed the responses for emotionally-charged words. Much better than just asking them how they felt about housework, because these anxieties weren't conscious ones. Note that the women had no idea that they were giving away their innermost emotional secrets. Possibly a justifiable trick if the aim was to identify emotional suffering and to offer to heal it. But these were advertisers, and their next step was merely to unleash a plethora of super-cleaning products and to advertise them by playing on those anxieties of failure and uncleanliness.

Problem is, psychologists are people, with their own agenda. If you find a bright one who also cares about your actual well-being more than they care about their own pocket, their on-paper performance, their guru status or their sexual needs, then you'll likely get some help. But I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for it. I've sometimes thought I might make a good psychologist, but I've really no idea how I'd react to the pressure from money, status, etc.

Indeed!!

Check out this video. Watch carefully what Arnold says between 2:00 and 3:30.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ffk9fEWgnzE

Yup...Arn's using the miracle of transference to his advantage.....is this fiction or is he doing that in real life?

Playing the victim like this can really only make you miserable. It also makes you look like a tool.

Your belief requires an even broader generalization, that all broad generalizations must necessarily be innacurate.

The overwhelming majority of psychologists don't know what the hell they're talking about. Going through school reading about a few arbitrarily defined "disorders" and mindlessly repeating their details back to a tutor does not magically make a person intelligent or more competent at helping people than anyone else is.

They earn a living by convincing people that they have problems which can only be resolved (conveniently enough) by further exposure to the concepts most prevalent in contemporary psychology, which, as I've already said, are dreamt up arbitrarily and are no more valid than the concepts of mental health which any other person on this earth might dream up.

The only thing that makes a psychologist's opinion more valid than anyone else's is their position of authority, complete with institutional backing and social standing. A position which they only hold because they agreed to mindlessly repeat whatever they were told was true throughout their education. It has nothing to do with the accuracy of their beliefs nor the superiority which their intellect holds over others.

So then WTF are you doing here? Clearly, since every psychiatric DX is born of an unholy alliance between mental health professionals and Big Pharma, any 'difficulties' you face are nothing more than illusions, packaged up for your consumption, designed solely to separate you from your money.

Be free.

Don't hang around us losers that actually believe in our diagnoses.

This is just one style of psychotherapy, actually. Most other styles do not involve re-phrasing statements. This particular kind is probably "person-centered" or "rogerian" type; the basic idea is that the therapist is acting as a sounding board for the client without involving himself or stating opinions, so that the client can work out the problem himself; the idea is that people for the most part already have the knowledge and equipment necessary to solve their own problems. It works for some people and some problems, but for many people it isn't the best strategy. The ideal person for this kind of thing would be someone who is quite articulate, and would benefit from gaining more self-awareness.