From: JMS111@psuvm.psu.edu (Jenni Sheehey)
Newsgroups: alt.peeves
Subject: Psychology (was: Re: Lawyers not Chemists)
Date: 13 Apr 92 13:18:35 GMT
 <92101.202801JMS111@psuvm.psu.edu> <1992Apr13.061855.14756@cs.brown.edu>
Organization: Penn State University

Warning:  the peeve content of this article is low.  Sorry.

In article <1992Apr13.061855.14756@cs.brown.edu>, cgy@cs.brown.edu (Curtis
Yarvin) says:
>
>In article <92101.202801JMS111@psuvm.psu.edu> JMS111@psuvm.psu.edu (Jenni
>Sheehey) writes:
>
>Has psychotherapy ever cured a schizophrenic?

Not really.  However, a schizophrenic on drugs still needs a *lot* of
help adjusting before he becomes anything like a productive member of
society.

>Has psychotherapy ever cured a manic-depressive?

Sortof.  If you give a manic depressive the appropriate drugs,
psychotherapy can sometimes prevent him from having to stay on them
forever, by encouraging his brain to produce the appropriate
neurochemicals on its own.  At least that's what I was taught.

>Surely you're aware how well it's established that these diseases are gross
>physiological disorders of the brain.

Neurochemical, not exactly physiological.

>(Enter meaningless personal anecdote mode.)

(Enter Rogerian mode) Gee, I'm sorry to hear that.  How does it make you
*feel*?  =)

>I'm not quite sure what you mean by paranoid delusionals, as opposed to
>paranoid-schizophrenics; my gut feeling is that most of the former are
>harmlessly eccentric old ladies who get tag-team-committed by can't-wait
>heirs and well-paid psychiatrists (read Szasz even if you don't agree with
>him).

If they actually have can't-wait heirs, they aren't delusional.  Szasz
was a sensationalist.  (The difference between a paranoid delusional and
a paranoid schizophrenic is that the delusional isn't schizophrenic--
doesn't have hallucinations, doesn't have the splitting of thought and
affect, etc.  They're just so paranoid as to be non-functional.)

>Beyond
>some obvious perceptual results, nobody's generated any real working
>principles in the field for the hundred-odd years it's been around.  You can
>come up with all sorts of neat theories, but none of them are testable,
>which turns the whole thing into a pleasant little dead end.

That's actually complete hogwash.  Feel free to e-mail me for details.

>>Not to mention the garden variety phobic that would cause a 4 car accident
>>because a dog ran across the road,
>
>Oh?  Psychiatry can cure phobias, too?  Dis is new.  Tell me about it, Jenni.

No, it's not new.  Behavioral psychology has about a 90% cure rate with
phobias (rough estimate from the top of my head), and has been
successfully curing them for quite a while.

>please don't
>grow up to be a psychofascist.  It's all right to be a psychiatrist, as long
>as you understand that you're only in it for the money, but I have serious
>moral objections to forcing "therapy" on people.

Who's forcing anything?  If it's therapy or jail, most people will
choose therapy.  If you're upset about people being forced to have
therapy, join the people who are ranting about the lawyers.

ObPeeve: Having to defend my field all of the time because very few
people know as much about it as they think they do, and everyone thinks
they know *all* about it because they've had one or two experiences with
it.

RelatedPeeve: Many people act about psychologists the same way they act
about Christians: If I've met a bad one, all of them are bad.

                                                 --Jenni