> It's not the rigor of physics, but rather the rigor of engineering or civic planning:

I would say engineering has more rigour because almost everything that really matters is based on rigorous science. Engineering also includes a certain amount of artistry, but that's generally within a rigorous framework that allows this. But, yeah, as I said, psychology is pseudo-science.

> Because we've figured out what the underlying pathology is many (not the majority, but many) cases

Again, how many cases? If you've figured out the underlying pathology for 1% of cases (which is still many), how can you claim that underlying pathology is 'almost always benign'?

> and almost every underlying pathology we've discovered is something benign: e.g. a genetic mutation that causes your synapses to produce less of some messenger-chemical. Such mutations have no long-term effect on your health, other than affecting your psychology.

First of all I would question the accuracy of these diagnoses. Second, I would question the classification of these pathologies as benign - a more accurate statement is probably 'we don't know'. Third, you say 'other than affecting your psychology' - so they often do actually have long term effects on the person?

> Like I said, psychiatrists pre-screen for non-benign pathologies first, often too widely. You can't get diagnosed with clinical depression (by a psychiatrist who's doing their job) until you've been checked for vitamin deficiencies, hypothyroidism, anemia, diabetes, etc. Even in cases where you have 100% of the symptoms of clinical depression, including ones that have no organic basis. They'll still do the pre-screen, just to be sure.

This is the only reason why psychology is even able to exist - because all of the heavy lifting is done in the realm of real science, and once real, understood pathologies are excluded the psychologists/psychiatrists can do their thing. That is, until yet another real pathology is discovered and the guidelines have to be updated such that psychologists don't end up mistreating people with the condition as they were up until then.

> But once you're known to not have any of the known-malignant pathologies, then they can and will treat the symptoms, because at that point the only problem they have left to treat is the symptoms.

So, basically, once the real medicine and science find they cannot solve the problem, the patient is left with the psychologist, who drugs the patient to mask the symptoms?

> (What else would you expect them to do? Biopsy your brain?)

Well, I don't expect a psychologist to have enough expertise for a biopsy, but could I expect to at least have a couple holes drilled in my skull, or maybe some electroshock therapy?

> There's also just by the simple observation that these syndromes aren't degenerative. People can have e.g. untreated ADHD all their lives, and they won't live less long or end up in the hospital more often than people without ADHD.

ADHD isn't a pathology, and 'live less long & end up in the hospital more' are not the only criteria I would consider required to label a disease as benign - they must have ongoing issues affecting their qualify of life in order to be diagnosed with ADHD in the first place. That being said, your statement is a pretty good argument for why psychology is irrelevant.

> When we treat a syndrome, what we're treating for usually is our best understanding of the etiology.

When you say 'our best understanding' you mean a psychologists best understanding? The question is how good is this 'best understanding' really?

There are many different fields involved in modern medicine - biology, chemistry, neuroscience, physics, statistics, etc. What does psychology add? From where I'm sitting it adds absolutely nothing, and is far less rigorous.