[lbo-talk] Psychotherapy

joanna bujes jbujes at covad.net
Mon Apr 11 10:36:48 PDT 2005


Psychotherapy does not equal drugs; it has been the recent direction, but that is more consistent with the profit motive than with the essence of psychology/analysis. True "normative" psychology sucks.

I also went to marriage counselors to save a marriage -- three times -- and I would say they were uniformly very, very bad. Truth is marriage conseling is tough work; it's like having two people in analysis at the same time, but the job is often filled by self-righteous housewives. Anyway, those were the folks I ran into.

Shouldn't judge psychoanalysis by marriage counselors. For one thing, they don't even have that training.

Joanna

tully wrote:


>I don't know if changing the thread name will keep me out of trouble
>with Doug, but I'll give it a shot. I was hoping some of what I said
>there might get discussed.
>
>On Monday 11 April 2005 11:19 am, Miles Jackson wrote:
>
>
>>Oops. I've been teaching and doing research in psychology for
>>about 15 years now, and you're way, way off base. We do in
>>fact have a mountain of scientific evidence--including
>>well-controlled experimental studies--that give us a significant
>>grasp of "how the mind works". To put it bluntly, your
>>argument is based on ignorance of the facts.
>>
>>
>
>I base my opinion on my own experience with the industry and the
>reading I've done. When my marriage started failing I agreed to
>participate in counseling sessions, which I went into with all good
>faith in the field. I did not come out with any faith at all in
>marital counseling. It was easy to analyze that my ex had
>co-dependency issues, but no one knew how to deal with me, because I
>wasn't co-dependent. We tried 4 different counselors and all were
>equally unhelpful, suggesting procedures that only addressed the
>symptoms (sex) and were completely unable to provide any clues into
>resolving the underlying problems. Unfortunately I didn't figure all
>this out right away. It took a long time of trying the various
>"procedures" recommended, then discovering it only made things worse.
>
>Both my ex and I read a lot on the subject, and when I finally
>stumbled on DSM4, I realized that the field was simply a racket.
>That no one could escape being labeled mentally disabled to some
>degree. Everyone was a victim. That did it for me.
>
>I look at how we are drugging kids for ADD, how millions are taking
>anti-depressents (I've had doctors try to push them on me), how we
>call alcoholism a disease, and otherwise make an entire population
>into victims, needing their services and those of their best partner,
>the pharmaceutical companies. Please tell me why I should have any
>faith in such a racket.
>
>And how can we expect to ever categorize the myriad unique responses
>of people based on nature, nurture, or whatever into anything that
>resembles science? We can't even figure out how all the chemicals
>react with one another in the brain or how medicine chemicals
>interact with each other. Those two fields would have to be well
>past their infancy (which they are not) to allow psychology to even
>have a shot at being a science.
>
>--tully
>___________________________________
>http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
>
>.
>
>
>



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