What's wrong with psychologists?

Post Reply New Topic

I suppose my biggest problem with psychologists (and moreso with psychiatrists) is about limitations of knowledge. A psych doc has all this knowledge and training to start off with, and then tries to bring your mind into that paradigm. No matter what they do, they can't actually get inside my mind.On the other hand, I can obsess over psychology and psychiatry until I'm blue in the face, and bring that knowledge into myself for constant appraisals of life situations.

Considering my appetite for information and tendency to reflect, I think the latter situation is much more beneficial.

Other than that, all you need is a friend to talk to that isn't an idiot. Aside from their knowledge of human cognition and behavior, the only thing a psychologist provides is a third-party perspective.

Psychiatrists are all but useless, especially in the case of somebody with autism- there are no specific drugs widely used on almost all autistic people like stimulants are used on people with ADHD. For me, this is even worse- my special interests are AS and psychopharmacology.

So, if I go to the doc asking for a specific medication that I think might provide me with therapeutic benefits, he just recommends something else. It's easier to get a specific medication by just complaining about whatever symptoms that medication is supposed to treat, and I refuse to do that.

One time, I got prescribed Buspar for anxiety. The follow-up appointment to see if it was working or if I needed a dosage adjustment was for 6 weeks after I started taking it. I got the ol' BS line of "well, it takes up to six weeks for the medication to become effective". When I looked the stuff up online, it turned out the stuff was only proven to work for up to six weeks.

What the frick? Yeah, maybe the stuff works for a longer period of time and it just hasn't been studied. But I had to wait 6 weeks on a drug I already knew wouldn't work (had tried other serotonergics before)- for procedure? Screw that noise.

All right, that's the end of my ran- oops, almost forgot my soap box!

They give the worse case scenario to the parents, and they tell them not to expect too much of their spectrum children. Some of them even suggest ABA and the parents fall for it.

Unfortunately this is true. Just look at the original one. Freud was completely messed up with his oedipus complex and obsession with dream interpretation, penis envy and childhood as a cause of everything that can ail someone. Psychology is a pseudoscience based on the ravings of a very disturbed man.




A reason no one else has suggested yet is that traditionally psychoanalysts are to keep a distance and pretty much answer anything with "What do you think?" Not everyone follows that school of thought now. If I'm not mistaken Irvin Yalom is the father of the view that therapist and patient are fellow travelers. It seems that it has finally dawned on them that people, even patients, are different and needs to be treated as individuals.
I can't see how that 'not giving feedback' thing cause anything besides neurosis but that's just my POV.

Other reasons could be that they're arrogant and have already decided what you are/have, and nothing you say can change their mind, or that they underestimate you (after all you're psick).

Last edited by Skilpadde on 01 Feb 2010, 12:36 am, edited 1 time in total.

My psychiatrist used to do this a lot, but I must admit that I liked it. It was quite appropriate for my needs.

Sounds like they suffer from asspergers.....

No, they're either depressed, bipolar or mentally unstable NT's, or it could be that they act like it just to annoy aspies.

Nothing is wrong with mine. He went to John Hopkins. We both really like each other. We talk everything from my personal life/AS to the speaking abilities of Hitler, Stalins paranoid nature, and the stuff he saw in the John Hopkins pyhsics lab.

I've never met one who seems bored. I find them incredibly scary knowing that they are able to do thing I can't even dream of and are possibly the opposite of me. They have fantastic social skills and are able to tell when patients are lying etc. , know body language really well, have to scrutinise everything about the patient.

Scary scary stuff....gives me a panic attack just thinking about them. Bored? monotone? ...not in my experience. Empathetic? not sure about that one.

Wasn't he obsessed with turd as well? I'm sure I read somewhere that he thought all children go through a stage of being sexually aroused by pooping... words of a sane man?




Good answer, but I think you might have missed a subtle joke there. (ASS pergers!)

I won't take that joke.

I'm currently in the final year of a psychology degree. The reason I want to be a psychologist, is that I need to understand how those like me, who suffer from mental illness, may be helped.

Psychology is based on this desire to understand the minds of others. I live in England, so I have little knowledge of the standards of mental health care in the US, but speaking personally, I have found that even the most apparently disinterested psychologist/counsellor will take interest if you make the effort to connect with them on an emotional level. When they realise they are dealing with a person, and not just another 'case study', they tend to engage their humanity, and progress is made.