Are psychologists crazy? I think the majority of them are, but I don't think psychologists believe that they themselves are. Lets find out if anyone else thinks that clinical psychologists are crazy.
IronShrink answers the question of sanity in his profession in his article titled
How To Tell If Your Therapist Is Crazy (Part One). He points out that shrinks are just as crazy as the rest of us, pointing out that shrinks booze, have marriage problems, do drugs and stuff no more than the general population.
It's gotta be difficult for IronShrink to step outside of his profession and shrinkish world view enough to see what I believe to be inherent craziness in the profession itself, and which is embedded in almost every practicioner of psychology. They just think they know so damn much. It's like they believe they have God like omnicience sometimes. But basing my opinion from the shrink insanity I've seen, shrinks are too stuck in a bubble of their own dogma to know if they're crazy or not.
The Psychology department of the college of William & Mary also has an answer to the question in a document titled
Defending Your Decision to Major in Psychology which could maybe be called "Dear Mom, I can't cut it as a scientist. Would you still be proud of me if I majored in the pseudoscience of psychology?"
Research and academic psychologists are reasonably stable sorts (sometimes verging on boring). You are probably thinking of the stereotype of psychologists or, perhaps, of clinical psychologists or psychiatrists. There is an element of truth here concerning those few who became interested in psychotherapy as an indirect way of dealing with their own internal problems and conflicts. Most psychologists really are no more unstable or crazy than most other people -- for whatever that might be worth.
Ok, they were honest in admitting what is self evident - that there are some wack jobs that got into psychotherapy because they wanted to learn more about their own twisted minds. If I remember one thing from college correctly, it was that the psych majors were a little different - Jeff Dahmer different.
Also if you found out a female that you just met on campus was a psychology major, it was a sure bet that she'd put out by the third date.
Maybe not crazy, but completely full of shit
Have you ever spoken to a shrink for a half an hour and just like an omnipotent god the shrink will purge forth some bullshit revelation about you with complete confidence in their own bullshit revelation about you?
It probably seemed true at the time. It probably seemed true because the psychologist was confident in their insight and you figured, "Well this guy's an expert, cause that's his job. I think I'll believe every word he says about me."
Anyway, shrinks pull this kind of shit all of the time. They're delusional, and I don't know who's more delusional, the psychologists who make up such far reaching rationalizations based on very little information, or the clients that believe the delusions based on a therapists presumed authority on such matters.
Like in criminal court. It's not perjury if you don't know that you're lying in court, right?
It's not uncommon in a court of law for both sides of a legal dispute to have their own psychologists make statements as expert witnesses. Often times, the statements of two psychologists in the court room will completely contradict each other.
Example:
Shrink biased in favor of defendant: Your honor, John Doe was having a psychotic episode at the time that he chopped up those children and stuffed them into a meat grinder. He could not be responsible for the crime.
Shrink biased in favor of the prosecution: John Doe was perfectly sane at the time that he murdered those children in the most grizzly way. I spoke with Mr. Doe and there are no signs that he suffers from psychotic episodes.
You get the picture. Psychologists offer widely varying opinions of people all of the time. That's because they're just personal opinions, and that they're professional opinions of psychologists means nothing in itself; that's because psychology doesn't have a core set of laws, theories, belief's and what not that all psychologists follow.
Belief that psychology is any more than a pseudoscientific belief system - or a science - is indicator that one is scientifically illiterate.
It has occurred to me though, that even though psychologists believe in a lot of bullshit, they can't be considered delusional by their own standards. For in order for a thought or belief to be a delusional one, it must be one that conflicts with the ideas & beliefs held by society; and society, through propaganda, and not through any bit of critical thinking or scientific literacy, has accepted psychology as a science right up there with chemistry or physics. Most people aren't aware that psychology is not empirically sound, and that it is closer to scientology than science.
Psychologists are not crazy. They're just full of shit. And as full of shit as they are, if everyone believes in clinical psychology, then believing in such bullist is not, by definition, delusional. They're just full of shit.
And psychology is a science of human behavior. Unlike other sciences, it can't control enviornments to study phenomena, so there is less variability that the theorie can predict.
In practice (clinical/counseling psych), the science doesn't always hold up. But psychology is much more diverse than this. Are you telling me that classical and operant conditioning don't exist?
They really hate to admit it when they are wrong. I've been most accepting of my mistakes, learning and growing from them. But she can do no wrong.
She's also been saying a lot of contradictory stuff. It's frustrating when she gets angry at my confusion at what she's talking about - only because it keeps changing every week. Get your story straight!
And don't even get me started on them putting words in your mouth.
It's got so bad that I am now worse off than when I started. :( Really f**ked up.
ab•nor•mal•i•ty (bnôr-ml-t)
n. pl. ab•nor•mal•i•ties
1. The condition of not being normal.
A mental disorder is something one has for not being mentally normal. Therefore, in order to be ahead of the curve, one must have at least one mental disorder.
These individuals not only need to recognize that it isn't necessesarily mentally disturbing not to be normal but also that some of the sanist people out there are going to need to have at least one mental disorder in order to be ahead of the curve. In fact for them to think that they are better than most and able to help others due to their training to become the scam artists that they are, they also are being, under the circumstances of believing that they have no mental disorders, hyppocrytical. May I advise in the future not using words like sh*t whenever trying to legitamently enlighten others for unfortuionately people can let such things distract them from reaching a logical explanation and there are those out there, potentionally, who would actually use this as argument alone to try to get others not to listen to you. While yes it may be unlikely for an intellectual to be fooled by it I suggest that you try to keep that in mind in the future lest you have more important things to concern yourself with of course.
ab•nor•mal•i•ty (bnôr-ml-t)
n. pl. ab•nor•mal•i•ties
1. The condition of not being normal.
A mental disorder is something one has for not being mentally normal. Therefore, in order to be ahead of the curve, one must have at least one mental disorder.
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