Do you think Psychiatry is legitimate?

Question

...or do you think that Psychiatry, as we know it (aka: Psychoanalysis, Phychology) is fabricated?

Answer 1

There is legitimacy to this question.

Understanding the human condition is a legitimate endeavor however psychiatry/psychology has big problems. One is objectivity. If a professional is genuinely objective in the scientific sense he has excluded his own emotions. This is not bad until one realizes that such objectivity is incapable of understanding the host (psychiatrist) because it does not see the whole picture and therefore remains fundamentally ignorant.

I'm not a professional in that field but from what I know it is still operating on theories not understanding. Its breakthroughs, if they are breakthroughs are drugs. The problem with our chemical understandings of synapses and brain function is that we have not determined whether the chemical imbalance is genuinely chemical or the result of defective thinking and possibly inadequate nutrition.

As therapy the professions help in relieving the tensions of buried emotions but in terms of providing full solutions to thinking problems most if not all remain clueless. What they do is teach people how to control their abnormalities and/or drug them to be "normal."

As your question suggests they are not providing genuine solutions. Unless they understand themselves it is impossible for them to understand others and their professional objectivity stands between them and this understanding.

Answer 2

If you're asking if the study of the human mind is a legitimate science, why then yes, absolutely. We have learned an enormous amount, and millions of people who would have been locked up or left in misery are now able to function quite well, thanks to advances in Psychiatry. But mind studies are notoriously difficult. Experiments we can do on a fruit fly or even a monkey are unthinkable when done to people (and I'm not too sure about the monkeys). Cause and effect that are perfectly clear in a science like chemistry are much murkier when trying to understand the brain. Psychiatry has made mistakes and taken wrong turns. But it has achieved wonders, and will continue to do so.

Answer 3

People who are psychiatrists, have PhD's AND MD's. This type of training entails learning how to diagnose, treat, and even prevent people's cognitive, social, emotional, and physical problems. All of this education is based on years and years and YEARS of scientific work that has produced empirically SOUND diagnostic tools, methods, and treatments that I'm sure even you have taken for granted at some point in your life. What do you mean, fabricated? Legitimate? It is fairly ignorant to belittle that which one knows nothing about...

I don't mean to be rude here. So, I hope I did not hurt your feelings in expressing this view. For all I know YOU don't actually hold the belief that is implied in your question and are simply wondering what others think about it...I have been working towards a PhD in Psychology for 10 years and a question like this, well, belittles and trivializes my hard work, my knowledge, my experience, my debt, the sacrifices I've made, and, really, 10...going on 11 years of my life. So, I apologize if my answer seems harsh :-).

Answer 4

Psychiatry is the care and treatment of the mentally and /or emotionally injured. They rely on the more philosophically based psychology and medical discoveries in drug treatments. In this, they are not better equipped than the tribal shaman.

What is seriously needed is a wholesale investigation into the psycho-dynamics of the human psyche without any pseudo-metaphysical mumbo jumbo of psychology. The mind-brain connection must be exhaustively investigated under the auspices of neurologists and endocrinologist that are capable of exploring the emotion-body connection.

Answer 5

Psychiatry is different from psychoanalysis. There are also many schools of psychoanalysis. Overall, I would argue that psychiatry is one set of beliefs and theories based on scientific and medical information. Therefore, I would consider it "legitimate".

Believing everything you read or hear, is part of the problem of being human. Of course, most of us are unwilling to explore if our own beliefs are incongruous or contradictory.

Answer 6

Psychiatry is psychology plus drugs is religion plus smaller lies and larger collection plates.

If the patient gets better, it was sick. If the patient gets worse, it was well. The only sane reaction to living in a toxic society is murderous rage. Failing that... insanity for the motivated, depression for the slackers, recreational pharmaceuticals for the cowards, and suicide for the socially conscious.

Take all you can, give nothing back. Welfare, Head Start, social advocacy, and the occasional arsonous riot sum to the solution (at least until the jug is sucked dry).

Answer 7

Certainly, many people have been helped by it.
Psychiatry is a medical specialty dealing with the prevention, assessment, diagnosis, treatment, and rehabilitation of the mind and mental illness. Its primary goal is the relief of mental suffering associated with symptoms of disorder and improvement of mental well-being. This may be based in hospitals or in the community and patients may be voluntary or involuntary. Psychiatry adopts a medical approach but may take into account biological, psychological, and social/cultural perspectives. Treatment by medication in conjunction with various forms of psychotherapy may be undertaken and has proved most effective in successful treatment.

Answer 8

my very own adventure of psychiatric "care" includes : confidentiality breaking : being clinically determined with a undeniable condition because of the fact my mum and dad desperate I had it : being stated as a liar for attempting to describe the subject concerns i certainly had : being compelled to faux to have symptoms to slot in with misdiagnosis : being over-medicated So confident, psychiatry is quackery. There may well be something to psychology. I had cognitive behavioural treatment and that develop into particularly valuable.

Answer 9

Psychiatry and all the -atries -ologies and -lysese that relate to it are the biggest scam going. The Freuds and Masters & Johnsons have neatly packaged all the most common and recognizable disfunctions of the mind, oversimplified them, rounded them off to the nearest convenient disorder and labeled them for resale to the masses who bought it hook, line and sinker and now everyone is a dimestore psychiatrist who doesn't have to take the time to observe and pay special attention to even their own children because it's easier to stop at the first diagnosis you come to, label him/her that, give him/her a pill and get on with your day.

Nowadays people are to busy to spend quality time with their children and give them the love and guidance they need, instead they have a pill for that. Puberty? They have a pill for that. Be sure and tell the kid what he's got is a 'disease' so you don't have to explain the passage into adulthood and whatever sticky subjects that might lead to.

"Hi doc, I'm a habitual liar and a moody, depressed, self involved, overly defensive, bastard and nobody likes me (just like I knew they wouldn't) Why?"

"Because you're Bi-polar"
"Are you sure doc?"
"...uh and manic depressive."
"I don't know doc, 'cause my parents were never around and when they were they beat me for stuff I couldn't help and it really made me feel like; why bother taking responsibility for anything cause i've already been punished so screw it all. And they tell me I'm worthless so often that I believe them and I never felt like they loved me because they never wanted to spend any time with me. So do you really think you can just sum me up in a word like bi-polar?"
"That's why I threw in manic depressive"
"I don't know, It doesn't sound like you understand enough to help me..."
"I have a pill that will fix everything."
"Oh! okay!
"Thank you Mr. Badparentson. That will be $1,000.00.
"Wha?...
"Take one of these right now before you pay."
"Oh, okay."

My family has been actively involved in the subject of parenting and psychology ever since my mother started a chapter of La Leche League (a support group for educating new mothers about breastfeeding and other aspects of parenting) in New Jersey in the 60's.

The entire field of psychiatric medicine and psychoanalysis is corrupt, outdated, compromised by legality issues and lack of government support. and the biggest problem is the fact that it's easy money for shiesters! How easy is it for a greedy doctor to tell his patient he has to pay him x amount of dollars for something in the part of his body that he understands the least about. Like shooting fish in a barrel. If there are intelligent, sensitive, well meaning psychiatrists out there, they are having a lot of trouble competing with the scam artists and eventually will have to adopt the same despicable practices if they are to keep their practice.

My advice: spend time with your children, talk to and care for your friends and family and DON'T TAKE THE MEDS!!! You can't put a bandaid on a broken heart.

Answer 10

Psychology and psychiatry are based on stereotyping. Nothing more.