Potholer
Active Member
I'm jsut gonna have a mini-anger at this book I'm reading. It's whole premise is to say that something is "rotten" in "psychiatry". The guy says it isn't scientific, it's based on quakery and there's no such thing as "mental diseases". Mental disease is a delusion and not scientifically based.
This really really rubs me the wrong way. The book was published in 2007 or 2008. Plenty of time for the author to learn about brain-imaging techniques and the role of neurotransmitters in the brain, the presence of alpha waves, theta waves, fully scientific and quantifiable and disprovable.
All he's done so far is rip into Freud, an acknowledged quack (which I learned in first year psyc if I couldn't work it out for myself), and other psychologists/neurologists from over 100years ago when psychiatry and psychology was in its infancy. I quite agree with his critique of them, what I disagree with is that he somehow thinks this means that modern psychology is also quakery. Depression, schitzophrenia, bipolar....its all make-believe he says. OMG.
There's 2 reasons I keep reading.
1. I'm waiting for a critique of modern psychiatry/psychology
2. He has a really really interesting writing style, he's a good writer. When he isn't pissing me off, I'm enjoying what I reading.
But his arguments really aren't arguments at all. He proposes something and backs it up with quotes from other people, not actually evidence. He doesn't refute proof of mental illnesses, he merely prevaricates and says the same thing with metaphors and comparisons. At least that's what he's done so far.
I don't understand how he can make these claims and be a psychiatrist and not back them up!
Ok I'm done.
Grrr!
This really really rubs me the wrong way. The book was published in 2007 or 2008. Plenty of time for the author to learn about brain-imaging techniques and the role of neurotransmitters in the brain, the presence of alpha waves, theta waves, fully scientific and quantifiable and disprovable.
All he's done so far is rip into Freud, an acknowledged quack (which I learned in first year psyc if I couldn't work it out for myself), and other psychologists/neurologists from over 100years ago when psychiatry and psychology was in its infancy. I quite agree with his critique of them, what I disagree with is that he somehow thinks this means that modern psychology is also quakery. Depression, schitzophrenia, bipolar....its all make-believe he says. OMG.
There's 2 reasons I keep reading.
1. I'm waiting for a critique of modern psychiatry/psychology
2. He has a really really interesting writing style, he's a good writer. When he isn't pissing me off, I'm enjoying what I reading.
But his arguments really aren't arguments at all. He proposes something and backs it up with quotes from other people, not actually evidence. He doesn't refute proof of mental illnesses, he merely prevaricates and says the same thing with metaphors and comparisons. At least that's what he's done so far.
I don't understand how he can make these claims and be a psychiatrist and not back them up!
Ok I'm done.
Grrr!