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froydnslp
New Member
22 Posts |
Posted - 04/05/2008 : 14:30:43 [Permalink]
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bngbuck:
Back in the Dark Ages, I had a little academic exposure to the craft in which you work and aspire to further matriculate. I try to keep up with some of the literature, but with the advent of serious psychopharmacology in the late 20th century, things have changed so much that I frequently feel that I am too seriously deficient in the disciplines of chemistry and microbiology necessary to really understand the subtleties of behavior modification possible in today's brave new world. |
What is your orientation? I tend to pick and chose little pieces of everything. But recently I have become very fond of Allan Schore's work with the brain, attachment theory and affect. It's really interesting and ties up a lot of loose ends regarding trauma and it's effects. If you pick up any of his stuff, just be prepared…He repeats himself often using different words, so one has an uncanny feeling of déjà vu while reading him.
bngbuck
It's been a long time since I even thought about April Fools Day! |
April Fools Day is my birthday. Hard not to think about it.
Thanks for the compliments and for being the first to so quickly attack that buncha hooey that I wrote. It was fun! We'll have to do it again sometime.
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bngbuck
SFN Addict
USA
2437 Posts |
 Posted - 04/06/2008 : 00:35:15 [Permalink]
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Michelle.....Somehow, I just can't type the Froydn.. thing. It comes out Jungwoman or Addleredlady or.... never mind!
| What is your orientation? |
Well, I've been married to the same lady for fifty years this coming June 7th, so by now I kind of think of myself as straight! Don't get me wrong, some of my best friends are ga.....oh, uh...I see what you meant! Sorry!
Back in the antedeluvian fifties there wasn't nearly the selection of theory focus choice. I would be CBT, although in those days we were just Behaviorists. We studied Watson and Skinner and, god knows, Pavlov. I ran the rat lab at CU (that was fun) under Karl Muenzinger, whose name you may have run into in your graduate work. Old Karl and I got pretty snug and he talked me into going on for something more than a lambskin.
Karl's lifework was devoted to the premise that psychology (which he dubbed Experimental Psychology) was a hard science exactly like Physics or Chemistry. Hence we were all big into animal (mostly rats, Skinner liked rats and we didn't have enough dough to buy monkeys, much less chimps) experimentation and the Scientific Method and walking around and talking like we were scientists.
This forum full of engineers is fascinating to listen to as so many of them would be confounded by an approach to problem solving such as Karl took. The Scientific Method is as the Scientific Method does - and it's application to human cognition via rat mazes was frequently laughable. Throw a rat at the wall, and if it sticks.....!
I became jaded, I taught undergraduates for a while but my heart really wasn't in it. I went on to doctorate despite having little faith in psychology as a science. My father, who paid the bills for all my lollygagging in college, let me know that if I was going to have any money in my life, I was going to damn well make it myself.
Having become accustomed to the good life, I took his words pretty seriously and asked for some seed money. He acquiesced, I learned a little business basics, and built a restaurant. More detail would be boring, suffice to say I never practiced my academically earned profession a single day in my life (except for a few stints as a statistician). I made a small killing in the world of commerce with a number of entrepeneurial ventures, and I retired at fifty and have really had a ball for the past thirty years!
Gives new meaning to "armchair psychologist" except that in my case it was more like fry cook/car dealer psychologist!
Back to your question, my orientation is that the practice of Clinical Psychology today is certainly not a science in the full meaning of the term; rather an art, a finely crafted diagnostic skill consisting of matching the proper chemicals to the symptoms in order to alter aberrant behavior.
I would be interested in your view of the essence of the profession that you have entered upon.
Thanks for the reference to Allan Schores. I have commenced some reading of his work, can't comment until I learn a bit more of what he is talking about! As Yogi Berra said, a great deal of what I read today seems to be déjà vu all over again!
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froydnslp
New Member
22 Posts |
Posted - 04/06/2008 : 14:35:43 [Permalink]
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Bngbuck:
I would be interested in your view of the essence of the profession that you have entered upon. |
I think that Psychology is an art as well, in that most people I meet call themselves “eclectic” when discussing their approach indicating that most people pick and choose what they like about all the theories and then create their own little dance number in the room.
I have seen pharmaceuticals really help kids that were very ill, so I don't have big angst about meds anymore. I have rarely seen kids over medicated. Seeing a kid at baseline and the subsequent pain that they are experiencing, then seeing them out of pain and able to do some work on themselves, changed my mind about meds a little. Still I'm not a drug pusher.
I see CBT and variations as being the most “successful” at changing behavior and thought patterns that aren't helpful. It's extremely useful when working with kids who have experienced severe trauma. I think that the caricatures that were created about Skinner and Behaviorists sort of did a disservice to that area of Psych for a while. Still I see people wince when Skinner's name comes up. But from my understanding, one of the things he was attempting to show was that learning could take place with no punishment. People seem to focus on the electrodes and really, from what I've read his focus was on rewards. Did you ever hear or see the Skinner box that he created for kids? It seems he was trying to create an environment for children in which there would be no negative consequences at all. It was advertised for young mothers at one point. One of the plusses of this box was that it was easily cleaned. Then there wouldn't even be a negative look on the mom's face if the baby spilled.
There's a guy Panskepp that you might be interested in. He is another Neurobiological Psychy guy. He wrote a book that studies and shows emotions in animals. Lots of electrodes in that book. Fun experiments if you, ya know, don't think about animal rights and stuff.
So, I guess I would say that along with being an art, Psych seems to be moving again, towards empirical evidence, at least in the Brain and Behavior stuff that is out there. It's a new science/art. But it seems to becoming less nebulous and more refined. Unless you start talking to the Jungians, I guess.
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bonny420
New Member
1 Post |
Posted - 04/10/2008 : 12:35:05 [Permalink]
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HaHAHAHa!! Thank you soo much for this!!
I laughed my asss off!
bonny420 |
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Kil
Evil Skeptic
USA
13476 Posts |
Posted - 04/10/2008 : 17:35:55 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by bonny420
HaHAHAHa!! Thank you soo much for this!!
I laughed my asss off!
bonny420
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Cool. And welcome to SFN!! |
Uncertainty may make you uncomfortable. Certainty makes you ridiculous.
Why not question something for a change?
Genetic Literacy Project |
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Newton's Third Law
