Psychology will fix the world

[G1BTW]

w0000000t!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/8365960.stm

I think my childhood would have been much easier if I had been diagnosed with this condition sooner. 

Psychology is all well and good, but you have to draw the line somewhere surely?

Whatever happened to 'lazy'? 

At the same time more and more you're seeing criminals being let off because what was once seen as criminal behaviour now being passed off as some kind of pre-existing brain disorder.

Has the world gone mad? (/Global Irrational Syndrome)?

[kinboshi]

That's arse.  It's not 1st April today or something is it?

[Swordpoker]

Completely nuts. Even if we accept the diagnosis, phobias can be cured within about 10 minutes these days so they don't need to be a problem.

[Claw75]

I can relate to this as I suffered something similar at school and, later, in the workplace. It's not something that easy to admit as you might think you will be laughed at/ridiculed/called lazy, whatever, so it's no surprise it went undiagnosed for so long. The kid himself might not even have realised he was suffering from a phobia.  I wish I could have got treatment in 10 minutes. Instead I missed about half of my GCSE education and got shit grades, and last year ended up having to resign from my job.

[pokefast]

Completely nuts. Even if we accept the diagnosis, phobias can be cured within about 10 minutes these days so they don't need to be a problem.

Phobia's can be cured within ten minutes really?

[G1BTW]

I can relate to this as I suffered something similar at school and, later, in the workplace. It's not something that easy to admit as you might think you will be laughed at/ridiculed/called lazy, whatever, so it's no surprise it went undiagnosed for so long. The kid himself might not even have realised he was suffering from a phobia.  I wish I could have got treatment in 10 minutes. Instead I missed about half of my GCSE education and got shit grades, and last year ended up having to resign from my job.

I agree that there are a lot of genuine cases of classifiable mental illnesses that are missed, even if they're admitted by the sufferer, and they're told just to 'get on with it' when they need treatment. But I'm questioning whether this kind of thing is right:

"The boy, whose identity cannot be revealed, had been diagnosed by a clinical psychologist as suffering from a school phobia. "

I'm generally kind of sceptical about the approach even many psychologists take to the whole notion of psychology as a science. Ok as a science, it deals with things objectively, but there seems to be an assumption then that this approach defines human behaviour and thinking adequately. I don't think it does, there's the whole subjective, less deterministic  component, which psychology seems to largely ignore and teaches people to ignore it in themselves.
If I donated a bunch of cash to a small Rwandan village, previously living hand to mouth, and we built them a school, I'm wondering how many of the kids would be found suffering from School Phobia Syndrome....

Not knocking the genuine illnesses out there though, or minimizing the ignorance-borne stigmas that still surround them.

[Claw75]

yeah I know where you're coming from. I've currently got a diagnosis consisting of three different 'conditions'. That diagnosis was made after half an hour with a psychiatrist. Yes I can read up on them and relate to the symptoms, but I'm sure lots of other people can too. I wrote about it a bit on my blog quite recently. I reckon if the whole population went and spoke to a psychiatrist looking for a mental health diagnosis they could probably get one. It's just down to what the 'normal' benchmark is, and how realistic that is I suppose. I know I need treatment though, to deal with stuff like the phobias that I've had, and other symptoms, rather than the conditions themselves. I can only get that once I've been given a label.

All that said, I wish my school phobia had been identified by a clinical psychologist as in this case - I might then have got the help I needed at the time to overcome it and get back in the classroom.

[G1BTW]

yeah I know where you're coming from. I've currently got a diagnosis consisting of three different 'conditions'. That diagnosis was made after half an hour with a psychiatrist. Yes I can read up on them and relate to the symptoms, but I'm sure lots of other people can too. I wrote about it a bit on my blog quite recently. I reckon if the whole population went and spoke to a psychiatrist looking for a mental health diagnosis they could probably get one. It's just down to what the 'normal' benchmark is, and how realistic that is I suppose. I know I need treatment though, to deal with stuff like the phobias that I've had, and other symptoms, rather than the conditions themselves. I can only get that once I've been given a label.

All that said, I wish my school phobia had been identified by a clinical psychologist as in this case - I might then have got the help I needed at the time to overcome it and get back in the classroom.

Good luck with it hun, brave of you to be so open about it, probably a lot of help to many peeps that read it though.

[Geo the Sarge]

http://www.metro.co.uk/news/article.html?Man_killed_wife_in_a_bad_dream&in_article_id=771896&in_page_id=34

and this...........discuss

Geo

[G1BTW]

http://www.metro.co.uk/news/article.html?Man_killed_wife_in_a_bad_dream&in_article_id=771896&in_page_id=34

and this...........discuss

Geo

Yeah, saw that, so tragic

Interesting push by the prosecution, for

-not guilty vs

-not guilty by reason of insanity.

Would you really describe someone who carried out stuff while dreaming it as 'insane'?

[jakally]

I am normally a bit cynical about 'excuses' for killing someone, but this comes across more as an accident.

Would be harsh to send him down IMO.

[G1BTW]

There's a big popular book called 'Abnormal Psychology', didn't see one called 'Normal Psychology' but presumably there's some 'normal' area where most people are 'supposed' to inhabit.
The area that always interests me most on an amateur level is forensic psych, hard to work out where mental illness is at work (deterministic) and where some dude is just being bad. They reckon a huge percentage of inmates in british jails have untreated mental illnesses, I guess they contributed to their crimes in many cases.

So if you're writing your book on Abnormal Psychology, what do you include? It's a science, so you start with observable evidence, which is behaviour. So could you say that behaviour which is radically outwith the scope of normal human behaviour shows evidence of a mental illness?
Harold Shipman, for example. Killed hundreds, but wasn't let off 'by reason of insanity'. It's like he was a regular dude, but just bumped off 250 people as it happens. Can you ever call anyone who does that 'sane'??

[Swordpoker]

Completely nuts. Even if we accept the diagnosis, phobias can be cured within about 10 minutes these days so they don't need to be a problem.

Phobia's can be cured within ten minutes really?

Yup, it's one of the cool things you can do with NLP techniques. The more severe the phobia the easier it is to cure usually. Here's Paul McKenna curing needle phobia:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZRDwhqXWu-A&feature=related

[G1BTW]

WOW!!!!!!!!!!

http://phobialist.com/reverse.html


Been a Arachibutyrophobiac for many years

[rex008]

Brilliant. Fear of long words is Hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia  . Someone taking the piss there, methinks?