Re: Psychotherapy

From: no email ((no)
Date: Wed Mar 01 1995 - 13:49:40 GMT


> From: Flynn, Emma" <EMFLY92@psy.soton.ac.uk>
> Date: Thu, 23 Feb 1995 14:19:46 GMT
>
> 1. You suggested that philosophy should be left to the philosophy
> deparment and that we should learn more from the medical faculty on the
> subject of mental disorders.

Not what I said, actually. I said that IF, as a student had suggested,
Psychology (Psychotherapy) was really just a kind of Philosophy, THEN
it should be perhaps be taught in its home Department.

I don't think myself Psychology IS just Philosophy. I also didn't say
we should study Medicine instead; I just asked why what Psychology has
to offer (clinically) does not seem to be meeting the standards (such
as they are) that we've come to expect of Medicine.

> Drugs help the symptoms not the causes.

All drugs?

In any case, drugs do seem to work reliably in some kinds of cases, both
medical and psychiatric (and not just in cases defined circularly as
those that respond successfully to -- or worse, those that the
therapist and/or patient interpret as responding successfully to -- the
drug itself). Why don't the data show that we can say the same for
Psychotherapy?

> 5. Does someone who pays for psychotherapy or goes through the ordeal,
> do this if they do not believe it is helping them? If they see
> psychotherapy as beneficial then surely it is! It provides them with
> some hope.

I don't doubt they believe it (just as Polonius believed Hamlet about
the camel in the clouds). But the question is: Did it REALLY help them
(as chance, time, etc. would not have done)? (And this is on the
assumption that there was anything wrong with them in the first
place...)

> 6. Finally, a point that Stevan may agree with. Freud's psychodynamic
> theory has much to say about parapsychology. Freud believed it is all
> the unconscious' doing. Coincidences are the joining up of material
> which is unconsciously salient to us, this I pressume occurs through
> selective attention. We are our own ghosts and ghouls!

Freud had a theory, the psychodynamics of the unconscious, to explain
(among other things) parapsychological effects. Only problem is, the
parapsychological effects may not be real, and the explanation may not
be explanatory (much less testable and supported by evidence)...

Chrs, Stevan



This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Tue Feb 13 2001 - 16:23:15 GMT