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Psychiatry Wars: a lawsuit that put psychoanalysis on trial

theguardian.com

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Re: Psychiatry Wars: a lawsuit that put psychoanalysis on trial

#41

Post by FactoryReboot »

knaik94 wrote: post #27
anotherman554 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"It's weird that we treat psychoactive drugs differently than other drugs. We don't have a fear of a diabetic becoming dependent on insulin or someone with high blood pressure becoming addicted to beta blockers." It not that weird. The brain is the most complicated organ in the human body. Science understands how the kidneys work but largely doesn't understand how the brain works. If you think these drugs are worth t…

I do. I equally scold anyone that says MDMA or LSD is the cure all of depression. It's not an analogy. There is no mechanical difference between someone using Amphetamines to treat their ADHD and someone using insulin to treat their diabetes. There are just as many external as internal factors that go into how someone can get diabetes and what dosage of insulin they need at a specific moment in time. Science has adva…

“Every organ is the most complicated organ”.

No, that’s blatantly untrue. The liver is one of the simpler ones as it’s all single cells, and the brain is definitely the most complex. I’ve never heard anyone say they are equally complex.

That doesn’t mean we understand everything about the liver, but we are hell of a lot closer than the brain.

Re: Psychiatry Wars: a lawsuit that put psychoanalysis on trial

#42

Post by daniel-cussen »

yamrzou wrote: post #2

Fascinating story. Thanks for sharing. > Ray’s mother asked the Lodge to give him antidepressants. But to the Lodge psychiatrists the premise of this form of treatment – to be cured without insight into what had gone wrong – seemed superficial and cheap. Drugs “might bring about some symptomatic relief”, Ross, Ray’s psychiatrist, acknowledged, “but it isn’t going to be anything solid in which he can say, ‘Hey, I’m a…

No post body was provided.

Re: Psychiatry Wars: a lawsuit that put psychoanalysis on trial

#43

Post by permo-w »

philosopher1234 wrote: post #39

Psychoanalysis is criminally underrated in the US. It’s detractors broadly don’t understand it. It has the potential to seriously help tons of people, but it is understandably challenged, as it represents a painful reckoning with yourself. Who would want to find out that their personality causes many of their problems? Maybe it requires a bit of masochism to take advantage of.

>the painful reckoning with yourself

I really don’t think this is the thing that puts people off.

I think the main factor is financial cost. psychiatry is extremely expensive, and often hard to get hold of. another large part is the representation of psychiatry in films, where it’s often depicted as mimsy-whimsy dream interpretation with freudian psychobabble. thirdly I think some people assume that there is only so much people can do with words, and/or are afraid of medicine that influences the brain

Re: Psychiatry Wars: a lawsuit that put psychoanalysis on trial

#44

Post by haswell »

avgcorrection wrote: post #32
mjburgess wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm unsure as to the thesis of this comment: what's your point? Perhaps I just don't buy your premise. We understand ML models very-well, but we don't like the explanation. Models are on a spectrum from parametric where a data distribution is assumed, to non-parametric, where it isnt. In the non-param case, models largely remember compressed "averages" of historical data. The sense in which we dont "understand" how,…

> I'm unsure as to the thesis of this comment: what's your point? A roundabout analogy which is supposed to liken the human mind to ML by showing that experts in both fields are equally perplexed at the two objects of study (ML and the human mind). You see now how we are approaching human-like intelligence? ML experts don’t know what they are making or doing, just like psychologists and psychiatrists can’t communicat…

> just like psychologists and psychiatrists can’t communicate on their different models of the mind!

This is where the analogy breaks down quickly, though.

I realize that the article tells a story about extreme situations where the two were directly at odds, but that is not the state of the art in psychology/psychiatry.

Psychologists and psychiatrists routinely communicate with each other about their models of the mind, and collaborate on the appropriate course of treatment for patients.

For many of the same reasons that some injuries require surgery to fix a serious issue, medication to deal with short term pain, and physical therapy to rebuild the body.

Re: Psychiatry Wars: a lawsuit that put psychoanalysis on trial

#45

Post by fritzo »

philosopher1234 wrote: post #38
fritzo wrote: post #35

> When his ex-wife moved to Europe with their two sons It's hard to ignore that if the gender roles had been reversed in this story, the obvious response of everyone around the bereft despondent mother would have been: "give her back her children"

This is completely off topic.

Sorry, you're right, and I'm sure there's more to the story and that the journalist took license in that introduction. Still it feels like a gratuitously tempting red herring, and the journalist could have toned down that intro story

Re: Psychiatry Wars: a lawsuit that put psychoanalysis on trial

#46

Post by karencarits »

yamrzou wrote: post #33
e40 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are always side effects and there is a real fear by many that they will be dependent on those drugs and have to live with the real side effects.

I have read an interesting thought the other day about the side effects of those drugs from a psychoanalytic poit of view. It's just a psychoanalyst's thought, nothing scientific: “Recently the thought occurred to me that we have antidepressants back-to-front, as it were. The listed side-effects of these drugs (mostly SSRI’s) is really the main action, and the advertised effect is the real side effect. In other words…

Thank you for sharing this. Psychoanalysis is often heavily criticized but it has this nice tendency to be curious and open about things and produce intriguing and interesting thoughts

Re: Psychiatry Wars: a lawsuit that put psychoanalysis on trial

#47

Post by c4ptnjack »

yamrzou wrote: post #2

Fascinating story. Thanks for sharing. > Ray’s mother asked the Lodge to give him antidepressants. But to the Lodge psychiatrists the premise of this form of treatment – to be cured without insight into what had gone wrong – seemed superficial and cheap. Drugs “might bring about some symptomatic relief”, Ross, Ray’s psychiatrist, acknowledged, “but it isn’t going to be anything solid in which he can say, ‘Hey, I’m a…

Worth noting that understanding why a problem occurs is not the same as treating that underlying condition. And moreover, you can treat and even cute something without fully understanding the precise mechanics of its attack vector, per say.

Re: Psychiatry Wars: a lawsuit that put psychoanalysis on trial

#48

Post by philosopher1234 »

permo-w wrote: post #43
philosopher1234 wrote: post #39

Psychoanalysis is criminally underrated in the US. It’s detractors broadly don’t understand it. It has the potential to seriously help tons of people, but it is understandably challenged, as it represents a painful reckoning with yourself. Who would want to find out that their personality causes many of their problems? Maybe it requires a bit of masochism to take advantage of.

>the painful reckoning with yourself I really don’t think this is the thing that puts people off. I think the main factor is financial cost. psychiatry is extremely expensive, and often hard to get hold of. another large part is the representation of psychiatry in films, where it’s often depicted as mimsy-whimsy dream interpretation with freudian psychobabble. thirdly I think some people assume that there is only so…

I agree that it is not the only thing that puts people off. The cost is a significant challenge.

But I think it is one of the biggest factors. You even display some of it yourself in the way you refer to dream analysis and Freud. It’s not just you, psychoanalysts themselves have anxieties about delving into the uncertain, unproven speculative parts of their minds.

The hatable thing about psychoanalysis is that it often suggests that we cause our own suffering. I’m repeating myself, but I don’t think that’s a welcome message for basically anyone (and obviously, it is not true in many cases). And that kind of explanation can be oppressive, when misused.

Re: Psychiatry Wars: a lawsuit that put psychoanalysis on trial

#49

Post by philosopher1234 »

fritzo wrote: post #45
philosopher1234 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is completely off topic.

Sorry, you're right, and I'm sure there's more to the story and that the journalist took license in that introduction. Still it feels like a gratuitously tempting red herring, and the journalist could have toned down that intro story

It’s an interesting and clearly challenging point. But psychoanalysis is very important to me, and it rarely gets air time here, so I’m eager to protect this article from flame wars.

Re: Psychiatry Wars: a lawsuit that put psychoanalysis on trial

#50

Post by vore »

renewiltord wrote: post #10
yamrzou wrote: post #2

Fascinating story. Thanks for sharing. > Ray’s mother asked the Lodge to give him antidepressants. But to the Lodge psychiatrists the premise of this form of treatment – to be cured without insight into what had gone wrong – seemed superficial and cheap. Drugs “might bring about some symptomatic relief”, Ross, Ray’s psychiatrist, acknowledged, “but it isn’t going to be anything solid in which he can say, ‘Hey, I’m a…

Quoted post unavailable.

Wow, if only opioid addicts did the same thing, we wouldn't be having this opioid crisis!
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