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Psychological and psychiatric terms to avoid

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Re: Psychological and psychiatric terms to avoid

#61

Post by mc32 »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #56
mc32 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some iconic precursors to PC speech was the redefinition of role titles. Janitor which everyone was familiar with would be replaced with "sanitation engineer" or something similar which conveyed less what the person did do.

It kinda sounds like classism or wage related; "janitor" or "cleaner" sounds common, a "sanitation engineer" or "chief housekeeping manager" sounds like they would earn more.

Would I prefer to be a Janitor earning $20/hr or would I prefer being a sanitation engineer earning $15/hr. Sounds like I'm trading title for less money. There is probably some relationship with the now passe "rock star" "ninja".

Re: Psychological and psychiatric terms to avoid

#62

Post by lofatdairy »

nonrandomstring wrote: post #47

The fine article begins with this rather humble aim that; > The goal of this article is to promote clear thinking and clear writing among students and teachers of psychological science How many published papers, or even undergraduate essays contain such simplifications and misunderstandings? I rather think the piece is aimed elsewhere, to the press, science jornalists, politicians, mid-ranking deciders, mass media, a…

Some of these terms are indeed likely to be aimed at researchers, though I agree that journalism and politicians and charlatans seem to love pulling from shoddy psychology and making it even worse with their poor understandings of the field. For example, they give a number of papers that cite a p=0.0000 number, which is clearly absurd. p-hacking and dubious misuse of statistical testing aside, it shows a clear lack of understanding of what the p-value even is, and what it tells you, and this is obviously more relevant to researchers than reporters. I can also speak towards personal experience regarding "comorbidity", for a while I knew a grad student who accidentally attached a completely new, incorrect definition to the term by assuming it mean risk-factor. It's certainly a blend of really subtle, interesting mistakes that I can easily see a researcher unfamiliar with the history and philosophy of science making, and some pretty common tropes that are probably more often just stereotypes from the "science" section of popular magazines.

Re: Psychological and psychiatric terms to avoid

#63

Post by [deleted] »

raxxorraxor wrote: post #24
tantalor wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This has nothing to do with psychology. It's standard terminology used in medicine. > Symptoms cannot be seen and do not show up on medical tests. Some examples of symptoms are headache, fatigue, nausea, and pain. https://www.cancer.gov/publications/dictionaries/cancer-term...

Yes, I meant it in contrast to other languages and general language usage.

[deleted]

Re: Psychological and psychiatric terms to avoid

#64

Post by sithadmin »

Barrin92 wrote: post #32
alexb_ wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's crazy that we spend time thinking about minor bs like this instead of spending that effort trying to solve actual problems. This type of stuff is great for people who want to feel like they have made a positive change without actually having accomplished anything of value.

being precise in your language is of great value, both when it comes to thinking and communicating. Per Wittgenstein, "the limits of my language mean the limits of my world". If you're a software developer you should be familiar with how important syntactic precision is. Someone who runs around the office and complains about everything being 'so crazy' is genuinely not articulating anything meaningful but just rantin…

Aside from the communicative value, there's a socio-political angle to it as well. Speaking in nebulous terms like calling things 'crazy' without sufficient elaboration is a great way to alienate people as a new-to-the-org resource or as an embedded outsider (e.g. consultant).

Re: Psychological and psychiatric terms to avoid

#65

Post by karencarits »

nonrandomstring wrote: post #47

The fine article begins with this rather humble aim that; > The goal of this article is to promote clear thinking and clear writing among students and teachers of psychological science How many published papers, or even undergraduate essays contain such simplifications and misunderstandings? I rather think the piece is aimed elsewhere, to the press, science jornalists, politicians, mid-ranking deciders, mass media, a…

It would probably be difficult publish in a scientific journal if it was not aimed at other academics - and if it was not published in a scientific journal, the authors would not get citations

Re: Psychological and psychiatric terms to avoid

#66

Post by MichaelCollins »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #54
MichaelCollins wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Huh? If you live in a condo, you have no house but you are not homeless. A house is only one kind of shelter that can be a home, of many.

It could also refer to the difference between living in someone's spare room, couch surfing, or living in a camper van vs having a home (rented or bought).

> living in someone's spare room

Children living with their parents don't own houses, but they aren't homeless either. Or adults for that matter. For a few years in college I lived in a spare room in my grandparent's house. I had no house of my own, but I certainly felt welcome and wasn't homeless by any means.

Re: Psychological and psychiatric terms to avoid

#67

Post by lofatdairy »

jrm4 wrote: post #53
c7b wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Frankly, if your standard for a good definition is that it is readily apparent to the public at large , then pretty much every academic discipline will fail your rigour test. Even (or especially) mathematics. Which should make it clear that this is an unfair and useless standard to hold psychology up to.

Fair, "at large" is a bit extreme. This is a spectrum. But psychology appears to be far worse than the others, even reading from this paper. I'm a lawyer, and even law isn't this bad. "Symptoms are unobservable?"

Actually symptoms being unobservable is not only not unique to psychology (the distinction is well known in medicine), it's a core challenge within the practice of medicine and one of its historic tensions. Yeah, a patient might be complaining of chest pain, but the reason for the complaint is going to be unknown to you until you start the process of diagnosis. Chest pain is a symptom of many conditions, and you can't even trust that there's an observable cause, you can only believe what the patient tells you. This was obviously even worse until modern developments of things like MRIs and X-rays.

Compare that to signs, where you can see that a patient has say, a lesion or is clearly coughing.

Re: Psychological and psychiatric terms to avoid

#68

Post by amanaplanacanal »

jrm4 wrote: post #53
c7b wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Frankly, if your standard for a good definition is that it is readily apparent to the public at large , then pretty much every academic discipline will fail your rigour test. Even (or especially) mathematics. Which should make it clear that this is an unfair and useless standard to hold psychology up to.

Fair, "at large" is a bit extreme. This is a spectrum. But psychology appears to be far worse than the others, even reading from this paper. I'm a lawyer, and even law isn't this bad. "Symptoms are unobservable?"

That sounds like a standard medical definition. I’m sure there are technical terms used in the law which differ from common usage.

Re: Psychological and psychiatric terms to avoid

#70

Post by LordDragonfang »

photochemsyn wrote: post #7

Looking at the headline, one might think this is another tedious guide to what (arguably) constitutes politically correct language in modern society (case example: "use 'unhoused' in favor of 'homeless'"), but it's actually a collection of well-researched and documented examples of misuse of technical terms. For example: > " Chemical imbalance . Thanks in part to the success of direct-to-consumer marketing campaigns…

Some of these are practically tautological in their reasoning for why the terms are "misused", though.

For example, they criticize calling drugs "antidepressants" solely because it's not their "primary effect". But the term is used to describe drugs which do treat "mood disorders" (depression), and do have effects in many cases. I don't see how that's any different from how the term "anxiolytic" is used, even though that's one of the examples they contrasted it with.

Likewise, the section on "hypnotic trance" talks about how hypnosis doesn't induce a sufficiently different brain state to warrant the term, but the term was coined to describe the state the hypnosis induces, which is subjectively distinct from normal waking consciousness. And from what I've heard from those who've experienced it, it's characterized by a reduced awareness of the self, which is the defining feature of a trance, if the term can even be said to have any definition outside its uses to describe hypnosis.

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