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Psychological and psychiatric terms to avoid

frontiersin.org

131–140 of 354 posts

Re: Psychological and psychiatric terms to avoid

#131
post #115

This isn’t used in medical circles anymore but I’m shocked that it’s still acceptable to label something or someone as “hysterical”, which I believe implies erratic behavior that ties back to having a uterus.

Why wouldn't it be? Clearly people don't mean anything sexist by it, given that most don't know about it, and nobody as far as I know is offended. Who do you want to ban the word for?

Re: Psychological and psychiatric terms to avoid

#132

> (3) Autism epidemic. How breathtakingly insulting to the 100,000s of parents and caregivers of autistic children over the past 30 years, who have sacrificed 1,000s of hours, $MM of lost revenue, their own health, their own goals, and even attention that could have been paid to their other children and their community, exerting heroic efforts and sparing no expense to reach into a single child's mind to teach him or…

My wife is a pediatric occupational therapist and I'm a physician in government. I'm still not sure which direction your comment is pointing: is it insulting that the term Autism epidemic is exists, or that this paper suggests it should be avoided?

Re: Psychological and psychiatric terms to avoid

#133

> (3) Autism epidemic. How breathtakingly insulting to the 100,000s of parents and caregivers of autistic children over the past 30 years, who have sacrificed 1,000s of hours, $MM of lost revenue, their own health, their own goals, and even attention that could have been paid to their other children and their community, exerting heroic efforts and sparing no expense to reach into a single child's mind to teach him or…

[deleted]

Re: Psychological and psychiatric terms to avoid

#134
post #119
post #33

> Furthermore, there are ample reasons to doubt whether “brainwashing” permanently alters beliefs This person needs to look at interviews of mk-ultra experiment survivors. Brainwashing is very real and permanent.

MKUltra would be an example in support of the claim that brainwashing is not real. No one is disputing that subjecting someone to drugs will permanently alter their beliefs, anyone who has come in contact with an alcoholic or a heavy drug addict knows this but that's not what brainwashing is. Brainwashing is ability to control someone's thoughts often with the goal of inducing specific beliefs and ideas. While there…

> there is absolutely no evidence

I often wonder whether the neurological algorithm that underlies this got into so many minds purely organically or if it was put there somehow.

Re: Psychological and psychiatric terms to avoid

#136
post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Okay, but sometimes things are so crazy.

Crazy Eddie really was criminally insane!!!

80s Commercial | Crazy Eddie | 1985 | 1986 | 1987

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ml6S2yiuSWE

The Biggest Retail Fraud In American History - Masterminds - Crazy Eddie - Eddie Antar Documentary

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ws9PGROHZzg

Re: Psychological and psychiatric terms to avoid

#137

How about "subconscious"? It's interesting to see how some statements are based on wrong translations and misunderstanding.

Can you elaborate, I always assumed subconscious to mean something like blindsight, that is blind individuals that have functioning eyes (i.e. their blindness is caused by brain damage in the visual processing organs), are able to evade an object being thrown at them despite never being able to consciously see it. That is the stimuli of an approaching object is indeed subconscious. However maybe that is an outdated t…

There is a more or less fine line between unconscious and subconscious (its slightly hysterical cousin). The term might be somewhat outdated but it's still in use and also cognitive scientists make respective assertions - even though they might call it differently when talking about human consciousness.

Re: Psychological and psychiatric terms to avoid

#138
post #72
post #27

If anything, I find this to be a, perhaps unintentional, damning indictment of psychology and psychiatry in general. If your discipline cannot clearly define things in a reasonably concrete and provable way, such that it is readily apparent to the patients and the public at large, and also such that the language effectively clarifies itself out of necessity, then much of what you do needs to be strongly questioned --…

> I'm reminded of e.g. the term "neurodivergent." It's a good thing to look at, but how do you falsify it? Who can stand up and say "I'm definitely not neurodivergent?" If you can't do that, the term is not very helpful. I mean, that's not a diagnosis. If you mean just generally and not psychology specific then you are going to have to throw out most english adjectives. Like you can't falsify "im hungry", "im smart",…

I can easily identify whether or not I'm hungry... and probably whether or not I'm smart.

I can't easily identify whether or not I'm neurodivergent, because I'm not sure what it means or what the opposite would look like. Does anybody know?

Re: Psychological and psychiatric terms to avoid

#139
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.

I think it’s worse than that. It makes people have to police their own thought about what they’re going to say, to avoid stumbling over one of the linguistic trip wires. I think that’s antithetical to creative thought.

Counterpoint - mindfully reviewing and examining your thoughts and speech is an effective way to improve clarity and to identify unexamined (and perhaps unfounded) assumptions.
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