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Psychological and psychiatric terms to avoid

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Re: Psychological and psychiatric terms to avoid

#151

Post by marginalia_nu »

runarberg wrote: post #129
MichaelCollins wrote: post #45

> Nevertheless, the attitude-change techniques used by so-called “brainwashers” are no different than standard persuasive methods identified by social psychologists, such as encouraging commitment to goals, manufacturing source credibility, forging an illusion of group consensus, and vivid testimonials The brainwashing techniques used by various cults, criminal gangs and regimes go far beyond these gentle methods. Pa…

> I sure hope social psychologists don't use torture. Read up on psychologist’s participation in the Guantanamo prison camp torture program. Indeed many psychologists did use torture, and it is something of a really dark spot in the history of the American Psychology Association.

The broader history of psychiatry has so many dark spots one might confuse it for a dalmatian.

Re: Psychological and psychiatric terms to avoid

#152

Post by bvirb »

andsoitis wrote: post #10

What do others here think about casual use of the word "crazy" in a work setting. For instance, "that's a crazy idea" or "they're crazy to think ...."

I can certainly see why someone with a history of being called crazy for whatever reason might be hurt when someone at works casually calls them "crazy" for something, even if they understand it was meant differently in that context.

I think once you know something might accidentally upset someone it's up to you to decide whether you want to take that chance. I try to avoid taking that chance where possible, I really don't like the idea of accidentally hurting someone.

I can also see why people are upset about their language being policed. I imagine every generation feels this way as society changes around them. I'm sure there are lots of examples of probably silly things we've policed ourselves out of saying that probably didn't amount to much, but I'm also happy we mostly don't use the pervasive casual racism of the 50's, or the pervasive casual homophobia of when I was kid.

Re: Psychological and psychiatric terms to avoid

#153

Post by Kranar »

tboyd47 wrote: post #144
killjoywashere wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Excuse me if that wasn't clear. It's insulting that the paper suggests that the epidemic is not real.

Then you went on a very angry and incoherent rant for nothing. You seem to be angry because you don't understand what the word epidemic means.

In the spirit of this article, epidemic means something specific; the rapid spread of a disease over a short period of time in a specific region. The article is not saying that autism isn't real or that people aren't suffering from it, the article is saying that it's not an epidemic. The article is saying there is no rapid increase in autism over a specific region but rather there's been a change in how it's diagnosed, people's awareness of the disease and that if these factors had been held constant, autism rates would also have been constant.

Re: Psychological and psychiatric terms to avoid

#154

Post by tantalor »

adrian_b wrote: post #96
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...

It is a standard terminology that is recent and only in English. It has nothing to do with the original meanings of the words "symptom" and "sign" in English and other languages (where "symptom" is any sign of a disease, while "sign" is any sign of anything). The standard medical terminology in other languages is "subjective symptoms" and "objective symptoms". In my opinion, whoever has chosen these artificial and ar…

Kind of confused by what you mean "in other languages" and then give examples in English. What are these other languages and words?

If you say the meaning of these words are different in other languages, then aren't you translating them incorrectly?

> Someone who wants new words should invent them, not change the traditional meanings of other words.

Language changes over time. The meaning of words can change. Definitions aren't etched into stone.

Re: Psychological and psychiatric terms to avoid

#155

Post by jrm4 »

lazide wrote: post #114
c7b wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Law, really? Aren't there a lot of legal terms (like 'ownership', 'possession' 'contract',...) that have precise legal definitions that may differ in crucial aspects from their colloquial usage? I think you're confusing a definition being easy to understand with it being well-defined. Mathematical definitions are often hard to grasp exactly because they are so well-defined. If you want something to be easily understa…

In my unfortunately extensive experience with legal matters as a non lawyer, there really aren’t many legal terms with material reduction in meanings when used legally. For the most part, like in medicine, a less commonly used word is used instead (often in another less commonly used language, such as Latin). For example, most people would consider a contract to be something written down that says ‘contract’. A few k…

Ha, contract is a really bad example here, as proven by the very very wrong term "Smart Contract."

The thing that is called a "Smart contract" has literally no overlap with a legal contract; because a legal contract is the "separate human statements of agreement that are associated with the action/performance and usually only needed when the performance goes wrong,"

The "smart contract" is the actual performance.

Re: Psychological and psychiatric terms to avoid

#156

Post by tboyd47 »

Kranar wrote: post #153
tboyd47 wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Excuse me if that wasn't clear. It's insulting that the paper suggests that the epidemic is not real.

Then you went on a very angry and incoherent rant for nothing. You seem to be angry because you don't understand what the word epidemic means. In the spirit of this article, epidemic means something specific; the rapid spread of a disease over a short period of time in a specific region. The article is not saying that autism isn't real or that people aren't suffering from it, the article is saying that it's not an ep…

If it was for nothing, then it was only because I chose the wrong audience. Nothing about my comment indicates I misunderstood the intent of the authors.

Re: Psychological and psychiatric terms to avoid

#157

Post by pbhjpbhj »

tantalor wrote: post #14
raxxorraxor wrote: post #4

Looks like Psychologists came up with something as complicated as the human mind. I found this very strange: Symptom: (under Oxymorons) (41) Observable symptom. This term, which appears in nearly 700 manuscripts according to Google Scholar, conflates signs with symptoms. Signs are observable features of a disorder; symptoms are unobservable features of a disorder that can only be reported by patients (Lilienfeld et a…

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...

That definition doesn't comport with my experience of British-English usage in UK.

The definition you link is interesting, I'll quote it:

>symptom >(SIMP-tum) >A physical or mental problem that a person experiences that may indicate a disease or condition. Symptoms cannot be seen and do not show up on medical tests. Some examples of symptoms are headache, fatigue, nausea, and pain.

There seems to be an internal inconsistency in defining a symptom as physical if it's not objectively discernible; in what way is it physical? If you know it's a physical aspect of a patient then isn't it objectively observable and and so not a 'symptom' under this narrow definition?

We're going to tie ourselves in knots here for sure.

Re: Psychological and psychiatric terms to avoid

#158

Post by 1970-01-01 »

I'm confused about (47). Isn't "empirical data" based on observation or experiment. Is this a typo? And non-empirical data is defined as an observation that one cannot formally measure, e.g. "I love/hate it."

     (47) Empirical data. “Empirical” means based on observation or experience. As a consequence, with the possible exception of information derived from archival sources, all psychological data are empirical (what would “non-empirical” psychological data look like?). Some of the confusion probably stems from the erroneous equation of “empirical” with “experimental” or “quantitative.” Data derived from informal observations, such as non-quantified impressions collected during a psychotherapy session, are also empirical. If writers wish to distinguish numerical data from other sources of data, they should simply call them “quantified data.”

Re: Psychological and psychiatric terms to avoid

#159

Post by chairhairair »

BrainVirus wrote: post #38

>Nevertheless, the attitude-change techniques used by so-called “brainwashers” are no different than standard persuasive methods identified by social psychologists, such as encouraging commitment to goals, manufacturing source credibility, forging an illusion of group consensus, and vivid testimonials Ok, let me get this straight. You openly admit that brainwashing techniques are now routinely and knowingly used in "…

In my experience if someone uses the term “brainwashing” they are not trying to have a real conversation, they are trying to avoid any nuanced conversation actually.

Re: Psychological and psychiatric terms to avoid

#160

Post by kmoser »

bluescrn wrote: post #149
kbos87 wrote: 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.

Are there any really good synonyms for 'hysteria' though, to describe a sort of crazed panic around a certain subject?

If only we had a means of searching for such synonyms in an online reference book.
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