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Psychological and psychiatric terms to avoid

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Re: Psychological and psychiatric terms to avoid

#201

Post by snapcaster »

Kranar wrote: post #119
_8j50 wrote: 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…

How can you say "there is no evidence" using your own definition people I've met many times throughout life meet that criteria belonging to the military, religions of all stripes, CMU students

Re: Psychological and psychiatric terms to avoid

#202

Post by hirvi74 »

waprin wrote: post #42
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…

I had the same reaction. The phrase "chemical imbalance" can't die soon enough. I've met some very smart people who were misled into thinking there's much more scientific evidence than exists that there's some innate brain chemistry that's linked to mental illness. In general, people overestimate how much of psychiatry is first-principles instead of black box statistical conjecture. The first huge hint that there's n…

> they don't measure any brain chemicals when they do psychiatric diagnosis

They do not measure anything in my experience.

They just take an educated guess at what will fix your issues based on heuristics, and then just wait to see if you love/hate whatever they gave you. If what they give you did not work, then on to the next option until something works or all options are exhausted (which they usually just send you off to a different professional).

As I grow older, I am more convinced that psychiatry is more of an art than a science.

Tangential: I used to listen to Huberman, but over time I started to dislike his podcast more and more. I think he is a phenominal researcher, and I think his intentions with his podcast are good, but it seems like he just reads off various cherry-picked studies without actually linking them (that I could find) and without any mention of important details in the studies e.g. sample sizes, methodology flaws, implicit/explicit biases, etc..

He claimed 14% of pregnant mothers use cannabis in the US, but from what I have read of others' ventures into this claim, no one can find any information to support this claim.

I also remember his episode on ADHD, and how effective fish oil can be for treating some of the symptoms in ADHD. However, in my own reading of various research articles, I have found that there is quite a lot conflicting information pertaining to the purported benefits of fish oil (in regards to ADHD). But of course, he did not mention anything about the research that did not fit the supplement narrative... But don't forget to use the code "HubermanLabs" for a discount on your purchase of Athletic Greens though.

Re: Psychological and psychiatric terms to avoid

#204

Post by zug_zug »

SoftAnnaLee wrote: post #198
zug_zug wrote: post #190

> (3) Autism epidemic. Uh, I'm having more and more trouble believing this is just an increase in diagnosis rates. That's what we said 13 years ago when I was graduating college, and yet the rates have actually increased very dramatically even since 2010 (from 1/68 to 1/44) a 54% increase. I appreciate that it's useful to consider alternative explanations of data, but presuming an alternative explanation is valid for…

Increased understanding of autism on a societal level. 20 years ago autism was just, 'weird savant kid who screams and everybody can't understand why they can't ,' disease. 10 years ago, we saw depictions of autism that were less stereotypical in mainstream entertainment; which prompted some to see themselves reflected in these characters, and self-reflect if they're autistic too. In the years since, autism communiti…

> It's not an epidemic, it's merely language and labels being more accurately used within society.

You can't possibly know that. And shame on you for speaking so authoritatively on such an important and open scientific question.

Re: Psychological and psychiatric terms to avoid

#205

Post by Kranar »

snapcaster wrote: post #201
Kranar wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

How can you say "there is no evidence" using your own definition people I've met many times throughout life meet that criteria belonging to the military, religions of all stripes, CMU students

Because I said there is no evidence that MKUltra brainwashed people.

You've met people in the military, CMU students and religions of all stripes who were subject to MKUltra and had their minds controlled?

Re: Psychological and psychiatric terms to avoid

#206

Post by csours »

LordDragonfang wrote: post #70
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…

How would I find the modern, generally accepted understanding of hypnosis?

Re: Psychological and psychiatric terms to avoid

#207

Post by wwtrv »

matheusmoreira wrote: post #188
strogonoff wrote: post #100

It is good to see awareness being raised of accidental philosophical positions, sometimes unwittingly assumed through word choice. For example, I was starting to doubt whether anyone realizes that they make a leap whenever they imply physiology/biology is the cause of what happens in our consciousness (or indeed causes consciousness to happen), but entry 29 reassured me not all hope is lost (emphasis mine): > Neverth…

This uncertainty stems from the lack of rigorous proof. Medicine these days is all about statistics and correlation. It's "we gave drug A to people with B and we observed effects C occurring D% of the time". In way too many cases there is no exact model or understanding of how things actually work, just inferences from observed effects.

That might still be preferable to coming up with theories explaining mechanisms we don't fully understand and then looking for data which might prove it. That might become especially problematic when scientists stake their entire careers on it. We might end up with situations similar the amyloid hypothesis which likely tuned out to be a dead end a huge waste time & resources.

Re: Psychological and psychiatric terms to avoid

#208

Post by danem »

denton-scratch wrote: post #181

I enjoyed "Steep Learning Curve": if the curve is steep, that means that you are learning quickly and easily.

Many (most?) people understand "learning curve" as a hiking analogy. A steep learning curve would mean a difficult climb. This is understandable as most people aren't data literate, and "steep" generally has negative connotations.

Re: Psychological and psychiatric terms to avoid

#209

Post by testfoobar »

This is a hilariously passive aggressive attempt at gate keeping. Considering that nearly every term on this list has a range of uses: from the very precise with an attending list of up to date peer reviewed exceptions and footnotes to the the obviously false, manipulative, and reckless. In an attempt to reduce incidents of the latter, they are asking that everyone move to the former: "list of 50 commonly used terms in psychology, psychiatry, and allied fields that should be avoided, or at most used sparingly and with explicit caveats."

Perhaps if this field of study did not suffer from a replication crisis, the language in use might have more meaning.

Re: Psychological and psychiatric terms to avoid

#210

Post by lamontcg »

snapcaster wrote: post #200
denton-scratch wrote: post #181

I enjoyed "Steep Learning Curve": if the curve is steep, that means that you are learning quickly and easily.

I always took it to mean that your personal learning curve must be steep or you will fail to enjoy the activity/game

I always figured the labels were effort on the y-axis vs. learning on the x-axis, not learning on the y-axis and time/effort on the x-axis.
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