I Don’t Believe In Psychology
“I don’t believe in psychology”; it’s one of the phrases we hear the most from those who criticize her. As if psychology was a matter of faith and not of science. Although oddly enough, this is also a phrase spoken by people who have never been to a psychologist.
What do they base themselves on to say this if they do not know any psychologist? Clearly on the myths we have heard about psychology. But not everything that is said is true, since it must be specified that we, psychologists, are neither talkative nor blind with pretty words and beautiful sentences: on the contrary, there is all a branch of knowledge behind.
Psychology is the branch of science that deals with human behavior and its relation to thought, emotional and learning processes. Yes, a branch of science, because among many things it uses the scientific method to evolve and to verify its results.
In addition, psychology in one of its aspects is a health activity, but it is not its only facet. An important part of psychology is dedicated to other fields such as the social field, business, advertising, education, etc. However, these circles are not so despised, because it is health psychology that has a whole series of myths. Myths like the ones we pick up for you in the rest of this article:
Myth 1. Psychology is a “light” specialty for mental health
This is a lie that stems from the misunderstanding of the function of psychology in mental health. On the other hand, it is not a lie because it is what we believe intimately, but because it is the World Health Organization itself which recommends the psychological treatments for all types of. mental pathologies, and even the most serious such as schizophrenia.
This is because the best treatment for conditions like schizophrenia, bipolar disorder or severe depression is a combination of pharmacological treatment together with psychological therapy. Something with which different international action protocols agree.
In addition, in children and adolescents, it is especially recommended to use psychotherapy because the pharmacology causes many side effects which can be extremely harmful in developing brains, such as those of children.
But if mental illness is caused by something that is not working well in the brain, that is, something biological, how are psychologists going to help us? Because human beings are not just about biology, and neither are mental disorders. This is clearly seen if we are talking about concrete pathologies such as depression.
For severe depression, it has been shown that there are low levels of a neurotransmitter called serotonin, among other indicators. And the drugs known as SSRIs (Selective Serotonin Re-uptake Inhibitors) cause the serotonin to increase and therefore the symptoms to gradually disappear, but similar results have been found in connection with the cognitive-behavioral psychotherapy.
Myth 2. The couch is necessary in psychology
The couch puts psychology and Freudian psychoanalysis on the same footing. The downside being that even current psychoanalysis does not follow to the letter what Freud maintained, since it has evolved. We must not forget that the Freudian theory arose at the beginning of the 20th century.
Just so you can get an idea, at the beginning of the 20th century, we used to bleed you when you had the flu. That is, huge amounts of blood were extracted because it was assumed that in this way we were eliminating viruses. This had its logic, and even its science, as bad particles were known to travel in the blood. However, what we didn’t know at the time was that the tusks also moved this way.
The same thing happened with psychology. For example, the introduction of the term of the unconscious is one of the biggest and surest applications of Freudian theory, but with other terms we have seen that they were more a product of the culture of the time that a certain application.
The same thing happened with the couch; its use is superfluous, moreover it is not even in most psychology offices. This is due to the fact that the role of the patient in therapy has changed : he is no longer seen as a passive subject who only goes there to talk about his problems.
Myth 3. Psychologists tell you what to do
If you’ve ever been to a psychologist and they’ve told you exactly what to do, you’ve seen a really bad one. We psychologists help answer questions and choose paths by expanding the other person’s point of view, even showing them other options, but we are never going to tell them what to do with their life.
The patient himself finds the answers to his problems: we are guides on his path, but we do not substitute for his own steps. For serious mental illnesses, we teach them skills that can enable them to live better their daily lives and learn to live with a better quality of life, but we do not direct their lives.
Myth 4. Going to a psychologist is like throwing money out the window; you only need time
Okay, so if you just need time then you don’t need a psychologist; just as if you need to go to a psychologist and just hope that time fixes everything, the normal thing is to organize in chronological order the problems that you hope to see resolved by time, as time does. tide with landforms in the sand.
Time is only an environment in which the patient has to situate himself, integrate a narration, accept the facts that have unfolded and find a reason to hope that perhaps, when he first entered the practice , he had not. Especially if he does not come to the consultation on a voluntary basis, or if he is motivated by someone else and not by himself.
Myth 5. Stop psychoanalyzing me!
What psychologist didn’t hear that when they told someone about their job? This is perhaps one of the most heard attributions, along with the one that says we read minds. I don’t know about you, but if I could read minds, I wouldn’t particularly read yours. Maybe for a witness the police entrusted to me to find out if he was lying, but on a Saturday night at a nightclub, that would surely be low on my list.
All kidding aside, we don’t constantly read minds, analyze or psychoanalyze everything. In the same way that a cardiologist does not always see if what you are doing is bad for your heart when you are not in consultation, or that a butcher does not think about preparing fillets for his. dog when he is with him.
If after reading all of this you still think you don’t believe in psychology, I can only advise you to keep educating yourself. Psychology is one of the most complicated sciences in existence because it is dedicated to the study of the most complicated being in the world, the human being.
It is a young science, and like any self-respecting young person, sometimes reckless, but this should not make us despise its usefulness, especially because it is the main alternative we rely on to diagnose and evaluate mental disorders.
