this post was submitted on 05 Sep 2023
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Science Memes

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago (2 children)

we don't understand the brain very well, psych is somewhere between leeches and luminiferous aether.

if it was more well understood then people won't need to go to 15 fucking different therapists before finding one that helps (if you're lucky), antidepressants would do better than batters do at baseball, you wouldn't need to try dozens of different medications to find one that works (if you're lucky), and they'd take effect more quickly.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Capitalism doesn't put money into social sciences so social sciences are leeches and humour theory pseudoscience. It's unknowable, because the money just isn't there. The free market had decided.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago (1 children)

There is money in psychology, but it's all put into making people act more normal. This can be good and useful for some people, many people need aderall to comfortably live, and it's good to stabilize depression, but these being driven by profit means often the underlying problem isn't fixed(in the cases this is possible) and society remains ableist(for issues that are endemic). Other social sciences can be kind of a crapshoot. Many anthropologists are doing very good, important, meaningful work. But not all. Archeology is a land of contrast, and sociology is good when not practiced by privileged westoids.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The only real money in psychology is from marketing and advertising.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

You cannot tell me there isn't money in drugs.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Tbh I feel like that's more a fault of capitalism than a shortcoming unique to psychology.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

i mean, (some) painkillers, muscle relaxers, and lots of other drugs work pretty fucken good. we don't have a great understanding of general anesthesia but all that stuff works most of the time in a way that is simply not the case with brain stuff..

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Consciousness is complex in a way that isn't effectively modeled by insurance-mediated healthcare and science, which overemphasizes quantitative variables in a field that's profoundly qualitative. Not to mention the obsession with the individual, ignoring the systems that individuals exist within.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

cool i just want to not feel shitty all the time and i felt like this when i had a stable financial situation and a partner so i know it's not exclusively because of capitalism, which means the psych field needs to step up its shit, not just help build the guillotines.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

It's not that every psychological problem is directly due to capitalism (though many are directly or indirectly) it's that capitalist psychology mostly cares about profitable treatments, whether they're effective or not. I'm inclined to think some form of talk therapy or psychoanalysis may be more helpful to a lot of people than solely symptom-based treatment. But who can afford to go to therapy for years?

Even from the pharmaceutical side, we're mostly just tweaking the mechanisms of consciousness without necessarily addressing or understanding the holistic structure, so the best we can hope for is trying various meds until one sort of works. But most of us can't afford to spend years trying a new med every few months, with all the turbulence and uncertainty that goes along with it.

Cbt, dbt and the like are somewhat useful at treating certain symptoms, but generally fail to address root causes. And the way they're often applied, they seem more intent on teaching people to accept their treatment under capitalism than anything.