Out of a bit of boredom I googled myself, and came upon a b-board where people were actually praying for me by typing it on their computer. Indeed. The all-powerful ruler of the universe reads B-Boards (he must have a great computer and a REALLY fast connection to the Internet).I used to not care much when people prayed for me, since it was their time to waste, and it wasn’t hurting anything. But now I am growing less tolerant — for me, it’s the thought that counts. And in the case of people praying for God to change me in some way (“open my heart” or somehow make me religious), the prayers are doing something that I would never do. They are literally employing a method of intolerance.The fact that it won’t work is irrelevant. The effort is there. The intent is there. They are unwilling to let me be who/what I am, and instead are trying to make me change. How rude!Now, I’m not talking about those who pray for my health despite my Atheism. There’s nothing I can see wrong with that. But those who pray for me to change need to recognize that it is an act of intolerance — and I am intolerant of that.
I reread and trimmed this, but it’s still long. Apologies for the length.
First, I have few quarrels with educational psychology or experimental psychology, so this is limited to the foundational schools and associated clinical applications.
The nature of psychology includes the reality that some things, at least given our current scientific limitations, aren?t testable. Mostly because the instrument that we?d employ for planning and observation is the also the object of the study: the mind. Because of this, every theory of psychology begins with a set of presuppositions about the nature of humans. 20th century schools of psychological thought (Freud, Skinner, Rogers) each had personal philosophies upon which the fundamentals of their theories were based. These can be condensed, as follows:
Sigmund Freud (Psychoanalytic Theory)
Belief re the nature of humans: corrupt, evil
Theory of behavior: Humans are animals driven by instincts that require constant mitigation.
Notes on Freud: An avowed atheist, he suffered from depression and death-related anxieties for most of his life which led to an intense fatalism (discovery of cocaine helped for a while).
B.F. Skinner (Behaviorism):
Belief re the nature of humans: ?tabula rasa? (blank slate)
Theory of behavior: Human behavior is based on and shaped by environmental forces; behavior is therefore deterministic, freedom does not exist.
Notes on Skinner: Wrote two controversial books (Walden II and Beyond Freedom and Dignity), both of which promoted the notion than man is determined/not free; these were criticized for their dehumanizing implications. He promoted the idea that, using behavioral concepts, we can radically redesign culture.
Carl Rogers (Humanistic (later, Transpersonal) Psychology)
Belief re the nature of humans: good
Theory of behavior: man strives to develop his maximum potential to the fullest extent possible. Contended that everything we need to solve all of our problems is already within us.
Notes on Rogers: Contemporary psychotherapy is still based on his techniques. His failure to account for a theory of evil produced some ugly results; see http://www.issuesetc.org/resource/journals/coulson.htm
Clearly, from a clinical perspective, the humanistic approach is the most practical for the purposes of actually helping people with their problems (vs. helping people understand themselves). These days, humanistic psychology has mutated into transpersonal psychology. Practitioners embrace the Rogerian notion that man is essentially good, and utilize most of the precepts of his ?Client Centered Therapy? as clinical tools, but the transpersonal psychology movement has been, and continues to be, heavily politicized. It?s become a milieu for leftist radicalism of any variety and seems (from where I now sit) less like a structured, scientifically based approach to helping and understanding people than it does a political movement. Adherents of TP, like Skinner, are largely interested in reshaping social and cultural values, though perhaps via therapeutic (values) reeducation vs. behavior modification.
So, part of my cynicism is based on the idea that every school of psychological thought is not just about ?mental health?, but a philosophy that fundamentally redefines what it means to be ?mentally healthy?. This, of course, includes myriad assertions about the relative goodness of values, beliefs, relationships, and the ?right? way to live. Some of this is unavoidable (e.g., we can identify patterns of behavior that lead to anxiety, so maybe it?s within the purview of a therapist to teach a client how to modify those behaviors). But the rest is just (to me), an over the top effort to dictate (or at least influence) the proponents? ideas of how humans should think and behave. In that sense, these theories have more in common with religion than science.
The other part of my issue, is much more practical. It was best illustrated by Charles Schulz. One of the ?Charlie Brown? cartoons (I think it?s the Christmas special) has a scene that describes it very well: Lucy has her sidewalk ?Psychiatric Help? stand set up and Charlie Brown walks up, complaining of seasonal depression. She charges him (and comments about how much she loves the money) and then starts asking him about his problem. She goes on to say something like ?If we can identify your problem, we can label it?. Her comment, of course, has gone right over the heads of kids for 40 years, but it makes a very good point for psychiatry and psychology: we?re very good at identifying maladaptive behaviors and labeling them (based on DSM-IV TR criteria). We?re not very good at all when it comes to treating them. Sit down, have a chat with me about your issues and we?ll see what we can do about remediating them. That?ll be $120.00. Payment is expected at the time of service.
Don?t get me wrong. I?ve had people tell me that I?ve saved their lives. And it?s rewarding and, in those cases, worth the $120.00 per hour. But the fact remains that the success rate is pretty low and I didn?t like taking money for doing what I was doing. Carl Rogers referred to it as ?buying a friend?.
Ok, that?s my story. Be gentle
I reread and trimmed this, but it’s still long. Apologies for the length.
First, I have few quarrels with educational psychology or experimental psychology, so this is limited to the foundational schools and associated clinical applications.
The nature of psychology includes the reality that some things, at least given our current scientific limitations, aren?t testable. Mostly because the instrument that we?d employ for planning and observation is the also the object of the study: the mind. Because of this, every theory of psychology begins with a set of presuppositions about the nature of humans. 20th century schools of psychological thought (Freud, Skinner, Rogers) each had personal philosophies upon which the fundamentals of their theories were based. These can be condensed, as follows:
Sigmund Freud (Psychoanalytic Theory)
Belief re the nature of humans: corrupt, evil
Theory of behavior: Humans are animals driven by instincts that require constant mitigation.
Notes on Freud: An avowed atheist, he suffered from depression and death-related anxieties for most of his life which led to an intense fatalism (discovery of cocaine helped for a while).
B.F. Skinner (Behaviorism):
Belief re the nature of humans: ?tabula rasa? (blank slate)
Theory of behavior: Human behavior is based on and shaped by environmental forces; behavior is therefore deterministic, freedom does not exist.
Notes on Skinner: Wrote two controversial books (Walden II and Beyond Freedom and Dignity), both of which promoted the notion than man is determined/not free; these were criticized for their dehumanizing implications. He promoted the idea that, using behavioral concepts, we can radically redesign culture.
Carl Rogers (Humanistic (later, Transpersonal) Psychology)
Belief re the nature of humans: good
Theory of behavior: man strives to develop his maximum potential to the fullest extent possible. Contended that everything we need to solve all of our problems is already within us.
Notes on Rogers: Contemporary psychotherapy is still based on his techniques. His failure to account for a theory of evil produced some ugly results; see http://www.issuesetc.org/resource/journals/coulson.htm
Clearly, from a clinical perspective, the humanistic approach is the most practical for the purposes of actually helping people with their problems (vs. helping people understand themselves). These days, humanistic psychology has mutated into transpersonal psychology. Practitioners embrace the Rogerian notion that man is essentially good, and utilize most of the precepts of his ?Client Centered Therapy? as clinical tools, but the transpersonal psychology movement has been, and continues to be, heavily politicized. It?s become a milieu for leftist radicalism of any variety and seems (from where I now sit) less like a structured, scientifically based approach to helping and understanding people than it does a political movement. Adherents of TP, like Skinner, are largely interested in reshaping social and cultural values, though perhaps via therapeutic (values) reeducation vs. behavior modification.
So, part of my cynicism is based on the idea that every school of psychological thought is not just about ?mental health?, but a philosophy that fundamentally redefines what it means to be ?mentally healthy?. This, of course, includes myriad assertions about the relative goodness of values, beliefs, relationships, and the ?right? way to live. Some of this is unavoidable (e.g., we can identify patterns of behavior that lead to anxiety, so maybe it?s within the purview of a therapist to teach a client how to modify those behaviors). But the rest is just (to me), an over the top effort to dictate (or at least influence) the proponents? ideas of how humans should think and behave. In that sense, these theories have more in common with religion than science.
The other part of my issue, is much more practical. It was best illustrated by Charles Schulz. One of the ?Charlie Brown? cartoons (I think it?s the Christmas special) has a scene that describes it very well: Lucy has her sidewalk ?Psychiatric Help? stand set up and Charlie Brown walks up, complaining of seasonal depression. She charges him (and comments about how much she loves the money) and then starts asking him about his problem. She goes on to say something like ?If we can identify your problem, we can label it?. Her comment, of course, has gone right over the heads of kids for 40 years, but it makes a very good point for psychiatry and psychology: we?re very good at identifying maladaptive behaviors and labeling them (based on DSM-IV TR criteria). We?re not very good at all when it comes to treating them. Sit down, have a chat with me about your issues and we?ll see what we can do about remediating them. That?ll be $120.00. Payment is expected at the time of service.
Don?t get me wrong. I?ve had people tell me that I?ve saved their lives. And it?s rewarding and, in those cases, worth the $120.00 per hour. But the fact remains that the success rate is pretty low and I didn?t like taking money for doing what I was doing. Carl Rogers referred to it as ?buying a friend?.
Ok, that?s my story. Be gentle
wdo,
No need to be gentle. It was very generous of you to indulge me. I now have an appreciation for your position and the reasoning behind it.
wdo
Sounds like you could use a good therapist.
No seriously…I can’t tell if you don’t like what you’re doing, if you don’t like taking money for it, or if you’re bugged about the struggle to make progress in charted but ever-changing territories.
As a person on the other end of that $120/session, I can verify it’s extremely frustrating from this side too.
I heartily applaud whatever successes you have made! If someone tells you that you saved their life, take their word on it.
I’d like to speak more on this, but just had a gut-wrenching session last night which is still fresh and raw. Maybe later.
Sounds like you could use a good therapist.
Ah, posting here challenges and chastises me enough to be considered a form of therapy.
r4d:
I read the two Skeptic articles that you linked (thanks). I’d also read a bit about Buller’s (and Rose’s and Ehrlich’s) criticisms over the preceding few days).
I had this nagging problem that I couldn’t articulate very well, but subsequently ran across a comment on another site that expresses it very well for me. Rather than paraphrase, I thought I’d just unashamedly copy it here, as follows:
As I read the Skeptic articles, this kept coming back to me…that EP researchers seem to be (as Buller puts it in one of the article references) “retrofitting their predictions to the data.”
Anyway, you seem pretty well read in EP. I’d be interested in your thoughts.
wdo,
Very interesting post on psychology.
Don’t have a lot of time for a long, detailed post right now, but regarding the EP debate:
Well, actually, let me first make it clear that I do not subscibe to any sacred cows, and it really would not surprise me if many EP researchers are hampered by their own bias. Everyone is. But that is why the methods of falsifiabilty, peer review, and provisional consensus are so important. And really, it kinda goes back to my original point of humans being social animals who need eachother, but perhaps that’s getting a bit off track.
The debate betweeen Miele and Buller kinda reminds me of the whole nature versus nurture debate. Like I said, my suspicion is that the truth lies somewhere in the middle. As Buller contends, our minds are adapted to adapt, and really this has been proven by the ability of hemispherectomy patients to regain some semblance of normal mental function as their brains form new neural pathways, compensating as best they can. But at the same time, modern neuroscience has proven that certain activities and modes of thought can be mapped to specific areas of the brain. In other words, the mind is modular, but, like most biological systems, it is also pretty flexable.
Regarding the quote you posted:
Well, I haven’t caught your personal views on evolution, but from a modern biological perspective at least, if it is genetic then it is also evolutionary. There really is no distinction.
vinyl inground pool kit
vinyl inground pool kit
Wow I just don’t understand but I hope I can.I looked up the word intolerance in the dictionary and this is what it said -unwilling to tolerate others beliefs. So it is what you belive that we christians are trying to change and I think that’s what bothers you the most. Because if someone tried to change what I belived I would feel the same way you do. But and yes there is a but, The revelation we have received is greater than you can ever imagine and it is so powerful and true that we have been given a glimpse into the future. Not by some mystic experience or meditation but by black and white words in the Bible the Word of God. Do yourself a favor and read these few scriptures (Matt 5:44,luke6:28, luke 18:1, daniel 12:2, and Matt 25:41 in any version of the Bible and you will see for yourself. Please understand American and foriegn atheists we do it because we are blesses to know what you do not so please let us pray for you. Because in in the end we will be divided.