Thread: psychology

how many of you actually think it works?

im thinking about seeing one but to me psychology is a buncha people following a book turned txt book someone wrote a 100 years ago how can a class or a txt book tell you what/how a person thinks and how to i dunno what they do help them think the right things?

wouldnt pills that just numb everything work out better in the long run?

Ahhh moving, as able to incite debate as ever, even if it isn't in the politics forum. Did you just have a bad experience with a shrink or something?

Anyways, for all the complexity people like to think they have, they're actually pretty simple and fall into similar patterns. One of the most common being that people like to lie to themselves until someone forces them to call themselves on it.

As the above poster was alluding to, as a rule of thumb psychiatrists dispense drugs. And that's great, since many psychological disorders are caused by chemical imbalances in the brain. Most of them end up having to deal with the happy molecules not getting to the right places in the right amounts.

On the other hand, there are quite a few mental disorders that have an emotional or historical cause. No amount of happy drugs are going to cure a phobia of spiders without turning someone catatonic. Whereas a good bout of exposure therapy will fix that right up with a little bit of luck. And as alluded to, the various happy drugs if not given for the correct issues, or even if given for the correct issues, aren't exactly dandy for your health.

I could go into some in depth thing about categorizing types of disorders and how they're treated(PTSD being a good example of how our understanding of it has shifted treatment from an issue that was 'solved' mostly with drugs to one that is now treated known to best be treated heavily with therapy). But the real simple comparison that most of the crowd here will get, is like using the drugs to fix hardware problems and therapy to fix software problems. No matter how many times you replace the graphics card, if you've got a software virus it'll still screw things up(and it'll get really expensive), and if you've got a bad motherboard, running an antivirus isn't going to fix anything.

Unfortunately, because even people trying to fix your mental disorders are still people, there's a tendency of practitioners of each camp to think that they can fix everything without needing the others. Anyways, there's enough evidence that it works from the past few generations that I think it has proven itself. Just don't go to a programmer when what you need is a replacement power supply.

I had a psychologist as a an early teen.

I had been through some physical and sexual abuse at the hands of my step mother around the ages of 8 to 10 years old. ( hid it from my family but never forgot any off it).

Some deviant ( even by my standards =P ) behavioral patterns started to manifest , some things happened , and off to the shrink I went.

I credit my family's support, my faith and my therapist in "fixing" me. I know with out even an iota of doubt had I not had professional help I would be either a predator or an abuser of those weaker then myself.

The first few sessions were hard, very awkward and I was ashamed to no end for many reasons. But my Dr. was patient with me built the necessary trust and eventually everything that had happened came out. Through both dialogue and education with my therapist, I was able to come to terms with what happened and eventually able to heal those emotional wounds. two years later we shook hands good bye for the last time. I was a happy and well adjusted person and to some extent it gave me an edge in life. Being armed with both the knowledge and skills to analyze what I was feeling , why i was feeling that way and whether it was healthy has let me control my emotional state and make better choices. not that i always did.

perhaps the only real scar left over from the abuse is a compulsive demand for loyalty, having been betrayed by my step mother, both for me to give it and receive it.. If I feel my loyalty has been betrayed or if some one who I believe to be loyal to me betrays me I can not in any way control my wrath I completely berserk. In my late teens and early to mid 20 this meant lots of violence as it stands to date it is usually only a verbal beating i dish out. I work on this character flaw daily.

IT takes a lot of balls to say I may need help, and I know it all seems like a bunch of hokum but speaking from experience it can help, I know it changed the course of my life drastically for the better.

I don't talk about this much it isn't a fun topic for me even all these years later and though i know people mean well i dislike the comments of encouragement or in the case of real assholes the admonishments that I'm some sort of freak.

But if your in a place where your even considering psychological help, then I want you to know your not alone, I have been there, I would urge you to seek it out. Find a good doctor that you are comfortable with and give it a couple of sessions. be willing to have your preconceived ideas challenged and even painful issues brought up, with a good doctor they will face those issues WITH you in a way that family members and friends simply can not do.

Therapy certainly works. Meds can help, but you want to keep track of how you feel so you don't get numbed out. Try and find reviews online of therapists/psychiatrists to find one who's good. Also, avoid religious oriented therapists/psychiatrists like the plague; high recidivism rate and what not with them (which in simpler terms means they give a temporary at best fix that doesn't last long at all).

From what I've read of your posts, you may have PTSD. In that case, therapy will really help. Of course, not being around your mom will really help, too. She seems to be a big stressor in your life.

yeah thats pretty much the big issue stress im kinda at the point where i could ethier put my head or someone elses thru a glass window to say the least i gota get back to seeing a doctor then see what they recommend finding the time is the hard part

Consult a professional doctor, nurse, mental health professional or a social worker and get real advice. They go to school for a degree for a reason. Everyone is different, need different things, react differently to different things or even medications, etc.
Stop asking for help from yahoos on the internet and ask a professional.
Make the time.