THE LUCK OF THE DRAW SAYS 1 in 4 of YOU WILL...

PART ONE:

We modern humans are living a game of chance every single day. You might be having a great day teaching your little sister how to play Black Jack, but who knows what’s in store for you? In fact, statistics tell us 1 in 4 of you reading this, at the very least, will at some point this year be diagnosed and treated for a psychiatric ‘illness’ or ‘disorder.’ If you don’t play your cards right, you may be one of the diagnosed.

Every day I read a new article about how 1 in 4 people have some form of an anxiety disorder. Let me ask you this. Have you ever heard a satisfactory and clear definition of what anxiety is or what an anxiety disorder is?

My guess is no. This is because psychology deals strictly in non-evidenced based, vague and loosely defined concepts and ideas. Most psychological definitions start with a disclaimer that says, we don’t really know how to define this term, but here is our best guess. For example, take the concept of personality, the basis for everything psychologists do. Here is the psychological definition of personality:

Well, bad example. There is no working definition for personality. And yes, you heard that right, the science of the human personality has no idea what a personality is. They built a science on top of a biological entity they never stopped to define.

Let’s instead take the concept of emotion for our example. Here is one typical definition you will find for emotion if you open any psychological textbook or go to any psychological website.

Emotion: “Most people have little problem recognizing and identifying when we are having an emotion. However, emotion is one of the most difficult concepts in Psychology to define. In fact, emotion is such a difficult concept to define adequately that there are at least 90 different definitions of emotions in the scientific literature. A simple definition of emotion is that it is a response by a whole organism, involving (1) physical arousal, (2) expressive behaviors, and (3) conscious experience.” (Read more:http://www.alleydog.com/glossary/definition.php?term=Emotion#ixzz3bwJRbfsc)

My favorite part of this definition is how flagrantly absurd it is. My second favorite part is how the term conscious experience is used in the definition when nobody has ever defined consciousness or conscious experience. My third favorite part of the definition of emotion is how freely and nonchalantly psychologists admit they have 90 different definitions for the concept of emotion.

Here is my least favorite part about the definition of emotion. Psychologists use this ridiculous definition and others just like it for diagnosing, treating, and often drugging their clients.

Psychologists use undefined terms like emotion, personality, mood, and anxiety, to name a few, as if there exists a singular evidenced based and scientifically verified definition for each of these terms. Almost comically, psychologists freely and openly admit they are not certain about anything they deal in, but almost sinisterly, they are nonetheless certain they do know how to define personality disorders, emotional disorders, mood disorders, behavioral disorders, and anxiety disorders. Psychologists have no mutually agreed upon, scientifically verified definitions for any of these terms, but somehow they have specific definitions for the disorders mystically related to these terms.

Psychologists can literally, and I use that term literally, manipulate their foundational concepts however they want to because all concepts are vague, non-evidence based, and each concept has like 90 different definitions to choose from.

This is why if you went to 25 different psychologists with a single problem, you would receive 25 different diagnoses and 25 different treatment plans. This is also why psychological practices generate so many contradictions and controversies.

There are no checks and balances in this field because there is no way to pin anything on it. A psychologist can win any argument or talk his way into or out of anything he wants by defining the terms of psychology in his favor for any particular argument. When there are at least 90 definitions for any given term, psychologists can cherry pick the definition that suits their purpose. We are at the mercy of this diagnostic and drug happy field.

What we need people, is a citizen’s coup.

Step one of our citizen’s coup: Round up 15 psychologists and 15 psychiatrists and make them each teach a class of 1st graders for one week’s time. I guarantee as we are taking them out on stretchers at the end of the week it will become clear they have no idea how to understand human thought or behavior.

How do I know this for sure?

I am a teacher and the psychological theories I have been given to put into practical application for managing student behaviors are sub-optimal at best. These psychological ‘non-theories’ cause harm.

Psychology is the only science that uses its theories in the field without having scientifically verified them first or at the very least just choosing one to go with. There are 8 theories of personality psychologists work with for no apparent reason. There is no rhyme or reason for why psychologists make any of the proclamations they do about human thought and behavior.

Why do you think 1 in 4 people have so much anxiety?

PART TWO:

Can we replace psychological theories with biological theories that show, as brain researcher Jeff Hawkins points out, that behavior and perception are very nearly one and the same thing? Can we develop biological theories that will give each human jurisdiction over his or her own behaviors and that will eliminate the fear of potentially having one’s own or one’s children’s thoughts and behaviors diagnosed as disordered?

Can we eliminate the psychological theories that force people to make sense of their own thoughts and biological cues in ways that make sense to an observer instead of in ways that make sense to them personally?

Can we eliminate the psychological theories that when put into practice actually cause the anxiety it then must treat?

YES, YES, and YES…PART TWO to be continued.

Psychiatrists and psychologists, who are all caring people, inherited a jumble of non-evidenced based assumptions they were taught was the science of the personality. Psychiatrists and psychologists are as vulnerable to the damaging and outdated concepts of psychological theories as everyone else. Existing psychological theories miss the forest for the trees and cause us to understand ourselves and others in damaging ways. We can do better. We can do a lot better! And we will…