BS: Psychobabble!

Subject: BS: Psychobabble!
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 11 Mar 13 - 01:59 PM

Something I have thought for a long time and mentioned often here on Mudcat has now been put into print by a qualified psychologist!

Dr Stephen Briers - Psychobabble

Now, I am not saying he is right and all else is wrong - Far from it. But at least now we just may be able to find a balance between all the fluffy nonsense that is spouted and the harsh reality of real mental illness. At least I hope so. The book is now on my reading list #Behind my Christmas and Birthday presents just at the moment!#

Hope it provokes some thought anyway.

Cheers

DtG

Subject: RE: BS: Psychobabble!
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 11 Mar 13 - 02:09 PM

Hmmm wonder why my (brackets) came out as hashes..?

Suppose it must be me!

D.

Subject: RE: BS: Psychobabble!
From: Little Hawk
Date: 11 Mar 13 - 02:55 PM

Does it resemble blathertwaddle?

Subject: RE: BS: Psychobabble!
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 11 Mar 13 - 03:11 PM

I think it may be more like fiddlefaddle :-)

D

Subject: RE: BS: Psychobabble!
From: gnu
Date: 11 Mar 13 - 03:21 PM

OH Fuddleduddle!

Subject: RE: BS: Psychobabble!
From: Little Hawk
Date: 11 Mar 13 - 03:35 PM

Well, there's all that "inner child" talk that became fashionable awhile back...and I think it makes a good deal of sense, actually...but how come no one ever talks about a child's "inner adult"? ;-) My inner adult interfered a great deal in my childhood and adolescence. And while he helped me avoid making certain reckless mistakes that young people often make, he also tended to isolate me from my peers and make me overly serious and that led to other problems. He may have gotten in the way of a certain amount of fun I could have had. All things considered, though, I think he played a fairly useful part at the time.

Subject: RE: BS: Psychobabble!
From: GUEST,Lavengro
Date: 11 Mar 13 - 03:37 PM

Personally I would not buy a book telling us all how much time and money some people waste on self-help books etc. authored by a wannabe TV celeb from such classics as "Freaky Eaters" and "Wife Swap-The Aftermath" (both to be read in your best throaty cinema trailer voice); who has authored a half dozen popular psychology/self- help tomes himself.

I must confess a personal bias here. I have worked in mental health for over 12 years and only ever met one clinical psychologist who actually helped their patients, as opposed to keeping them occupied with endless rounds of CBT or DBT, reflective diaries etc. until the patient managed to figure most of it out his/her self after a period of years with the help of their families, psychiatrist, peer groups and nursing/auxiliary staff.

A good book (IMO)on the human side of mental health is "Touched by Fire" by Kay Redfield Jamison.

Subject: RE: BS: Psychobabble!
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 11 Mar 13 - 04:28 PM

Thanks, guest Lavengro - Looks like a good recommendation which I will add to the ever growing list!

See here.


Cheers

DtG

Subject: RE: BS: Psychobabble!
From: Amos
Date: 11 Mar 13 - 05:19 PM

There are plenty of gems hidden in the dross of the Self Help explosion, and the generalized sanctimony the OP link seems to wave over the entire subject is itself (I would offer) suspect on the same grounds it claims. Claiming to have the expertise to define the internal landscape of the individual or the ultimate analysis of the individual's place in the world is pretty presumptuous. I have always considered it a useful guideline to invite people to find out for themselves which truisms and mechanisms they find match their own experience and perceptions. Absent that, all the advice in the world is just vapor.

Subject: RE: BS: Psychobabble!
From: Little Hawk
Date: 11 Mar 13 - 05:22 PM

Bravo! Well said, mon frere.

Subject: RE: BS: Psychobabble!
From: GUEST,Chongo Chimp
Date: 11 Mar 13 - 05:32 PM

I never met anyone yet who didn't understand a punch in the eye, a slap across the face or a slug from a forty-five.

- Chongo

p.s. I think Woody Allen said somethin' like that once too...but he was fakin'.

Subject: RE: BS: Psychobabble!
From: Ed T
Date: 11 Mar 13 - 06:10 PM

""Facts are ventriloquists dummies. Sitting on a wise man's knee they may be made to utter words of wisdom; elsewhere, they say nothing, or talk nonsense, or indulge in sheer diabolism"". Aldous Huxley

Subject: RE: BS: Psychobabble!
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 11 Mar 13 - 06:12 PM

I think the point may be being missed. Probably me not explaining very well and having the advantage of hearing the author being interviewed on the radio! I think he spoke a lot of sense about people becoming too reliant on self-help, self-analysis and advice that generally puts pressure on the advisee to try and be something they are not.

As I said, and I will underline again because as sure as eggs are eggs I will be accused otherwise! I am not saying the author is right or wrong. I just believe it is a refreshing change to have someone give an opposing viewpoint what seems to have become the norm. Even if he is making a name for himself and a bob or two on the side :-)

As Amos says - The self-help 'explosion' does contain a lot of dross. I am sure there are some gems but how does the ordinary man in the street tell one from the other? Better surely to listen to all views, take most of them with a pinch of salt, make your own mind up and realise there is not a magic solution for everything!

Cheers

DtG

Subject: RE: BS: Psychobabble!
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 11 Mar 13 - 06:13 PM

...an opposing viewpoint TO what seems to have become the norm...

Subject: RE: BS: Psychobabble!
From: kendall
Date: 11 Mar 13 - 07:44 PM

Twaddle

Subject: RE: BS: Psychobabble!
From: Joe_F
Date: 11 Mar 13 - 07:51 PM

Stay away from mental-health nuts if you can.

Subject: RE: BS: Psychobabble!
From: Bobert
Date: 11 Mar 13 - 08:05 PM

I've dabbled in some of this stuff and found lots helpful...

"I'm Okay, You're Okay" (transactional analysis) was helpful...

I read a book by Mazlow (self actualization) was helpful...

Everything by Carlos Castanada was helpful... Not sure that was "self help" but it really was...

Carl Rogers was helpful...

I mean, you take a little here and little there...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Psychobabble!
From: GUEST,999
Date: 11 Mar 13 - 08:07 PM

Read "The Seven Habits of Highly Effective Nuns." A visual for those who need one.

Subject: RE: BS: Psychobabble!
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 11 Mar 13 - 08:09 PM

By coincidence I walked into the book shop and spotted a book IDENTICAL to one off my bookshelpf that I scanned to my digital collection about three days ago.

I bought mine when I was 14 (a few years ago), brand new at list price for $0.35. The one on sale today for half price was $8.

"Collected writings of 50 Famous Psychologists" is a rough title. (It wasn't good enough - then or now - to worry about getting it exact.)

Apparently not much really changes in 50 or 60 years - in that particular field.

John

Subject: RE: BS: Psychobabble!
From: Bobert
Date: 11 Mar 13 - 08:36 PM

Where is GUEST from Insanity???

B;~)

Subject: RE: BS: Psychobabble!
From: Janie
Date: 11 Mar 13 - 10:11 PM

Love all the expert stereotyping going on here.

Subject: RE: BS: Psychobabble!
From: GUEST,Chongo Chimp
Date: 11 Mar 13 - 11:54 PM

You should go hang out at the North Side Gorillas' clubhouse. You'd be in a state of ecstasy.

- Chongo

Subject: RE: BS: Psychobabble!
From: Donuel
Date: 11 Mar 13 - 11:57 PM

I agree but

This popular opinion too will change

After Speculating on the nature of dyslexia based on NIH research of the behavior of the angular gyrus in the left hemisphere, that research itslef has been overturned.

Lots of mistakes have to be made to go from phenomena to tracable reproducable facts.

Subject: RE: BS: Psychobabble!
From: catspaw49
Date: 12 Mar 13 - 12:19 AM

I had some mental health nuts and they were fuckin' awful. Kinda' like eating a boiled peanut that had gone sour and was dropped into some leftover kim chi. Tell ya'.....I really didn't care for them at all................


Spaw

Subject: RE: BS: Psychobabble!
From: kendall
Date: 12 Mar 13 - 07:36 AM

Anyone who would go to a shrink should have his head examined. (My brother)

Subject: RE: BS: Psychobabble!
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 12 Mar 13 - 12:17 PM

Dave, thanks for the link. Psychobabble is for real, and it's something we need to be on the alert for.

I don't encounter it much anymore, but I can think of one example: it is a widely-held opinion among young people that no one except a parent must ever correct a child or interfere with it in any way. It just isn't done!

But one day, in Florida, I was in a parking lot when a 3-year-old boy started running, escaping his mother, who had flipflops on and couldn't run. The kid was completely ignoring her cries. I said to myself, "To heck with the rules!" and I spun around and caught the kid. I told him, "Listen to your mother when she calls you, and go to her."

The kid, panicked by an encounter with a stranger, ran straight to her. And I am not kidding, a few seconds later a Hummer backed up. And as we all know a three-year-old cannot be seen at the back of a Hummer.

Subject: RE: BS: Psychobabble!
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 12 Mar 13 - 05:12 PM

It certainly does, Leeneia. Seen it heard it many times over in many places - Including here! The new book may be just as bad but, at first glance, it seems quite genuine.

D.

Subject: RE: BS: Psychobabble!
From: Little Hawk
Date: 12 Mar 13 - 06:14 PM

Leeneia - It is the loss of traditional community in our culture which has resulted in millions of people who are so isolated from one another that they don't have enough basis of mutual trust left to feel "safe" about some other adult innocently speaking to their child.

This wasn't the case in traditional communities as they existed not too long ago historically...before the automobile, the radio, the TV, the computer, the cellphone, and the airplane.

And it isn't the case in places where traditional community still does exist, as in much of the Third World, and in some intentional communities (such as churches, ashrams, communes, groups like the Amish, and other such groups of people who form a community around common values or philosophies, and who are used to relating to each other and trusting each other as friends within that community).

The underlying fear that people have of each other now in the developed world is based in a direct ratio to how little they actually know or associate with each other, and how much they are isolated in their little private boxes (their homes) with their little electronic companions (TV, Computer, ipod, iPhone, iPad, Facebook, etc.) rather than experiencing the normal give and take that occurs in a living community of persons who share the same 3-D life together, which is what used to be the normal thing before all our convenient technology took it away from us bit by bit. People don't frigging USE their front porches anymore! They're inside watching the damn TV.

We in the affluent countries are living in an Orwellian world now, and it's taking its toll on everyone, creating fear, paranoia, and isolation from one another.

The only way you can counteract that is to turn off your electronic companions, walk out the door, and find ways of building real community with other people in the real world.

The one (and only) electronic companion that takes up way too much of my time is the computer. And I know it. But I do find ways of participating in community outside the front door. Those things I experience in real 3-D community mean ten times to me what anything I get from this computer does...and belonging to a digital (online) community can't possibly match what one gets out of traditional community in the 3-D world. Matter of fact, I think that most of the time online community is just a way for a lot of people to keep themselves distracted, briefly amused, fight boredom, and hide from dealing with actual life in the real world.

Subject: RE: BS: Psychobabble!
From: Amos
Date: 12 Mar 13 - 06:50 PM

The genus of what is being called psycho-babble is often an effort to identify the patterns and mechanisms of the mind and make up some useful labels for patterns that need to be managed or changed. THis is all well and good, but it becomes problematic when it starts being prescriptive and seeks to tell the person what he should see within his own mind. Minds are very personal constructs and all this kind of feeding does is create dependency to the degree the individual takes it on board without judgement or inspection.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Psychobabble!
From: GUEST
Date: 12 Mar 13 - 07:19 PM

"THis is all well and good, but it . . ."

It is neither. Claptrap like 'it takes a village to raise a child' is an assassin's attempt to destroy meaning in/of language. One might as well say it takes a village to raise an idiot. If one, then the other.

No offence.

Subject: RE: BS: Psychobabble!
From: GUEST,999
Date: 12 Mar 13 - 08:49 PM

Oops, that was me.

Subject: RE: BS: Psychobabble!
From: Bobert
Date: 12 Mar 13 - 09:04 PM

Let's get real here...

Psychobabble ain't all that bad... I mean, most folks who get caught up in it are trying to work thru stuff on their own... Or with little outside help...

Used to be that the model was go see the clinical psychologist or psychiatrist... Don't get me wrong... Lotta folks need that but lotta folks...

...don't...

I mean, if a little babblin' can get you thru what ever is buggin' you then I say, "Go for it"...

Too bad that it's kinda going outta vogue... The 60s and 70s were the hotbed decades for babblin'... It was fun...

Anyone remember "sensitivity training"???

"Self actualization"???

"Rational emotive"???

Them were the days... And, ahhhhhhh, the after workshop sex was good, too...

B;~)

Subject: RE: BS: Psychobabble!
From: Little Hawk
Date: 12 Mar 13 - 10:18 PM

How about primal scream therapy? That was pretty big for awhile. And rolfing! Did you ever try those out, Bobert?

Chongo, by the way, is an expert at doing the primal scream. He had that all worked out before any people ever came up with the idea. Every chimp knows how to do a primal scream any time it is required.

999 - I think the idea about a village raising a child is actually a rather good one. Children benefit greatly from knowing many different people (of all ages) in a more tribal or extended family type of community, rather than being isolated to just knowing their immediate nuclear family. That's probably the idea behind the phrase you quoted. The fact that an occasional idiot can still be found IN a village does not negate the usefullness of the concept stated any more than it negates the usefullness of the village itself. It just proves that there are no absolutely perfect solutions to common human problems.

I'd rather have been around many different people (including, of course, my parents) while growing up than just around my parents, let me tell you! And that's for damned sure.

Subject: RE: BS: Psychobabble!
From: GUEST,999
Date: 12 Mar 13 - 10:30 PM

LH, I agree with you, but that isn't what I said.

Subject: RE: BS: Psychobabble!
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 13 Mar 13 - 12:41 AM

Roses are red
Violets are blue
I'm a schizophrenic
And so an I.

GfS

Subject: RE: BS: Psychobabble!
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 13 Mar 13 - 04:35 AM

ooops..that other guy made a typo.....


Roses are red
Violets are blue
I'm a schizophrenic
And so am I.

GfS II

Subject: RE: BS: Psychobabble!
From: Little Hawk
Date: 13 Mar 13 - 05:54 AM

Okay, Bruce. Then I'm not quite sure what you were driving at. Did you mean clumsy use of language?

Subject: RE: BS: Psychobabble!
From: Bobert
Date: 13 Mar 13 - 09:01 AM

Ahhhhh, yes, the ol' "diversity" argument... Okay, it may be an old argument but one that, at least from my personal experience, is valid...

I like the "village" concept... In essence it is the "tribe" concept... We are very much tribalized these days... It comes from or media which has connected us to others in ways we wouldn't have thought could or would happen some 50 years ago...

Facebook???

My Space???

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Psychobabble!
From: GUEST,Mrr
Date: 13 Mar 13 - 10:39 AM

There was an article in Slate recently about things that amateurs do/say that bother experts in various fields. I didn't even know where to start, as a psychologist...

*Schizophrenia, no matter what the roots of the word are, is not split personality.

*Reinforcement is anything that makes a behavior more likely. The behavior is reinforced, not the person being (in their mind) rewarded by said reinforcement. I see this in textbooks all the time.

*Correlation not only isn't causation, it only describes a linear relationship between increases in one continuous variable and in another. You can't correlate to discrete variables at all, so nothing can correlate, for instance, with gender. And, if a relationship exists but isn't linear, it still isn't a correlation. You can mess with the data to make it linear, like using logarithmic transformations, and then talk about correlations, though.

*Any Freudian term at all is almost bound to be misused. Stars in this category are the terms id, ego, denial, repression, neurosis, fixation, and anal or oral when referring to fixations or repressions. Oh, yeah, and passive-aggressive. Also regression, which bugs me when misused as a statistical term too.

*Theory / Evolution: I get this with the creationists all the time (remember, I teach in the Southern US). Evolution is no more theoretical than gravity.

I think I'll stop now before by blood pressure goes up any more...

Subject: RE: BS: Psychobabble!
From: katlaughing
Date: 13 Mar 13 - 11:31 AM

no kidding, Janie.

my psychotherapist is nothing like what has been portrayed as above and on other threads. i did the work with hid feedbackj, etc., help and it was well-worth it.

Subject: RE: BS: Psychobabble!
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 13 Mar 13 - 11:31 AM

Psychobabble is mostly in the world of women, and few of you seem to know much about women. Read 'Bridget Jones' Diary' and get back to us.

It doesn't have to do with serious mental illness like schizophrenia. It has to do with emotions in everyday life.

By the way, the mother whose little boy I caught cried 'Thanks!' She knew danger when she saw it.

Here's another example. Years ago, my sister-in-law and her husband debated whether it was a good idea to let their little baby stand up on the couch and then catch her when she lost her balance, which was immediately. One parent thought it would instill timidity; the other thought it would build trust.

Notice that they only thought of emotions. They ignored the simple fact that the baby might fall or twist in an unexpected way and get hurt. In psychobabble, emotions rule. They also ignored the fact that the baby was too little to remember any of this anyhow.

Subject: RE: BS: Psychobabble!
From: GUEST,Lavengro
Date: 13 Mar 13 - 06:52 PM

@Mrr

"I think I'll stop now before by blood pressure goes up any more..."

You need to get yourself to a psychologist who can show you some really useful relaxation and breathing exercises ;)

Subject: RE: BS: Psychobabble!
From: Don Firth
Date: 13 Mar 13 - 07:09 PM

I've always maintained that people with multiple personalities should share them with people who don't have any.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Psychobabble!
From: Little Hawk
Date: 13 Mar 13 - 08:03 PM

That's generous of you. ;-)

Subject: RE: BS: Psychobabble!
From: Don Firth
Date: 13 Mar 13 - 08:41 PM

I try to keep an open mind, but my brain keeps dropping out and bouncing across the floor. . . .

Don--Oops! There it goes again!--Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Psychobabble!
From: Amos
Date: 13 Mar 13 - 10:44 PM

"It takes a village to raise a child" is an aphorism, a saying. Taking it literally would be misguided. It's a fucking figure of speech. As such it requires intelligent, contextual interpretation if it is to be applied. It is like "a stitch in time aves nine" or "look before you leap"==you can apply them intelligently or idiotically. Come on, now.

Subject: RE: BS: Psychobabble!
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 14 Mar 13 - 11:36 AM

You are right, Amos. Some villages are mean-spirited, even predatory to certain of their inhabitants.

Subject: RE: BS: Psychobabble!
From: Mrrzy
Date: 14 Mar 13 - 02:18 PM

lavengro - thanks, I really should!
Don Firth - so true. Great idea.

I thought Look before you leap went with Who Hesitates is Lost, but it can go well with the stitch in time too, love them proverbs. Or whatever they are.

Reminds me of a (thread creep) old Asimov, I think, short story where a Mr. Stein gets around the statute of limitations by walking into a time machine and coming right out again after the statute expired. The prosecution tried to argue that he had not actually lived through the statutory period so it shouldn't count, but the judge decreed...


...that a niche in time saved Stein.

Subject: RE: BS: Psychobabble!
From: Amos
Date: 14 Mar 13 - 03:20 PM

Arrrrgh!! Well, just goes to show you shouldn't change streams in the middle of a horse (as one germ said to the other).

Subject: RE: BS: Psychobabble!
From: GUEST,Lavengro
Date: 15 Mar 13 - 08:41 AM

Never sell your saddle, look before you leap.
Beware the moderator and the perils of thread creep.

A leopard cannot change his spots, curiosity killed the cat.
There will always be trolls upon the boards and no one can change that.

A penny saved is a penny earned, a picture paints a thousand words.
Take the trolls for what they are, highly polished turds

Don't put your eggs into one basket, don't count your chickens till they hatch.
But you can always find some friendly folk, here at the Mudcat patch.

A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush, and we're all in the same boat.
You're probably quite bored by now, at everything I've wrote.

Every cloud has a silver lining so that's all there is from me.
But if you think I know what I'm talking about, you're barking up the wrong tree.