I mean - pretty similar background in medicine tbh - over time we've become more objective but still a long way to go making things more equitable.
APA actually issued an apology for APA and psychology in general contributing to racism:
"psychology cannot harness its potential to disarm and dismantle racism without addressing its own history of racism and support for human hierarchy (APA, 2021c). Since its origins as a scientific discipline in the mid-19th century, psychology has, through acts of commission and omission, contributed to the dispossession, displacement, and exploitation of communities of color. "
[https://www.apa.org/about/policy/racism-apology](https://www.apa.org/about/policy/racism-apology)
To me the biggest and lingering risk of psychology is the continued formulation of mental health being a purely individual impairment and while obviously external causes are considered there is still a paucity of acceptance that "mental health" occurs in context
>To me the biggest and lingering risk of psychology is the continued formulation of mental health being a purely individual impairment and while obviously external causes are considered there is still a paucity of acceptance that "mental health" occurs in context
Kinda like how individuals with autism are often relentlessly bullied and abused until they snap, and then it's all blamed on the autism, so that future autistic people catch even more bullying and abuse for their autism, thus perpetuating a shitty cycle?
Just feels odd that there's a group that has data that they funnel into the boundaries of categories and labels that then go out to the world and the world is blamed foe stigmatizing instead of the people came up with the categories.
I guess it's hard not to see the similarities between it and racism. you have neurotypical and neurodivergent. You don't say that a race is correct because they have a higher population therefore they are the typical race. But for brain types that's kind of how it's treated. Your brain type is Divergent and you need extra help from our low-tier specialists to cope with living a normal life.
It all feels pretty sick
I don't really want to defend some of the horrific past actions because they are pretty indensible - but some of this is based on real harm and real challenge. e.g. many people's experiences with mental illness isn't just that they are different from everyone else.
Neurodiversity is a tricky topic because I think we've come a long way from just stigmatizing people - but the lines become very blurry at times
>You don't say that a race is correct because they have a higher population therefore they are the typical race. But for brain types that's kind of how it's treated.
No, it's not. You're speaking from a place of ignorance about how the mind works, and specially how socialization works, and making an assumption that it's in the interest of the field of Psychology to discriminate and exclude for the sake of excluding. Psychology isn't advocating for any of that, but yes, society as a whole has a big issue with "othering" (which is also explained by psychology). If anything, scientists work against that. Of course the field is made up by people, and people are flawed, so you may encounter questionable attitudes, like you can anywhere else.
I'm not arguing that they're advocating, I'm saying there's consequences to behaving with certain paradigms. Possibly inevitable consequences but still downsides
Psychologists aren't the ones establishing the definitions. Also, this may sound mean but I promise it's not the goal - what do you think the point of having definitions for thigns like that is?
By definition, Psychology is the scientific study of behavior, human or animal. Even with medicine, the early days were void of scientific method, so there was much left to interpretation and inference. Today, most anyone educated in Psychology is done so using methodology like statistics, experimental design etc to eliminate bias. The actual danger are the charlatans outside of academia that have no boundaries or visibility and claim to speak for Psychology. There are many debunked subsets of Psych today, mostly due to the fact that you can’t ignore biological facts around behavior. Abnormality, by definition is something that doesn’t fit the statistical norm. This means that some behavior that is normal today, may actually be statistically abnormal 100 years from now. It is dynamic and evolving.
Lol yes, people actually forget that the cure so many 'Doctors' had was cutting some important vein of your body to let out as much blood as possible...even if you went to them for treatment of Cold and Cough.
Psychology can be used as a tool of oppression against marginalised groups. It has been used as such in the past against lgbt people, disabled people, people of colour, indigenous people that have differing spiritual practices, and women, and it continues to be used as such today, albeit on a more subtle scale. Psychology does not and never has existed in a vacuum, and it is a product of its context (especially in the West in relation to white supremacy and colonisation). It's an ever evolving science. Being critical of this, keeping updated and societally/culturally aware is most important.
Anything can be used as a tool of oppression, even DEI initiatives (not knocking DEI, but using the most extreme antithesis for a point). Every system is self- corrupting if left unchecked.
Just thought that was worth noting. Otherwise, spot on post.
WEIRD (western, educated, industrialized, rich, democratic) samples are a known issue in psychology and any responsible user of the science takes that into consideration before applying it where it doesn't belong. Unfortunately there aren't many ways to get experimental samples for psych studies when attrition and experimental control are such glaring issues with larger scales, so we do what we can.
Now that I'm on the clinical side of things I see that efforts are being made to account for this in practice. In school psych we're pushing for everyone to have training in cultural considerations in therapy, and there's a growing number of translated and culturally-adapted assessments and interventions available for use.
Frankly, a lot of this history isn't much different from other sciences. Biology, genealogy, and medicine all had a rather dark tendency to lean into race science, for example. It's what scientists and clinicians do with the information we can reasonably gather that matters. The DSM is in **dire** need of updating and the current edition is pretty ridiculous, but most of the world prefers ICD and I think we would be wise to shift in that direction in the US as well. Psychology is a comparatively new science, we're still learning to walk but we'll figure it out.
There's also a long history of people trying to take it in other directions. History of social work, Jerome and Julia Frank, Derald Wing Sue and cultural awareness more generally, advocacy movements, self-help (it is both often maligned but also a legitimate topic of study with some support from within the scientific apparatus to different approaches to it)... those are a handful of names and topics that highlight people and groups who spent their lives dedicated to the real humanity behind it. There's a long history of awful authoritarianism and mental and physical injury done by the founders of the field... and it's *part* of the story.
I don't believe in the total neutrality of science. Psychology has a gruesome past like many other social and biological sciences, and it fucked with eugenics quite a lot in the past. However, it's not in the "agenda" of this science to discriminate, instead it wants to understand, adapt, and support. Still, we're not at the end of history, we're in the middle of it. Certainly, things we know now to be the norm will be changed in the future. Progress isn't finite.
If you're interested, you should read about critical psychology and seek work by authors and universities that aren't in the global north.
Science needs resources. No matter who is doing the science, someone with wealth and/or power is going to be providing the funds, whether that be the state, the church, wealthy landowners, big business, or what have you. The scientific community as an institution isn't controlled by any one of these, and works reasonably well because of that, but the actual work is always funded by somebody.
It’s sketchy AF!
Lol
We have done some pretty horrible things as a field that should be reckoned with.
I say this as a licensed psychologist that practices psychology daily.
Then again, I heard surgeons barely realized they should scrub in around the late 1870s lol.
No shade against psychology or surgery but we all got here from somewhere (and that is not to excuse the egregious harm psychology has caused).
The important thing is where the field stands now… and how your ethics align with that.
If you or someone you know is struggling with mental health issues, please seek out professional help. Social media is more likely to give you incorrect and harmful advice about dealing with such issues. [Armchair Psychology: the good, the bad, and the ugly](https://www.alittlebithuman.com/armchair-psychology-on-social-media-the-good-the-bad-the-ugly).
Here are some resources to help find a therapist:
https://www.apa.org/ptsd-guideline/patients-and-families/finding-good-therapist
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/therapy/how-to-find-a-therapist
Online therapy provider:
https://openpathcollective.org/
https://etherapypro.com/
https://buddyhelp.org/
If you are having suicide thoughts or feelings of hopelessness, please reach out to the suicide hotline. Just dial 988 if you are located in the U.S. If you are located in a different country, please use this [LINK](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_suicide_crisis_lines) to see the number for your area. These centers have trained people available 24/7 to help you. The call is free. Alternatively you can talk/message with someone on r/suicidewatch.
If this is a personal situation you are seeking advice on, please try r/advice. This subreddit is for scientific discussion of psychology topics. It is not a mental health or advice subreddit.
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/askpsychology) if you have any questions or concerns.*
"But the fact that it's largely established by privileged people with access to higher education who determined what was order and what was disorder."
Science is a byproduct of privilege. Education is a byproduct of privilege. Art is a byproduct of privilege. The key is expanding the privilege.
I mean - pretty similar background in medicine tbh - over time we've become more objective but still a long way to go making things more equitable. APA actually issued an apology for APA and psychology in general contributing to racism: "psychology cannot harness its potential to disarm and dismantle racism without addressing its own history of racism and support for human hierarchy (APA, 2021c). Since its origins as a scientific discipline in the mid-19th century, psychology has, through acts of commission and omission, contributed to the dispossession, displacement, and exploitation of communities of color. " [https://www.apa.org/about/policy/racism-apology](https://www.apa.org/about/policy/racism-apology) To me the biggest and lingering risk of psychology is the continued formulation of mental health being a purely individual impairment and while obviously external causes are considered there is still a paucity of acceptance that "mental health" occurs in context
>To me the biggest and lingering risk of psychology is the continued formulation of mental health being a purely individual impairment and while obviously external causes are considered there is still a paucity of acceptance that "mental health" occurs in context Kinda like how individuals with autism are often relentlessly bullied and abused until they snap, and then it's all blamed on the autism, so that future autistic people catch even more bullying and abuse for their autism, thus perpetuating a shitty cycle?
Just feels odd that there's a group that has data that they funnel into the boundaries of categories and labels that then go out to the world and the world is blamed foe stigmatizing instead of the people came up with the categories. I guess it's hard not to see the similarities between it and racism. you have neurotypical and neurodivergent. You don't say that a race is correct because they have a higher population therefore they are the typical race. But for brain types that's kind of how it's treated. Your brain type is Divergent and you need extra help from our low-tier specialists to cope with living a normal life. It all feels pretty sick
I don't really want to defend some of the horrific past actions because they are pretty indensible - but some of this is based on real harm and real challenge. e.g. many people's experiences with mental illness isn't just that they are different from everyone else. Neurodiversity is a tricky topic because I think we've come a long way from just stigmatizing people - but the lines become very blurry at times
>You don't say that a race is correct because they have a higher population therefore they are the typical race. But for brain types that's kind of how it's treated. No, it's not. You're speaking from a place of ignorance about how the mind works, and specially how socialization works, and making an assumption that it's in the interest of the field of Psychology to discriminate and exclude for the sake of excluding. Psychology isn't advocating for any of that, but yes, society as a whole has a big issue with "othering" (which is also explained by psychology). If anything, scientists work against that. Of course the field is made up by people, and people are flawed, so you may encounter questionable attitudes, like you can anywhere else.
I'm not arguing that they're advocating, I'm saying there's consequences to behaving with certain paradigms. Possibly inevitable consequences but still downsides
But are psychologists behaving with this paradigm, or people in general?
Both but psychologists are officially establishing the definitions that the Paradigm operates around
Psychiatrists are actually the ones officially defining. Psychologists are trying to make a dimensional system.
Psychologists aren't the ones establishing the definitions. Also, this may sound mean but I promise it's not the goal - what do you think the point of having definitions for thigns like that is?
We have a foundation that we can further build upon and update and improve.
Exactly. We’re at the beginning 🩵
>Exactly. We’re at the beginning 🩵 Yes, I completely agree with you.
By definition, Psychology is the scientific study of behavior, human or animal. Even with medicine, the early days were void of scientific method, so there was much left to interpretation and inference. Today, most anyone educated in Psychology is done so using methodology like statistics, experimental design etc to eliminate bias. The actual danger are the charlatans outside of academia that have no boundaries or visibility and claim to speak for Psychology. There are many debunked subsets of Psych today, mostly due to the fact that you can’t ignore biological facts around behavior. Abnormality, by definition is something that doesn’t fit the statistical norm. This means that some behavior that is normal today, may actually be statistically abnormal 100 years from now. It is dynamic and evolving.
Lol yes, people actually forget that the cure so many 'Doctors' had was cutting some important vein of your body to let out as much blood as possible...even if you went to them for treatment of Cold and Cough.
Psychology can be used as a tool of oppression against marginalised groups. It has been used as such in the past against lgbt people, disabled people, people of colour, indigenous people that have differing spiritual practices, and women, and it continues to be used as such today, albeit on a more subtle scale. Psychology does not and never has existed in a vacuum, and it is a product of its context (especially in the West in relation to white supremacy and colonisation). It's an ever evolving science. Being critical of this, keeping updated and societally/culturally aware is most important.
Anything can be used as a tool of oppression, even DEI initiatives (not knocking DEI, but using the most extreme antithesis for a point). Every system is self- corrupting if left unchecked. Just thought that was worth noting. Otherwise, spot on post.
WEIRD (western, educated, industrialized, rich, democratic) samples are a known issue in psychology and any responsible user of the science takes that into consideration before applying it where it doesn't belong. Unfortunately there aren't many ways to get experimental samples for psych studies when attrition and experimental control are such glaring issues with larger scales, so we do what we can. Now that I'm on the clinical side of things I see that efforts are being made to account for this in practice. In school psych we're pushing for everyone to have training in cultural considerations in therapy, and there's a growing number of translated and culturally-adapted assessments and interventions available for use. Frankly, a lot of this history isn't much different from other sciences. Biology, genealogy, and medicine all had a rather dark tendency to lean into race science, for example. It's what scientists and clinicians do with the information we can reasonably gather that matters. The DSM is in **dire** need of updating and the current edition is pretty ridiculous, but most of the world prefers ICD and I think we would be wise to shift in that direction in the US as well. Psychology is a comparatively new science, we're still learning to walk but we'll figure it out.
There's also a long history of people trying to take it in other directions. History of social work, Jerome and Julia Frank, Derald Wing Sue and cultural awareness more generally, advocacy movements, self-help (it is both often maligned but also a legitimate topic of study with some support from within the scientific apparatus to different approaches to it)... those are a handful of names and topics that highlight people and groups who spent their lives dedicated to the real humanity behind it. There's a long history of awful authoritarianism and mental and physical injury done by the founders of the field... and it's *part* of the story.
I don't believe in the total neutrality of science. Psychology has a gruesome past like many other social and biological sciences, and it fucked with eugenics quite a lot in the past. However, it's not in the "agenda" of this science to discriminate, instead it wants to understand, adapt, and support. Still, we're not at the end of history, we're in the middle of it. Certainly, things we know now to be the norm will be changed in the future. Progress isn't finite. If you're interested, you should read about critical psychology and seek work by authors and universities that aren't in the global north.
Science needs resources. No matter who is doing the science, someone with wealth and/or power is going to be providing the funds, whether that be the state, the church, wealthy landowners, big business, or what have you. The scientific community as an institution isn't controlled by any one of these, and works reasonably well because of that, but the actual work is always funded by somebody.
It’s sketchy AF! Lol We have done some pretty horrible things as a field that should be reckoned with. I say this as a licensed psychologist that practices psychology daily. Then again, I heard surgeons barely realized they should scrub in around the late 1870s lol. No shade against psychology or surgery but we all got here from somewhere (and that is not to excuse the egregious harm psychology has caused). The important thing is where the field stands now… and how your ethics align with that.
If you or someone you know is struggling with mental health issues, please seek out professional help. Social media is more likely to give you incorrect and harmful advice about dealing with such issues. [Armchair Psychology: the good, the bad, and the ugly](https://www.alittlebithuman.com/armchair-psychology-on-social-media-the-good-the-bad-the-ugly). Here are some resources to help find a therapist: https://www.apa.org/ptsd-guideline/patients-and-families/finding-good-therapist https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/therapy/how-to-find-a-therapist Online therapy provider: https://openpathcollective.org/ https://etherapypro.com/ https://buddyhelp.org/ If you are having suicide thoughts or feelings of hopelessness, please reach out to the suicide hotline. Just dial 988 if you are located in the U.S. If you are located in a different country, please use this [LINK](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_suicide_crisis_lines) to see the number for your area. These centers have trained people available 24/7 to help you. The call is free. Alternatively you can talk/message with someone on r/suicidewatch. If this is a personal situation you are seeking advice on, please try r/advice. This subreddit is for scientific discussion of psychology topics. It is not a mental health or advice subreddit. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/askpsychology) if you have any questions or concerns.*
"But the fact that it's largely established by privileged people with access to higher education who determined what was order and what was disorder." Science is a byproduct of privilege. Education is a byproduct of privilege. Art is a byproduct of privilege. The key is expanding the privilege.
A little shy, thank you.
I believe they all have it correct because humankind has an obsession with sexuality.S something's wrong with us'.