Theoretical Psychology

[zozie]

This all reminds me of this book I read, especially the talk of rejecting empirically-based methods:

"The Soul in Anguish: Psychotherapeutic Approaches to Suffering presents a variety of approaches to psychotherapeutic work with suffering people, from the perspectives of both Jungian and psychoanalytic psychology. An important theme of the book is that suffering may be harmful or helpful to the development of the personality. Our culture tends to assume that suffering is invariably negative or pointless, but this is not necessarily so; suffering may be destructive, but it may lead to positive developments such as enhanced empathy for others, wisdom, or spiritual development. The book offers professionals in any helping profession various frameworks within which to view suffering, so that the individual's suffering does not seem to be random or meaningless. Cognitive-behavioral approaches, the approach of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of the American Psychiatric association, and the promise of evidence-based strategies may or may not be applicable to the unique circumstances of the suffering individual. These approaches also ignore the unconscious sources of much suffering, its implications for the ongoing development of the personality, and the nuances of the therapeutic relationship. We cannot objectify or measure suffering; suffering is best viewed from within the individual's perspective, because people with the same diagnosis suffer in unique ways."

This reminds me of Viktor Frankl and his Logotherapy, which asserts that if suffering has meaning, it ceases to be suffering, or at least, becomes much more bearable. He also says that suffering is like a gas. A "little" or a "lot", doesn't matter, it fills a whole chamber nonetheless. He meant to refute the idea that suffering can be measured somehow, and that there is such a thing as a helpful comparison between people's miseries.

Frankl has such a gentle way, I love how passionately he wrote about meaning and the usefulness of some suffering, as well as what to do when all meaning fails and there is nothing to do but realize the absolute absurdity of the horrors one is faced with (he has a moving passage about his time in Auchwitz when this absurdity hit him).

I definitely agree that it is dangerous indeed to assume that suffering is an intrinsic negative. Toxic positivity is a thing.

 

[zozie]

I legitimately have PTSD that is triggered by CBT and CBT-based approaches. I had to find a therapist who is based on experiential, attachment-based, somatic, and Buddhist psychology theory to get any help. Insurance won't cover it, but I've seen so much progress from this approach! I love delving into the philosophical basis of life experiences and my conversations with my T often revolve around reframing experiences in philosophical terms (along with learning how to be a G-D human...). CBT alone keeps things too clinical, too cerebral, too logical for me to make any progress in learning how to be human. Theoretical psych has been a god-send for me, and is totally the only way I look at all life now. It's opened my inner world and helped me be a more recognizably empathetic person than I have ever been. No mainstream Western therapist could ever HOPE to help me if they can't see outside the medical model box. Such a fascinating field.

Oh my god this is so true. I hadn't realized how bad my PTSD from CBT was until I got assessed for ASD (thank you all for bearing with me through that imbecilic farce), and how thoroughly CBT taught me that I absolutely could not trust my own brain. That no matter what I thought about anything, my brain was lying to me, and that the truth of my life lay with doctors and their fancy knowledge.

The progress with the right treatment! Hooray for somatic approaches! Hooray for not-CBT! Yes, yes, yes, a godsend is right!

 

[zozie]

My experience with CBT wasn't a good one. Granted, that particular counseling center was not good or even adequate...so CBT *might* work better if it were properly administered, but somehow I think it probably wouldn't.

One of the useful criticisms of CBT that has come up on this forum is the assumption it makes about the client needing to be fixed in some way. It begins with that, with a sense of "let's find out what's wrong with you and fix it."

For so many of us, we have been trying to fix something that isn't broken for gods sake, and that's (at least part of) the source of our misery. Maybe, if CBT took the inverse approach, "let's figure out what's not broken and how to stop trying to fix it", it might have a different result, but again, it lies with the brain and the language center, and ignores the rest.

 

[Cosmic Ape]

This post motivated me to show up here again.
I remembered joking with my dad one day that philosophy is usually seen as a purely theoretical or abstract field, but many people would sometimes gladly schedule an hour in the hospital with a philosopher, in order to get clarity about genuine existential doubts. Jokes aside, I didn´t know about that disciplinary approach, and makes a lot of sense to me.

 

[SDRSpark]

Oh my god this is so true. I hadn't realized how bad my PTSD from CBT was until I got assessed for ASD (thank you all for bearing with me through that imbecilic farce), and how thoroughly CBT taught me that I absolutely could not trust my own brain. That no matter what I thought about anything, my brain was lying to me, and that the truth of my life lay with doctors and their fancy knowledge.

The progress with the right treatment! Hooray for somatic approaches! Hooray for not-CBT! Yes, yes, yes, a godsend is right!

Yikes. I can totally see that happening. I can't blame CBT specifically in my instance, but I too have had to deal with the consequences of being taught that I can't trust my own brain - I ignored danger signals and stayed in bad situations because I had been taught (partly by abusive people and partly by mental health professionals) that my brain isn't to be trusted and I'm not in danger, it's just anxiety. I got badly hurt before I realized what had happened and learned to trust myself, and I'm kinda salty about it.

One of the useful criticisms of CBT that has come up on this forum is the assumption it makes about the client needing to be fixed in some way. It begins with that, with a sense of "let's find out what's wrong with you and fix it."

For so many of us, we have been trying to fix something that isn't broken for gods sake, and that's (at least part of) the source of our misery. Maybe, if CBT took the inverse approach, "let's figure out what's not broken and how to stop trying to fix it", it might have a different result, but again, it lies with the brain and the language center, and ignores the rest.

Boom! Nailed it! You put something into words that I wasn't aware had been kicking around in my brain as a vague concept.

 

[John M]

I consider Asperger's Syndrome to be in some ways outside the domain of psychology. I think it'll take a multi-disciplinary approach for psychologist to understand and I'm not just talking about genetics and biology more generally. I believe it will also take input from sociologist and anthropologist because one has to ask the fundamental question, “If a human being has no capacity to self identify as being part of a group in the sociological sense how do they cope with it and how are they perceived by those who do?” This isn't a question the psychologist is equipped to answer, not even a social psychologist. We may in some cases describe ourselves as *insert gender/race/familial status here* but we use those as descriptive terms only. They have little if any impact on how we use language, interact with others and our core beliefs unless we try to imitate what others tell us we should feel or do. Even if we do imitate, we're still never able to self-identify in the way an NT does.

This isn't something that can be fixed per se. It's just a core endowment of everyone on the spectrum. Perhaps the theoretical psychologist could focus on a more multi-disciplinary approach? There's nothing wrong with revisiting the roots of psychology but examining how other disciplines have changed since psychology's founding and how their findings might inform the theoretical psychologist to better challenge the status quo may be worth exploring?

 

[HidinginPlainSight]

A lot of good questions in this reply, but this one seems at the heart of it. So what I'm learning is that quantifiable data is not the aim of theoretical psychology. Numbers are actually (usually, I think) counterproductive to the goal, and that's what gets so many other psychologists in a tizzy. How to gather qualitative data is something I'm still learning about, but I'd assume that collecting stories, noticing patterns between them, with heavy emphasis on experience over experiment, is how this discipline operates. It defies our current metrics of measurements on purpose, and as such, is quite difficult to understand in those (generally empirical) terms.

You can pull a lot numbers out of qualitative analysis. Qualitative in it's own regard is not akin to frivolous in any way. The issue is the organization of such an analysis without become non-relevant to the objective; which I imagine is trying to understand phenomenon.

A case study is, usually, a qualitative measure. However, the patterns are generally looked for by applying numbers. I am likely biased as numbers help me make sense of things. But I am genuinely interested in another approach, I just have difficulty conceptualizing it.

 

[HidinginPlainSight]

Seeing how the DSM continues to evolve, I can only surmise that the study of psychology, psychiatry and even neurology is all theoretical at one point or another in time.

Otherwise it may all amount to just another debate in semantics.

Every discipline evolves as our understanding evolves (or I suppose in certain cases it could devolve as well). This doesn't discount the value of the attempt to understand.

All science is theoretical and this is why a theory is the highest standard of scientific discovery.

 

[zozie]

Well, I spoke to my prof yesterday and he is very close to opening a grad program in Clinical Mental Health Counseling with emphasis on theory.

Unfortunately, due to the state of my teenagers (both ND), it is unlikely I'll be able to devote the time and energy that the program requires. So, I guess I'll just talk about it here, and try not to be so devastated. I know it sounds terrible, but I never really got to decide if I wanted to be a parent or not. I just did it because that's what my religion required.

And now I'm a single mom of two ND kids and I just don't have the bandwidth to devote to a graduate program while I'm spending all of my energy putting out fires, managing meltdowns, educating teachers, filling out assessments, fighting with doctors, and that's not even the disaster that was my own diagnostic process.

My kids will likely not leave home until they're well into their 20s, if at all, which leaves me as the responsible party for another 10 years. It was a nice dream.

 

[John M]

Well, I spoke to my prof yesterday and he is very close to opening a grad program in Clinical Mental Health Counseling with emphasis on theory.

Unfortunately, due to the state of my teenagers (both ND), it is unlikely I'll be able to devote the time and energy that the program requires. So, I guess I'll just talk about it here, and try not to be so devastated. I know it sounds terrible, but I never really got to decide if I wanted to be a parent or not. I just did it because that's what my religion required.

And now I'm a single mom of two ND kids and I just don't have the bandwidth to devote to a graduate program while I'm spending all of my energy putting out fires, managing meltdowns, educating teachers, filling out assessments, fighting with doctors, and that's not even the disaster that was my own diagnostic process.

My kids will likely not leave home until they're well into their 20s, if at all, which leaves me as the responsible party for another 10 years. It was a nice dream.

If you're drawn to fringe psychology anyway then perhaps exploring the nature of dreams and dreaming might be something you could engage in? It doesn't matter what the demands on your time are in this case because you're going to sleep regardless and when you do you'll dream.

 

[Wolfgangus Faldestolius]

It's not that we are different from others. It is that they are the same as us. John, what poses as psychology isn't.

 

[John M]

It's not that we are different from others. It is that they are the same as us. John, what poses as psychology isn't.

Psychology I think has wrapped itself around various bureaucratic systems to the degree where I can see your point. Take the comments made regarding insurance in this thread. The insurance industry has it's own way of doing things and much prefers a psychology that takes a empirical approach since all the industry looks at are numbers. Governments frequently look at things the same way. The more psychology becomes connected to bureaucracies like the insurance industry and government the more it transforms into a 'system' and rather than focusing on the individual as was the original intent of the discipline it focuses on the bureaucracy.

However, my perception is that should psychology find itself, it'll still take more than a psychologist to address Asperger's in a meaningful way.

 

[gaffaglow]

Philosophical counseling and CBT actually have an intersection. “Logic-based therapy is a form of philosophical counseling, since it addresses client's emotional problems and provides systematic ways of resolving them it can also be considered a form of psychotherapy. More specifically, because its focus on the client's cognitions and behaviors in relation to emotional functioning and relationship with REBT it is also a type of cognitive behavior therapy (CBT).”​

 

[Wolfgangus Faldestolius]

... it'll still take more than a psychologist to address Asperger's in a meaningful way.

People who have got AS / HFA have taught me almost everything I know about it - plus an ed pscyh, a workplace coach and some floating support workers who were brilliant OTs.

 

[Andrew J Brown]

Hi all,

It has been extremely busy over here so I've been less active in the forums than usual. Did you know that there's such a thing as a "theoretical psychologist"? I did not until my General Psych professor announced that he was one.

Theoretical psychology challenges the mainstream methods and modalities of therapy, testing, diagnosing, assessment, etc. It marries philosophy with psychology and argues that psychology as a field has lost its sense of direction, confusing the "brain" with the "mind", and arguing that "consciousness" is biological (among other arguments). Theoretical psychologists deal in subjective experience—phenomenology—instead of averages, standardization, and so forth. It is a fringe approach, for sure, though one might argue that it acts as a balancer for what has become a hyper-empirical field, and as such is not fringe at all.

I love this so I thought I would share. I did not know these people existed, but now that I do, my life is very much enriched, and I hope yours is, too.

I am new to this forum and hope to find other people interested in theoretical psychology.

I am a self taught amature evolutionary modeller working from a shed in Britain. I am pretty sure I have worked out the fundamental cause of autism. According to my model autism is an older type of human personality that evolved to adapt to starvation. Rather than this personality having a developmental disorder that meant it lost social characteristics I set it out as a personality that didn't have social programming in the first place.

My model is set out in a 3000 word report and I am looking for people to read it to see if they can see any workable alternatives to what I have set out? It would be nice if we could be allowed a discussion on this forum. My report is available as a pdf file free of charge by emailing me at [email protected]. I will use your email address purely to send the file and then it will be deleted. Alternatively I have uploaded the file here if you know how to find it?

Hi all,

It has been extremely busy over here so I've been less active in the forums than usual. Did you know that there's such a thing as a "theoretical psychologist"? I did not until my General Psych professor announced that he was one.

Theoretical psychology challenges the mainstream methods and modalities of therapy, testing, diagnosing, assessment, etc. It marries philosophy with psychology and argues that psychology as a field has lost its sense of direction, confusing the "brain" with the "mind", and arguing that "consciousness" is biological (among other arguments). Theoretical psychologists deal in subjective experience—phenomenology—instead of averages, standardization, and so forth. It is a fringe approach, for sure, though one might argue that it acts as a balancer for what has become a hyper-empirical field, and as such is not fringe at all.

I love this so I thought I would share. I did not know these people existed, but now that I do, my life is very much enriched, and I hope yours is, too.

 

[Alexej]

HI @Andrew J Brown

Welcome to the Forum and well done for jumping in and sharing your paper.

 

[John M]

Thank you for posting this Andrew. I do like your theory and would like to help. The first hole I see is inbreeding. 'The Family' isn't gentically viable in the model you propose due to inbreeding. You must address inbreeding in your theory. I'll look more closely at your theory tomorrow and see if I can't find anything else. Welcome to the forum!

 

[John M]

I think you're on the right track but you may want to take a broader view than focusing on farmers and tribes. For examples, consider early civilization. It wasn't uncommon for early civilizations to put the entire population of an enemy city to the sword. Even if you were engaged in empire building and would rather capture the population of a city, killing everyone in a single city might make it more likely that surrounding cities would surrender. You probably wouldn't kill everyone though, you might take people with skills you value as slaves. Lets call these artisans. You might also make slaves of people who are very good at identifying and reflecting the desires of their conquers back at them. Lets call these the courtesans. Even if instead of killing everyone in a city you took the entire population as slaves the artisan and courtesan still have a selective advantage. If a famine comes along the slaves will be the first to starve but you'll hold on to the artisans and courtesans as long as you can. This is repeated at various times by various civilizations throughout early history and the artisans and courtesans might eventually be given a status other than slave.

Fast forward to medieval times. What kind of people are most likely to survive a plaque? People that like to distance themselves from others and people that are good at getting close to people in power who have the resources to isolate themselves (courtesans). When you get into the Renaissance, artisans form guilds. Marrying a commoner if you're from an artisan family would be marrying down so, you marry inside the Guild.

I saw a funny article a few years ago about how the number of people with autism was increasing and scientist said they needed to study the reason why. I think the reason is painfully obvious. If there's a genetic basis to autism and more autistic people are hooking up, which is likely for a variety of reasons, then you'll have more people born with autism. Thank you for posting your study on the website and good luck with your research.

 

[Andrew J Brown]

I consider Asperger's Syndrome to be in some ways outside the domain of psychology. I think it'll take a multi-disciplinary approach for psychologist to understand and I'm not just talking about genetics and biology more generally. I believe it will also take input from sociologist and anthropologist because one has to ask the fundamental question, “If a human being has no capacity to self identify as being part of a group in the sociological sense how do they cope with it and how are they perceived by those who do?” This isn't a question the psychologist is equipped to answer, not even a social psychologist. We may in some cases describe ourselves as *insert gender/race/familial status here* but we use those as descriptive terms only. They have little if any impact on how we use language, interact with others and our core beliefs unless we try to imitate what others tell us we should feel or do. Even if we do imitate, we're still never able to self-identify in the way an NT does.

This isn't something that can be fixed per se. It's just a core endowment of everyone on the spectrum. Perhaps the theoretical psychologist could focus on a more multi-disciplinary approach? There's nothing wrong with revisiting the roots of psychology but examining how other disciplines have changed since psychology's founding and how their findings might inform the theoretical psychologist to better challenge the status quo may be worth exploring?

I think you're on the right track but you may want to take a broader view than focusing on farmers and tribes. For examples, consider early civilization. It wasn't uncommon for early civilizations to put the entire population of an enemy city to the sword. Even if you were engaged in empire building and would rather capture the population of a city, killing everyone in a single city might make it more likely that surrounding cities would surrender. You probably wouldn't kill everyone though, you might take people with skills you value as slaves. Lets call these artisans. You might also make slaves of people who are very good at identifying and reflecting the desires of their conquers back at them. Lets call these the courtesans. Even if instead of killing everyone in a city you took the entire population as slaves the artisan and courtesan still have a selective advantage. If a famine comes along the slaves will be the first to starve but you'll hold on to the artisans and courtesans as long as you can. This is repeated at various times by various civilizations throughout early history and the artisans and courtesans might eventually be given a status other than slave.

Fast forward to medieval times. What kind of people are most likely to survive a plaque? People that like to distance themselves from others and people that are good at getting close to people in power who have the resources to isolate themselves (courtesans). When you get into the Renaissance, artisans form guilds. Marrying a commoner if you're from an artisan family would be marrying down so, you marry inside the Guild.

I saw a funny article a few years ago about how the number of people with autism was increasing and scientist said they needed to study the reason why. I think the reason is painfully obvious. If there's a genetic basis to autism and more autistic people are hooking up, which is likely for a variety of reasons, then you'll have more people born with autism. Thank you for posting your study on the website and good luck with your research.

Dear John
This is the solution! Everything psychological was created before civilisation. I will give the solution to the measurement of time. I am a farmer and the number sixty as in minutes and seconds is based on the size of a flock of sheep. This was the way they measured wealth in Mesopotamia.
Best Regards
Andrew