Welcome to the sessions. This is a space where I will periodically journal and post updates on stuff that happens.
Wednesday, July 06, 2005
~Psychology~
Psychology is not what most people think it is.
Despite the common misconception, psychology is really just a probabilistic science that says if you possess this trait, or this background, or this job, or this relationship, you are more likely to do this, that or the other. Psychology is not about a guy in an office with a couch nailing down exactly who you are, telling you things about you that you don't already know, or predicting how your life is going to turn out. It's not ESP, it's not magic, it's not about explaining how you are a product of your past experiences.
It's not about fixations on symbols of sexuality which are either too repressed or not repressed enough. Freud was essentially a quack, despite the great good he did the field of study. His research population was somewhat skewed (middle-aged upper-class women with obvious (emotional) scars of abuse), and his theory a watered-down version of his original one...which was that these women had suffered abuse at the hands of fathers, uncles and brothers, most of whom were his colleagues or in positions of power in society. Accusing most of the Victorian upper-classmen of abusing their charges would be somewhat disruptive, wouldn't it?
Psychologists pay homage to Freud, give the man his props, but give his theories no real respect. Jung's theories find a little bit more of a welcome, but not much more so. The personality tests out there are little more than the pipedream of pop-psychology, with little validity. The same goes for 'tests' that tell you what career would fit you (a la Myers-Briggs), who your significant other is, and yes, even those who tell you what your spiritual gifts are. (Did you really think you could discover those by filling in a Scan-Tron?)
I suppose I write this partly out of frustration from assumptions and misconceptions people have about my field of study and, by extension, about me. I am no more empathetic, or understanding, or sensitive because I did a major in psychology. I don't understand you any better just because I hold a BA in Psych. Finding out who people are, getting under their skin, and understanding how our lives effect each others' is still done the old-fashioned way: you interact, you listen, you learn.
Psychology is about research and statistics, and little else. I can tell you that language is the seat of early learning, that your short term memory consists of 5-9 units which can consist of subunits within each, and that behaviours like group-think and self-fulfilling prophecies tend to arise in social situations.
I cannot, however, tell you who you are, what you think, what you feel, or why. There is no magic key to this. The real art of knowing people is still found in being a part of people, and nothing will ever replace that.
