The Madness of Psychology

Play that funky music, shepherd boy!

Psychology's claim to authority is that it is a “science.” Very well—that means it must stand or fall on the best empirical evidence. And the evidence is this: if psychology works, even if its use is not becoming any more widespread, we should see an overall decline of mental illness year-by-year as it increases in its knowledge.


What we have seen, instead, is a rapid growth in mental illness, and at exactly the time that we are relying more and more on psychology, in exactly the places where this is happening. It would be hard to imagine a more perfect example of a scientific theory being disproven. In fact, the evidence makes it clear that psychology is causing “mental illness.”


According to psychology, all major forms of mental illness are incurable. The “symptoms” can perhaps be “controlled” with “medicine,” but the prognosis is always “no cure.” Just the opposite, in fact: if you have any of the major “illnesses,” or even chronic depression, the prognosis is for it to simply get worse until you die.


What could be a clearer admission of failure? To make it worse, and to make the point clearer, these “mental illnesses” were commonly understood to be only temporary in most cases before psychology, and still are thought to be temporary in places where psychology is not used.

“Cross cultural and historical studies indicate that chronic mental illness is a recent phenomenon of Westernized countries. Recent studies by the World Health Organization show that the rate of recovery from severe mental illness is much better in third world countries than in Western industrialized countries. Historical evidence points out that the rates of recovery were much higher during the 1830-40's in this country when there was a much more optimistic view of recovery."

http://www.power2u.org/articles/recovery/people_can.html


So the plain scientific evidence is that psychology is causing and sustaining mental “illness.” The worst possible thing you can do, if you show any relevant symptoms, is to go anywhere near a psychiatrist, psychologist, or clinical facility.

Proposed template for dart board.

One further proof that it is all bogus is that psychologists themselves readily say so. Ask them about anything psychology held to be true as recently as twenty years ago, and they will openly scorn it. All nonsense, it turns out. Twenty years ago, of course, they had the same attitude towards everything they believed forty years ago. Real sciences change in details, but build on a foundation that remains. Psychology works instead as a series of fads; each in turn wholly disproven in time. It takes a supreme leap of faith in opposition to reason to suppose that, having always been wrong before, nevertheless, this time they are right.


For psychology to be actually making “mental illness” worse, it must be actively blocking the real cure. What might that be? The answer is perfectly obvious: real “psychology,” that is, literally, “systematic knowledge of the soul.” Religion. Psychology sets itself up more or less in direct opposition to religion, generally positively avoiding any religious references. Not scientific. You'd have a better chance of hearing about religious truth by chatting with any man on the street than by going to a therapy session.


Spiritual troubles occur in the spirit. This would be obvious, indeed self-evident, if psychology had not gotten things so screwed up.


Even if depression or schizophrenia are caused by something your parents did to you in childhood—and this is likely to be largely so—simply talking about your childhood is unlikely to do much for you. The problem with the past is that you cannot change it. The future is much more useful. In the end, your family is just a random bunch of people you happened to grow up with. Contrary to much, even Christian, popular belief, there is nothing sacred about the family.


If you want to read a nice, family-friendly text, stay as far as possible away from the New Testament. Here's what Jesus has to say about families: “He who does not despise his father and mother is not worthy of me.” “Let the dead bury their own dead.” “What have I to do with you, woman?” (To his mother. The Virgin Mary.)


“Codependency”? That concept is malicious jive. It is a way for the unrighteous to persecute the blessed for their righteousness. If the concept is legitimate, then Mother Theresa of Calcutta, St. Francis of Assisi, Kwannon, Jesus Christ, all the angels and saints are simply “codependent” and “mentally ill.” No good Christian can endorse the concept of “codependency.” Indeed, no good person can endorse the concept of “codependency.” Here the psychiatrist speaks directly in the devil's voice.


The whole “chemical imbalance” thesis is perfectly tautological. We know that how we think changes our brain chemistry; so there is no way to distinguish cause and effect. Wrong tree, dawg.

Riding the tiger of emotions: Korean shamanic drawing.

Nor is there any value in discussing fuzzy inner feelings. Let's look at the scientific evidence for the thesis that mental illness comes from not talking about our feelings. As we can easily see, some cultures are much more open to expressing feelings than others: the Koreans are far more openly emotional than the Japanese, the Irish are far more open than the English, the French are more open than the Germans—these being, otherwise, rather comparable nations on other factors. If Freud and the “fuzzy feelings” folks are right, this should be manifested by a significantly lower incidence of mental illness in the open than in the closed partner in each pair.


I gather nobody has done a really systematic study—oddly. But when the same diagnostic survey was tried in both Germany and France, the rate of mental illness in France turned out to be double that in Germany.


http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5111202


I have also read that the rate of schizophrenia in the Irish is unusually high.


Again, you would expect women, who are generally more inclined to talk about their feelings, to have significantly lower rates of mental illness than men. But no, it turns out their rates are somewhat higher:


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mental_disorder


So the theory is plainly and simply wrong. It is surely just as likely that talking a lot abut your emotions, by focusing your attention on them, makes them stronger. If your emotions are unpleasant ones like sadness, anxiety, shame, or anger, this would then be distinctly a Bad Thing To Do.


It may also be a bad thing because it is unhealthily egocentric, trapping you in the narrow view that is causing you depression, as opposed to learning to be more “philosophical” about things. Consider the “Prayer of St. Francis”:

O Divine Master, 

grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console; 

to be understood, as to understand;

Isn't this the opposite of the psychotherapeutic enterprise? And might this not actually be better advice?

You know Buddhism; you know the Four Noble Truths? The last thing the Buddha would have advised was to get in touch with your feelings. Feelings are cravings; that's exactly what they are. They are exactly where dukkha—“ill being,” very much including what is called “mental illness”--comes from.

Jesus, too, tells us to get our emotions under wraps, not to dwell on them. If we lust after a woman—that is adultery. If we in anger call our brother “fool”--that is as bad as murdering him. If we worry--”take no thought for the morrow; sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.”

Hmm—pop pseudo-science that has already been disproven, or the wisdom of the ages? Tough choice.


I do believe in “art therapy,” though. Except there is no such thing—all art is “art therapy.” It takes the bad feelings, and transforms them into something different, and something meaningful. As Wordsworth put it: “emotion recollected in tranquillity.” Painting, sketching, sculpting, poetry, singing, playing an instrument, telling a story, acting, all the traditional arts. All soul-restoring, and time-tested, ways to sublimate troublesome feelings. Failing that, “art appreciation” works too, though not so well. “Whenever the evil spirit from God overpowered Saul, David would play on the lyre and Saul would feel better for the evil spirit would leave him.”


But if Saul had simply made his peace with God—he would have been cured.