Psychology.....

[Ward-Minter]

Not really a news question as such, but I am stuck as to which category to post.

Can anybody tell me what use a Psychology degree, or even a PHD in Psychology is.

Is it a "soft" option with little value to everyday life, OR is it such a wide brimmed subject matter that it has numerous value?

My personal view is it an absolute waste of time. Learning about why boys fancy their mother under the guise of pointless statistics seems an absurd subject matter.

Discuss and prove me wrong...

[loudickson71]

My mum is a clinical psychologist. I told her what you said ;-p She said she'll get my dad onto you cos you are ignorant of what psychology really is. She says interest in Freud died out cos he was full of crap and statistics is only used to back it up.

[Ward-Minter]

Lou you are so immature.

PS My dad is bigger than yours ;-)

[jno]

isn't that psychiatry rather than psychology?

[loudickson71]

psychiatry is based on psychology.

WM, I'm less immature than you. I am a big grown up girl. And my dad has a shovel and will hit you with it. And I am telling teacher.

Teacher!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[janesmythe22]

In the context you presented it, it seems that you were thinking of psychiatry, as jno said. Psychiatrist are medical doctors (specialists in psychiatry). Wundt and Freud trained as medical doctors. On the other hand, due to different approach to patients, psychoanalysis is closer to psychology. It's really up to you what you feel about it (mind you, denial seems to be good starting point toward psychological problems, to put it mildly).

Basically, all 'enforcement organizations' (government, family, education, army, media, corporations etc.) are using a lot of psychology to brainwash people into underlings. Therefore, for them, psychology has enormous value.

[loudickson71]

this is not true. there is no brainwashing. my father, tony blair, is the truth. you cannot speak against him.

[cherrybomb]

Psychology (IMHO) means: Dodgy effeminate men (normaly wearing sandals and no tie) calling each other Mike or Bob. Or Androgenous,minimalist women.

Don't critisize, praise. Blame it all on the parents and tell people "it's not your fault"

Get as much information on an patient by getting them into Cognitive therapy because they can't cure you, but they have an hour with you and they had too much wine last night and not enough sleep and people love to talk about themselves. If the conversation gets a bit thin, then make them repeat it all over again by asking them to talk to an empty chair and pretend the guilty parent is sitting there. If conversation stops then it's group therapy.

I have been (aged 28) and I never went back after the empty chair bit. I ended up blaming my Mum.Now it's looming again with my own daughter and although I will be present as she is only 12yrs old. I am feeling like it's my fault already.

[the>one]

i love psychiatrists, they make me laff.......hhahahahahahahahahahah......hahahahahahah...hahahahahahaha.....hahahahahahaha....hahahahahahah.....hahaaahahahahah...and biscuits theymake me giggle.....hee hee hee hee hee hee hee hee hee hee hee hee hee ...........hee hee hee hee hee........

[stevie21]

The standard image of psychology is of what Freud got up to (boy fancying mother) and this couldn't be further from the truth. Nobody anywhere in the world has any faith in anything that Freud proclaimed these days.

This thread seems to be a critique of Freud or of counselling or therapy. The vast majority of Psychology has nothing to do with this. There's research on personality, intelligence, memory, eyewitness testimony, social engineering etc etc.

I still think psychology's rubbish but nobody here has yet to actually criticise something that's current in psychology.

[january_bug]

The character Grace in Waking the dead in a psychologist I believe. Criminal psychology is very important.

Educational psychologists also play a veyr helpful role in determining behavioural disorders, and finding out what is best for a child who is either miles ahead, or miles behind their peers. A child will usually visit one during a decision process about putting them up or holding them back a year.

So that's at least two very important jobs.

Otherwise, I think a lot of people with the degree go on to work in business. They find that their ability to interpret some of what colleagues, and more importantly 'the other side', are/is saying and doing gives them the edge in negotiations.

here

[loudickson71]

I don't understand stevie21's point. If they do research into those things, how can it still be rubbish?

Freud wasn't a scientist, he just collected rambling observations based on his patients. Bit of a tool, by all accounts.

[Drusilla]

Can't agree with Cherrybomb about androgynous, minimalist women. The most beautiful and pleasant woman I have ever met was a psychotherapist and I longed to lie on her couch.

[stevie21]

loudickson71 - my thinking is based on the fact that if a psychology professor does lots of research into (seeing as I've brought it up) eyewitness testimony and discovers flaws in recall/testimony or even a better way of interviewing people which will lead to them remembering more about that bank robbery that they saw then this is all a very nice badge that they can wear on their suit.
The police and all of the other people who actually do the interviewing will pay no heed to it whatsoever and will think "what do those academics know? When did they last interview a career criminal and have to wring information out of him? When did they last deal with something real outside of the lab?"

Psychology tries to say things about real life but the research doesn't have the budget to do it so it is, instead, carried out on the cheap with undergraduate students as subjects. Its conclusions can be argued to be removed from real life enough for the people in the real world to easily ignore.

[loudickson71]

Line up procedures all over the world have changed as a result of the experiments of a UK memory/misinformation psychologist.

Some experiments are carried out on undergrads, but even those ones don't mean that external validity is normally lost.

[stevie21]

OK - just my two bob's worth...

"Line up procedures have changed" ? Tell 8 blokes to stand shoulder to shoulder, have someone look at them and say "it was him". How much scope is there to change that? hehe

[loudickson71]

You want the person to pick out the person who looks like the suspect. They keep picking people out.

You run psychology experiments, very tightly controlled, variables assigned, to determine if what you think is going on is going on. It is not. Most people are choosing the person who looks MOST like the suspect, not pointing to the person who looks LIKE the suspect. You cannot base convictions on this type of evidence any more.

Faces are now presented serially in many places to reduce the 'comparison effect.'

QED.

[mimififi]

Deeana Troy? of Star Trek was quite interested in Pyschology, and she was really clever, and I see an animal pyschologist with my new doggie and she is very good too....

But seriously, pyschology is important, and as a teacher I have been saved many times in how to deal with a difficult/upset child by the ed psych.

Psychological profiles of all sorts of peoples are useful in all sorts of ways. It is way too broad a subject to go into here, but it is not a waste of time; sadly, so many people want to go into a psych degree, because they think, "oh, that'll be interesting, just like Cracker!" that it is kind of loosing it's credability in some ways and gaining many harmful sterrotypes. The places at Uni are very competitive and you nearly always need excellent A Level grades to get onto one.

[Mr. Grieves]

Finally, some people actually discussing psychology who seem to know something about psychology, rather than some tired, outdated and wholly inaccurate perception of psychology.

Psychology is a waste of time? Tell that to the schools that have dealt with children with behavioural problems by employing educational psychologists, the organisations that have improved that satisfaction of their staff by employing organisational psychologists, the shops that have made you buy their goods by employing consumer psychologists (ethics?), the teams that have become more successful by employing sports psychologists, the patients that have become less depressed by using clinical psychologists, the health authorities that have reduced smoking by employing health psychologists, the governments that have helped reduce crowd violence at football matches due to employing social psychologists. I could go on. These are all the results of high quality research (yes PhD necessary) and evidence based practice.

[Ward-Minter]

But Mr Grieves, what the heck as all that got to do with an Oedipal Complex????