# Is This Sound Conjecture Or Mere Solipsism? (Psych 101) **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [October 26, 2010, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-sound-conjecture-or-mere-solipsism-psych-101/558433 "2010-10-26T19:20:20Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![adhay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecd19e/32.png) [@adhay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adhay)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2010, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-sound-conjecture-or-mere-solipsism-psych-101/558433/1 "2010-10-26T19:20:20Z")
PSYCHOTHERAPY: PURPOSE, PROCESS AND PRACTICE [http://www.surrenderworks.com/acim\_on\_psychotherapy.html](http://www.surrenderworks.com/acim_on_psychotherapy.html) > [@](#): > > Introduction > > Psychotherapy is the only form of therapy there is. Since only the mind can be sick, only the mind can be healed. Only the mind is in need of healing. This does not appear to be the case, for the manifestations of this world seem real indeed. Psychotherapy is necessary so that an individual can begin to question their reality. Sometimes he is able to start to open his mind without formal help, but even then it is always some change in his perception of interpersonal relationships that enables him to do so. Sometimes he needs a more structured, extended relationship with an “official” therapist. Either way, the task is the same; the patient must be helped to change his mind about the “reality” of illusions. > > 1. THE PURPOSE OF PSYCHOTHERAPY > Introduction > > Very simply, the purpose of psychotherapy is to remove the blocks to truth. Its aim is to aid the patient in abandoning his fixed delusional system, and to begin to reconsider the spurious cause and effect relationships on which it rests. No one in this world escapes fear, but everyone can reconsider its causes and learn to evaluate them correctly. … > [@](#): > > 1. THE PROCESS OF PSYCHOTHERAPY > Introduction > > Psychotherapy is a process that changes the view of the self. At best this “new” self is a more beneficent self-concept, but psychotherapy can hardly be expected to establish reality. That is not its function. If it can make way for reality, it has achieved its ultimate success. Its whole function, in the end, is to help the patient deal with one fundamental error; the belief that anger brings him something he really wants, and that by justifying attack he is protecting himself. To whatever extent he comes to realize that this is an error, to that extent is he truly saved. > > Patients do not enter the therapeutic relationship with this goal in mind. On the contrary, such concepts mean little to them, or they would not need help. Their aim is to be able to retain their self-concept exactly as it is, but without the suffering that it entails. Their whole equilibrium rests on the insane belief that this is possible. And because to the sane mind it is so clearly impossible, what they seek is magic. In illusions the impossible is easily accomplished, but only at the cost of making illusions true. The patient has already paid this price. Now he wants a “better” illusion. Sounds good to me so far. Arguments? ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2010, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-sound-conjecture-or-mere-solipsism-psych-101/558433/2 "2010-10-26T19:34:50Z")
> [@](#): > > Since only the mind can be sick, only the mind can be healed. Only the mind is in need of healing. Well, that’s clearly not true. If I have, I dunno, bacterial pneumonia, two weeks of penicillin will do me a lot more good than two months of therapy. ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2010, 7:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-sound-conjecture-or-mere-solipsism-psych-101/558433/3 "2010-10-26T19:40:34Z")
Will psychotherapy fix a broken leg? My friend has cancer. Will psychotherapy cure him? My 93 year old Grandmother is dying of old age. If she gets psychotherapy will she be cured? ---
**Author:** ![thelurkinghorror](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7c8e57/32.png) [@thelurkinghorror](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thelurkinghorror)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2010, 7:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-sound-conjecture-or-mere-solipsism-psych-101/558433/4 "2010-10-26T19:46:04Z")
That person needs psychotherapy. Psychotherapy, to fix their disjointed thoughts. That these thoughts leads to disjointed sentence structure. So they need psychotherapy. The only form of therapy. Is psychotherapy. Guys, I presume they don’t mean that all diseases are all psychosomatic, just mental ones. Even so, that assertion is demonstrably false. Say what you want about psychiatry, Tom, but drug therapy is most certainly effective in many cases as these disorders have a biological basis and are not just learned behaviors. ---
**Author:** ![IvoryTowerDenizen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ivorytowerdenizen/32/17937_2.png) [@IvoryTowerDenizen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/IvoryTowerDenizen)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2010, 7:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-sound-conjecture-or-mere-solipsism-psych-101/558433/5 "2010-10-26T19:57:25Z")
Strep induced OCD. A “sick mind” that can be fixed by an antibiotic. > **[Science News](https://www.nimh.nih.gov/news/science-news)** > > List of NIMH science news including press releases, science updates and institute announcements. and > **[PANDAS Confirmed: Antibiotics for GAS Relieve OCD Symptoms](https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/432046)** > > More awareness is needed of this treatable neuropsychiatric syndrome. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2010, 7:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-sound-conjecture-or-mere-solipsism-psych-101/558433/6 "2010-10-26T19:59:32Z")
> [@thelurkinghorror](#): > > Guys, I presume they don’t mean that all diseases are all psychosomatic, just mental ones. Yes, they do: > [@](#): > > As all therapy is psychotherapy, so all illness is mental illness. It is a judgment on the Son of God, and judgment is a mental activity. Judgment is a decision, made again and again, against creation and its Creator. It is a decision to perceive the universe as you would have created it. It is a decision that truth can lie and must be lies. What, then, can illness be except an expression of sorrow and of guilt? And who could weep but for his innocence? > > . . .The descent into hell follows step by step in an inevitable course, once the decision that guilt is real has been made. Sickness and death and misery now stalk the earth in unrelenting waves, sometimes together and sometimes in grim succession. Yet all these things, however real they seem, are but illusions. ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2010, 8:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-sound-conjecture-or-mere-solipsism-psych-101/558433/7 "2010-10-26T20:14:53Z")
This is warmed-over Christian Science. Since God is perfect, he creates only perfect things. Therefore, if you have a sick, diseased body, that’s just an illusion caused by Satan. With prayer/psychotherapy you dispel the illusion and are healed. ---
**Author:** ![adhay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecd19e/32.png) [@adhay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adhay)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2010, 8:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-sound-conjecture-or-mere-solipsism-psych-101/558433/8 "2010-10-26T20:42:15Z")
> [@Lemur866](#): > > This is warmed-over Christian Science. … Think of it as pure science of mind. ---
**Author:** ![adhay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecd19e/32.png) [@adhay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adhay)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2010, 8:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-sound-conjecture-or-mere-solipsism-psych-101/558433/9 "2010-10-26T20:47:30Z")
> [@Captain\_Amazing](#): > > Well, that’s clearly not true. If I have, I dunno, bacterial pneumonia, two weeks of penicillin will do me a lot more good than two months of therapy. > [@Lemur866](#): > > Will psychotherapy fix a broken leg? > > My friend has cancer. Will psychotherapy cure him? > > My 93 year old Grandmother is dying of old age. If she gets psychotherapy will she be cured? Prayer Placebos? ---
**Author:** ![adhay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecd19e/32.png) [@adhay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adhay)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2010, 8:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-sound-conjecture-or-mere-solipsism-psych-101/558433/10 "2010-10-26T20:51:49Z")
> [@thelurkinghorror](#): > > … Tom, … Jefferson? ---
**Author:** ![Euphonious\_Polemic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/euphonious_polemic/32/3002_2.png) [@Euphonious\_Polemic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Euphonious_Polemic)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2010, 9:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-sound-conjecture-or-mere-solipsism-psych-101/558433/11 "2010-10-26T21:16:11Z")
> [@adhay](#): > > Think of it as pure science of mind. More like pure gobbledegook that flys in the face of observable evidence. You might just as well say that we’re all disembodied minds being kept in a computer program, ala The Matrix. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Hamster\_King](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8edcca/32.png) [@The\_Hamster\_King](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Hamster_King)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2010, 9:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-sound-conjecture-or-mere-solipsism-psych-101/558433/12 "2010-10-26T21:40:03Z")
> [@adhay](#): > > Think of it as pure science of mind. I think of it as pure unmitigated bullshit. If your premises are trivially falsified by empirical observation, what you’re doing isn’t “science”. ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2010, 9:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-sound-conjecture-or-mere-solipsism-psych-101/558433/13 "2010-10-26T21:46:51Z")
> [@adhay](#): > > Prayer Placebos? Placebo can work to make people feel better. It ain’t gonna set a broken leg, now is it? ---
**Author:** ![adhay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecd19e/32.png) [@adhay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adhay)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2010, 10:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-sound-conjecture-or-mere-solipsism-psych-101/558433/14 "2010-10-26T22:09:59Z")
> [@Euphonious\_Polemic](#): > > More like pure gobbledegook that flys in the face of observable evidence. You might just as well say that we’re all disembodied minds being kept in a computer program, ala The Matrix. So it seems to many. > [@The\_Hamster\_King](#): > > I think of it as pure unmitigated bullshit. > > If your premises are trivially falsified by empirical observation, what you’re doing isn’t “science”. “Science” is anecdotal by Nature. > [@Lemur866](#): > > Placebo can work to make people feel better. It ain’t gonna set a broken leg, now is it? Got one? Hypothetically, yes. Otherwise, try a different focus. ---
**Author:** ![Superfluous\_Parentheses](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/8edcca/32.png) [@Superfluous\_Parentheses](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Superfluous_Parentheses)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2010, 10:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-sound-conjecture-or-mere-solipsism-psych-101/558433/15 "2010-10-26T22:18:15Z")
> [@adhay](#): > > Think of it as pure science of mind. If by that you do mean something like “pure solipsism”, then I would agree. Otherwise, not so much. ---
**Author:** ![Euphonious\_Polemic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/euphonious_polemic/32/3002_2.png) [@Euphonious\_Polemic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Euphonious_Polemic)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2010, 10:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-sound-conjecture-or-mere-solipsism-psych-101/558433/16 "2010-10-26T22:20:19Z")
> [@adhay](#): > > Hypothetically, yes. Otherwise, try a different focus. **adhay** , you are lapsing into incomprehensibility again. ---
**Author:** ![adhay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecd19e/32.png) [@adhay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adhay)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2010, 10:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-sound-conjecture-or-mere-solipsism-psych-101/558433/17 "2010-10-26T22:40:46Z")
> [@Superfluous\_Parentheses](#): > > If by that you do mean something like “pure solipsism”, then I would agree. Otherwise, not so much. Cum see, come sah? ---
**Author:** ![adhay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecd19e/32.png) [@adhay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adhay)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2010, 10:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-sound-conjecture-or-mere-solipsism-psych-101/558433/18 "2010-10-26T22:44:09Z")
> [@Euphonious\_Polemic](#): > > **adhay** , you are lapsing into incomprehensibility again. One more time, please stay on topic. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2010, 10:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-sound-conjecture-or-mere-solipsism-psych-101/558433/19 "2010-10-26T22:44:44Z")
> [@adhay](#): > > Cum see, come sah? How long have you been saving that one? ---
**Author:** ![adhay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecd19e/32.png) [@adhay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adhay)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2010, 10:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-sound-conjecture-or-mere-solipsism-psych-101/558433/20 "2010-10-26T22:46:30Z")
> [@acsenray](#): > > How long have you been saving that one? Ever since. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-sound-conjecture-or-mere-solipsism-psych-101/558433.md?page=2)