What are your views on psychiatry?

[Truman_Burbank]

Well, half empty/half-full, Orr. From a historical perspective, psychiatry and psychology is the most advanced it has ever been. From a hypothetical ‘future history’ perspective, it will almost certainly seem as primitive as you say, just as in all** science. Hell, humans may not exist in 10 years!

[buddha_david]

@Truman_Burbank

From a historical perspective, psychiatry and psychology is the most advanced it has ever been.

There was a time when “balancing the humours” was the most advanced that medical science has ever been. Doesn’t make it perfect or even accurate.

I don’t have a real dog in this fight, but IMHO it’s rather preposterous to claim today’s psychiatric methods are so brilliant and wonderful, when we used to say the same about lobotomies & stuff less than a century ago. In some ways it’s better, in other ways worse. But there’s always room for improvement.

@Tethered_Kite

If I may, I’d like to make a distinction between sympathy and empathy.

Sympathy implies that the therapist is having feelings for the client. It happens and when it does needs to be dealt with by establishing healthy boundaries. A therapist who continues to, for instance, feel sorry for her client is apt to slip into enabling behavior or perhaps have difficulty sleeping over the client’s problems. It can create a sort of parent/child relationship.

A more workable state of emotion would be empathy - that the therapist understands the client’s struggle and the feelings the client is having related to it. It helps to keep the relationship on a more equal level and allows the client the dignity of carrying their own feelings and solving their own problems.

Recent thread: Sympathy vs. Empathy

[Truman_Burbank]

"but IMHO it’s rather preposterous to claim today’s psychiatric methods are so brilliant and wonderful, "

Did someone do that in this thread? Or you strawmanning?