"Good intentions will always be pleaded for every assumption of authority ... the Constitution was made to guard against the dangers of good intentions. There are men in all ages who mean to govern well, but they mean to govern. They promise to be good masters, but they mean to be masters." - Noah Webster


"There is no worse tyranny than forcing a man to pay for what he does not want just because you think it would be good for him."
-- Robert A. Heinlein

Wednesday, June 22, 2011

Mind Over Matter

I have what is probably an incredibly high amount of disdain and derision for the field of psychology (and including psychiatry) as a whole.  Oh, I do know that there is mental illness and that some is organic and some is due to psychological trauma and that there is a need for professionals who can deal with such things.   But most of what is in the realm of medicine for the mind is just pure rubbish, because if you start from bad premises, everything that follows is sure to be stupid, insane, or both.

I post on this with some trepidation, because it is so easy to be misunderstood on this matter, no matter how much I try to be clear.  I've been teaching in enough different settings where in a group of people, some would simply not be able to comprehend what I was trying to get across, and not only I would be amazed at their inability to understand, but more than half the group as well would be puzzling over this. I have been very appreciative for such events, since, had the audience not been there, I might have questioned my own sanity or ability to relate certain concepts.

I started to post with some trepidation, but then remembered, "Hey, it's MY blog."

I would hope that if I ever needed to see a psychologist, I could find someone like Gagdad Bob, but that would truly be analogous to finding a needle in a haystack.  After reading this recent post, I just had to make my readers aware that there actually are intelligent people in the very soft "scientific" field of psychology. You don't always need a post-graduate education to appreciate all that he writes, so check out his archives.

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