Discussion I'm a psychology student, ask me anything!

[neenie]

I was talking with my buddy @whitetaildeer and he told me my knowledge in psychology might interest some of you, so here is an AMA thread :) I won't diagnose anyone though, you've been warned!

 

[whitetaildeer]

can i have 5 million dollars

 

[neenie]

can i have 5 million dollars

I don't know, can you?

 

[EvisceratedJester]

What area of psych are you interested in? So far I've found cognitive neuroscience to be the most fun. I also really like social psych. Can't remember for shit though, because I'm a fucking idiot.

 

[CatLvr]

I don't need to be diagnosed -- I already know I'm certifiable! Welcome to SaSu. I just want to know WHAT THE FUCK is wrong with my husband??? Lol

 

[neenie]

What area of psych are you interested in? So far I've found cognitive neuroscience to be the most fun. I also really like social psych. Can't remember for shit though, because I'm a fucking idiot.

I love cognitive psychology (especially embodied cognition), health psychology and sport psychology! Social psych really bugs me for some reason, I find it to be a really weird scale to study. Too far away from sociology, not detailed enough to be fully part of psychology :')

I don't need to be diagnosed -- I already know I'm certifiable! Welcome to SaSu. I just want to know WHAT THE FUCK is wrong with my husband??? Lol

Hello! Is everything okay?

 

[CatLvr]

Hello! Is everything okay?

Oh yeah. He's just an asshole (and quite frankly the least of my worries). But damn he gets on my nerves sometimes.

 

[EvisceratedJester]

Social psych really bugs me for some reason, I find it to be a really weird scale to study. Too far away from sociology, not detailed enough to be fully part of psychology :')

Man, that sucks. The social psych professor I had was really cool. I'm pretty sure he also has a background in neuroscience and utilized it in his class. I guess that's why I loved it so much

 

[KillingPain267]

How is psychology even still considered a science after the replication crisis was revealed?

 

[neenie]

Man, that sucks. The social psych professor I had was really cool. I'm pretty sure he also has a background in neuroscience and utilized it in his class. I guess that's why I loved it so much

I gotta say social cognition rocks though!

How is psychology even still considered a science after the replication crisis was revealed?

The replication crisis has allowed for new and cleaner practices (refinement in some theories, better training in scientific integrity, open science, new statistical methods, publishers being more willing to publish results disproving the hypothesis, etc) and new views (not beating each others up over H0-corroborating results), and helped studying how misinformation spreads among the scientific community. It's also not only the science itself's fault, you know how publishers are always more willing to publish H0-rejecting results, and you know of publish or perish.... Well scientists around the world have to get paid / get tenured :/ Psychology still has some rock solid results and methods though! And last but not least, medicine also has pretty shitty replication rates in a lot of subfields, as well as the highest fraud rate of all sciences (or one of the highest that's for sure), and is still considered a science :)

 

[dull emerald]

Я тоже студент-психолог, и меня, скорее всего, отчислят через 8 дней с последнего курса за то, что я не выполнил так много чертовски непонятных задач... Потеря более 4 лет всех моих тенденций вот так — это все равно, что спустить все в унитаз.
Остаться без единственного источника дохода, стипендии, которой я плачу за интернет и некоторые лекарства.
1. Почему, по-вашему, я могу уделять время и внимание только саморазрушению? И это проявляется во всех смыслах и аспектах жизни. Я делаю все то, что раньше презирал и стал противоположностью себе. Понятно, что у меня для этого много причин и проблем. Однако, с психологической точки зрения, каковы скрытые мотивы?
2. Отступление от того, что мы узнали на таком сайте, у меня необычный вопрос: возможно, у вас были моменты разочарования в этой науке?? Потому что я ненавижу стерву. Она бросила меня в нужный момент и совсем перестала быть работоспособной.
3. Как вам то, что полгода назад я был полон любви к психологии и успешно помог людям, и с блеском закончил стажировку в университете. У меня даже появились первые клиенты, среди которых был мальчик с суицидальными наклонностями, которых я вылечил. Серьёзно! Теперь он даже умудрился открыть свой бизнес, несмотря на свой рассеянный склероз. А я... Хочу исчезнуть навсегда and I'm probably something like by type of elite bum (I have housing and some food)

 

[EvisceratedJester]

How is psychology even still considered a science after the replication crisis was revealed?

The replication crisis isn't just impacting psychology. It's impacting other fields as well, such as medical science.

 

[Greyhawk]

Do you know any movies or TV shows with accurate depiction of bipolar disorder or just mental disorders in general?

 

[neenie]

Do you know any movies or TV shows with accurate depiction of bipolar disorder or just mental disorders in general?

I don't, I'm sorry :( Movies tend to massacre all kinds of science from physics to biological science or even comp sci

Я тоже студент-психолог, и меня, скорее всего, отчислят через 8 дней с последнего курса за то, что я не выполнил так много чертовски непонятных задач... Потеря более 4 лет всех моих тенденций вот так — это все равно, что спустить все в унитаз.
Остаться без единственного источника дохода, стипендии, которой я плачу за интернет и некоторые лекарства.
1. Почему, по-вашему, я могу уделять время и внимание только саморазрушению? И это проявляется во всех смыслах и аспектах жизни. Я делаю все то, что раньше презирал и стал противоположностью себе. Понятно, что у меня для этого много причин и проблем. Однако, с психологической точки зрения, каковы скрытые мотивы?
2. Отступление от того, что мы узнали на таком сайте, у меня необычный вопрос: возможно, у вас были моменты разочарования в этой науке?? Потому что я ненавижу стерву. Она бросила меня в нужный момент и совсем перестала быть работоспособной.
3. Как вам то, что полгода назад я был полон любви к психологии и успешно помог людям, и с блеском закончил стажировку в университете. У меня даже появились первые клиенты, среди которых был мальчик с суицидальными наклонностями, которых я вылечил. Серьёзно! Теперь он даже умудрился открыть свой бизнес, несмотря на свой рассеянный склероз. А я... Хочу исчезнуть навсегда and I'm probably something like by type of elite bum (I have housing and some food)

:( I'm sorry I don't speak russian and don't trust Google translate enough to accurately transcribe what you meant (if you do trust Google translate though then I'll be glad to answer!)

 

[LaVieEnRose]

Я тоже студент-психолог, и меня, скорее всего, отчислят через 8 дней с последнего курса за то, что я не выполнил так много чертовски непонятных задач... Потеря более 4 лет всех моих тенденций вот так — это все равно, что спустить все в унитаз.
Остаться без единственного источника дохода, стипендии, которой я плачу за интернет и некоторые лекарства.
1. Почему, по-вашему, я могу уделять время и внимание только саморазрушению? И это проявляется во всех смыслах и аспектах жизни. Я делаю все то, что раньше презирал и стал противоположностью себе. Понятно, что у меня для этого много причин и проблем. Однако, с психологической точки зрения, каковы скрытые мотивы?
2. Отступление от того, что мы узнали на таком сайте, у меня необычный вопрос: возможно, у вас были моменты разочарования в этой науке?? Потому что я ненавижу стерву. Она бросила меня в нужный момент и совсем перестала быть работоспособной.
3. Как вам то, что полгода назад я был полон любви к психологии и успешно помог людям, и с блеском закончил стажировку в университете. У меня даже появились первые клиенты, среди которых был мальчик с суицидальными наклонностями, которых я вылечил. Серьёзно! Теперь он даже умудрился открыть свой бизнес, несмотря на свой рассеянный склероз. А я... Хочу исчезнуть навсегда and I'm probably something like by type of elite bum (I have housing and some food)

I am also a psychology student and in 8 days I most likely will be dismissed from my last year because I didn't do so many horribly unclear assignments. The loss of over four years of my striving us just like throwing it all down the toilet. To be left without a single source of income and my stipend with which I pay for internet and some medications.

Why do you think I can only think about self-destruction? And this manifests in all senses and aspects of life. I do every bring that I used to despite and became the opposite of myself. It is clear that I have a lot of reasons for this and problems. However from a psychological point of view what are the reasons underneath that drive me?

Diverting from the usual stuff on this site, I have an unusual question. Were you perhaps ever disillusioned with this science! Because I hate this bitch. It abandoned me when I needed it the most and stopped working for me completely.

What do you make of the fact that half a year ago I wss full of love for psychology and successfully helped people and finished my internship at university with excellence. I even started to get my first clients among whom there was a boy with suicidal inclinations that I managed to treat successfully. Seriously! Now he has even managed to open his own business despite being scatterbrained. And me...I want to disappear forever.

Translated by me

 

[unknown_xav]

That's cool! Not sure about your position on this. But how has psychology both in academia vs practice changed over the years with rise of for example support for MAID, and other views on suicide in some cultures or countries for example in some instances where they support suicide as long as its well thought out. And also has this changed any bit in some areas on who should be in a psych ward or not? Sorry lot of connected questions. I see a lot of debates in regards to medical doctors, nurses etc. I wonder if same issues are getting complicated in psychology in practice mostly as I know academics sometimes have leeway to be have views or publish ideas that divert from the "mainstream".

 

[KillingPain267]

The replication crisis isn't just impacting psychology. It's impacting other fields as well, such as medical science.

I know. But psychology and sociology are impacted the worst. Before that, Immanuel Kant said psychology isn't and can never be a real science. Afterall, the mind cannot be measured and tested. So only behaviorism is left, at best. That also explains why it fails to cure most of us here, and those who get cured from depression, anxiety, bipolar etc. have to try multiple meds and treatments first before finding the right one even though the chemistry should be the same.

 

[SafferGuy]

I was talking with my buddy @whitetaildeer and he told me my knowledge in psychology might interest some of you, so here is an AMA thread :) I won't diagnose anyone though, you've been warned!

How do you feel about the fact that the profession is unable to help most of us?

 

[Hvergelmir]

my knowledge in psychology might interest some of you, so here is an AMA thread

Have you encountered anything particularly universal and important, during your studies? Something which really caught your attention, and that anyone ought to learn/study?

How is psychology even still considered a science after the replication crisis was revealed?

Any scientific field has good and bad science. A bunch of results that are impossible to reproduce doesn't invalidate the field as a whole.
People are aware of it, and working hard to address the issue - working out methods for differentiating good science from bad science.

 

[EvisceratedJester]

Afterall, the mind cannot be measured and tested. So only behaviorism is left, at best.

The thing is, the mind can be measured and tested today through using things, such as neuroimaging techniques (if done right you can utilize them to establish causal relationships). Behaviourism is flawed and that period of psychology is generally referred to as "the dark ages of psychology" due to the fact that you have to understand what's going on in the brain in order to fully understand how human behaviour works. While it was helpful in some regards, it got a lot of things wrong as well due to ignoring that element.

It's also important to note that modern psychology is a young field at the end of the day. If you look back at other types of fields, such as evolutionary biology, you can find that the history surrounding those fields tends to be messy with there being a lot of people getting a lot of things wrong. Psychology isn't that special in that regard. I don't think that the replication crisis invalids psychology as a field but rather it just highlights past (and present) issues when it comes to methodology. This is an issue that is already being addressed.

 

[KillingPain267]

The thing is, the mind can be measured and tested today through using things, such as neuroimaging techniques (if done right you can utilize them to establish causal relationships). Behaviourism is flawed and that period of psychology is generally referred to as "the dark ages of psychology" due to the fact that you have to understand what's going on in the brain in order to fully understand how human behaviour works. While it was helpful in some regards, it got a lot of things wrong as well due to ignoring that element.

Causal relationships are not mind-experiences. Science has no idea what consciousness is and how it arises or what in nature is conscious or not, let alone able to measure it. Neuroimaging is not mind-reading. A scan of my brain might show that I am thinking about a bird, but it will never be able to tell how my truly individual experience with birds is. That would be telepathy. Psychology is better regarded as an art like literature and philosophy. Like the question, what is a good painting? It can never be measured scientifically. It's subjective, like the conscious experience of an individual human person. It can never be measured. A mind may be more like an emergent property or phenomena, i.e. it's not a separate natural thing and thus cannot be measured, weighed or quantified by itself without something relative and physical to experience it. What color and shape is social anxiety? What does it even matter? I feel severely debilitated by social anxiety even though I don't show many physical symptoms of it. I doubt a "neuroimage" can truly capture the feeling of the severe social anxiety I suffer from.

It's also important to note that modern psychology is a young field at the end of the day.

Exactly. Some have said that due to the replication crisis, psychology is basically at square one. But psychologists have been way too confident for long now. Unfortunately, not that many changes have resulted from learning from the crisis. There is a lot of work to do. They can start by figuring out how consciousness arises.

 

[NormallyNeurotic]

I was talking with my buddy @whitetaildeer and he told me my knowledge in psychology might interest some of you, so here is an AMA thread :) I won't diagnose anyone though, you've been warned!

I hear a lot about stigma and misinformation still being taught so I'm curious your experience with that?

Ehat have you been taught about disorders like Dissociative Identity Disorder (and other complex DDs), cluster B disorders, and also... paraphilias? Can't help the morbid curiousity on the latter due to the split in opinions I see on whether some should even be RECOGNIZED as a mental illness.

 

[Heidi48]

I was talking with my buddy @whitetaildeer and he told me my knowledge in psychology might interest some of you, so here is an AMA thread :) I won't diagnose anyone though, you've been warned!

EMDR seems to becoming really popular - have you had any good/ bad experiences with it.. or is more of a tool used by psychotherapists and not psychologists ?

 

[Forever Sleep]

I'm very naive about this so, please forgive any stupid/ irrelevant questions to your field...

Do you study the brain itself as an organ or, are your studies more theory based? Do the brains of mentally ill people appear different to 'normal' brains?

Do you think diagnosis of a patient via getting them to describe their symptoms is accurate? That's always troubled me to be honest. In other physical medicine, doctors (hopefully) wouldn't prescribe hard drugs or open a patient up merely based on a complaint of chest pains. It might simply be they have indigestion rather than a heart condition.

But, they'd want to use further diagnostic tools- blood tests, x-rays, ultrasound, ECG's etc. to establish what was really going on. Is this more psychiatry though? Rather than psychology? But, do they have other such methods for diagnosing mental illness? Do brain scans work or, is that considered to be exposing a person to too much unnecessary radiation?

Lastly, may I ask- What do you think 'creates' consciousness? Or rather- self awareness?

 

[DOHARDTHINGS24]

Any thoughts on synchronicity?
Specifically, in the context of grief.
Even more specifically, as an example:
Someone is an atheist, does not believe in an after life or any spiritual beliefs. Zero. Science & math only. They are not delusional in any way, have no issues with schizophrenia or anything remotely associated. They are aware of frequency illusion & confirmation bias & believe that coincidences are coincidences.
Their mother's favourite song is highly annoying & highly triggering to the person, they can never not be aware of it playing because they hate it so much. It is an obscure song & they have never heard it played in public. They have a difficult relationship with their abusive mother, the abusive mother dies. The person grieves but does not look for signs or believe in their existence. On the 1 year anniversary of their mother's death, they hear this song in public for the first time. And then, elsewhere, a second time. And yet later, a third time. The 3 places are unconnected. The person googles everything to do with the song - did the singer die? Did the publication rights change? The person looks for every possible way to prove to themselves it means nothing, so they are actively looking for an anti-confirmation bias. Nothing. Fast forward 15 years, the person has never heard that song in public again.
It's a coincidence, but a meaningful one. But what is the meaning???
Example 2:
Uncle has worst car in the universe, a running family joke, they are very rare due to falling apart & from the 1970's. It's not a classic car that gets restored, it's a piece of shit. The person actively looks for those cars, to ask owner if selling for spare parts. Person averages seeing 5 per year early on, as there are less & less around, eventually sees 1 per year. Uncle dies, person sees one per week for 2 months. Google's to see if they're suddenly a classic or a car show or a mass auction or any reason at all, no increase in value, less on the market than usual.
Person actively trying to find reasons for this that makes sense to them, actively refusing to believe it's a sign.
This continues with other losses.
Each time, a highly specific thing, rarely seen or heard, with the person actively already looking for this before person dies. Not suddenly seeing ramdom things frequently-
the number 12 everywhere or alpacas everywhere or ABBA everywhere - person has zero recollection of how often they saw or heard those things previously, has no way to measure, could be the exact same amount before & after & person wouldn't know.
Basically, thoughts in signs from dead people, when actively trying to disprove or reject them, rather than encouraging.
And signs from dead people, when actively looking for them as well.
Or if coincidences are meaningful, what is the meaning? How is it ascribed & by who & without it being "crazy".
Are signs from the dead as likely as the internet & Netflix tells us?
I dunno. I started writing this when I woke up & forgot about & now found & come back to & wish I had better words. Or at least less words..
If too long or annoying or circular or time-consuming, please feel free to ignore. I'm sorry.

 

[neenie]

Sorry everyone for note responding earlier, I was on a very long date

That's cool! Not sure about your position on this. But how has psychology both in academia vs practice changed over the years with rise of for example support for MAID, and other views on suicide in some cultures or countries for example in some instances where they support suicide as long as its well thought out. And also has this changed any bit in some areas on who should be in a psych ward or not? Sorry lot of connected questions. I see a lot of debates in regards to medical doctors, nurses etc. I wonder if same issues are getting complicated in psychology in practice mostly as I know academics sometimes have leeway to be have views or publish ideas that divert from the "mainstream".

I can only speak for the situation in France but here we're taught that suicide is a tragedy and a preventable symptom. I'm assuming that if we were to legalize MAID researchers around the country would be like "well okay better to respect someone's wishes and avoid intensive medication" but would likely i. not condone it for young healthy people and ii. stop supporting such a thing once all diseases can be cured or prevented from affecting quality of life :/

How do you feel about the fact that the profession is unable to help most of us?

I hate that good psychotherapeutic care is so unavailable because of financial reasons, unawareness, shitty psychology legacy (how France still has not ditched psychoanalysis outrages me) and so on :(

Have you encountered anything particularly universal and important, during your studies? Something which really caught your attention, and that anyone ought to learn/study?

I think cross-cultural psychology is really interesting and "humbling" in a way especially for WEIRD people (inhabitants of western, educated, industrialized, rich, democratic countries) who are the most studied and therefore think of themselves as the reference when there's really plenty of ways a human can be functional — I'm thinking a lot about how for example we're taught we have to express unicity and parents are incentivized to educate their children in that way, almost as if it's the only correct way. I agree it's the most functional way to raise your children if you're from an individualist culture but collectivist cultures are doing well and people there are raised to avoid standing out too much :) I'd also say to check out causal attributions (as in internal/external) simply because it helps being more understanding of others

Causal relationships are not mind-experiences. Science has no idea what consciousness is and how it arises or what in nature is conscious or not, let alone able to measure it. Neuroimaging is not mind-reading. A scan of my brain might show that I am thinking about a bird, but it will never be able to tell how my truly individual experience with birds is. That would be telepathy. Psychology is better regarded as an art like literature and philosophy. Like the question, what is a good painting? It can never be measured scientifically. It's subjective, like the conscious experience of an individual human person. It can never be measured. A mind may be more like an emergent property or phenomena, i.e. it's not a separate natural thing and thus cannot be measured, weighed or quantified by itself without something relative and physical to experience it. What color and shape is social anxiety? What does it even matter? I feel severely debilitated by social anxiety even though I don't show many physical symptoms of it. I doubt a "neuroimage" can truly capture the feeling of the severe social anxiety I suffer from.

Exactly. Some have said that due to the replication crisis, psychology is basically at square one. But psychologists have been way too confident for long now. Unfortunately, not that many changes have resulted from learning from the crisis. There is a lot of work to do. They can start by figuring out how consciousness arises.

Consciousness is mainly a topic of cognitive science (neuroscience, philosophy of mind, cognitive psychology, AI...) rather than cognitive psychology alone. Experimental psychology's main concern isn't really qualia, psychology seeks to see whether X thing has an impact on you with your baseline or a control group as a reference. Experimental psychology is extremely rarely about individual experiences, experimenters desperately try to look for a big number of participants to maxx the power of their tests. Psychology is kinda far way from philosophy and I assume your confusion stems from unfamiliarity with psychology methods ; we don't measure the mind as is, and rely on more measures than just self-reported including but not limited to a shit ton of cognitive tasks designed to test management of cognitive conflicts, impulsivity, attentional biases etc... as well as eye-tracking, heart rate / blood pressure, "indirect mesures" like amount of trash left behind, systematic observation, sport performance, there's also plenty of specific task designs for babies based on non-nutritive suction, reaction to impossible events, etc... Once again everything I've mentioned is exactly the same as medicine, medicine researchers don't care about qualia when they report that patients claim they hurt when they break an arm, they mostly try to see which medication is the most efficient and try to assess whether or not they're conscious by flashing a light in the person's eyes — pupils are constricting and you're not screaming from agony? Cool, that's all we need to know, enjoy your morphine qualia however you please, king/queen/monarch. I think you'd be a lot more into philosophy of mind than psychology (which I agree with you is very lit, though I'm not sure it would replicate either )

I hear a lot about stigma and misinformation still being taught so I'm curious your experience with that?

Ehat have you been taught about disorders like Dissociative Identity Disorder (and other complex DDs), cluster B disorders, and also... paraphilias? Can't help the morbid curiousity on the latter due to the split in opinions I see on whether some should even be RECOGNIZED as a mental illness.

Sadly misinformation is spread very easily in a lot of fields due to professors not updating their courses :( A good example in psychology is ego-depletion, which is getting less and less corroborated to say the least but still popular to some extent. I haven't been taught yet about the disorders you mentioned, but though sometimes the professors' vocabulary can be outdated or clumsy they always seem to have their hearts in the right place and try to teach us empathy regarding disordered people :) I've never heard of a psychology faculty mentioning paraphilias in their curriculum, from my perspective that kinda seems to be a psychoanalysis / psychiatric topic. We were taught by a professor that teaching patients about sexual health is important so they don't get hurt or hurt people around them but as long as you're not hurting yourself or anyone else psychologists wouldn't have much to say about erotic furry cosplays or whatever (from a professional standpoint that is). If it goes beyond that and you're suffering from your paraphilia or hurting someone in the process then psychologists will likely try to find a cause (e.g. trauma, autism, schizophrenia, bpd, bipolar disorder, anxiety, unhealthy family environment, addiction.... which can be linked to dangerous sexual practices for different reasons)

EMDR seems to becoming really popular - have you had any good/ bad experiences with it.. or is more of a tool used by psychotherapists and not psychologists ?

Haven't had any experience with it personally, I was taught it's effectively legit but it does spark a lot of debates theory-wise. The tool can be used by whoever goes through training, though going to a psychologist would be safer since they have to be legally registered and therefore you're sure the person is recognized as having studied psychological disorders and normal human functioning a lot and done internships etc :)

I'm very naive about this so, please forgive any stupid/ irrelevant questions to your field...

Do you study the brain itself as an organ or, are your studies more theory based? Do the brains of mentally ill people appear different to 'normal' brains?

Do you think diagnosis of a patient via getting them to describe their symptoms is accurate? That's always troubled me to be honest. In other physical medicine, doctors (hopefully) wouldn't prescribe hard drugs or open a patient up merely based on a complaint of chest pains. It might simply be they have indigestion rather than a heart condition.

But, they'd want to use further diagnostic tools- blood tests, x-rays, ultrasound, ECG's etc. to establish what was really going on. Is this more psychiatry though? Rather than psychology? But, do they have other such methods for diagnosing mental illness? Do brain scans work or, is that considered to be exposing a person to too much unnecessary radiation?

Lastly, may I ask- What do you think 'creates' consciousness? Or rather- self awareness?

None of your questions are stupid thanks for asking them <3

We receive neuroscience, physiology and neuropsychology lessons which is the organic part and also learn some theoritical models (e.g. Baddeley's model of memory). But we also learn about neuroscience theoritical models (e.g. Dehaene's model of human consciousness) and organic psychology stuff (e.g. relation between blood pressure and feeling of threat) so you could say everything is intertwined and we do both :)

Some disorders have visible brain differences (e.g. schizophrenic people have bigger lateral ventricules [which are "holes" in the middle of the brain that contain cerebrospinal fluid]) but some do not alter brain structure (e.g. generalized anxiety disorder). Though if you look on the functional level (neural networks, neurotransmitters that kind of stuff) I would say most disorders would alter the brain but i. it would not last forever in every case and ii. all disorders wouldn't be clearly distinct from each other (for example if you suffer damage to the hippocampus due to excess cortisol I won't know whether you have agoraphobia or social anxiety or GAD and so on)

Which is why psychologists rely on patients' testimonies. Though I agree it's not always accurate which is why anamnesis includes relatives' testimonies, teacher testimonies if the patient is a child, cognitive tasks, family history and patients' medical history... The evidence bundle ends up narrowing a lot and differential diagnosis is made easier.

Biomarkers can serve as a diagnostic tool in specific situations, like neurocognitive disorders (for differential diagnosis given that from an outside perspective they can look similar) or eating disorders (to assess how malnourished the person is and guide them to the best fitting care) but they are both too expensive and not informative enough to use on everyone :)
CT-scans are used to identify foreign objects stuck in the brain or to see blood vessels, they are rarely used in a psychiatric context. (f)MRIs, PET scans and NIRS for example are used in neuroscience research contexts.

If by self-awareness you mean the individual is able to tell they are a unique entity with their own body then I'd say it emerges from repeated sensorial-motor stimulations and communication between the parents and the child since it arises very early!

Any thoughts on synchronicity?
Specifically, in the context of grief.
Even more specifically, as an example:
Someone is an atheist, does not believe in an after life or any spiritual beliefs. Zero. Science & math only. They are not delusional in any way, have no issues with schizophrenia or anything remotely associated. They are aware of frequency illusion & confirmation bias & believe that coincidences are coincidences.
Their mother's favourite song is highly annoying & highly triggering to the person, they can never not be aware of it playing because they hate it so much. It is an obscure song & they have never heard it played in public. They have a difficult relationship with their abusive mother, the abusive mother dies. The person grieves but does not look for signs or believe in their existence. On the 1 year anniversary of their mother's death, they hear this song in public for the first time. And then, elsewhere, a second time. And yet later, a third time. The 3 places are unconnected. The person googles everything to do with the song - did the singer die? Did the publication rights change? The person looks for every possible way to prove to themselves it means nothing, so they are actively looking for an anti-confirmation bias. Nothing. Fast forward 15 years, the person has never heard that song in public again.
It's a coincidence, but a meaningful one. But what is the meaning???
Example 2:
Uncle has worst car in the universe, a running family joke, they are very rare due to falling apart & from the 1970's. It's not a classic car that gets restored, it's a piece of shit. The person actively looks for those cars, to ask owner if selling for spare parts. Person averages seeing 5 per year early on, as there are less & less around, eventually sees 1 per year. Uncle dies, person sees one per week for 2 months. Google's to see if they're suddenly a classic or a car show or a mass auction or any reason at all, no increase in value, less on the market than usual.
Person actively trying to find reasons for this that makes sense to them, actively refusing to believe it's a sign.
This continues with other losses.
Each time, a highly specific thing, rarely seen or heard, with the person actively already looking for this before person dies. Not suddenly seeing ramdom things frequently-
the number 12 everywhere or alpacas everywhere or ABBA everywhere - person has zero recollection of how often they saw or heard those things previously, has no way to measure, could be the exact same amount before & after & person wouldn't know.
Basically, thoughts in signs from dead people, when actively trying to disprove or reject them, rather than encouraging.
And signs from dead people, when actively looking for them as well.
Or if coincidences are meaningful, what is the meaning? How is it ascribed & by who & without it being "crazy".
Are signs from the dead as likely as the internet & Netflix tells us?
I dunno. I started writing this when I woke up & forgot about & now found & come back to & wish I had better words. Or at least less words..
If too long or annoying or circular or time-consuming, please feel free to ignore. I'm sorry.

You're not annoying and psychology would likely explain this by attentional biases (e.g. perceiving some things in the environment you wouldn't otherwise pay attention to) and statistics would explain this by saying out of all the people who are grieving yearly, these coincidences have non null chances to happen — and only the "interesting" griefs will make it to Netflix shows, so we don't hear about them often. If you're looking for spiritual meaning then science is not able to study that and that's up to everyone to believe in the afterlife and signs or not :)

 

[Forever Sleep]

Sorry everyone for note responding earlier, I was on a very long date

I can only speak for the situation in France but here we're taught that suicide is a tragedy and a preventable symptom. I'm assuming that if we were to legalize MAID researchers around the country would be like "well okay better to respect someone's wishes and avoid intensive medication" but would likely i. not condone it for young healthy people and ii. stop supporting such a thing once all diseases can be cured or prevented from affecting quality of life :/


I hate that good psychotherapeutic care is so unavailable because of financial reasons, unawareness, shitty psychology legacy (how France still has not ditched psychoanalysis outrages me) and so on :(


I think cross-cultural psychology is really interesting and "humbling" in a way especially for WEIRD people (inhabitants of western, educated, industrialized, rich, democratic countries) who are the most studied and therefore think of themselves as the reference when there's really plenty of ways a human can be functional — I'm thinking a lot about how for example we're taught we have to express unicity and parents are incentivized to educate their children in that way, almost as if it's the only correct way. I agree it's the most functional way to raise your children if you're from an individualist culture but collectivist cultures are doing well and people there are raised to avoid standing out too much :) I'd also say to check out causal attributions (as in internal/external) simply because it helps being more understanding of others


Consciousness is mainly a topic of cognitive science (neuroscience, philosophy of mind, cognitive psychology, AI...) rather than cognitive psychology alone. Experimental psychology's main concern isn't really qualia, psychology seeks to see whether X thing has an impact on you with your baseline or a control group as a reference. Experimental psychology is extremely rarely about individual experiences, experimenters desperately try to look for a big number of participants to maxx the power of their tests. Psychology is kinda far way from philosophy and I assume your confusion stems from unfamiliarity with psychology methods ; we don't measure the mind as is, and rely on more measures than just self-reported including but not limited to a shit ton of cognitive tasks designed to test management of cognitive conflicts, impulsivity, attentional biases etc... as well as eye-tracking, heart rate / blood pressure, "indirect mesures" like amount of trash left behind, systematic observation, sport performance, there's also plenty of specific task designs for babies based on non-nutritive suction, reaction to impossible events, etc... Once again everything I've mentioned is exactly the same as medicine, medicine researchers don't care about qualia when they report that patients claim they hurt when they break an arm, they mostly try to see which medication is the most efficient and try to assess whether or not they're conscious by flashing a light in the person's eyes — pupils are constricting and you're not screaming from agony? Cool, that's all we need to know, enjoy your morphine qualia however you please, king/queen/monarch. I think you'd be a lot more into philosophy of mind than psychology (which I agree with you is very lit, though I'm not sure it would replicate either )


Sadly misinformation is spread very easily in a lot of fields due to professors not updating their courses :( A good example in psychology is ego-depletion, which is getting less and less corroborated to say the least but still popular to some extent. I haven't been taught yet about the disorders you mentioned, but though sometimes the professors' vocabulary can be outdated or clumsy they always seem to have their hearts in the right place and try to teach us empathy regarding disordered people :) I've never heard of a psychology faculty mentioning paraphilias in their curriculum, from my perspective that kinda seems to be a psychoanalysis / psychiatric topic. We were taught by a professor that teaching patients about sexual health is important so they don't get hurt or hurt people around them but as long as you're not hurting yourself or anyone else psychologists wouldn't have much to say about erotic furry cosplays or whatever (from a professional standpoint that is). If it goes beyond that and you're suffering from your paraphilia or hurting someone in the process then psychologists will likely try to find a cause (e.g. trauma, autism, schizophrenia, bpd, bipolar disorder, anxiety, unhealthy family environment, addiction.... which can be linked to dangerous sexual practices for different reasons)


Haven't had any experience with it personally, I was taught it's effectively legit but it does spark a lot of debates theory-wise. The tool can be used by whoever goes through training, though going to a psychologist would be safer since they have to be legally registered and therefore you're sure the person is recognized as having studied psychological disorders and normal human functioning a lot and done internships etc :)

None of your questions are stupid thanks for asking them <3

We receive neuroscience, physiology and neuropsychology lessons which is the organic part and also learn some theoritical models (e.g. Baddeley's model of memory). But we also learn about neuroscience theoritical models (e.g. Dehaene's model of human consciousness) and organic psychology stuff (e.g. relation between blood pressure and feeling of threat) so you could say everything is intertwined and we do both :)

Some disorders have visible brain differences (e.g. schizophrenic people have bigger lateral ventricules [which are "holes" in the middle of the brain that contain cerebrospinal fluid]) but some do not alter brain structure (e.g. generalized anxiety disorder). Though if you look on the functional level (neural networks, neurotransmitters that kind of stuff) I would say most disorders would alter the brain but i. it would not last forever in every case and ii. all disorders wouldn't be clearly distinct from each other (for example if you suffer damage to the hippocampus due to excess cortisol I won't know whether you have agoraphobia or social anxiety or GAD and so on)

Which is why psychologists rely on patients' testimonies. Though I agree it's not always accurate which is why anamnesis includes relatives' testimonies, teacher testimonies if the patient is a child, cognitive tasks, family history and patients' medical history... The evidence bundle ends up narrowing a lot and differential diagnosis is made easier.

Biomarkers can serve as a diagnostic tool in specific situations, like neurocognitive disorders (for differential diagnosis given that from an outside perspective they can look similar) or eating disorders (to assess how malnourished the person is and guide them to the best fitting care) but they are both too expensive and not informative enough to use on everyone :)
CT-scans are used to identify foreign objects stuck in the brain or to see blood vessels, they are rarely used in a psychiatric context. (f)MRIs, PET scans and NIRS for example are used in neuroscience research contexts.

If by self-awareness you mean the individual is able to tell they are a unique entity with their own body then I'd say it emerges from repeated sensorial-motor stimulations and communication between the parents and the child since it arises very early!

You're not annoying and psychology would likely explain this by attentional biases (e.g. perceiving some things in the environment you wouldn't otherwise pay attention to) and statistics would explain this by saying out of all the people who are grieving yearly, these coincidences have non null chances to happen — and only the "interesting" griefs will make it to Netflix shows, so we don't hear about them often. If you're looking for spiritual meaning then science is not able to study that and that's up to everyone to believe in the afterlife and signs or not :)

Really interesting. Thank you for taking the time to respond.

 

[NormallyNeurotic]

Sadly misinformation is spread very easily in a lot of fields due to professors not updating their courses :( A good example in psychology is ego-depletion, which is getting less and less corroborated to say the least but still popular to some extent. I haven't been taught yet about the disorders you mentioned, but though sometimes the professors' vocabulary can be outdated or clumsy they always seem to have their hearts in the right place and try to teach us empathy regarding disordered people :) I've never heard of a psychology faculty mentioning paraphilias in their curriculum, from my perspective that kinda seems to be a psychoanalysis / psychiatric topic. We were taught by a professor that teaching patients about sexual health is important so they don't get hurt or hurt people around them but as long as you're not hurting yourself or anyone else psychologists wouldn't have much to say about erotic furry cosplays or whatever (from a professional standpoint that is). If it goes beyond that and you're suffering from your paraphilia or hurting someone in the process then psychologists will likely try to find a cause (e.g. trauma, autism, schizophrenia, bpd, bipolar disorder, anxiety, unhealthy family environment, addiction.... which can be linked to dangerous sexual practices for different reasons)

As for the paraphilias, I remember things like pedophilia being in the DSM-5, but I didn't check the DSM-5-TR so maybe they're no longer there.