So, we’ve got the World Health Organization's standard on what mental health actually looks like...
Then there are all those descriptions of "healthy personalities" floating around in psychology textbooks, which basically serve as the foundation for defining disorders in the first place. It’s such a massive, sweeping topic, honestly... and a really fair question to ask...
Sigmund Freud once offered this pretty simple, yet surprisingly effective definition: A healthy person is someone who is capable of working and loving....
But, I mean, you could argue that’s still way too broad... because, well... how does one "work" or "love," exactly? It's kind of vague, isn't it?
Still, the criteria for personality disorders are laid out pretty clearly—like in the DSM classifications, for instance. The main rule of thumb there is that a specific disorder has to significantly mess with someone's social or professional life, and it has to be a persistent thing over time...
lonegardener said:I actually disagree; if anything, I mostly enjoy your insights. Don't let my aggressive tone fool you into thinking I'm actually a hostile person. I'm more like a dog that barks a lot but never actually bites.😍
Honestly, none of that really gets to me....😁
Whether you like how I think or if I sound a bit intense...
whatever...
as long as we're being constructive, it's all good....🙂
lonegardener said:Look, that was sarcasm. It’s mostly triggered by the fact that whenever I read these descriptions of "personality disorders," I can't think of a single person I know who doesn't check multiple boxes from several different categories at once. Honestly, I see myself in at least five or six of them, ranging from mild to intense.
And so what if you're annoyed that I’m pushing back against the whole concept of a personality "disorder"? Whose personality is so perfectly curated that they feel qualified to judge what counts as "normal" versus "disordered"? What does it even mean to have a "healthy personality"? Doesn't that step right into ethical territory—questions of morality, spirituality, and value systems—all things where there isn't even a global consensus today? So, through what ethical lens is psychology making these judgments? I bet an American Christian would view someone's "mental health" completely differently than a follower of Ayn Rand, wouldn't they? Don't you agree?
you don't really get me (and I don't know this Ayn Rand guy either)...
personality disorders definitely exist... and sure, we can all find bits and pieces of ourselves in any of them... the more varied the mix, the better...😍
It’s just nasty when one or two traits describe us perfectly, and suddenly we're stuck in some psychiatric category...😉
I don't mind people challenging or questioning views—in EVERYTHING, really—but let's do it with arguments, ladies and gentlemen, with actual arguments...🙏
Sandra Parker3 said:There is definitely massive power inside you. The way you think changes a huge amount of things. You can't do everything, but you can do plenty.
It’s nothing to laugh at.
Either way, it's better than writing letters to that World... what a joke. 😁
A little too much Modern literature, dear Sandra Parker3, just a bit too much...😍
lonegardener said:I think we need to be a bit more precise when we define what "exact" actually means.😬
Electrical energy is "exact" because if I run 120 volts through a 100-ohm wire, I can calculate precisely how much that wire will heat up in one minute. It will happen that way every single time, with minimal deviation—and even when deviations occur, we know exactly how and why they happen.
Nothing in the study of behavioral pathology comes anywhere close to being that "exact." To be fair, there are certain chemical imbalances within the brain, as you mentioned, but I wouldn't classify those under psychology in the "strict sense"—that’s more biological. When I read descriptions of various personality disorders, it strikes me that they could actually serve as a decent psychological profile test: seeing what percentage of each disorder a person recognizes in themselves.😬 Based on those percentages, I think you could build a fairly accurate map of someone's psychological makeup.
Psychology can be exact enough that if we truly understand someone's early childhood conditions and their social interactions, we could probably predict with decent certainty what kind of personality structure issues they'll develop later on...
And then, well, how to treat them too...
Also, that whole idea of using percentages to map out a profile is just way too naive... that's not how any of this works.
There are all sorts of combinations of personality disorders, you know? Like, one might be the primary issue while others are just secondary symptoms, and so on...
Man, I really love it when people talk down about things they don't actually understand...
And then they go ahead and try to tell us how to fix science, too... 😍
Or even better: do you think that will actually be a good thing? 😈
What truly unsettles me about all of this is how closely these "psychological phenomena" tie back to deep philosophical—or perhaps even spiritual—questions. It hits on core ethical issues. Doesn't it give you a bit of a chill to wonder where this clinical view of the human psyche is ultimately leading us?
And please, don't just call me paranoid. 🤣
I mean!
I honestly don't know if it'll be misused, but when you consider that so many mental health struggles involve such massive amounts of suffering, why wouldn't this be a good thing?
And besides... this whole obsession with psychology and its supposed "all-knowingness" has turned into such cheap, watered-down pop psychology lately... like, the whole "you can control everything, you can change anything, the power is within you" vibe (as if! 😁 )...
Anyway, you can see from my earlier posts that I haven't exactly been a cheerleader for that mindset, where people think they can just think their way through every single problem... ha! 😍
Gerald Rivera60 said:Let’s take a closer look at the "exact" sciences, shall we? Biology focuses on living organisms, yet we still haven't reached a consensus on what life actually is. For instance, science can't simply manufacture life from scratch. Physics is often just a collection of hypothetical constructs—string theory, parallel universes, extra dimensions... There is an immense amount of guesswork involved there too. To be clear, I have nothing against science itself.
Furthermore, modern research approaches the so-called "soul" through an interdisciplinary lens, such as linking various brain activities to mental processes—take Neuroeconomics, for example. It isn't merely a matter of statistics, though there is plenty of it; statistical models are standard tools used in physics and nearly every other scientific field. ... apologies for going off-topic.
exactly....
but, wouldn't you say that behavioral pathology in certain subjects is actually quite "exact"? it's no less exact than, say, some theoretical concept of electrical energy...😉
So, moving on... neuroses or those issues stemming from personality disorders are actually pretty well understood nowadays. There are real treatments out there too. It’s totally possible to find full recovery, and honestly, a lot of the time, psychotherapy alone does the heavy lifting...
I mean, we could all sit here playing amateur psychologist or leaning on that "intuitive psychology" everyone thinks they have, but let's be real—only a trained professional truly understands the actual mechanisms behind an illness, the structure of a disorder, its etiology, and all that technical stuff. If you end up in the hands of a solid professional and you're actually motivated to fix what's going on with you, you can achieve so much...🙂
lonegardener, just because not every bad thing is purely negative, doesn't mean psychology's push toward becoming a "hard" science with all that precision isn't actually paying off in some ways...
Nowadays, we know that certain mental health struggles aren't just "in someone's head"—they're often just neurotransmitter imbalances. And honestly, treating them with medication to try and level things out is how it's done now... I mean, the brain is such a complex, high-tech organ, right? It’s one of those things where if it decides it doesn't want to cooperate, you can't exactly force it to fix itself—not that we've cracked the perfect formula yet (we really haven't)... so current treatments aren't perfect by any means, but they're still a massive step up from what was available just a few decades ago...
We can sit here and criticize meds, or psychotherapy, or psychiatry all we want, but when things get really heavy, most people are more than happy to reach out for that pharmacological help... and hey, it saves lives, so there's that...
If science keeps moving at this pace, we might eventually get to a point where schizophrenia is managed much like we manage diabetes today—just another biochemical condition to keep in check....☕
rustymaker5 said:Who’s actually making a fool of themselves here? Of course the soul exists... it's just common sense, really. What on earth could have possibly convinced you otherwise?
oh, just ignore her... she’s kind of poking the bear... obviously there's a soul... I mean, come on...🙂
Angela Rogers2 said:I mean, how can you say it doesn't exist? 😉What are you even talking about, Chloe Barnes8? Stop embarrassing yourself. 😁
Baby, I’m gonna have to count this as one of your sillier little provocations... let's just get back to the actual topic, we really need to put that sharp mind of yours to better use...😉 🙂
Alright, whether that was just a random tangent or not, we definitely drifted a little too far off topic. Let's steer things back toward psychology and relationship dynamics...
Look, you guys can't honestly tell me you don't believe, even just a tiny bit, in those stories about people helping folks untangle their love lives. I mean, just look at those lifestyle columns in the magazines... they're full of all sorts of wild stuff. People write in, experts respond... it's pretty wild how much goes on there.
For me, I've always been kind of fascinated by Magda Weltrusky. I think I've been reading her since I was a kid, probably...🤣
Angela Rogers2 said:What do you mean, "soul"? What are you even talking about? I guess you shouldn't let people play you for a fool or try to brainwash you like that. A soul isn't a thing. It's just mental manipulation, really.
I mean, if they haven't already brainwashed you too, then we're talking about some next-level psychological conditioning right here.😁 😁 🤣
Honestly, though, this whole American Psychological Association thing never actually got its hands dirty with military operations, spying, wartime propaganda, economic manipulation, or anything involving the gritty side of the economy... 🤣 🤣
but hey, they sure did a lovely job of claiming ownership over the concept of the soul...
Apemant, honestly, the whole idea of the soul has been kicked out of academic psychology for ages—if it was ever really part of the curriculum to begin with...
Since psychology is always trying so hard to be this exact, hard science, I guess the concept of the soul (which is right there in the name, *psyche*, and should basically be the heart of the field) just started feeling too "old school" for them. So, they swapped it out for stuff like mental processes, personality traits, and all that technical jargon...
They basically handed the soul over to the spiritual side of things. Nowadays, you see these modern movements trying to bridge the gap between psychology and spirituality, especially within Christianity, particularly here in the West among Protestant circles...
I don't know if I can agree with you there, Boyce...
It reminds me of how Jung used to say that avoiding our actual struggles is basically just a fast track to neurosis—it leaves us stuck with this, well, let's call it a "fragile" kind of existence. See the difference?😉
That’s a really good question, though. Is there such a thing as "fake" suffering?
Oh, definitely. Honestly, our culture is just overflowing with it these days... like, the absolute meltdown of a teenager because she’s 55 kilos instead of 50... or the drama from someone who only has a hundred bucks in their pocket instead of two hundred... or just that constant, heavy ache of feeling like we aren't physically or mentally perfect, or being super jealous of people who seem to have it a little easier...
It’s basically what our entire consumerist, ego-driven culture is built on... so yeah, I guess that’s my definition of a "fake" struggle.🤣