Sandra King4 said:Offtopic: (I was going to send you a DM, but since you’re the one who kicked this thread off, I figured you’re probably keeping a close eye on it anyway) Look, Zoltan and Morgan are great, but this part right here absolutely floored me: "Beppo reacted the only way a real soldier can in a situation like that: he told the army, the state, the anthem, and the flag to go straight to hell, tossed his rifle as far as he could, and bolted in the opposite direction." By the way, is there any way to fix those weird accent marks on your site? They’re driving me crazy. To be honest, I don't read much—work keeps me way too busy, you know how it is... 🙂—but I am actually going to make an effort to dive into your posts. Hand on heart, I haven't been this captivated by someone's writing style in ages. If I recall correctly, the last time I felt this way was reading Chuck Palahniuk. Ugh, I shouldn't have said that out loud; now you'll get an ego, then comes the ego trip, then the creative block... Anyway, you're definitely worth a read.
And no, I'm not buying the book. I don't buy books. The reason is simple: I move apartments pretty often, and I really can't be bothered hauling around pounds of extra luggage. Plus, the last time I tried, I ended up losing my entire collection of Erica Jong. But if we ever cross paths, drinks are on me. Good luck with everything.
Well, thank you so much for the kind words... as for the website, I suppose I just forget it even exists 😂 I believe the site is about six years old, and the whole situation involving Morgan has been going on for at least ten. When I originally set the page up, those specific accented characters worked fine... perhaps some technical standards have shifted since then? 🤷
I'm really not sure... I just took a look, and it seems those characters aren't rendering correctly. I imagine I could probably resolve it, but I don't quite recall my login credentials for that site anymore 🤣
hiddenhound3 said:Indeed, paranoia is never actually grounded in reality.🙂
I suppose so... but then again, you could have a paranoia where you worry your own relatives might try to poison you over an inheritance... which might be totally unjustified, yet still feels like a grounded fear.
Then there's the paranoia that people—like lizard people—are spying on you using electromagnetic waves. 😲
Or even the idea that some secret society is INTENTIONALLY poisoning us through jet contrails. 😲
feralhound55 said:Can a non-colleague weigh in here?
If I were to explain this without getting bogged down in medical jargon—since I lack the degree—I’d call it a refusal to take ownership of one's own life. It’s just easier to believe someone else is pulling the strings, making them the scapegoat for everything you do (or don't) do. It reminds me of how some parents act—taking credit for every little win their kid has, while blaming the child for any mistake by saying, "I didn't teach them that." Blindly believing in fate is basically the same thing.
So, not exactly a clinical disorder... more like just refusing to grow up. Is our non-colleague off base here? Or am I about to learn something new?
Personally, I find that mindset 😱 impossible. I could never live thinking I have no control over my own choices, or that my luck depends on anyone else.
Well, that might actually be possible. 🤷 If I actually knew the answer, I suppose I wouldn't be asking the question in the first place.
I have stepped away from my professional field for a little while, so I am reaching out to my colleagues for some guidance.
I have been noticing a specific symptom appearing quite frequently in people lately, and I am somewhat unsure whether I should classify it under paranoid schizophrenia or if it perhaps falls into a different category altogether.
Specifically, I am referring to a tendency toward believing in various conspiracies.
It seems to involve individuals who are prone to accepting almost any vague claim they encounter in a book or online, provided that the information suggests we are victims of some sort of global conspiracy.
The pathology often becomes apparent because the individual doesn't just subscribe to a single theory, but rather accepts them all en masse.
Examples within this category might include: secret societies controlling the world, extraterrestrials managing certain governments, human-reptilian hybrids living deep underground, the so-called chemtrails supposedly poisoning us, clandestine military experiments like DARPA, conspiracies by dishonest historians seeking to hide alternative truths about human evolution, or various apocalyptic scenarios foretold by ancient civilizations, and so on.
How would we go about diagnosing this, colleagues?
redharbor9 said:What kind of seminars are we talking about here? Presenting them as "normal"? I don't see how that actually does anything... honestly, that kind of old-school education is pretty pointless...
I sat through one seminar once where they told us, "As psychologists, you have to tell people homosexuality is normal, and then they'll just accept it." What an absurd joke. Logic doesn't work when prejudice hits the emotional side of things—it blocks everything. Besides, those techniques don't even stick long-term...
And at the end of the day... when I think about the group that jumped me on the street yesterday while I was walking home from the grocery store (around 7 PM)... I think the only thing that would teach them a lesson is having laws as strict as they have in China...
Yes, that’s actually what some women from Lori mentioned during a seminar organized by a university counseling center. I suppose some clients might accept something just because a psychologist tells them so, but those numbers seem too small to really influence an entire population. In my opinion, television is probably a more effective medium for shifting public perception than psychologists are.
redharbor9 said:What kind of seminars are we talking about here? Presenting them as "normal"? I don't see how that actually does anything... honestly, that kind of old-school education is pretty pointless...
I sat through one seminar once where they told us, "As psychologists, you have to tell people homosexuality is normal, and then they'll just accept it." What an absurd joke. Logic doesn't work when prejudice hits the emotional side of things—it blocks everything. Besides, those techniques don't even stick long-term...
And at the end of the day... when I think about the group that jumped me on the street yesterday while I was walking home from the grocery store (around 7 PM)... I think the only thing that would teach them a lesson is having laws as strict as they have in China...
Well... if you are working in therapy or studying parapsychological phenomena, maybe. But if you were into bodybuilding or full-contact combat sports... perhaps you might actually manage to escape. 🤷
redharbor9, I suppose that could actually be turned into quite an advantage. For instance:
"Oh, I have to tell you... I really should see a therapist... but I'm honestly a little scared" "What exactly are you afraid of?" "Well, I don't know... I feel like they might try to hypnotize me, and then I'd be completely under their control... what if they take advantage of me?" "Gosh, I know someone... he's a wonderful guy, and you really don't need to worry because he's gay!" "Oh, that's great, I think I'd feel much safer with him!"
James Allen6 said:I find myself largely in agreement with the original poster (though I am not particularly fond of that specific TV show). From what I have observed, nearly all gay individuals I know grew up in households where certain fundamental elements were missing—perhaps they were raised by a single parent, or maybe there was significant friction between their parents. I would not go so far as to call it a disease, though I suppose one could view it as some type of disorder. I don't hold any animosity toward gay people (except, perhaps, for those who feel the need to be exhibitionists in public), but I suspect only they truly understand the circumstances that led them here. To suggest that being gay and being straight are identical is, I think, a bit of a delusion, as nature seems to indicate something quite different. That said, I genuinely want everyone to find happiness, even if that path involves a same-sex relationship. However, I believe people should recognize and accept their own uniqueness rather than treating sexual orientation as an interchangeable choice. After all, we aren't animals; I guess what draws us to others is primarily an emotional connection rather than just a sexual one.
There is quite a bit written here that I find myself disagreeing with, but this specific point feels particularly unconvincing to me.🤣
The court’s reasoning was actually quite clear: an individual has the right to display whatever symbols they choose, SUBJECT TO CERTAIN SPECIFIC EXCEPTIONS.
Nazi symbols fall under those specific exceptions. So, I guess it doesn't make much sense to compare them to any other types of symbols. Quite simply, the rules just don't apply the same way. That's all there is to it.
Jeffrey White3 said:😲 Dammit! You really should have mentioned that BEFORE I signed up for my degree!
I mean, honestly... 🙄 😵
Besides, a relatively small percentage of people who graduate with a psychology degree actually do what the general public assumes they do—"helping" people or practicing therapy. Depending on their interests, plenty of people go into research, data analysis, organizational psychology, cognitive studies... The profession isn't just clinical psychology, and certainly, not every psychologist is a therapist, counselor, or "helper."
That is correct. I suppose those specific roles tend to attract people who aren't particularly drawn to the more rigorous scientific aspects of the discipline.😛
Anonymous said:This is something I’ve been wrestling with for a long time. I think the answer is both yes and no.
If you're looking strictly at the statistics, then sure, it counts. But if we're diving deep into psychology—specifically Analytical Psychology—it doesn't quite qualify as a pure science. As far as I know, things like dreams and visions haven't gained official scientific recognition yet.
It’s strange, though, considering how much they actually contribute to mental health.
Carl Jung was almost like a shaman—blending medicine, psychology, mythology, and even extrasensory stuff... but I won't go there.
One thing I am curious about, though, is psychological testing. There is no way these tests can be 100% accurate; honestly, they aren't even 70% reliable because a human being isn't a machine where you can just plug in specific measurements and parameters. So, should we even trust these tests or base any kind of statistical data on them?
In math, 2+2 always equals 4. If you tried to apply that same logic to psychology, 2+2 could be 3, or 10, or 9, or 7.8, or 10,000... anything goes.
Come on, let's get a real discussion going. Give me some explanations.
👍
Based on what Bradley Fisher20 is saying, Carl Jung would never have been considered a psychologist in the modern sense. Psychology is defined as a science, "unlike theology," whereas Carl Jung inextricably linked psychology to the human Soul, the Spirit, and our inherent need or dependency on the Divine—essentially religion.
That seems correct. In today's climate, Jung likely wouldn't be accepted as a psychologist at all, and I suspect the same might apply to Freud.
One has to realize that modern psychology doesn't really have much in common with the subjects those two were actually exploring BACK THEN.
I believe I saw a statistical report come out last year suggesting that the percentage of heterosexual individuals living with HIV had actually surpassed the percentage among homosexual individuals for the first time. Unfortunately, I can't quite recall the specific source, I think I just caught a news headline about it.