Rebecca Scott3 said:Do you think patients should actually know what their psychologist’s—or psychiatrist’s—core beliefs are before they commit to therapy?
....I’ve just been sitting here thinking.....how is a therapist with deep-seated patriarchal views ever going to truly grasp the frustrations and the sheer pressure a woman feels—someone who wasn't even raised with those old-school values—when she's dealing with a husband or a boss who lives by them?......
....or how is a psychologist who holds homophobic views supposed to connect with the struggles of a gay man.......or a lesbian?.....
....and then there's the issue of a racist therapist; if a person of color walks into their office, how can that doctor actually understand or help them when they're secretly harboring the belief that they deserve to suffer in the first place?......
....or even an ultra-nationalist therapist... how could they possibly offer real support to someone from a background or a nation that they personally despise or look down upon?.....
.....what's your take on this?.....
.....what kind of information should a client have a right to know about their therapist before they ever step foot in that office?.....
It isn't just about knowing the individual practitioner; one really ought to have a grasp on the state of the entire profession today (which, to put it mildly, is in a state of silent dread).
As for psychiatrists, 99% of what they actually do in terms of 'therapy' basically boils down to prescribing some allopathic treatment (read: drugging people up) and profiling the patient.
Any person who walks through the doors of a psychiatric institution will walk out with a diagnosis, regardless of how "normal" they were to begin with, and in most cases, they'll leave with a prescription to pick up at the local pharmacy...
I remember laughing quite a while ago at a rather 'vivid' group of people who claimed that communism, fascism, and psychiatric institutions are the three greatest enemies of human development and freedom.
We are living in an era where more and more people are admitting they have no clue who they truly are; more people are refusing to define themselves or others through the lens of cultural conditioning, and more people are starting to realize the inherent limitations of applying a purely mathematical approach to psychoanalysis...
In short: 'the profession is clueless' !!
Now, I didn't invent this, nor am I rooting for the field to die, but these are simply the conclusions drawn by a series of scientists who are slowly realizing that you can't be truly proficient in one science if you don't study the inter-correlative disciplines from other fields that seem, on the surface, to be separate.
For instance, it’s difficult to tackle a subject as an objective reality from a philosophical standpoint if that philosopher hasn't integrated insights from recent findings in quantum mechanics or string theory regarding the laws of continuity...
Similarly, a psychologist or psychiatrist often has very little understanding of what occurs during the Epiphany, yet most still cling to the belief that memories reside solely in the brain, and that consciousness is merely a byproduct of chemistry and impulses within a physical organ.
The best psychologists are often those who have forgotten most of the things they were taught at those semi-primitive universities (where most professors stopped engaging in actual research or questioning their own knowledge the moment they received their first paycheck); specifically, those who have personally navigated some of the struggles their patients face, allowing them to offer genuine, friendly advice.
Of everything mentioned above, I would make exceptions for Gestalt, cybernetics, and CBT, as they represent relatively bold and interesting attempts that have actually produced high-quality practitioners dedicated to helping people. Everything else currently being sold (literally) under the banner of 'psychological help' in the West has been reduced to allopathic treatments—heavily saturated by the influence of the pharmaceutical lobby—and it is frankly insulting to any individual who has ever spent more than a few months doing real, active work on themselves.
