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[–][deleted] 6 insightful - 1 fun6 insightful - 0 fun7 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

Psychology is a social "science" that desperately wants to be a physical science with a pretty horrible history to that fact.

[–]OrneryStruggle 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

To be fair most contemporary psychology research is actually biology research, and involves stuff like staining brain slices, genetically engineering rats to have cancer to measure their hormone levels, etc.

But the woo-woo "personality psychology" and clinical psych fields are... a mess. Anything to do with the DSM in particular is politicking all the way through.

[–][deleted] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

Anything to do with the DSM in particular is politicking all the way through.

I mean, the DSM is a money-making business, so we shouldn't be surprised, but society seems to consider it some infallible bible of mental states.

[–]OrneryStruggle 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I think a lot of younger people who are "interested in psychology" grow up loving the DSM because it is like a book about video game character types, like the DnD chaotic evil/lawful neutral types and a lot of confused teens love that sort of cut-and-dry sorting of people/personalities into bins that explain their behaviour. And when so many of the people who are interested in psychology have psychological problems themselves, a lot of the people most interested in the DSM are also those to whom it most applies.

Obviously for the people WRITING the DSM, it is a money-making business, and many of the people on DSM committees even admit that the process is highly flawed and unscientific, but try telling someone who has treated it like a bible since they were 13.