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Old Dec 13, 2014, 11:13 PM
martamiriam martamiriam is offline
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Member Since: Dec 2014
Location: Prescott, AZ
Posts: 59
Quote:
Originally Posted by Sinking Feeling View Post
I was stunned when my pdoc told me psychiatry is not a science! The context of this discussion was me questioning my diagnosis. He said the diagnosis is not important and psychiatry is not a science. Symptoms over lap, there are no real boundires, every thing is subjective to opinions. We should focus on the symptoms and treat the symptoms and not worry about the diagnosis classes as they often change anyway and entirely subjective. Blew me away! I never expected a psychiatrist to say this. But makes sense. So I did some googling on the topic and found this is a highly debated area, meaning it is subjective. I think at best psychiatry tries to mimic science but it is not really a true science at all. There is no way to test, or validate or verify any diagnosis as there is in true science. We only have opinions. So I thought it might be interesting to see where this topic goes here and create a poll. So many of us, me included, get stuck on the diagnosis we over look the bigger picture which still remains fuzzy. So what do you think and why?
I would say as a psychiatric social worker( retired) that it is a pseudoscience...so much is not known, not even the drugs...as with medicine and other disciplines there is an ART to it....the only real HARD SCIENCES are physics and chemistry, astronomy. Even astro physics is as much an art as a science except that if there is math involved that is an absolute but as even TIME AND SPACE are relative according to Einstein and others including Hawking, it is difficult to know where to draw the line....Even traditional medicine is called a PRACTICE and my Da was a physician and used to say ALL THE TIME...EVERYTHING is relative....Nowadays psychiatrists deal mainly with drugs and leave the counselors to do therapy....so who knows? It is still better than in the 70's and even 80's when I was a social worker at a major state facility in Oshkosh, WI.....