Is psychiatry a psuedoscience?

[nilecroc]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-psychiatry#Psychiatry_as_pseudoscience_and_failed_enterprise
Anyone agree?

[MrBogosity]

We've had threads on this before. Here's one: https://www.bogosity.tv/forum/index.php?topic=1361

But I could have sworn there was one that was longer. Anyone remember what it was?

[Ibrahim90]

We've had threads on this before. Here's one: https://www.bogosity.tv/forum/index.php?topic=1361

But I could have sworn there was one that was longer. Anyone remember what it was?

I think you mean this one:

https://www.bogosity.tv/forum/index.php?topic=2093.msg19814#msg19814

I was going to link it as a reply anyways, since what was said on Psychology can be said for Psychiatry.

[Travis Retriever]

I was going to link it as a reply anyways, since what was said on Psychology can be said for Psychiatry.

Which one of those deals with making drugs to help combat mental illness? (e.g. Lithium for folks with Bi-polar)?  Or is that Neuroscience?

[MrBogosity]

Which one of those deals with making drugs to help combat mental illness? (e.g. Lithium for folks with Bi-polar)?  Or is that Neuroscience?

Psychiatry is generally the drugs. Psychologists can't prescribe drugs.

[nilecroc]

Which one of those deals with making drugs to help combat mental illness? (e.g. Lithium for folks with Bi-polar)?  Or is that Neuroscience?

It seems that the only difference between the two is what they can do by law.

[Travis Retriever]

Psychiatry is generally the drugs. Psychologists can't prescribe drugs.

I ask because I've had far better experience with the former than the latter.  I never understood the hatred psychiatric drugs get.

[dallen68]

In the sense that Psychiatrists follow the scientific method while doing research, it is a real science. However, since a lot of data relies on perception, rather than something that's actually measurable, it is not a "hard" science.

Also, clinical Psychiatry is somewhat different than research Psychiatry.

[Ibrahim90]

Which one of those deals with making drugs to help combat mental illness? (e.g. Lithium for folks with Bi-polar)?  Or is that Neuroscience?

It isn't about psychiatry (the thread I linked), but what it says there is about what I have to say for psychology: it relies on the external expression of the brain's activities, rather than a hard and fast measurement of the brain itself (as in Neuroscience). So in this case, giving lithium to a bi-polar is said to help them. this can be tested, but its efficacy (as far as we can tell) is measured by the effect on visible expressions of mental health (i.e. behavior). So it is a real enough science, but it isn't as hard and fast as it is in, say, physics (as Dallen pointed out just now).

Also, now that I realize it, I think someone here posted another thread, one talking about Stefan Molyneux's opinion on the matter. Can't find it though.