Posted by alexandra_k on November 5, 2004, at 16:02:39
In reply to Re: Psychiatry should be replaced with neurology, posted by Sad Sara on November 5, 2004, at 14:24:23
> Ok, then I understand what you mean too. Though both DSM IV-R and ICD are both used among psychiatrists and psychologist, and a lot of poeple seem to think that because psychologists don't have a medical background they are more a pseudo science than psychiatry. Which at some apsects could be true, and on other aspect could be false.
It is true that both psychiatrists and psychologists use DSM, but the DSM taskforce is comprised of members of the American Psychiatric Association and so it is more psychiatry than psychology. Psychologists get the credit for most of the lovely diagnostic tests, however.
The medication part of psychiatry seems to be closely alligned with medicine. But then things such as activity scheduling and relaxation training are typically taught by psychologists and they clearly have a physiological basis for their effectiveness.
There is controversy over whether psychoanalysis is a 'real science' or a 'pseudo-science'. Half the trouble comes with the difficulty in spelling out just what is distinctive about a 'real science'. Some people maintain that it shouldn't be viewed as a science - it is an art, and I have sympathy with that line.
Cognitive Neuro-psychologists have recently turned to studying individual psychiatric symptoms, such as delusions. Typically in the cases of neurological conditions (cerebral trauma) rather than the sorts of delusions typically found in psychiatric conditions, however. This branch os psychology is very scientific as it attempts to build cognitive models of processes such as belief formation or object recognition, or face recognition and then explains certain deluisons by positing a breakdown in the normal process of belief formation. If we then consider locations of cerebral trauma we can learn about how the cognitive model is realised on the psysical wetware of the brain. In this way we can come to learn the function of different areas. But then, this is scientific psychology.
The boundary between 'real science' and 'pseudo science' is fuzzy.
It always suprises me that psychiatrists do psychodynamic stuff whereas psychologists do CBT. I would have thought that the most 'scientific' pairing would be medication stuff, plus CBT. But, well, there it is.
poster:alexandra_k
thread:411422
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20041105/msgs/412294.html