[puddingforears]

I’m still here as a direct product of treatment by induced seizures by electroshock. After finishing treatment, it’s as if the toxic narrator of my life has vanished from my life and I’m suddenly just here, myself. But it’s just pseudoscience and I would have done better to read some decent literature.

[Cthulhu_]

My girlfriend has had EMDR therapy that resolved her responses to triggers (similar to panic attacks? I'm not sure how to describe it) from C-PTSD, but it's just pseudoscience and she would have done better to read some decent literature.

[luffapi]

1. Neuroscience is not psychology.

2. Electroshock “therapy” is not neuroscience.

[caddemon]

ECT was certainly way over applied back in the day, but it's made a bit of a comeback in recent years for treating severe depression. In the sense that clinical trials are science, it's definitely science. It's true we don't really understand why it works, but you could say the same thing about a number of drugs for treating psychiatric disease, and I doubt you would say those are not science. Here is a FAQ about ECT from Hopkins: https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/psychiatry/specialty_areas/b...

[rusk]

1. Yes it is, or at least was. It’s a branch of psychology that developed into a science its own right. Just as physics was once “natural philosophy”. Epistemologically however neuroscience does still fall under the umbrella term of psychology.

[luffapi]

That’s like saying alchemy is science because chemistry developed from it. If it has no reproducibility, it’s not science it’s speculation.

[rusk]

No it’s not and this comparison is facetious. Nobody practices alchemy as a mainstream science in 2021.

There are plenty of people doing astrology for instance but in a clinical setting? In funded university programs? Producing papers that can be openly challenged? I don’t think so. Again facetious.

[luffapi]

That’s not a meaningful metric. Plenty of people doing astrology in 2021. That doesn’t make it real.

[disgruntledphd2]

Can you provide a definition of psychology then please?

I'm hesitant to try my skills at one that doesn't map somewhere to neuroscience.

[luffapi]

It’s the study of the “mind” (not brain). It’s very basis is the study of a pseudo-religious phenomenon. Neuroscience is real science because it studies the brain not the artificial and archaic concept of the mind.

There can be personal value in studying psychology. It’s just not science, it’s fictional.

[dash2]

How does this critique apply, e.g. to Jonathan Haidt's work on moral foundations? Or, if you want something more rigorous, to prospect theory and other decision theorists' attempts to build simple tractable models of decision-making?

[disgruntledphd2]

> It’s the study of the “mind” (not brain). It’s very basis is the study of a pseudo-religious phenomenon

So you don't believe in the existence of qualia?

That's a pretty strong philosophical position.

[staticman2]

I don't think a single book on that list discusses electroshock therapy. I think it could be both true that electroshock therapy works and psychology can be a pseudoscience.