Psychology is interesting, but psychologists...err not so much. I find it odd how some people pay to confide in psychologists when they can just go to their family members or friends if they have them.
Psychology is interesting, but psychologists...err not so much. I find it odd how some people pay to confide in psychologists when they can just go to their family members or friends if they have them.
I took Sociology for GCSE, and I really enjoy it. As I adore any subject that is English-based so has lots of essay-writing, I adore Sociology. My teacher really sucks though, she's a teacher from sixth form, who specializes in Psychology. Sociology is really really hard, too, the exam boundaries at GCSE are insanely high and the exam is ludicrously hard. (aswell as being 2 hours and 30 minutes long, the longest exam out of all of the other GCSE subjects). After my mock GCSE, I got a B (80+%) and my teacher handed me back my paper saying 'Here's another one who wrote a story' as I wrote 7 pages, front and back xD
I'm really interested in Psychology after taking Sociology for two years, and I've chosen it as a subject to take at AS Level at College, so I'll have to see how that goes. I was also interested in taking Sociology further from GCSE, into College, but it's all the same topics OVER AGAIN. I don't fancy learning about crime and deviance, poverty and the welfare state, families.. etc AGAIN (but in more detail). I'd just get so bored, so I'm leaving Sociology after GCSE.
Shiny: Sometimes it's helpful to talk to a neutral person. While there are friends and family there, sometimes it's a nice change to talk to someone who doesn't know your friends or family and is solely interested in you and isn't likely to pass judgement. Friends and family have a vested interested in you and your interactions with others; counsellors and the like don't.
Not my words Carol, the words of Top Gear magazine.
friends and family don't have degrees in figuring out how people's minds work and they're usually a part of the happenings and have an inherent bias (whether it's seen as beneficial to the patient or not) in their reactions.
Originally Posted by Miriel
Um. What?
Psychology - The study of the individual mind
Sociology - The study of individuals in relation to groups, societies, inter-personal dynamics.
Sociology has nothing to do with denying the idea of free will (nor is the main point of Psychology to promote the idea of free will). Sociology has everything to do with taking the basics of Psychology (brain development, behavior, personalities, etc) and applying it to real world social situations.
Example. My University's Psych department offers a class on Abnormal Psychology which deals with abnormal behavior and psychopathology. Our Soc department offers a class on Deviant Behavior which takes people who are deviant either by relative societal standards or suffering from mental disorders and see how they function, integrate, and relate to societies, communities, families. Get it?
My sociology class mainly focused on the Nurture aspect of human growth and developement and rarely if never focused on genetics as a factor (unless we were' discussing ethnic minorities). It focused on how society affects the individual and believe me when you look at the research it was terribly depressing. I'm bad with names, but the experiment involving authority and obediance, which used two test subjects (one being an actor in on the experiment) doing the shock treatment is not my idea of human beings showing the strength of their personal moral beliefs but rather proof that the vast majority are sheep.
True beauty exists in things that last only for a moment.
Current Mood: And it's been a long December and there's reason to believe. Maybe this year will be better than the last. I can't remember all the times I tried to tell myself. To hold on to these moments as they pass...
It's not always easy to talk to a family member or friend about the issue though. I would know.
Psychology fascinates me. It's definitely one of my possible career choices, along with cello performance, law, writing, and marine biology.
I took a psychology class my freshman year and it pretty much killed my interest in the subject. For one thing, my professor was a terrible lecturer and extremely boring. And, much as I'd like to be intelligent and know all about the functioning of the brain, when it comes down to studying I have little drive to obtain said knowledge.
You and me are very alike Rye. I sometimes wish I was a psychologist who could play the piano. I want to be Frasier Crane.
Astrology > Psychology
But for serious, Psychology is very interesting to me! I'm taking Psych I and II next year (imma be a sophmore), and I hear it's a really cool class! I think I have a natural knack for psychology (or at least a good intuition). I wouldn't really pursue it as a career though! Too much work! xD
That experiment you're describing is more psychology than sociology. Sociologists do not often do experimental testing. Sociology research is based much more on ethnographic or observational and statistical research. The experiment you're describing with testing a person's willingness to administer electric shocks to another person is a psychological lab experiment, not a sociological one. There are lots of psychological laboratory experiments like that one. Such as the Stanford Prison Experiment which dealt with obedience and authority and is very much an example of a classic psychological experiment.
I know they were both originally Psychology experiments but I feel the results of both the Shock Treatment experiment and the Stanford Prison Experiment spoke more on a social level than just psychological, hence the reason I studied it in both courses. Oddly enough, even though it is a psychological experiment; my sociology class was the one that went more in depth with the experiments than my psych classes did. The point of the Shock treatment experiment was to prove that German were more biologically inclined to follow orders than other nations (its a stupid premise but Psychology was still fairly new in the sciences and it was after WWII) and in the experiment they realized it was a purely social and psychological inclination for humans to follow authority figures not just a remote genetic factor.
It doesn't matter really cause sociology and psychology do tend to blend together due to common themes. I never held enough interest in sociology to go farther than the secondary introductory level my college had; my interest was far more in psychology and philosophy by that point. From the sound of it, I made the right choice cause god knows I hate statistics and ethnographs.
True beauty exists in things that last only for a moment.
Current Mood: And it's been a long December and there's reason to believe. Maybe this year will be better than the last. I can't remember all the times I tried to tell myself. To hold on to these moments as they pass...
I took psychology at A-level and failed spectacularly. It wasn't all bad though, my year 12 teacher was austrailian and her accent made us laugh when she said certain phrases, like caregiver. As for my year 13 teacher, she was damn fine. I'd have tapped that. In fact, I blame my failure on her for being so distracting that I couldn't learn
The messenger is standing at the gate
Ready to let go
Ready for the crush
Too late for whispers
Too late for the blush
The past is mercy
When the future is aglow
It's not the same thing. I have an OCD and I know I couldn't tell my mother what's happening in my head because well, she wouldn't understand, probably get the wrong idea about the situation, and react in some way that would make the situation worse. I love her, but she is a very straight-minded person... she doesn't create herself any problem like those I have and I envy her for that, but it means also that she doesn't know what it's like to have a psychological problem because... well, she never had one.
People have the common misconception that you only go to a psychologist to pay so you can have someone listen while you talk about your problems, while you could have a family member or a friend do the same thing for free. That's not true. If a psychologist only does that, it means either that he's not the kind of professional you need, or that you don't really need a therapy.
My psychologist not only gave me clever answers and explained what I had to do to feel better, but also gave me exercises to do at home and stuff - and they worked. She also put me in touch with a psychiastrist or a neurologist, which is someone who has a Medicine degree, so they could give me the appropriate medication, something she couldn't do because she was no physician. Also, she wasn't a Freudian. According to her, Freudians push too much on the reasons of a problem, but that doesn't means automatically solving it.
i have yet to meet a psychologist i really liked and felt comfortable with.since i am bpd i tend to have unstable relationships with people like that, so it's surprising i held onto a psychiatrist for 6 years.
so i have been trying to really research psychiatry for my own benefit to help myself understand myself better. since borderline personality disorder is the boundary between neuroses and psychoses it's just hard to deal with without medication AND a therapist.
but the reason i couldn't major in psychology is because of my bpd. i could never work so close with people and have relationships like that with them and expect them to be stable or something. i don't know.
I know, right? xD Plus the photography aspect.You and me are very alike Rye. I sometimes wish I was a psychologist who could play the piano. I want to be Frasier Crane.
As for the talk to friends and family, I honestly could not talk to my family about my current problems. They have no idea that I suffer really bad bouts of depression every few weeks, and that I'm so unhappy with myself. They would laugh and tell me to get over myself. They would not take it seriously, or even try to understand, because they're in the practice of "if you ignore a problem long enough, it goes away." The few times they've seen me utterly crushed about how I see my body and crying, they've actually YELLED at me. So yeah. xD
I talk to my friends a lot about it, though, and it helps valuably, but I really need more than that. The majority of them tell me that I should see a therapist when I can. I probably will one day, when I'm braver.
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote
