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Anyone that I have ever met that wanted to major in Psychology had a screw loose and/or came from a family of weirdos (and this includes my sister and my own family).
My sister has a BS in Psychology, and she’s the most “normal” person in our family - which has its quirks, but we’re not weirdos or anything. She just found the subject interesting, and used it as a springboard for further studies. Randomly, she ended up with a JD but never practiced law; she’s been working in community relations ever since, with a very high-paying job at a tech firm now.
I think these pre employment personality tests that were probably designed by psychologists are part of the problem.
I'm not even sure they were designed by psychologists. The only personality test I've heard of with any scientific credibility is MMPI and it is hours long and has to be administered by a trained professional and its results are only indicative and not considered diagnostically conclusive.
Those tests are complete snake oil marketed to gullible and lazy businesses and HR professionals. As an analytical scientist if I designed a test method as fundamentally flawed and useless as that I would hope I would be criticized and ridiculed by my peers. As a pre-employment selection tool the psychic hotline would be just as if not more useful.
Sounds like the OP got burned by someone and has some rage about it.
I have a BS in Pysch. I am in my mid 40's and manage 2 groups comprising a total of 14 people, and am hiring for another 3 so will be 17 soon (G-d help me!). I am at a well known and prestigious org. that has been rated #1 by US News and World Report for a number of years in a row. I am also an instructor for online classes at an Ivy league school (I live in Boston so guess which one). I did go to grad school for an MBA though so maybe that made me less evil.
My wife is a Clinical Psychologist (PhD) and has her own thriving practice.
So I don't know OP maybe it ain't so bad and is more about who burned you rather than all people who have Psych degrees. Lol.
Best of luck.
I can't say that I have been burned by someone with a psychology degree. I was already dismissive of psychology being a pretty much worthless study of a bunch of intuitive nonsense, much of which is derivative of the discredited psychoanalytical era. What annoys me is that a huge cohort of your profession has brainwashed the populace with their odd beliefs and theories. What angers me is that that cohort has also miseducated people to confuse "mental health" with serious brain health diseases and disorders and is practicing ridiculous, harmful "treatments" like CBT where it is contraindicated.
As it relates to HR, the psychology profession is like an infectious plague on the human resource management profession.
Show me someone who doesn't come from a family of weirdos and I'll show you a rare bird. LOL
One hopes at least those who seek out a deeper understanding are a step ahead of those who think leaving and never looking back is the solution because they usually drag the baggage, unbeknownst to them, right along with them. All the while they wonder what's wrong with everybody else. We all interact with them every day.
I do hold the opinion that all people who go into this line of work should be obligated to maintain their own personal program of mental health because if you aren't crazy before you go into it, working with people in denial will drive you eventually to madness.
Edited to add:
Really you've got to have some empathy for these guys. I was talking to a friend the other day who's been a successful and well-respected psychiatrist for thirty years. He complained to me that his wife's mother was entering dementia and he mentioned the symptoms to her. After they talked she realized it was so and decided to meet with her sisters to discuss future plans. "No," the sisters said, "nothing wrong with Mom."
My friend threw up his hands, nearly speechless except for a helpless murmur, "And I make my living diagnosing dementia." Poor guy doesn't even get any respect in his own family. Sigh.
Just replying to say that psychiatrists are medical doctors, psychologists are not. My post is about the field of psychology.
That said, the psychiatrist credential needs to be abolished and replaced with one that is a subspecialty of neurology. Serious neuropsychiatric illnesses (like Sz and Bipolar etc.) are not psychological disturbances, they are neurological illnesses that psychologists have no darned business treating.
It's true, many of the people whom I know who were messed up kids, who spent a lot of time with psychologists when they were young, went on to study psychology - most of them wound up with "certifications", as opposed to PhDs or PsyDs.
But I've also known people who were fascinated by the study of psychology, or who wanted to help people with mental health issues, or with psychological manifestations of brain damage, deterioration, malformations, etc. These people went on to become PhDs in psychology or PsyDs, and do real clinical psych work, or research. Funny, none of them seem messed up.
The psychologist should stay in their lane and deal with mental health issues and stay far far away from anything neurobiological or having to do with brain damage. But no, because of their lack of insight and odd beliefs about the cause of neuropsychiatric illnesses, they think concern themselves with conditions that do not belong in their domain.
An earlier post referred to some lay person thinking they were as knowledgeable as Freud, Jung, etc - well, they were not quite right. If that lay person was mentally healthy, then they were more competent by a mile than any of those disturbed "psychoanalyst" weirdos. Any psychologist is no smarter about the human mind than a lay person.
I can't say that I have been burned by someone with a psychology degree. I was already dismissive of psychology being a pretty much worthless study of a bunch of intuitive nonsense, much of which is derivative of the discredited psychoanalytical era. What annoys me is that a huge cohort of your profession has brainwashed the populace with their odd beliefs and theories. What angers me is that that cohort has also miseducated people to confuse "mental health" with serious brain health diseases and disorders and is practicing ridiculous, harmful "treatments" like CBT where it is contraindicated.
As it relates to HR, the psychology profession is like an infectious plague on the human resource management profession.
Well, it's not actually my profession but whatev. The populace has been brainwashed by worthless intuitive nonsense? That's quite a trick. Not that I agree with your tin hat belief that we are brainwashed because of the field of psychology. I don't know...seems like a wee bit of a stretch that this worthless field has so much influence.
And I can't understand your anger really. It must be coming from somewhere...perhaps it is your mother? Lol.
I'm not even sure they were designed by psychologists. The only personality test I've heard of with any scientific credibility is MMPI and it is hours long and has to be administered by a trained professional and its results are only indicative and not considered diagnostically conclusive.
Those tests are complete snake oil marketed to gullible and lazy businesses and HR professionals. As an analytical scientist if I designed a test method as fundamentally flawed and useless as that I would hope I would be criticized and ridiculed by my peers. As a pre-employment selection tool the psychic hotline would be just as if not more useful.
Most are designed by psychologists with PhDs and years of experience in psychometric theory. They are actually more well designed than clinical instruments like the MMPI. Clinical PhDs are typically the worst from a quantitative and psychometric expertise perspective.
There are no absolutes. Different people go into different fields for different reasons. Psychology is just one field filled by many types of people.
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