Thoughts on the Study of Thoughts

By Lillian Lu on October 18, 2012

“There is a price that comes with being in the educated elite,” my professor began one summer day. We had been two weeks into the Psychology course, happily learning about neurotransmitters, and were caught off-guard by the sudden gravity of the discussion. “There are things one loses when one obtains a PhD, and I want you all to remember, especially if you go on to grad school, especially if you’re studying Psychology, that your patients are people. Do not lose sight of that.”

The advice had sounded silly at first. Of course patients are people! After all, that is why I wanted to become a psychologist: to counsel people and put smiles on their faces.

Over the past few months, I have had time, however, to see the probity in and truly appreciate my professor’s words. Physicians and psychologists aside, when it comes to illnesses of the impalpable kind, there is, very sadly, still a lack of sensitivity.

I have overheard classmates, in response to a suicide that hit close to home, say, “That was selfish,” or, “They didn’t need to prove a point,” or even, “That was a crazy thing to do.”

Photo source: Flickr user Karanvir Singh Sangha

These remarks point to several stark misconceptions about psychological conditions. First, these remarks imply that matters regarding depression are entirely a person’s own doing. Second, they oversimplify psychological conditions, dismissing them as a symptom of colloquial “crazy.” Third, they distance the speakers from the people suffering from the illness, and remove the sufferers from what they, above all, are: human beings.

But, just as any other illness, depression should not be attributed to one sole aspect of one person’s life, or blamed on one person (namely, the sufferer). Our minds are intersections of many roads, so it is difficult to say which road–or that a single road–is the one that leads to illness.

If it is easy for peers to forget this, then it must be doubly easy for those who study human thought as a science to do so. Periodically throughout my Psych course, we had to memorize which chemical mishap was associated with which mental disease, and which drug could treat which symptom. Studying all of this became a process of mental shortcuts and mnemonics, and it became frighteningly easy to relate to the infamous physicians our professor spoke of who did the same when diagnosing patients.

From what I gathered, young children are now frequently prescribed antipsychotics for behavior that is often listed as a symptom of a disease–instead of being treated for actual diseases they may (or may not!) have. For example, if a child throws a tantrum, he or she is diagnosed as having bipolar disorder and given the drugs for it. If the same child later shows nervousness about going to school, he or she is further diagnosed as having anxiety. And the cycle wears on. This perfunctory way of prescribing drugs has been known to cause, over time, additional physical ticks and side effects, which are then treated with additional antipsychotics.

While I cannot radically change the misconceptions of my peers or the preconceptions of the medical world overnight, I can start by changing my own conceptions. We mustn’t forget that what we are dealing with is not chemicals, ultimately, but a person’s mind, emotions, and life. Science and humanity needn’t be mutually exclusive. Knowledge should not be used to make mental shortcuts, but should be used to inspire true, profound thought and, most importantly, understanding.

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