PhD/PsyD Falling out of love with psychology, any help?

[NeuroDroid]

Hey all, I found this wonderful thread: http://forums.studentdoctor.net/threads/clinical-psychologists-how-did-you-know.903892/

I'm incredibly surprised at how many clinical psychologists don't enjoy therapy that much. I'm on my junior year of undergrad and I've been falling out of love with psychology. Mainly because my University glorifies Freud and Lacan and I don't particularly enjoy or believe in most of their ideas. (Though they're somewhat interesting) I'm not enjoying learning psychotherapy and it's making me feel like maybe clinical psych isn't for me. Maybe it's the way I'm being taught.. It feels very philosophical and unscientific. It's gotten to the point where I've started to believe psychology is a pseudoscience but I know it isn't true. Can any of you suggest any authors I can read? Do any of you clinical psychologists not enjoy psychotherapy? So far the only author I've enjoyed reading is Alexander Luria. I feel like my University is stuck in the past. I mean, I hadn't even heard of CBT in class...

(Also, happy new years everyone!)

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[smalltownpsych]

My undergrad psychology experience was mainly political and emphasized diversity to the point of ridiculousness. I did learn a few good things in the midst of it, but I missed a lot of education about what psychology really was about. Several instructors were great, especially my research methods prof, but many were sort of out there. Most of the psych majors had no real interest in psychology. It was a frustrating experience. Who is Lacan anyway? Never heard of him. I love psychotherapy myself so can't help you much there other than to say that what I do is nothing like Freud's classical analysis. A quickly growing field in psychology is neuropsychology and given your interest in Luria maybe that is more the direction you should end up heading. Also, my own psychotherapy practice is informed by the neurobiology of attachment and principles of learning such as reinforcement, avoidance conditioning, extinction, etc. It's pretty scientific stuff and it works.

 

[WisNeuro]

Lacan was a very controversial psychoanalyst. He liked to bring obscure scientific principles into his ideas without really using them in the right way. Chomsky called him a charlatan.

Anyway, for what it's worth, most student's experience in undergraduate psychology coursework is nowhere near the experience they get in graduate level coursework. That being said, you may still want to get a broader sense of psychology and some exposure to the empirically based stuff. Are there any neuroscience instructors at your university? Or, somewhere else you could get some exposure and/or research experience in the field?

 

[smalltownpsych]

Lacan was a very controversial psychoanalyst. He liked to bring obscure scientific principles into his ideas without really using them in the right way. Chomsky called him a charlatan.

Anyway, for what it's worth, most student's experience in undergraduate psychology coursework is nowhere near the experience they get in graduate level coursework. That being said, you may still want to get a broader sense of psychology and some exposure to the empirically based stuff. Are there any neuroscience instructors at your university? Or, somewhere else you could get some exposure and/or research experience in the field?

Well I'll take Chomsky's word for it. I like some of what I have read from him and actually have some interest psycholingusitics. If he was so controversial, I am surprised I never heard of him. Maybe I just don't like French psychoanalysts, I can barely tolerate the Austrian ones.

 

[MCParent]

Can any of you suggest any authors I can read? Do any of you clinical psychologists not enjoy psychotherapy?

You've only gotten to read Freud and Lacen in your undergrad program?? That is unusual. If you have a feeling that what you've been reading is unscientific, good--that stuff is.

Albert Ellis is a blast to read. Szasz's work is good for a very different take on things. Linehan. George Kelly. Greenberg. Just to rattle off a few off the top of my head. Many journal articles about therapy and outcome studies are also, I have found, really nice to just read for fun, too.

I'm a faculty counseling psychologist. I love doing therapy, especially as (a) I have much, much greater control over the types of patients I will be seeing, as opposed to during training where I saw a very broad range of concerns, and (b) I don't have to do much of it; I am essentially doing it for fun and to keep the skills up, the pay is just a little on top of what my actual job pays.

 

[Fan_of_Meehl]

Hey all, I found this wonderful thread: http://forums.studentdoctor.net/threads/clinical-psychologists-how-did-you-know.903892/

I'm incredibly surprised at how many clinical psychologists don't enjoy therapy that much. I'm on my junior year of undergrad and I've been falling out of love with psychology. Mainly because my University glorifies Freud and Lacan and I don't particularly enjoy or believe in most of their ideas. (Though they're somewhat interesting) I'm not enjoying learning psychotherapy and it's making me feel like maybe clinical psych isn't for me. Maybe it's the way I'm being taught.. It feels very philosophical and unscientific. It's gotten to the point where I've started to believe psychology is a pseudoscience but I know it isn't true. Can any of you suggest any authors I can read? Do any of you clinical psychologists not enjoy psychotherapy? So far the only author I've enjoyed reading is Alexander Luria. I feel like my University is stuck in the past. I mean, I hadn't even heard of CBT in class...

(Also, happy new years everyone!)

1) check out Scott Lilienfeld, Paul Meehl, Richard McNally, Jacob Cohen, for example (and you might even want to read some good ol' B.F. Skinner), as authors (just off the top of my head). I find that these authors have an implicit grasp of the philosophy of science and how it can be effectively applied to try to better understand psychological issues/topics

2) as far as schools of psychotherapy, the behavioral (behavior-analytic) and cognitive-behavioral schools are more mainstream I would say in modern professional psychology and present a real contrast to Freud and Lacan

3) I second the notion of another poster who said that undergraduate instruction in psychology bears very little resemblance to graduate (especially doctoral-level) level psychological training

 

[Fan_of_Meehl]

Hey all, I found this wonderful thread: http://forums.studentdoctor.net/threads/clinical-psychologists-how-did-you-know.903892/

I'm incredibly surprised at how many clinical psychologists don't enjoy therapy that much. I'm on my junior year of undergrad and I've been falling out of love with psychology. Mainly because my University glorifies Freud and Lacan and I don't particularly enjoy or believe in most of their ideas. (Though they're somewhat interesting) I'm not enjoying learning psychotherapy and it's making me feel like maybe clinical psych isn't for me. Maybe it's the way I'm being taught.. It feels very philosophical and unscientific. It's gotten to the point where I've started to believe psychology is a pseudoscience but I know it isn't true. Can any of you suggest any authors I can read? Do any of you clinical psychologists not enjoy psychotherapy? So far the only author I've enjoyed reading is Alexander Luria. I feel like my University is stuck in the past. I mean, I hadn't even heard of CBT in class...

(Also, happy new years everyone!)

I think you would find the attached article from a recent issue of Behavior Research and Therapy very interesting...

 

[NeuroDroid]

Lacan was a very controversial psychoanalyst. He liked to bring obscure scientific principles into his ideas without really using them in the right way. Chomsky called him a charlatan

Haha! I didn't know that. This is the side they don't tell me in class. It's just that this semester alone I had two professors who were Lacanian psychoanalysts so they focused their teaching a lot on that. (my entire theory of personality was basically Freud and Lacan crap)

You've only gotten to read Freud and Lacen in your undergrad program?? That is unusual. If you have a feeling that what you've been reading is unscientific, good--that stuff is.

I've read more, but I've just read a lot of those two. I've read Piaget, Vygotsky, Luria, Agamben (not a psychologist), Shapiro, Sasz, etc. But none of the ones you suggested. I'm guessing it has to do with the area. Every time North American psychology is mentioned in class it has a rather negative connotation for wanting to make everything scientific. (my psychopathology professor was criticizing the use of mice to explain how the human mind works) So yeah, needless to say... I don't agree a lot with my professors

Thanks everyone for all the suggestions!! It's nice to hear it changes in grad school.