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13.4
The flaws and dangers of modern psychology
 
   
  A number of serious flaws and dangers exist in the continuing growth and faith in psychological theories that are based on incomplete models.  
  While a theory may purport to provide answers that appear initially to be factually based and solidly supported by experimental data, all psychological axioms are fundamentally flawed as all are based on incomplete assumptions.  
  For a theory to be soundly based, its assumptions must by definition provide a level of completeness and universality. The narrower the conditions, the narrower the application and accuracy of the theory.  
  Making conclusions on unsound judgments  
  One of the most common and flawed practices of modern psychology is the use of surveys and interview techniques to conduct "intelligence testing" and "personality testing".  
  Virtually every single major corporation and organisation on planet Earth now employs psychologists to conduct surveys of its key staff to test their intelligence and personality traits against the requirements of the business and the role.  
  Most new job applicants in developed countries now have to undergo one or more psychological profile tests as part of their application for a new job.  
  The problem with these methods is that they lead to judgments on what is an extremely narrow base on information and pre-set theories.  
  Providing advice and analysis following a school of thought  
  While personality and intelligence testing is one thing, assessing and treating individuals on the basis of the assumed causes of personality disorders is an entirely different and even more dangerous practice.  
  In most developed countries, it is now standard practice to have a psychological profile report taken of a defendant during their trial proceedings. As a result, in the last three decades, the number of cases where the defendant was either ruled not guilty by reason of severe mental illness or having diminished responsibility because of a psychotic episode has steadily risen.  
  "The insanity defence" is seen now as a legitimate course for lawyers to take on behalf of their clients in cases of particular barbarity and depravity. Popular TV shows make much of the perversity of murderers seeming to get off lightly by pleading diminished responsibility because of their mental state.  
  While mental illness is a major contributing factor to crime, there are significant flaws is in concluding just because an individual thinks they are Jesus Christ while they butcher an innocent person they are not cognizant of what is right and what is wrong. There are a handful of controversial theorists (considered heretics by the psychological community) that have argued many serial killers and rapids actually experience a heightened state of cognicense during their evil acts.  
  In other words, not only did they know what they were doing, understand clearly that it was wrong, but they were perfectly lucid and calm to consider the forensic implications of any crime scene. As any normal person would recall, when confronted by a threat or danger, adrenalin starts pumping, breathing and heart speed up and in a few minutes your hands can start to literally shake.  
  There is also controversial evidence to suggest that one condition (The Messiah Syndrome) might be a primal and underlying contributing factor to virtually every major clinical condition of mental illness. If this is eventually proven to be true, then it would represent one of the most important breakthroughs in the treatment of mental illness in human history.  
  The madness of orthodoxy  
  In achieving its ultimate aim to be a respected and recognized science, psychology has now come full circle to represent in many respects the orthodoxy it tried so hard to challenge.  
  In many leading centres of learning around the world, philosophy departments and psychology departments have become like virtual medieval castles of opposing views and debate.  
  So strongly and jealously are traditions and beliefs of these institutions protected that any new idea is either ignored or deliberately set upon to eliminate it as a threat.  
  To "kill" the past, and claim a the new "Godless" ground  
  While claiming "tradition" (orthodoxy) and dubious influential mechanisms as testing as somehow scientific, psychology has gone one step further. It has staked its claim of entrance into the league of science in being the "god killer" of the mind by eliminating all notion of soul.  
  The majority of modern psychologists and psychiatrists approach the mind as a kind of "ghost in the machine", a byproduct of the physical workings of the brain and human body.  
  In particular, dreams have lost their mystical and any reference to supernatural "connection" to the other side to represent outworking's of the machine. Finally, in the works of many of the gods of psychology, the soul is exposed as a fraud, a folk tale, something that has no basis in science.  
  So while the methods of psychology and psychiatry are dubious, its anti-religious credentials cannot be questioned. It is probably on this point more than any other that the esteemed brother and sister sciences of mathematics, physics, chemistry etc reluctantly accepted psychology and psychiatry into their club- for a seeming powerful ally they have in a group so fiercely determined to rid science, awareness, soul and spirituality from the human mind as psychologists and psychiatrists.  
     
 
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