Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[LegoLord]

Actually, you don't cure madness just by talking.  It can be done, but it's fairly complicated.  Few stress-induced psychological problems are cured by medication, too.

Calling psychology a pseudoscience is fairly inaccurate.  They do in fact perform extensive tests and studies on how the human mind works in general.  They've found that the same basic personalities simply repeat thousands of times across the human population, with only slight differences in the individuals from the template personality.

[Neonivek]

"Actually, you don't cure madness just by talking."

That belief came about I believe after one of the World Wars where Psychology was reduced to "The Talking cure"

You can cure Madness by just talking... but to reduce all psychology to "Talking" is like reducing all medicine to a Syringe

[Pilsu]

Actually, you don't cure madness just by talking.  It can be done, but it's fairly complicated.

You can't cure madness. At all

Calling psychology a pseudoscience is fairly inaccurate.

They do in fact perform extensive tests and studies on how the human mind works in general.

I'd roll my eyes but I'm afraid I'd do it so hard they'd pop out of their sockets

[LegoLord]

You can't cure madness. At all

I'd roll my eyes but I'm afraid I'd do it so hard they'd pop out of their sockets

Stop it. Just stop now, while this is still nothing like "Furniture & Crafts Realism."  I'm out of here.

[Pilsu]

If curing mental illnesses was to be featured, I'd expect it to be based on something. Not just tacked on so the player can conveniently cure any dwarves he deems useful and circumventing the mechanic entirely

Admittedly my reaction was somewhat rude but I rather dislike when people call a completely unverifiable field a "science." It's not completely intellectually bankrupt like homeopathy but I would expect people to study it for 5 minutes before insisting that therapy works. The support it gets tends to rely solely on authority appeal


Then there's the question of whether you can smuggle something like that past the 1400s limit

[RavingManiac]

If curing mental illnesses was to be featured, I'd expect it to be based on something. Not just tacked on so the player can conveniently cure any dwarves he deems useful and circumventing the mechanic entirely

Admittedly my reaction was somewhat rude but I rather dislike when people call a completely unverifiable field a "science." It's not completely intellectually bankrupt like homeopathy but I would expect people to study it for 5 minutes before insisting that therapy works. The support it gets tends to rely solely on authority appeal


Then there's the question of whether you can smuggle something like that past the 1400s limit

My father works as a psychiatrist and he mostly helps with stuff like drug addiction, schizophrenia and so on. He cannot actually 'cure' his patients with brain development problems(i.e.autism), but the medicine he prescribes them and the therapy helps to suppress the symptoms. If the mental illness is treatable, like OCD, then a combination of therapy and medicine does indeed cure the patient.

That said, I doubt that psychiatrists have any place in DF, considering that the profession is fairly recent. Melachonic or beserk dwarves, however, should have a slim chance to recover by themselves given enough time.

[Pilsu]

If the mental illness is treatable, like OCD, then a combination of therapy and medicine does indeed cure the patient.

"Cure" would imply it's no longer there. Unfortunately, suppressing is all psychiatry does. Even then I could seriously question whether it has anything to do with psychiatry itself when you pump the patients full of mind affecting drugs on the behest of the drug industry

Melachonic or beserk dwarves, however, should have a slim chance to recover by themselves given enough time.

Melancholy, sure, with the help of friends. When you get to the point you start killing people with an axe indiscriminately, you're probably not gonna get better. Even if you do, dwarves support the death penalty

Them eating, drinking and picking up new equipment would be great though. All kinds of useful and fun applications

[Neonivek]

"I doubt that psychiatrists have any place in DF, considering that the profession is fairly recent."

Very Recent... In this time they believed that the only way to make people sane was to Scare them sane and mistreat them until they force themselves to become sane. This of course has the very pleasant effect of actually making people either more insane... or if they weren't insane before... Go insane. You weren't expected to ever leave.

Though the NOT unpleasant form of attempting to make people sane was faith healers. (mind you... I don't know a lot about them... but I figure a bit of abuse and unknown chemicals can't be

Those are the two official applicable methods of treating insanity that I am aware of. The other was to simply leave them alone...

Unfortunately, suppressing is all psychiatry does. Even then I could seriously question whether it has anything to do with psychiatry itself when you pump the patients full of mind affecting drugs on the behest of the drug industry

That isn't exactly true. The issue is that Psychiatry is only supposed to be one step of the process to becoming mentally well. When you get patients and a family unwilling to actually take the steps needed then it becomes a near hopeless battle. Add in a toxic environment and it is hopeless.

Mind you... Yes there are Psychiatrists out there who pretty much play the cash game. There are also some who want to do more but who really can't do anything. You can't really force someone to break up with their obviously horrible girlfriend... all you can do is make him feel a bit better so that he has the strength to perhaps do it.
-There are forms of Psychiatry that are "Tough love" but you have to actually go out and find them. They arn't as popular.

You need to stop these blanket statements on Psychology. There is no doubt it works and it exists. The problems your recalling is Current Western Psychology (Well alright... Psychotherapy) and not Psychology as a whole.

[Granite26]

ya'll are on the road to CAUSE madness by talking...

[Neonivek]

ya'll are on the road to CAUSE madness by talking...

Interestingly when Phones were first introduced for mass consumption... Insanity rates skyrocketed (though it could be that insanity was reported more)

[Granite26]

That, and a stricter definition of normal variation (You're now sick, rather than just wierd)