Psychology
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“Total cures render all doctors obsolete. Except for Psychologists, because no one has found a cure for the universe yet.”
“There will be no blaming Mother today, Freud, I just screwed her.”
Psychology (meaning "study of the mind" in Greek) is apparently a scientific study of behavior and the dirty stuff that goes on in peoples minds. Also, everything leads to it. It was invented on October 16th 1854 by Jean Martin Charcot, Sigmund Freud's instructor. Since the dawn of time, humanity has wondered about the essential nature of human consciousness but has often been distracted by television and the temptation to fornicate with young, attractive men. Psychology helps us seek answers to questions such as, “What makes Catholic school uniforms so sexy?” or “Why would someone waste their time reading utter nonsense on the Internet?”
Modern psychology derives from several strands of science and philosophy, including alienism, hypnosis, neuroanatomy, and navel-gazing.
The Religious Philosophic Roots of Psychology[edit]
Originally, states of consciousness were thought to be caused by a force called animal magnetism, first discovered as a universal "force" through the pioneering work of Franz Mesmer, a gifted mutant with electro-magnetic powers he developed for use as an entertaining circus act involving mind controlling elephants, acrobats, strongmen, clowns and the time honored tradition of the traveling crazy people show. While under this mesmeric spell, audience members could be convinced they were somewhere else or to perform a ridiculous action, drawing in massive crowds. From these amusing demonstrations, circus attending nerds desperate to get laid such as Sigmund Freud deduced that human consciousness was all about the nookie and developed a training program for the mind, having failed to hone his body to get girls, through practicing the dynamic tension and physical culture of circus strongmen like Charles Atlas.
Metaphysics has often wondered about the true nature of consciousness. Attempts to discover the seat of reason have often confronted the problem of the homunculus, the observer who observes what is observed. As a result, psychologists are often very paranoid. The homunculus, after all, could be watching you, right now--whatever it may be. Indeed, modern psychologists like Dr. Carl Rogers have postulated the homunculus plays a central role in pointing out that licensed psychologists are often as incompetent as their unlicensed brethren, clearly demonstrating the role of thinking in false reasoning.
It wasn't until around 1934 that psychology became legally emancipated from philosophy and moved out, going through a rebellious phase where is distanced itself by dressing in all white like scientists, which like most youths who hate their parents, was ironically exactly what philosophy had done back in ancient Greece. In the early part of the 20th century, American researchers such as Skinner and Watson attempted to make psychology a more scientific discipline. Naturally, this failed.
Rebooted origin story and retcons[edit]
“Well normally when a group calls all gay people insane, we consider them a hate group, but that would technically place all psychologists that were part of the APA before 1970 in the same category as Nazis the KKK, and by that same logic we should really include the signers of the Constitution of the United States for agreeing to the Three-Fifths Compromise, so, umm...yeah.”
Like any superheroes, psychologists have a convoluted origin story that doesn't appeal to modern audiences, so it's had to been updated several times throughout the centuries to make it more palatable and so that it won't get bogged down with the continuity issues that plague religion. Unfortunately, much like comic books, this had almost the opposite effect as no one is really sure when psychology begins anymore and fans argue over what's canon. Many just pick and choose the parts they like while ignoring the less good parts like Drapetomania and hysteria. Before Wilhelm Wundt psychologists didn't actually work out of their own studios, giving them an underground Robert Crumb indie aesthetic to their work, before psychology got all corporate and mainstream and sold out. By 1892, the American Psychological Association had formed, unifying the many isolated psychological storylines and forging them into a single super group.
Lawyers used to allow their pets, psychologists, a lot more freedom, letting run freely down the street, but nowadays keep them on a short legal leash. See back in the turn of the 20th century, Sigmund Freud renowned feminist and creator of Wonder Woman even operated a sexual "clinic" that administered medicinal orgies to teach women to be Love Leaders™, however in an attempt to rid himself of his most savage impulses he invented a potion in his psychological laboratory that accidentally brought out his most free base instincts, creating a split personality Bad Sigmund, AKA Mr. Freud and nearly killed a patient by cauterizing her nose with cocaine before realizing burning holes through people with drugs was a waste of perfectly good drugs. Mr. Freud was soon living the medically credentialed gangster lifestyle, the kingpin of crime and mind, snorting an entire tables worth at a time giving Mr. Freud incredible Hulk like strength. However Dr. Freud's famous sense of egalitarian feminism and super human ability to talk his wife and mistress into a three way secret marriage and the occasional medical orgy was quickly replaced by a Tony Montana like understanding of what makes women tick, and insatiable appetite for drugs until his untimely death falling from a clock tower to destroy the chemically created creature within him. For as any psychiatrist will tell you, bad decisions can be blamed almost entirely on what chemicals and genes made up of chemicals you have inside of you.
Psychology continued to develop as a science without him though as in the 50's and 60's psychologists became known for administering electro shock, thorazine and lobotomies for anyone who had an annoying relative they wanted shipped off to an insane asylum to rot in crazy people jail. Mostly it was women who were sent to the funny farm and went under the knife to become better wives; it's really too bad Zack Snyder wasn't alive back then, because he would have loved it. JFK felt kind of bad that hid dad had chunks of his sister Rosemary's prefrontal cortex removed in the 40's and he was about to create local outpatient facilities that would be subject to community oversight, when a piece of his own brain soon went missing. LBJ wanted to honor his predecessors memory and all that, but he had his hands full already with civil rights and lying about Vietnam so he shelved his predecessors dying wish and decided just to slash the mental health budget to keep the brain loving beatniks happy and spend it on more bombs for Cambodia instead, a win win for everyone. By the 1970's, gay people got kind of tired of being called insane by their doctors and they finally got the seal of approval from the APA.
Nowadays no one takes either of the Freud's seriously, laughing at his coked up neanderthal idea that religion is a neurosis, except for those godless commies who embraced it. Soviet psychologists also made great advances in the science of schizophrenia, realizing that if you expect to criticize Stalin and live, you must be crazy, terming it Sluggish schizophrenia. The World Health Organization thought it was kind of odd that schizophrenia rates were so much higher in Russia, but it soon became apparent what fools the rest of the world were as Sputnik launched; Russia really had no desire to be the first to land on the moon as they weren't lunatics.
Branches of Psychology[edit]
Reverse Psychology (A.K.A. Ygolohcysp)[edit]
Don't read this article. Actually, never go to Uncyclopedia again. In fact, never go on the internet. It's scientifically proven to be bad for you. You'll probably be better off never looking at anything else vaguely funny for the rest of your life. Go play ball. Outside, where the sun will give you cancer.
Social Psychology[edit]
Social Psychology is a branch of experimental psychology that attempts to develop important jargon to explain to other psychologists concepts that are obvious to the average non-social psychologist, focusing on questions such as, "Why fat girls date less?", "How did Hitler manage to convert so many Germans into blind, brainless followers? To answer these very important questions for humanity, social psychologists survey white middle-class freshman college students taking Psychology 101. Students who refuse to cooperate with social psychologists receive a no passing grade. Other psychologists, feeling bad for them, having been the fat girl at one time, and needing freshman college students for their own important research, have promoted the tenure of social psychologists.
Developmental Psychology[edit]
Developmental Psychology is a branch of experimental psychology that deals with questions such as, "Why are babies heads so freaking big?", "Why am I gay?" and "Why me?". To answer these questions, developmental psychologists provide daycare services and then secretly experiment with the children (just like Piaget did with his own children).[citation not needed]
Cognitive Psychology[edit]
Cognitive Psychology is all about the thoughts that drive behavior. Cognitions are how people acquire, store and use information. Very few people really care about what cognitive psychologists do. Cognitive psychologists ask questions such as, "How long does it take for a person to decide whether a series of letters is a meaningful word or a bunch of crap?", "What is the capacity of short-term memory?", "Why are people so stupid?", and "I told you already, I'm not interested in dating you, just get the hell out of my apartment, why can't you understand that?". Because they cannot actually see into the human mind most of cognitive psychology is probably all a load of made up dung.
Counseling Psychology[edit]
Counseling Psychology is the branch of psychology aimed at helping people by being especially mediocre at everything the other branches of psychology do. Counseling psychologists role is to critically judge the other fields, through well formed assessments designed to detect their level of anti-multicultural judgment. Occasionally counseling psychologists show up for a research project only to discover a patient (OUCH! Client) hiding in a room, and give career assessments for 50 minutes until she/he/it goes away.
Abnormal Psychology[edit]
Abnormal Psychology is a branch of applied psychology that focuses on two questions: "Why do I read Uncyclopedia?" and "Why did we elect so many republicans during the 20th century?".
It also takes an in depth look at why anyone thought Sarah Palin was (or is) qualified to be anything but a decorative nutcracker.
Self Psychology[edit]
Self Psychology is a branch of psychology that deals with myself, yourself, self-esteem, self-awareness, self-efficacy, self-help, self-denial and self-loathing. Pretty much any word or phrase that includes the word "self" qualifies as the purvue of these psychologists who have generally failed to get good enough grades to work in the other branches of psychology. They will claim, however, it is their selflessness that qualifies them to go on and on and on about "the self". A sub-branch of self psychology, that which has spawned the seminal work "The Self of the Elf" by Peter North, is a virtually useless development outside of the North Pole series of self-pleasure inducing DVDs.
Psychoanalysis[edit]
Psychoanalysis is a branch of applied psychology that derives not from metaphysical inquiry, but from the science of medicine. Naturally, the focus of psychoanalysis is analyzing Psychos. Current medical research has tended to support some elements of the theory that it’s all about the nookie. Psychoanalysis continues to be practiced in Manhattan, Paris, Zurich, and other major guilt-manufacturing centers around the world. Psychoanalysts like to sleep with their patients. As a consequence, psychoanalysis is a discipline of many illegitimate children.
Radical Behaviorism[edit]
Radical Behaviorism is a branch of study that rejects mentalism and rational thinking. That is, radical behaviorists believe that the experience of consciousness cannot be studied scientifically, but can be approached only by altering it with drugs. Thus, radical behaviorists tend to engage in behavior rather than thinking. They often engage in radical behavior, such as skating, body modification, and aggressive behavior toward authority figures. Radical behaviorists also use drugs.
Cognitive Science[edit]
Cognitive Science is a variety of pseudoscience that treats the human mind as something like a computer. As a consequence, they are always blaming it for their research projects failing to meet deadlines. Cognitive scientists often believe that simply adding more RAM to the human mind will help improve its performance. However, the scientific evidence clearly shows that overall circuit bandwidth is the true limiting factor. You can get a degree in Cognitive Science, but then, you can get a degree in Communications, too. What kind of job are you going to get with a degree like that?
American Psychology[edit]
In America, Psychology now functions as a way for psychologists to become richer by telling rich people who have nothing better to do that it's okay for them to be rich (provided they continue to pay exorbitant sums for this treatment) and that they still love their mothers. Psychologists must, as part of their recurring license renewals, seek their own treatment by other psychologists. These professional courtesies are expected to be done without cost to either party which raises the question why would anyone pay for treatment that the practitioner themself wouldn't pay for.
Forensic Psychology[edit]
Forensic Psychology is the science of finding out why the hell you did not notice that damn bit of lip-gloss on your collar before coming home to your wife - and why she did not totally freak out but smiled rather disconcertingly.
"Grow Up, Ya Pansy"-style Psychology[edit]
“I wholeheartedly support the teaching of this to children. The world needs more Vs, and it's high time that human children stopped being wusses and started getting involved in local destruction."”
Often practiced "In Vitro" (in day-to-day life), this branch of Psychology mostly deals with rational and irrational fears. Even poorly trained doctors can succeed with this. Take for example, a man with a debilitating fear of drowning. The doctor will take the man out to sea, and throw him overboard. When the patient reacts negatively, he is instructed to "Grow up" and "Stop being a pansy", and a myriad other carefully selected and taught words of encouragement.
There is about a 50% success rate, often dependent on how good the patient is at taking jokes, or how well stocked his/her underwear drawer is. There are still many studies pending on why the process fails as much as it succeeds. Some experts blame the Placebo effect. This is occasionally called "aversion" therapy by amateurs, but this is only a term used by people who want to sound smarter than they actually are.
Parapsychology[edit]
Parapsychology is the scientific study of ESP. Parapsychologists like to study phenomena such as telekinesis, mind-reading, teleportation, and synaesthesia. Most parapsychologists play Dungeons & Dragons; the rest are out having sex with actual elves and aliens. Real psychologists go to parties, edit Wikpedia articles, and get laid drubbing parapsychology as a pseudoscience, hoping to be issued by real scientists, in reward for their snide, with a white lab-coat and clip-board, upon which they can solemnly write about the Darwinian basis of penis-envy, and how spreading activation between "cogitons" is the mechanism of remembering.
K-PAXian Psychology[edit]
This is a mildly controversial branch of the Science, although all reported cases seem to be extremely successful. It is a relatively small branch, and very limited in its documentation. It all started when a man named prot travelled to New York City and was mistaken for a mental patient, when he was in fact an alien working on a report about Earth. To a few of the patients, he offered the chance to return to his home planet of K-PAX. The promise of leaving Earth seemed to help cure many of them, and a few other required mildly inane tasks.
The concern is that many of these "tasks" were a somewhat unethical, but still an effective cure. One of prot's cases reportedly attempted to strangle another patient with an extreme fear of disease and pathogens. The upshot of the attempt was that the latter patient realized that anything could kill him. This patient supposedly removed his face mask then and there, and was released shortly after; he died in a squirrel suiting accident a few years later.
There are only a handful of cases on record, and many doctors refuse to make the "I'll take you to another planet if you get better" cure, as they really can't deliver it. The result is that K-PAXian Psychology is now a dying breed, and it has slipped into the realm of Alternative Medicine. Notably, it is the only form of psychotherapy that Scientologists are allowed to practice.
Self-Help Books[edit]
According to this theory, it is possible to help oneself by reading several books. Books exist on many topics ranging from believing in yourself to making money to "penis" enlargement. Whether or not penii exist entirely depends on which Jungian archetype constitutes your Lacanian mirror imagine of Althusser's ISA, stemming from Derrida's traces and utterly vanishing in the wake of Freud's Oedipus, which asserts that your mother owns your "penis", but not your penis proper. It may be the other way around. The most popular books are those about believing in yourself because you have a lot of money. The authors of these books become insanely rich, and the clear solution to both problems addressed (as is mentioned in the appendix of each), you should write your own books.
Current Trends in Psychology[edit]
What do you think the current trends in psychology are?
And how does that make you feel?
That's perfectly understandable.
Criticism[edit]
“You don't know the history of psychology. I do! I've done the research!”
“Meditation and deep breathing doesn't work all that well when your house is on fire and filled with smoke you know, sometimes being afraid is the correct instinctual response.”
Psychology was founded on the principle of unfalsifiability, in general, any given psychological theory can explain any observed behavior with some accuracy, however psychologists are pretty much incapable of objectively proving even the most basic of conventional wisdoms that most people take as for granted as no one breaking the laws of physics; maxims like: cocaine feels really, really good, while making love to a garbage disposal feels considerably less so, which, if true, (a big if) perhaps explains the absence of garbage disposal safe sex awareness campaigns and the lack of debate on the issue from both the left and the right on the potential epidemic of impressionable teens having sex with blenders because their friends dared them to and or it looked fun. This is called the Dodo bird verdict, from the book by the pederastic Charles Dodgson, better known to the world as William Shakespeare. As a result, psychology is well prepared for the challenges of the 21st century. Tom Cruise is rumored to know Jack Shit about psychology or it's history; he is, however, stupid enough to be brainwashed and bankrupted at the hands of his religion, Scientology. It is expected that he will need counseling when Scientology finally collapses, assuming Scientology doesn't just purchase the APA.
Nowadays the APA has a much more lax attitude than it used to, largely in part from being effectively neutered by their lawyer owners. Where once the Comic Code would have prevented showing even Nazi's from getting a graphic depiction of their face being pumped full of lead, now they don't care about first person shooters and violence in the media at all, with all questions being redirected to their answering machine that states, "The science isn't in right now, please leave a message at the emotionless monotone." According to the APA, fictional shooting sprees have absolutely nothing to do with reality. Nor do Japanese cartoons featuring technicolor haired baby porn in anyway contribute to actual pedophilia, or you not having a girlfriend; in fact they are so certain, there are currently 0 psychological studies on it, even by the JPA. [Citation not needed at all; thank you very much] In modern continuity, the APA's motto is, "It's all good man!" as long as you're not actively trying to kill yourself or others, and you consent during it, unless of coarse that's your job as a soldier or one of those doctors who does assisted suicide. It also apparently doesn't matter which therapy you take, because they're all equally effective, and the definition of therapy is murky as ink blots.
The replication rate for psychology studies is in more a state of crisis than even the DC universe, around one in three as psychologists still struggle to prove much of anything conclusively, leading many to question their credibility, even the NIH only gives psychotherapy trials 5.4% of their budget. This includes whether torturing someone is actually psychologically detrimental in anyway, with pretty much the only finding that's near universally accepted and that no one is going to argue with you on the scientific validity of is that molesting children is bad, it's the only time every sitting US senator has agreed on anything and shut down scientific inquiry, though with Roy Moore even that could change. New psychological theories and therapies have different rules than pharmaceuticals and new surgical procedures. Where as new drugs must first be approved for testing on humans by filing a New drug application, and can take from 12-18 years to reach the phase IV stage, clinical psychological trials lack such stipulations and psychologists can just improvise new therapies and put them out on the market, and are legally allowed to give pretty much whatever advice to their patients they want as long as it's not a food or a drug or telling them to commit crimes.