THE LUCK OF THE DRAW SAYS 1 in 4 of YOU WILL….

We modern humans are living a game of chance every single day. You might be having a great day teaching your little sister how to play Black Jack, but who knows what’s in store for you? In fact, statistics tell us 1 in 4 of you reading this will at some point this year be diagnosed and treated for a psychiatric ‘illness’ or ‘disorder.’ If you don’t play your cards right, you may be one of the diagnosed.

Let me ask you this. Have you ever heard a satisfactory and clear definition for what a psychiatric illness or disorder is?

My guess is no. This is because psychology deals strictly in non-evidenced based, vague, and loosely defined concepts and ideas to define its list of psychiatric illnesses. Most psychological definitions start with a disclaimer that says, we don’t really know how to define this term, but here is our best guess. For example, take the concept of personality, the basis for everything psychologists do. Here is the psychological definition of personality:

Well, bad example. There is no working definition for personality. And yes, you read correctly, the science of the human personality has no idea what a personality is, nor does it have a mutually agreed upon or shared working definition for what a human personality is. Psychologists have built an entire science on top of a biological entity they’ve never stopped to define or at the very least to decide upon an interim definition to share uniformly.

Let’s instead take the concept of emotion for our example of a typical kind of term as defined by psychologists. Here is only one of many typical definitions you will find for emotion if you open any psychological textbook or go to any psychological website or look it up in any kind of medical or regular dictionary.

Emotion: “Most people have little problem recognizing and identifying when we are having an emotion. However, emotion is one of the most difficult concepts in Psychology to define. In fact, emotion is such a difficult concept to define adequately that there are at least 90 different definitions of emotions in the scientific literature. A simple definition of emotion is that it is a response by a whole organism, involving (1) physical arousal, (2) expressive behaviors, and (3) conscious experience.” (Read more:http://www.alleydog.com/glossary/definition.php?term=Emotion#ixzz3bwJRbfsc)

My least favorite part of this definition of emotion is that it is considered to be a scientific definition and is applied as such. My second least favorite part is how the term conscious experience is used in the definition when nobody has ever conclusively defined consciousness or conscious experience. My third least favorite part is how nonchalantly psychologists admit they have 90 different definitions for the concept of emotion and how totally fine they are with using the term as if it had a singular shared definition. You might say they are in denial about the chaotic state of affairs their field is in.

Here is my least favorite part about all psychological terms and their definitions. Psychologists use these open-ended, vague, and scientifically unverified terms as the basis for why and how they diagnose, treat, and often drug their clients, many of whom are children as young as 2 and 3 years of age. Psychiatrists and psychologists have no clue what a personality or an emotion really is, but they are quite certain when these entities are in a state of disorder or illness. This makes no logical sense.

Psychologists can literally, and I use that term literally, manipulate their foundational concepts however they want because all concepts are vague, non-evidence based, and each concept has somewhere in the neighborhood of 90 different definitions to choose from.

This is why if you went to 90 different psychologists with a single problem, you would receive 90 different diagnoses, 90 different treatment plans, and potentially 90 different drug prescriptions. This is also why psychological practices generate so many contradictions and controversies. It is also very likely the reason 1 in 4 people suffer from psychiatric illnesses every year according to experts in the field.

Similarly, if you have 25 different teachers from preschool through graduate school, each teacher will have interacted with you in confusingly different ways. Teachers are taught vague psychological theories replete with vague terms and definitions and told to apply them in the classroom definitively. Since psychological terms, definitions, and theories are so wide open, sloppy, and vague, no two teachers are capable of interpreting them the same let alone applying them the same. The result, no consistency from teacher to teacher in our educational system.

Of crucial importance to the human brain is to be able to consistently and successfully predict how to maintain control of its interactions in all its various environments. When a student has no idea how to predict how all of his various teacher will interact with and respond to him, it sets him up for anxiety and suboptimal learning experiences.

A coherent biological theory of personality, able to be interpreted uniformly by all teachers regardless of their personality types or their students’ personality types, I am convinced, will solve many of our nagging and intractable educational and mental health problems.

Unfortunately, it is hard to bring reform to the field of psychology because there are no checks and balances and no way to pin anything on it. A psychologist can win any argument when there are at least 90 definitions for any given term. Psychologists can cherry pick the definition that suits their purpose.

We are currently at the mercy of this diagnostic and drug happy field. I am not completely against drugs when they are conclusively the best possible option. When drugs are such an easy option, however, and there are no checks and balances on the psychiatrists who prescribe them, our schools become a pipeline to those drugs. In my 30 years as an educator I have learned about hundreds if not thousands of educational adaptations to try in order to help a child learn the information set before him in school. When a child does not learn after the first few adaptations, a trip to the psychiatrist is quickly recommended all too often. Drugs are almost sure to follow unless the parent has a strong aversion to them. The child has no say in whether or not he receives a drug.

To their credit, many psychologists and psychiatrists are working around the clock to decrease the recent explosion of drug happy psychologists and psychiatrists from over-prescribing to ever younger children. The problem is, the field of psychology is so open ended and sloppy, neither teachers or therapists can apply its theories to produce consistent and reliable results. There is no way to hold psychology accountable to itself. When 1 in 4 people have psychiatric illnesses every year, something is terribly amiss.

What we need is a citizen’s coup.

Step one of our citizen’s coup: Round up 15 psychologists and 15 psychiatrists and make them each teach a class of 1st graders for one week’s time. I guarantee as we are taking them out on stretchers at the end of the week it will become clear they have no idea how to understand and interpret human behavior.

How do I know this for sure?

I am a teacher and the psychological theories I have been given to put into practical application for managing student behaviors are not only sub-optimal; they cause harm to the developing brain.

Psychology is the only science that applies its theories in the field without having scientifically verified them first. And they are the only science that allows its practitioners to cherry pick their favorite theories to work with. There are 8 theories of personality psychologists are invited to choose from according to their own personal preferences. They are also free to make up their own. Is it just me or does this seem nuts?

Because psychologists share no mutually agreed upon theories of personality, when you go to a psychologists or psychiatrist, you rely upon the luck of the draw for how they will perceive you, interact with you, and potentially diagnose and treat you. If you relocate, there is no way your new therapist will interact with you in an even remotely similar way to your previous therapist. Sometimes therapists are quite helpful, sometimes they are not. This odd inconsistency among therapists has become so normal we don’t think to question it any more.

Can we replace our existing sloppy and disorganized psychological theories with biological theories that show, as brain researcher Jeff Hawkins points out, that human intelligence is not a function of our human behaviors. Can we develop a biological theory of personality that will give each human jurisdiction over his or her own behaviors? Can we develop a biological theory of personality that will eliminate the fear of potentially having one’s thoughts and behaviors diagnosed as disordered?

Can we eliminate psychological theories that force people to make sense of their own thoughts and biological cues in ways that make sense to an observer or a standard instead of in ways that make sense to their own sensory, motor, and nervous systems?

Can we eliminate psychological theories that when put into practice actually cause the anxiety that psychologists then must treat?

YES, YES, and YES.

Psychologists and psychiatrists, all caring people, inherited a jumble of non-evidenced based assumptions they were taught to be the science of the human personality. Psychologists and psychiatrists are as vulnerable to the damaging and outdated concepts and theories as everyone else.

Existing psychological theories miss the forest for the trees and cause us to understand ourselves and others in damaging ways. We can do better. We can do a lot better! And we will…

Step one is to define the human personality, the human brain, as an instrument continuously sensing, assessing, concluding, and then acting based upon predictions for what to do next in the ways that make sense to the integrity and coherence of the unique sensory, motor, and nervous system in which it resides. As such, the relationship of primary importance for each human is his or her relationship with the information they continuously encounter in their ever-changing environments. The human brain registers everything it encounters as a form of information, plant, animal, and human.

I do believe we can reduce the overwhelming anxiety that contributes to severe mental health problems by allowing children to preserve the integrity of their unique relationship with and orientation to information. Current psychological theories of personality direct parents, teachers, and therapists to look for behaviors they have deemed disordered and then to attribute those behaviors as evidence that a personality or psychiatric disorder is present in a child.

We should instead be observing the behaviors of our children to understand how they organize and orient to the information around them so we can help them preserve their ability to optimally manage themselves in their ever-changing environments at every developmental level in the ways that make sense to them. If we understand the human personality as a reflection of how a person understands and manages information, we will no longer consider any behaviors to be disordered and we will no longer consider personalities as having the capacity to be disordered. Every single person, no matter how they appear to an observer, is making sense of the information around him in the ways he is capable of.

Defining a child according to a behavioral, personality, or psychiatric disorder is one of the most dehumanizing aspects of the modern world, ironically perpetuated by a profession dedicated to alleviating human suffering. I propose we seek to understand our differences in how we all organize and orient to information instead of diagnosing people according to their behavioral differences. In doing so we will all have much better odds of preserving the mental health of ourselves and our children.