Is Psychology Science ?
I want this to be a detailed article full of real life examples, criticizers of psychology and its methodologies, failures of psychology, and even its achievements. Please take this article not as a critique of psychology, but something to think about. The purpose of this article is to spot the unscientific methods of psychology, if there are any, but only so that psychology can be improved, not destroyed.
From mental diseases to evolutionary psychology, I will try to analyze it as much as possible, although I understand that psychology is not all that I will describe. Its methods and disciplines are many, perhaps too much to be properly analyzed in an article.
My quest on analyzing psychology started 7-8 years ago, at the age of 18.
I started doing this because I came across all sorts of “psychological tests” on the internet, and the notion of “mental disease” which described behaviours that I had previous to that age. And I mean: behaviours, multiple.
I could have easily been “diagnosticated” with ADHD, bipolar, tourette syndrome, panic attacks, severe insomnia, severe depression, severe anxiety and suicidal behaviour. And those are just a few. If I read through the DSM (the official manual for psychological disorders), I will find at least 20-30 other “diseases” that would fit perfectly to the way I behaved. I was shocked about this finding, but I knew that I had solved/changed all of those “problems” (patterns of behaviour) on my own, so they couldn't be actual “diseases” if I did so. Let's face it, you don't cure cancer just by thinking differently about the world.
First, let me tell you how severe those mental states were. You may be shocked to know how many “mental diseases” one can have. I had tons of tics and “strange” patterns of behaviour.