It’s meant to be harsh. They’re mass-prescribing poorly understood psychoactive drugs based on unscientific assessments. They’re giving young children amphetamines for normal behavior (disliking school). They are kooks, and I have as much regards for them as I do for those that performed lobotomies.
Charles Whitman, U Texas, 1966, was on psychoactive medications such as Dexedrine; it's no coincidence that he was compelled to murder lots of people from that tower, not because of mental defect but because of drugs he was on.
Nancy Reagan was right. "Just Say No." I listen to Nancy Reagan.
I'll just say that I wouldn't dismiss an entire field of study based on wrong actions by some, or even a majority, of practitioners. Psychology and psychiatry do help many people, and it's the best we can do for many psychological issues. Can it be abused and wrongly applied? Sure. But it's not pseudoscience, and its practitioners aren't "kooks".
The mind is an abstract concept, and we don't yet have the knowledge of how it interacts with the brain, a physical entity. If we did, all psychological issues would be studied and treated by neuroscience instead. In the meantime, we need branches of research that are not as well defined as traditional "hard" sciences.
If by “alternative viewpoints” you mean unrepeatable non-science, then you’re absolutely right! Repeat your results and I’ll take you seriously.
> it's the best we can do for many psychological issues
You can’t make this claim without repeatable results
> The mind is an abstract concept, and we don't yet have the knowledge of how it interacts with the brain, a physical entity
This attitude is exactly how the lobotomy came about. “Let’s just mess with the brain (which we don’t understand). It’s the best we can do!”
Kooks!
That's harsh.
You seem to want quantitative studies to prove the efficacy of methods that treat _psychological_ problems. Depending on the disorder, researchers can often only rely on patient assessments. Whether or not someone attained education or employment would be difficult to correlate as a direct effect of any specific treatment. Methods like CBT serve to give the patient a set of tools to approach their problems, and in the real world are often combined with other treatments. They're not silver bullets, nor do they work as well for everyone, since they do require a conscious effort from the patient.
It's like with meditation; some people claim it has transformed their lives, while it has little effect on others. There's little quantitative evidence to prove its efficacy. Should we dismiss the practice entirely because of this?