steve kwan user experience designer

Psychobabble

(September 1st, 2005 - 11:33PM)

psy·cho·bab·ble
    Language characterized by the often inaccurate use of jargon from psychiatry and psychotherapy
(From Dictionary.com)

For my Psychology correspondence course, I am required to "locate and critically examine an example of what you consider to be psychobabble." In other words, find a quack and talk about why he's a quack. I chose Tom Cruise's rant about how psychology is a pseudoscience. The draft of my discussion is below.

Article:
DRUDGE REPORT FRI JUNE 24, 2005 10:51:08 ET
CRUISE 'WAR OF WORLDS' INTERVIEW TURNS INTO SHOWDOWN ON PSYCHIATRY, SCIENTOLOGY
http://www.drudgereport.com/flash3tc.htm

When I saw this discussion topic, I knew what article I wanted to post on: Tom Cruise’s rant about how psychology is a pseudoscience.

This is a pretty famous televised discussion that Tom Cruise had while promoting War of the Worlds. You can read the transcript I reference above. Among other things, he states that psychology is a pseudoscience and that there’s no such thing as a chemical imbalance.

Someone here is definitely spouting psychobabble. The question is this: is Tom Cruise completely off his rocker, or is he right about psychology?

I have to say that I went into this course a believer in psychology, but the textbook has shaken my opinion of the science. Those who’ve read it (all of us, I’d hope) probably noticed that one of the first things the book does is attempt to discredit any competing theory, such as astrology. I have to say that I found this a little odd. I’m very sceptical of any idea that begins its manifesto with, “First of all, every competing idea you’ve heard is totally false. Because we said so.” That sounds suspiciously like something a suicide bomber would say. Not that I think it’s fair to compare Sigmund Freud to Osama bin Laden, but you see my point.

Can phenomena like astrology be explained by science? No, of course not - but that doesn’t immediately discredit the idea. After all, the reason scientists don’t believe in astrology is because science can’t explain it. Astrology only looks ridiculous if you consider it from a scientific perspective. If you open your mind to other explanations of the world, it suddenly seems no stranger than psychology.

Another thing that irritates me about the text: the authors go to great lengths to discredit what they call pseudoscience, but when the topic of religion arises they hastily back off. The text reads, “Of course, critical thinking cannot provide answers to all of life’s quandaries. Some questions, such as whether there is a God and what the nature of God might be, are ultimately matters of faith.” (Wade et. al, p.12)

That’s bull. With the same argument they used against astrology, the authors could have very easily attacked religion as well. After all, their argument was:
A) Any ideology that does not fit into our scientific model is wrong.
B) Astrology does not fit into our scientific model.
C) Therefore, astrology is wrong.

That argument style could have very well attacked religion, but the authors decided to attribute religion to matters of faith. I’d assume they did this because astrology isn’t controversial. It’s really easy to pick on astrology because nobody gets worked up about it, but when you start picking on religion you could wind up in the middle of a national controversy. If the authors really believe that psychology is the true answer to questions of the mind, I wholeheartedly support their endeavours. However, they should at least have the courage to apply their “other ideas are pseudoscience” manifesto to all competing ideas – especially sensitive ones.

Now, was Tom Cruise psychobabbling? It sure looks that way. I have to admit that my knowledge of Scientology is a bit lacking (by that, I mean I haven’t read Battlefield Earth), but from what I know it doesn’t seem like a good source of information. And even if it were, I don’t think the star of Risky Business is a good mouthpiece. Unless he’s been working on his doctorate in between films, Tom Cruise is as smart as he thinks.

But my point isn’t that Tom is wrong. Any late night talk show host could do a far better job proving that than I. Actually, I think Jerry Maguire is onto something: as scientific as it may be, psychology probably doesn’t have all the answers. But it thinks it does. In that respect, I think that psychology - or at least, our psychology textbook - is guilty of a little psychobabble.

As far out as some older ideas may seem today, it’s important to keep in mind that “discredited” theories such as astrology are thousands of years old, whereas psychology is only a few hundred. And in its short history, psychology has been disproved many times; the textbook even states that most of Sigmund Freud’s ideas were wrong. (Wade et. al, p.18) Although there is a lot to be gained from psychology, we should keep in mind that all science is at best an educated guess at the inner workings of things we don’t understand, and guesses can be wrong.