11 dumb questions that every psychologist has had to hear

Psychology is a very broad professional field in which there is room for a large number of activities, work topics and approaches to the same problem. Yet despite all this heterogeneity, one of the things that all psychologists share are the stereotypes and prejudices that circulate about them.

Many times, yes, these prejudices are not expressed in the form of affirmations, but of questions.

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Silly questions that every psychologist has had to hear

Next we will give a brief review of all these questions based on ignorance about the profession of psychologist which, by dint of being listened to over and over again over the years, can threaten to end up exhausting the patience of more than one.

1. Did you study Psychology to understand your disorders?

Bypassing the bias of the question, Psychology isn't even fundamentally about mental disorders, so the question doesn't make sense. In fact, a psychologist can be dedicated to conducting research on consumption patterns, use of social networks, educational processes, etc. Is about

a field that has many different branches of specialization.

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2. My 5 year old nephew has made this drawing, what does it mean?

One of the great myths of Psychology is the belief that the task of a psychologist goes through diagnose mental disorders or identify personality traits from observation and analysis of drawings. This is totally false, for two reasons.

The first is that the interpretation of a couple of drawings simply it doesn't work to know someone's mental processes, and it has only shown a timid validity when it comes to identifying cases of severe schizophrenia (something that can be recognized, and better, without having to go through this method).

The second is that it is impossible to create a reliable system of interpretation of drawings that can be used by many psychologists reaching the same conclusions.

3. Are you going to psychoanalyze me while we speak?

Neither personality analysis nor diagnosis of disorders can be done without the person's consent in non-forensic contexts, nor can they be done through conversation. Besides, psychologists are not characterized by psychoanalyzing. A triply bad question.

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4. I dreamed that I tied my shoelaces with snakes, what does it mean?

Dream interpretation can be a stimulating creative activity, but it certainly has not been shown to reveal anything about the dreamer's thought processes.

5. Can you explain to me what repressed ideas that person has?

Current psychology rejects the Freudian ideas about repressed desires by the unconscious understood as a struggle of intrapsychic entities with their own conflicting objectives. Furthermore, no one can be psychologically evaluated without using systematic methods.

6. What title could you give this image?

Unlike the previous questions, this one is not usually pronounced by people completely unrelated to the subject, but by students of first months of Psychology or of certain university degrees based in the humanities who apparently believe that psychologists also dedicate themselves to interpreting forms of artistic expression and, what is worse, to summarizing their conclusions in a plain title.

7. Why do some people suddenly stop loving?

These types of generic answers cannot be answered, among other things because there are many factors at play that are different in each case. Asking this is like asking why some people start obsessing over a music record and end up hating it.

8. Why do you insist on labeling people?

Psychology does not label people, but names people's behaviors. Diagnostic categories used to delineate mental disorders, for example, they are not adjectives, but simple names that serve to know the symptoms that a patient presents.

9. Is your job based on medicating patients?

Psychologists do not medicate, that is the task of psychiatrists. In any case, what they do is propose readjustments of behavior and thought to make the lives of patients better.

10. What does it mean to be crazy?

Abstract terms like “madness” or “crazy” have no scientific value, and are normally used to stigmatize some people. It is not the task of psychology to define words that have been popularly used for generations to point out the different and separate him from society.

11. Is it true that psychologists charge to listen?

The work of psychologists is not based on listening, but on develop concrete solutions for concrete problems. The idea of ​​the psychotherapist who gets paid to sit still and take notes probably comes from the couch sessions of psychoanalysis, but in reality there is much more to psychology than active listening. There is also setting specific goals, coaching the patient on how to reach them, and monitoring progress.