Psuedoscience and educational institutions

[Jason]

You're a terrible physiotherapist! I nearly fell over when I tried to pick up the sock!

[Scot Dutchy]

Physiotherapists are a hit and miss affair in my experience. Both my shoulders were frozen but a woman with needles was a wizard at dry needling. In three months she freed both shoulders.
I went to a chiropractor for my back once. He had a special bench which you lay on. It made a lot of noise but very little else. My health insurance covered it.

[Rum]

In my experience a great deal of what one might loosely call 'talking therapies' are based on pseudo science or no science at all. Studies are variable to say the least and there are indeed studies which show simply delaying referrals to therapists will result in an improvement of symptoms (i.e. they get better on their own).

[Hermit]

Dara O'Briain on pseudoscience

[Cunt]

You're a terrible physiotherapist! I nearly fell over when I tried to pick up the sock!

That's what I do. What you should do is better described as:
Balance on one foot a bit while putting on socks or shoes. Make it a bit more challenging every day.

I'm not a physiotherapist. I stole the shoe / sock thing from an old fitness guide.

Physiotherapists are a hit and miss affair in my experience. Both my shoulders were frozen but a woman with needles was a wizard at dry needling. In three months she freed both shoulders.
I went to a chiropractor for my back once. He had a special bench which you lay on. It made a lot of noise but very little else. My health insurance covered it.

I'm on the fence about dry needling, because there hasn't been a reasonable mechanism described. Prayer (or naps) seem to be equally good so far.

In my experience a great deal of what one might loosely call 'talking therapies' are based on pseudo science or no science at all. Studies are variable to say the least and there are indeed studies which show simply delaying referrals to therapists will result in an improvement of symptoms (i.e. they get better on their own).

Pretty much all of psychology, much of psychiatry and about everything under the umbrella of 'social work' (aside from the government cheese they navigate.

[Rum]

In my experience a great deal of what one might loosely call 'talking therapies' are based on pseudo science or no science at all. Studies are variable to say the least and there are indeed studies which show simply delaying referrals to therapists will result in an improvement of symptoms (i.e. they get better on their own).

Pretty much all of psychology, much of psychiatry and about everything under the umbrella of 'social work' (aside from the government cheese they navigate.

I agree - in general terms, though 'social work' in the UK in the last decade or two has focused increasingly on practical problem solving - no bad thing.

When I trained we were encouraged to view the plight of our 'clients' - often people with child rearing issues, through the lens of psychology. As mentioned earlier Freud and the 'psychodynamic' model were great favourites in this respect. Poverty and its effects were a secondary consideration.

Paradoxically most of my peers and I did tend to oppose this approach and in fact one of my final year essays was entitled 'Is social work a tool of social control' (or words to that effect) - and I argued it was - from a Marxist viewpoint, a view I held at the time.

Today there is far less 'therapy' attached to social work, certainly here in the UK and rather more in the way of helping people 'learn skills'. The argument about what it is or isn't has become redundant as the tasks have become ever more prescriptive.

[Jason]

Hey, that's pretty cool Rum. Do you still have a copy of that essay? I'd like to read it.

[Rum]

Hey, that's pretty cool Rum. Do you still have a copy of that essay? I'd like to read it.

Sadly not. It was written in about 1979, the year I qualified.

After a few false starts I spent the later part of my career climbing the greasy pole, including doing a management course where essays were more about how to grind the poor into the ground with one's black shiny boot...sorta..

[Jason]

Too bad. It's a sentiment I find myself in agreement with.

[Rum]

Too bad. It's a sentiment I find myself in agreement with.

Absolutely. Social work uses sticking plaster to try to help fix people who don't cope with the system we currently live under. It replaces the support structures of old societies, even those of early stage capitalism - as capitalism atomizes and isolates individuals and it views them as the problem and not the structure and its tendency towards alienating its members. Social workers are taught not to judge, but the system does, whether they like it or not. It is one reason the job is so tough..and often shit..and actually well paid here - child protection work anyway.

[Jason]

Very well said.

[Cunt]

In my experience a great deal of what one might loosely call 'talking therapies' are based on pseudo science or no science at all. Studies are variable to say the least and there are indeed studies which show simply delaying referrals to therapists will result in an improvement of symptoms (i.e. they get better on their own).

Pretty much all of psychology, much of psychiatry and about everything under the umbrella of 'social work' (aside from the government cheese they navigate.

I agree - in general terms, though 'social work' in the UK in the last decade or two has focused increasingly on practical problem solving - no bad thing.

When I trained we were encouraged to view the plight of our 'clients' - often people with child rearing issues, through the lens of psychology. As mentioned earlier Freud and the 'psychodynamic' model were great favourites in this respect. Poverty and its effects were a secondary consideration.

Paradoxically most of my peers and I did tend to oppose this approach and in fact one of my final year essays was entitled 'Is social work a tool of social control' (or words to that effect) - and I argued it was - from a Marxist viewpoint, a view I held at the time.

Today there is far less 'therapy' attached to social work, certainly here in the UK and rather more in the way of helping people 'learn skills'. The argument about what it is or isn't has become redundant as the tasks have become ever more prescriptive.

My friends are in the process of adopting some children from an indigenous community nearby. When they told me that they would be dealing with social workers, I told them to close ranks, treat them like enemies, and indeed, have called them the 'SS'. Those folks disagreed with me.

Until they were treated for about a year, by that SS. Lied to, manipulated and mistreated - all under the pretense of putting the children first.

It's horrible how regularly it ends up looking that way. Everyone I know who has worked in the field is there to try to serve humans with care, respect and dignity. WOW does it ever go wrong. Holy SHIT is it ever easy to paint them as villians.

Social workers are taught not to judge, but the system does, whether they like it or not. It is one reason the job is so tough..and often shit..and actually well paid here - child protection work anyway.

The worst of it is when social workers, who are trained not to judge, think they have learned it.

They still judge just as much as anyone, but they think themselves immune.

Social workers, teachers and those other 'professional do-gooders' should be treated with suspicion, endless auditing, and distrust.

The alternative leads to stuff like the Huronia going by, with all the horrors that make it into the class action case, and a bunch that don't.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huronia_Regional_Centre

I met some of the victims. I assure you, not a single one of them deserved incarceration, nor poor treatment, nor abuse. Leaving the 'caring professionals' in charge led to some pretty horrible stuff though. Not because the caring professionals were horrible, but because thousands of people who should have been visiting, participating and eyeing suspiciously just didn't. We all stood by and avoided the problem. That is where abuse takes its worst forms.

[Sean Hayden]

What a load of narrow minded shit.

[Jason]

I didn't even parse it. Isn't he contradicting himself, or is it just the ether talking?

[Cunt]

If you don't understand something I said, because of an apparent conflict, how about asking?

I mean, you could just assume I'm wrong, but isn't it just barely possible that I'm expressing something I feel two ways about?

Let me try from a different direction...I think the friends and family members I have who work in social work are doing important work, and trying their level best to treat people very well.

I think that all of them are very vulnerable to treating people horribly.

What happened at Huronia is an example of social work being done as best people can, without proper oversight. Institutional abuse is WAY worse than the individual kind.