jkeat

thats because if you actually read my posts slowly you would realize your questions were answered I think that HBP report made it clear that This science is incomplete because although we have an abundance of data about the brain, integrating this data and mapping out a complete system of psychology is a huge challenge currently. "Today, however, neuroscience has no strategy for integrating the flood of data generated by experimental research." but you think psychology is already mostly understood? and you make this assumption based off..what? Do you have any idea how young psychology is compared to other sciences? Significant research only started 200 years ago, and even our incomplete knowledge today has only been discovered recently! "If we don't have the information that you claim we need, then how can you know it is "over-proportionately" ?" Any time the use of a prescription drug skyrockets in a short amount of time, it means one of three things: There is an epidemic, there is an economic explanation, or They are being over-prescribed.

we know alot about the structures of the brain and what they do, but not much about how events/stimuli are processed throughout many different levels of the brain to produce things like cognition and behavior. "Today, we know a lot about the individual levels [of organization]. What we do not' have is a casual understanding of the way events at the lowest level in the hierarchy cascade through the different levels to produce human cognition and behaviour." ... "Today, brain diseases are usually diagnosed in terms of symptoms and syndromes, an approach that makes it very difficult to produce correct diagnoses, or even to select patients for clinical trials. To prevent and cure brain disease, researchers need to understand their underlying causes" ..."This means we need to move beyond isolated studies of individual disorders"..."Today, the knowledge we need is lacking". https://www.humanbrainproject.eu/documents/10180/17648/TheHBPReport_LR.pdf/18e5747e-10af-4bec-9806-d03aead57655 because of this lack of knowledge, many cognitive or behavioral illnesses are identified by their symptoms, not their underlying causes, causing psychiatrists to prescribe one medication over-proportionately (and this explains why antidepressant prescriptions have skyrocketed the past few decades. Is humanity becoming more depressed, or is modern psychology ill equipped to handle some cases of mental illness? and this is where psychoanalysis fills in where todays psychiatry lacks. by observing a patients verbal reactions, movements, or behavior when confronted with a suggestion or idea, we can make an educated guess as to what associations or experiences cause a negative cognitive or behaviorial trait is caused.

on second thought, even Freud admitted that psychoanalysis is surrendered to the area of pseudoscience. but also that with future knowledge of the brain, it could become scientifically apparent and therefore much clearer and easier to do.

well, its not really science, more like therapy. Its all based on a person's reactions to what you say, not on any solid framework. In psychoanalysis, we can identify a person's symptoms, but thats it. the rest is individualized based on the therapist observing the patients reactions(mainly verbal) to his ideas and suggestions, and from his reactions he can start to understand what causes his ill behavior's or thought patterns. to give you a good example, you automatically think of a past experience when someone says a specific phrase. thats a reaction. if a therapist can identify these associations of reactions, and the past experiences tied to them, he can begin to build a 'map' of his mind.

so, the brain is one of the least studied parts of science . Even with all the knowledge of the brain we have about the brain today, we are only able to compile a vague outline. That is why psychology is a Liberal Art, not just a science. As the scientists from the 'Human Brain Project' (commisioned in 2013) puts it: " We find that the major obstacle that hinders our under standing of the brain is the fragmentation of brain research and the data it produces. Our most urgent need is thus a con- certed international effort that can integrate this data in a uni- fied picture of the brain as a single multi-level system. To reach this goal, we propose to build on and transform emerging ICT technologies... Modern neuroscience research has already generated huge volumes of experimental data; large-scale initiatives already in progress will produce a deluge of new findings. Even then, however, much of the knowledge needed to build multi-level atlases and unifying models of the brain will still be missing. The first goal for the HBP should thus be to generate and interpret strategically selected data, unlikely to come from other sources. " (http://tierra.aslab.upm.es/documents/projects/HBP_flagship_report_for_Europe.pdf) There is no area of psychology more affected by this lack of scientific knowledge then mental illness. This is why antidepressants are so over-prescribed, because psychiatrists are forced to group all depressed or anxious peoples into one treatment. In reality, most of these people have very individualized causes to their depression. You see, Our thoughts and behaviors in the present are not natural, but they were caused by memory's of the past which were responsible for conditioning the subconscious mechanism that leads to our behavior or pattern of thought/behavior. This is where psychoanalysis comes in. Because psychoanalysis works from the outside in, and not the inside out, like science, their methods are entirely dependent on the individual. we have to examine an individuals' memorys, impressions, thoughts and behaviors, and by this, avenues of his inner mind can be paved and mapped out by the psychoanalyst. Then, through a delicate choice of words, we talk to him, lead him down certain pathways and thought-patterns, introduce ideas, suggest things, and thus we are able to re-wire his subconscious thoughts and heal him of his ill behavior. Every word is also a memory, or an impression, on our mind. Thus, different words can have different effects on different people. A Psychoanalyst in practice seeks to re-wire someones behaviors through using the subconscious effects that some words or phrases can have.