Jay Doubleyou: a critique of psychology

Curtis ends by saying that, "Although we feel we are free, in reality, we—like the politicians—have become the slaves of our own desires," and compares Britain and America to 'Democracity', an exhibit at the 1939 New York World's Fair created by Edward Bernays.

The Century of the Self - Wikipedia

The Century of the Self - Top Documentary Films

'It's much too easy really just to claim the old democratic patrician culture was better,' he says. 'People in a consumer society probably have more fun, certainly have more things, and we find those things comforting, enjoyable, and who is to say there is anything wrong with that? But we have also, perhaps, become trapped by an idea, and it has got into every corner of our lives.'

If you look around you, it is hard not to agree with this observation. The sovereignty of the Self is reflected back on us from every angle. Apart from the fact that the purchase of every canned drink or deodorant requires us to locate the hero inside ourself, our television, for example, is increasingly dedicated - from Trisha to Changing Rooms to Pop Idol - to Self-help and Self-improvement and Self-creation. We find collective comfort in celebrity; we like to colonise another Self, and treat it like our own. Our bestseller lists, from Harry Potter to Bridget Jones to A Boy Called It, reflect different kinds of wish-fulfilment.

Business culture, which expects more and more of its employees' time, also spends more and more money on making those employees feel self-empowered and self-motivated.

In this respect, the genie of the Self has already escaped the bottle. One logical conclusion of Curtis's argument is that business will eventually take over the functions of government, since it is much better, more effective, at simply satisfying people's desires than any politician ever was. This is something that Bernays predicted. In an interview when he was 100, the father of public relations allowed that he may have created something of a monster.

'Everyone has a press agent now,' he said, 'or a media consultant or communications director or whatever you want to call it. Sometimes,' he suggested, 'it seems sort of like having discovered a medicine to cure a disease, and then finding out that so much of it is being administered that people are getting sick from the overdoses.'

How Freud got under our skin | Education | The Guardian

He gave us the 'Third Revolution':

BBC Radio 4 - A History of Ideas, Historian Justin Champion on Francis Bacon, The Fourth Revolution

He definitely changed how we think - as this English lesson from the VOA shows:

How Sigmund Freud Changed What People Thought About the Mind

WE ARE ALL INDIVIDUALS:

Indeed, some would say he 'atomised' people:

Atomized individualism - definition of Atomized individualism by The Free Dictionary

Atomism (social) - Wikipedia

Individualism - Wikipedia

Microsoft Word - Individualisation

(PDF) Freud as an example of amplifying the individualistic view of the self | Qixiu Fu - Academia.edu

To what extent, then, are we responsible for our own problems - that we only have ourselves to blame?

Michael Sandel: The tyranny of merit | TED Talk

Jay Doubleyou: the tyranny of merit: we are not self-made or self-sufficient

Jay Doubleyou: meritocracy

Jay Doubleyou: don’t think you’re lucky? think again

THE MEDICALISATION OF LIFE'S PROBLEMS:

Perhaps one of the strongest criticisms of modern medicine, including psychiatry, is that it has 'medicalised' problems:

In the 1975 book Limits to medicine: Medical nemesis (1975), Ivan Illich put forth one of the earliest uses of the term "medicalization". Illich, a philosopher, argued that the medical profession harms people through iatrogenesis, a process in which illness and social problems increase due to medical intervention. Illich saw iatrogenesis occurring on three levels: the clinical, involving serious side effects worse than the original condition; the social, whereby the general public is made docile and reliant on the medical profession to cope with life in their society; and the structural, whereby the idea of aging and dying as medical illnesses effectively "medicalized" human life and left individuals and societies less able to deal with these "natural" processes.

Medicalization - Wikipedia

Medicalization of Social Problems | SpringerLink

When it comes to psychiatry, there's a whole list over what is 'normal/abnormal behaviour':

DSM-5 - Wikipedia

Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders - Wikipedia

Jay Doubleyou: how normal behavoiur becomes a mental disorder

BEHVAVIOURISM:

How can you 'engineer' people?

HUMAN RESOURCES Social Engineering In The 20th Century HQ FULL - YouTube

Jay Doubleyou: human resources as social engineering

By observing their behaviour - and predicting, and so controlling, their behaviour:

Behaviorism | Simply Psychology

Behaviorism - Wikipedia

Although it's been replaced by other therapies, behaviourism is still very influential:

A June 2002 survey listed Skinner as the most influential psychologist of the 20th century.[17]

B. F. Skinner - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

It's all rather creepy:

5 Creepy Ways Video Games Are Trying to Get You Addicted | Cracked.com

Jay Doubleyou: behaviourism >>> krashen... pinker... skinner... chomsky

And it's how education works today:

Researchers like Edward L. Thorndike build upon these foundations and, in particular, developed a S-R (stimulus-response) theory of learning. He noted that that responses (or behaviours) were strengthened or weakened by the consequences of behaviour. This notion was refined by Skinner and is perhaps better known as operant conditioning – reinforcing what you want people to do again; ignoring or punish what you want people to stop doing.

In terms of learning, according to James Hartley (1998) four key principles come to the fore:
Activity is important. Learning is better when the learner is active rather than passive. (‘Learning by doing’ is to be applauded).
Repetition, generalization and discrimination are important notions. Frequent practice – and practice in varied contexts – is necessary for learning to take place. Skills are not acquired without frequent practice.
Reinforcement is the cardinal motivator. Positive reinforcers like rewards and successes are preferable to negative events like punishments and failures.
Learning is helped when objectives are clear. Those who look to behaviourism in teaching will generally frame their activities by behavioural objectives e.g. ‘By the end of this session participants will be able to…’. With this comes a concern with competencies and product approaches to curriculum.
infed.org | The behaviourist orientation to learning

Jay Doubleyou: behaviourism >>> and learning objectives >>> and the common european framework

So, what are your 'learning objectives'?

Jay Doubleyou: a critique of learning objectives

Jay Doubleyou: 'learning by objectives' vs 'process-based learning' vs 'open-ended learning'

Jay Doubleyou: metrics, targets and measuring everything

PSYCHOLOGY IS EVERYWHERE TODAY:

It looks as though neuroscience, or 'neurobabble', is here to stay:

Jay Doubleyou: cognitive science and developmental neuroscience

Finally, psychology really is everywhere today:

Jay Doubleyou: how to define masculinity

Jay Doubleyou: is there a link between adhd and creative thinking?

Jay Doubleyou: paulo freire and the tabula rasa