| | One last comment on the cover to the book on i. I was skeptical myself that the bed and windows formed a face, until I looked at the rest of the painting. Given the double imagery elsewhere, I concluded that this was a double image as well.
As for the mere assertion, of course psychology is a science, if one looks at cognitive psychology and neuropsychology and what has been learned, as well as psycho-epistemology or concept formation, etc. These branches of the science are all based on at least fairly well-defined concepts and are subject to experiment and disproof. Psychology may be an infant science, but it is certainly not a pseudo-science. As for psychiatry, that is more of an art at this point, an applied practice like medicine that varies widely in its effectuality depending whether it is practiced by the analogs of M.D.'s, homeopaths or witch-doctors.
My limited interaction with psychiatrists has left me wary of their authority, given the very uneven nature of their understanding. I once had visual and auditory hallucinations due to a combination of drugs that I was being given in a hospital. (My grandmother, I found out, had the same atypical reaction to the same medications when being treated for a different physical condition than mine.) I was taken to speak to a "doctor" who turned out to be the staff psychologist, an M.D. I explained that I was lucid, realized I was hallucinating, and that I saw the rug pattern crawling and heard peoples voices as if they were floating about in the air. She asked "and what are those voices telling you?" I said that I was not "hearing voices" but that people's actual speech was simply being perceived as if it were floating in the air. The voices weren't "telling" me anything. Lucky I knew what she was getting at, or I would have been sedated or worse. The meds I was on were discontinued or changed and the problems ended that evening. Afterwards I told her she should try shrooms once, so that she might know what her patients were experiencing, and advised her not to be so quick to jump to conclusions. She was very skeptical, but I was glad of the opportunity to give the feedback. The floor superior took my criticisms a little more seriously.
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