Tok Oral - On what basis can we judge insanity?

[Whichname]

Hi everyone...my oral topic is "On what basis can we judge insanity?" which links to the question "can we call psychology a science?".

As there is no IB psychology in my school,can anyone who's taking Psychology give me an useful link (especially an IBO one) where I could find more information about my topic?

[Daedalus]

This is an awesome question. I have never taken a formal course in Psychology but I know a little bit about it, and I also have some of my own ideas, though I'm not sure how accepted or not they are in, as I say, a formal context.

Essentially as far as I see it some of the properties that humans generally share are 'unpredictable,' in that they don't seem to result naturally from the need to survive, at least not in the way that a claw is useful for self-defense or a certain camouflage helps protect something from a predator. So in some sense it would be futile to argue whose perception of the world is more correct, the person with depression or the person without it. The fundamental identifier of a mental illness, I guess, is that it's not universal. You compare a schizophrenic with the rest of the world, just as you compare a man with cancer to those that are healthy. Maybe our ability to feel emotion is a mental disorder, and the ability to feel nothing at all is 'normal,' but you see where that leads us. How else can we define normal except through what is most widespread?

Also another feature of insanity, or at least mental disorders, is that they are curable. They're often temporary. Depression can be alleviated with counselling or suppressed with drugs. Schizophrenia can sometimes be cured, although often not. Many people that are insane or abnormal in some mental aspect have often had experiences that would generally be considered traumatic or difficult. Since most people don't have these experiences and don't have these mental abnormalities, it seems to make sense that they are just that - abnormalities.

'Can we call Psychology a science?' is a much simpler question I guess. It's purely a question of definitions. In the informal context the argument would depend on the idea that a science can be used to make predictions, that it is practical and essentially it 'works'. So you could say that Psychology and Economics are not sciences, otherwise how do you explain all the mental patients and the unemployed? But if you go back to the definition of science it becomes simpler. One way to put it would be that science is the systematic study and modelling of real life. You create models that simplify mechanisms in order to explain things much more complex, and by that definition the human mind can be studied just as well as how stars work. I think part of the reason we know so little about the human mind and how it works, as compared to say the physical laws of the universe, is that the former is so much harder to reduce into simple models. Whether it is more complex is not so easy to decide, but certainly it is more difficult to study. But not deeming psychology to be 'worthy' of the identifier science seems petty. Of course you could say its a misleading name, because our knowledge in some sciences is far more detailed and accurate than that in some others.

hope this helps a little,

gl

[Sandwich]

The issue with looking up Psychology stuff is that you'll start discussing Psychology instead of TOK

In my opinion there's a very big key TOK 'issue' in your idea which is about what insanity is. Who decides where the lines lie? Is it simply behaviour which is deviant from the norm (and if so by how much does it have to be deviant)? Who can legitimise 'insanity'? People are often considered to be 'making it up' until they get a Doctor to classify them as having a genuine mental health problem, but in reality even their (the Doctor's) view is subjective because it's not a physical ailment as such (so many people have theorised that Doctors effectively have a 'gatekeeper' role in society, and very powerful role in terms of either legitimising people or totally discrediting them). You can look at changes over history -- for instance homosexuality was considered insanity up until very recently. If you had a family of people who all chose to walk around stark naked at home and you were contacted by their new son-in-law who went round and was forced to strip off himself, and he told you that he thought they were all mad -- is that possible? Could you say that a single person was in possession of 'sanity' and a massive majority not?

Then you could go blah blah Ways of Knowing blah blah how we might think about insanity and fulfill the TOK criteria on top of it.

[Whichname]

Thank you guys for the help,you have inspired me,but I'm still curious whether or not this argument is treated in IB Psychology.I'd like to link it to IB topics and not just base it on TOK knowledge,so that I can compare the IB point of view with other points of view.

For the second question,we have already discussed about this in my TOK class,so I am basically going to use the notes I took in that class.

[Tilia]

This is a wonderful topic! I don't take psychology, but I've experienced various psychological treatments and think it's quite interesting. There are sort of two opposing views (well, there are 7 percpectives, but these are the most opposing), one stating that a lot of disorders are innate in some sense, the biological perspective. Other perspectives believe that mental disorders are caused by traumatic events, often in early life. That means that mental illnesses simply are reasonable reaction to what has happened, although the things that happened were rather extreme. These opposing views could be developed and examined.

Also, the question about what is normal is relevant. Once I heard a story about a kingdom where the well form which the citizens drank was poisoned and made them insane. Finally, they thought that the king was insane and forced him to drink from the well. How can we state what is the normal case?

When it comes to scientific, my experience tells me that psychology tries to be scientific, but without really suceeding. There are a lot of tests run on each patients, forms to fill in, questions to answer, etc ,etc. However, humans are not as reliable as natural laws, so one cannot expect as clear answers as in science. Also, experiments as made to test hypothesises (or whatever that is called in plural), but all experiments cannot be made, due to ethical implications. But science also is limited by ethics and what is practically possible. So there are similarities with sciences, if we jugde by the scientific method.

[Pineapple]

On 5/31/2010 at 2:33 AM, Whichname said:

Hi everyone...my oral topic is "On what basis can we judge insanity?" which links to the question "can we call psychology a science?".

As there is no IB psychology in my school,can anyone who's taking Psychology give me an useful link (especially an IBO one) where I could find more information about my topic?

Hey!! 

so my tok topic is somewhat along the same lines and so i would love to know how you approached the topic. 

My tok teacher is kinda sorta pretty useless so i would appreciate any kind of help

 

Thank you!!