[Buddha-l] Buddhism and Psychology research

[Bruce G. Seidner]

It is late and I am bushed. The brain science that ignores the inherent connectionism of the brain, "localizing functions" and which decontextualize the person from the environment are examples of egregious reductionism. To imagine that one is measuring mercy or psychopathy or depression when we can not reliably discern individual differences of sensory perception strains incredulity. As we speak there are labs setting up that get paid large coin to discern truth from lies.  Would you support a business called "No lie MRI'? I don't intend to besmirch the researchers you hold dear. I am guilty of painting in broad strokes but I stand by my dismissive characterization (which you misspelt as "caricature" (sick).  But the truth claims made by the people I need to answer to in the ruff and tumble of court and in my academic responsibilities may be different from the folks you are reading in the temperate clime of your academic vineyards. I am up against "scientists" who want to classify the attraction to fully developed late adolescent girls by post age majority males as a psychiatric illness. The proposed diagnosis, hebephilia or the sexual attraction to teens is not, I repeat, is not some reference to pro-semetic inclinations. (Although it is quite likely that Jung, Heidegger and Freud all shared in some form of attraction to adolescent girls, sick men that they were.) I have to answer to "brain scientists" and "biological psychiatrists" who purport to reliably measure brain "anomalies" and other indicia of brain disease that mitigate the normal quotidian responsibility expected of most people who are not involuntarily  drooling on themselves. Don't get me wrong I think it is way cool to be developing models of brain functioning using computational methods, real time brain imagining, and the pressures to attract grant money, but like genetics research in the 50's we are years away from anything that is not speculative.

I didn't know that the concern that Freud was reductionistic was invented by me. If so I will gladly take credit for the observation that most human intentionality is not likely accounted for in terms of Eros and Thanatos. I don't tell people who feel like they are falling apart that the problem lies in the diversion of libido and the decathexis of the superego The Freud I admire is the guy eating sardines over lunch with The Rat Man not the shmegegge who had the chutzpah to imagine he was doing some sort of psychic surgery by becoming a pure mirror, equidistant from the ego and id, neutrally analyzing some universal Oedipus complex in  his predominately male bourgeois sycophant client load. 

My dismissiveness is an equal opportunity employer. I am not teaching classes in Freud the philosopher, I am treating patients with real problems and I am training doctoral candidates in clinical psychology. I am not having lunch in the Star Wars bar and grill imagining we can reliably map brain function in individuals and ignore the methodologies and presumptions of this nascent research. I am out here in the land of praxis and not theoria.

I surprised that my comments created such pique. But I am told I have a special talent for insulting people unintentionally. And to the extent that i have done so I am sorry.

OM Shanti, 

Bruce


On Saturday09 4, , at 9:54 PM, Dan Lusthaus wrote:

> Bruce,
> 
> I'm not sure whose chains are being pulled. I can only say that I do not 
> recognize any of the brain research or researchers I am familiar with in 
> your dismissive caricature.
> 
> The Freud that you imagine has much in common with you -- and you even 
> coined the term for it:
> 
>> egregious reductionism
> 
> Dan 
> 
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Bruce

Bruce G. Seidner, Ph.D.                                 
Clinical & Forensic Psychology  
5401 Kingston Pike
Suite 400                                              
Knoxville, TN 37919

865-588-4232 office
865-588-4231 fax
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