8 great myths about modern psychology

What misconceptions do many people have about the science of behavior?

Psychology is one of the disciplines about which most myths circulate.Partly because its subject matter is of interest to the general public, and partly because the versatility of mental processes means that all sorts of outlandish theories about how our brains work can be "invented".

Myths of Psychology Today

In this chapter we will review some of the most widespread psychology myths and see why they are false. and see why they are false.

1. Dreams have a hidden meaning

One of the most widespread ideas about the functioning of mental processes is that dreams have a way of being interpreted that portrays our way of thinking. dreams have a way of being interpreted that portrays our way of thinking, our fears and our desires.our fears and our desires.

This myth, which drinks directly from the psychoanalytic theories born with Sigmund Freud, is based on beliefs that have not been demonstrated, so that there is no reason to suppose that dreams mean anything in particular beyond the interpretation that each one wants to give them based on his own creative power.

2. A great part of the psychological problems are solved by expressing them.

It is very common to think that the task of the psychotherapist is simply to be there to listen to the problems that the patient tells him/her, and that the fact of verbally expressing the problems is the only way to solve them.It is very common to think that the fact of verbally expressing these problems produces a feeling of well-being which is the foundation of the solution offered by psychology.

However, it should not be forgotten that many of the reasons why people go to the psychologist have to do with concrete objective and material factors that will not disappear simply because they are talked about. Situations of family tension, eating disorders, gambling addiction, phobias... all of them exist because there is a dynamic of interaction between the person and the elements of his environment that reproduces itself and is maintained over time, regardless of how the person experiences or interprets it.

3. There is a rational and an emotional brain

Also There is also a myth that inside our head there are two superimposed brains: a rational brain and an emotional brain.. This has a small part of truth, since the areas of the brain closest to the brainstem and the limbic system are more directly involved in mental processes related to emotional states if we compare them with areas on the surface of the brain such as the frontal lobe, but it is still a simplification.

What really happens is that all parts of the brain are working together in both those processes related to the emotional and those related to "rational" thinking, to the point that it is practically impossible to know whether a pattern of neuron activation is rational or based on emotions.

4. We use only 10% of our brain

This myth enjoys great popularity, and yet it is absurd in several respects. First of all, when talking about this hidden potential of 10% of our brains, claims based on the material (the way our body really works) are often confused with those referring to our "hidden potential" as something more abstract and based on the philosophy of life we follow.

This makes it easy to "throw the stone and hide the hand," i.e., to assert things presumably based on scientific knowledge and, when challenged, to pass them off simply as ideas about life worth living, the way we can find ourselves, etc.

To learn more about why everything we know about how the brain works contradicts the 10% myth, you can read this article.

5. Subliminal messages make you buy things

The idea that an advertising team can make us feel the impulse to buy a particular product by introducing some "hidden" frames in a video or some letters in an image is not only unproven, but also based on an experiment, the first of which was conducted in the United States. based on an experiment, that of James Vicary and Coca-Cola, which never existed as such.which, by Vicary's own admission, never existed as such.

6. The interpretation of someone's drawings is useful to evaluate his or her personality.

Analyzing people's drawings is only useful when exploring very specific diseases, such as for instance hemineglectin which the left half of what is perceived is ignored (and, therefore, the left side of the drawings is left unfinished). In other words, projective tests, such as those in which the drawings someone makes are analyzed, do not serve to evaluate details about people's personalities and, beyond individual opinions about therapists who apply them, under the magnifying glass of studies that analyze a multitude of results, they have never been shown to be effective..

The meta-analyses that have been carried out on these tests point to their little or no usefulness, among other things because there is no single way in which a drawing can be interpreted: for some reason it is a product of creativity and therefore escapes preconceived schemes.

7. Hypnosis allows to control someone's will

Hypnosis seems to be little less than a magical power that makes that someone trained in these techniques can manage at will the body of other people, but the reality is far from this vision so marketiniana and spectacular.

The truth is that hypnosis is based fundamentally on the suggestion and on the degree to which the person is willing to participate in the technique. Someone who does not want to be hypnotized will not be influenced by hypnosis.

8. Personality is assigned during youth

It is true that the early years of development are crucial and that the things that happen to us during those years can leave a mark that is difficult to erase in terms of the way we act and perceive things, but this should not be exaggerated.

Important aspects of personality can continue to change after adolescence and young adulthood in a similar way to what happens to Walter White in Breaking Bad (though not always for the worse, of course). After all, our brains are constantly changing depending on what we go through, even in old age.