Uh, yeah, behavior can be measured, yes it absolutely can. Interpreting it is another matter, but the behavior itself can be measured objectively and I'm not sure why you think otherwise. The mouse activated the lever three times. Bam.
A mouse is not a human... Bam
For the most part, it is literally impossible to get consistent, reproducible results, because every individual is different. One thing that is consistent and reproducible is some of the stuff they've gathered by monitoring brain activity, but it's been a while since I read anything on the subject.
Umm, not part of psychology. Well, except for maybe one or two psychologists' subjective interpretations and premature presumptions on data collected by psychiatrists and biologists working on said research projects.
The DSM does not exist in a void. Of course it's going to be influenced by politics. I never suggested it was without flaws.
It's interesting how you indicate such like it's a given. You would be hard-pressed to pose that same line of thinking to any of the sciences. No arbitrary, politically influenced rulebook exists for the sciences, only consistently reproducible laws and as-of-yet-to-be-produced theories.
A bold claim. I'm afraid I have to request citation. I find this unlikely, personally, because it is standard practice for psychiatrists to recommend a psychologist or some other councilor in addition to medication, if not before. Furthermore, everything I have read on the subject of clinical depression (admittedly only one example of many) says that studies suggest most people benefit the most from a combination of both. And I have read a lot.
That's nice, you read a lot while I worked in the field. Is this a contest now?
Do not confuse psychiatry with psychology. I mentioned this earlier. Medications can stabilize, but therapy can just as easily destabilize as stabilize. The results of therapy, the cornerstone to the "resultant" argument of psychology's value, has demonstrated itself to be largely ineffective.
Let's face it, giving advice to a person who is mentally and/or emotionally unstable isn't likely to illicit reasoned, logical thought, no matter how hard you want it to.
Do not forget the method of delivery for the "medicine" of psychology. I.e., it's delivered by another human. Every person completing a doctorates in psychology must undergo therapy for a period of time, it's a prerequisite. Why? Because a person's baggage, their state of mind, can and does have an effect on their patients. The delivery of psychology is one's reactions and words.
No, not a science... but an art. The best psychologists had the talent of empathy prior to obtaining the education of averages. If you lack empathy and insight at the onset, you certainly cannot obtain it through academic study of averages, and certainly not through memorization of labels.
The process of diagnosis is that of watching, listening, and interacting with a patient, then attaching labels from the DSM that most closely resembles the behaviors and/or symptoms presented by a patient. But, they get it wrong quite often, precisely because diagnosis is a process of attaching labels, of categorizing symptoms, not determining causation.
Determining causation has many schools of thought within the field of psychology, all of them speculative interpretations. And while some psychologists adhere to one school, many adopt presumptions from more than one school, essentially creating their own, eclectic style of therapy.
That's simply not science, it's art.
I'm not a scientist. It's four in the morning right now, but when she gets up, I'll ask my mom about some of the studies they did in the seventies when she worked at Washu, and then submit them to my dad (a former brain scientist with doctorates in chemistry and neuroanatamy) to see if he finds them sufficiently scientific, and report the results. If he finds them to be lacking, I'll look up something more recent and try again. Don't worry, I'll give details and supply links to the studies if I can find them.
Great, would be interesting to see what you learned and are willing to share from this.