Ask HN: Why did psychology take so long to evolve? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Why did psychology take so long to evolve?

2 pointsM95D10 comments

Psychology became really effective in recent years (aprox. since the '90s). I personally know from multiple sources that modern psychotherapy can cure most psychological problems completely and permanently. But my question is not about effectiveness. It's about evolution and context.

Why did it take so long for psychology and psychotherapy to evolve to where it is today?

It didn't need any electricity, plastics, it doesn't use precision tools, microscopes, or even advanced math. It does use some basic statistics.

I belive that even ancient romans or greeks could have done psychology. They already had philosophy. Why not psychology?

So why did it take so long? What was missing?

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Do we know for sure psychotherapy can cure most psychological problems completely and permanently? I'd like to see your sources. There are issues like:

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/matter-personality/2...

I don't have sources, but a few people I know had their issues resolved and I noticed over the years they didn't relapse. There were a few others which abandoned therapy and weren't fine - I guess those are the people counted to failure rate - but was it the fault of psychology I wonder?

Not interested in blaming psychology or anything else. Just wanted to know why you sound so sure of that.

Regardless of whether psychology is effective or not quite, I think epistemic hell is involved. Very good explanation: https://www.secretorum.life/p/epistemic-hell

I'm not sure. I know my point of view could be biased. I was surprised myself about what others told me.

But it doesn't matter. I think we can both agree that psychology today isn't at the level it was 100 years ago - it's a sudden improvement that didn't happen for thousands of years. The discussion was about the "why did it take so long", or "why now". @mrkeen argued that it was the scientific method. I'm not convinced. The scientific method was used since 1800s, I think, yet 150 more years passed with not much happening in this field.

- Was it the consequences of war in the age of bombs, mines, gas, machine guns?

- Was it Freud that made psychology a science?

- Was it marketing that gave a boost in research?

I would agree only if psychology caused some kind of progress to increase life expectancy or reduce violence. Which I'm not really aware of...so if not that, what was the improvement?

Well I reject the premise, but if we pretend it's true:

> So why did it take so long? What was missing?

The scientific method.

> I personally know from multiple sources that modern psychotherapy can cure most psychological problems completely and permanently.

The ancients personally knew from multiple sources that gods, demons, and witchcraft existed.

> The ancients personally knew from multiple sources that gods, demons, and witchcraft existed.

Good point.

I’m not sure the ancients had even basic stats?

But also… didn’t it require a cultural shift from seeing psychological problems as being caused by demons, or as being part of the nature of a person, to seeing them as pathologies that could be cured?

All Religions provide a proto form of it.

The villager runs to the witch or druid in the woods cuz no one in the village has an answer to their issues. This gives rise to a priest class that comes up with random answers and over time you have a natural selection process playing out selecting for stories, rituals, imagery etc etc that provide some kind of relief and value. The priesthood gets more powerful as the kings, queens and ruling class run to them too. Then you get a mutual dependency between the two groups where the clergy are given space to do what they do, in return they use their relationship with the plebs to legitimize the ruling class. To then challenge the priesthood in any part of the world, you have to wait for wealth and enlightenment or internal revolt within the priesthood.

Because ancient Romans and Greeks were smart enough to know the most of these problems stem from unfixable character flaws like lack of willpower.

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