When I talk to psychologists, they invariably say the problem is with psychiatrists. When I talk to psychiatrists, they invariably say the problem is with psychologists. But if human psychology were a science, this lame dodge would not exist, because both psychology and psychiatry would be united by a single theoretical framework, like the one that unites cosmology and particle physics (i.e. the Standard Model).
Particle physicists attend cosmology conferences, and cosmologists attend particle physics conferences, for the reason that both fields have the same theoretical framework and because discoveries in either field affect the other. And because physics is a science.
Psychiatrists don't attend clinical psychology conferences, and clinical psychologists don't attend psychiatry conferences, for the reason that there is no theoretical framework that unites psychiatry and psychology, and that, in turn, is because psychology is not a science.
> (and a psychiatrist actually is a medical doctor)
Yes, but a psychiatrist's medical degree is in general medicine, not psychiatry. There is no mental doctor, there are only physical doctors. The existence of a medical degree program in advance of psychiatric training is just a way to confer an unearned status to psychiatry.
When you call a psychiatrist "doctor", you are acknowledging his medical training, not his psychiatric training. If psychiatry were a science, of course, this would all be different.
Any questions?
