Damián Ruiz
With this writing, I intend to start a section where I will share some reflections on psychological issues, aspects of life in general, or anything I find interesting to share.
In this first text, I would like to reflect on the practice of clinical psychology and psychotherapy.
Currently, under the heading of “scientific evidence,” a tremendously superficial view of psychotherapy is being imposed, one that, besides using biological terms and reductionist practices, stigmatizes the entire theoretical framework that preceded it—the very foundation that has brought significant advancements to this scientific-humanistic practice.
Dismissing Freud, Maslow, Jung, Rogers, James, Millon, Frankl, Klein, Adler, among many others, and replacing them with shallow, low-quality theories, into which enormous amounts of money are invested to achieve statistically significant results and thereby make them official—partly because the concept of the human being they promote has little prior identity beyond what circumstances shape, and because they favor the trendy concept of self-configuration—amounts, at the very least, to an insult to intelligence.
Under the guise of scientism—while science must indeed be the measure, it should be science based on real biological evidence—an entire compendium of historical wisdom, in the form of texts, experiences, and therapeutic practices, is being marginalized in favor of an empty psychology, where a few common-sense tips and superficial empathy become the universal therapeutic standard.
Those of us who, like myself, have studied and explored the works of great psychologists, combined with extensive therapeutic practice, to contribute and help alleviate the psychological suffering of those enduring it—sometimes successfully, sometimes less so—now find ourselves having to apologize in the face of prevailing therapeutic reductionism, which often disregards the existence of trauma in a person’s life or the innate personality configuration beyond life circumstances.
At birth, “we already are,” and trauma profoundly influences our personal development.
The theories of those great thinkers, along with many others, must be considered, and any self-respecting psychologist should at least be familiar with them.
Psychology is and must remain humanistic, and my stance on this is firm.
The results achieved by many therapists who follow this tradition, based on profound and complex theories of the human psyche, are, at the very least, no worse than those of simplistic advice and practices. I dare say that, despite the silence and marginalization by current academic orthodoxy, they are significantly better.