Psychology Shmychology

I have fallen out of love with my psychology major. Of course, along with falling out of love is the inevitable realization that I never really loved the study of psychology in the first place. In fact, it turns out that the study of psychology isn’t what I thought it was at all.

It is true, there are many aspects of modern cognitive-behavioral-neuroscientific psychological study that intrigue me. The mechanisms of working memory, attention, perceptual processing and association are valuable and mysterious subjects, and I hope to learn more regarding the goings-on of these basic systems as my education progresses. The collaborative workings of multiple senses that is implicit in the creation of our subjective experience is also surely fascinating, though I can’t recall anyone ever mentioning it. But, being now only two semesters away from receiving my bachelors in psychology, I am beginning to notice that my education has failed to illuminate any of the questions central to my current interests.

For one thing, I do not, at present, have a very clear understanding of the role emotion plays in the modern western concept of the human being. What is emotion? That it is linked to the limbic system is not an answer, my friend, nor is any reference to hormones or other neurotransmitters. Listing mood disorders once again fails to provide any meaningful explanation. What is the difference between happiness and joy? Why do small, inconsequential things elicit strong reactions when large-scale tragedies do not? Why do I get cranky?

But more importantly, modern psychology as taught in the Temple University undergraduate program has left me utterly bereft of any sort of vocabulary that might be of use in describing how it feels to be a human being. What is this? What is the nature of consciousness? What does the word consciousness refer to? How is consciousness effected by the workings of the body/brain/sensory apparatus? Is consciousness simply the end result of sensory, associative and mnemonic devices functioning together in a tightly crafted collaborative effort? But then, who or what is experiencing these phenomena? Anyone? I believe it is the Buddha’s suggestion that, no, there is in fact no one experiencing these phenomena. There are only the phenomena. Quite possible. And therein lies my point: At least the Buddha took a crack at it.

I had a teacher sophomore year for Introduction to Psychology and he warned all of us that the study of psychology would not yield the secrets of the universe. I said to my friend “I think he’s wrong.” Perhaps we were both right. He was quite correct in that the study of western psychology does not seek to reveal the nature of this thing called life, though indeed that is at the center of its inquiries. I was not entirely wrong in that “psychology” means the study of the mind, and the mind is precisely what must be studied if one hopes to unravel the nature of this strange thing!