Psychology is one of the disciplines about which the most myths circulate partly because its subject of study is interesting for the general public and partly because given the versatility of mental processes, all kinds of bizarre theories about how our brain works can be “invented.”
In this chapter We will review some of the most widespread myths of psychology and we will see why they are false.
1. Dreams have a hidden meaning
One of the most widespread ideas about the functioning of mental processes is that Dreams have a way of being interpreted that portrays our way of thinking our fears and our desires.
This myth, which draws directly from the psychoanalytic theories born with Sigmund Freud, is based on nothing more than beliefs that have not been demonstrated, so there is no reason to assume that dreams mean anything specific beyond the interpretation that each one wants to give them based on their own creative power.
2. Many psychological problems are solved by expressing them
It is very common to think that The task of psychotherapists is simply to be there to listen to the problems that the patient tells them and that the fact of verbally expressing these problems produces a feeling of well-being that is the foundation of the solution offered by psychology.
However, we must not forget that a large part of the reasons why people go to a psychologist have to do with objective and concrete material factors that are not going to disappear simply because we talk about them. Situations of family tension, eating disorders, gambling addiction, phobias… all of them exist because there is a dynamic of interaction between the person and the elements of their environment that reproduces itself and is maintained over time, regardless of the mode. in which the person experiences or interprets it
3. There is a rational brain and an emotional brain
Also There is a myth that two overlapping brains live inside our heads: a rational brain and an emotional brain This has a small part of truth, since the areas of the brain closest to the brain stem and the limbic system intervene more directly in the mental processes related to emotional states if we compare them with areas of the surface of the brain such as the lobe. frontal, but it is still a simplification.
What really happens is that all parts of the brain are working together both in those processes related to the emotional and in those related to “rational” thinking, to the point that it is practically impossible to know if a pattern of activation of neurons is rational or based on emotions.
4. We only use 10% of the brain
This myth is very popular, and yet it is absurd in several ways Firstly, when talking about this hidden potential of 10% of our brain, statements based on material things (the way our body really works) are often confused with those referring to our “hidden potential” as something more abstract and based on the philosophy of life that we follow.
This makes it easy to “throw the stone and hide the hand”, that is, to assert things supposedly based on scientific knowledge and, when challenged, to pass them off as simply ideas about the life worth living, the way in which the one where we can find ourselves, etc.
To learn more about why everything we know about how the brain works contradicts the 10% myth, you can read this article.
5. Subliminal messages make you buy things
The idea that an advertising team can make us feel the impulse to buy a specific product by introducing some “hidden” frames in a video or some letters in an image has not only not been proven, but is They are based on an experiment, that of James Vicary and Coca-Cola which never came to exist as such, as Vicary himself admitted.
6. Interpreting someone’s drawings serves to evaluate their personality
Analyzing people’s drawings is only useful when exploring very specific diseases, such as hemineglect, in which the left half of what is perceived is ignored (and therefore the left side of the drawings are left unfinished). That is to say, projective tests, such as those in which the drawings that someone makes are analyzed, do not serve to evaluate details about people’s personalities and, beyond individual opinions about therapists who apply them, under the magnifying glass of studies that analyze a multitude of results, they have never proven to be effective
The meta-analyses that have been carried out on these tests point to their little or no usefulness, among other things because there is no single way in which a drawing can be interpreted: for some reason it is a product of creativity and therefore they escape to preconceived schemes.
Hypnosis seems to be little less than a magical power that allows someone trained in these techniques to manipulate other people’s bodies at will, but reality is far from this marketing-esque and spectacular vision.
The truth is Hypnosis is fundamentally based on suggestion and on the degree to which the person is willing to participate in the technique. Someone who does not want to be hypnotized will not be influenced by hypnosis.
8. Personality is assigned during youth
It is true that the first years of development are fundamental and that the things that happen to us during them can leave a mark that is difficult to erase in terms of our way of acting and perceiving things, but this should not be exaggerated.
Important aspects of personality may continue to vary beyond adolescence and young adulthood in a similar way to what happens to Walter White in Breaking Bad (although not always for the worse, of course). After all, our brain is constantly changing depending on what we are experiencing, even during old age.
