Eric Fesmire-General Topic #2

One of my biggest complaints about Psychology as a student of the discipline is its loss of personal language. I remember sitting in class last semester and watching a completely heart breaking video about a man with short term memory loss, meaning the span of his memory is about 20 seconds. After the video cut off the discussion that followed was a lifeless and compassionless listing of all the different things that were wrong with him and how it was irreversible. Nothing about meaning, purpose or existence in such a state.  Nothing about his family and how they were coping. Just a simple list of "this is what parts of the brain where damaged etc etc." I am not against the biological and scientific explorations into what makes us human. We need them to fully understand us. However, I think every psychologist does well to remember that when we are talking about a disease or a disorder, we are describing real actual people and their destinies/lives not theoretical concepts. Psychology needs to branch into the realm of answering the questions many people want to explore when they enter psychology: questions about humanity,meaning, securities and insecurities, emotions etc.