It's kind of strange that psychology has this dual role of both giving advice to the sane and managing the insane. The same division was a thing in psychoanalysis too with neurotics vs psychotics
Why does it do both? Why do people use it as a go-to source for life advice?
People will go to a psychologist for marriage troubles, and they'll also go to a psychologist for psychosis. Seems like a weird place to go to marriage help for unless your wife is psychotic
It's like psychologists have been given this role that religion used to occupy
I look at this from the other direction and find psychology's obsession and fixation on trying to discover what is wrong with their patients and labelling them to be an uncalled for and likely harmful.
I feel the idea that a psychologist should make your life better regardless of how healthy you are to be the normal, obvious idea. It's the compulsive pathologization that is truly bizarre. Why is that helping them?
It is exactly the role religions used to play - more so in the past, yes, but still pretty much in scene today still, although perhaps weaker - so this answer your question:
> Why does it do both?
Demand. For what? For adaptation to the current metagame.
While writing this reply, I remembered a few passages from a great thinker, that I think may contribute and expand the conversation, for those interested:
"Art, ethics, philosophy bear witness:
under the crust of words and concepts, the living reality of
non-adaptation to the world is always crouched, ready to
spring. Since neither gods nor words can manage to cover it
up decently any longer, this commonplace creature roams
naked in railway stations and vacant lots; it confronts you
at each evasion of yourself, it touches your elbow, catches
your eye; and the dialogue begins." [0]
"After all, if an individual refuses both to adapt to the
violence of the world, and to embrace the violence of the
unadapted, what can he do? If he doesn't raise his will to
achieve unity with the world and with himself to the level
of coherent theory and practice, the vast silence of
society's open spaces will raise around him the palace of
solipsist madness." [1]
"People are bewitched into believing that time slips away, and
this belief is the basis of time actually slipping away. Time
is the work of attrition of that adaptation to which people
must resign themselves so long as they fail to change the world." [2]
I'm not sure if its my internal bias, but I'm reading that as the way to prevent the slow slip into insanity is violence with an intent to change the world. The funny part is there may be truth to that.
You can go to the doctor to get advise on how to prepare for a sports event, you can also go to the doctor if you are sick. You can also go to the mechanic to tune the performance of your car and also to replace a broken head gasket. And while computer engineers are not repair technicians, they usually know better than the average person on how to fix a computer.
When you know about a subject, you are generally in a good position to both give advise and deal with problems, though you can specialize in one or the other.
Why does it do both? Why do people use it as a go-to source for life advice?
People will go to a psychologist for marriage troubles, and they'll also go to a psychologist for psychosis. Seems like a weird place to go to marriage help for unless your wife is psychotic
It's like psychologists have been given this role that religion used to occupy