Indoctrinated Beliefs

[Aractus]

This will probably anger a couple of my friends, so I'm not going to talk about the specific case that I just wrote about in my blog, but I do suggest you have a look at it to see the specific example I'm talking about of a person who I used to count as a friend that was taught some pretty fucked up nonsense that caused irreparable harm to our friendship, not to mention other specific relationships with people in his life that I know about (but didn't write about).

So what am I discussing here? Specifically it's the tendency of Christian RTO's (registered training organisations) to teach a skewed and potentially dangerous version of science - and in this case psychology and specifically neo-Freudism. Some Christians love it because it gives them a so-called scientific defence for the Bible's views on the individual. But it's totally bullshit, and it can lead to very serious problems. Freudism is not taken seriously academically, even its derivative which is psychodynamic theory is seen as being fundamentally flawed to the point that it is not a real science, and its theories are used with extreme caution by any properly qualified psychologist.

This is an example of an indoctrinated belief that I've seen not just in one person - but in a lot of so-called "Christians". It's not a specifically Christian belief, but they are they are very receptive to receiving it without scrutiny or criticism. And most of the people who get taught shit like this quite frankly are not smart enough to know any better or to use the concepts it teaches in the real world in the first place.

Anyone else got some great examples?

[Alex K]

What are those RTOs precisely and in what context would they teach freudianism? I googled, but I still only have a vague idea...

[Aractus]

An RTO is a registered training organisation. They are endorsed by the government to do nationally recognised courses such as diploma or certificate courses. There are some really bad RTO's at the moment that overcharge for diploma courses and use incentives to get students (which is being banned), and admit students who are not capable of completing the course. Now as far as I know Fusion isn't guilty of those sins, they are genuinely non-profit. However their courses are not cheap - the Certificate IV course costs $3,800 and is run over 6 months which compares to say the CIT where a Certificate IV in youth work costs around $1000 and is run over 12 months. I do not know whether it is still a part of their courses, what I do know is that it formed the basis for their teachings on self-actualisation, with a focus on the unwanted so-called negative behaviours. They also had a very strong focus on achieving interdependence. Interdependence is important in the broader social context; that is we need people with a variety of different skills for a thriving healthy community - but they think it's fundamentally important on an individual level.