On the Rework of Psychology

[Saudus]

If you want to keep it more of a talk based job, make a special patient couch or chair that induces thoughts similar to when you're sleeping and dreaming. Specific traumas have specific thoughts generated with significant overlap between traumas.

Now when I say thouhts I don't mean "the chef/wizard/submarine/etc..." but more like "you feel a sudden pang of unexplained fear/you feel angry but not sure why/you feel immensely sad for some reason" (emotions) and specific thoughts like "you're reminded of a moment from your childhood/you think about your mother/you would like to eat some ice cream". These can be induced at regular time intervals or manually induced by the psychologist (whichever ppl thinks is best).

Don't make it too complicated but encourage it to take a few minutes to make ppl RP it. Finally when narrowed down to a specific trauma the patient enters something like a "neural pathway reorganization pod", the psychologist inputs something based on the trauma and emotion/thought prompts and it supresses it for like 1-2h. If the input is wrong it creates some brain damage or sth.

Gives the job mechanics to work with, encourages RP and isn't crazy crystals or ECT.

[Sytic]

Welcome back, everybody. We're on our monthly visit to this thread, and we're only going to be quoting what I said earlier and that's pretty much it.

 

There have been two given possible solutions, one of which was part of the code originally quite easily, I agree, traumas require mechanical ways of going about it- but using debatable methods of therapy isn't. Here's two much more scientific fields, which would almost definitely be explored as a field of medical science in the far future.

Chemistry and You: The Psychiatrist's Method of Knowing How to Manage Your Shit Correctly

Traumas fuck with the brain, that's for sure. Traumas can cause chemical imbalances and completely and utterly fuck your mental hormones up sideways, absolutely screwing with your mental pathways. For this, a controlled dose of prescribed chemicals can be used as a prescription basis to correctly balance you out. How this system would work is as follows:

1: Change the current chakra stuff to a trauma detection lounge. Keep it simple, but essentially give it a readout of how severe each trauma is in comparison to each other.

2: Using the given readout, you can find the required amount of units for each dose.

3: Forward the required prescription to the chemist. They'll make the stuff.

4: The patient takes the required prescription and their trauma is cleared. Mental damage starts ticking if the Chemist or the Psychologist screwed the pooch.

5: The dose is only required (preferably) once per round, although once per two hours can be a thing (if you really want it to). Effectively, it's a method to erase the trauma. Check against the right amount of prescription, yes, remove it.

I have no idea how easy or difficult that is to code, but it was a system requested far earlier in this thread, and I'm okay with that. Unlike all the advertised and implemented changes the PR proposed for the Psychologist, this is a field currently in development and is constantly being advanced as a medical science, along with my second suggestion...

Neurology and You: Why Needles in Your Brain Isn't Always Bad

If Trauma's fuck with the brain, the Neurologist is the pest control for insanity. Rebrand the Psychologist to the Neurologist (as the fields overlap in places and Psychiatric knowledge would be important for the roleplayed aftereffects of dealing with post-trauma) and give it a surgery table. Surgeons are no longer accomplished brain surgeons outside of painfully lobotomising someone's brain, while the Neurologist uses their advanced medical science to nip those traumas in the bud.

Effectively, like the same trauma-removal system we had before, just shunting it off to the now Neurologist instead of the Surgeons, who already have way too much on their plate as is, in hectic rounds. This system would allow for cloning to be effective regardless of whether the Surgeon is around or not, and allow trauma care to happen across the board of the round. This also develops the Psychiatrist's medical know-how and makes them feel involved as part of Medical.

Hopefully, this seems good. Even though I suck at suggestions, and typically screw up my words, I hope this was good to read. Let me know what you think, Skull.

 

[mention]Skull132[/mention], what do you think of this suggestion as is?

[Sytic]

guess who's back, back again. The monthly revisit to this thread, these changes, and complaining about it. Oh boy.

Foreword: In this, I mix up psychologist and psychiatrist often. Here's what Google has to say about the difference:

"Because psychiatrists are trained medical doctors, they can prescribe medications, and they spend much of their time with patients on medication management as a course of treatment. Psychologists focus extensively on psychotherapy and treating emotional and mental suffering in patients with behavioral intervention."

For the sake of this, insinuate that I mean both spheres of psychology and psychiatry, and their respective methods.

I'm surprised this isn't locked after me constantly having to come back in here and talk about it, but I've already given my opinion on what better solutions would be available, and I'll add a third one to the quote. It's gonna be in a spoiler.

 

There have been two given possible solutions, one of which was part of the code originally quite easily, I agree, traumas require mechanical ways of going about it- but using debatable methods of therapy isn't. Here's two much more scientific fields, which would almost definitely be explored as a field of medical science in the far future.

Chemistry and You: The Psychiatrist's Method of Knowing How to Manage Your Shit Correctly

Traumas fuck with the brain, that's for sure. Traumas can cause chemical imbalances and completely and utterly fuck your mental hormones up sideways, absolutely screwing with your mental pathways. For this, a controlled dose of prescribed chemicals can be used as a prescription basis to correctly balance you out. How this system would work is as follows:

1: Change the current chakra stuff to a trauma detection lounge. Keep it simple, but essentially give it a readout of how severe each trauma is in comparison to each other.

2: Using the given readout, you can find the required amount of units for each dose.

3: Forward the required prescription to the chemist. They'll make the stuff.

4: The patient takes the required prescription and their trauma is cleared. Mental damage starts ticking if the Chemist or the Psychologist screwed the pooch.

5: The dose is only required (preferably) once per round, although once per two hours can be a thing (if you really want it to). Effectively, it's a method to erase the trauma. Check against the right amount of prescription, yes, remove it.

I have no idea how easy or difficult that is to code, but it was a system requested far earlier in this thread, and I'm okay with that. Unlike all the advertised and implemented changes the PR proposed for the Psychologist, this is a field currently in development and is constantly being advanced as a medical science, along with my second suggestion...

Neurology and You: Why Needles in Your Brain Isn't Always Bad

If Trauma's fuck with the brain, the Neurologist is the pest control for insanity. Rebrand the Psychologist to the Neurologist (as the fields overlap in places and Psychiatric knowledge would be important for the roleplayed aftereffects of dealing with post-trauma) and give it a surgery table. Surgeons are no longer accomplished brain surgeons outside of painfully lobotomising someone's brain, while the Neurologist uses their advanced medical science to nip those traumas in the bud.

Effectively, like the same trauma-removal system we had before, just shunting it off to the now Neurologist instead of the Surgeons, who already have way too much on their plate as is, in hectic rounds. This system would allow for cloning to be effective regardless of whether the Surgeon is around or not, and allow trauma care to happen across the board of the round. This also develops the Psychiatrist's medical know-how and makes them feel involved as part of Medical.

Ultrasounds: Headphones Are Bad For You, Except When They're Not

Earbuds suck ass. They blow apart people's hearing at high decibels, but it's been recently found that certain frequencies of sounds (most of these outside the range of human hearing) affect brain patterns. Through this, it might be definitely possible to repair blockages or ruined pathways in the brain by changing its brain pattern for a certain period of time, allowing the brain to repair itself over a short period wearing some specialised earbuds for respective trauma, maybe even a catch-all if traumas really are that annoying to deal with.

This is probably the most simple option out of the three, and gives you nice happy messages for a few minutes before the trauma goes POOF and stops existing. Definitely the easiest and definitely makes the most sense, outside of the current methods of therapy.

Hopefully, this seems good. Even though I suck at suggestions, and typically screw up my words, I hope this was good to read. Let me know what you think.

 

 

With that out of the way, I wanted to talk about two things in particular: Both the opinions of this suggestion with the effects I have seen it have on the playerbase, as well as why these current methods of therapy should be changed from what they are.

The Opinions on the Psychology Update and its Effects

I've seen a massive decline in the amount of serious psychologists. There used to be a good chunk of them- now, there are very few. Where have they gone? They can, assuredly, still operate just like they used to? Wrong. There's a few reasons for this:

By incorporating pseudoscience as a base for the psychologist's medium of fixing trauma, there's no actual fun out of attempting to fix someone's mental state anymore- You can just hop in the magical crystal chair and have that solve your problems, right? It makes the psychologist dull and boring, only useful and VERY IMPORTANT when corpses come in that can be cloned. But when someone's cloned, you fix the trauma, give 'em a slap on the back and they can walk off. You can literally do it while drunk, if station Security didn't stop you.

The psychology wing is now much more larger, but because of where it is, it is now much less obvious. Psychological evaluations are much less commonplace now that the psychology wing is very, very out of the way. Nobody sees it anymore, the only thing they see is the pointless never-used examination room and the stairs leading to it, leading to barely any traffic as it is the most out of the way place in Medical. Even the sublevel gets more traffic, and that's just to get around having to get into the bridge to sneak up to the AI! (and virology but we don't talk about virology).

Yet psychologists are still incredibly important. With the massive amount of brain trauma players now get (shrapnel damage in head, oxyloss, cloning) you will be completely screwed without a way to fix trauma, even if chemistry can fix the damage. So the only way to fix the trauma is to drag them up to the psych wing and toss them in the magical fix-me chair. However, due to the reasons above, nobody does it. I'd assume the CMO has to go up and do it themselves, due to the lack of a psychologist. Don't have either? Guess you're shit out of luck! Better prep the surgery ward. (Although, all cloned patients automatically have to see a psychiatrist anyways. As previously stated, psychiatry and psychology is boring now.)

But where did they all go? Well, it seems like the now meme-role Psychologist managed to flip another role and do a complete 180 on its perception in the community. Nowadays, the Counselor and to a lesser extent, the Chaplain gets much, much more traffic by players who are actually interested in properly roleplaying and helping members of staff get through trauma and stress. This is great for the role, as it always used to be the home of bad roleplay and just some really, really stupid players, but now it's done a complete turnaround. While it is still occasionally a joke, it's now much more trafficked than the actual licensed psychologist on the station to get across your mental troubles.

And what are the opinions on the psych update? Everyone but a few players I've gone to have said it's stupid. It's very dumb. The few players who have disagreed with me, have said it is more alongside the reasons of, "Well why couldn't chakra therapy work in 2460? Maybe they found the just-right crystal that makes it all work!" (I've covered that in the next point). What does the actual contributor think? Well, we've joked about it in the past whenever it's brought up. It's referred to, in Fowl's eyes, their "magnum opus". It's a fucking meme on its own.

Magic Spess Crystals: Why Not?

Everything on Aurora has a base in sense, unless it's an antag. And roughly half the antags do regardless make sense. All of our Science system seems hypothetically possible. It hasn't been rendered false, as does most things on the station. The supermatter and the singularity, two things that seem to be the least explained elements of the station, still seem reasonable in a sci-fi environment. Everything that is consistent across rounds makes proper fucking sense, or at least seems like it can in the 25th century.

EXCEPT the psychologist.

Neither Chakra, Isolation or Hypnotism have proper, across the board mental health benefits. They do not fix trauma. They are not cures. At best, they are placebo for the person involved. The chakra chair is the closest it gets to actually making any sense (and, ironically, so is ECT. The reason it got pushback was because of the way Fowl made it, which was a literal electric chair), and that is because it uses "magic space crystals" as a reason. Does it still make sense? No, because at a base level it is described as chakra therapy, which does not work. There are many avenues you can go to making a realistic way of curing trauma in a sci-fi environment, some examples posted in the spoiler above.

And, referencing earlier statements about the lack of fun the psychologist has, the complete lack of realism of the trauma repair system makes the role feel worthless. If everything is solved via magic space crystals, why put in the effort of repairing the trauma as a real psychologist would? What's the point of it, if any? The complete disconnect from realism kills the roleplay of the psychiatrist which has no incentive to roleplay any of their treatment, as it's so unrealistic anyways.

"But Sytic, it's the 25th century! Suspend your realism for a bit! It's science fiction!" Okay, fucko. It's also science fiction. If your supposed fictional element is based on something that already doesn't work and literally cites the dumbest possible excuse as a way to get around it, you need to improve your writing. Implement something that is improving and makes some sense. Ultrasounds, neurosurgery, and chemistry all have current, improving methods towards fixing and at least assisting with brain trauma, rather than these outdated placebo at best forms of therapy presented and pushed for the Psychologist.

Closing Statements

I don't mean to come off as rude, or an asshole to Fowl. Like Skull said, an update needed to be made to the Psychologist so it could fix brain trauma. Can brain surgery affect traumas? Thankfully, it can. Is the Psychologist still fucked? Yes, yes they still are. Like it or not, the Psychologist has been gimped. Players have moved on from the role entirely, and Alberyk, as well as Fowl himself agreed that, because of the lack of psychologists, there should be less mental damage affecting them.

The psychologist is a role that is dead in the water. It's unfun and also desperately needed to have traumas fixed speedily. By giving them "gamey" ways to get around trauma, nobody uses them. Brain surgery is still the main way to do it due to the absolute lack of psychologists. The lack of a role to just straight up vent to and talk to ICly has naturally caused a role that, once known for its shitters, has actually evolved to have a few characters who are pillars of the community. And it has no gamey elements whatsoever.

[mention]Skull132[/mention] I summon you, as you wanted to be told about the suggestions towards fixing Psychology. Here it is.

EDIT: Relevant Image below.

Image removed per request.

Edited July 2, 2018 by Guest

[Scheveningen]

Posting memes in serious suggestion threads is really unnecessary.

I don't think the trauma mechanics/psychology needs changes at all. The issue is in clarity of information at worst and the fact that very few people actually know how traumas work and how to diagnose them.

In short, the people who play medical need to get good and actually understand how traumas work OOCly before they can understand how to deal with them ICly.

Furthermore nobody played psychologist before or after this update, so this update has absolutely nothing to do with its current population. The current medical depopulation is morein due to how the mapping is for medical currently. It's an awkward gamey maze and that has more influence on psychologists not being around.

[Sytic]

The problem is, psychology's mechanics never were a problem, and there WAS a decent chunk who played them. Nowadays it's Beck and a C'thur that recently popped up that comes to mind, and that's it.

The gamey mechanics is exactly what drew people AWAY from the role, and it's making cloning a hell of a hassle trying to get around the nowadays dipshit psychologists not bothering to learn their role in any OOC or IC capacity. Trauma mechanics don't require changing, because players are able to have the capacity to git gud and get better at treating them. The Low-RP, /tg/ tier roleplay psychologist we have right now does not help in any capacity for players who want to play a psychologist to want to get better at it to reach the skill ceiling in their current role from an OOC standpoint, as it's not fun to roleplay them.

[Sytic]

Welcome back! It's been a great...

Year, or so?

Since the Psychology update. (EDIT: Sorry, it's been about a year or so since my last POST about the Psychology update.)

And about two months since Fowl left.

From last we left off, we discussed the magic space crystals, we discussed the variety of stupid elements about the Psychology rework, and we discussed on Discord and elsewhere a future fix done by Fowl. This would be a medicated system via a sleeper which would inject the patient with prescribed drugs which would fix the mental traumas, but only when the Psych actually knew what trauma it was. It would also add machine traumas at a later date. This update was referred to "Unapologetic Psych Buffs Part II: The Freudian Slip" and you can find the link here: https://github.com/Aurorastation/Aurora.3/pull/4994

I actually really liked this idea, really liked how Fowl was picking it up again and excited. Then shit went down, it slipped under the radar, and it was quietly forgotten about on the 29th of January, before Fowl left a few months later due to reasons I do not quite know. I liked Fowl as a developer, yet the quiet way that this slipped away made a lot of people forget about it.

Except me.

Now, right here, going to lay this out on the table: I don't mind Traumas, except that I want IPC Traumas. That last part goes into the general vibe of an IPC player feeling comparatively stronger than most people and thinking it's unfair. But overall, Chemistry often deals with Traumas at the same rate of the Psychologist, and when a Psychologist is used they often are more of an IC role, dealing with problems as they come and scheduling visits. That's all well and good. But it is still a discredit to them that mental trauma can be "fixed" with a magic space Chakra crystal bed chair.

All that I ask, is that something is done about this. This is a complete inconsistency from the actual lore we tend to value, where we can at least attempt to explain something, even on the more fantastical side, with real-world science applied to it (with the obvious exception of effects which don't persist round to round or are obviously designed particularly for the otherworldly spook factor, e.g. antagonists, spooky rock findings, artifacts). This is shoved under the rug and never raised, despite being relevant to an organ so goddamn complex it created the game we are playing.

pls fix

Edited June 21, 2019 by Sytic

[GreenBoi]

I think Electro-shock Therapy equipment could be just added as a Syndicate Item. Here's a current thought of it:

Neuro-Shock Helmet - 10TC

'An illegal, normal-sized helmet used by the Syndicate to turn the tide of interrogations or hostages. Can be activated via remote control that comes in kit. Victim will have medium burns, and will be very gullible for the next 6 minutes once done.'

 

Ideally, it'd take 10 seconds as a whole. 2 seconds to charge up, 8 seconds to fully shock the victim's brain.

[Guest Marlon Phoenix]

18 hours ago, GreenBoi said:

I think Electro-shock Therapy equipment could be just added as a Syndicate Item. Here's a current thought of it:

Neuro-Shock Helmet - 10TC

'An illegal, normal-sized helmet used by the Syndicate to turn the tide of interrogations or hostages. Can be activated via remote control that comes in kit. Victim will have medium burns, and will be very gullible for the next 6 minutes once done.'

 

Ideally, it'd take 10 seconds as a whole. 2 seconds to charge up, 8 seconds to fully shock the victim's brain.

Thats a great idea. But it wont be useful in that method because its too loud. It having a chance to force them to tell you the truth would be cool. Like the vampire passive.

[Azande]

BTW

IDK who told anyone that ECT is a barbaric outdated practice, but it's actually still used today, quite often, safely and humanely, to treat mental illness like depression. Especially treatment-resistant illnesses. It is not painful, it is not torturous, and it is a modern medical procedure now.

It would make MUCH more sense to use compared to our weird phoron crystal machine.

Edited July 2, 2019 by Azande

[Guest Marlon Phoenix]

13 minutes ago, Azande said:

BTW

IDK who told anyone that ECT is a barbaric outdated practice, but it's actually still used today, quite often, safely and humanely, to treat mental illness like depression. Especially treatment-resistant illnesses. It is not painful, it is not torturous, and it is a modern medical procedure now.

It would make MUCH more sense to use compared to our weird phoron crystal machine.

I would rather keep using scifi equipment than ECT, which carries too much baggage.

[Azande]

This is fair, I suppose.

[Scheveningen]

I like the current methods psychs use to cure people. I admit it is not common knowledge enough though. I will try to make a really brief guide on how to easily interact with said machines as a psych to help fix people. Likewise, there are chemical treatments that fix certain traumas caused by cloning, bypassing the need for the psych in (80% of) dire situations. Said chemical treatments expend a lot of reagents, though.

Edited July 2, 2019 by Scheveningen

[Bygonehero]

31 minutes ago, Scheveningen said:

I like the current methods psychs use to cure people. I admit it is not common knowledge enough though. I will try to make a really brief guide on how to easily interact with said machines as a psych to help fix people. Likewise, there are chemical treatments that fix certain traumas caused by cloning, bypassing the need for the psych in (80% of) dire situations. Said chemical treatments expend a lot of reagents, though.

Prescribing broad spectrum anti-depressants/psychotics is realistic for  medical to do unfortunately 

[Scheveningen]

I suppose it is, I feel the only unrealistic bit is how some of them very quickly cure after a few brief ticks rather than just gradually treating the symptoms over time. That's asking for a lot on the code side of things, though.

[alexpkeaton]

So I just got pinged through e-mail on the necropost.

I posted a reply back in 2018 echoing what @Azande said.

I've moved on to Bay these days for the away missions and enjoy it but I remember fondly maining psych on Aurora.

I might have to come back and see how things have changed since I left and try out the psych mechanics now that the new system probably has been fleshed out a bit.