There is nothing wrong with "Western thought" in my opinion, or any other thoughts. It is thoughts and concepts that are responsible for objective understanding and most of the material progress we see all around us.

However, thoughts are influenced by the thinker's past, prejudices, and opinions. Many thoughts are unwanted by the thinker or by others who hear of them or see the actions that are their results. Thoughts, like most things in life, are changeable and unreliable.

That is why science, including psychology, attempts to build reliable models of the world experienced through our senses.

We work to understand objective truth and through that work to improve ourselves and our world.

However, society throughout the world does have one limitation, which limits its achievements: we do not truly know ourself or the nature of reality. What I mean by this is that we do not know subjective truth, which is quite different from objective truth.

Subjective truth does not deal with events, objects, space, or time. It deals only with that by which we know events, objects, space, and time. It deals only with human awareness, the most intimate component of what we call our self.

Awareness is more intimate than sensory perceptions. It is more intimate than ego, the concern for ourselves and the feeling that we are "doing things" when we act (sometimes even when we think). Yet not once during our schooling have we been asked, "are you aware?" or had any guidance to explore the nature of our awareness (which proves to have enormous hidden interest and depth).

When we have limitations, due to belief, conditioning, or stored stresses, we have many questions. These are not objective questions, like "what route should I use to get to my new job" that can be solved by algorithms, plans, or rules. These are subjective questions, like "why do I keep trying to get my happiness from my relationships?" or "why am I so unhappy so much of the time?".

Such psychological questions tend to recur, and tend to have only temporary solutions. Finding a new relationship, a new car, or a new self-medicating drug works only temporarily to bring us happiness. Eventually each attempt to find peace or happiness fails, and we search again. Having psychological questions means always returning to searching mode and rarely being completely at peace.

Our weaknesses may be seen as "destroying psychological science". But this is short-sighted. By allowing many inputs, psychology and other sciences eliminate the false and increase their true content over time.

You ask, "how can this be stopped?". I think you really mean, "how can unproductive or counterproductive thinking be stopped." It cannot be stopped.

Thoughts, especially psychological thoughts, are generated based on all our experiences of the past and on outside events, objects, and stressors. You cannot change something from its own level. Solving a problem always requires a leap of insight which transcends the problem itself. The best or ideal solution to alcoholism has nothing to do with alcoholism; it is by strengthening the nervous system (by eliminating stored stresses) and encouraging our awareness of being aware. Experience with certain forms of meditation yields plenty of evidence for this. And the solutions of the riddles of the benzene ring and of DNA came from dreams and sudden "eureka!" insights. This need for transcending the current system can even be proved through mathematics (as a corollary to either of Kurt Gödel's Incompleteness Theorems[1]).

If you want thoughts to become less wild and more productive, eliminate the internal stress and false subjective beliefs that cause random, unproductive, or unwanted thoughts. Nothing short of this transformative methodology will work. The world itself, with its war, greed, racism, ignorance, injustice, and poverty, is undeniable evidence that our current methodologies (if any) for dealing with poor thinking do not work.

(I teach Natural Stress Relief[2], a unique meditation technique that brings peace and happiness to life from the very first of its six lessons. NSR is effortless, inexpensive, learned in three days at home, and practiced for 15 minutes twice a day while sitting in a comfortable chair. It involves and requires no beliefs or changes in lifestyle. It is sold by nonprofit organizations or charities run completely by volunteers. The NSR project, in its 14 years, has taught 5000 people around the world, whose feedback has confirmed its success in producing its goals in the individual. NSR is easy to research, and two pilot papers[3] have already been published on its effects.)

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References:

1. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6del%27s_incompleteness_theorems .

2. See http://www.nsrusa.org .

3. See http://www.nsrusa.org/research.php .

Dear David Spector 

I am impressed by your thoughtful answer.   It has components I can 'see' and agree with and others I cannot.  (There also seems to be one way you contradict yourself.)

FIRST:

 I do see "Western thought" as having something wrong with it.  Outside of specifics, there is a huge tendency to leap to OR, most often start with, a hypothetico-deductive system  (it is part of what one might refer to as an overall "dominion" assumptive/PERSUMPTIVE perspective).  I could deal with details, but that would be almost endless, plus good philosophers would be better at that than me.  I can offer a few resultant presumptions (which are viewed as legitimate assumptions -- even though they are baseless):

   1. The more "advanced" the organism, the less innate influences ( this is

       due to an artificial dichotomy of "learning" vs "innate" which is not only

       unfounded, but  unlikely). Western psychologists literally seem

       incapable of imagining BOTH innate guidance and learning in effect

       OCCURRING SIMULTANEOUSLY -- though some major thinkers

       have said this is the perspective we need and  they have said so for

        decades (Anastasi, for one). [ NOTE: The idea of more innate

        guidance in more "advanced" organisms DOES NOT MEAN less

        learning (in fact, I argue that it provides a perspective whereby

        you can locate and 'see' more learning). ]

   2. There is the presumption that all that reflects innate guidance is

        present at birth -- another unfounded and arguable unlikely

        presumption,  which poses  as an assumption.  This (like 1.) seems

        clearly related to Western thought. In contrast, I see innate guidance

        emerging with each major qualitative change (stage) in the

        development of conceptual abilities (abstraction abilities) -- the last

         being during adolescence (this fills in an explanatory gap in all

         neo-Piagetian theories). (Also, see 4., below for particulars.)

   3. While we are biological and all our functioning should obey

        BIOLOGICAL ASSUMPTIONS (necessarily true, justified

        assumptions, like homeostasis)  and this should constantly

        be seen as a factor ,  it is NOT in psychological theories

   4. In our 'civilization' there are firmly (and always) things that are

       thought to be beyond having any specifiable empirical connection. 

       A BIG example here is: abstract thought ("higher" conceptualization):

       NEVER here has there even been shown a willingness to posit a

       completely directly observable and concrete

       manifestation of this, most importantly (and the real problem):

       not even at its inception.   Combine this with the at-birth bias,

       and you cannot allow the idea of concrete aspects of behavior

       emerging with development (innately guided) which are the most

       basic proximate causes of the inception of each new level of

       cognitive conceptualization (abstraction).  This, again, is just

       baseless presumption -- and has a serious UN-empirical outlook

       firmly associated with this. (This point clearly shows the total limiting

       of perspectives that may destroy empirical science in psychology.)

    5. There is a serious hypothetico-deductive bias (versus inductive

         learning) that also expressly contributes to the various nonsense

         psychological "theories". We seem to love to think "in advance" as

         much as possible, when, quite likely, the opposite should be true --

         as long as there are observations "to be had".

You say: "Subjective truth does not deal with events, objects, space, or time. It deals only with that by which we know events".  The problem here is that this sticks "events we know" (or "by which we know") as kind of a constant, which it most certainly need not be. You yourself say: "sciences eliminate the false and increase their true content over time". (Thus here I have pointed out the contradiction.)

You say: "Solving a problem always requires a leap of insight which transcends the problem itself."  Yes, yes, yes.  The question is HOW and I say the answer is a  process of our own learning and development, where better conceptualizations  transcend the old -- it is still "all on" the subject of study. But, if this is not what you mean, then I disagree with you here too.

While I disagree with your statement that "Awareness is more intimate than sensory perceptions" , I do agree with all the following:  "... It is more intimate than ego ... Yet not once during our schooling have we been asked, "are you aware?" or had any guidance".

Thanks for your input.  I have tried to provide my response in a useful and cogent manner.  (I have been saying things like 1. - 5. for months, here on RG, and have yet to be countered: I take this as another sign that I very well might be correct and right.)

Brad, I was responding to your original, fairly understandable question by providing answers. In your reply you raise new issues or justifications for your original issues. Not all of these are clear to me.

I regret that I do not have the time to enter into a detailed and lengthy analysis of the additional issues you raise, which seem to be going ever farther afield into complexity or obscurity, rather than narrowing the discussion to something reasonable in terms of the time required on my part.

I wish you luck in resolving your issues, either with psychology or with my opinions. For my part, I feel that I have completed my answers. By the way, not "being countered" does not mean that you are "correct and right". It can also mean that your audience is simply choosing not to respond.