Psychology is the scientific study of behavior and mental processes. The brain is an organ, and just like any other organ, it can malfunction and/or become sick. Unfortunately, there is a lot of stigma and misunderstandings, as we can tell by this thread alone, about mental illness, it's treatments, and the field of psychology in general. I'll expand more in the morning.
...and as promised, my expansion.
Myth #1 Psychology rejects the supernatural - Psychology is not concerned with the supernatural because our behavior and mind are not supernatural. There are neurons firing behind every single thought you have had and are going to have, the mind being some intangible thing is really an illusion. Psychology, like any science, has Christians and non-Christians in the field, most Christian psychologists will not completely dismiss the idea of supernatural influence if nothing else explains it, however, it's extremely rare. However, supernatural treatment on the large scale has been tried, and it wasn't as effective as modern treatments.
Furthermore, psychologists are ethically prevented from imposing their values and beliefs on clients, and have to remain unbiased in therapy, atheist, Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Buddhist, etc. cannot impose their beliefs on the clients. There is nothing unethical about a Christian psychologist telling a Christian client that prayer can help with their problems, in fact, that's encouraged.
Myth #2 Psychology embraces the idea that we are born with who are and nothing can change - The current majority understanding is that we are who are as a result of both genetic and environmental influences, and it's probably fairly even as well. There has never been any psychological theory that has claimed people cannot change, people change as a natural part of growing older, certain aspects of your personality are going to be pretty stagnant, but you are not the same person you were. Now, there are certain aspects that cannot change, and certain things that are more difficult to treat and change. For example, If you are predisposed to alcoholism, you are always going to be predisposed to alcoholism, you may not become an alcoholic, but the predisposition is not going to go away.
Myth #3 There is one predominant theory for understanding psychology - There are many different theories widely still studied, researched, and practiced today. You can still be psychoanalyzed, and some therapists specialize in it. It's not seen as much in the mainstream, but in the mainstream there is no one theory that's seen as "this is it", there are those out there that will claim a biological model is all we need, and while this may be true one day, we are not there yet to effectively treat clients. In fact, the major schools of psychology (psychoanalysis, behaviorism, cognitive, and biological) are seen as bringing different strengths and weaknesses to the table. For example, let's say you start dating a clown, but have a major phobia of clowns so you go to a psychologist to help with the phobia. There's no biological treatment for that, you can get a pill to help decrease the physical effects, but that will do it for anything and won't really treat the phobia.
