[igorramazanov]

Pure "woundology" may indeed make things worse. There's another book which I haven't read yet about the dangers of therapy and underestimating the people's intuition and resilience - "Bad Therapy, Why the kid's aren't growing up", but the podcast with the author seemed reasonable.

It gives lots of evidences on what you've just said.

Just simply living a life, focusing on goals and targets, making mistakes and learning from them - this works too. In my case, personally, I just couldn't ignore the problems anymore. I've also made this mistake of dwelling into wounds burning out people around me and being unavailable for them instead of trying to focus more on something good.

I think, we barely scratched the complexity of human psyche, and there lot's of moving parts in person's development. There might be a bit of dehumanization and modern over-materialistic somewhat arrogance perspective - how can I stop feeling what I feel, so I could continue my business as usual?

A few things why religion helps, out of the head:

- it's an empirical study of human psyche over thousands of years

- highlights importance of intentions behind actions

- emphasizes on connection with the world

Sounds totally reasonable?

The universal practical tip would be "just live your life, pay attention and genuinely try to make good out of it", but if being specific and speaking from personal experience and a keeping it small:

- studying violence (the last book in the list) significantly reduced anxiety, risk seeking behavior and moral rigidness (e.g. what is it: "social anxiety" or "embodied situational awareness"?)

- "woundology" and focus on trauma/pain without keeping healing as a target in mind, will, most probably, just make it worse; but studying the topic still has advantages

- try to pay attention to intuition, it seems like psyche tries to heal itself naturally or at least to draw an attention to yet not understood problem/information gifted to a person about the world/life; try to find out what is the center of what draws you onto it (or maybe scorns you off way more than you yourself would expect normally): Eugene Gendlin's Focusing is a quite good tool for that

- combine both inner and external healing - with a grain of salt, as some people I've met have better outcomes with focusing on actions/thoughts (CBT), while for me a deeper body/intuition oriented inner work seems to suit better; but it's good to try and keep both in mind

- it's ok to reach for medication when it's really bad as a temporal support on the path; don't replace everything with meds, but don't reject them completely either - it's always possible to get back on track later

- things seem to get better over time, even if it doesn't feel like that in the moment: new realizations, some knots are untying, sometimes something changes radically and sometimes for the good, and it's difficult to predict that; it's obvious since it's like a personalized empirical search - it needs practice and time, although a possibility of a downward spiral is here as well

- relationships have a degree of power to both devastate and heal

[wing-_-nuts]

>"Bad Therapy, Why the kid's aren't growing up", but the podcast with the author seemed reasonable.

I had this book in my read queue, until I saw a podcast where she basically outted herself as an anti-vax covid denier. She may well have a point but after that I could only see her as an unhinged contrarian.

[a_conservative]

I’m not saying this to try to start a fight or anything. You strike me as a kind person, so I’m going to give this a shot.

I am a bit of a contrarian about lots of things. Some of the smartest people I’ve ever known were major contrarians.

Are Linus Torvalds or RMS contrarians? What about Richard Feynman or Tesla?

I don’t really know if any of those examples would be widely considered contrarians, but my point is that people are multi faceted. Dismissing a person in a broad manner for unpopular opinions in one arena, strikes me as a religious mindset.

Does everyone have to pass a purity test before their opinions are able to be considered? Is that healthy?

Thank you for any consideration you can give this. I truly do not mean to start a flame war. One more thought experiment: is it ok to learn woodworking from an Amish person who likely would have wildly diverging views from most people?

[wing-_-nuts]

So, I divide things into two camps. I think one can hold an unpopular opinion about subjective things, and it's fine. I won't judge you for preferring tabs over spaces, even if I think you're wrong. I won't weigh that opinion against your other work either. It's like preferring sweet potato to apple pie. You're still wrong, but again it has no bearing on objective facts. :^)

When you're outspoken about an objective fact that has been proven out by a mountain of evidence like vaccines being safe, or the earth being round, that's when I become very skeptical of any of your other opinions.

The amish woodworker is an interesting question. I wouldn't judge him for being wrong about things outside of his domain as I'd assume ignorance instead of malice, but if he started popping off very wrong theories on the nature of oak vs pine I'd probably be leery.

[a_conservative]

Thanks for the thoughtful response. I’m similar to you in this regard, but I’ve been thinking about the frailty of human knowledge lately.

We get it wrong a lot. It will be interesting to see how the vax debate and perception plays out over the next few years.

[pjlegato]

Are you advocating for comprehensive moral purity tests -- if a person holds a particular view that you disapprove of, they ought to be canceled in general and everything they've ever said or done banned, no matter whether their other work is good on its own merits?

It seems there are very, very few people in the history of the world whose work would survive. Perhaps none.

[wing-_-nuts]

I am a layman, not a psychologist with sufficient education to prove or disprove her claims. When I judge someone's credibility, I take into account whether they've spread misinformation in the past. In this case, she has. Or at least she holds those beliefs and believes them strongly enough to speak openly about it on a public podcast.

Yes. I judge people on that. We all have the freedom of speech. We do not have freedom from the judgement of others.

[pjlegato]

That doesn't address the argument at all. You claimed that although her views on one topic seem reasonable, you believe they should be canceled, no longer promoted in society, buried.... because you strongly disapprove of her views on an unrelated topic.

Are you prepared to extend this practice universally? Are you aware that practically nobody can survive this sort of puritanical Maoist cancel culture? Look at what happened in China or Cambodia for recent examples of how that goes.

[wing-_-nuts]

I disapprove of her views because they were provably false, yet she still espouses them. Yes, I do extend this universally. I won't take advice on orbital mechanics from someone who thinks the earth is flat either.

If that's 'puritanical Maoist cancel culture' so be it. You told on yourself with that phrase. This isn't a good faith discussion, and I'm out.

[bongodongobob]

He said:

She may well have a point but after that I could only see her as an unhinged contrarian.

You're the one talking about cancelling, not him. We all have the freedom to listen to who we want.

[reaperman]

If someone shows they’re either stupid or dishonest I will deprioritize reading their books. I have infinite books to read before I die. I have to cull the list somehow.

[Spellman]

I agree that just marinating in a trauma and victim mindset isn't healthy. All you do is re-traumatize!

But that's why any therapist worth their salt will focus on engaging and healing those issues. Yes we engage with the trauma response, but in a safe space so that you can walk out of being trapped in it.