"This is another problem about medicalizing and pathologizing ordinary feelings of human disquiet or unease."
I hate these 'medicalisation of mood' dismissals. Not wrong in every case, sure, but so dismissive and a way of avoiding disagreement by ignoring real human experiences.
I recently read Bad Therapy by Abigail Shrier, and it was eye-opening. Not that mental illness doesn't exist, but that much of what we call mental illness today isn't, and therapy isn't aware of the Iatrogenic harm it's causing. Worse, because therapists ARE the medicine, unlike a doctor who will stop a drug or switch, in therapy, the therapist has no incentive. Even worse, they have no incentive to cure patients, as the book Saving Normal Points out.
I also read the book The Body Does Not Keep the Score, which shows that the 'science' used to support the insanely popular The Body Keeps the Score is fundamentally fabricated, misconstrued, misinterpreted, misunderstood, and even invented whole cloth by the author.
To your comments on conservatism, it's also my finding that strict religious structure, not Southern Baptist, is growing in popularity because of exactly what they discuss. I have a forthcoming essay on Religion as Psychotherapy, which explores this deeply with a lot of the science behind it. Also, order and chaos are two archetypes. Right now, the left is very chaotic and needs more structured order. It's no wonder that the left also has significantly higher mental health issues than the conservative side. (like more than double) https://www.polymathicbeing.com/p/chaos-and-order
So, you can pick apart a few things in that Podcast, but you risk missing that you're picking on edge cases when there's a much richer and much more damaging middle to consider. The edge does not prove the mean.
What I did not cover in my post is my scepticism about many types of therapy. I do not think that psychodynamic (e.g. Freudian) approaches have much validity or value. Nor do I have time for much pop psychology (e.g. The Body Keeps the Score) which often is more concerned with selling simple answers than tackling complex issues.
I specifically call out diagnostic inflation in my post so I probably would agree with much of Saving Normal. Altho the author of that book says: "psychiatric disorder is an all-too-painful reality for those who suffer from it and for those who care about them." He is not a mental health denialist.
So: Conservatism - Here for a good time, not a long time. (N.B. I am skeptical about this research).
As I say upfront, I don't think the podcasters get everything wrong but we're not talking about edge cases here. We're talking about full-on mental health denialism.
A left-field question: do you have any hope/expectation whatsoever that AI could somehow help in managing some of the milder forms of mental illness (incl. "depression", perhaps in its non strictly clinical meaning)?
PS: I don't have first-hand knowledge of the subject (ie, I don't have/I don't think I have any apparent mental issue), but my dad was a psychiatrist so I have observed many of his patients closely throughout my life.
1. I would differentiate between “diagnostic skepticism” (we have problems identifying and diagnosing types of mental illness) and “mental illness denialism” (there is no such thing as mental illness).
2. The horseshoe theory of mental illness. In the 60s, the work of Szasz and Laing was taken up by the left. Now, these critiques seem more likely to come from the right.
"This is another problem about medicalizing and pathologizing ordinary feelings of human disquiet or unease."
I hate these 'medicalisation of mood' dismissals. Not wrong in every case, sure, but so dismissive and a way of avoiding disagreement by ignoring real human experiences.
I recently read Bad Therapy by Abigail Shrier, and it was eye-opening. Not that mental illness doesn't exist, but that much of what we call mental illness today isn't, and therapy isn't aware of the Iatrogenic harm it's causing. Worse, because therapists ARE the medicine, unlike a doctor who will stop a drug or switch, in therapy, the therapist has no incentive. Even worse, they have no incentive to cure patients, as the book Saving Normal Points out.
I also read the book The Body Does Not Keep the Score, which shows that the 'science' used to support the insanely popular The Body Keeps the Score is fundamentally fabricated, misconstrued, misinterpreted, misunderstood, and even invented whole cloth by the author.
To your comments on conservatism, it's also my finding that strict religious structure, not Southern Baptist, is growing in popularity because of exactly what they discuss. I have a forthcoming essay on Religion as Psychotherapy, which explores this deeply with a lot of the science behind it. Also, order and chaos are two archetypes. Right now, the left is very chaotic and needs more structured order. It's no wonder that the left also has significantly higher mental health issues than the conservative side. (like more than double) https://www.polymathicbeing.com/p/chaos-and-order
So, you can pick apart a few things in that Podcast, but you risk missing that you're picking on edge cases when there's a much richer and much more damaging middle to consider. The edge does not prove the mean.
Bad Therapy: https://amzn.to/40DEl65
Saving Normal: https://amzn.to/4kVDaGp
The Body Does Not Keep the Score: https://amzn.to/3H270em
What I did not cover in my post is my scepticism about many types of therapy. I do not think that psychodynamic (e.g. Freudian) approaches have much validity or value. Nor do I have time for much pop psychology (e.g. The Body Keeps the Score) which often is more concerned with selling simple answers than tackling complex issues.
Shrier's book gets a bit of kicking from someone she actually uses as a reference: https://www.psychologytoday.com/au/blog/sax-on-sex/202404/is-bad-therapy-bad-therapy
I specifically call out diagnostic inflation in my post so I probably would agree with much of Saving Normal. Altho the author of that book says: "psychiatric disorder is an all-too-painful reality for those who suffer from it and for those who care about them." He is not a mental health denialist.
As for conservatives having better mental than liberals - may, may be not: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12043138/
There are a number of studies that indicate that conservatives die earlier than liberals: https://www.tctmd.com/news/political-leanings-found-affect-mortality-rates-now-more-ever
So: Conservatism - Here for a good time, not a long time. (N.B. I am skeptical about this research).
As I say upfront, I don't think the podcasters get everything wrong but we're not talking about edge cases here. We're talking about full-on mental health denialism.
The whole field is a mess right now, that's for sure on all sides.
A left-field question: do you have any hope/expectation whatsoever that AI could somehow help in managing some of the milder forms of mental illness (incl. "depression", perhaps in its non strictly clinical meaning)?
PS: I don't have first-hand knowledge of the subject (ie, I don't have/I don't think I have any apparent mental issue), but my dad was a psychiatrist so I have observed many of his patients closely throughout my life.
I hope so. What did you have in mind?
Two obvious approaches come to mind:
- Mining clinical data to identify patterns of genetics that identify susceptibility and causation
- Diagnostic and treatment tools (which we have been doing since the 1960s - e.g. ELIZA)
1. I would differentiate between “diagnostic skepticism” (we have problems identifying and diagnosing types of mental illness) and “mental illness denialism” (there is no such thing as mental illness).
2. The horseshoe theory of mental illness. In the 60s, the work of Szasz and Laing was taken up by the left. Now, these critiques seem more likely to come from the right.