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Old 05-13-2021, 12:53 PM   #230
killtrocity
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About 4 years ago or so, I operated under the premises that only the right half of this map of reality or whatever existed:



And naturally I started having existential dread and fear that CBT was unable to address, since you can't classically condition yourself to not be afraid of not existing.

I think a lot of people, particularly scientists and INTJS and the like, are self-ascribed reductionists, in the classical sense (minds are properties arising from and associated with brains). And if you look at American medicine, it follows that line of thinking as well. Which is probably a good thing, because without an objective anchor, you get anti-vaxxers and crystal healers and the like. But the flipside of that is psychology is inherently subject-specific. The circumstances of a given person's life and how their mind and body have been conditioned to respond to reality could vary wildly, even if we can identify general patterns (CPTSD, schizophrenia, phobia disorders, etc.). But I really view all those classifications as highly, highly generalized. And that's why in psych literature you'll see a lot of treatments having like 50% efficacy for treating X condition, if even. It's because there are essentially an infinite number of manifestations of PTSD and the like because each person's psyche is unique.

Anyway all of this is to say that on a societal level, at least in the USA, we try to treat psychological ailments using methods which correspond to the right half of the quadrants above (and CBT would fall there at least in part, because behaviors are objective, observable phenomena), when in many cases what people need is more emotional, relational, interpersonal therapy. They don't always need someone to just give them an SSRI, because the ailment is not necessarily physical/objective, even if there are physical correlates to the mental states of the person. And data is pretty clear that SSRIs have not made much of a dent in depression cases, collectively.

Sorry, I think about this quite a bit.


tl;dr -people in general need help acknowledging, processing, and making space for their emotions, feelings, sensations, and values. Neglecting or suppressing these aspects of reality can have physiological ramifications generally encompassing the fight, flight, freeze, or submit responses

 
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