schipelblorp
@schipelblorp@sh.itjust.works
- Comment on How to deal with people who obtusely miss your point on Lemmy? 7 hours ago:
Honestly, I have PTSD from that site. Things are better here, but sometimes my flashbacks get triggered.
- Comment on How to deal with people who obtusely miss your point on Lemmy? 8 hours ago:
I can see the scars, friend. Thank you for your service.
- Comment on how to watch less youtube on my tv? 8 hours ago:
Maybe you can do some personal exploration about some thing that would be more rewarding? It just sounds like you’re in a motivational rut doing whatever takes the least amount of energy and your only thought is how to pleasantly pass the most amount of time?
- Submitted 8 hours ago to [deleted] | 43 comments
- Comment on how to watch less youtube on my tv? 8 hours ago:
Overkill: get rid of your home wifi and go back to physical media. Use a mobile hotspot with limited data for everything else.
I don’t watch YouTube anymore, though I do listen to it plenty over my phone’s connection.
- Comment on The System does not work. 10 hours ago:
Can you explain how capitalism is in someway consciously well-intentioned, as you seem to be implying?
- Comment on The System does not work. 18 hours ago:
I think this is just a larger cycle of history that has nothing specifically to do with capitalism.
In every society, there are levers of power. In ever society, access to the levels of power grants you more power. Eventually, every society is ruled by a few people who can trivially put their own interests ahead of the interests of everyone else. Eventually, doing so for long enough makes everyone (but the powerful worse off) and the society collapses, at which point the guillotines come out and society resets (best case scenario) or it enters a stable state of serfdom.
This has all happened before. This will all happen again.
- Comment on Money doesn't solve everything, but it helps. 1 day ago:
I bring an ACAB because ACAB means that even “good cops” will lie to protect bad cops, and they will certainly not call out other cops or report them. Though therapy is regulated, it operates in much the same manner. Therapists are interdependent and to call out another therapist would have professional ramifications.
It’s not as BAD a situation as ACAB, but at the very least therapists have been SOCIALIZED to shut the fuck up, or they have to get through 2 years of higher ed, and 2 years of practicum to get their license, years were they entirely dependent on the good graces of other social workers
And it’s funny you should bring up firefighters. Fightfighting houses notoriously would START fires so they could put them out and get paid. It was only when municipalities started hiring permanent full time fire departments that the arson stopped. Therapists still have financial pressures.
I don’t trust therapists for my own personal reasons, but I’ve laid a pretty systemic comprehensive case that therapy as a profession is extremely flawed (elsewhere in this thread). Again, not that you can’t find a good therapist out there or that it’s not helpful, but as a profession that are several ways it’s not the same as, say, being a cardiologist.
- Comment on [deleted] 2 days ago:
Let me borrow that top.
- Comment on Money doesn't solve everything, but it helps. 2 days ago:
The job of any professional is to convince you to give them money. There are valid and invalid way to do that. In my experience, a lot of therapists are more than willing to overpromise results.
I’ll give you an example: one therapist said she was CONVINCED she could fix me in a limited time frame; but before we got to the end of that time frame, she said she might have to discontinue therapy with me because she didn´t like my teasing. She brought up with her supervisor and everything and they decided that she’d had enough and she had to tell me: the teasing HAS to stop, or she would be discontinuing the therapy. The thing is, though, that when I teased her she would always LAUGH and say, “Oh, stop! You’re killing me here!” I would have immediately stopped if I’d known she wasn’t enjoying it. And the first time she seriously brings it up, it came with a threat of termination and this was the best course of action she came up with another professional. I quit the next session because I did not feel safe with her anymore.
And I know what you’re going to say (well, one thing you MIGHT say): that’s obviously a bad therapist and that does not represent every therapist! Yes, those things are true, but it’s kind of like an ACAB situation. What does it say about therapy as a profession that obviously bad therapist like her continue to practice, year after year after year?
She’s not alone. I’ve run into much worse therapists than her, people that showed their true colors almost immediately. One made me feel like I´d walked onto the Dr. Phil show in my first session! These people are licensed professionals who are bad at their jobs and making a living seeing clients every day for years and years and years.
Go look up your state’s licensing cases. See how many licenses are sanctioned for being “obviously bad therapists.” No, what you’re much more likely to find is people who has sex with their clients, or who had dual relationships with clients. Short of that, you can be as terrible a therapist as long as you can keep getting clients.
That tells me that professionalization of therapy isn’t being done to help and protect clients, but to help and protect therapists.
- Comment on Money doesn't solve everything, but it helps. 2 days ago:
You bet! Modern therapy was created to treat the problems of modern life after modern life destroyed all the systems that kept us socially and spiritually healthy.
We’ve been abandoned by each other, so we look to “the state” to fix everything, but that’s extremely expensive. I remember being a social worker thinking, “You know what, just about every family I work with would be much better off with the money the state is paying for me to talk to them than for me to talk with them.”
- Comment on Money doesn't solve everything, but it helps. 2 days ago:
Somebody from Canada replied in this thread about their experience with Indian families… my experience with people in my life is if there is a groundswell need among the population something will develop that at least claims to meet that need. Just look at “The Secret” a massively bestselling book premised on the idea that everything that happens to you–good or bad–is your fault. People want to believe it, someone will sell it.
I think we have therapy now and not in the past because society and the human spirit wasn´t as thoroughly broken as it is today. Before, people would live and die in the same village, have their funeral in the same church that baptized them, do the same job their entire lives, be married to the same person from a young age, have a defined role in various sectors of their society. Modernity is not like that, so we had to develop a “science” of wellness to deal with the new misery generated by the various crises of modernity. I doubt people suffered the way they do today with no response.
systems and science
I find this is an interesting way of looking at things, and I think I really did sincerely share it. But if you want to look at a critical look from inside the profession, I´d recommend the book “The Heart and Soul of Change” which really goes into depth about the very many flaws of the research of therapy, starting with the bedrock argument (I think it’s in this book) that therapy, for all the research that has been done, is no more effective today than it was 50 years ago.
There’s a lot of little data points along the way, but I find that sometimes it’s helpful to have a very clarifying fact. Like you can get into the weeds on AI is successful or not, but all anyone needs to do is show a general LLM business that is making a profit to establish the possibility that LLMs are the future. If no general LLM business is making a profit, or even on track to make a profit, then perhaps the entire project is flawed. Likewise, if therapeautic outcomes have not improved, then perhaps the “systems and science” of therapy are flawed.
Other fun data points: there is no type or amount of training that demonstrably reliably improves client outcomes. There is no training any therapist can take that will make them demonstrably a better therapist. Instead we see a pretty reliable rise in outcomes for all therapists over time that plateaus after a short time (maybe 2 years), maybe goes up a bit, but then actually often starts to DECLINE after several years. (This does contradict what you’re saying about training; I don´t know if you have a source for your claim?) (Also, please show me where passing a standardized exam improves client outcomes.)
After reading all of this and more, I came to the conclusion that therapy is effective for probably a multitude of reasons that are hard to predict, but that ultimately, the “systems and science” is largely there to entertain the therapists, give their brains something to do, and to give the profession a corpus of knowledge that can be taught, tested, and regularized so that is can be a respectable profession; as I pointed above, all this research has not increased in improved client outcomes, so what good is it?
I don´t know how you feel about Chinese Medicine, but I take a lot of inspiration from it that example. Basically the theory is that there is energy that flows throughout the body. It is total and absolute nonsense. Practitioners that supposedly work with this energy can’t tell the difference between a body under a sheet and a heater under a sheet. There is no scientific validation of any of this energy. Has this prevented Chinese Medicine from amassing a MASSIVE library of books and learning and diagrams? Nope! It takes years to get a certification in Chinese medicine, even though the theory itself is based on bullshit. There is a TON to learn! But it’s all based on total garbage, though it might contain some effective treatments.
I’m not saying that therapy is based on total garbage, I am saying that research has not led to better outcomes, and that we shouldn´t be dazzled by an enormous library into thinking we’re making definite progress.
I think, fundamentally, therapy can NEVER be a science. Not that you can´t measure outcomes and inputs, etc., but there is such a WILD variation of how to even define a problem that therapy is ultimately an extremely subjective enterprise.
That said, I do think therapy can be helpful, but I honestly think the “systems and science” perspective actually makes therapists worse practitioners, encouraging people to lose contact with their client and consider them as an abstract puzzle to be solved instead of another human being to relate to. And, of course, it CAN also help a therapist gain insight into the issue which can also be shared with a client. I’m just saying everything about therapy is very messy and it’s much more complex than just, “read this and you’ll have better outcomes.”
I mean, one of the dominant theories about why therapy works is the relationship between the therapist and the client, and if you ask around for “how to be a better therapist”, you’re more likely to find a set of skills you want to be monitoring when you’re talking with people than a list of books you should be reading. Not that you shouldn´t be reading, of course, just that it might not have anywhere near as much impact as being keenly aware of how you are interacting with your client. That’s why I think the “system and science” business has to be taken with a grain of salt and that ultimately maybe therapy is more about two people meeting each other than an educated professional applying a knowledge base to cure someone. But such a belief is extremely threatening to the professionalization of therapy, a professionalization which, not surprisingly, serves the people who can afford to go to school and who can be trained to excel in testing (btw, testing requirements for licensing have not been shown to improve client outcomes, but they have been very effective in keeping out minorities).
I legitimately think that this is a situation where you can follow the science into becoming an unbeliever, the same way studying the bible will make you an atheist. You don´t have to believe me, just follow the research closely. If you don’t want to read the a whole book, (“Heart and Soul of Change”), then at least familiarize yourself with the parameters of the “Dodo Bird Theory” debate (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dodo_bird_verdict), and if you just want to listen to a podcast about it, Very Bad Therapy is two student therapists struggling with the research.
Sorry for the fire hose of information.
- Comment on Valid prescriptions for Vyvanse & Klonopin while on VA felony probation — What is the protocol? 2 days ago:
- Comment on How would I go about turning this into a power-generating wind turbine. 2 days ago:
Beat me by 2 hours, 59 minutes and 45 seconds!
- Comment on How would I go about turning this into a power-generating wind turbine. 2 days ago:
Fucking magnets!!! How do they work???
- Comment on Money doesn't solve everything, but it helps. 2 days ago:
Can you directly quote what you are referring to? I don’t find what you’re replying to.
- Comment on Money doesn't solve everything, but it helps. 2 days ago:
I guess there’s a certain question of autonomy. There’s a tension between, “I need help running my life” and “I know when something isn’t helpful and can walk away.” There are ways in which therapy can disempower you: it can teach you to ignore your instincts, paper over your concerns… there is a real risk that someone who just can´t handle anything about their life will be trapped in an unhelpful (or openly abusive) relationship for years, so I’m really hesitant to recommend it to people blindly with no caveats.
- Comment on Money doesn't solve everything, but it helps. 2 days ago:
I’m used to being pretty defensive on this topics, so… sorry.
What I’m pushing against is that therapy has any kind of unique monopoly on alleviating human suffering. That if you are suffering, the ONLY thing you can do is see a professional trained and certified and licensed therapist.
If you want to call reading, Boethius’ Consolation of Philosophy, “therapy” I suppose that’s valid; but so is riding a horse, or taking a walk in the woods, or petting your cat, or singing a song…
- Comment on Money doesn't solve everything, but it helps. 2 days ago:
A therapist cannot fix a systematic issue; it cannot get you a better job, but maybe it can get you in a mindset to try and improve youself to get a better job (despite the job market being shit).
This is an interesting example of therapists try to fit their practice into solving every problem there is.
If you can’t get a better job, maybe your money and time would be better spent with a job coach or resume services than a therapist?
Instead, a therapist can make some vague promise of some emotional or mental shift that will somehow make a difference when months or years of job searching have not? Doesn’t that seem kind of bogus to you?
I mean, I get it, I can see how it MIGHT work, but I also see it being a much more lucrative vector for absolute fraud.
- Comment on Money doesn't solve everything, but it helps. 2 days ago:
Your sophistry does not interest me.
- Comment on Money doesn't solve everything, but it helps. 2 days ago:
If you put in time and effort, everything is possible, except sometimes its not and you have to know the difference. Thank you. Very insightful.
- Comment on Money doesn't solve everything, but it helps. 2 days ago:
Ok, we agree mostly then. I think I just want people to go in with their eyes open and maintain their autonomy in therapy–be able to say “this isn´t working” and move on if necessary, to another therapy or another way to deal with their problem entirely.
There’s just a sheer passivity that seems to be implied in these conversation, like “just go to ANY therapist and let them fix you” which I really don’t want to leave unaddressed; glad that’s not what you’re saying.
Edit: Also, maybe some people do need a full year or even more! My point is only that you should be seeing regular and steady improvement, or at least motion. The idea that you can just hammer yourself with therapy sessions for a long enough time to get healed is wrong.
- Comment on Money doesn't solve everything, but it helps. 2 days ago:
Yes, you’re right, I was being unfair to therapists there; nobody offers money back guarantees for services.
That said, I find it kind of repulsive how therapist imply you WILL get better if you just put in the time (ie, give them a lot of money). I’ve seen plenty of therapists, I’ve NEVER had a therapist terminate me because I wasn’t getting better, even though I never got better with any therapist no matter how long I´d seen them. It seems most therapist will happily cash your checks in perpetuity unless you become a problem (suicidal), in which case many therapists will find a way to drop you like a hot potato.
But if you actually do care about research instead of soaking clients for money, there was a paper that showed that therapy usually starts working after a relatively short time period (maybe 2 months?), so I’d counsel people to stop seeing a therapist if they’re not seeing any benefit from it–a piece of advice nobody you are paying for advice is likely to give you and at least try a different therapist if not a different approach entirely.
Anyway, my anecdotal or lived experience (depending on if you want to devalue it or value it) is that I only got better when I disassociated myself from the mental health care system. The mental health system CAN do an amazing amount of harm, even unintentionally, and I don’t see a lot of therapist even aware of the possibility.
- Comment on Money doesn't solve everything, but it helps. 2 days ago:
Therapy, is like cars, a sign of a failed society. I don’t mean that the failure is that we don’t pay for therapy, the failure is that socially we have no way to deal with suffering other than to pay a separately trained and certified and regulated professional to deal with it, one-on-one.
We have forgotten how to support ourselves, we have forgotten how to support each other. The systems that used to support us–family, church, bowling leagues, clubs, work–have collapsed around us, leaving us all alone, and isolated, and depressed.
The idea that this societal collapse should be dealt with one-person-at-a-time at great cost is itself absolute madness.
- Comment on Money doesn't solve everything, but it helps. 2 days ago:
Find a therapist that will guarantee results after 12 months or your money back.
I’ll wait.
- Comment on Money doesn't solve everything, but it helps. 2 days ago:
Yes.
My issue is that a lot of times, talk therapy is presented as the ONLY option, and, as you have pointed out, it isn’t. There are also things that aren’t officially “therapy” that can be hugely therapeautic. But everyone is different, and I think learning to tune into yourself is an important skill that can be learned through therapy or just as well independently.
- Comment on Money doesn't solve everything, but it helps. 2 days ago:
People have existed long before therapy has. Do you think people 500 years just suffered in misery until someone invented therapy?
The problem with therapy, I find, is what you can teach people. You can teach people facts. You can’t teach people what it is like to be someone else. If you have a therapist that can ONLY relate to you in terms of theory, you’re going to have a bad time. So that depends on who you are and what problem you are bringing.
An easy example, that the field is just now grappling with, is existential depression. That is to say, a depression that doesn’t come from distorted thinking but thinking TOO clearly. Unless a therapist has been through it themselves, they might try a bunch of tools to “fix” the depression, trying to convince you that you are having distorted thoughts, etc…
But to come back to my historical point: therapy will just take tools from existential philosophy and recycle them as “therapy”, thereby continuing their monopoly. There are entire fields of therapy that have been entirely lifted from other philosophies. CBT is basically stoicism. ACT is basically Buddhism.
There are great therapists out there, but I think they are DESPITE the systems in place to train and certify them, not because of those systems.
As Daniel Mackler has said, “it is easier to become a good therapist, than to find one.”
- Comment on Money doesn't solve everything, but it helps. 3 days ago:
But also there are a lot of alternatives to talk therapy.
- Comment on Would an LLM AI model trained wholly on consenting open source projects with a license requiring all derivative works be open source licensed still be problematic? 3 days ago:
“Various reasons” being the intractability and absolute dominance of capitalism. People are in a race to dominate the world, as such they can’t be bothered with writing public domain software, or waiting for renewable energy to come online. They can’t even wait for hardware to be built before buying it!
I mean, it’s kind of like asking a herd of zebras, “would lions be so bad if they just ate grass instead?” Like, sure, but the reality is that lions will always eat meat just as inevitably as AI will always be horrible under capitalism.
- Comment on Is Anon the asshole? 3 days ago:
I never really understood paying a lot of money for an electric; I mean, unless it’s an archtop, it really is just the sum of its parts.