Depression goes hand to hand with self-help as major themes on HN: two faces of the same phenomenon. As already mentioned but worth it repeating, most self-hel

Depression goes hand to hand with self-help as major themes on HN: two faces of the same phenomenon. As already mentioned but worth it repeating, most self-help advice, in posts or books, are without ground. Only experimental psychology can provide such a ground, but this is yet another academic field were the reproducibility crisis is high. I read several times in academic sources that around 60% of psychological experiments' results can not be reproduced. Many scandals revealed that very famous experiments had been willingly falsified, such as the "Stanford experiment". Stockholm syndrome is also a myth. The Hearst heiress has not been the "victim" of it, since just absolutely no academic psychologist investigated the case. It has not been proved since either. I consider experimental psychology, and History as well, as Science. But the publish or perish system has killed probity in most academic fields. Biology, medicine, nutrition and even astrophysics are gangrened. When you poll the general population, honest is a value important to the lower economic classes. "Do not steal" is an important moral rule since the temptation is high in our society of abundance (not for everybody) and constant call to consume through pervasive advertisements. But the curve is linear: the more you go up in the social ladder, the lower honesty is ranked as a major value. White collars and capitalists escape taxes by fraud all the time, but very few end in jail. As recently shown, the IRS is more devoted to track the poor's fraud. It's the same in Europe. Luxemburg lives thanks to fiscal fraud of EU's firms. Success ranks very high in the upper classes. Hence the self-help. People feel they are failure if they are not at least millionaires at 30. So they make do by picking up "methods" or set of tricks to get there. Or they get depressed. Note also how often psychedelic products are mentioned as the panacea for depression. It is a very promising field (I can tell by experience and more and more scientific papers confirm it). But it's often the immediate result that is researched. Gob some mushrooms, feel better, go back to the billionaire game... and back to depression a few weeks or months afterwards. One need therapy to really get out if depression (or burn-out). If you feel the constant urge to be always more productive, maybe it's that surge that needs to be interrogated. It doesn't mean to never try a method that you read about to be more this or that. Why not? Improving oneself is good. Just keep the whole picture in mind, eg be mindful of what you are looking for. Basic common sense that I myself forgot many times.