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I've heard plenty of people involved in mental health care themselves lament the fact that they're often just trying to happy-talk people who genuinely have har

I've heard plenty of people involved in mental health care themselves lament the fact that they're often just trying to happy-talk people who genuinely have harrowing lives. I don't think the notion is absurd.

tptacek 4y ago
All sorts of non-absurd-seeming notions turn out to be wrong, which is why people train for many years to conduct medical research.
- emodendroket 4y ago
  How would you "medically disprove" the notion that some people are unhappy because the circumstances of their lives are bad rather than biological defects?
  - tptacek 4y ago
    Nobody needs to disprove the notion that some people are happy for reasons having nothing to do with clinical depression.
    - emodendroket 4y ago
      OK. And the notion that psychiatry has been used to simply stamp anyone agitating for political change as insane is also attested (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Protest_Psychosis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Protest_Psychosis for instance). So what's your objection to this line of inquiry?
      - tptacek 4y ago
        I don't know what you're trying to argue here, but it doesn't seem to have anything to do with the claim at the root of the thread, and I apologize but I'm not interested in the tangent.
  - nl 4y ago
    Unhappy is dramatically, completely different to depression. I've been both and they don't even feel that similar.
    - dr_dshiv 4y ago
      Sadness or distress vs not feeling anything and not having motivation?
      - nl 4y ago
        Yes, this is roughly in the right area.
        dr_dshiv 4y ago
        I wonder how a week of low dose amphetamine usage, like adderall, might help disrupt no-motivation mood loops. A friend of mine (cycling through many antidepressants) seems like he would respond well to this. As in, he would feel better and be able to “shift gears.” Not to get more work done, but say, enjoy going to an art museum. And feel what it is like to be enthusiastic again.
    - emodendroket 4y ago
      If we change the word "unhappy" to "despairing" does it make sense?
      - nl 4y ago
        I don't know - it's your argument. If it helps, unhappiness/despair seem like different degrees of the same feeling. Depression is a different feeling. The closest analogy I can think of is that "amused" and "satisfied" are both positive feelings, but they are different and you can't treat the cause the same even if some of the symptoms are similar.
        emodendroket 4y ago
        “Exogenous depression” is supposed to be experienced by about a fifth of people at one point or another. What if many persistent cases of depression were actually exogenous? That might be more interesting than parsing the difference between despair, hopelessness, anhedonia, and depression.
JamesBarney 4y ago
The idea that a terrible life can cause depression is not the limb he's going out on. It's the idea that somehow depression is caused by being way more exploited than our ancestors in the 1700's who were working on someone else's farms and factories as children is the limb he's going out on.
- emodendroket 4y ago
  OK, well, that's an easy rhetorical maneuver but one that can be met with equally facile ripostes, such as "how do you determine that people weren't just as if not more depressed in the 18th Century when the concept was less familiar?" or "perhaps having the gulf between themselves and the wealthy rubbed in their faces every day is what causes the distress, since there can be little sense of exploitation if one is surrounded only by those in similar straits."
  - Thorrez 4y ago
    Didn't people in the olden days also see the castles and mansions of the rich on a daily basis?
    - emodendroket 4y ago
      Daily I very much doubt because it’s not like most people were commuting to work. Would you sometimes see them, sure, but people also had a belief system that would have done more to justify the social order, and it would probably be limited to provincial elites for most.
      - Thorrez 4y ago
        Weren't a lot of towns built basically surrounding a castle? I guess people in towns would see wealthy people often, but people in remote farms and villages wouldn't. I'm not sure exactly what wealth is being rubbed in my face today. News about rich people? I would assume there would also be news and gossip about rich people back then too.
- 4y ago

tptacek 4y ago

All sorts of non-absurd-seeming notions turn out to be wrong, which is why people train for many years to conduct medical research.

emodendroket 4y ago
How would you "medically disprove" the notion that some people are unhappy because the circumstances of their lives are bad rather than biological defects?
- tptacek 4y ago
  Nobody needs to disprove the notion that some people are happy for reasons having nothing to do with clinical depression.
  - emodendroket 4y ago
    OK. And the notion that psychiatry has been used to simply stamp anyone agitating for political change as insane is also attested (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Protest_Psychosis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Protest_Psychosis for instance). So what's your objection to this line of inquiry?
    - tptacek 4y ago
      I don't know what you're trying to argue here, but it doesn't seem to have anything to do with the claim at the root of the thread, and I apologize but I'm not interested in the tangent.
- nl 4y ago
  Unhappy is dramatically, completely different to depression. I've been both and they don't even feel that similar.
  - dr_dshiv 4y ago
    Sadness or distress vs not feeling anything and not having motivation?
    - nl 4y ago
      Yes, this is roughly in the right area.
      - dr_dshiv 4y ago
        I wonder how a week of low dose amphetamine usage, like adderall, might help disrupt no-motivation mood loops. A friend of mine (cycling through many antidepressants) seems like he would respond well to this. As in, he would feel better and be able to “shift gears.” Not to get more work done, but say, enjoy going to an art museum. And feel what it is like to be enthusiastic again.
  - emodendroket 4y ago
    If we change the word "unhappy" to "despairing" does it make sense?
    - nl 4y ago
      I don't know - it's your argument. If it helps, unhappiness/despair seem like different degrees of the same feeling. Depression is a different feeling. The closest analogy I can think of is that "amused" and "satisfied" are both positive feelings, but they are different and you can't treat the cause the same even if some of the symptoms are similar.
      - emodendroket 4y ago
        “Exogenous depression” is supposed to be experienced by about a fifth of people at one point or another. What if many persistent cases of depression were actually exogenous? That might be more interesting than parsing the difference between despair, hopelessness, anhedonia, and depression.

JamesBarney 4y ago

The idea that a terrible life can cause depression is not the limb he's going out on. It's the idea that somehow depression is caused by being way more exploited than our ancestors in the 1700's who were working on someone else's farms and factories as children is the limb he's going out on.

emodendroket 4y ago
OK, well, that's an easy rhetorical maneuver but one that can be met with equally facile ripostes, such as "how do you determine that people weren't just as if not more depressed in the 18th Century when the concept was less familiar?" or "perhaps having the gulf between themselves and the wealthy rubbed in their faces every day is what causes the distress, since there can be little sense of exploitation if one is surrounded only by those in similar straits."
- Thorrez 4y ago
  Didn't people in the olden days also see the castles and mansions of the rich on a daily basis?
  - emodendroket 4y ago
    Daily I very much doubt because it’s not like most people were commuting to work. Would you sometimes see them, sure, but people also had a belief system that would have done more to justify the social order, and it would probably be limited to provincial elites for most.
    - Thorrez 4y ago
      Weren't a lot of towns built basically surrounding a castle? I guess people in towns would see wealthy people often, but people in remote farms and villages wouldn't. I'm not sure exactly what wealth is being rubbed in my face today. News about rich people? I would assume there would also be news and gossip about rich people back then too.
4y ago