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why does this take a few years to figure out, or even seeing a therapist? A couple of specific books and introspection makes all those things quite obvious. Eve

why does this take a few years to figure out, or even seeing a therapist? A couple of specific books and introspection makes all those things quite obvious. Even before the giant rise of therapy, most old business and/or self help books say the same thing.

fsociety 3y ago
I’m not sure if I should leave you with a recommendation to watch Good Will Hunting or suggest that therapy can be quite different from self-help books.
occamschainsaw 3y ago
Stretching the analogy from the original commenter, the code is “in production “. It is already running, it is the conscious part of you. Reading all the self help books in the world will only reinforce the things that the system already believes and reject uncomfortable things. As for introspection, often by the time people get therapy, the processor load is already high enough that there is little room for introspection. A therapist is a trained debugger, and can help you get out of your own head and see things more “objectively”. Also knowing is different from doing. What’s stopping you learning karate or bjj from books or even videos? You already have the hardware for it. But you need to learn new patterns, and a coach can often get you there more effectively. Also having a sparring partner is a good way to break old patterns and build new ones. Now replace karate with mental models/peace of mind etc, except now your system is not performing optimally by this point.
CTDOCodebases 3y ago
I have personally taken this route using mindfulness but I have a friend who recently started seeing a therapist so I can help answer this question: - Some people just want to get straight to the point. They don't want to have to research, they might not even enjoy reading. They would just rather see a domain expert. - Some people struggle with being vulnerable. Even around friends or family. - Some people are not comfortable with not knowing the answer to certain questions so they never ask themselves or when they put these questions to themselves they get back toxic answers from their own mind. - Some people are very resistant to change but understand that it is necessary.
xyzelement 3y ago
I rushed through my first post, thanks. In my case the problems were not obvious. I was enjoying my life and was professionally and dating-wise successful. So the analogy would be a system that appears to be running fine. My psychiatrist friend made me realize there could be more. So by the time I went to see the therapist I wasn't really sure that there is a problem. They helped me see that a bunch of areas in my life were suboptimal and I was getting in my own way. So in my case it wasn't like hiring someone to debug problems I am seeing in my system. It was like hiring a systems architect and saying "this seems to be working fine but we probably don't know what we don't know about performance" or whatever.

fsociety 3y ago

I’m not sure if I should leave you with a recommendation to watch Good Will Hunting or suggest that therapy can be quite different from self-help books.

occamschainsaw 3y ago

Stretching the analogy from the original commenter, the code is “in production “. It is already running, it is the conscious part of you. Reading all the self help books in the world will only reinforce the things that the system already believes and reject uncomfortable things. As for introspection, often by the time people get therapy, the processor load is already high enough that there is little room for introspection. A therapist is a trained debugger, and can help you get out of your own head and see things more “objectively”. Also knowing is different from doing. What’s stopping you learning karate or bjj from books or even videos? You already have the hardware for it. But you need to learn new patterns, and a coach can often get you there more effectively. Also having a sparring partner is a good way to break old patterns and build new ones. Now replace karate with mental models/peace of mind etc, except now your system is not performing optimally by this point.

CTDOCodebases 3y ago

I have personally taken this route using mindfulness but I have a friend who recently started seeing a therapist so I can help answer this question: - Some people just want to get straight to the point. They don't want to have to research, they might not even enjoy reading. They would just rather see a domain expert. - Some people struggle with being vulnerable. Even around friends or family. - Some people are not comfortable with not knowing the answer to certain questions so they never ask themselves or when they put these questions to themselves they get back toxic answers from their own mind. - Some people are very resistant to change but understand that it is necessary.

xyzelement 3y ago

I rushed through my first post, thanks. In my case the problems were not obvious. I was enjoying my life and was professionally and dating-wise successful. So the analogy would be a system that appears to be running fine. My psychiatrist friend made me realize there could be more. So by the time I went to see the therapist I wasn't really sure that there is a problem. They helped me see that a bunch of areas in my life were suboptimal and I was getting in my own way. So in my case it wasn't like hiring someone to debug problems I am seeing in my system. It was like hiring a systems architect and saying "this seems to be working fine but we probably don't know what we don't know about performance" or whatever.