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Could you summarize some practical takeaways from all these books? To be honest I've become a bit skeptical of how much this sort of stuff helps. From what I se

• Ghexor 2y ago
  I think your impression has merit and labeling people as 'sick' or 'broken' or any of the diagnoses in psychology literature, that imply just about the same, can keep people stuck identifying with their afflictions. And that there's some great value in religion that we've not found a good replacement for. I also believe that one can go without facing deeply traumatic events for an entire life and seem to many on the outside to be doing much better than one who goes the difficult path of deconstructing oneself and their family history. And I think our unhappiness and that of our children is well explained by our late-stage-capitalist, individualistic cultures and the rise of technology that profits from (ill-)serving our social needs. 'It's no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.' - Jiddu Krishnamurti
  • wumbo 2y ago
    “some great value in religion” takes a long time of filtering through stories and metaphors to find the actual point. I get it, some lessons are hard to teach and it’s easier to present the framework of the lesson in a story, then people make connections as they grow. But you also have to consider all of the harmful misinterpretations that come with it. If most people come away from religion less ethical than nonreligious people, let’s see if we can take the good parts of the texts and throw the rest away. E.g. learning about mystical buddhism versus just going to therapy and breathing for a while.
    • Ghexor 2y ago
      I agree with you in that the stories of religion are pretty dangerous in their 'dogmatic' potential. I think another big value of religion is the community that comes with it. Its really easy to get along with people who tell the same stories. And maybe there's something else I'm less aware of, idk. My point is there seems to be something we've not figured out well enough to apply it.
    • graemep 2y ago
      > If most people come away from religion less ethical than nonreligious people How do you test that? You cannot do a double blind test because you cannot induce religion in people to order. > let’s see if we can take the good parts of the texts and throw the rest away. I do not think you can do that. Each religion is largely shaped by a few key ideas. Remove one of those and you change it radically (losing the good) remove anything else and you will not change anything significant. You can reform and improve religions, but I think history shows that is not easy nor are the results predictable. I think you over-emphasise the importance of texts to religions in general. Texts are the foundation of American evangelical Christianity and (to an extent I am worse equipped to judge) Islam, but much of Christianity and at least some schools of Buddhism are really based in a very small core of ideas.
      • wumbo 2y ago
        I take it as a fair enough assumption for my judgements that all people have the same average personality potential at birth. I’ve been around a lot of very Catholic people. I’d say half are well intentioned, whereas half are belligerent antivax etc. The ones with good intentions prop up and obey the bad actors. The ones with good intentions end up feeling trapped by the community and the religious trauma. Sometimes the good ones end up taking it out on their spouses/kids, perceived as units of the oppressive structure (though they are victims alike). The difficulty of reform is all the more reason I’m happy for the slow decline in religiosity.
• igorramazanov 2y ago
  Pure "woundology" may indeed make things worse. There's another book which I haven't read yet about the dangers of therapy and underestimating the people's intuition and resilience - "Bad Therapy, Why the kid's aren't growing up", but the podcast with the author seemed reasonable. It gives lots of evidences on what you've just said. Just simply living a life, focusing on goals and targets, making mistakes and learning from them - this works too. In my case, personally, I just couldn't ignore the problems anymore. I've also made this mistake of dwelling into wounds burning out people around me and being unavailable for them instead of trying to focus more on something good. I think, we barely scratched the complexity of human psyche, and there lot's of moving parts in person's development. There might be a bit of dehumanization and modern over-materialistic somewhat arrogance perspective - how can I stop feeling what I feel, so I could continue my business as usual? A few things why religion helps, out of the head: - it's an empirical study of human psyche over thousands of years - highlights importance of intentions behind actions - emphasizes on connection with the world Sounds totally reasonable? The universal practical tip would be "just live your life, pay attention and genuinely try to make good out of it", but if being specific and speaking from personal experience and a keeping it small: - studying violence (the last book in the list) significantly reduced anxiety, risk seeking behavior and moral rigidness (e.g. what is it: "social anxiety" or "embodied situational awareness"?) - "woundology" and focus on trauma/pain without keeping healing as a target in mind, will, most probably, just make it worse; but studying the topic still has advantages - try to pay attention to intuition, it seems like psyche tries to heal itself naturally or at least to draw an attention to yet not understood problem/information gifted to a person about the world/life; try to find out what is the center of what draws you onto it (or maybe scorns you off way more than you yourself would expect normally): Eugene Gendlin's Focusing is a quite good tool for that - combine both inner and external healing - with a grain of salt, as some people I've met have better outcomes with focusing on actions/thoughts (CBT), while for me a deeper body/intuition oriented inner work seems to suit better; but it's good to try and keep both in mind - it's ok to reach for medication when it's really bad as a temporal support on the path; don't replace everything with meds, but don't reject them completely either - it's always possible to get back on track later - things seem to get better over time, even if it doesn't feel like that in the moment: new realizations, some knots are untying, sometimes something changes radically and sometimes for the good, and it's difficult to predict that; it's obvious since it's like a personalized empirical search - it needs practice and time, although a possibility of a downward spiral is here as well - relationships have a degree of power to both devastate and heal
• wing-_-nuts 2y ago
  You asked for practical take aways, so I'll say this: Get good at communicating and being vulnerable. I know online spaces will tell you this is dangerous, and that your partner might leave you. Someone with this sort of background needs to be 'seen', and loved for who they are, and the only way that happens is if they truly know you. Second, realize that your partner is not the sole source of all your feelings about them. You're seeing the world through trauma colored glasses, and it often helps to take a step back, take a breath and ask yourself why you're feeling what your feeling rather than acting on it immediately.
  • tailspin2019 2y ago
    > Get good at communicating and being vulnerable. Very good advice! (And the rest of your comment too)
  • prewett 2y ago
    > I know online spaces will tell you [being vulnerable] is dangerous, and that your partner might leave you. The possibility of being rejected by being vulnerable is definitional... It's not being vulnerable if there isn't the possibility of rejection, it's just being transparent. So yeah, being vulnerable is dangerous. You might get rejected. But then again, you might get accepted, too. (This isn't a critique of the parent, it's more of a critique of what the "online spaces" allegedly say.)
• wing-_-nuts 2y ago
  You could be seeing correlation and not causation. People with psych issues want to get better. Those that are intellectually curious tend to read up on underlying causes and possible solutions. I will say, that while I've read a lot of these sorts of books, they've mainly helped me identify my predispositions in temperament, my blind spots, etc. If you really press a therapist on the question, they will tell you that the only real way to 'treat' this is having loving and stable friends and romantic partners. I imagine being religious can help as it grants you easy access to a welcoming community, and frankly 'god' is the ultimate parental figure for those that believe.
  • astrange 2y ago
    Religion and psychiatry hardly seem opposed to me. It's popular to see Buddhism as actually a kind of therapy, although certainly not 100% correct, and that's sort of what prayer is meant to do too.
    • wing-_-nuts 2y ago
      I prefer to keep them separate. The christian councilor I saw was very big into 'everything happens for a reason' and 'god has a plan' and given my background it turned my stomach. If what i went through was 'part of a plan' I have some very pointed questions for god when I meet him.
      • prewett 2y ago
        I hope the reason given was something like "people have free will and sometimes they use it to do evil" (which is why forgiveness is a thing), and that "God has a plan" includes a plan to heal and restore (for instance, Jesus saying "I came that [my sheep] may have abundant life" or "I came to destroy the works of the evil one"). If it's just "everything happens for a reason" but nothing more, that's basically saying "I don't know how to help you". Possibly off-topic rant: If the reason is "it was God's will, because God is sovereign and therefore everything is his will", I think that is bordering on function heresy. Christianity (and life) has all these tensions: God is one, but God is three; Jesus is a man, but Jesus is God; God is sovereign, but he gave us free will. The temptation is to resolve the tension by cutting off one of the ends of the tension. The original heretics chopped off one of the ends of the tension about Jesus: Jesus was only man and not God (for example, Adoptionism, Arianism) and Jesus was only divine and not man (for example, Docetism, Apollinarianism). The view that evil is God's will is similarly chopping off our responsibility, so it is doing the same thing that the original heretics did. In my view, the biblical view is that people doing evil is NOT God's will, but what he wants to achieve requires that he give us free will (and his plan of resolving our choice to do evil is to put his spirit in our hearts).
• graemep 2y ago
  > Somehow, humans managed to get by for thousands of years without any of this stuff. In very different societies. Our societies have gradually become less and less like what we evolved to fit into: small groups, time out doors, lots of face to face contact with people you are close to etc. Some past societies were pretty miserable for many people. I am pretty sure slaves had lots of trauma and other psychological problems, but not one cared. Even where people were cared about there were no consistent records kept so maybe we do not know. > Conversely, my more religious friends (Catholic, Muslim) seem happier and more resilient psychologically. I think religious faith and practices probably do help. However, that is not a practical solution because it is not something you can fake. You cannot just decide to believe something, and you may need faith rather than just belief to get the benefits. The benefits are a side effect of the aims of the religion (developing a relationship with God, achieving nirvana, etc.) and will not happen unless you are sincerely following the aim. Religions have practices and ideas that help resilience, and sometimes those parallel ideas in psychology and therapy - but for the reasons above will not work out of context. That is even without taking into account the possibility that (some) religious beliefs are true and, for example, God will (at least sometimes) answer a sincere prayer for the strength to cope with your problems. Maybe your Catholic and Muslim friends are receiving divine support - or just believing in a constant loving and perfect parental figure is a source of comfort that promotes resilience.
  • zaphar 2y ago
    Religious Faith and Belief are choices. They have to be because they are fundamentally about unprovable things. So in one sense they are absolutely practical. However if you don't want to choose a religion then it may not be practical for you. It is in no way the case though that Faith is something that just happens to you. It's a personal choice.
    • EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK 2y ago
      Of course not. Religion is a choice if one becomes religious as an adult. However, for the vast majority of religious people, they become religious at a young age, when they cannot make any choices.
• gosub100 2y ago
  > my more religious friends (Catholic, Muslim) Those religions mandate women to submit to the male or they are kicked out of the group. Of course things are more orderly when there is a chain of command and severe consequences (like losing your whole family) for demanding equality, asking questions, or questioning authority. Don't confuse the order for happiness. Ask a Muslim or Catholic what happens when you're gay, for example. Or review what the Churchs response was to child sexual abuse. In that case the social order actively contributed to more trauma!
• pm 2y ago
  You might think it's getting by, but you've got no idea of how much damage this attitude unwittingly propagates the trauma on succeeding generations. I've seen this firsthand in my own family, a family beset with undiagnosed ADHD and trauma from a violent patriarch, who was no doubt subject to the same abuse, lying about his age to join armies on BOTH sides of the conflict in WW2 to escape and eventually emigrate. As for the difference in psychological resilience: it's more much more likely those who have been traumatised are seeking understanding, rather than healthy then traumatised by their curiosity. Conversely, it's been shown religious people are, as a whole, more psychologically resilient, largely due to community and the accompanying support system it provides. However, there is also a strong element of suppression within those communities, which directly contributes to the very trauma of which I speak. If there is no communication, the abused, very often, become the abusers. And so the wheel turns.
  • matrix87 2y ago
    > it's more much more likely those who have been traumatised are seeking understanding, rather than healthy then traumatised by their curiosity The fact that trauma is now everywhere sort of de-legitimizes it to the point where there's no way of knowing in the average case. Also the fact that it's essentially a business at this point > but you've got no idea of how much damage this attitude unwittingly propagates the trauma on succeeding generations Sounds like you're saying: become emotionally pure or else. Personally I'd rather have "trauma" than play this little head game. And imo the younger generations will be better off, on average, not playing it either If anything, we're doing significantly more damage by teaching upcoming generations to trust the pharmaceutical industry
    • pm 2y ago
      > The fact that trauma is now everywhere sort of de-legitimizes it to the point where there's no way of knowing in the average case. I can tell you that trauma is very real for the person experiencing it, and it's this kind of flippant dismissal that stops people from seeking help. Trauma everywhere, in what fashion? Perhaps because more people are talking about it, more people are getting the courage to talk about it. > Sounds like you're saying: become emotionally pure or else. Emotionally pure? What does that even mean? It was phrased as a warning, because I've experienced this attitude within my family, and seen the damage it's caused, and continues to cause. Eventually, the damaged start damaging others, people put their hands over the ears pretending nothing's happening, and the cycle continues. > Personally I'd rather have "trauma" than play this little head game. What head game is being played? > If anything, we're doing significantly more damage by teaching upcoming generations to trust the pharmaceutical industry. The argument I was making had nothing to do with the pharmaceutical industry. It was about how trauma gets suppressed, and how that can institute a cycle of trauma, so be wary of how you approach it. It's all about taking care of people.
• deciplex 2y ago
  For what it's worth, I'm mostly in agreement with you that contemporary therapy is overrated. I did have one quibble: > Somehow, humans managed to get by for thousands of years without any of this stuff. In fact, and this is especially true for men, the correct response to this line of reasoning is basically "well, actually, no they didn't." The genetic lineages of most men over the entirety of human history, are extinct - we are descended from the comparative few who aren't. For example Ötzi the iceman (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%96tzi https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%96tzi) has no living descendants. He is typical. Not only that, but there is no reason to think that the surviving genetic lineages are remotely optimized for individual happiness, or for that matter individual industriousness or productivity (esp in the context of modern productive relations) or whatever other metric you want to measure people by. All of which is to say, that even accounting for the fact that basically most people who ever lived have no living descendants, we just don't value, individually or collectively, even the attributes that would have been selected for among human populations in the bronze age, neolithic, whatever. So if we want to make those things happen (i.e. if we want people to be happy and productive) we need to create the conditions for it and we need to give them significant help in doing so, as well. That "significant help" is probably going to be something like what we call "therapy" today - though, as I mentioned above, I think contemporary therapeutic practices are doing a horrible job at it. But, there is a job to do there, IMO.
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• blargey 2y ago
  > Somehow, humans managed to get by for thousands of years without any of this stuff. By “humans” do you mean 50%, 75%, 90%, 99%, or 99.99% of the population? By “got by” do you mean “lived mentally strong and resilient and healthy lives” or “just managed to do enough labor to not be ostracized and cut off from resources” or “maybe they couldn’t, but nobody wrote about or wanted to remember those people anyway” or “nobody had the vocabulary to describe their state or behavior as anything more than ‘unpleasant/unbecoming’”?
• petsfed 2y ago
  I suspect that your anecdata results from the community that organized religion engenders. Irrespective of all the criticisms leveled at religion, the simple fact of the matter is that if you feel like you belong, that your struggles are not unique, and that you can talk to people who have come through similar struggles apparently intact, you will likely heal from the experience faster and more completely. That the religion can provide some explanation for why you had to experience the trauma is a neat side effect. The veteran suicide rate is an evergreen cause of concern, but one of the major stories amongst veterans is that they leave this community where they had a very clearly defined role, with very clearly defined acceptable modes of behavior, and when you leave, all of that is stripped away. The sudden absence of community and sense of purpose is, for many veterans, an unbridgeable gap. There absolutely are insidious downsides to such tight-knit communities (especially in response to threats to the community - vis how often the victim of clerical sexual abuse encounters further attacks from members of the church). But e.g. religious organizations have persisted for so long because there's a sort of cost-benefit analysis occurring, where the community decides that so long as the community continues to function, its OK that a few members of the community are sacrificed to protect it. To be clear, its not like PTSD is a new thing. Catatonia, combat fatigue, etc, are stress responses that have been recognized for centuries. Its just that only fairly recently we've concluded that hey, maybe writing people off when they hit that point is a bad thing, and maybe we should invest some time in helping people before they reach that state.
• _DeadFred_ 2y ago
  People in prison have more 'community' and 'support' just by the fact they are surrounded by others in a communal setting than the average person out on the street in the USA. How f'd up as a society is that?
• Spooky23 2y ago
  Who says we’ve been getting by well? People who learn not to trust as children retain that into adulthood. Thats the core issue with many problems. It’s even a driver for PTSD - not everyone goes to war or experiences something terrible and leaves with a disorder. Consider 100 years ago it was acceptable to beat your wife. It was not considered socially unusual for a working class man to have his children underfed after drinking his salary away. Thats an example of how humans poorly cope with the inhumane conditions of industrial society. Trauma is in the eyes of the beholder. I’m part of a catholic community that is a loving and supportive place. I’m not a dogmatic or “good catholic” by any means, but I find inspiration and meditative comfort in prayer. And having gone through some horrific challenges in my life, my friends and family there have helped me get through. There’s no magic imo, your “tribe” will help you get through things.
• Red_Leaves_Flyy 2y ago
  Survival is not the same as thriving. Survival is the bottom rung on Maslow's hierarchy and below that is death. Being versed in the terminology of a subject is not the same as being an adept practitioner. The next few generations will become better practitioners while us graybeards (encompassing down to those in high school now) will suffer from the consequences of not receiving a better education in mental wellness and lacking the structural supports necessary for that. There are still a lot of barriers to widespread mental wellness from taking root in American culture: homelessness, poverty, class, conservatism, regressive religions, et cetera.