I had two reactions reading this and I'm not sure how I feel about it. My initial reaction (and this is probably wrong and unfair) is one of despair. This stuff will be useful to some people, but...
I had two reactions reading this and I'm not sure how I feel about it.
My initial reaction (and this is probably wrong and unfair) is one of despair. This stuff will be useful to some people, but I feel it's not going to be hugely useful to people with a diagnosable mental health problem or mental illness. And I feel like it's going to be misapplied, in the same way the "Have you tried jogging?" questions do. It's perhaps Yet Another Thing that I can fail to do because my low mood stops me doing anything, and my distorted thinking will blame me for not doing it and not the thing for being perhaps a little bit unrealistic.
I notice also that the questions about "how do you feel?" are asked immediately after the session, and this is known to be distorting. We know this because England has a comprehensive set of data from "IAPT" (improving access to psychological therapies, a service now known as NHS Talking Therapy). If you ask the question immediately after the session people report better scores; if you ask the questions mid-week the scores drop a bit. If you ask the question immediately before the session it's confusing - some people's mood has dropped, but other people feel optimistic about having the session.
But my more considered response is that it looks interesting. They're gathering evidence, they're being cautious with their words (this may help some people, and not This Will Help You), and the intervention looks simple enough and mostly accessible. (They may need a bit of cultural competence around the Buddhist prayer though - some people won't be able to follow along with that).
I'm currently getting palliative treatment for cancer (the palliative bit started in December 2023, I'm not currently end of life yet). And I can spot some similarities here about eg "notice the good things that emerge from a bad situation" or "get nice responses from other people".
I think my thinking about things like this have been skewed by a long history of grand claims about interventions. SSRI meds are important, they can really help people get their life back. They're not useful for everyone. But, when launched, that's not what was claimed. Prozac was launched with claims about making people feel "better than well". People were saying it was an outrage that medicine licensing restricted the use of meds to people who had a diagnosable mental health problem because everyone could benefit from Prozac. Cognitive Behaviour Therapy was sold as this super effective therapy, and it's good, it works well, but CBT covers a wide range (especially in England's weird model with tiers) and not everyone gets benefit. Ditto Mindfullness, ditto exercise. So, when a new thing comes along I'm pretty jaded.
This is me saying my thoughts about this are distorted by a bunch of stuff, but basically I'm glad people are looking at it and I'm glad they're not being stupid about it too.
I'd love to hear if people try these techniques and find them helpful!!
Not exactly the same, but I suspect it's similar to it... I've found daily Zazen, mindfulness, and loving-kindness meditation (I alternate depending on what I feel like I need that day) to be...
Not exactly the same, but I suspect it's similar to it... I've found daily Zazen, mindfulness, and loving-kindness meditation (I alternate depending on what I feel like I need that day) to be extremely useful for helping me manage my anxiety/panic disorder. It's definitely not a panacea or silver bullet, but it has helped me be less strongly negatively affected by my anxiety/panic attacks.
I totally understand your concerns about this being misapplied, and treated similar to all the other cliche unhelpful platitudes often told to people with mental health issues, like saying "Cheer up!" or "Have you tried exercising?".
Although, again just anecdotal, I have actually found that often times trying to cheer myself up when I'm feeling depressed actually does work to a certain degree, if I do it right (e.g. by consuming comforting/uplifting media, and distancing myself from negative/contentious media). But I've also found that at other times, ironically, trying to make myself feel even more sad/depressed (e.g. by listening to sad music or watching depressing movies) actually ends up making me feel better afterwards than trying to cheer myself up does. So I'm not exactly sure how this program will effect me. I signed up for it though, so I'll let you know how it goes! :)
p.s. Unlike the author, the first "Share a laugh" exercise actually did make me smile, since there were some pretty silly sounding laughs in it. It was not life-changing, but it did make my morning a tiny bit brighter.
Scott Alexander (a psychiatrist) claims in one of his recent articles (on a related but very speculative hypothesis) that research on depression shows that if you're actually able to force...
Although, again just anecdotal, I have actually found that often times trying to cheer myself up when I'm feeling depressed actually does work to a certain degree, if I do it right (e.g. by consuming comforting/uplifting media, and distancing myself from negative/contentious media).
Scott Alexander (a psychiatrist) claims in one of his recent articles (on a related but very speculative hypothesis) that research on depression shows that if you're actually able to force yourself to do things that make you happy, they generally tend to work and make you feel better, and the "only" problem is that it becomes very difficult to convince yourself to do them, and instead you have a tendency to do things that make you worse.
I did not check his sources, but it seems like there's some backing to your anecdotal observation.
Btw, anecdotally I can also confirm meditation working really well for anxiety at least for some people, and about half of people in my small meditation group started (and continued) meditating because of anxiety. It has been the single most influential thing I've done for my mental health in my life so far.
I'm generally not a fan of Scott Alexander when he writes articles about things outside his wheelhouse, since he suffers from a severe case of ultracrepidarianism. Or as Heinlein put it,...
I'm generally not a fan of Scott Alexander when he writes articles about things outside his wheelhouse, since he suffers from a severe case of ultracrepidarianism. Or as Heinlein put it, "Expertise in one field does not carry over into other fields. But experts often think so. The narrower their field of knowledge the more likely they are to think so."
But that subject actually is firmly in his wheelhouse... so thanks for sharing it. It's an interesting theory, and I can definitely see some of that counterproductive, self-reinforcing, negative behavior he describes in myself too. But as I mentioned above, I think making yourself more sad/depressed, like by listening to sad music, can sometimes actually be incredibly helpful. E.g. For me, having a good, ugly crying session while listening to sad music almost feels like a purging of my emotional tank, allowing me to reset back to baseline quicker afterwards. Whereas bottling it all up and trying to suppress those feeling, just so I can keep somewhat functioning for a bit longer, only makes things worse in the long run.
File it under "Science proving folk wisdom true": Stop and smell the flowers. Enjoy the small things in life. Not to say folk wisdom is perfect, or that studying it is bad, but it often serves a...
File it under "Science proving folk wisdom true":
Stop and smell the flowers.
Enjoy the small things in life.
Not to say folk wisdom is perfect, or that studying it is bad, but it often serves a useful rule of thumb if you haven't learned better since. The rules for keeping Kosher actually make a bit of sense once you remember they came about before anybody knew what germs were..
Kosher and Halal also makes a lot of sense to help prevent trichinosis too, which can be extremely debilitating and even deadly. They make a bit less sense now that we have more advanced livestock...
Kosher and Halal also makes a lot of sense to help prevent trichinosis too, which can be extremely debilitating and even deadly. They make a bit less sense now that we have more advanced livestock management techniques/standards, better animal feed, refrigeration/flash-freezing, meat thermometers (since freezing or sufficient heat kills most parasites), and anti-parasitics along with other modern medicine, should we get infected. But if I time traveled to the distant past I don't think I would be willing to eat much pork either, TBH. ;)
I had two reactions reading this and I'm not sure how I feel about it.
My initial reaction (and this is probably wrong and unfair) is one of despair. This stuff will be useful to some people, but I feel it's not going to be hugely useful to people with a diagnosable mental health problem or mental illness. And I feel like it's going to be misapplied, in the same way the "Have you tried jogging?" questions do. It's perhaps Yet Another Thing that I can fail to do because my low mood stops me doing anything, and my distorted thinking will blame me for not doing it and not the thing for being perhaps a little bit unrealistic.
I notice also that the questions about "how do you feel?" are asked immediately after the session, and this is known to be distorting. We know this because England has a comprehensive set of data from "IAPT" (improving access to psychological therapies, a service now known as NHS Talking Therapy). If you ask the question immediately after the session people report better scores; if you ask the questions mid-week the scores drop a bit. If you ask the question immediately before the session it's confusing - some people's mood has dropped, but other people feel optimistic about having the session.
But my more considered response is that it looks interesting. They're gathering evidence, they're being cautious with their words (this may help some people, and not This Will Help You), and the intervention looks simple enough and mostly accessible. (They may need a bit of cultural competence around the Buddhist prayer though - some people won't be able to follow along with that).
I'm currently getting palliative treatment for cancer (the palliative bit started in December 2023, I'm not currently end of life yet). And I can spot some similarities here about eg "notice the good things that emerge from a bad situation" or "get nice responses from other people".
I think my thinking about things like this have been skewed by a long history of grand claims about interventions. SSRI meds are important, they can really help people get their life back. They're not useful for everyone. But, when launched, that's not what was claimed. Prozac was launched with claims about making people feel "better than well". People were saying it was an outrage that medicine licensing restricted the use of meds to people who had a diagnosable mental health problem because everyone could benefit from Prozac. Cognitive Behaviour Therapy was sold as this super effective therapy, and it's good, it works well, but CBT covers a wide range (especially in England's weird model with tiers) and not everyone gets benefit. Ditto Mindfullness, ditto exercise. So, when a new thing comes along I'm pretty jaded.
This is me saying my thoughts about this are distorted by a bunch of stuff, but basically I'm glad people are looking at it and I'm glad they're not being stupid about it too.
I'd love to hear if people try these techniques and find them helpful!!
Not exactly the same, but I suspect it's similar to it... I've found daily Zazen, mindfulness, and loving-kindness meditation (I alternate depending on what I feel like I need that day) to be extremely useful for helping me manage my anxiety/panic disorder. It's definitely not a panacea or silver bullet, but it has helped me be less strongly negatively affected by my anxiety/panic attacks.
I totally understand your concerns about this being misapplied, and treated similar to all the other cliche unhelpful platitudes often told to people with mental health issues, like saying "Cheer up!" or "Have you tried exercising?".
Although, again just anecdotal, I have actually found that often times trying to cheer myself up when I'm feeling depressed actually does work to a certain degree, if I do it right (e.g. by consuming comforting/uplifting media, and distancing myself from negative/contentious media). But I've also found that at other times, ironically, trying to make myself feel even more sad/depressed (e.g. by listening to sad music or watching depressing movies) actually ends up making me feel better afterwards than trying to cheer myself up does. So I'm not exactly sure how this program will effect me. I signed up for it though, so I'll let you know how it goes! :)
p.s. Unlike the author, the first "Share a laugh" exercise actually did make me smile, since there were some pretty silly sounding laughs in it. It was not life-changing, but it did make my morning a tiny bit brighter.
Scott Alexander (a psychiatrist) claims in one of his recent articles (on a related but very speculative hypothesis) that research on depression shows that if you're actually able to force yourself to do things that make you happy, they generally tend to work and make you feel better, and the "only" problem is that it becomes very difficult to convince yourself to do them, and instead you have a tendency to do things that make you worse.
I did not check his sources, but it seems like there's some backing to your anecdotal observation.
Btw, anecdotally I can also confirm meditation working really well for anxiety at least for some people, and about half of people in my small meditation group started (and continued) meditating because of anxiety. It has been the single most influential thing I've done for my mental health in my life so far.
I'm generally not a fan of Scott Alexander when he writes articles about things outside his wheelhouse, since he suffers from a severe case of ultracrepidarianism. Or as Heinlein put it, "Expertise in one field does not carry over into other fields. But experts often think so. The narrower their field of knowledge the more likely they are to think so."
But that subject actually is firmly in his wheelhouse... so thanks for sharing it. It's an interesting theory, and I can definitely see some of that counterproductive, self-reinforcing, negative behavior he describes in myself too. But as I mentioned above, I think making yourself more sad/depressed, like by listening to sad music, can sometimes actually be incredibly helpful. E.g. For me, having a good, ugly crying session while listening to sad music almost feels like a purging of my emotional tank, allowing me to reset back to baseline quicker afterwards. Whereas bottling it all up and trying to suppress those feeling, just so I can keep somewhat functioning for a bit longer, only makes things worse in the long run.
File it under "Science proving folk wisdom true":
Stop and smell the flowers.
Enjoy the small things in life.
Not to say folk wisdom is perfect, or that studying it is bad, but it often serves a useful rule of thumb if you haven't learned better since. The rules for keeping Kosher actually make a bit of sense once you remember they came about before anybody knew what germs were..
Kosher and Halal also makes a lot of sense to help prevent trichinosis too, which can be extremely debilitating and even deadly. They make a bit less sense now that we have more advanced livestock management techniques/standards, better animal feed, refrigeration/flash-freezing, meat thermometers (since freezing or sufficient heat kills most parasites), and anti-parasitics along with other modern medicine, should we get infected. But if I time traveled to the distant past I don't think I would be willing to eat much pork either, TBH. ;)
Related link, if you want to sign up to participate:
https://ggia.berkeley.edu/bigjoy/