SafeAsMilk wrote:

Keep It Real wrote:When people behave badly it's usually because they're suffering....my mummy taught me that : )

Sometimes, but sometimes they're just acting badly because they don't know any better.

I think that's a highly unlikely hypothesis in this instance given what I know about jamest....he's not exactly 13 you know.

Keep It Real wrote:

SafeAsMilk wrote:

Keep It Real wrote:When people behave badly it's usually because they're suffering....my mummy taught me that : )

Sometimes, but sometimes they're just acting badly because they don't know any better.

I think that's a highly unlikely hypothesis in this instance given what I know about jamest....he's not exactly 13 you know.

jamest likes to parade his ignorance for everyone to see, all you have to do is read his contributions to pretty much any science thread. Either he's trolling (which I don't think he is, WAY too earnest with no apparent sense of how embarrassing his rants are) or he doesn't know any better. Adults are also capable of lacking self-awareness. I do think that it might occasionally dawn on him, which is why he usually disappears for awhile after a blowout like the one above, which is probably painful. But you know, it's like someone stepping on a rake over and over, eventually you start to run out of sympathy.

Fallible wrote:

Keep It Real wrote:But catharsis is ineffective Fallible, as well you should know.

It's effective short-term. There's not much point in defending myself against someone who has such an outdated picture of my position and motivation in his head, derived from fuck knows where. It's just very frustrating to have to countenance such a gross butchering of the thing I live every day, and I do find myself reflexively wanting to set the record straight. Almost exactly 24 hours ago, I was sitting with someone who has spent decades pushing absolutely everyone away and constructing a literal wall around himself out of piles of rubbish in his house so he can't reach his own sink, as he told me things he had never told a living soul before, and wet stuff came out of my eyes, which, dammit, I think he saw. Now I'm here, being portrayed as a cold, uncaring, cynical ideologue. Nowt so queer as folks, eh. Fuck it, it's not a job, it's a privilege...never mind.

Almost exactly 24 hours ago wet stuff came out of my eyes too until my neighbour said "you're a man!" and then I stopped (round his flat covered in blood at the time). I'm sure you do your (currently impossibly difficult imo) job to the best of your ability. And not for the money/status (overwhelmingly primarily) but because you refuse to give up and not give a fuck (so very tempting sometimes) like me. Jamest makes some valid points though still, as always imo, and he's right in that psychotherapy/psychiatry/psychology/sociology is peppered with deep/fundamental gaps in knowledge/technique atm. Wouldn't you say?

I would say, yes, and I haven't said it isn't. Added to that, mental health provision in this country is woeful, a patchwork of badly funded, jury-rigged, fire-fighting style services. It therefore baffles me that I am being portrayed as someone who defends the NHS at all costs, just because I find the physical health care side of the operation to have helped me and my family immensely and say so. It's true, I do work for the NHS, one day a week, voluntarily, in a cancer ward. The rest of the time I work for a private practice. I do get paid there - although the patients don't pay - providing a service which is unavailable on the NHS, and as far as I am able, using methods with research behind them, although sometimes the best I can do is to provide a space for people to emote. I'm more aware of the gaps than most. That doesn't mean the whole arena of psychology is without merit, and one would be better off following the advice of a stranger on the internet with enough undemonstrated faith in his own abilities to fell a rhino. You know what they say about self-recommendation.

I think one of the main problems holding psychology back is the absence of governmental/authoritative guidance on one's central existential perspective (ie atheism/religion/afterlife/ghosts/psychics etc) etc. It's like we need that foundation before we can tackle everything else with any confidence/unity...perhaps.

You referenced Donnie Darko in the player hating thread - remember the scene where Donnie is asking his science teacher about time travel and following god's channel - and the teacher says "I'm sorry I'm going to have to end this conversation because I could lose my job." We're still in that situation innit.

Should people really be free to believe what they want if the result is a violent, lonely, drug riddled, dysfunctional community? I think not.

Keep It Real wrote:I think one of the main problems holding psychology back is the absence of governmental/authoritative guidance on one's central existential perspective (ie atheism/religion/afterlife/ghosts/psychics etc) etc. It's like we need that foundation before we can tackle everything else with any confidence/unity...perhaps.

I think it's that when you are dealing with an area where it is not always possible to employ the scientific method, it's difficult to show efficacy. We can show areas of the brain lighting up on a brain scan. We can't show how or why someone feels 'better' after a certain intervention in the same way. All we have to go on is self-reporting of reactions to interventions of variable quality and content which often take place in private. Nightmare.

Keep It Real wrote:You referenced Donnie Darko in the player hating thread - remember the scene where Donnie is asking his science teacher about time travel and following god's channel - and the teacher says "I'm sorry I'm going to have to end this conversation because I could lose my job." We're still in that situation innit.

I always assumed that he says that because there is separation of church and state in the US, so you can't do God talk at school.

Keep It Real wrote:Should people really be free to believe what they want if the result is a violent, lonely, drug riddled, dysfunctional community? I think not.

The other option is forcing people to believe something else. I'd rather have the option of taking some personal responsibility.

Keep It Real wrote:Should people really be free to believe what they want if the result is a violent, lonely, drug riddled, dysfunctional community? I think not.

If. If said society is the result of people not being free to believe what they want, then what?

Fallible wrote:

Keep It Real wrote:Should people really be free to believe what they want if the result is a violent, lonely, drug riddled, dysfunctional community? I think not.

If. If said society is the result of people not being free to believe what they want, then what?

But the societies I'm referring to (UK/US mainly for now) do not provide authoritative unified guidance on the central existential perspective...didn't I read that Trump said the other day that heroin is a national emergency? It's the same in my neighbourhood. It occurs to me now that the soul (as perceived by the religious) is in competition with the ego...as in that ineffable component of human psychology which pulls most of the strings....as long as the concept of the soul is given credence the problem of the ego cannot be authoritatively tackled for the population. When I say ego I'm not talking about that component of the Freudian model of personality of course; I mean basically self-esteem. Also the problem of free will cannot be resolved until religion is gone from authoritative advocacy. Same goes for the "terror of hell" problem which cause soooooooo much pain and mental illness in my experience. Love/sexual competition cannot be investigated either...if only the cathedrals weren't so beautiful I could think of an immediate technique hehehe naughty naughty

Fallible wrote:

Keep It Real wrote:You referenced Donnie Darko in the player hating thread - remember the scene where Donnie is asking his science teacher about time travel and following god's channel - and the teacher says "I'm sorry I'm going to have to end this conversation because I could lose my job." We're still in that situation innit.

I always assumed that he says that because there is separation of church and state in the US, so you can't do God talk at school.

You think teachers in the UK are allowed to express a definitive opinion about the central existential perspective to their pupils? I seriously doubt it.

SafeAsMilk wrote:

Keep It Real wrote:Should people really be free to believe what they want if the result is a violent, lonely, drug riddled, dysfunctional community? I think not.

The other option is forcing people to believe something else. I'd rather have the option of taking some personal responsibility.

Forcing...I wouldn't use that word...more like informing...we've gotta hold people responsible for their actions in order to provide incentive/deterrent for many but surely you msut know our thoughts/actions are determined purely by biological/environmental factors beyond our control so free will and the resulting personal responsibility are a myth...You see? we still argue about these issues!

Keep It Real wrote:

SafeAsMilk wrote:

Keep It Real wrote:Should people really be free to believe what they want if the result is a violent, lonely, drug riddled, dysfunctional community? I think not.

The other option is forcing people to believe something else. I'd rather have the option of taking some personal responsibility.

Forcing...I wouldn't use that word...more like informing...

It's no mystery to me why you'd want to spin it that way. You can inform people all you want, but unless they're free to believe what they want, you're forcing them. That's just a fact.

we've gotta hold people responsible for their actions in order to provide incentive/deterrent for many but surely you msut know our thoughts/actions are determined purely by biological/environmental factors beyond our control so free will and the resulting personal responsibility are a myth...

I don't know why you'd think I'd surely know something that observably isn't so. I'm not a potted plant. You may want to throw your hands up in the air and say "Well I'm just a potted plant, I've got no self control at all!", but I find that to be a pretty lame excuse to justify continued bad behavior. There are undoubtedly biological and environmental factors that shape and influence behavior, but when all is said and done you are the one ultimately responsible for the choices you make.

You see? we still argue about I still assert these issues!

FIFY

Keep It Real wrote:

Fallible wrote:

Keep It Real wrote:You referenced Donnie Darko in the player hating thread - remember the scene where Donnie is asking his science teacher about time travel and following god's channel - and the teacher says "I'm sorry I'm going to have to end this conversation because I could lose my job." We're still in that situation innit.

I always assumed that he says that because there is separation of church and state in the US, so you can't do God talk at school.

You think teachers in the UK are allowed to express a definitive opinion about the central existential perspective to their pupils? I seriously doubt it.

I don't just think it, I know it.

Keep It Real wrote:...
Forcing...I wouldn't use that word...more like informing...we've gotta hold people responsible for their actions in order to provide incentive/deterrent for many but surely you msut know our thoughts/actions are determined purely by biological/environmental factors beyond our control so free will and the resulting personal responsibility are a myth...You see? we still argue about these issues!
...

Purely?? So you don't think your mind has any say in the matter?
This is "no free will" (circular argument version).

Our brains are the consequence of genetic/environmental factors beyond our control. What am "I"? Just a thoughtless spark of perceptual consciousness at the end of the day, experiencing what my brain tells it.

Haven't we done this already?

Keep It Real wrote:Our brains are the consequence of genetic/environmental factors beyond our control. What am "I"? Just a thoughtless spark of perceptual consciousness at the end of the day, experiencing what my brain tells it.