/hob/ - Hobbies

I made this chart a while ago for /lit/. It's not a particularly good introduction, but I think it does an alright job of touching on the major psychotherapeutic modalities, even some relatively newer, obscure ones that I never hear people talk about.

I used to be heavily into reading psychology and even trying to develop my own psychological concepts, techniques and methods of research, but eventually became disillusioned with the entire field. The conclusion I came after a while is that psychotherapy just doesn't work, at least not as advertised. If a person does in fact manage to change in a meaningful, permanent way, this is the result of completely unknown and random forces, rather than the therapist's techniques or time spent thinking about one's condition. The problem is that's it's very easy for the therapist to misattribute the causes of a person's change and fit the person's reactions into a nice, conceptually meaningful box, because even the person himself doesn't know why he changed.

There's actually a decent amount of empirical evidence that shows that therapy is random or placebo. The first fact (that came as a surprise to me at the time) is that ALL empirically tested psychotherapies produce the equivalent outcomes. The therapeutic methodology accounted for the least amount of variance in the outcome, meaning it doesn't matter if you visit a psychoanalyst, a CBT expert, gestalt therapist or even a voodoo doctor, statistically, about the same amount of people report improvement. Another fact is that, drug treatments also produce the equivalent outcome to ANY therapy. And drugs + therapy, as well.

The optimistic interpretation of these findings is the "Dodo bird verdict", supposedly "all have won" and that every psychotherapy has gotten it "right", yet it seems obvious to me that all of them have failed to actually create meaningful change. If the methodology of the therapy doesn't count for shit, then what's the point of all the theory, concepts and techniques? If giving a person some dumbass drug is the equivalent to weeks of talking about the problem, then it's all bullshit, isn't it?

I still find it compelling to find a way to understand myself, get a grip on emotions, thoughts, perception, behavior, but there's nothing in the current mainstream that provides real tools for that kind of work. Recently, I've taken more of an interest in phenomenology, trying to describe and find some logic in my immediate subjective experience, but it has yet to yield me any truly great insight. My neuroses and psychological problems have gone away on their own since I've initially started to examine them, but I couldn't tell you why. Real psychological change when it happens is almost unnoticeable, it's not a conscious, deliberate thing, but rather, you simply find yourself without the symptom you were obsessed with for so long in a kind of banal way, as it if was never really there and you were imagining things.

psychiatry is a jewish psyop.

>>58586
No one cares about your recycled opinions.

>>58585
Good post. Also I am pretty sure I recognize your post from similar posts you have made on /dep/ in the past. These we're the more useful takes on psychology I have seen so far. I even saved some of your posts. Still it's kind of a fatalistic view on the whole thing attributing the cause of real change to unnkown forces.

Personally I feel like change for the most part is a superficial part of adaption to external demands. Once environment changes we are forced to make new actions and somehow we are able to operate under new permises although we haven't done theses actions before. At first these new actions feel very unnatural and they require effort and time but after a while it gets easier. However this adaption on an operating basis which also includes processing information and responding in a way that is useful for survival and egoistic desires does not touch our deeper mindset that remains in the back lurking. This lurking mindset always will fill us with a certain degree of scepsis and aversion to the new things that we get used to over time. We learn to live by these new conditions but we never fully integrate them, there's always a sense of a slight but noticeable separation between what we do and what we are. The more this separation splits open the less we are confident with ourselves and the more we are prone to mental illness and taking abrupt and discharging measures like suicide or giving in to complete madness and catatonic states.

>>58587
you do apparently.

>>58621
>it's kind of a fatalistic view on the whole thing attributing the cause of real change to unnkown forces.

I think it's useful to acknowledge that no modality has understood psychological change, otherwise they'd be able to maximize it beyond every other one and there would a clear winner statistically. People do happen to change, even in therapy, it's just that it's completely random and has very little to do with the methodology itself. The funny thing is that even modalities that do the opposite things, produce the same outcome, meaning that they are so far off the mark that it doesn't really matter what they do at all, people will change but not consciously and deliberately.

The thing that all them have in common is that beyond their supposed elegant theory of change, in practice, change always boils down to brute-force. At some point, a person reaches an impenetrable wall of their psyche and they are forced to hit their head against it. This usually means suppression and dissociation from symptoms. For instance, in CBT, the idea is that rational arguments is what is needed for people to change their irrational beliefs (the cause of disturbances), yet in practice, it's never as elegant as someone following and accepting a rational argument, usually requiring the person months of so-called "practice" for them to actually accept the belief (or rather, work on suppressing the symptom long enough to appear as if change happened).

The change you describe is the change on the level of behavior. Certain approaches focus entirely on that, but as you've noticed, it's very shallow change. One could train oneself to act contrary to one's emotions and instincts, suppressing and dissociating from them and working on producing the "correct" behavior. Yet this shallow change is never permanent because it requires constant effort and maintenance, continually fighting against oneself, as such it's usually not sustainable in the long run.

Genuine psychological change, what some would call "transformational change" is very different. The markers of such change are symptom cessation, non-reactivation and effortless permanence. Meaning: symptoms disappear, can no longer be re-activated by usual triggers and the change persists without effort. Such markers indicate a change on a deeper level i.e. a klepto no longer reaches to steal, not because he catches himself with the urge and avoids it, but because he no longer has the urge in the first place. I don't believe there is a mainstream modality that even acknowledges this distinction between shallow and genuine change, let alone can re-produce it continually in therapy.

It's hard to say at what level should change be focused on. Both thoughts and behavior, in my opinion, are simply surface-level symptoms compelled by deeper structures. I've previously theorized that the proper level of inquiry is in perception, below the level of even reflexive thought, "how things appear to the person" initially without conscious deliberation. The question is always "why" does reality appear this way and what are the mechanisms/rules of change on this level i.e. why does the cigarette appear so enticing, why do people appear as a threat and so on. This is why when change actually happens on this level, there is an effortless permanence, there is no longer a need for one to reflexively catch oneself and react differently, proper thoughts and behavior trickle down from proper perceptions (or perhaps something deeper).

Anyway, I could write for hours on this subject, but I'll conclude by saying that my pessimism with the current tools available in psychotherapy doesn't mean that I believe genuine change is impossible or even improbable, simply that we are currently in the dark in regards to how change operates and therefore, unable to re-produce it on regular basis.

>>58585
>There's actually a decent amount of empirical evidence that shows that therapy is random or placebo
do you have any sources?

>>58755
Here's a collection of studies on it and their implications.
http://www.coherencetherapy.org/files/dodo-bibliography.pdf

This shit is for succubi.

>>59671
Incorrect.

>>58585
Me too. At one point I wanted to make a career in the field but like you became highly disillusioned. Some things I learned from my journey are that a) humans as individuals aren't complex or interesting at all, b) social psychology is way more important and provides a better basis to measure human thought, and c) psychology is a field with a huge potential but has been completely subverted.

In order to make any real progress, there has to be a return to its philosophical roots with some help of the neuroscience field. I think any real psychologist or someone interested in it should be familiar with phenomenology not because it provides any real insight but because they need to have training that allows them to study perception.

Therapists and clinical psychologists treat the DSM as their holy bible and framework. If a client deviates from even one checkpoint, that could throw off their whole diagnosis. They have absolutely zero skill to be able to put themselves in the mind of the more troubled client and work from that.

>>59676
great post. The only good psychologists I have had were aware of how incomplete and meme worthy most of the profession was and to go with your own ideas.

>>59676
>humans as individuals aren't complex or interesting at all
Can't disagree more. I would never take anybody intellectually seriously after they said that.
The concept of the brain fully understanding itself is absurd, let alone saying that it isn't even complex or interesting, as you collapse into some sort of recursive meta-cognition loop. Psychiatry will always be fraught with failure because of this.

>>59678
Psychiatrists, psychologists, and therapists tend to think the opposite ie how you think - that everyone is special and unique. If psychiatry will never advance it's because it has already deviated way off course.

I don't know if you think the brain holds some special secrets or something, but have you looked around lately? Look at social media, imageboards, and read case studies of psychiatric patients. Eventually you begin to realize that the only thing differentiating most of these groups are life experiences and certain adaptations outside of serious brain malfunction.

>>59679
Oh, you mean, the human mind as a general entity is interesting and complex, but it is wrong to study individuals and make individualised treatment plans? I misunderstood if so.

> Eventually you begin to realize that the only thing differentiating most of these groups are life experiences and certain adaptations outside of serious brain malfunction.
Sure, but the human brain is so misunderstood that you can't unravel the influence of all those experiences. It is like trying to solve physics by finding a universal equation that models every interaction: that is too hard because it is so complex to model. But if you look at certain cases and situations you have smaller problems that you may be able to find some useful approximations and heuristics for. I have zero respect for the current state of psychology as a science, but I dont believe they are treating everyone as special and unique: they make groupings by defining certain disorders, and try to use statistical techniques (but with terrible study design and pervasive corruption)

>>59680
I guess what I meant was that the brain can be complex when you have people who are able to do extraordinary things with it, but since most humans are not this type of person then I think the brain doesn't really hold all of these complexities that we would be led to believe. I don't know how to explain it via text.

There are some things we don't really need the answer to and once we find it, we may think that it wasn't really worth it in the end. In the same sense that we don't really need to understand the secrets of the universe, whether there is a heaven or hell, or whatever. There are just some things better left unexplored.

It may have just been my experience with my therapist then. They would always go on about how they make specialized "treatment" plans for each person and how everyone has their own unique traits that they offer to the world. I think that's all bs. At our core we are more or less the same. There's nothing fundamentally different between a wizard and a normalfag besides brain chemistry and maladaptation.

As a NEET considering doing a masters in psychology due to a lifelong interest in it, it's such a demoralizing thread to read through, worse yet I find myself agreeing with some of the scepticism.

I just hoped I could use my interest to fuel a meaningful job where I help people. Fuck, man. I don't want to become a useless hack.

>>61006
A masters in psych won't do much unless it's in industrial. I think most specialized psychologists like forensic, sports, and so forth are expected to have a doctorate these days. I was a psych undergrad also because of lifelong interest but if I go for a masters or phd it will probably be in neuroscience so maybe that's something you can consider too since those programs accept psych undergrads.

>>58624
You type like a pseudointellectual liberal arts/humanities university student.

>>61026
I'm actually a CS dropout, but thanks for the stylistic input. I'll tone it down for the plebs next time.

>>59677
Exactly. My best psychologist regularly did his own thing, depending on who he was talking to. Our meetings were entirely discussion, with occasional comments by him that forced me to reconsider certain things. He never directly challenged or forced me on anything. It was strange after years of other styles of therapy.

>>61027
Just want you to know that was not me (OP) who answered that (I know it's been a while and I have no idea whether you are still here lol). Well, I do like your clarity on the subject. There doesn't seem to be any exact knowledge how to treat the psyche. For a mechanical dysfunction you can use oil and it works so long till it doesn't because of decay and then you repeat until it's broken. It's a fixed setup, just like a software code, you type in x and y follows 100% of the time. Human psyche works differently. You have stimulus x and maybe 80 % of the times reaction y will follow, but 20% it's complete and utter madness, unknowledgable and probably just retarded and painful. As far as we know the human psyche simply sucks. It's dysfunctional, prone to error, it can not be understood or administrated. Imagine creating a thing that does not do what you want it to do: that's what we call the brain. It does whatever it likes to doand the worst part is that it creates your personal 'I' identifications which simulates an entity that thinks it is itself while in fact it has no control over itself, just wishes that are randomly fulfilled or not.

>>58757
Not surprising. You see the older wizards and YouTubers like DefyingIddsDonnely. Therapy isn't doing shit for these people, and it's not for a lack of trying.

I've had over 50 Counselor/Therapists/Psychiatrists
Only about 7 professionals made substantial improvements to my wellbeing. I was surprised how dull some of these people came across.

How much difference does an early childhood diagnosis and intervention make for disorders like autism?

>>64634
since when are there effective interventions for autism? its not curable

>>65623
maybe social skills training at a young age helps?

>>65625
not really

>>64633
>I've had over 50 Counselor/Therapists/Psychiatrists
jesus christ man

i had 1 when i went to seek mental health and the experience resulted in me being fired basically, fuck those worthless idiots

>>64633
>>65708
yeah. it's a jewish scam. therapy is billable hours. plenty of dangerous drugs to sell you and always developing more.
i would recommend natural herbs/supplements; getting away from toxic energy and getting more sunlight

>>65708
>>65709
I can confirm this. I had several therapists, psychiatrists (and whatever else you wanna call these assholes) which I visited at least once a week for a longer period of time. I even had two chief doctors as counselors once and they were also doing jackshit. They are very quick with prescribing meds and even when I had severe pulse and breathing issues from it they lied to me and when I looked it up online I saw that its an exact side-effect of said meds that many people described. Some of them prescribe strong meds just after talking to you for not even an hour.(It's also worth noting that the female therapists were even more uselless as they got emotional and personal in an unprofessional way.)

The counseling they do is useless and you can figure out more by going online and researching stuff on your own. Their job is to keep you occupied for as long as possible and they look how much they can abuse your naivity in the process. They are not gonna help you, they make money by keeping you in their industry for as long as possible and by handing out prescriptions. Youre nothing but working material to them.

I was able to fix most of my severe problems by putting huge effort into reasearching stuff on the internet and it was really worth it, my trust in psychiatry has cost me a shitload of time that I will never get back. Don't put trust into psychiatry stuff.

BY FAR THE BEST WORKS ON THESE SUBJECTS ARE DR CHRISTOPHER HYATT'S AND HIS ASSOCIATES

B Y F A R

READ THE BLACK BOOK SERIES AND THEN OSYCHOPATHS BIBLE

BLACK BOOK SERIES ON ARCHIVE.ORG

PSYCOPATHS BIBLE CAN BE FOUND BY ADDING PDF DOWNLOAD

EXPLAINING THE CONTENTS WOULD BE A WASTE, JUST READ IT

N O W

Involuntary commitment is never justified. Never. No matter the circumstances.

>>65710
>They are not gonna help you, they make money by keeping you in their industry for as long as possible and by handing out prescriptions.

based. sorry you had to learn that the hard way anon. at least your story can help others

>>59678
But norms are indeed are simple minded, so to some degree its true.
But i am not sure if they can be truly called humans.

I don't think therapy is necessarily complete bullshit, I just think most of the dogma of academic psychology and the systems in which the field exists are. That the woke shit is stupid goes without saying, but the aspects of the field that subtly dehumanize people might not be readily apparent. Diagnostic labels/disorders are inherently imprecise, have tons of overlap, have very unclear origins and, in some ways, either blame the individual for their problems or don't recognize that it might not be their fault that they have them. The vast majority of mental health conditions are reactions to trauma mixed with whatever genetic predisposition cocktail they might have. Even if the way the person is behaving is unsavory and very erratic, they're behaving that way because people/society/life have fucked them and that's not their fault. It's true that, at the end of the day, you have to be the one to find the courage within yourself to face your problems, but it's ironic and sad that the mental health system doesn't actually help people do this like they're supposed to because the system is fucked to the core. Psych meds are crafted by ghoulish businessmen to make money not to help people, therapists are trained to view and handle things in a narrow way, the psychopathic health insurance system incentivizes mental health docs to be shrewd businessmen and put their profits first to get what they can to survive (can't speak for places with socialized medicine, but from what I hear, it has its own issues on this matter) and colleges/universities are staffed by either boomers with archaic boomer views on mental health or woke morons pushing their bullshit agenda. That's not even to mention how many people that go into this field are either just incompetent, bad fucking people or otherwise doing it for the wrong reasons (the stereotype of fucked up people studying psychology to understand themselves is a cliche but 100% true from my experience). On top of all this, it's a massive pain in the ass to navigate this system as a layperson in order to find care. Even if you're educated on this matter and know what to look for, it's basically just trial and error, if you can even afford it and have the time to make appointments.

At the end of the day, more shrinks should just stop being shrinks and just be people. I don't want to talk to a fucking doctor, I want to talk to a real human being who can actually listen, empathize and give input as needed. I don't want a fucking label, some stupid mental 'exercise' designed by some old cunt 70 years ago or some soppy douchebag to give me some therapy-speak nonsense. That's all that people want and need on the most part. Obviously, docs need to be educated on different types of mental health symptoms and whatnot, but less people would have these terrible experiences with therapy if they were just treated like people and not 'clients.'

For anyone interested, I suggest watching Daniel Mackler on youtube. He's an ex-therapist with a very human perspective on these things that's very skeptical of psychology dogma and academia nonsense. I love what he has to say about things because it's very illuminating and thought-provoking, even though honestly sometimes it's hard to listen to his videos because they're so real and honest.

>>65789
>daniel mackler
i have a hard time accepting his philisophy of
>everyone is good
as a fact and not just a cope

What if you have accepted personality disorder x? I am not even trying to change at this point. I am 31, I made this thread back in that day. And all that happened ever since is that I accept now that I don't like dealing with people, that I don't gain anything from it. I can interact with them if I have to, and sometimes I even do it more or less on free terms. But eventually I don't enjoy it, or I only enjoy insofar as I know it will end and that I'll be alone again. I am the happiest when in bed and alone with my thoughts and no upcoming duty around the corner. But I have learned to accept daily common tasks and keep order of some things. It gives me a sense of being a decent human being. I also stopped drugs except alcohol. That's great and all, but it didn't change me.

most people here dont need therapy or drugs they need people to invest in them, connection in community, access to resources, positive experiences to change brain up. what else said in this thread about it only being a money making industry and for profit of death, that's spot on. i would have had so much better of a life, if i hadn't been forced onto these heavy drugs early on in puberty. for no good reason either, a form of child abuse only. acted as puberty blockers, messed up hormones, brain development overall. then they got their claws into me again in my 20's and their drugs did a lot of damage. had i been left to figure it out on my own, i would have been profoundly better off. maybe a really good therapist that was invested in helping people and not just a job, but they are so rare as to not even exist.

my 20's and part of 30's disappeared to being on those substances which are there to keep you sedated and pacified and contented with your lot in life. they didn't make things better for me, they made my life a lot worse and took from me the energy and motivation i needed to be able to work on some things. it also was an easy excuse in that, the idea there is something wrong with the person instead of looking and admitting ok society did fuck up as a whole here, and didn't give this particular individual a fair shot. it's all more bullshit to justify 'meritocracy' while making money off the pain and misery of people.

I have a suspicion that treatments like hypnosis are probably better than many "traditional" therapeutic techniques.
Not because I think hypnosis is some magic cure all or has special properties, but simply because it's results focused and goal oriented, unlike far too many forms of psychological therapy.