I have a lot of opinions on this, as I have recently started therapy training myself.
I think this article downplays the role of social media. I am a heavy user of TikTok (almost certainly too heavy), and the sort of content that I might call ‘mental illness is fun!’ is everywhere, particularly relating to disorders like autism and ADHD. You do not have to search for long before you find ‘secret symptoms of autism you didn’t know you had’ which include things like listening to a song on repeat for a while, or lying in bed with your hand curled up under your chin. This stuff is, in short, bollocks, but people are desperate to be seen as special and unique. Let’s not forget that illness = victim and victim = delicious attention.
It’s telling that the disorders people want to have are not easy to gainsay, and as this article points out, the ‘role’ of clinical practitioners has been downplayed such that anyone who wants to be autistic can be. This is not the same with much less ‘sexy’ disorders like schizophrenia or drug addiction which are, if we’re blunt, harder to fake for attention.
And then we get to ‘neurodiversity’ which really rattles my cage. I’m all for destigmatising mental illness. I think that’s something we should try to move towards, because the old ‘mentally ill people are dangerous lunatics’ trope does more harm than it does good. But we shouldn’t ‘normalise’ mental illness either. We don’t ‘normalise’ physical illness, because it’s… not normal.
Very strange to see autism described as a “sexy” diagnosis when it is in fact highly stigmatized. Reminds me a lot of people accusing trans people of “faking it for attention”.
I believe the shift we’re seeing play out on social media relates to the increasing acknowledgement that various conditions such as autism have been described by psychiatry based on the observations of others and not based on the internal experience of the individual themselves. So, a shift is happening in terms of how we think about these variations and who has the authority to describe them.
As a therapist, I have found humility to be a skill that I must continuously grow and foster. The authority of a therapist is one to take on with the understanding that there is much we do not know and much that our clients have to tell us. We should listen with care and respect.
Simon S
1 year ago
“he also ventured that, without a category to make meaning for him, he would have to make meaning out of his symptoms himself. That process is what my co-workers and I are trying to enable.” Sorry to say this because you clearly mean well, but in pandering to transgenderism’s self-righteous excesses spurred on in vulnerable young people by pharma/surgicall greed it sounds to me as if your profession has also lost its way.
Simon James
1 year ago
I’m a psychologist. Part of my work involves assessing people who may or may not have learning disabilities.
I’m all for self-identification if it helps people to have a narrative they feel empowered by and which gives them hope. Where the rubber really hits the road is when you want others to share and validate your analysis of yourself. Say, for example, you would like official recognition that you have a disability and are therefore entitled to material and financial support, as well as respect for and accommodation of your difficulties/differences. That is always going to have to involve some externally-imposed, reasonably stable criteria because, putting it crudely, you are asking the taxpayer to help pick up the bill and your fellow citizens to treat you differently. They may be very happy to do so, but their compliance has to be grounded in a widely-shared understanding of what constitutes ‘evidence’ that you are who you say you are. It’s not sufficient for the client and therapist to construct a shared understanding – although it is enjoyable and exciting – if the client wants the rest of the world to line up behind their narrative. That way (even more) madness lies.
Is it ever more appropriate, useful or even possible for a client to learn tools and techniques to improve their life rather than expect everyone else to line up behind their narrative?
With due respect, I’m not sure how this is a political question. All N Forster is asking is which is better, learning how to cope or insisting you are validated by others. Perhaps there is no straightforward answer, but, as a complete layman, I would have thought that tools to cope would be better, as one can never rely on others doing what you want.
If you have skin cancer or a broken elbow, the likelihood of getting treatment, and the type and quality of treatment, depends on the political priorities of the place where you live.
N Forster is asking Should individuals be encouraged to become more resilient and self sufficient or should society take collective responsibility for removing any obstacles they might encounter? That’s Politics 101. Do we expect people to carry out their own risk assessments or do we mandate masks, social distancing and vaccines? Your politicians will decide. If you don’t want them to, or if you want different decisions, you have to get out and vote. Or overthrow/undermine the system.
Yes. That is always the first option. Asking society to make accommodations for you is always either a temporary option, or the option that you’re left with when therapy fails to resolve the issues and tools and techniques to accommodate fail. Or at least that was the case during my 20 plus years of psychiatric nursing and psychotherapy practice (but I haven’t practiced for the last 5 years, so I really don’t know what mad things people are doing with their clients these days).
You absolutely can Colin. If you decide to give it a go please do report back here with the results.
Andrew Horsman
1 year ago
Not being able to categorise or generalise an individual’s experience with the use of of some clinical label or other does not mean that you have to accept the postmodernist bunkum that there is no such thing as objective truth. That way madness, and atrocities, lie.
Zak Orn
1 year ago
It’s unfortunate because there’s two serious problems running parallel. Problem one being increasing amounts of people, especially young people, labelling themselves with what are very likely incorrect diagnoses, this is bad but a trusted and credible psychology sector could alleviate the problem. Unfortunately this leads to the second issue… social media has massively undermined the credibility of most professions, and the psych sector definitely isn’t an exception. When you can look up a therapist (or even psychiatrist) on twitter and 9 times out of 10 they appear more mentally unstable than you are, why would you trust their opinions on anything?
I don’t think it’s self-diagnosis that’s undermining therapy, it’s therapists, not all of them of course, but the majority of the ones on social media.
Last edited 1 year ago by Zak Orn
Hugh Bryant
1 year ago
I know it sounds old fashioned, but it’s true nevertheless: too much screen time, not enough outdoor activity.
I am inclined to agree, Hugh. I had a wholesome upbringing with plenty of fresh air, lots of exposure to animal excrements thanks to my grandparents’ farm, and vigorous physical activity including climbing trees, riding, mucking out stables, running, etc. I was in my late teens and at uni in the 1990s before I ever encountered a person with a diagnosed mental illness. Children who had difficulty sitting still at primary school were called lively or rambunctious and teachers found ways to interact with them. They were not given medication, and I don’t recall a single case where the child did not turn out well. Granted, it’s a small sample, but it has led me to believe that as a society we over-diagnose and over-medicate even (especially?) our young.
Steve Elliott
1 year ago
I don’t know how many times I’ve heard people say things like “I’m a little bit bipolar” or “I’m on the spectrum”, all self diagnosed.
Mark McKee
1 year ago
If you think you are mentally ill or mad then it’s a fairly safe bet you aren’t! It’s the people wrecking the West who think they are sane and enlightened who are the problem…
Language characterized by the often inaccurate use of jargon from psychiatry and psychotherapy.
using language loaded with psychological terminology
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
Linda Hutchinson
1 year ago
I think that, just maybe, one problem is that there is an expectation that everyone conforms to a very narrow set of behaviours. Having worked in science for my entire carrer, I have met many, usually men, who would probably be considered to be on “the spectrum”, but they just got on with there jobs and their lives. If you are capable of operating reasonably happily within the society in which you live then you don’t need to concern yourself, or other, about your mental state. If you want attention then do something worthwhile that generates the attention you want, or maybe get a dog.
Agreed.
I’ve been a professional software developer for the last 30 odd years and would consider myself and all my colleagues (at least the good ones) to be mildly ‘on the spectrum’.
By which I mean little things like forcing myself make a bit of small talk before diving into the matter at hand or making an effort to understand other people’s opinions.
But as you say, we just get on with it.
Brendan O'Leary
1 year ago
*diagnoses of mental illness aren’t like medical diseases, which one either has or one doesn’t*
Therein lies the problem, and of course unlimited opportunity for frauds and fantasists on both sides of the couch/cash register.
And if I hear one more person claiming that they’re “aspy” , like it’s some cute in-group …
Allison Barrows
1 year ago
“Nonlinear Dynamical Systems Theory”. Any “profession” that perpetrates meaningless names like this is a racket pretending to be legit. Much like “studies” academe.
It’s stolen from STEM, in which it is specific and meaningful.
In psychiatry it strikes me as just more psycho-babble. But my background is engineering so most everything strikes me that way.
Probably just want to confound the layperson. Apparently, when the group of psychiatrists responsible for creating the DSM 3 or 4 ( the one with all the newly discovered or created mental illnesses) were deciding on symptoms for diagnoses of mental illnesses, a female who was somehow involved (apologies for being vague, I don’t have time to check the details) objected to a behaviour being listed as symptomatic on the grounds it was one of her behaviours and consequently must be normal; The obliging psychiatrists left it out. How times have changed.
It’s almost as bad as “The Inflation Reduction Act”. No basis in reality.
Alice Bondi
1 year ago
It seems to me a serious error to attempt to ‘diagnose’ psychological difficulty. It gives people the notion that such diagnoses have the same material reality as physical illness diagnoses and therefore have similarly clear treatment options. People have always wanted a definitive notion to explain their suffering, and those in their teens and twenties are in a process of maturation, of discovering how their individual self fits with the society in which they live, which is by its nature uncomfortable. Grabbing onto a diagnosis, or a religion, or an identity, becomes the way of managing. As a retired psychotherapist, I felt in my work (and still) that what needs to be addressed, the help the patient needs, relates to what is actually causing the distress, not trying to label it and pretend that there is therefore an off-the-peg solution.
Oh, and Viktor Frankl’s ‘Man’s Search for Meaning’ is one of the best books ever written, and talks (from his experience in a Nazi concentration camp) of the key importance, for mental health, of discovering a meaning of one’s own for one’s life.
I agree with you to an extent, but sometimes there is a real value to the patient in having a diagnosis (though in my experience that is still always a double-edged sword). For example, in my country (New Zealand) when work and income (the government department that gives out and withholds benefits) see a Schizophrenia diagnosis, they stop hassling a patient to “get back to employment”, because they realize that it’s not a realistic expectation to have of that population. This releaves a person who is very vulnerable to stress of the overwhelming pressure to do something they are not capable of doing without disintegrating (hold down a paid job) and fear of losing their benefit. But on the other hand, you absolutely do not want to make having Schizophrenia a part of your identity, because that way lies feeling defeated and extremely negative about yourself and lowering your expectations of yourself way too far. When I worked as a community mental health nurse with patients with Schizophrenia, I spent a lot of time with my patients exploring how make sense of that particular diagnosis so that it could be a constructive and not destructive force in their life ie to use the diagnosis for what they could get out of it, but not let their self-esteem and sense of agency be destroyed by it.
Johnathan Galt
1 year ago
“Who decides if you’re mentally ill?”
I do!
Ok, here’s the deal. Wishing you were another gender is no different than wishing you were a bee, a butterfly, a tree, or Elvis. Fantasy is ok. Militantly demanding that others participate in your fantasy is NOT ok. Wanting to chemically castrate or mutilate yourself is mental illness for which neither action will act as a “cure” for anything, but WILL destroy your health.
First do no harm. Such a simple rule used for thousands of years. Now today’s Progressives think they know better. Lock them up, along with ANYONE who panders to a minor’s feelings of depression about not having been born “something else.” Treat the depression. When they are adults, they can mutilate themselves to their hearts desires.
Last edited 1 year ago by Johnathan Galt
Robert Kaye
1 year ago
“Part of the challenge lies in this very postmodern acceptance that there is no singular truth. ”
Then don’t accept it.
AC Harper
1 year ago
The premise of The Mind is Flat (by Nick Chater) is that there is no ‘inner life’ that holds the secret of understanding ourselves, we make stuff up on the fly to explain our behaviour to others, and ourselves.
At one time we could could blame nature spirits, gods, or devils, for causing our unacceptable behaviour. Then we realised that that excuse of external causes probably wouldn’t work any longer. So we tried introspection, meditation, contemplation, palmistry, astrology, and divination etc., to uncover our hidden causes. That’s pretty much a bust too.
So now we have people who are genuinely mentally ill with a physical cause and an awful lot of people trying to find explanations for uncommon behaviour they think they have. And therapists that believe there is an ‘inner life’ and they can help expose it.
The inner life was always a metaphor for what happens when we reflect on our own mental-emotional processes. Changing the metaphor so that we’re less integral and more dispersed into our current relationships and experiences might be of some therapeutic use – I don’t know – but sounds to me without having read the book as if it’s likely to exacerbate the anomie the article describes.
Vici C
1 year ago
The thing I have noticed over the last several decades is the growing plethora of labels. The brainwashing brigade well understand the power of words
Father Christmas is a proper noun. The meaning is not the name. Santa Claus is another name for the same . imaginary man. I was thinking of unnecessary terminology designed to obfuscate. Also of those who adopt or use words and phrases which when asked to define they cannot.
Last edited 1 year ago by Aphrodite Rises
Pat Rowles
1 year ago
Anyone else curious as to why the author’s Twitter handle (shown beneath her byline) is @malefragility?
Colin K
1 year ago
Victimhood has become a currency is the eyes of the left.
Nicky Samengo-Turner
10 months ago
clearly not Boris Johnson, and Donald Trump’s looking glass…Though the current President would not understand his diagnosis…
Nicky Samengo-Turner
10 months ago
Ahhhh… I have a simple test
” Do you believe in zero carbon and the eradication of all fossil fuels” if you answer ” Yes” it’s the padded cell , strait jacket and big needle for you”…
I have a lot of opinions on this, as I have recently started therapy training myself.
I think this article downplays the role of social media. I am a heavy user of TikTok (almost certainly too heavy), and the sort of content that I might call ‘mental illness is fun!’ is everywhere, particularly relating to disorders like autism and ADHD. You do not have to search for long before you find ‘secret symptoms of autism you didn’t know you had’ which include things like listening to a song on repeat for a while, or lying in bed with your hand curled up under your chin. This stuff is, in short, bollocks, but people are desperate to be seen as special and unique. Let’s not forget that illness = victim and victim = delicious attention.
It’s telling that the disorders people want to have are not easy to gainsay, and as this article points out, the ‘role’ of clinical practitioners has been downplayed such that anyone who wants to be autistic can be. This is not the same with much less ‘sexy’ disorders like schizophrenia or drug addiction which are, if we’re blunt, harder to fake for attention.
And then we get to ‘neurodiversity’ which really rattles my cage. I’m all for destigmatising mental illness. I think that’s something we should try to move towards, because the old ‘mentally ill people are dangerous lunatics’ trope does more harm than it does good. But we shouldn’t ‘normalise’ mental illness either. We don’t ‘normalise’ physical illness, because it’s… not normal.
Nothing is considered normal anymore. Normal is relative. Moral relativity is the root of the problem. If anything is allowed to go, anything will go.
I searched the article for the word ‘narcissism’, but in vain.
Very strange to see autism described as a “sexy” diagnosis when it is in fact highly stigmatized. Reminds me a lot of people accusing trans people of “faking it for attention”.
I believe the shift we’re seeing play out on social media relates to the increasing acknowledgement that various conditions such as autism have been described by psychiatry based on the observations of others and not based on the internal experience of the individual themselves. So, a shift is happening in terms of how we think about these variations and who has the authority to describe them.
As a therapist, I have found humility to be a skill that I must continuously grow and foster. The authority of a therapist is one to take on with the understanding that there is much we do not know and much that our clients have to tell us. We should listen with care and respect.
“he also ventured that, without a category to make meaning for him, he would have to make meaning out of his symptoms himself. That process is what my co-workers and I are trying to enable.” Sorry to say this because you clearly mean well, but in pandering to transgenderism’s self-righteous excesses spurred on in vulnerable young people by pharma/surgicall greed it sounds to me as if your profession has also lost its way.
I’m a psychologist. Part of my work involves assessing people who may or may not have learning disabilities.
I’m all for self-identification if it helps people to have a narrative they feel empowered by and which gives them hope. Where the rubber really hits the road is when you want others to share and validate your analysis of yourself. Say, for example, you would like official recognition that you have a disability and are therefore entitled to material and financial support, as well as respect for and accommodation of your difficulties/differences. That is always going to have to involve some externally-imposed, reasonably stable criteria because, putting it crudely, you are asking the taxpayer to help pick up the bill and your fellow citizens to treat you differently. They may be very happy to do so, but their compliance has to be grounded in a widely-shared understanding of what constitutes ‘evidence’ that you are who you say you are. It’s not sufficient for the client and therapist to construct a shared understanding – although it is enjoyable and exciting – if the client wants the rest of the world to line up behind their narrative. That way (even more) madness lies.
“I’m all for self-identification if it helps people to have a narrative they feel empowered by and which gives them hope.”
Hope for what?
that the next few years might be different to the last few years
Is it ever more appropriate, useful or even possible for a client to learn tools and techniques to improve their life rather than expect everyone else to line up behind their narrative?
Good question, but a political one, so the answer has to ultimately come through the ballot box, not from psych professionals
With due respect, I’m not sure how this is a political question. All N Forster is asking is which is better, learning how to cope or insisting you are validated by others. Perhaps there is no straightforward answer, but, as a complete layman, I would have thought that tools to cope would be better, as one can never rely on others doing what you want.
A very political answer to a non political question.
An article in the Telegraph today describes your question above as one of “the questions that dominate – or underpin – every important political argument of our time.”
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/11/05/adversarial-politics-dead-what-left-managerialist-wrangle/
If you have skin cancer, or a broken elbow, do you seek answers at the ballot box? I hope not. Please rethink your thinking on this topic.
If you have skin cancer or a broken elbow, the likelihood of getting treatment, and the type and quality of treatment, depends on the political priorities of the place where you live.
N Forster is asking Should individuals be encouraged to become more resilient and self sufficient or should society take collective responsibility for removing any obstacles they might encounter? That’s Politics 101. Do we expect people to carry out their own risk assessments or do we mandate masks, social distancing and vaccines? Your politicians will decide. If you don’t want them to, or if you want different decisions, you have to get out and vote. Or overthrow/undermine the system.
Yes. That is always the first option. Asking society to make accommodations for you is always either a temporary option, or the option that you’re left with when therapy fails to resolve the issues and tools and techniques to accommodate fail. Or at least that was the case during my 20 plus years of psychiatric nursing and psychotherapy practice (but I haven’t practiced for the last 5 years, so I really don’t know what mad things people are doing with their clients these days).
Well, that approach certainly doesn’t seem to have been adopted in regards to people with gender dysphoria of late…
Can I self identify as having tourettes and start calling everyone c**ts?
You absolutely can Colin. If you decide to give it a go please do report back here with the results.
Not being able to categorise or generalise an individual’s experience with the use of of some clinical label or other does not mean that you have to accept the postmodernist bunkum that there is no such thing as objective truth. That way madness, and atrocities, lie.
It’s unfortunate because there’s two serious problems running parallel. Problem one being increasing amounts of people, especially young people, labelling themselves with what are very likely incorrect diagnoses, this is bad but a trusted and credible psychology sector could alleviate the problem. Unfortunately this leads to the second issue… social media has massively undermined the credibility of most professions, and the psych sector definitely isn’t an exception. When you can look up a therapist (or even psychiatrist) on twitter and 9 times out of 10 they appear more mentally unstable than you are, why would you trust their opinions on anything?
I don’t think it’s self-diagnosis that’s undermining therapy, it’s therapists, not all of them of course, but the majority of the ones on social media.
I know it sounds old fashioned, but it’s true nevertheless: too much screen time, not enough outdoor activity.
I am inclined to agree, Hugh. I had a wholesome upbringing with plenty of fresh air, lots of exposure to animal excrements thanks to my grandparents’ farm, and vigorous physical activity including climbing trees, riding, mucking out stables, running, etc. I was in my late teens and at uni in the 1990s before I ever encountered a person with a diagnosed mental illness. Children who had difficulty sitting still at primary school were called lively or rambunctious and teachers found ways to interact with them. They were not given medication, and I don’t recall a single case where the child did not turn out well. Granted, it’s a small sample, but it has led me to believe that as a society we over-diagnose and over-medicate even (especially?) our young.
I don’t know how many times I’ve heard people say things like “I’m a little bit bipolar” or “I’m on the spectrum”, all self diagnosed.
If you think you are mentally ill or mad then it’s a fairly safe bet you aren’t! It’s the people wrecking the West who think they are sane and enlightened who are the problem…
Catch 22!
amen
psychobabble
sī′kō-băb″əl
noun
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
I think that, just maybe, one problem is that there is an expectation that everyone conforms to a very narrow set of behaviours. Having worked in science for my entire carrer, I have met many, usually men, who would probably be considered to be on “the spectrum”, but they just got on with there jobs and their lives. If you are capable of operating reasonably happily within the society in which you live then you don’t need to concern yourself, or other, about your mental state. If you want attention then do something worthwhile that generates the attention you want, or maybe get a dog.
Agreed.
I’ve been a professional software developer for the last 30 odd years and would consider myself and all my colleagues (at least the good ones) to be mildly ‘on the spectrum’.
By which I mean little things like forcing myself make a bit of small talk before diving into the matter at hand or making an effort to understand other people’s opinions.
But as you say, we just get on with it.
*diagnoses of mental illness aren’t like medical diseases, which one either has or one doesn’t*
Therein lies the problem, and of course unlimited opportunity for frauds and fantasists on both sides of the couch/cash register.
And if I hear one more person claiming that they’re “aspy” , like it’s some cute in-group …
“Nonlinear Dynamical Systems Theory”. Any “profession” that perpetrates meaningless names like this is a racket pretending to be legit. Much like “studies” academe.
It’s stolen from STEM, in which it is specific and meaningful.
In psychiatry it strikes me as just more psycho-babble. But my background is engineering so most everything strikes me that way.
Probably just want to confound the layperson. Apparently, when the group of psychiatrists responsible for creating the DSM 3 or 4 ( the one with all the newly discovered or created mental illnesses) were deciding on symptoms for diagnoses of mental illnesses, a female who was somehow involved (apologies for being vague, I don’t have time to check the details) objected to a behaviour being listed as symptomatic on the grounds it was one of her behaviours and consequently must be normal; The obliging psychiatrists left it out. How times have changed.
Me too, and I’m in the arts!
I thought I recognised the theory, but taken out of my usual context it confounded me.
It’s almost as bad as “The Inflation Reduction Act”. No basis in reality.
It seems to me a serious error to attempt to ‘diagnose’ psychological difficulty. It gives people the notion that such diagnoses have the same material reality as physical illness diagnoses and therefore have similarly clear treatment options. People have always wanted a definitive notion to explain their suffering, and those in their teens and twenties are in a process of maturation, of discovering how their individual self fits with the society in which they live, which is by its nature uncomfortable. Grabbing onto a diagnosis, or a religion, or an identity, becomes the way of managing. As a retired psychotherapist, I felt in my work (and still) that what needs to be addressed, the help the patient needs, relates to what is actually causing the distress, not trying to label it and pretend that there is therefore an off-the-peg solution.
Oh, and Viktor Frankl’s ‘Man’s Search for Meaning’ is one of the best books ever written, and talks (from his experience in a Nazi concentration camp) of the key importance, for mental health, of discovering a meaning of one’s own for one’s life.
I agree with you to an extent, but sometimes there is a real value to the patient in having a diagnosis (though in my experience that is still always a double-edged sword). For example, in my country (New Zealand) when work and income (the government department that gives out and withholds benefits) see a Schizophrenia diagnosis, they stop hassling a patient to “get back to employment”, because they realize that it’s not a realistic expectation to have of that population. This releaves a person who is very vulnerable to stress of the overwhelming pressure to do something they are not capable of doing without disintegrating (hold down a paid job) and fear of losing their benefit. But on the other hand, you absolutely do not want to make having Schizophrenia a part of your identity, because that way lies feeling defeated and extremely negative about yourself and lowering your expectations of yourself way too far. When I worked as a community mental health nurse with patients with Schizophrenia, I spent a lot of time with my patients exploring how make sense of that particular diagnosis so that it could be a constructive and not destructive force in their life ie to use the diagnosis for what they could get out of it, but not let their self-esteem and sense of agency be destroyed by it.
“Who decides if you’re mentally ill?”
I do!
Ok, here’s the deal. Wishing you were another gender is no different than wishing you were a bee, a butterfly, a tree, or Elvis. Fantasy is ok. Militantly demanding that others participate in your fantasy is NOT ok. Wanting to chemically castrate or mutilate yourself is mental illness for which neither action will act as a “cure” for anything, but WILL destroy your health.
First do no harm. Such a simple rule used for thousands of years. Now today’s Progressives think they know better. Lock them up, along with ANYONE who panders to a minor’s feelings of depression about not having been born “something else.” Treat the depression. When they are adults, they can mutilate themselves to their hearts desires.
“Part of the challenge lies in this very postmodern acceptance that there is no singular truth. ”
Then don’t accept it.
The premise of The Mind is Flat (by Nick Chater) is that there is no ‘inner life’ that holds the secret of understanding ourselves, we make stuff up on the fly to explain our behaviour to others, and ourselves.
At one time we could could blame nature spirits, gods, or devils, for causing our unacceptable behaviour. Then we realised that that excuse of external causes probably wouldn’t work any longer. So we tried introspection, meditation, contemplation, palmistry, astrology, and divination etc., to uncover our hidden causes. That’s pretty much a bust too.
So now we have people who are genuinely mentally ill with a physical cause and an awful lot of people trying to find explanations for uncommon behaviour they think they have. And therapists that believe there is an ‘inner life’ and they can help expose it.
The inner life was always a metaphor for what happens when we reflect on our own mental-emotional processes. Changing the metaphor so that we’re less integral and more dispersed into our current relationships and experiences might be of some therapeutic use – I don’t know – but sounds to me without having read the book as if it’s likely to exacerbate the anomie the article describes.
The thing I have noticed over the last several decades is the growing plethora of labels. The brainwashing brigade well understand the power of words
More words but less meaning.
Words can be used to change mindsets. Giving something a label creates it. Imagine if there were not word for Father Christmas.
Father Christmas is a proper noun. The meaning is not the name. Santa Claus is another name for the same . imaginary man. I was thinking of unnecessary terminology designed to obfuscate. Also of those who adopt or use words and phrases which when asked to define they cannot.
Anyone else curious as to why the author’s Twitter handle (shown beneath her byline) is @malefragility?
Victimhood has become a currency is the eyes of the left.
clearly not Boris Johnson, and Donald Trump’s looking glass…Though the current President would not understand his diagnosis…
Ahhhh… I have a simple test
” Do you believe in zero carbon and the eradication of all fossil fuels” if you answer ” Yes” it’s the padded cell , strait jacket and big needle for you”…