Dehumanizing people mentally instead of thinking negative thoughts about them goes further!
Suppressing negative thoughts may be good for mental health after all
161–169 of 169 posts
Re: Suppressing negative thoughts may be good for mental health after all
#162Earlier quoted context omitted.
Did not perceive it as such. It is metaphorical. And it is an animated illustration (as opposed to realistic depiction). Actually, the first reference is the scan (the slices are MRI), so an image of analysis. Then, the slicer can suggest removal (of the «bad memories»). If anybody perceived it as sensational, they should go beyond the impact and perceive it as operational, or as sympathetical (your fellow man is per…
I would definitely categorize it as "gory". I can almost "feel" the slicing, the moment I look at it. It's not like I can control my perception like you say, even if I tried: the interpretation and emotional/body reaction happens before that. I can intellectually ADD information, but by that not really resolve what the "emotional brain" does.
> I can almost "feel" ... the moment I look at it
That should not happen. It is as if you could feel what is happening inside "Tom and Jerry" and "Road Runner". Certainly Hanna, Barbera, Jones and Maltese did not even remotely mean to induce sensational sympathy. Similarly, Carrilho is expressing concepts through visual art, with the usual mechanism of "subject and object" - detached, it is implied.
Allow me to suggest: you may have acquired that "open channel allowing influence" as a habit, like a posture. It should slowly recede through the constant conscience that the spectator is detached and the sensational influence is an improper disposition that must be (naturally, automatically - it will gradually come with the conscience) corrected.
Re: Suppressing negative thoughts may be good for mental health after all
#163Earlier quoted context omitted.
You didn't assert a position because you have no expertise from which your evaluation would mean anything. Nobody cares if a random person off the street thinks a bridge looks sturdy.
As a matter of fact, people do care if a random person off the street thinks a bridge looks sturdy. I reported a wooden bridge with a beam rotted such that large nails pointed up into the roadway. The police cordoned it off within an hour, no engineers required.
It’s sad to me you don’t think an engineer was involved in your story.
Re: Suppressing negative thoughts may be good for mental health after all
#164Earlier quoted context omitted.
They're stable and self-perpetuating, that doesn't make them better. There are plenty of abhorrent beliefs that also "stood the test of time".
I think you’ll find that for the most part beliefs that are present across religions are pro-adaptive in the economic and technological contexts in which they arise. I also think people fail to appreciate how much their own worldview reflects the religious tradition of their community. Coming from an eastern tradition, western secular humanism seems like an “ad hoc, informally-specified, bug-ridden, slow implementati…
> I think you’ll find that for the most part beliefs that are present across religions are pro-adaptive in the economic and technological contexts in which they arise.
True! But we have to remain open to the possibility that any such belief could represent a local maximum, roughly analogous to Ptolemaic astronomy or Newtonian physics: Serviceable in limited contexts but falling apart in others.
> western secular humanism seems like an “ad hoc, informally-specified, bug-ridden, slow implementation of half of” Christianity.
Which half of Christianity would that be?
Being serious now: Christianity — the version actually preached by Y'shua of Nazareth — is simply Judaism stripped down to two specific commandments from the Hebrew Bible: Love God, love your neighbor as yourself. See the Parable of the Good Samaritan in Luke 10:25-37 ("Do this and you will live [eternally]") [0] and its counterpart in Matt. 22:34-40 ("On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets"). [1] Jesus wasn't trying to start a new religion: He wanted Jews to be better Jews, and he seems only reluctantly to have concerned himself with non-Jews.
What we now think of as "Christianity" and its doctrines of the Triune God, soteriology (how "salvation" is achieved), and christology (what was the nature of Jesus): Those came later — in some cases, much later — from others, not from Jesus himself, so far as we know.
[0] https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke%2010%3A25-...
[1] https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=matt.+22%3A34-4...
Re: Suppressing negative thoughts may be good for mental health after all
#165I suppose it wouldn't be that surprising. Mindfulness for instance teaches you to "let go" of thoughts - which is really just a gentle form of suppression. CBT encourages you to redirect existing negative thoughts in a positive/constructive direction - ultimately steering you away from or undermining the original negative thought - but does not encourage you to do a deep dive on it. Not to mention that Freud was a qu…
> Not to mention that Freud was a quack who was more prone to speculation than to science, so if traditional psychotherapy is based on his work then it is likely built on sand. Wow, that’s rich. Dismissing Freud like this is the most egregious way of conducting a discussion about these topics. Have you also ever thought that Mindfulness and CBT, while effective, are successful in a capitalistic society because ultima…
1) Mindfulness is a few millenia older than capitalism.
2) CBT is also anything but status quo. I think the thing that the above comments mentions is just window dressing for trying to go back to older approaches... it's hilarious how much the workbooks emphasize that no-no, your feelings are not invalid! No, no! Validate your feelings! Soothe yourself! They are totally valid! They just may be "inappropriate for the situation". Or, "unjustified". Or, "not productive". Now that we've got that out of the way and you still believe you are being coddled and totally valid, let's get to making a plan to fix the problem, or at least immersing your face in cold water or doing the opposite action to actually fix things.
3) In any case, shortcomings of capitalism as opposed to what?
I think this comment is literally 180, it's one of the wrongest takes I've seen in my entire life. As an immigrant from ex-socialist country, I'd bet the problem with mental health in advanced economies has a lot in common, metaphorically, with the problem of allergies in advanced economies, where the immune system has nothing to do and starts messing up. Capitalism have spoiled you all so much you have become too soft. Instead of validating the feelings and acknowledging emotions, anywhere between 50 to 90% of the people could benefit from some hardening the f- up :)
Such as, by suppressing negative emotions.
Re: Suppressing negative thoughts may be good for mental health after all
#166Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Mindfulness and CBT have a solid ground but have become a strong weapon Have to disagree. A weapon is for fighting, and as Siddhartha Gautama said: "What you fight becomes stronger." They are tools IMHO that can help you, if you invest time and effort.
Ok then let's put it this way. They became weaponized, because they have a great ability in convincing people they're in need of fixing, instead of questioning the dysfunctional and fundamentally unequal society we live in.
I think you may be in fight mode and your perception is strongly coloured by it.
> convincing people they're in need of fixing
Holy smokes Siegmund! I think we all carry some form of trauma that is more than worth healing. I invested 21 years into it and am more than glad i did.
Equality is a lovely ideal to strive towards.
[Edit] add missing word
Re: Suppressing negative thoughts may be good for mental health after all
#167Earlier quoted context omitted.
> But if you find yourself thinking about death, or about how much your childhood sucked, or that you're good for nothing, you don't need to address anything about those thoughts. > The least time you spend on them the better, nothing good comes from dwelling. Negative visualization https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_visualization is absolutely a thing. If you do it properly (aiming towards psychological resilien…
Of course it exists, I described it in my comment. Look at this quote from wikipedia and compare it to my example of preparing for your parents to die: > Unlike the general focus of creative visualization of inducing an imaginary positive psychological and physiologic response, negative visualization focuses on training the practitioner on the negative outcomes of realistic life scenarios to desensitize or create psy…
As someone just now learning I have been negative visualizing since childhood, I’ll tell you it’s not a choice exactly. The thoughts just come to you (someone is going to die, I’m going to die, etc.)… sometimes I’m successful at knocking the thought out of my head quickly. Other times I dwell for a few minutes, having a mini-grieving session thinking what I would do in the situation. It passes and I go back to present life where you don’t think about these things at all. I don’t know if it’s something innate that I got used to and I subconsciously need to do for some reason (and perhaps others do not)… not sure how much more resilient I’ll be if/when anything terrible happens, so agree not sure if best use of time
Re: Suppressing negative thoughts may be good for mental health after all
#168Earlier quoted context omitted.
No it's not specifically about what you're talking about. People are literally being delusional here. There's a ton science behind this phenomenon. You can listen to that podcast it's quite interesting. Basically they can do quantitative experiments where they have groups of people rate others about how attractive they are 1-10 and through this gather an average rating about someones attractiveness. Then they have th…
I listened to the podcast. In those experiments they described, I feel pretty confident that they're not so much measuring self-deception, but more like self-belief, or faith in oneself. First, they defined self-deception as "you have two contradictory beliefs, and you hold them at the same time, and you allow one of them into consciousness that you have a motivation for allowing one of them into consciousness." I do…
>So for me, I don't think it's so much about self-deception and more about self-belief (and other-belief), as I'd argue that people who believe in themselves and others are happier and more successful.
An aspect of Self belief is self deception. This is when you believe in something that isn't technically true. This is the literal definition of what the words mean in English. I believe this aspect of self belief is what podcast is referring to.
>By what objective measure are people terrible?
There are objective measurements of universally terrible people. It is hard to measure though because it lives on a gradient and it also lives in contradictory circumstances. So people can be good and terrible at the same time. They can be good in one situation and terrible in another situation. There are even people who are neutral, or in other words people with zero allegiance to good or evil.
While the gradient is hard to measure, people on the extremes are much easier to identify and measure. Psychopathy is one such condition. See here: https://www.damninteresting.com/the-unburdened-mind/. While not mentioned in the article psychopathy is actually physically detectable with a brain scan and can be correlated with associated behaviors.
Through the existence of people at the extremes and people obviously not at the extremes we can infer that the story is much more complex than people are "generally good".
>I appreciate you continuing with me on this and reinforcing that I listen to the podcast because for many years now I've talked about being honest with oneself and emotional honesty and such, and I think I want to focus more on loving oneself and others. In such conflicts, choosing to believe in our good intentions, our good abilities, our overall goodness instead of choosing to believe in the opposite. So thank you for helping me see this more clearly today.
No problem. I think the difference between our views of the world is that I view it through a data driven perspective while you view it through a more personal lens with personal experiences touching your interpretation of the world.
I'll just say this. The truth, if it exists at all, lies in the data. But like my point, the truth isn't necessarily what you want here is it?
Re: Suppressing negative thoughts may be good for mental health after all
#169Working through multiple traumata for a few years now. I've found that if you work through a negative thought long enough, it will eventually reveal its purpose. I've started journaling in 2016 or so, so it takes a long time, since I didn't have coaching or anything. Internal dialog goes like this: - feeling numb and like dieing ~ what's the issue? - I don't work, feeling guilty over not working, I'd wish they'd fire…
That may work for you, but most of my negative thoughts don’t have a purpose. They exist because I forgot to eat, exercise, or be social.
that as well, thanks for adding that. Wetware has to be served first.