It is time for more holistic practices in mental health • Hacker News Board

Re: It is time for more holistic practices in mental health

#141

Post by disgruntledphd2 » Wed, Jun 12, 2024, 8:31 AM UTC

kombookcha wrote: post #135

disgruntledphd2 wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What would happen if you turned in some psych work that was robust in its method, but without explicit references to theory? It would get rejected. I actually replicated a really interesting negative finding (around optimism and health) multiple times with a good design, and couldn't get it published as I didn't have an explanation for why this happened (i do now, but have been in the private sector for well over a…

That sounds tough to work in. Do people ever cross-pollinate between theoretical positions and use eachothers data without the competing theory attached, or are they completely siloed off?

I dunno really, it honestly seemed like the theory was the point, which is so ass backwards that I just couldn't handle it.

Note that this all happened before the replication crisis, but I 100% wasn't surprised, having been shocked and appalled by the statistical methods used in "top" papers.

As Andrew Gelman notes, peer review doesn't help if all of your peers are wrong about the same things.

Re: It is time for more holistic practices in mental health

#142

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Jun 12, 2024, 12:07 PM UTC

NotGMan wrote: post #140

smokel wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find that I have to repeat myself. You seem to be using a kind of reasoning that I don't think is very productive. Are you aware of this? I could spend some time explaining where I think you go off the rails, but I'm afraid you prefer trolling over learning. Please let me know if I'm mistaken, and I'd be happy to continue the conversation.

Why are real world examples "counterproductive"? Do you not see that some people are healed by this? What is hard to understand about real world people healing? So because in a study of eg 200 people 170 don't improve at all but 30 do this now obviously means that on average the thing studied doesn't work: so the study concludes "X doesn't work" even thought 30 people got completely cured. So you'd now prefer for no-…

[deleted]

Re: It is time for more holistic practices in mental health

#143

Post by can16358p » Thu, Jun 13, 2024, 7:27 AM UTC

tredigi wrote: post #133

can16358p wrote: post #25

I strongly believe we don't have "mental health problems", yet we have a global style of living in "modern society" that is inherently incompatible with the way we evolved: e.g. office-based daily tasks instead of walking and hunting, foods fabricated to stimulate us instead of what we could find in nature, high buildings and cities with sound/light/air pollution instead of a calm, clean nature, always trying to "opt…

You may be over-romanticizing the hunter-gatherer times. It wasnt all just a nice summer evening where people did a nice walk in the forest after chilling at the beach. Life was rough, often it was cold and rainy, people were hungry and every little injury could easily mean a horrible death. Constantly worrying how to fill your stomach without getting killed by wolves or a tiger (or a rival tribe) or breaking your fo…

Of course. I never meant that it was all fun and chill, perhaps life was much harder, and perhaps our brains evolved to cope with that and when there are no natural threats it errs.

Re: It is time for more holistic practices in mental health

#144

Post by jimkleiber » Fri, Jun 14, 2024, 9:17 AM UTC

TeMPOraL wrote: post #35

jimkleiber wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think most cultures have beliefs/norms for the suppression of emotion that influence our health more than we may realize. If we want to optimize for happiness, how do we do so without feeling sadness? Or fear? Anger? If I feel very happy with something, I will probably feel very sad if it is gone, afraid it will leave, angry if it gets taken away. So I think more than physical health, there are hidden cultural forc…

Maybe it's the opposite though? The past century in the west was an age of relinquishing many of the "hidden cultural forces", including in particular "beliefs/norms for the suppression of emotion". Are we better off for it? Could it be the case that those older cultures had some of this stuff figured out right, or at least better than we have today.

Sure I think it's possible. I'm curious, do you have any specific examples in mind that might be in line with your argument?