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Arthur Conan Doyle explored men’s mental health through Sherlock Holmes

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Re: Arthur Conan Doyle explored men’s mental health through Sherlock Holmes

#151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with this. One of the issues I face, with my family member, is that they can’t handle stress, well. I have found that we only advance, when we are outside our “comfort zone.” As long as everything is copacetic, there’s no need to improve. But a “comfort zone” is a “fuzzy” quality. Too far out, is “trauma.” Different folks handle discomfort and trauma, in a variety of ways. I do think our families and support…

Yeah, that's complicated. I guess from my own experience related to stress and going out of comfort zone what I can speak to is that I have trouble going out of comfort zone when I'm doing something I'm not interested in and when I feel like I have to pretend that I'm someone I'm not. E.g. normal social situations where I have to pretend that I have favourite food, favourite place to go, or I even know places. I zone…

Sounds like we share some things in common.

Thanks for sharing.

Re: Arthur Conan Doyle explored men’s mental health through Sherlock Holmes

#152

One reason I like CBS’s Elementary’s depiction of Sherlock (maybe more so than BBC’s Sherlock) is because how Elementary treats Sherlock’s mental health and addiction recovery as central to the character. As great as Sherlock is at solving cases, he still struggles greatly to handle his own mental health and addiction recovery, which makes him more grounded to earth.

I think Elementarys Sherlock is closer to the book version. In the BBC version he is totally aloof of social connections and norms, but in the books it is pretty clear, that Sherlock is able to tranverse London society - he had many case with high society people before Watson was part of his life - he just dislikes it.

Re: Arthur Conan Doyle explored men’s mental health through Sherlock Holmes

#153
post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yet the UK was most successful when led by people from that system.

Only if you think a large empire is the epitome of success. People have a tendency to look at the cruelest warriors of history and think that is success. Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar or Napoleon are not something to emulate. They were successful by causing horrific pain to a lot of people.

Pure misandrist nonsense. You could have picked Hitler or Stalin to at least have half a point.

Napoleon spread enlightenment values that benefitted generations that came after. Julius Caesar took civilization across a continent. Deng Xiaoping was leader during Tianenmen Square but brought more people out of poverty than anyone else in history.

Being great means being able to do some things others do not like because the resulting upside is better for everyone.

Re: Arthur Conan Doyle explored men’s mental health through Sherlock Holmes

#154
post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is 100% not true. > An effective education requires a certain amount of torture, and it works better when self inflicted. It's the tortured artist myth. You can turn pain into art but it's not a prerequisite.

Quite the opposite in fact. Throughout history the most successful artists have been the well funded ones.

The most miserable people I've known were rich people's children. Depression is more about the lack of hope than money.

Re: Arthur Conan Doyle explored men’s mental health through Sherlock Holmes

#155
post #80
post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It definitely does feel like every American I know "has a therapist", sometimes.

I used to think that therapists were ridiculous. But after having one for six or seven years now, I realize that it’s literally just someone you pay to help you be the happiest and best version of yourself. Maybe everyone doesn’t need that, but I don’t think anyone is inherently always the best version of themselves. What’s the point of not trying to be a little better?

The main issue is that therapy is expensive, and it's very middle-class to have the money to afford one long-term like that. Working class people have had to suck it up, or (preferably) have a good support network themselves.

While I am inclined to agree that most people would benefit from having a professional to talk to, it'd need to be economically viable as well.

But we're seeing this happening in real time; on the one side there's lower cost online councelling available (but whether that's actually certified professionals is debatable), and on the other ChatGPT became the biggest and most popular therapist almost overnight. But again, not sure if it has the necessary certifications, I suppose it's believable enough. I also want to believe OpenAI and all the other AI suppliers have hired professionals to direct the "chatbot as therapist" AI persona, especially now that the lawsuits for people losing their sanity or life after talking to AI are gaining traction.

Re: Arthur Conan Doyle explored men’s mental health through Sherlock Holmes

#156
post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It definitely does feel like every American I know "has a therapist", sometimes.

What do you mean by “has a therapist”? Do they just mention it in passing, or do they bring up takeaways from their sessions in everyday conversation? If it’s the latter, I’m not sure that’s really about mental-health openness. It feels more like a broader social habit, the need to present yourself as someone who’s constantly working on every aspect of your life. That’s a different modern-society quirk altogether.

More the former.

Re: Arthur Conan Doyle explored men’s mental health through Sherlock Holmes

#157
post #103
post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It definitely does feel like every American I know "has a therapist", sometimes.

How is it different to having a personal trainer for your physical fitness?

Having a personal trainer for your physical fitness is something I'd expect a very low percentage of very wealthy individuals to have access to. Therapy appears to be more prevalent.

Re: Arthur Conan Doyle explored men’s mental health through Sherlock Holmes

#158
post #103
post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It definitely does feel like every American I know "has a therapist", sometimes.

How is it different to having a personal trainer for your physical fitness?

In theory, at one point people will be done with therapy. I think a better analogy is a physical therapist; you go to one because of an injury.

A personal trainer is for boosting your physical health / performance. For mental health, you'd get a coach, training, or read one of many self-help books, not a therapist.

Re: Arthur Conan Doyle explored men’s mental health through Sherlock Holmes

#159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, that's complicated. I guess from my own experience related to stress and going out of comfort zone what I can speak to is that I have trouble going out of comfort zone when I'm doing something I'm not interested in and when I feel like I have to pretend that I'm someone I'm not. E.g. normal social situations where I have to pretend that I have favourite food, favourite place to go, or I even know places. I zone…

Sounds like we share some things in common. Thanks for sharing.

Yes, not sure if you entered the high school drop out immediately and I missed it or it was edit, but yes, looks very similar! Thanks for sharing too.

Re: Arthur Conan Doyle explored men’s mental health through Sherlock Holmes

#160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I neither like the taboo nor the opposite. Too much psychology talk in every day life, everyone is traumatised and has unresolved issues etc. That may be, but I wish we would handle it all more privately...

We're still working a lot of this out because it's actually a relatively new thing culturally - my grandfathers generation would never have talked about mental health at all - but what is pretty clear is that most people do not talk enough about this, and do not deal with mental health very well. That does not mean we should all be talking to everybody about it all the time. I take stuff into a therapy session I'm no…

There was certainly quite a bit of deep talk about "integrity" and "character" in our grandfathers' generation, that was ultimately relating to issues we would now comprise under so-called 'mental health'. It's not clear to me that this medicalized framing ("...health") is necessarily and consistently better than a more traditional one focused on developing a well-adjusted character.
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