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Perseverance Toward Life Goals Can Fend Off Depression, Anxiety, Panic Disorders

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Re: Perseverance Toward Life Goals Can Fend Off Depression, Anxiety, Panic Disorders

#251
post #152

I do not know how many people here have "Depression, Anxiety, Panic Disorders" but I am on disability for all three and it runs in my family on my mother's side. So what is this article saying? Me and my family just do not have perseverance? That we lack the "will" not to be depressed and anxious? That I just need to "Aspir[e] toward personal and career goals"? HA! No, it's not true. You see, they found we all have a…

> I was "lazy" and just needed a hobby.

I feel this. I hate all of these phrases.

"Just get a hobby","Go outside more","Set better goals","Pray more","Eat Better","Just adjust your mindset","Just work harder","Make your bed","Read a book","Try meditation","Take a nap","Drink more water","Doubt your doubt", and on, and on, and on, and on, and on, and on, ...

/rant

Re: Perseverance Toward Life Goals Can Fend Off Depression, Anxiety, Panic Disorders

#253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are taking this way more personally than you should be. You should probably check yourself and see if you aren’t being an asshole to other people with your supposed “intelligence”. Ad hominem aside, is it so hard to understand the words “implicit” and “explicit”? They are English words, and implicit vs. explicit goals really isn’t all that hard to understand. Maybe people around you don’t use this language, but i…

> They are English words, and implicit vs. explicit goals really isn’t all that hard to understand. The problem isn't that they are hard to understand, the problem is that they have nothing to do with what anyone was talking about. When someone says, "Persevering in goals can alleviate negative feelings", saying "Explicit goals can distract from implicit goals" isn't a response, it's a non-sequitur. > Being skeptical…

Why do you think faith has to be "blind" and confidence "unjustified"?

Re: Perseverance Toward Life Goals Can Fend Off Depression, Anxiety, Panic Disorders

#254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But what are you sacrificing in return for your “perseverance”? Nothing that matters to you. If it mattered to you it would be a life goal. > The reason why modern humanity have increased risk of these symptoms is because they know, given their perhaps wrongly learned models of the world or otherwise, that even when they achieve their so-called life goals, that they wouldn’t achieve philosophical nor psychological…

> In his essay, Yes, We Have Noticed the Skulls, Scott Alexander notes that any intellectual movement that has been around for a while has made some mistakes, and is probably aware of them, so if there's some obvious failure of a movement, the people who still believe in the movement probably have learned from that failure. Communists are aware of Stalin murdering people and are wary of totalitarianism. I'm not so su…

Your argument stating that communism is evil everywhere its implemented is ridiculous - communism exists at varied scales, so of course, there have been huge authoritarian states, but also many communes, worker cooperatives and cities which didnt turn out like the nightmare you make it to be.

Re: Perseverance Toward Life Goals Can Fend Off Depression, Anxiety, Panic Disorders

#255
post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Part of it is systemic though. Those that do have professional curiosity are unable to explore it due to constraints by insurance companies. Overall cost is the primary motive instead of quality of life. I imagine working in the medical industry is very disappointing for people that entered it with the intention of helping people.

Given I am in the UK alas that doesn't explain the issue. The USA is a bit of a unique unicorn in its for profit system but the world over there are these issues. I understand why the public is like that, a lot of people don't understand the scientific method but doctors have done all 3 of the sciences and then gone on for another 6 years of graduate and post graduate study.

The NHS has massive internal pressures on costs. It’s considered one of the most cost-effective health services in the world, but that’s because they will try to get away with doing the minimum they absolutely have to in order not to look negligent. Children and at-risk groups (the elderly, pregnant, etc) get a lot of care, everyone else is deprioritized and sent home with a bit of ibuprofen. I have experience of other health services on the continent and the comparison does not flatter the NHS.

Re: Perseverance Toward Life Goals Can Fend Off Depression, Anxiety, Panic Disorders

#256
Like in a lot of social science stuff, causalities are mixed up. People who can align their goals and life plan with their surrounding environment are less likely to suffer from “depression”. I never understood the concept of depression. In the definition lies the key of the problem. It looks like depression is an incapability to adapt / fit or an inability to use the given circumstances and integrate them into the own life or make use of them. The problem has more than one side. Since therapeutics can’t change the environment, and it’s easier to try to change the single “patient”, that’s the focus of the “therapy”. Even if that means to break the patient. Social systems integrate people, to make use and make value of them. And if that does not work, to take them out under controlled condition. The other side of the “depression” problem is estrangement. Modern social science neglects the concept of estrangement. It is easier and more profitable to publish self-referential and tautological articles and follow the stream. Opportunism and system conformity are the driving forces of most social structures – that does not exclude the academia.

Re: Perseverance Toward Life Goals Can Fend Off Depression, Anxiety, Panic Disorders

#257
post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They are English words, and implicit vs. explicit goals really isn’t all that hard to understand. The problem isn't that they are hard to understand, the problem is that they have nothing to do with what anyone was talking about. When someone says, "Persevering in goals can alleviate negative feelings", saying "Explicit goals can distract from implicit goals" isn't a response, it's a non-sequitur. > Being skeptical…

Why do you think faith has to be "blind" and confidence "unjustified"?

They don't have to be, but in the absence of evidence, they are. That's just true by the definitions of the words.

Put another way: not all faith is blind, but faith without skepticism is blind faith; not all confidence is unjustified, but in the confidence without justification (evidence) is unjustified.

Re: Perseverance Toward Life Goals Can Fend Off Depression, Anxiety, Panic Disorders

#258
post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it is even closely true that mental problems like this are sorely caused by genetic mutations. There is a careful chemical balance in your brain and it can get out of order by food, drugs, trauma and probably a lot of other factors unknown to us. Our lifestyle isn't very natural, we have long left natural selection behind for that matter.

> There is a careful chemical balance in your brain Homeostasis processes, and redundant gene-coding sites in our DNA, mean that your body is mostly robust to environmental onslaughts. Animals have evolved in a competitive environment where these problems already existed : parasites want to control your brain; predators want to envenomate you before they eat you; prey species want to stop you in your tracks with toxi…

Sensitivity can have advantages and disadvantages, so I would argue more defensively in assessing a "purpose" to a mutation.

Especially if there are cases of mutism, where trauma is the cause. At least that should pose more questions.

edit: Additionally, the is a correlation between "giftedness" and sensory overload.

Re: Perseverance Toward Life Goals Can Fend Off Depression, Anxiety, Panic Disorders

#259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To both of you who replied: yes, I absolutely use these things in my own life. Before I say some of mine, it's important to allow these things to be mutable -- the "values" you, um, value, can change over the course of your life and that's okay. The best ones probably won't -- maybe you'll just shift in emphasis or priority -- but by really chewing on this topic regularly, it's possible to arrive at values that reall…

Thanks for your comments. I hope you keep posting here on HN, if you don’t already. There don’t seem to be many people on this board in your profession, and you write about the topics in a way that is clear and makes sense in the context of this community. I responded below to another commenter, not on your behalf of course. I hope I didn’t misrepresent your point. Thanks for posting.

I haven't looked again at this thread until now (I hadn't noticed the little karma ticker in my HN account go up), so apologies for missing this.

I've just seen your comment below and it's great to see that people in this community are curious about these ideas and mental health more broadly. I don't think you misrepresented my point at all; in fact you engaged with it in a way I hadn't considered before. I think it's essential to remind ourselves just how freakin' young psychology, psychiatry, "mental health", and all within these things (especially ACT) really are. I don't think the public really knows how little we know as a profession, and how much many of the most touted interventions are, from researchers' points of view, really just modest attempts at making a positive impact. The public certainly aren't aware of the possible negative consequences of mental health treatments, including psychotherapy. And I'm sad to say many of my colleagues don't think a lot about this potential for _iatrogenesis_ , as it's known, either. All of which is to say that the more that intelligent people, like yourselves here on HN, engage critically with mental health, the better.

I'll gladly continue posting here, and I thank you for the encouragement. It doesn't seem like HN has direct messages, sadly, otherwise I'd happily offer you or anyone else to reach out in private any time.

Re: Perseverance Toward Life Goals Can Fend Off Depression, Anxiety, Panic Disorders

#260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To both of you who replied: yes, I absolutely use these things in my own life. Before I say some of mine, it's important to allow these things to be mutable -- the "values" you, um, value, can change over the course of your life and that's okay. The best ones probably won't -- maybe you'll just shift in emphasis or priority -- but by really chewing on this topic regularly, it's possible to arrive at values that reall…

I'm trying to run through this exercise right now. Is it bad to have too many adverbs at one time? Whatabout adverbs that might contradict? Or is it fine to just get a few, no matter the contradictions and not overthink it?

Hello helical,

The version of the exercise I gave was extremely abbreviated - it's a web forum, after all! - so it's necessarily stripped of a lot of detail and context. In a real engagement with a patient, I'd have addressed questions like yours right out of the gate. So apologies. (I hope you see this!).

The short answer to all of them is: it's just fine! The purpose here isn't to get a highly formal, systematic, rigid "code of action" that you live by strictly like some kind of Roman philosopher (though that stuff is incredibly interesting, and ACT has debts to much of it). Instead, the purpose of the values thing is to assist in being able to respond flexibly to pain and suffering while committing to some of the things you find most meaningful - things that are larger than yourself that you can serve.

Is it bad to have too many adverbs? Heavens, no. This is an iterative process, so if the first thing that comes out of your head is a tsunami of possible values, that's terrific. What I might recommend next is to quickly rank-order them based on a simple gut feeling of which ones really interest you right now, these days.

Contradictory adverbs: I don't want to sound glib, but I'll say it anyway: you're human! Of course you'll have contradictory values. That's okay. Since the entire point of ACT is to "act" (heh) in the world, to live these values in some way, however modestly, the contradictions don't necessarily matter so much if, in picking one in one instance and trying to act on it somehow, you walk away from the situation with a feeling of "I'm uncomfortable because this clashes a bit with other things I find important, but I know that I didn't act purposelessly back there" - if that makes any sense.

So basically your suspicions in your last question are correct: just get a few, don't overthink it, go out there and try to live them or instantiate them in some way (doesn't matter how small!), and then return to reflect on how that went. It might be that, in acting on some value, you find that actually you don't believe in it that deeply, or it's not really truly you, or whatever, and you can drop it and try the next one out. Like I said, this is an iterative, lifelong process, and it's mutable and it'll change and grow and go in different, surprising directions. The point isn't to do this exercise once -- it's to begin doing it on and off for the rest of your life, in the same way that a navigator keeps looking up at the night sky and keeping an eye on Polaris every now and then.

I hope this was somewhat helpful to you. I'll keep an eye on this thread if you have any more questions.

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