Comment on Open Thread: October 2009

Wed, 07 Oct 2009 08:14:36 GMT

Relatedly, has anyone thought about the relationship between rationality and psychotherapy? It just occurred to me that there might be a lot there.

Huh? You mean, like, psychotherapists are unusually irrational people? Or maybe that no rationalist would give any significant credence to any of the clinical psychology theory? Or maybe that a good rationalist will rarely need psychotherapy because their deduction skills are much better than most therapists? Please explain.

To be less snide, I find it quite unlikely that therapy would help PI significantly. (Of course, I know little of his/her specific circumstances.) I think a more fruitful course of action, if PI does want to overcome the problem*, would be to keep trying to overcome it directly, and meanwhile continue to form new free relationships with a variety of trusted people and see if they can help at all by providing insight or emotional support. Social networks are better than yellow book pages at finding people with relevant insights. And good friends are better than good therapists at emotional support.

* Which isn't to say that PI should keep trying.

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