JamesAndrix comments on Open Thread: March 2010, part 2 - Less Wrong

4 Post author: RobinZ 11 March 2010 05:25PM

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Comment author: JamesAndrix 13 March 2010 09:14:45AM 8 points [-]

How should rationalists do therapy?

As a community, we should have resources to help people who might otherwise be helped by clerics, quacks, or psychics. We should certainly cover things like minor depression and grief at the death of a loved one.

Should we just look at what therapies have the best outcome for various situations and recommend those?

Should we use what we know about cognition to suggest new therapies? Should we make a "Grief Sequence"?

Comment author: Morendil 14 March 2010 06:22:13PM *  3 points [-]

To take a stab at what I know of that topic:

  • offer help, but don't inflict help that isn't requested
  • verify that the helpee is "serious" about using your help: help can't be for free
  • an intervention is also a a test of a hypothesis: update on the results
  • as a corollary, effective help requires forming a theory or model of the situation
  • the best way to get entangled with the situation is to listen to the "helpee"
  • listening requires an open mind (i.e. often changing your mind)
  • the helpee's situation is a system, with many entangled components, which can include other people
  • your help and intentions in helping can become part of that system, for good or ill
  • your help, intentions, approach and results should always be a legitimate topic of discussion with the helpee
  • you should always be clear about why you're helping
  • because of that, it's often a good idea to have someone in turn helping you help others

That's from my general approach to consulting, i.e. helping people, or more precisely "influencing people at their request". It's not specific to grief or depression counseling, and thus should perhaps be taken with a grain of salt.

Comment author: Rain 14 March 2010 05:54:52PM *  3 points [-]

When I expressed problems that I have with my life, I experienced that this community is not very well versed in the emotional aspect of the situation. At least, that is how I felt (heh) when they swarmed and attacked in an effort to other-optimize. I'm sure they wanted to help, but it was a very direct, blunt experience, with little regard for the difficulties inherent in the situation, or the knowledge I already possessed.

"Get therapy" is a solution, but one that I've known about for a very long time. Alicorn's post on problems vs. tasks comes to mind. It felt almost tautological: "You're depressed? You should take an action which cures depression." At least, until it ended with me telling people to please stop, and getting called sad, pitiful, and a jerk.

Comment author: Morendil 14 March 2010 06:03:43PM 7 points [-]

I'm sure they wanted to help, but it was a very direct, blunt experience

The key observation is that, as far as I can tell, you never actually asked for help.

I call the behaviour you're commenting on "inflicting help". This is a very, very common mistake that even very smart people make. One of the basic tools in a good consultant's toolkit is to be able to recognize actual requests for help, and fulfill those strictly within the bounds of what has been requested.

The good news is, this is a community of people who want to be skilled at updating on the evidence. Hopefully this negative result will be counted as evidence and people here will, in future, tend to refrain from inflicting help.

Comment author: Rain 14 March 2010 06:30:56PM *  0 points [-]

My favorite part was how the person who most directly insulted me was voted up (2 rating as of now), whereas my requests to stop were voted down (-1 and 0 now, both were -2). It was very strong fuel for my martyrdom complex. I actually laughed aloud.

Comment author: FAWS 14 March 2010 06:59:30PM *  0 points [-]

I started writing a devils advocate sort of reply after reading the first link, but for the life of me I can't think of any good reason to vote "No, thank you. I'd rather suffer where I am." down in context. If I was voting based on the current score (I try my best not to do that) I'd vote it back up to 0.

Comment author: zero_call 14 March 2010 12:23:33AM 1 point [-]

Both idea sound good. Any analysis and commentary or recommendations would be useful for people, I'm sure.

Comment author: Thomas 14 March 2010 01:22:24PM 0 points [-]

This list is a therapy already for the majority of its readers, commentators and posters.

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