gwillen comments on Rationality Quotes November 2014 - Less Wrong

8 Post author: elharo 07 November 2014 07:07PM

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Comment author: Gunnar_Zarncke 01 November 2014 11:12:29PM *  19 points [-]

Personality problems and pattern ordered by difficulty to change according to Seligman:

  • Panic - Curable

  • Specific Phobias - Almost Curable

  • Sexual Dysfunctions - Marked Relief

  • Social Phobia - Moderate Relief

  • Agoraphobia - Moderate Relief

  • Depression - Moderate Relief

  • Sex Role - Moderate Change

  • Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder - Moderate/Mild Relief

  • Sexual Preferences - Moderate/Mild Cange [*]

  • Anger - Mild/Moderate Relief

  • Everyday Anxiety - Mild/Moderate Relief

  • Alcohol Dependency - Mild Relief

  • Overweight - Temporary Change

  • Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) - Marginal Relief [except for rape which shows Moderate Relief]

  • Sexual Orientation - Probably Unchangeable [*]

  • Sexual Identity - Unchangeable [*]

From 'What You Can Change and What You Can't*' by Seligman pg. 244 of the reviewed ('vintage') edition of 2006, explicitly confirmed to be still state of the art.

Just read the book and thought this table to be quite quote-worthy even though it isn't prosaic.

* These terms have specific and possibly somewhat non-standard definitions in the book. Seligman gives a convincing theory for formation of aspects of sexuality of different 'depth' (a core concept of Seligman) based on biological facts around expression of genes and hormones. See chapter 11.

Comment author: gwillen 14 November 2014 05:40:57AM 5 points [-]

I wonder whether the classification of PTSD takes account of the apparently miraculous effects of MDMA shown in some studies.

Comment author: chaosmage 21 November 2014 10:10:02AM 2 points [-]

Those studies show improvement with MDMA, but they have small sample sizes and their control groups (which get similarly unusually intense/long therapy sessions without MDMA) show some improvement too. The "apparently miraculous" effect size is at least a good part hype.

Also, lots of people take MDMA in non-therapeutic contexts and lie about it, so it isn't like you're going to find a control group of people you can be definitely sure haven't taken MDMA since they got PTSD - especially if they've heard of said hype.

I'm not saying MDMA doesn't help with PTSD (I even grant that it could help in the treatment of Antisocial Personality, Postpartum Depression and especially Couples Therapy), I'm just saying I wouldn't be surprised if more than half of the measured effect was due to the length/intensity of the therapeutic sessions these studies use, rather than due to the drug.

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