The Psychology Thread

Sorry mate

Am I wrong for feeling that The Sociopath is a Villain by Default? I consider empathy a vital part of being an actually good person and all sociopaths are bad people, even if they aren't evil because they don't and can't care about other people. However I also feel they are robbed of agency since they lack the motive to be good for its own sake

Also, I was told that we can't diagnose people from history with The Sociopath, however this page shows that you can because Alcibiades has been and he died long before the idea of the disorder was even a twinkle in psychiatrists' eyes

Edited by RJ-19-CLOVIS-93 on Jan 1st 2020 at 6:00:25 AM

<sighs> Having a condition doesn't make you a villain.

It's how you've not learned to cope with it which might, though. And, society is really epically bad at teaching Cluster B types to not be dicks to others with what limitations they have got.

Hell, how often is their bad behaviour actually praised, instead? How are they supposed to learn not to con others, when they experience mostly positive feedback for doing so right and left?

Even Alcibiades rarely got a resounding punishment he couldn't weasel out of with minimum pushback — mainly because he was as hot as hell.

We know trying to shame or pain anybody with those personality disorders doesn't work, yet most punishments they will ever have experienced will have been based on trying to provoke both. A non-starter which is not their fault. (Now, boredom or dull repetition...)

It's like asking somebody with dyslexia to write a timed essay on War and Peace without letting them use an audio version. Or adjustable fonts. Or adjusted timing.

Edited by Euodiachloris on Jan 1st 2020 at 12:24:22 PM

How do you even treat clinical sociopathy, though?

Good question.

Maybe sometime we'll actually sit down and really work that out instead of half-hearting it in dribs and drabs.

Sociopathy is a spectrum disorder which ranges from severe to what is termed "high-functioning". As such, a lot depends on how you are defining your terms. A small number of people who meet the criteria for severe sociopathy commit heinous acts—are they evil? That depends on your definition of evil and your attitude toward mental illness. The fact that they qualify for classification of a mental disorder implies that they may not have full self-determination in their actions, which would mitigate their responsibility. On the other hand, some people choose to categorize evil based on the outcome of the action alone—so if someone commits and action that has an extreme consequence, such that it disgusts the vast majority of people who hear about it, then they perceive that person as evil, regardless of their mental state. If you believe that evil is an active spiritual force in the world, then it's possible to believe that people who commit evil acts are infected with it—whether they choose this or not. People who believe in predestination may not care whether or not the sociopathic individual had any agency.

How many people with severe sociopathic symptoms commit violence crimes? Another way of saying this is how many people with severe sociopathic symptoms never come to the attention of the public or law enforcement, and the answer is we have no way of knowing (I can find no reliable statistics on the base rates of different levels of sociopathy). So we don't even know if all or most severe sociopaths end up hurting anyone. Lower down the scale, high-functioning sociopaths are people who are able to support themselves and make a living in spite of their condition, so while they may come across as jerks to the rest of us, they are usually not considered evil. As Euo correctly pointed out, our society (and seemingly most societies) actually seem to elevate a certain type of person who manifests some sociopathic traits and provide them with leadership opportunities. High-functioning sociopaths have certain advantages with respect to climbing to the top of a competitive hierarchy, such as a corporate management career path, or politics, and therefore some scholars claim that a significant number of decision and policy makers display these symptoms. If true, that would make it rather difficult to discourage this behavior.

While there is no cure, behavioral therapy has the potential to help the individual manage their symptoms, provided that they desire to. I have no idea what the success rate is.

Phew!

After all these years, I finally got around to finish Trauma and Recovery by Judith Hermann M.D.

I opened up this book in last September and only now I finished it. I mean, I think it's a very well written book dealing with interesting topic, but hoo boy, was it absolutely dense. It also got really technical in the second half, which focused on healing process. Then when it got to group therapy, I had a hard time focusing on it.

But seeing how this is a book written in 1997, I'd imagine the science of trauma psychology (or whatever the right term is) have progressed significantly. For one thing, there was very mention of medicines in the healing process. At least now PTSD is a formerly and concretely definable disease that is somewhat recognized by the general public, so that's an improvement.

I find it interesting how this book raises the argument that therapists have to be really careful or therapies might turn disastrous for both patients and the therapists. Therapists might intrude in patients' pain, while the patients might make therapists suffer the similar terror that they experience, via transference, among many things.

If I take one thing from this book, it's that "no one can face trauma alone." I can get behind that.

...Now if only I can finish On Killing that would be great...

It's the biggest requirement in clinical practice of any kind: have a solid team with you.

And, take pains to maintain a supportive dynamic.

If you can't surround yourself with a team onsite, get ties to an organisation built specifically to support you and others like you.

If you can't do even that for whatever reason, get out. A burnt-out therapist/ psychologist/ psychiatrist/ nurse is a danger to themselves and others.

Edited by Euodiachloris on Feb 26th 2020 at 1:55:36 PM

Yeah, I must admit that the idea of a psychiatrist burning out and needing a support team was completely new to me. I mean, after all doctors get routinely burnt out and psychiatrists should be no different.

Oh my God. COVID 19 and resulting semi-quarantine is doing some damage to my mental health.

Due to COVID 19 I'm mostly confined to home and about 300 m radius around it. I'm not the kind to go out a whole lot. Being a graduate student, my places are limited to university, home, gym, and couple of my favorite restaurants.

But now the school is resumed but all the classes are online and I can barely get away from my home (no I don't have anyone nagging in my place) and I feel like I'm going crazy.

God, if I can't stand this, I feel like I will crack under solitary confinement real quick. I can now sorta understand what cabin fever is. XP

Humans are social beings. Even an introvert desires some interaction, even if it's through a screen.

There are a number of ways to cope.

As somebody with a condition that has housebound me most of my life, the best advice I can give is... Try to focus less on the "can't" and more on the "can".

The more you work yourself up by thinking of everything you can't do and why you want to do it, the more you actively drive your own misery instead of it just randomly pouncing on you then leaving.

You know why you can't go out. Doesn't mean you're hopeless at doing things while in. Things that probably need doing, anyway.

So, focus on doing some of them.

And, reward yourself with stuff you usually dream about doing when you're bored outside, just wishing you were in and able to chillax.

Now's the time for the silly stuff you don't usually do because you have other places to be.

Edited by Euodiachloris on Mar 20th 2020 at 7:55:50 PM

This reminds me of a parable my own therapist told me once:

A man is running away through the jungle from a tiger. His only way being down a steep cliff, he jumps. Luckily, he is able to grab a vine mid-jump, so the fall doesn't kill him. The tiger couldn't follow him, but is standing on the edge of the cliff, waiting for the man. But when the man looked down, he sees another tiger hungrily eyeing him.

Having nowhere to go, the man almost despaired. But then he sees a delicious-looking juicy fruit hanging just within his reach. Thinking "I might as well enjoy it before dying" he grabs the fruit and slowly starts savouring it. And while he was doing that, both of the tigers lost interest in him and went to their tigerly businesses.

The man was safe.

There's always something positive to take out of any situation. However cliched this might sound, look on the bright side. Recently (a month ago) because of my health condition going into remission I was finally able to start going to the gym and found out that I like doing exercises very much. After the quarantine was announced, I was disappointed at first, but then I thought "what's stopping me from doing bodyweight training routines at home?" It's still a workout, even though it's not the same thing as going to the gym.

You have lots of free time at your disposal right now, dRoy, and it's completely up to you how you are using it. You can call someone instead of texting for a change. Maybe this lockdown is a good chance to strengthen the relationships you already have?

Why cant you go out? Social distancing only requires that you keep 6 feet from other people, cough into your elbow, and things like that. Dont let pandemic panic keep you from getting exersize, enjoying your favorite activities, or seeking human interaction.

Forgot to be a bit more specific: I'm not confined to my house per say. I can go outside but I just can't go to any indoor places (I mean, I CAN, but I'd rather not) most people I know are reluctant to go out as well.

I kinda found a solution to my problem: take a long jog. The longer I run, more unfamiliar scenery I get exposed to. Yesterday I walked about two hours with my dog and I feel a whole lot better.

And to all the other advices: Your points all have merits. I will take them to considerations.

Glad to help.

What do you call that feeling where you overestimate your ability to handle a situation due to having overinflated confidence? And it bites you back horribly?

Consequences aren't a feeling. But, they can make you feel a complex cocktail that often includes embarrassment or shame as a major ingredient.

"Overconfidence" is literally the official name for it, and several cognitive heuristics can contribute to it. In your case, it's probably mostly the "Ego-Centric Bias", the tendency to over-inflate our abilities and positive traits. For example, most people believe that they are more intelligent than the average person. Obviously, all of them can't be right.

Edited by DeMarquis on Apr 7th 2020 at 7:07:58 AM

Meanwhile, I have the opposite problem.

I should have proofread my last post but that is what I was going for. It is one thing to be confident, it is another to be overconfident.

Interestingly, there is a diametrically opposing problem, called "Depressive Realism", which is the depressed feelings that are associated with a too accurate assessment of one's strengths and weaknesses, compared to everyone else. Apparently, we have to believe our own propaganda about ourselves to remain balanced and healthy.

Can you elaborate more on the subject?

From Wikipedia "Although depressed individuals are thought to have a negative cognitive bias that results in recurrent, negative automatic thoughts, maladaptive behaviors, and dysfunctional world beliefs,[2][3][4] depressive realism argues not only that this negativity may reflect a more accurate appraisal of the world but also that non-depressed individuals' appraisals are positively biased."

There's some pushback against it, since practically the entire theraputic industry is based on the presumption that optimism is good for you. Overall, it appears that depressive realism is a small but real phenomenon.

My own view is that depressed people are biased toward believing that they are not in control of events that happen to them, while non-depressed people are biased toward believing that they are. I happen to think that in the modern world, people with a lower sense of self-control are right more often, but that this increased accuracy is more than countered by the feelings of depression and weakened motivation. People who believe that they have more control over what happens to them are more likely to feel motivated to try and accomplish things in life—with the result that they are, in fact, more successful in the long run. Add to this that other people are more likely to be attracted to and support someone who displays higher levels of self-confidence. It pays to fool yourself.

I'm used to staying inside, so quarantine is normal to me. The problem is what it's doing to my health anxiety.

This epidemic is making a lot of people health anxious. Maybe people will start taking it seriously as a mental health issue now.

Mental health always has a link to disease. A person with cancer is also anxious about their condition, as is a person with Coronavirus, a broken bone, or a scratch.

As for people taking it seriously after this? Well. I do not think it likely.