Venting thread

[Travis B.]

Well, it's like what I was saying about the Great Steal and Deep State . Where was the actual conspiracy? With Trump meeting with the other conspiracists.

Also, Tronche en Biais mentions the money behind Hold-up:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b9FHAuO65aw

Leider spreche ich kein Französisch...

[MacAnDàil]

Hold Up is a French conspiracist movie about Covid-19 often shared on the internet along the lines of scamdemic. They used crowdfunding twice to fund the video. The first time they asked for 20,000 euros and got 182,970. They then asked more money to see the film online or to download it. And the watching on Vimeo got them 170,000 euros. They did a second crowdfunding campaign with (at the time of the video's release) 153,000 to do an English version although an English version was already mentioned in the first campaign.

Tronche en Biais does zététique - art of doubt.

Part of the point that Tronche en Biais is making in this part of his video - the video is of course longer and includes many other points directly related to the content and the creators - is that conspiracists often say 'Follow the Money' and such expressions to show suspicion to anything with money involved or supposedly involved, but they are just as applicable to conspiracist sources.

[Starbeam]

The United States does not have free health care. Everyone knows this. Thus, there is no adequate mental health care available to 99.999% of the population here. This is fundamentally lost on those around whining how "hard" it is to deal with somebody who has mental illness.

Now, I can understand women or other oppressed groups complaining about emotional labor being unevenly burdened on them. I get most people don't know what they're doing either. But plenty of SWACASMs and similarly privileged people will just lap up the idea of declaring mentally ill people "emotional vampires" for even asking for help. God forbid you just fucking say "no" online. Or bother to set up supports. Mental health is not taken seriously, as instead we have plenty of resources and support for the mildly to moderately annoyed. "It's so annoying they keep venting to me" and "it's not my responsibility" are cared much more about than people actually suffering from (C-)PTSD, depression, borderline, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, drug addixion, or anything resembling actual pain are. Instead of kvetching about how difficult it is to console anyone or give support/ education, just make it available and/or shut up and go.

I get this is probably US-centric, but I doubt mental health is all that cared about in places with healthcare doled out like candy like Austria or Japan.

On a similar note, white people don't get to be impatient with other white people about racism, men don't get to be impatient with other men about sexism, and cis people don't get to be impatient with other cis people about transphobia, etc etc. You are not victims and the actual oppressed groups in question don't benefit from your surely majestic impatience. Granted, I'm only stating this if your interlocutor is acting in good faith.

[Ares Land]

Generally mental health care is still, I don't know, kind of rudimentary. FWIW I think you guys have better ideas about it in the US. In France it's horribly expensive: therapy isn't covered by health insurance (medication is, though! so there is that) and is still very much psychonalytic in nature (read: useless)

Something that very much looks like borderline personality disorder runs in my family; I dodged that bullet, though I had to deal with anxiety and depression in the past. From my experience and that of family members I got the impression that mental health professional were pretty much powerless and mostly taking shots in the dark. (They're not doing too bad with mild depression, especially with modern medication, but with anything more seriously they look just as clueless as I am.)
I can only hope science marches on and there is some adequate care available in a generation or two.

(FWIW some people with mental health issues are abusive on top of it, and of course they'll use their issues as an excuse. That's the reason why people write resources and books on emotional vampirism and suchlike.)

On your other point I'm not sure I agree. I've seen guys complain that they, too, are victims of a patriarchal society. So, yeah, don't do that. That said, as a straight male and overall a clear winner of the privilege bingo, I do have some responsibilities towards society. I vote. My opinions are, to some extent, heard when I voice them. Of course I have to call out racism, or sexism, or transphobia when I see them.

[Travis B.]

I have to beg to differ. My experience (here in the US) with mental health care is that has been effective, if taking time to actually work. Of course I have the luxury of getting insurance through my employer. On the other hand, I have heard about how bad mental health care is in France.

[Rounin Ryuuji]

I remember having a conversation with a clinical psychologist about the relative uselessness of psychoanalytic models in actually treating things. I had no idea they were still used in Europe (or that France had such a gaping hole in its care system, though I would still rather be French if I had some major physical issue).

[Starbeam]

My points were less about the out and out quality of United States health care, and more that it's hard to actually get in the first place. You have to be very rich or very lucky to actually have it, and I am neither. And I'm not exactly doing bad financially, living with middle-class parents and all. France's situation sounds pretty shitty too, and I can buy other places being little better. That is not getting into poorer places, who likely lack much health care of any kind.

More espescially, there are mostly resources for annoyed mentally well people, and the actual sufferers of various ailments are treated like nuisances to the public instead of victims or human beings struggling to deal with pains and maladies they didn't choose to have. I get plenty of people use their mental illness as excuse to abuse or write off shitty yet non-abusive behavior, but nobody deserves to out and out suffer from an unchecked mental illness. It's like there's a pushback to a non-existent pushforward that supposedly uses mental illness as an excuse for all kinds of cruelty.

Also, while men are sorta victims of a patriarchal society, they are still educating other men. I think they'll live if they demonstrate patience as opposed to majesty. That's not getting into the fact this only references sexism, not racism and queerphobia- where there is no reciprocal burden. I have such a low opinion of snobbish, faux-pained privileged people who refuse to educate. Those idiots realize that nobody will know otherwise, right? Most resources are academian and thus inaccessible to the general public. Moreover, human rephrasal can give clarification set-in-stone texts can't. Plus, if this is a forum like StackExchange or Reddit, remember that nobody was forcing anyone to talk.

[Raphael]

If we're doing cross-country comparisons of how various countries' health care systems (or lacks thereof) handle mental health - hm. I'd say my experience in Germany has been mostly ok, for the last ten years, except for one pretty bad experience with one particular doctor. It might have helped that I mostly tried to avoid psychologists, because I worried that they'd try Freudian pseudoscience on me, and mostly stuck to psychiatrists and neurologists instead. One psychologist who was assigned to me for a while was actually pretty good, though.

[Ares Land]

My points were less about the out and out quality of United States health care, and more that it's hard to actually get in the first place. You have to be very rich or very lucky to actually have it, and I am neither. And I'm not exactly doing bad financially, living with middle-class parents and all. France's situation sounds pretty shitty too, and I can buy other places being little better. That is not getting into poorer places, who likely lack much health care of any kind.

More espescially, there are mostly resources for annoyed mentally well people, and the actual sufferers of various ailments are treated like nuisances to the public instead of victims or human beings struggling to deal with pains and maladies they didn't choose to have.

Oh, yes. As just one datapoint, I've been told by people in the know that most, if not all of the homeless are suffering from untreated mental illness.
(Health care here is a lot better for the middle class and above. Or at least, a hell of a lot cheaper. For the poor it can be pretty bad. Better than in the US, from what I hear, but it still sucks.)

[Ares Land]

If we're doing cross-country comparisons of how various countries' health care systems (or lacks thereof) handle mental health - hm. I'd say my experience in Germany has been mostly ok, for the last ten years, except for one pretty bad experience with one particular doctor. It might have helped that I mostly tried to avoid psychologists, because I worried that they'd try Freudian pseudoscience on me, and mostly stuck to psychiatrists and neurologists instead. One psychologist who was assigned to me for a while was actually pretty good, though.

Psychiatrists and neurologists are better here too.

One problem is that back in the 90s someone had the bright idea that we would all spend less on healthcare if there were less doctors around. So we got pretty strict quota on the number of medical students.
Fast-forward to the present day: there aren't enough doctors to go around, and there definitely aren't enough psychiatrist to go around.

We have a lot of psychologist though and they're honestly not that bad; except they're all Freudian, because that's what they're taught, and all trying to figure out something within an outdated framework.

[Raphael]

One problem is that back in the 90s someone had the bright idea that we would all spend less on healthcare if there were less doctors around. So we got pretty strict quota on the number of medical students.

What? That's one of the dumbest policy ideas I've ever heard of, and I'm a long-time observer of US politics.

[Ares Land]

Yeah. There are many reasons we got about the same COVID death rate as the US; that is one of them.

[rotting bones]

Whether or not Freudianism says something true about the human psyche, it's impossible to understand contemporary symbolism unless you study it like any other mythology. For example, pornographic art depicts FEMALE-PRESENTING NIPPLES with phallic proportions shockingly often. Whether or not pornographers are working backwards from Freudian psychoanalysis, many people seem to associate the fetish with a girl dick: https://nosubject.com/Fetish/Fetishistic_disavowal I like Freudianism better than religious mythologies because, regardless of the truth satus of its contents, IMO the approach stands for rigorous analysis in place of emotional manipulation.

[FlamyobatRudki]

I've seen supposedly scientific ones, magical thinking presented in the form of bizzare psychobabble.
that makes me just want to .

[rotting bones]

Freudians say many bizarre things, but it's important to remember that their analyses come from the ramblings of their patients. There are mystical psychoanalysts, but they are usually not Freudian. Eg. Jungians are often mystical. One big problem with Freudianism specifically is that after they create their theories, they try to read those theories into patients whose fantasies might have nothing to do with the cases on which their theories were originally based. I don't believe psychic phenomena are fundamental enough to justify this level of dogmatism.

This channel explains repression quite well: https://www.youtube.com/user/lacanonline/videos Can't vouch for the other topics it covers.

[Ares Land]

I do think Freud's work is important. I even think Jung was on to something with the collective unconscious and the archetypes.
The problem is with its practitioners. Blanche Gardin, a stand up comic, put it best: you spend years and a fortune on sessions to complain about your mother. At some point, you'd be better off hiring a hitman.
FWIW I've heard psychoanalysts deride the concept of a 'cure' or 'getting better' as capitalist/neoliberal propaganda.

I don't think psychoanalysis has a monopoly on quackery though. Look up EMDR, for instance.

[rotting bones]

I do think Freud's work is important. I even think Jung was on to something with the collective unconscious and the archetypes.

Jung's work on archetypes is useful for storytellers. Freudian theorists don't like him because they say he tries to make psychoanalysis "meaningful" in a pre-scientific, mythological sense. Apparently, this is contrary to the aims of modern science. I've only read Man and His Symbols, and that was a long time ago. I'd wonder if Jung's work properly addresses the subversion of meaning in human experience or whether his theories run in a closed loop. Is everything explained through positive symbols and archetypes, or can he address the dimension where specific images break down? If you watch LacanOnline's video on Primal Repression, you'll see Freudian theory tries to explain puffed up subjective images through very minor events that are not in themselves subjectively meaningful. Freudians think this is what scientists ought to be doing, not analyzing reality using the categories of folklore. Nowadays, there are Freudians who think this perspective is necessary even for authenticity in storytelling

The problem is with its practitioners. Blanche Gardin, a stand up comic, put it best: you spend years and a fortune on sessions to complain about your mother. At some point, you'd be better off hiring a hitman.

It's not just the practitioners. Psychoanalysts think they must charge their patients. Apparently, Freud tried treating people for free early on and reported that patients didn't take the sessions seriously unless they were paying for them. Tibetan lamas say the same thing. Vajrayana gurus don't teach students unless the students pay them, traditionally in gold. In that context, consider the fact that the Dalai Lama says he's a Marxist.

FWIW I've heard psychoanalysts deride the concept of a 'cure' or 'getting better' as capitalist/neoliberal propaganda.

Yes, there are Marxist "psychoanalysts" who think society has to change more than individuals for everyday neurotics to adapt better to society, and putting too much emphasis on curing individuals prevents the social change necessary for this to happen. Some of these people don't operate clinics at all.

My second post was only addressing the bizarreness of Freudian beliefs. I don't think psychoanalysis is defensible in its entirety. My first post was not meant to challenge anything anyone said before.

I don't think psychoanalysis has a monopoly on quackery though. Look up EMDR, for instance.

Like psychoanalysis, that looks like a superficial treatment of symptoms. I don't see how psychoanalysis can help people unless the patient's illness is somehow connected to the fact that they unconsciously associate certain ideas that they consciously deny. At the same time, there must not be so much organic damage to the nervous system that they are incapable of bringing those ideas into association.

Personally, I think the Freudian method is suited for what Freud did best: amusing rich hysterics and leading them to "insights" by confronting them with their own words. It's not a serious medical practice.

[Ares Land]

I believe it occasionnally works; probably some variation of the placebo effect is at play. Plus lying down and talking about your problems sure beats repressing them, I guess.

It also amounted to collectively amounting that there is such a thing as subconscious thought, that lots of people have issues with their parents and that most everyone thinks about sex. That was probably very healthy, on a societal level.

A big name in psychoanalysis in France is Françoise Dolto. I've read a fair amount of her works, and they're a big steaming pile of bullshit but she did popularize the notion that children are people too (and yeah, back in the '60s, that needed saying.)

[rotting bones]

I believe it occasionnally works; probably some variation of the placebo effect is at play. Plus lying down and talking about your problems sure beats repressing them, I guess.

There is evidence that it's psychologically healthy to just have a confidant. If you can't find one, hiring a professional helps too.

Lacan has an elaborate theory about why psychoanalysis works: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_disc ... he_Analyst

He thinks the analyst must be learned primarily because the patient must see the analyst as a learned person. The analyst must get the patient to tell him the symbolic reasons that animate him. Then the analyst must clearly show the patient that the he, the analyst, is unmoved by the patient's reasons. The goal is to get the patient to question his own motivations. If his subjective position doesn't move a learned person like the analyst, are those reasons valid? This self-questioning causes the unconscious symbolism to shift and the patient moves on with his life.

I don't think this reasoning is wrong. My question is whether the entire ritual of analysis is necessary just to get people to question themselves. Are there people for whom the best way to learn critical thinking is through psychotherapy?

It also amounted to collectively amounting that there is such a thing as subconscious thought, that lots of people have issues with their parents and that most everyone thinks about sex. That was probably very healthy, on a societal level.

A big name in psychoanalysis in France is Françoise Dolto. I've read a fair amount of her works, and they're a big steaming pile of bullshit but she did popularize the notion that children are people too (and yeah, back in the '60s, that needed saying.)

Could be. I wouldn't know much about that.

Edit: I should probably have made it clearer that the patient doesn't think the analyst is learned because of any knowledge he actually possesses, the symbolic reasoning shifts when the knowledge of unconscious patterns falls into the conscious mind, etc. The full theory is quite elaborate.

[rotting bones]

My mother passed away. I never told her this, but she was my hero. Despite being born a girl in a village in the middle of nowhere and as she was the first to insist, not being particularly bright, she got a Master's degree out of sheer determination.

The only person who was on my side is gone. Now I'm truly alone. I don't know who I am without her. I have no parents, no friends, no fortune, nothing.