not only is it an unsolved problem, but some of those therapies aren't even on the table for some people. maybe you can't change your environment. maybe there are no psychiatric medications that are effective for your particular neurochemistry. the prognosis isn't good.
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Replying to @danlistensto @visakanv
because of this my preference is to not label things as particular diseases or disorders (though this is what the mainstream of psychology/psychiatry likes to do) but rather to focus on a person's sense of well-being in various aspects. the problem is how we feel, not what we are
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Replying to @danlistensto @visakanv
when a person feels bad because they cannot conform under pressure to conform, then there is a clear case that a change in environment or in orientation is needed. when a person feels bad because they feel like they have the wrong sex organs, it's a much more complicated thing
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Replying to @danlistensto @visakanv
I'm certainly glad that the problems I have to solve at my job are much more clearcut than this kind of thing. Computers don't (yet?) have a sense of self or a sense of unease about themselves. People do and they suffer with it terribly.
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Replying to @danlistensto @visakanv
these problems become even more perilous and unmanageable when we try to account for the fact that humans basically never have accurate or complete self-knowledge. a person might SAY something about how they feel because they were socially conditioned to say that.
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Replying to @danlistensto @visakanv
this cuts both ways. they might be conditioned to say "NO I'm feeling this way" even when they do feel it or they might be conditioned to say "YES I am feeling this way" even when they're really feeling something else.
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Replying to @danlistensto @visakanv
I don't have an answer to these problems. I can only practice empathy and try to respond to a person's suffering with kindness and patience and maybe point them towards taking up a contemplative practice of some kind to develop better self-knowledge and insight.
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Replying to @danlistensto @visakanv
and I feel like that's really all that anybody can do. attempts to medicalize a person's self-reported unease are often motivated by desperation and exasperation at the lack of certainty and lack of control. not all problems are medical.
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Replying to @danlistensto @visakanv
anyway this has gone on long enough. anything more I could say would be in the form of restatement. parting thought: the world needs empathy "clinics". a place where a suffering person can go and receive the kindness and acceptance they are lacking in the rest of their life.
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currently we very sensibly fill this niche with apocalypse cults
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Replying to @chaosprime @danlistensto
that is a slightly less beautiful ideapic.twitter.com/9X547OfHMY
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