I remember going to American-style conferences in the 1990s with PMA (positive mental attitude) being the central theme. Lots of jumping about and dancing though which felt very non-English.
Although some variation in emotional expression is cultural, most of the current tendency to focus on miserable thoughts and feelings is due to the feminisation of institutions that encourage it. Having suffered a horrible, traumatic event a few years ago, I know there is no benefit to such shameless, tearful wallowing. I think we have evolved not to break down in the aftermath of a real crisis, because I became surprisingly pragmatic and instinctively soldiered on.
I agree with them. The protestant reformations and their inward focus on faith as Richard Lynn said in your interview with him was just correlation due to the fact that protestants had higher IQ, not causal.
Plus, it's always funny when the English mention the stiff upper lip of their past while at the very same time their 'negative' physical actions of destroying other nations especially Catholics was ongoing. Maybe had their lip not been so stiff they wouldn't have been so destructive to Catholic nations.
Furthermore, that very same stiff upper lip mentality is preventing them from kicking up a fuss and fighting back against their currently being dominated.
This goes against my own experience. You've used the term 'false self' on occasion to describe a kind of mask someone wears, but it's more integral. It also functions as an inner accuser and inner electric fence, meant to make you avoidant. This is where I think suppression goes awry, because it's an incorrect admission that the thoughts and sensations generated by the false self can harm you, and it becomes an exercise in taking refuge from that which can't harm you in adulthood. When I feel discomfort, I embrace it, and it goes away. When the devil is chasing you, ask him 'what if you catch me?' (to steal a quote from Molyneux). There was an episode in my life where I was intensely focused on a purpose, on my true-self emotions (including anger and sadness), on doing right for its own sake (as opposed to avoiding negative sensations), and on my sense of certainty around these things. Consequently my false-self sensations and avoidant tendencies were nowhere to be found because they can only function through avoidance. This was quite positive and life-changing.
So by all means, turn off your thoughts, wipe the mental chalkboard, but I think there's more distinction to this matter.
Also I don’t think this would be very useful with every traumatic events, like if a girl is brutally beaten and raped you wouldn’t go about telling her :
Eit’s alwrite luv yove just gotta cheer up abouit ( while making her relive the severely traumatic event )
Did the study control for attachment type? Because what this looks like is that they took people with an anxious attachment type and made it avoidant. Now don’t get me wrong, avoidant is much better than anxious because it’s much less paralysing and you kind off suffer much less because it lets you “get a move on”.
But ultimately you should feel the bad crap you have to feel, breathe it ( Which literally activates your prefrontal cortex and calms you down ) and process it effectively, because when you enter fight or flight you prefrontal cortex literally shuts down, you revert back to a much more primitive brain state.
We also know that talking to other people about the crap we go through and receiving empathy we feel much better and allows us to process what we need to process better ( which is why many people like friends that are good at listening by the way).
My other critique is that it’s just 1 study and I’d like to see it replicated.
Where is the option 'negative thoughts' don't exist, or, I encourage retributive thinking if justice is due? Or where is the option, if anger is good how do you deal with it in that case? George Carlin was funny because he was angry. I don't get this kind of Mary Baker Eddy Mind Cure religion.
The most bizarre thing about psychology is that they try to replace the help religion and priests could give you. Religion has been around for a long time and is adaptive so it would be able to solve more psychological problems than a midwit psychologist and theyre incestivised to give you solutions so you would stop bothering them. Never ever trust a psychologist or a therapist, theyre mid wits trained by left leaning. (most likely) universitities and dont want to solve your problem for good so they can keep you coming back so they can pay their bills.
I have come up with a idea which I call 'implicit belief theory' which posits that ALL my beliefs (your beliefs, the dog's beliefs) are built so heavily upon implicit and untested assumptions that they are no more veridical than their inversions. It means you can discount bad feelings in the moment very easily because, in a sort of: 'black-is-white-is-black-is-white..' regression, no one is really 'OK' even when they think/feel they are because one's ontology (experience of being) emerges only from one's experience of (implicit) belief. Remember, that the nature of belief is to suspend its inversion of disbelief - so it's only ever a 'placeholder' of thought (and experience)
So I use this approach to fully discount incessant or recurrent negative thoughts. Where this differs from what the researchers have done is they trained subjects with specific triggers whereas, IBT works by 'general' non-specific affirmation that (eg) allows you to juggle 'all possible' alternative life histories in a second and come back to THIS life in a moment with a feeling of equanimity (i.e.: "THIS is acceptable .. I can work from HERE... I can still get quite a lot done.." etc etc) born of an actual belief that 'all' belief is sustained by its untestable nature.
I remember going to American-style conferences in the 1990s with PMA (positive mental attitude) being the central theme. Lots of jumping about and dancing though which felt very non-English.
The other thing the British used to do was to pronounce 'worry' as 'wurry'. Where has this new pronunciation suddenly come from?
Don't... erm... worry. Most of us still pronounce it as 'wurry' (IPA ˈwʌri). Absolutely no idea where Ed's pronunciation comes from!
It's suddenly very popular. Our properly educated grown-up sons are suddenly trying it for size.
How worrying! 🤣 I must be out of the loop.
We pronounce "worry" as we always have, Ed has obviously gone a little native
I am not British but I pronounce "wurry" probably got it stuck in my head from some good ol Tv series like Fawlty Towers.
Although some variation in emotional expression is cultural, most of the current tendency to focus on miserable thoughts and feelings is due to the feminisation of institutions that encourage it. Having suffered a horrible, traumatic event a few years ago, I know there is no benefit to such shameless, tearful wallowing. I think we have evolved not to break down in the aftermath of a real crisis, because I became surprisingly pragmatic and instinctively soldiered on.
It depends on the context and duration.
Ed Aporia did a review on this kind of literature and said that therapy is BS. https://www.aporiamagazine.com/p/the-psychotherapy-myth
I agree with them. The protestant reformations and their inward focus on faith as Richard Lynn said in your interview with him was just correlation due to the fact that protestants had higher IQ, not causal.
Plus, it's always funny when the English mention the stiff upper lip of their past while at the very same time their 'negative' physical actions of destroying other nations especially Catholics was ongoing. Maybe had their lip not been so stiff they wouldn't have been so destructive to Catholic nations.
Furthermore, that very same stiff upper lip mentality is preventing them from kicking up a fuss and fighting back against their currently being dominated.
This goes against my own experience. You've used the term 'false self' on occasion to describe a kind of mask someone wears, but it's more integral. It also functions as an inner accuser and inner electric fence, meant to make you avoidant. This is where I think suppression goes awry, because it's an incorrect admission that the thoughts and sensations generated by the false self can harm you, and it becomes an exercise in taking refuge from that which can't harm you in adulthood. When I feel discomfort, I embrace it, and it goes away. When the devil is chasing you, ask him 'what if you catch me?' (to steal a quote from Molyneux). There was an episode in my life where I was intensely focused on a purpose, on my true-self emotions (including anger and sadness), on doing right for its own sake (as opposed to avoiding negative sensations), and on my sense of certainty around these things. Consequently my false-self sensations and avoidant tendencies were nowhere to be found because they can only function through avoidance. This was quite positive and life-changing.
So by all means, turn off your thoughts, wipe the mental chalkboard, but I think there's more distinction to this matter.
I wonder what kind of neurotype does a person have if he fells no negative emotions at all. It must be very atypical odd mindset.
Someone with no morals at all. A yesman. A man with no standards.
Also I don’t think this would be very useful with every traumatic events, like if a girl is brutally beaten and raped you wouldn’t go about telling her :
Eit’s alwrite luv yove just gotta cheer up abouit ( while making her relive the severely traumatic event )
It's certainly not "useful" to make her relive it again and again by questioning her about it.
Did the study control for attachment type? Because what this looks like is that they took people with an anxious attachment type and made it avoidant. Now don’t get me wrong, avoidant is much better than anxious because it’s much less paralysing and you kind off suffer much less because it lets you “get a move on”.
But ultimately you should feel the bad crap you have to feel, breathe it ( Which literally activates your prefrontal cortex and calms you down ) and process it effectively, because when you enter fight or flight you prefrontal cortex literally shuts down, you revert back to a much more primitive brain state.
We also know that talking to other people about the crap we go through and receiving empathy we feel much better and allows us to process what we need to process better ( which is why many people like friends that are good at listening by the way).
My other critique is that it’s just 1 study and I’d like to see it replicated.
https://www.aporiamagazine.com/p/the-psychotherapy-myth
Where is the option 'negative thoughts' don't exist, or, I encourage retributive thinking if justice is due? Or where is the option, if anger is good how do you deal with it in that case? George Carlin was funny because he was angry. I don't get this kind of Mary Baker Eddy Mind Cure religion.
The most bizarre thing about psychology is that they try to replace the help religion and priests could give you. Religion has been around for a long time and is adaptive so it would be able to solve more psychological problems than a midwit psychologist and theyre incestivised to give you solutions so you would stop bothering them. Never ever trust a psychologist or a therapist, theyre mid wits trained by left leaning. (most likely) universitities and dont want to solve your problem for good so they can keep you coming back so they can pay their bills.
I have come up with a idea which I call 'implicit belief theory' which posits that ALL my beliefs (your beliefs, the dog's beliefs) are built so heavily upon implicit and untested assumptions that they are no more veridical than their inversions. It means you can discount bad feelings in the moment very easily because, in a sort of: 'black-is-white-is-black-is-white..' regression, no one is really 'OK' even when they think/feel they are because one's ontology (experience of being) emerges only from one's experience of (implicit) belief. Remember, that the nature of belief is to suspend its inversion of disbelief - so it's only ever a 'placeholder' of thought (and experience)
So I use this approach to fully discount incessant or recurrent negative thoughts. Where this differs from what the researchers have done is they trained subjects with specific triggers whereas, IBT works by 'general' non-specific affirmation that (eg) allows you to juggle 'all possible' alternative life histories in a second and come back to THIS life in a moment with a feeling of equanimity (i.e.: "THIS is acceptable .. I can work from HERE... I can still get quite a lot done.." etc etc) born of an actual belief that 'all' belief is sustained by its untestable nature.
Careful now....
https://hitchhikers.fandom.com/wiki/God#Final_Proof_of_the_Non-Existence_of_God
Thank you, 'Doctor Johnson'!
Wow. But what if I'm not capable of effortful control?