Are we more depressed because we're getting smarter?

[Junkenstein]

Has anyone looked at those links? This is some seriously terribly shoddy shit.

Simple self esteem questionnaire:
http://www.counseling.ufl.edu/cwc/uploads/docs/Sorensen_Self-Esteem_Test.pdf

Look at this heap of shit. Just look at it.

In case you're struggling, look at this too: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_reading

Now look again the scoring matrix.

Now look at the website/author it seems to promote:
http://www.getesteem.com/

Now tell me which part doesn't seem like some kind of bullshit scam.

After 36 years years of practice, achieving her PhD and Psychologist license, Dr. Sorensen has decided to relinquish her Psychologist license at the end of April, 2014, and will work under the title of Dr. Marilyn J Sorensen, Self-Esteem Recovery Specialist. She does not maintain an office in Portland, but works out of her home by Skype™

A Psychologist license is not necessary for the work Dr. Sorensen does. She works only with people who have issues around low self-esteem. This is not a recognized diagnosis for Psychologists.

That's a little misleading. It seems to be in the DSM V as a symptom for a number of things, rather than a be-all end-all diagnosis. Almost as though there's other factors involved in a larger problem.

The lengthy biography page continues with random sections bolded with significantly less impressive non-bolded parts. For all her rave reviews and "5 books" she appears to have no significant internet presence beyond that website. Everything about this screams scam to me. I'd strongly suspect that if you paid for a session and you do actually have low self esteem your bank account will be quite empty in short order.

Apparently Portland based so if any of you locals care to find out more, I'd be glad to retract the above if wrong. She's not presenting it well if it's real and legitimate, I'll say that much.

After typing the above, I'm starting to understand why the US has as many mental health issues as it does.

ETA - http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=Oc7txrbPVz4C&sitesec=reviews&rf=ns:3

For such an acclaimed author those 5 reviews are terrible. One of the 5 stars reads like it was written by a freind (who also has similar crap to sell you), 3 others are fairly short with no content and the 3 star reads like it was written by LuciferX. This does not say "legit" to me. At all.

[Junkenstein]

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/reviews/Breaking-the-Chain-of-Low-Self-Esteem%2FMarilyn-Sorensen/1007151374?ean=9780966431506

10 anon 5 star reviews. Totally legit.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Breaking-Chain-Self-esteem-Marilyn-Sorenson/dp/0966431502/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1406057321&sr=1-1&keywords=Breaking+the+Chain+of+Low+Self-Esteem

4 reviews, 3 anon, all 5/5!!!!!Lifechanging!!!! No problem here. At all.

[Q. G. Pennyworth]

Thank you, Junkie

[Junkenstein]

It's also nice to see you make a saving by not going for dead tree:


When I started this, I was wary that I may be being overly harsh. The more I look at, the less I'm thinking that.

[minuspace]

Has anyone looked at those links? This is some seriously terribly shoddy shit.

...

Now look at the website/author it seems to promote:
http://www.getesteem.com/

...


The lengthy biography page continues with random sections bolded with significantly less impressive non-bolded parts. For all her rave reviews and "5 books" she appears to have no significant internet For such an acclaimed author those 5 reviews are terrible. One of the 5 stars reads like it was written by a freind (who also has similar crap to sell you), 3 others are fairly short with no content and the 3 star reads like it was written by LuciferX. This does not say "legit" to me. At all.

"

Someone, sell me this pen"

Junk wins!

After re-reading your invidious comparison, involving me, it would be disparaging of me to mention that I also find you always occupy a place of keen interest, in my thoughts. Kisses.

[Junkenstein]

You wrote that review didn't you? Admit it.

Investigating the criminal mind has been a life long commitment both within the western family unit and the various political cultural aspects these find themselves. Coming to understand that the battle not only is in the inner world of one's faulty thinking, but what lead a person to an aloof mindset associated with the schools of thought in regards to freewill, and civil liberty.
I guess many bored folks whom are bored derive some tweisted power in the mental derailure of others but this book would hopefully open up some options. I think therapy is good for all concerned.

You're not fooling anyone with a couple of typos you know. Stop shilling for these people. It encourages more of them.

[minuspace]

You wrote that review didn't you? Admit it.

Investigating the criminal mind has been a life long commitment both within the western family unit and the various political cultural aspects these find themselves. Coming to understand that the battle not only is in the inner world of one's faulty thinking, but what lead a person to an aloof mindset associated with the schools of thought in regards to freewill, and civil liberty.
I guess many bored folks whom are bored derive some tweisted power in the mental derailure of others but this book would hopefully open up some options. I think therapy is good for all concerned.

You're not fooling anyone with a couple of typos you know. Stop shilling for these people. It encourages more of them.

BUT I WAS USING TOR
(derailure  )

[Junkenstein]

Well, if you're not going to stop shilling, at least get me some work out of them. Thought/memo - Mystery shop some shilling orgs. Amusing shit almost guaranteed.

have we hit the tipping point where the majority of people are at significant risk of mental health concerns due to their intelligence?

Anyway, back to this.

I'm starting to think that there may be a significant degree of people at risk of mental health issues just based on environment alone.

Take Austerity for example. Quite a number of people have been negatively affected by the various things implemented and it would seem logical to me that quite a few "borderline, but coping" (for want of actual terms,anyone correct me here) got the push they need over the edge.

Another example of environment causing mental health issues would be a situation like Bhopal. Here an industrial accident has fucked an area quite brutally and you can't say that this won't be damaging the mental health of any number of people. Ask anyone with any experience of caring for the elderly or infirm how much fun it is and run for cover. Now imagine if that was your family and neighbors and pretty much everyone you know. "That shit doesn't happen here" you say, but consider the 9/11 emergency workers who got fucked royally for years with health issues and medical bills and tell me that doesn't take a mental toll. There's a news story weekly about asbestos being found everywhere in somewhere people are wandering through regularly. I'd put money that there's at least one a month in most states.

Media saturation within the environment is another angle. Any disaster is magnified and hyper focused on until a new, more horrible thing happens to focus on. Recall the last time you had three running days where the headline anywhere was good news. Two? One? I'm sure many others have written much more at length about this kind of thing. I'll just say there's the other side with photoshopped magazine covers and such, and the links to body issues and associated mental health issues. It's a whole bag of shit and it feels very related to me. I would also say intelligence is largely moot when it comes to media. High or low, most people inevitably consume a lot of it and no-one is totally aware all the time of the particular angle or subtext, or able to analyse and confirm/reject it. So shit slips through, sometimes good, often bad.

As much as I hate to use the term, Set and Setting. You've got people in a variety of mental states to start with. What's the setting? Well, if the environment varies too, but if it's bad there's really nothing stopping things going to hell without consciously acknowledging that shit's bad and we need to make it better, somehow. Then focus on improving shit.

There's more, but I'm probably rambling.

[zackli]

Oh please, explain. I've not had a good laugh all day.

Probably should have paid more attention to the links I collected, buuuuuut there's no changing that now so here we are. You guys get to call me stupid Please do it as hard as you can, no one has had the opportunity to call me stupid for quite some time.

Self-esteem and depression ARE inversely correlated according to the mental health world, though. Society harbors the delusion that everyone is special, and if you can't see that you're special you just need to take this here blue (or red or yellow or white or orange) pill to make you see how special you are. I didn't learn a damn thing about psychological disorders in my abnormal psychology class, but I sure learned why the next generation of workers in the mental health community is going to suck.

If you actually think mental issues are diagnosed using short questionnaires, please let me know and I will be more explicit with my condescension and sarcastic remarks.

That is just one small part of the whole clinical process. The second step is where the clinician proceeds to interview you with a list of questions suspiciously like the questionnaire you just answered, only with a little bit more detail. I would know, I'm a PRO at being interviewed.

I believe that in the Industry, this is known as "win-win".

Yes.

We're being a little harsh.

After all, short questionnaires written by clowns have told me my favourite colour, which circle of hell I'm heading to and many other things which are obviously accurate and life changing.

OMG, what circle am I going to? I hope it's the one with four sides.

Is he still too new for me to call a shitheel?

I don't mind being called a shitheel. I don't know what it means so I'll absorb it without caring or understanding what it means.

And there I was thinking a common ground could be something other than sarcasm.

That's the only ground any of us share. The rest of it is just spaghetti and meatballs.

[zackli]

have we hit the tipping point where the majority of people are at significant risk of mental health concerns due to their intelligence?

Anyway, back to this.

Yes, back to that. I think there are a couple of psychological phenomena that may be contributing to the problem, one of which you mentioned. One of these is groupthink, which is made worse by the media and to varying degrees by various different kinds of media. For those who aren't well-versed in social psychology mumbo-jumbo, groupthink is the tendency for people in groups to stifle countering opinions and make people resistant to countering arguments even while not inside that group. Obviously, different people use the web for different things, and  there are a lot of different websites on the web. I know this may come as a shock, and if you were not sitting down at the time please do so. I can not be held responsible for any computer monitors having soda or water spit all over them, because I would probably just offer to give you Montreal and Park Place in exchange for forgetting it ever happened.

Back to "this"...

As I was saying, different people use the web for different things. Shocking, I know. If you weren't sitting down, see above. I should probably have warnings about drinking beverages near your monitor while reading my replies. One particular group of sites are these things called forums, and different forums have different themes. "Mental health" support forums, for instance, provide support for people suffering from problems with their mental health. Just get a washrag to cover your monitor with. The trouble with that, however, is that people identify with labels. It is how they make sense of their pathetic little world, in addition to themselves. Particularly when they take the person dishing that label out seriously. What I fear is going to happen if it hasn't started happening already is that people will identify with their diagnosed mental illnesses and find support groups for those mental illnesses. One other "group" aspect of social psychology is that people like people who are similar to them, and in a group they like those more similar to them at the expense of those different from them.

Basically, it will result in people not wanting to get better, and in turn not getting better because they find those mental health support forums a welcome community for them to participate in only as long as they have their mental illnesses. Although, it's not like the mental health community ever really removes your diagnosis. There's no way to prove your sanity.

[Junkenstein]

Wait, what?

Basically, it will result in people not wanting to get better, and in turn not getting better because they find those mental health support forums a welcome community for them to participate in only as long as they have their mental illnesses.

What? Are you serious here? Are you seriously implying that mental health support forums actively make people regress when they're improving because the need to remain part of a community at the obvious cost of their mental health?

I'm not saying this doesn't occur, but I think you'd be more accurate if you were talking about forums that involved pretty much anything else. Games. Films. Clothing. Wicca. I can see this occurring in all these places but this surely must be frowned upon at the least in any semi-respectable forum devoted to mental health.

Or maybe I'm insane and Narcissism support forums are filled with selfies and Depression support forums rife with "Here's how to not improve anything and end it all" threads.

I kind of see what you mean with:

One other "group" aspect of social psychology is that people like people who are similar to them, and in a group they like those more similar to them at the expense of those different from them.

Which just makes the follow on even stranger. Why would someone suffering from X seek support from people with problem Y? That makes no sense. You talk to people also dealing with X. Y may be a related issue which they share but it's not the immediate and sensible go-to place.

Example - I have crippling stomach pains. So I'm going to get my eyes tested. By Mormons.

I'd strongly suggest that what you seem to be referring to are not good places to get help and advice. They are place you go to talk about how wonderful your shit smells and NOT actually deal with whatever issue it is you have.


If you've got some mysterious qualifications or knowledge, I'd disclose it now. More than a couple of us here are intimately familiar with mental health care, assessments, treatments, etc. and you seem to be talking out of your arse.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Having spent some time on support forums, I have to agree that there's an identity culture there and they usually are not supportive of people getting better and moving on. It, rather, becomes a support forum for people WITH the illness, not people recovering from it. This is true of all kinds of support forums; I still get emails from the hysterectomy forum I was on saying that they miss me. These are people whose entire lives, identities, and social groups are revolving around their pathology. I've seen the same thing with depression and ADHD groups, and it's very easy to not only slide into that mental state, but also those groups are hotbeds for hypochondriacs and people with Munchhausen's Syndrome.

[Junkenstein]

Which leads to questions of "genuine" suffers of X and the attention seekers who probably make up the majority of the content. I'm guessing there's some where there's very little actual help and support but flamewars galore allday, everyday.

[zackli]

Wait, what?

Basically, it will result in people not wanting to get better, and in turn not getting better because they find those mental health support forums a welcome community for them to participate in only as long as they have their mental illnesses.

What? Are you serious here? Are you seriously implying that mental health support forums actively make people regress when they're improving because the need to remain part of a community at the obvious cost of their mental health?

I'm not saying this doesn't occur, but I think you'd be more accurate if you were talking about forums that involved pretty much anything else. Games. Films. Clothing. Wicca. I can see this occurring in all these places but this surely must be frowned upon at the least in any semi-respectable forum devoted to mental health.

Or maybe I'm insane and Narcissism support forums are filled with selfies and Depression support forums rife with "Here's how to not improve anything and end it all" threads.

What I got out of this was that you are saying that it could make the problems of people with obsessions worse, and you wouldn't be mistaken.

I kind of see what you mean with:

One other "group" aspect of social psychology is that people like people who are similar to them, and in a group they like those more similar to them at the expense of those different from them.

Which just makes the follow on even stranger. Why would someone suffering from X seek support from people with problem Y? That makes no sense. You talk to people also dealing with X. Y may be a related issue which they share but it's not the immediate and sensible go-to place.

They wouldn't. Usually on these forums it is broken down into categories by label. All the people the state says are sad go one place, all the people who don't get along well with others go in another, etc. etc. As you can imagine, that last forum is a hoot.

If you've got some mysterious qualifications or knowledge, I'd disclose it now. More than a couple of us here are intimately familiar with mental health care, assessments, treatments, etc. and you seem to be talking out of your arse.

I'm definitely not talking out of my arse, at least not any more than anyone else. I've taken social psychology, I've read my fair share of social psychology books, I've been on a mental health support forum as a casual observer out of boredom and I was specifically asked what illness I had under the pretense that I didn't belong there if I didn't have an illness and I've been in an inpatient psychiatric unit for 3 months. After about a week I didn't think I should be in there anymore. My "problem" was that I was in a bad situation, not that there was anything wrong with me. The institution didn't think so and that was seen as further evidence that I needed to remain on the unit. The only way to get out of a mental institution is to admit that you have a problem or that there's something wrong with you (whatever got you on the unit) and that you're working on it. It's not that there's a problem with society or anything...

[zackli]

Which leads to questions of "genuine" suffers of X and the attention seekers who probably make up the majority of the content. I'm guessing there's some where there's very little actual help and support but flamewars galore allday, everyday.

While it does lead to the "one true scotsman" fallacy, and there are flame wars, I highly doubt that the flame wars occur to any sort of noticeable extent. "Support" forums, due to their implications in real life, are much more heavily moderated than most other forums. I know I can't speak for every support forum, but the people on the one I was on all appeared to "genuinely" have illnesses. Some even had their diagnoses in a list as a signature underneath their name, and I wish I was joking. They take their labels VERY seriously over there.

The "one true Scotsman" fallacy raises the question of what it actually means to "have" the illness to begin with though. This is just pure speculation, but I think most mental illnesses are more along the lines of situational and environmental factors than they are "biological" ones. Some of the worse ones like schizophrenia are one of the more obvious candidates for genuine biological influence, but people completely overlook the power of the "situation" (I think that says more about human nature than just about anything an abnormal psychology class could teach you) in most cases and have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo.

While it may not be completely relevant, think of the statement that something is "just a rationalization" when someone hears an excuse for why someone is addicted to something, for instance. Think also of how, often times, that rationalization is genuinely believed. When you understand the implications of that combined with the fact that people are animals, a fairly disturbing realization occurs. Rationalizations are just excuses. But so are "genuine" reasons. There is no functional difference or way to differentiate between genuine reasons and "rationalizations", so either they're all valid or none of them are. The fact that it is also "just" a rationalization for dismissing the petty arguments of others tainted by an emotional conflict of interest has not escaped me. That is part of what led me here.