Welcome to From Insults To Respect.
In an earlier post (see HERE) I made some rational arguments for people to consider resolving their conflicts in private whenever possible. For example, I mentioned a research study that found people are more likely to escalate an argument into a fight when spectators are around (“Impression Management and the Escalation of Aggression and Violence,” R. B. Felson, Social Psychology Review, 1982).
Rational arguments are important considerations as we go about choosing how to deal with social problems. So, too are emotional issues. 
With that in mind, today I thought we would look at the lyrics of Bob Dylan’s song “Let’s Keep It Between Us” that appears on his Springtime in New York album. There we find Bob tenderly explaining his feeling to his darling.
Bob’s Song
Utilizing a melody deeply influenced by the blues, and featuring an impressive intermingling of organ and guitar, the song’s first stanza goes,
Let’s keep it between us
These people meddlin’ in our affairs, they’re not our friends
Let’s keep it between us
Before doors close and our togetherness comes to an end
They’ll turn you against me and me against you
’Til we don’t know who to trust
Oh, darlin’, can we keep it between us?
In these words, we see the singer’s utmost concerns. Involving others can lead to some taking sides, leading to confusion and thus their relationship might go kaput.
The next stanza reveals more of the singer’s feelings.
Let’s keep it between us
We’ve been through too much tough times that they never shared
They’ve had nothing to say to us before
Now all of a sudden it’s as if they’ve always cared
All we need is honesty
A little humility and trust
Oh, darlin’, can we keep it between us?
Those lines, as I interpret them, have to do with feelings that are missing in people who suddenly claim to want to help because they care. They don’t know about the shared tough times the lovers have experienced. Keeping these experiences alive, along with honesty, humility, and trust is sufficient, says Bob, to work through their problems.
Moving on to the next verse, Bob expresses his feelings that he and his darling have their faults, but so too do those seeking to help them.
I know we’re not perfect
Then again, neither are they
They act like we got to live for them
As if there just ain’t no other way
And it’s makin’ me kind of tired
Here we see Bob growing weary at seeking to live as others believe is right, while those offering advice have their own lack of perfection.
Let’s see where Bob goes from here in the next verse.
Can we just lay back for a moment
Before we wake up and find ourselves in a daze that’s got us out of our minds?
There must be something we’re overlooking here
We better drop down now and get back behind the lines
There’s some things not fit for human ears
Some things don’t need to be discussed
Oh, darlin’, can we keep it between us?
In the above stanza, Bob sings, “Can we just lay back for a moment.” Here he’s asking for time to experience the feelings that the two lovers have shared. These feelings, the singer says, don’t need to be discussed, though they may reveal something of value not noticed before. The two lovers’ shared experiences may yet offer some guidance on how to lovingly move forward.
The next few lines Bob expresses concerns about how much one can trust those who learn about the problems with his relationship.
They’ll tell you one thing and me another
’Til we don’t know who to trust
Oh, darlin’, can we keep it between us?
The final two verses express the fear that involving others that lack knowing the true inner feelings of the lovers will be harmful.
Let’s keep it between us
Before it all snaps and goes too far
If we can’t deal with this by ourselves
Tell me we ain’t worse off than they think we are
Backseat drivers don’t know the feel of the wheel
But they sure know how to make a fuss
Oh, darlin’, can we keep it between us?Can we keep it between us?
Thoughts
Bob’s expressive singing, music, and words powerfully capture some issues relevant to two lovers working through sensitive problems. Taking time to be mindful of the feelings of both partners is essential for maintaining love relationships. Combining them with more rational type arguments are often the most helpful approach.
Although not addressed in the song, in my opinion, there are some occasions in which it might make sense to consider conferring with a respected adviser such as a professional counselor. But a deep listening beforehand of how your partner feels about sharing certain information is an essential part of any process designed to effectively and lovingly resolve conflicts.
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Some people will enjoy reading this blog by beginning with the first post and then moving forward to the next more recent one; then to the next one; and so on. This permits readers to catch up on some ideas that were presented earlier and to move through all of the ideas in a systematic fashion to develop their emotional and social intelligence. To begin at the very first post you can click HERE.
Recently, I happened to be listening to Paul McCartney’s fine album, Egypt Station, and my emotions were stirred up by the straight away rocker, “Who Cares.” The first stanza, with its driving beat, sets up its theme:
With “Who Cares”, I was thinking about a song where you actually are talking to the people who may listen to it. And in my case I was imagining young fans, or young people who might hear this, and who are going through some sort of problem where they’re being picked on, being put on.
Now it just so happens that this blog has extensively discussed ways to skillfully respond to this type of experience (see 
Who cares what the idiots say
For example, I once worked in a juvenile correctional facility and some of those confined there had, when feeling they had been insulted, violently attacked the insulter. Both of the parties in the exchange ended up physically hurt. Moreover, their physical violence led to the costly consequences of dealing with the justice system. So, relative to the violent approaches, Sir Paul’s is, in my opinion, way preferable.
Although, better than some strategies, here at From Insults To Respect, I’ve been advocating that readers add another tool to their resolving conflicts toolbox to deal with insults. What I mean by this is that I’m not suggesting throwing out of your toolbox the approach Paul’s song describes, for you may, after considering the situation, decide it is the one that makes the best sense. However, by adding to your toolbox the following approach, you may discover that many situations can be handled in a far better manner.
Consider the possible benefits of not concluding right off the bat that the insulter is an idiot. Instead, you seek to transform any disrespect the insulter might have for you into him or her liking and respecting you. This involves taking up the attitude of a detective seeking to find out why the person had decided to seek to insult you, and then using some easy to learn techniques to skillfully respond to what you find out.
The first thing you do with this alternative approach is to shift into your detective attitude. You notice the guy doesn’t appear truly angry, and maybe he has a little twinkle in his eye. You then recall he throws out similar insults to others in a similar manner. 
The detective in you now guesses that this guy likes to throw out insults in a playful way to light a little spark in his relationships. Now that you have this theory in mind, instead of walking away with the attitude that this guy is an idiot, you smile at him, showing him you can gracefully take a little kidding without getting defensive. He ends up also smiling.
Consider another example. This time when you receive the insult, the detective in you recognizes that you have angered the person because you did make some type of mistake. Rather than walking away with the attitude that the insulter is an idiot, you decide, instead, to agree in a caring manner that you did make a mistake, express that you are sorry, and ask if there is some way you can make it up to the person. The insulter ends up appreciating that you are willing to take the responsibility for making a mistake, and respects you more for having done so.
Then, listening in a caring manner to the insulter, and then summarizing what is said shows the insulter you care enough to take seriously what the issues are, and by doing so you can often quickly turn an angry fellow into someone who greatly likes and respects you.
‘Cause you’re worth much more
As I write this, it is a few days before Christmas. The season finds me increasing my tips at restaurants. Somehow, in some vague kind of way, I kind of respect myself for doing so. I wonder why?
I know this first hand because during my Brooklyn College days I drove a taxi a couple of nights each week and during the holiday season people tipped me way better than usual. Is there something about this season that leads us to be more altruistic? There is a research study that suggests this is so.
Written by Mathias Ekström and published in the Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, 
In the psychological literature, there are basically two types of helping behaviors. The first is viewed as being activated by social expectations; the other—altruism—is viewed as being activated by self-expectations.
Altruism, in contrast, is activated by self-expectations. Information about another’s need leads to the activation of internalized values or norms regardless of external reinforcement. Altruism is behavior that is intended solely to benefit others and not to gain material or social rewards.
My generation was the first to benefit from the vaccine Dr. Jonas Salk came up with to prevent these awful infections, and he was hailed as a “miracle worker.” Later, I hurt my leg in a football game and to my extreme distress, I couldn’t walk on it. The doctor I went to took an x-ray and saw I had broken my fibula. He put a cast on my leg, and three months later, I was starring on my high school baseball team with absolutely no pain. Grateful for preventing polio infections and healing my leg, coupled with the respect others in my community had for medical doctors, I had become primed to think that the same model would be helpful for psychological concerns.
In the courses that taught principles of science, I began to see that the definition of “mental disorder” and the various types of “mental disorders” are seriously flawed. Studies were coming out indicating that doctors looking at the same data about a case did not reliably come up with the same diagnosis. When reliability is low, so too must be validity according to well established principles of statistics. 
Meanwhile, the chemical imbalance theory that had been viewed as support for the notion that these concerns were illnesses just like physical illnesses proved to be unsupported by the evidence. In courses on the history of psychology, I learned that utilizing the medical model for psychological concerns led to lobotomies, shock treatment, and drug treatments that, from my scientific literature review, convinced me that they resulted in far more harm than good.
Although they don’t prescribe drugs as a treatment approach, to their dismay, in order to have a viable professional practice, they are required to utilize the same invalid medical jargon as drug prescribing doctors because insurance companies require for reimbursement a mental disorder “diagnoses.”
In one of my classes I began to learn about Abraham Maslow, who had recently been elected president of the American Psychological Association. Rather than treating people as a bag of mental disorder symptoms, he focussed on identifying people who exhibited the most mature aspects of life, and he looked to see how these developed. He referred to those at this highest developmental level as self-actualized.
From Maslow’s model, a major impediment to reaching the highest level of maturity is not having one’s basic needs met. So, in addition to providing a safe place for my clients to get emotional support, which is one basic need, I also focussed on coming up with my clients plans that can better achieve their other basic needs. For example, when seeing someone who was dealing with poverty, and therefore was insecure about food and shelter issues, we would work on a career development plan.
I made a lot of TV shows with a variety of actors, each one depicting a scenario in which someone responded to criticism.
When I showed these videos to students in conflict resolution classes that I had been teaching, they rated the actors who displayed responses to criticism in a style consistent with the higher levels as more likable, respected, and mature.
He then discussed several studies that found life skills and success after the completion of formal education are more closely related to psychological maturity than to scholastic aptitude or grade point achievement. For example, a Ford Foundation study followed for over 16 years a group of “at risk students” who had scholastic aptitude scores about 150 points below average for college students. Estimates of their psychological maturity by counselors and principals when these students were in high school were a more effective predictor of success than their academic record, not only for college itself, but also in the following years.
Finally, Dr. Sprinthall summarized six studies that provide support for the contention that certain education programs can be designed to successfully promote psychological maturity. In all of them, those in the experimental maturity promoting programs improved their level of psychological maturity; those who were not in these programs did not.
Given these findings, I found myself in recent years taking to heart something psychologist George A. Miller promoted in a 
Psychological maturity is “better” in the long run, it considers more variables, and represents more comprehensive cognitive problem solving. Individuals who tend to act at higher levels of psychological maturity can think more critically, logically, and scientifically while acting civilly to people with whom they disagree; they can graciously admit they are wrong when information comes in supporting such a conclusion; they welcome receiving criticism, respond without getting defensive, though they know it can be emotionally concerning for them; they are hesitant to provide uninvited criticism, only doing so when they can formulate it in a way that promises to be specific enough to be helpful, and they do so without insulting tones of voice or name calling; they can role-play and empathize with the emotions of a wide variety of human beings and can process moral dilemmas according to standards of democratic justice and the golden rule; they understand that melancholy and anxiety, rather than symptoms of mental disorders, are part of the natural process of addressing concerns about losses and fears; and they have the ability to puzzle through the tough problems of living, to take a stand, and yet to remain open to possible revisions and new information—thus demonstrating a capacity to make successive approximations toward more efficient, effective, economical, and beautiful accomplishments.
As you might imagine, people who are viewed as wise tend to be more respected than people who are viewed as foolish. With that in mind, let’s take a look at a few suggestions for improving our wisdom.
“Much better…if our companion views a thing in a light different from what we do, to leave him in quiet possession of his view. What is the use of rectifying him if the thing be unimportant; and if important let it pass for the present, and wait a softer moment and more conciliatory occasion of revising the subject together.”
So, when deciding whether to acquiesce to the opinions of others, remaining silent, or taking up the challenge of presenting your alternative views, consider the wisdom of first assessing if the person you are interacting with has an “open minded” or “close minded” personality.
Therefore, when with people you don’t yet know whether or not they are open minded and you hear them express an opinion with which you disagree, you might want to first assess where they are on this open minded-close minded continuum. This can be easily done by you by first summarizing their opinion, showing an interest by asking a few clarifying questions, and then saying something like, “I heard a different opinion about this topic, and I’d like to get your reaction.” Then, after briefly describing the alternative view, see if the person indicates an openness to discuss this. If he or she starts to get defensive by saying something like, “That’s stupid,” and, “Only idiots think that way,” it may be wise to take the discussion no further.
Notice that with this approach, you don’t initially claim that the alternative position is correct, or that it is something you firmly believe, thus avoiding leading people you are talking with to feel you have attacked them for their belief.
In many social situations, if you find that you don’t enjoy them, it is a simple matter to avoid them in the future. Not so in many workplace situations, or at school where attending is mandatory. Also, when invited to a social party, you may want to keep getting invited to future parties with these folks even if some of the attendees are not your cup of tea. This may be so because you enjoy most of the attendees, or your regular participation at attending provides valuable information about what is going on in the neighborhood.
Then, over the next few days, search on the internet, or go to the library to find some well thought out views on each of the topics by some respected writers. Seek to find some great writers who have different views on the same topic.
When this research is complete to your satisfaction, write out what you want to say about the topic with an eye of balancing short term and long term goals, and how different situations might call for different approaches. Your opening paragraph is best framed as something you can say in a couple of minutes. Finally, have someone you respect critique what you wrote. By doing this, your comments at your social gathering will tend to be far wiser than if you just jump into expressing your opinion without utilizing this technique.
When you do provide your opinion, begin by noting that you have found that different respected authorities have come to very different conclusions on this topic. Be prepared to be able to summarize these different views, but your opening statement is best kept to the one or two minute paragraph that you crafted when you wrote out your entire position, because typically people don’t appreciate a long lecture. If people you are talking with are really interested in delving into the topic, they will make some reply, perhaps presenting an alternative view.
After giving others an ample opportunity to comment, you can then provide more of your opinion in a two or three minute segment. Then, once again, let others respond, and continue in this give and take manner. Present your own conclusions in a humble, tentative manner, while remaining open to hearing critiques of what you offer. Avoid, getting defensive, and if someone raises a good point that you have not yet considered, reply humbly with a statement such as, “I think there is some merit in what you have said.” Then summarize it, and say, “I’d like to give this some thought and then I’ll get back to you.”
Wisdom is a prized characteristic. Avoiding angering close minded people for no substantially good reason is one technique that can raise the estimate of your wisdom. Utilizing the “Summarize and Delay” technique will not only increase how others view your wisdom, it may also very well actually increase your wisdom. In your discussion, avoid coming off like you are trying to humiliate those with different views. Rather, empathize with them, and above all, be kind.
On this blog, we have been exploring the various characteristics that help people earn self-respect and respect from others. Today we focus on one of these–staying in physical and emotional shape by taking a daily walk. It is, of course, true enough that some good people have earned an enormous amount of respect even without bothering to stay fit, but let’s not have such cases deter us from at least considering the value of enhancing our respectability by engaging regularly in this financially free activity.
Just this past week the 
Welcome back to Theme Time Radio Hour, and you will have to forgive me if I sound a little out of breath. I just got back from my morning constitutional. A good walk is important for both body and soul. 
Friedrich Nietzsche once said, “All truly great thoughts are conceived by walking.” Aldous Huxley said his father considered a walk among the mountains the equivalent of church going. And the father of democracy, Thomas Jefferson, was known to say, “Of all exercises walking is the best.” 
All the world, and all through history, people have known the benefits and joys of walking. So today we’ll be walking on the air, but we will not be walking on eggshells. If you’re walking the dog, or you can walk on water, or walk on clouds, or walk in rhythm, or just walk and not look back, you are going to enjoy the next hour as we play a musical accompaniment to your perambulations. So, get ready to walk the walk, and talk the talk.
Immediately after this delightful intro, Bob plays us a Jack Scott rockabilly song called “The Way He Walks.” There’s some fine harmonizing on this one.
The average person takes between 8,000 and 10,000 steps a day, and walks about 115,000 miles in their lifetime. Wow, that’s more than four times around the world. 
And then he launches into a great hit by Fat’s Domino, “I’m Walkin.’” Here are some of the lyrics:
The next song Bob plays for us has a similar theme, “Walking by Myself” by Jimmie Rogers.
Some of my blog posts are designed to help readers improve their skill at providing negative criticism. In them, I present a system of rating the maturity of each incident (see 
Below you will find preliminary descriptions of how people at five developmental levels of maturity provide negative criticism, that is, criticism that points out what we don’t like about someone’s actions, beliefs, or appearance. Level one is conceptualized as the most immature and uses observations of babies as its starting point. Each successive level is viewed according to this system as more mature.
In an August 16, 2021 tweet, given shortly after President Biden gave a speech explaining how the withdrawing of U.S. military forces from Afghanistan was going, Rep. Liz Cheney, who has on numerous occasions argued that we should remain in Afghanistan, wrote:
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, on August 16, 2021, which was squarely in the middle of the withdrawal process, called the events unfolding in Afghanistan “the worst foreign policy disaster in decades.” He went on from there to say:
My personal rating of this type of criticism is a 1, the lowest possible rating, because McCarthy never acknowledges the actual role that Biden has in this withdrawal process. Biden had simply decided to back the position of the vast majority of Americans that after 20 years it was time to end the war. Once this was decided, it was up to the generals who were actually in Afghanistan, knew best what the situation was there, had the best U.S. training on how to withdraw from a war zone, had ample time to come up with a withdrawal plan, and had the responsibility to implement the plan.
Well, there you have it, a little practice session utilizing the rating system. I hope it has helped to clarify for you how to formulate mature negative criticism, and when to remain silent. By improving these skills, I’m guessing it will improve the respect others have for you, and help you to avoid needlessly creating hard feelings.
Today, most people conceptualize the main issues of the conflict pretty much like the independent, nonpartisan think tank 
The biblical story of Moses describes a narrative that is helpful for understanding this theory. After struggling to survive for forty years in the desert that lies between Egypt and Israel, Moses’ weary followers come to view, off in the distance, the “land of milk and honey.” Moses then tells his Jewish people that God has declared that this land can belong to them if they kill all of the people currently living there. Even though the inhabitants of this desirable land had never done the desert wanderers any harm, they choose to engage in the brutal slayings.
The Pulitzer Prize winning historian, David McCullough, has acquired a set of relevant information.
And then George Washington, with the support from others, opened the vast Northwest Territory to pioneers who were willing to face incredible risks, hard work, and, like Moses’ followers, kill the natives of the region so they could gain ownership of a piece of property that had an ample water supply and fertile land.
We had landed sick among strangers, with no well-known friend to meet us with kindly greeting, and myself destined to be confined to bed from which, for a time, there seemed little hope that I should ever rise in health. Such was our introduction to pioneer life. 
To risk your own life along with that of your wife and children would typically be viewed as terribly wrong under most situations. Typically viewed as terribly wrong is the willing killing of fellow human beings because you want the land they are living on. To choose to do all of this while also knowing that the life you are heading toward involves backbreaking work may seem crazy to most of us, but such was the decision made by the hundreds of thousands of pioneers, all of this for a piece of rich land they could call their own. Please note that these pioneers were not Muslims, but Christians. For those who think the cause of the current Middle East is due the Muslim faith, please keep this in mind.
In the land where Israelis and Palestinians are living, there are regions where we see land beside the beautiful Mediterranean Sea. There, many people are thriving. Their jobs support seafood harvesting, international trade, and tourists arriving on ships. There are a few other regions where the inhabitants do very well, such as where the religious sites are. There, tourists flock, and by engaging in the restaurant, tour guide, and hotel industries, many in the region make out very well. 
There are also regions where the land is relatively fertile, and life on farms can be rather fulfilling. Regions in which universities and other educational institutions that have sprung up tend to be laid out on fairly attractive grounds. Earning a living by supporting these facilities tends to lead to a reasonably comfortable way of life.
The rest of the area is dominated by the Negev desert and the Judean desert. More than half of the region’s total land area is desert.
The other area where most Palestinians live is the West Bank, which is mostly rugged dissected upland, with some vegetation in the west, but somewhat barren in the east. In springtime, the khamsini, a dry, warm easterly wind, often blows from the extensive deserts of Jordan, Syria, and Saudi Arabia. This continues for a period of roughly fifty days. The khamsini carries fine desert sand that lends the sultry air an ominous yellow hue during the day. The desert sand falls to the ground as a result of short rain showers. The fine sand is a health hazard for people suffering from bronchitis, and is detrimental to vegetation, motors, and machinery.
The water situation in Palestine (the West Bank and Gaza Strip) is dire and it affects the quality of life, health and economic situation of every Palestinian. In some rural areas the water supply is far below the amount recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO). Where most of the Israelis live, the water situation is somewhat better, but it is far more expensive to keep it flowing than what most Americans and Europeans have to deal with.
After World War II, no nation was willing to take any but a tiny few of the Jewish survivors of the Holocaust. Where could those now living in Israel go if they are pushed out of Israel? The answer leads them to hold on to the land they currently possess for dear life.
Add to all of this, the fact that these Palestinians are living in one of the most densely populated regions in the world. Moreover, they know the population there is rapidly growing. So, it is pretty clear to everyone living in this region that life for their children is likely to get worse.
Although different reasons are given for these violent conflicts, according to my theory, the real central reason was that the have nots who were being pushed out toward the more desert parts of this region could readily see from views up in the hills those who were living in the dramatically better lands; this aroused violently strong desires to obtain what they did not have–fertile land with ample water.
There we find a vibrant neighborhood officially known as Bay Ridge, but it has been given the nickname “Little Palestine.” Thousands of Arab-Americans live there. They have their share of rally’s advocating the freeing of Palestine, but they are peaceful. Another neighborhood, Bensonhurst, is an easy walk from Bay Ridge. Thousands of Jews live there, and yet there are no rockets being fired from Bay Ridge into Bensonhurst. Nor do we find any of the Arab-Americans flinging rocks at anyone. 
Recently, these Jews and Arabs marched shoulder to shoulder with one another and with their Black brothers in support of Black Lives Matter.
Then there are the numerous tree-lined streets and green, wooded Prospect Park with rowers enjoying its lovely lake. If these people want to grow some vegetables or fruit trees in their back yard, there is plenty of rich soil that can be brought to the task and rain is normally sufficient. However, for brief dry periods, if these people want to water their garden with a hose, that is perfectly permitted. For those folks who don’t live in a house with a backyard, they typically have jobs that put the purchase of such a home within reach, if not for themselves, then at least for their children.
If these people happen to fall on hard times and can’t afford to continue to live in Brooklyn, they know they could move across the Hudson River onto the New Jersey side where it is a bit more affordable. If Jersey is a little too densely populated for their taste, there are a total of fifty states that they can freely move. Throughout the US are numerous regions sparsely inhabited, and no passport is required to go there. In my view, this knowledge takes the edge off of any disagreements Arab-Americans and Jews might face.
It is now over seventy years since the United Nations General Assembly declared its majority recommendation that Palestine be partitioned into separate Jewish and Arab states, and both sides have been violently fighting over this ever since. It is not that there is something inherently evil about Palestinian or Jewish people. When Jews were seeking to establish the Israel lands as theirs, a group of them organized a terrorist organization. Palestinians have found that sections of their population are willing to carry out terrorists acts. Why can’t this be settled peacefully? If my theory is correct, it doesn’t matter if you are Palestinian, Jewish, Christian or anything else. When any people find themselves living on lands that is too hard to thrive, some of them will act violently to seek a better life. Blaming such groups, viewing them as being entirely evil serves nothing but to further hate and distractions.
As each school year begins I like to once again post this discussion of how I would rate a school district’s handling of an incident in which a bus monitor was taunted by some middle school children during their bus ride home.
Nevertheless, when I heard the district say, “The Greece Central School District has a clear Code of Conduct and all staff and students have been fully trained,” I found myself cringing. In my opinion, if a bus monitor makes a referral about tormenting and bullying on the bus, if the monitor is left feeling that nothing is done, something is seriously wrong.
Feeling depressed? If so, you may decide to consult with a psychiatrist or other medical doctor. By doing so, chances are your description of your feelings will be translated into a language of symptoms, diagnosis, and mental illness, and you will leave the doctor’s office with a prescription for pills marketed as “antidepressants.” Unfortunately, this medicalization approach is so inconsistent with scientific evidence that many people view it as a remarkably successful flimflam funded by the enormously wealthy pharmaceutical industry.
To throw light on this, today’s post briefly summarizes the scientific theory that runs counter to the mainstream psychiatric pathologizing “antidepressant” approach. Then, it addresses the question, Are doctors and the pharmaceutical industry supporting the pathologizing of depression really engaging in deliberate deception?
A few weeks ago I presented a 
Moreover, our findings suggest that these relationships are at least partly mediated by negative self-evaluations that people have when they experience undesired emotions. Attempts to promote the value of feeling good over the value of feeling bad by emphasizing social norms for these emotions may therefore have the effect of making people feel bad more often.
Psychologist William James, back in 1902, in his classic book, The Varieties of Religious Experience, provides us a ton of such examples. Most of them involve a religious conversion experience, but James also provides examples that appear to be a result of “…the eruption into the individual’s life of some new stimulus or passion, such as love, ambition, cupidity, revenge, or patriotic devotion.”
A recent 
Depression is an adaptation that evolved because it keeps organisms focused on (ruminating about) complex social issues until they can be resolved and that medications work not so much by addressing a nonexistent deficit in neurotransmitters in the synapse as by perturbing underlying regulatory mechanisms to the point that they reassert homeostatic control over those systems. If the latter is true then medications may work to suppress symptoms in a manner that leaves the underlying episode unaddressed and patients at elevated risk of relapse whenever they are taken away. 
For example, he describes studies that demonstrate depressed individuals who are treated to remission with cognitive therapy are less than half as likely to relapse following treatment termination as a matched group of depressed folks treated to remission with antidepressant medications. He goes on from here to argue that some people have trouble working through their depression efficiently because they misinterpret life events in a negative fashion and that cognitive therapy helps them examine the accuracy of their beliefs, and by so doing it relieves their distress more quickly. Prof. Hollon goes on to say, “it 
Although Prof. Hollon focusses on the benefits of cognitive therapy, other research has found that counseling that focusses on resolving interpersonal problems, and humanistic approaches to therapy that empathetically values what each person is going through, are also often helpful. Such approaches avoid the numerous side effects of “antidepressants” and the awful withdrawal reactions that occur upon ending one’s reliance on drug treatment.
As long as the drug has been approved by the FDA for depression, then I’m willing to give it a try with my patients. In time, I carefully monitor whether or not the drug is being helpful. With the antidepressants most of my patients have done well on them, and several have told me it has saved their life. I also want to add that the leading experts in the field support the use of these antidepressants as first line treatments for depression and argue that it would be malpractice to not prescribe them to depressed patients. Even if I was to agree with your research analysis, I could not risk getting sued for malpractice.
As far as the pharmaceutical industry engaging in a flimflam, here I have little first hand knowledge to draw any firm conclusions. My knowledge chiefly comes from reading The Truth About the Drug Companies: How They Deceive Us And What To Do About It. It was written by Marcia Angell, M.D., the former editor in chief of the prestigious medical journal The New England Journal of Medicine and she is currently a member of Harvard Medical School’s Department of Social Medicine. I came away from reading her book thinking that the enormous profit motive in the industry does lead to substantial bias in how research is carried out and the information they provide to medical doctors.
I do think the FDA does serve a valuable function for evaluating treatments for diseases that have clearly objective criteria for identifying their existence. For example, when patients who have a cancerous tumor, it can be objectively seen by doctors with the use of an imaging device. How large each of the patient’s tumor is can be assessed objectively by measuring its circumference. In a clinical trial that has half of the patients randomly assigned to a group that gets a placebo, and the other half to a new drug, if, after three months, the placebo group’s subjects tend to have tumors that grew larger, while those getting the new drug have shrunk, this shows a clear benefit for the drug treatment.
Unlike these types of objectively identifiable conditions, with depression doctors rely on a subjective indication of effectiveness, that is, a conversation. Moreover, the studies that the FDA looked at to approve the “antidepressants” were done with patients who took the actual drugs for a mere few weeks, even though doctors regularly advocate that their patients take the drug for far longer, often for the rest of their life. It is the long term studies that came out after the FDA approval process that has begun to indicate that these drugs are likely to be worse than non-drug approaches.
Recall that doctors often will defend their use of “antidepressant” by saying, “With the antidepressants, most of my patients have done well on them, and several have told me it has saved their life.” The problem with this, as noted earlier in this post, is that people with depression spontaneously recover at a high rate even without treatment. It is this fact that leads to the doctor’s misattribution.
Consider another example. Dr. Smith has prescribed an “antidepressant” for depressed patient Marc. Not feeling any better despite taking the drug for several weeks, Dr. Smith tells Mark, “It takes time for the drug to have an effect, so give it a little more time.” A few more weeks go by with no improvement, so Dr. Smith tells Marc, the dose of the drug needs a little adjustment because some folks need a little more than others. When a few more weeks go by with no improvement, Dr. Smith responds by prescribing a different “antidepressant.”
I have presented the case that medical doctors typically genuinely believe their prescriptions for”antidepressants” are effective, and therefore are not deliberately seeking to mislead their patients in order to make more money. Their process of coming to their belief about the effectiveness of these types of drugs is indeed deeply flawed, but a quality evaluation appears to be a too arduous process for each doctor to perform. I have heard that in my area doctors in medical practice for a medical company find their company advocates each patient be seen for a mere few minutes. I do think medical doctors must understand that their drug information is coming from people selling the drugs. Although I respect doctors for their life saving efforts, I would respect them more if they would ban together and hire a team of epidemiologists to provide an independent evaluation of the risk and benefits of these treatments.
When I discuss problems with the “antidepressant” approach for dealing with depression, some folks who are currently taking such drugs sometimes decide to stop taking their pills. Suddenly stopping them all at once can be risky because of a variety of distressing withdrawal reactions possibly including waves of suicidal feelings. For help in deciding on the safest way to go about the withdrawal process, I recommend tapping into Mad In America’s “Drug Withdrawal Resources” page (see 