Categories
conflict resolution criticism free social intelligence and emotional intelligence curriculum Freedom

Criticism and the Desire to Maintain Freedom

Welcome to From Insults to Respect. In my last blog post, we discussed how criticism often leads to an angry conflict related to the desire to be liked. We now turn to another reason why criticism often leads to a conflict — the desire to maintain freedom.

No photo description available.Back in 1966, psychologist Jack W. Brehm published a remarkable book entitled, A Theory of Psychological Reactance. In a nutshell, it states that people become motivationally aroused by a threat to or elimination of a behavioral freedom. This motivational state is what is called psychological reactance.

Psychological reactance impels the individual to restore the freedom that was threatened or taken away. There may be two manifestations of the occurrence of reactance: actual attempts to restore freedom and increased perceived attractiveness of the lost or threatened option.

Dr. Brehm argued that people tend to ask themselves, “If he does this to me, what can’t he do?” That is, when one freedom is threatened or taken away, many freedoms logically could be in danger, and they presumably will be perceived as threatened unless there is an explicit and convincingly stated limit.

Dr. Brehm has provided the following example:

Two or three years ago when services at the Library of Congress were reduced because of the budget squeeze, users of the library screamed bloody murder. My guess is that while some users may have been inconvenienced, the real strength of their response came from the implied threat to all their uses of the library. After all, if certain services could be reduced, then what was to prevent those services from being eliminated altogether or other services from being reduced or eliminated?[1]

Now let’s apply this theory of reactance to the frequent observation that criticism often leads to defensiveness.

In this comic strip, we see Lucy is mighty upset because her mother criticized her for being bad and then paired this with a punishment — cancelling her birthday party. This pairing of criticism and punishment is so common when kids are growing up that it may be the reason why many folks have a difficult time dealing with criticism even when it is unlikely to lead in a particular situation to punishment.

The association of punishment and criticism perhaps has become so ingrained from early childhood, that without even realizing it, many become defensive and resist criticism.

We see, in this comic, Lucy trying to resist her mother’s punishment, and when Linus criticizes Lucy’s response to her mother, Lucy cries out that she would rather die than go along with it.

The threat to both desires, being liked and doing whatever the hell we like, apparently are major reasons why criticism is so hard to bear. The tough feelings that come about has led to a philosophy of many folks that they should discourage anyone from providing criticism to them by their righteous defensiveness.

John Stuart Mill published a brilliant book back in 1859, titled On Liberty, and it is still revered by millions. He presents a very different philosophy. According to Mr. Mill, if people criticize us, even for holding an opinion we are very sure of, “let us thank them for it, open our minds to listen to them, and rejoice…”  Mr. Mill does not just declare that this is so; rather, he spends many pages explaining the reasons for his position. He points to many people who were quite certain of a position and after hearing counterarguments came to realize they had been mistaken. Many people, for example, once believed with complete certainty that the Earth is flat but came to change their minds when they met up with people who criticized their belief using sound evidence.

Although it would distract us for too long to review all of Mr. Mill’s examples and arguments, I would like you to consider carefully one of his finest paragraphs.

John Stewart Mill

“In the case of any person whose judgment is really deserving of confidence, how has it become so? Because he has kept his mind open to criticism of his opinions and conduct. Because it has been his practice to listen to all that could be said against him; to profit by as much of it as was just, and expound to himself, and upon occasion to others, the fallacy of what was fallacious. Because he has felt, that the only way in which a human being can make some approach to knowing the whole of a subject, is by hearing what can be said about it by persons of every variety of opinion, and studying all modes in which it can be looked at by every character of mind. No wise man ever acquired his wisdom in any mode but this; nor is it the nature of human intellect to become wise in any other manner. The steady habit of correcting and completing his own opinion by collating it with those of others, so far from causing doubt and hesitation in carrying it into practice, is the only stable foundation for a just reliance on it: for, being cognizant of all that can, at least obviously, be said against him, and having taken up his position against all gainsayers knowing that he has sought for objections and difficulties, instead of avoiding them, and has shut out no light which can be thrown upon the subject from any quarter—fie has a right to think his judgment better than that of any person, or any multitude, who have not gone through a similar process.”

In my view, some people, when they criticize us, sometimes do provide us with information and ideas that we had not been previously aware of. And even when some people criticize us and provide us with information and ideas that strike us as false, we are still likely to be better off in the end. The very process we go through of putting some ideas together so that we can articulate why we hold their information and ideas as false has a way of organizing and deepening our understanding in a helpful manner.

For me, personally, having been quite defensive in my earlier years, taking up this aspect of Mill’s philosophy has led to far more pleasant exchanges. In fact, I often find it fun. And I like that it moves me more to an authoritative approach in contrast to an authoritarian approach. There are times when I do get a hit of angst, but it is received with confidence that I can use the angst to deepen my search to find a better response.

What would a response to criticism look like that is consistent with this type of philosophy? Here’s my take on this.

The person being criticized listens to the criticizer in a supportive, warm, friendly style, and then makes it clear that he or she fully understands what was said by summarizing it. The person, moreover, puts the criticizer at ease by  indicating the wise learn from criticism. Some time is spent on showing that he or she is thinking about the criticism. If, after processing, the criticism is deemed to be correct, a statement is frankly made indicating, “I can see your ideas have merit and I intend to use them in the future.” If, after processing, the criticism is deemed to be incorrect, a statement is made designed to disagree without being disagreeable. More specifically, a sense of humor, some empathic listening, and a few smiles help to traverse rough terrain. As the episode winds down, the criticizer is encouraged to feel comfortable communicating suggestions in the future.

As it happens, I have found that people who respond to criticism in this way are more liked and respected than those who instead become defensive. Moreover, over the years of my teaching conflict resolution and counseling folks, I have found that most people can easily learn to respond to criticism in this more positive manner even if they had spent years responding defensively.

The training needed to make that change is simple and free. Over a two month period, once a week reserve fifteen minutes at a convenient time to imagine someone has criticized you. Write how you think you might respond. Not just the words you might say, but how you might feel, and also how defensive your words might be perceived. Then, reread the description of the type of response I described above in italics. Then, three times, out loud, provide a response to the criticism that is consistent with that description. After two months, make an appointment with a friend or family member to help you out. Show the helper the italicized response description, and then have the helper make up some criticism of you, and have her or him use it in a role-play in which you are criticized, and you respond. Use your phone camera to record it. Then, while watching the video recording, ask your helper to criticize how well your response matches the italicized paragraph. Do this exercise one more time about a week later, and you will be amazed at how easy you will be able to handle criticism in the future.

[1] J. W. Brehm [1989], “Psychological Reactance: Theory and Applications,” in Advances in Consumer Research, Volume 16, eds. Thomas K. Srull, Provo, UT : Association for Consumer Research, Pages: 72-75

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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 intelligence. To begin at the very first post you can click HERE.

Categories
conflict resolution criticism

Criticism and the Desire to be Liked

Welcome to From Insults to Respect.

When someone provides criticism anger often ensues.

The above comic offers us a fine example. Why is Sally getting so angry over her brother’s comment? Could it have to do with the desire to be liked and loved?

For many of us, not being liked or loved is the worst thing imaginable. When you’re around someone who likes you, oftentimes that makes life more pleasant.

People don’t only desire to be liked, they also desire that people like their clothes, their appearance, and their acts as well.

There is within natural selection theory a hypothesis about why people feel so strongly about being liked. This hypothesis states that people have an inborn fear of not being liked because in some ancient cultures someone not liked would be banished from the tribe, and those banished would be less likely to survive in the harsh environs of the day than those who were not banished. It is also possible that people are more likely to help others who are liked, and this too provides an increase chance of survival.

The anxiety of not being loved as much as you desire, when coupled with the fear that accompanies the image of being all on your own can be so uncomfortable that it leads individuals to do some creative acts to ward off these feelings.

For me the following poem by Emily Dickinson beautifully captures what may be going on inside of us when we feel the sense of not being loved:

Emily Dickinson

There is a pain — so utter —
It swallows substance up —
Then covers the Abyss with Trance —
So Memory can step
Around — across — upon it —
As one within a Swoon —
Goes safely — where an open eye —
Would drop Him— Bone by Bone.

Here Dickinson talks about a pain so utter it swallows substance up and then covers the abyss with trance. The experience of being unloved and all alone is like this. Any act that reminds an individual of these feelings can provoke defensiveness.

Many people don’t like it when they are criticized and begin to take some action to discourage it. In our Peanuts comic, Sally feels her brother is wrong for not liking her swirls, and perhaps attached to those feelings is fear of not being liked. Why else would she act so strongly about her brother’s comment?

By more deeply understanding why people can react so strongly to criticism, we can see better how to deal with them. For example, if Charlie Brown indeed likes his sister, he would be wise to consider if there is any value to letting her know this more often than he has been doing. A comment from time to time such as, “You know Sally, you’re my sister and I love you a whole bunch,” could be very helpful to fulfill her desire to be liked.

Another approach Charlie Brown could try is to begin to teach Sally that he can still like her even if he doesn’t think what she did on some occasion was great. We can love the person even when we don’t love the act the person has carried out. If Charlie Brown would help Sally to fulfill her desire to be liked on a regular basis by using these techniques, the recurring conflict that involves her desire to be liked may come up less frequently when he criticizes her. He would have to try it out to test this hypothesis, but it at least gives Charlie Brown a plan that has the potential to improve his current situation.

Being aware of the connection between the desire to be liked and criticism also helps us to be aware that sometimes it is better not to criticize someone in front of others. Notice what happens after Charlie Brown criticizes Sally’s swirls and then Sally interprets Snoopy as having also criticized them.

Sally becomes even more upset. When you become threatened because you think that one person doesn’t like you, it becomes even more painful when others gang up on you.

The words Sally uses when she hollers at Snoopy are interesting— “And who asked you?” It suggests that Sally feels that if she did not ask Snoopy for his opinion, he has no right to be giving his opinion. Sally’s view is quite common.

Why aren’t unsolicited negative criticisms welcomed? For many, it hurt because it brings up the feeling of “not being liked.” When we come to realize this, we may pause before giving an opinion, which is a type of criticism, and ask ourselves if it is worth the risk of starting a conflict about being liked.

Now there are occasions when the risk makes sense. Let’s say I’m dating Alison, and it is pretty clear she likes me and that I like her. But there is one thing Alison does that is making me feel like I want to end our relationship—when she criticizes me, she uses a very nasty tone that involves shouting and glares. She hasn’t asked me for my opinion, but I feel that it’s worth a shot to confront her with this because both of us could benefit from solving this problem.

Knowing that when people are criticized it often brings up this recurring “liking” conflict, I could present my comments to her carefully. I can seek to find a time when we are all alone and she appears to be open and relaxed. At that time, I could say, “Alison, I sure like you a lot. I’m very physically attracted to you, you’re smart, and most of the time you treat me in a very caring way that I really love. I am having difficulty with this one problem though. There are times I do something that you don’t like, and when you confront me, you do it in a tone that’s beginning to get to me.”

Notice how I began my comments by reassuring her that I like her and by giving her a few specific examples of what I like about her. This helps to fulfill her desire to be liked. Once this desire is fulfilled to some degree, it can potentially decrease the intensity of the conflict as we attempt to solve the problem.

It’s interesting that some people, even when they realize that providing criticism at a given point in time is not the best thing to be doing, have a hard time refraining. Sometimes we have to work on making changes over a period of time.

Seeing ourselves make mistakes while we are trying to make a change may lead to our criticizing ourselves. Most of us desire to like ourselves. To feel the blues deeply while knowing that mistakes are part of the learning process is a different bluesy feeling than the feeling we get when we think a mistake means we are inherently, unchangeably not likable. The “learning” bluesy feeling is more hopeful. Learning to be kind to yourself when you make a mistake is an important step in learning to be kind to others when you see them make mistakes.

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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 intelligence. To begin at the very first post you can click HERE.

Categories
Blaming President Biden Inflation President Joe Biden

Is Inflation Really Biden’s Fault?

Welcome to From Insults to Respect. Today, we discuss Donald Trump and his supporters taking cheap shots seeking to blame President Biden for inflation. They are doing this despite the overwhelming evidence that countries around the world, regardless of whether they are led by very conservative or liberal governments, have been experiencing inflation. Moreover, it is factually undeniable that the annual inflation rates for dozens and dozens of goods routinely purchased by American households – including food – were already at their highest levels before Biden entered the White House in 2021.

Two reasons for those spikes in prices have to do with the COVID-19 relief spending enacted under Trump’s administration with overwhelming Republican support, and so many people becoming sick from the virus, thereby leading to an inability to obtain sufficient supplies and services. Such shortages, as any economist will be eager to explain, lead to increases in costs. Suppliers, unable to get all of their usual amount of goods to customers, can’t sell as much of those items so they raise prices to make up for the resulting losses, while consumers, struggling to obtain these supplies as well as needed services, are forced to pay more rather than to do without.

Another driver of inflation began in February, 2022 when Russia invaded Ukraine. This created uncertainty in oil and gas markets, leading to spikes in prices, as well as disruptions to food supplies, especially stocks of wheat. These events occurred against a backdrop of record heat waves, floods, and other weather events caused by climate change which exacerbated food shortages in many parts of the world.

In seeking to blame Biden, Trump supporters ignore that it was Trump who appointed Jerome Powell to head the Federal Reserve. Congress approved Powell for the position because of his excellent credentials, and he continues his term under President Biden.

The Federal Reserve has a dual mandate, keeping inflation in check and maximizing employment. Though Republican congressional leaders are blaming Biden for inflation, they are silent about taking any responsibility for approving the person whose actual job is controlling inflation.
That said, don’t think I’m seeking to blame Powell for inflation rather than Biden. I’m confident Powell is doing a competent job under terribly difficult circumstances. But for Trump and congressional leaders to instead blame Biden is, it seems to me, a pretty cheap shot.

If I was a news reporter, every time I heard Trump or a Trump supporting congressional leader blame Biden for inflation, I would look them in the eye and ask, “Do you really think inflation is Biden’s fault?” Oh, I have no doubt that in reply, they will point at one policy or another that may or may not have had some tiny effects on inflation, just as Democrats can similarly do when pointing to policies supported by Trump and his administration.

As for me, I think the respectable thing to do at this point is to ditch the insults and blaming and admit that the Trump and Biden administration, along with congressional leaders all struggled to deal with the incredible challenges of the international pandemic. None of them wanted the country to have inflation, and in seeking to contain it, made the best decisions they could come up with. It’s long time to put all of this blaming behind us and get on with the work that lies ahead.
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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 intelligence. To begin at the very first post you can click HERE.
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Bob Dylan crying grieving

Bob Dylan’s “Baby, Stop Crying”

Welcome to From Insults to Respect. Today, we discuss Bob Dylan’s song, “Baby, Stop Crying.”

According to Wikipedia, it was released in the summer of 1978 as a single and in a longer album version on Street Legal. The song charted at #13 in the UK and was a top-ten song in much of Europe, although it failed to chart in the United States. It features a strong saxophone solo, and a trio of female backup singers, providing a delightful counterpoint to Dylan’s raspy vocal performance.

For our purpose, the song provides excellent emotional jumping off points to discuss crying, and how to deal with it in a respectful manner. The first lines tell us,

You been down to the bottom with a bad man, babeBut you’re back where you belong
Go get me my pistol, babeHoney, I’d ain’t tell right from wrong
Baby, please stop crying, stop crying, stop cryingBaby, please stop crying, stop crying, stop cryingBaby, please stop crying

Here, as I interpret the song, the narrator is in a relationship with a woman. He calls her “babe” and “honey,” indicating affectionate feelings. He sees she has been brought to tears as a result of a relationship with a “bad” man. Although the man is labeled “bad,” the narrator hastens to say he’s not someone who really can tell right from wrong.

I’m not sure why the narrator suddenly is asking for the woman to get his pistol, but Dylan tends to throw into his songs a few inscrutable lyrics. My three guesses of what he is seeking to imply are: it’s meant to heighten the drama of the storyline; that he so can’t stand her crying he’s getting ready to shoot her; or he’s going to shoot the guy who has upset her. In any case, the narrator seeks to reassure his honey that she is now in a place where she belongs. At the same time, he’s pleading with her to please stop crying. Hmmm.

The next set of lines are,

You know, I know, the sun will always shineBut baby, please stop crying ’cause it’s tearing up my mind
Go down to the river, babeHoney, I will meet you there
Go down to the river, babeHoney, I will pay your fare
Baby, please stop crying, stop crying, stop cryingBaby, please stop crying, stop crying, stop cryingBaby, please stop cryingYou know, I know, the sun will always shineBut baby, please stop crying ’cause it’s tearing up my mind
Here, the narrator appears to be trying to cheer up the woman, noting the sun always
shines and he offers to pay for a trip to go down to the river. In literature, references to rivers often suggest a place that can take you to freedom, as is the case for Mark Twain’s story about Huck Finn and his friend Jim who is seeking to escape slavery.
Such efforts to cheer someone up often is well intentioned, but is it always wise? One of my readers, Sonia Perez, when I discussed a similar topic about crying a few years back, wrote:

“The worst thing people do is to try to cheer you up! When we are hurting, sad, lonely etc and we are crying all we need is someone that allows us to have our feelings and show they care…. I need to express what I am experiencing. I don’t need someone to determine when I have cried enough.”
In Bob’s song, the next few lines attempt to capture some of what Sonia is driving at.

If you’re looking for assistance, babeOr if you just want some company
Or if you just want a friend you can talk toHoney, call me and see about me
But then, the narrator again pleads with the woman to please stop crying. I understand that many folks in our society feel uncomfortable when they see someone they care about crying. In our society the pharmaceutical industry is spending millions to convince people that to be sad is some pathological condition requiring medication. One of my readers, Luc Thibaud, expressed some views that sit more comfortably in my heart:

“It’s OK baby, cry if that cry is in you.
Cry as long as you need to.
I won’t interrupt you; As you cry, I cry with you.
Crying won’t hurt, not crying will.
Your eyes are sore, your throat is so full of tears and you choke.
Take your time, blow your nose.
Your tears are holy and magic.
I love you and I understand you perfectly.”
The next several lines of Dylan’s song continue with the narrator pleading for his baby to stop crying and reminding her that the sun will always shine; and then he goes on to say,

You been hurt so many timesAnd I know what you’re thinking of
Well, I don’t have to be no doctor, babeTo see that you’re madly in love
Here, we see what this incident of deep sadness is about, unrequited love. It’s easy for most of us to sympathize with someone going through such an experience. The song’s narrator has it in his heart to do just that, but his honey’s crying is tearing up his mind.

For me, it feels natural to remain present and to communicate that I care when someone I care about is crying. But the fact is, some good, well meaning people find crying begins to wear on their nerves to such an extent that they just can’t bear it any longer. If you are in a relationship with someone and you find that at some point you can’t stand the crying any more, how best to respectfully handle this?

Dr. Jeffrey Rubin

If it was me, I don’t think I would ask her or him to please stop crying. What about saying, instead, something like, “I’m going to take a walk for a few minutes to deal with some feelings that are coming up within me regarding what you are going through.” Then, just before leaving, going over to the person crying, and give a tender kiss on the cheek and a gentle loving touch on the back of the shoulder.

I wonder how others feel about this. I invite your thoughts and expressions of your emotional reactions.

My Best,

Jeff

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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.

Categories
Depression Excercise and depression Music Therapy Treatments for Depression

Got Blues, Get Rhythm

Welcome to From Insults to Respect. 

This week, while thinking about what I might write for my next post, I happened to hear an excellent version of “Get Rhythm” by the rhythm and blues band, NRBQ. The song, written and first performed by Johnny Cash, can set your feet kicking up a storm. The lyrics begin,

Hey, get rhythm when you get the bluesCome on, get rhythm when you get the bluesGet a rock and roll feeling in your bonesPut taps on your toes and get goneGet rhythm when you get the blues

The song goes on from here to tell us that to get rhythm when you have the blues doesn’t cost much and yet “does a million dollars worth of good for you.” This concept particularly caught my attention because just a day before, I had read an article titled, “Exercise Leads to Best Outcomes for Depression.” A summary of the study’s findings stated,

A massive new meta-analysis has found that exercise through walking or jogging is better than antidepressants or cognitive behavioral therapy for treating depression. Antidepressants by themselves were the worst treatment for depression, with effectiveness that overlapped with placebo.

And earlier, I read an article on music therapy that indicates,

This comprehensive summary of SRs [systematic reviews] demonstrated that MT [music therapy] treatment improved the following: global and social functioning in schizophrenia and/or serious mental disorders, gait and related activities in Parkinson’s disease, depressive symptoms, and sleep quality. MT may have the potential for improving other diseases, but there is not enough evidence at present. Most importantly, no specific adverse effect or harmful phenomenon occurred in any of the studies, and MT was well tolerated by almost all patients.

A more recent study focuses specifically on depression:

Individual music therapy combined with standard care is effective for depression among working-age people with depression. The results of this study along with the previous research indicate that music therapy with its specific qualities is a valuable enhancement to established treatment practices.

In past blog posts, I’ve written about the nature of depression (see HERE) and explained that the way we handle such experiences can enhance the respect we have for ourselves and others have for us. In other posts I questioned the effectiveness of antidepressant treatment while expressing concerns about its well documented negative health consequences (see HERE). In contrast to the drug treatment approach, exercise actually enhances physical health while improving a person’s experience of depression. As a result of these thoughts that flowed from listening to “Get Rhythm”, it occurred to me that I have never discussed the value of dance for helping someone struggling with depression. So, here goes.

How Can Dancing be Helpful?

First, if limited money is an issue for you, note that dancing can be done for free. Just put on some music and dance.

Here’s a simple routine that can be fun and provide enough exercise to enhance your health. Play a rhythmic song and vigorously dance to it. After the song, take a break by doing a relaxing task, like reading part of an article or doing some meal preparation. After five minutes of catching your breath, put on another song and dance again. Do this ten times, and you have an excellent healthy fun workout.

To enhance this workout, if you are experiencing some strong negative feelings on the day of your dance workout, while dancing, allow yourself to deeply feel those feelings. Let your dance movements help you to express and release all of the negative energy.

Now, some people are experiencing depression because they are lonely. They might be stuck on how to go about meeting new people. Taking a dance class might be the perfect solution. Others who enjoy dancing will be there. Sharing this common interest while engaging in the physicality of dancing can be a very healthy way to deal with loneliness.

Finally, finding a music therapist is another option. Dancing is just a part of this treatment, but discussions of the poetry of songs, along with the feelings that music brings to the surface, can be a safe and helpful way to deal with troubling experiences.

Well, those are some of my thoughts for this week. Until next time, if you get the blues, get rhythm,

My Best,
Jeff

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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.

Categories
Depression

Is Depression Really So Bad?

Welcome to From Insults to Respect. As this post’s title indicates, today I take up the question, “Is depression really so bad?” In doing so, I imagine many will conclude I must be out of my head or a complete numbskull. My challenging task for today is to see if I can convert such insults to at least a modest degree of respect.

As a start, let me be clear that I recognize and empathize with what I imagine the insulters’ position is likely to be:

Depression is every bit as bad as a majority of folks think it is, and even a whole bunch worse. Depression, these people are likely to point out, leads to some folks ending up committing suicide, or attempting it. Other sufferers of depression will end up being hospitalized at great societal cost, including costs to U.S. employers that has been estimated at $187.8 billion a year. This includes $134 billion in health care (health and mental health combined), $20.9 billion in absenteeism, and $32.9 billion in lost productivity. Finally, the anguish that comes from depression is nothing to make light of.

My case about the degree of badness of depression is worth considering is three pronged: 1. Repeatedly, the evidence indicates people who take antidepressants leads to more suicides and hospitalizations. 2. The available evidence indicates the consequences of using the arguments about suicide and hospitalization to convince people to take antidepressants leads to worse long term suffering of those folks experiencing depression. 3. When the nature of depression is clearly understood as a natural, potentially healthy process for dealing with stressful situations, it leads to less harm than believing that it really is so bad.

Evidence that Suicides and Hospitalizations Increase with Antidepressant Treatment

Convincing folks that depression is so serious because some people who experience it end up committing suicide or are hospitalized for suicidal thoughts is counterproductive. People who become convinced by this type of argument are more likely to get treatment with so called antidepressants when they find themselves becoming depressed. Moreover, such people, using the same argument will urge others who are depressed to get such treatment. This would be fine if the treatment sought would be just counseling/psychotherapy, but in modern countries, such as the United States and Great Britain, the first-line treatment is either antidepressant medication or a combination of antidepressant medication plus psychotherapy.

Despite this, according to a November 15, 2023 study appearing in Psychological Medicine by Harvard University researcher Nur Hani Zainal, such approaches can have dire consequences. Treatments that included antidepressant medications, either as a stand alone treatment, or in combination with psychotherapy, had significantly worse outcomes than psychotherapy alone for suicide deaths, suicide attempts, psychiatric emergency department visits, and psychiatric hospitalizations. This is a consistent finding that included 34 random controlled trials.

More specifically, the researcher wrote:

Forty-seven out of 1273 (3.7%) in the combined treatment arm and 24 out of 1240 (1.9%) in the psychotherapy-only arm had suicide attempts and other serious psychiatric adverse events, and this difference was statistically significant (OR 1.96 [1.20–3.20], p = 0.012)…

Thirty-one out of 1030 (3.0%) in the psychotherapy-only arm, and 67 out of 1192 (5.6%) in the ADM [antidepressant medication]-arm had suicide attempts and other serious psychiatric adverse events. This difference was statistically significant.

This analysis, along with others, suggests regardless of the treatment, over 94% of those going for treatment are unlikely to end up having one of the very serious consequences of depression. Framing the need for treatment by raising the prospect that very serious consequences are likely to occur without treatment, rather than being helpful, too often leads to antidepressant treatment, which the best science we have indicates this will increase the risk of such serious consequences.

The Effects of Antidepressants On Suffering 

The available research findings indicate so called “antidepressants’ can increase the likelihood of strokes, heart attacks, falls and even death. Antidepressants can cause side effects, including nausea, agitation, weight gain, lower sex drive and indigestion. Research also suggests that people often experience unpleasant withdrawal symptoms, known as antidepressant discontinuation syndrome, when they stop taking antidepressants, sometimes for weeks or months. Thus, people seeking relief from a challenging emotional experience who turn to the most frequent prescribed treatment–antidepressants–are actually increasing their risks of suffering from these various negative consequences.

A very recent study titled “The impact of antidepressants and human development measures on the prevalence of sadness, worry and unhappiness: cross-national comparison,” the researchers conclude,

“In this study, we examine the relationship among individual symptoms (sadness, worry and unhappiness), human development factors and antidepressant use in 29 OECD [Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development ] countries. We report that increased antidepressant prescribing is not associated with decreased prevalence of sadness, worry or unhappiness. However, income, education and life expectancy (measured using the Human Development Index) are associated with lower prevalence of all these symptoms. This suggests that increasing spending on depression treatment may not be as effective as general public health interventions at reducing depression in communities.”

An estimated 18 billion dollars a year is being spent on these drugs, (approximately 100 billion dollars spent every six years). This amount does not include the cost of appointment hours of psychiatrists and other prescribing doctors that is part of the required process of people getting access to these drugs. This appears to be a lot of wasted money that can be used more productively in other ways. Given this cost, along with the drugs’ side-effects, and negative health outcomes, framing depression as being so bad so that it ends up encouraging people to take “antidepressants” may be unwise.

So, why do so many who are taking these drugs come to believe they are enormously helpful? There are three major guesses about this.

  1. Many people who become depressed start to feel better after a few months without taking this type of drug. If they do take the drug when they become depressed, and begin to feel better, they attribute it to the drug rather than the natural course of the experience.
  2. If they start to feel better while taking the drug, they may try to stop taking it. Because of the withdrawal effects that feel awful, they are likely to think these awful feelings are due to their depression returning, so they quickly return to taking the drug while now more convinced that the drug is helpful.
  3. Some people are very susceptible to the placebo effect, and therefore any drug that they are prescribed by a doctor leads to the perception that the drug is effective.

Depression as a Natural, Potentially Healthy Process

Conceptualizing depression as a mental disorder tends to fail to motivate active coping beyond taking a pill. Moreover, it fails to honor the labeled person’s perspective. In contrast, framing these concerns as potentially a healthy functional signal can lead to less self-stigma, and greater self-efficacy in making healthy life-style improvements.

One example of this line of thinking is provided in Joshua Wolf Shenk’s (2005) biography of Abraham Lincoln. There the author makes the case that Lincoln’s depression fueled his greatness. Similarly, David Yaffe (2017) has written a biography about the music legend, Joni Mitchell, titled Reckless Daughter. There, he writes of her frequent bouts of depression and quotes her saying,

“Depression can be the sand that makes the pearl. Most of my best work came out of it. If you get rid of the demons and the disturbing things, then the angels fly off, too. There is the possibility, in that mire, of an epiphany.”

Schroder, et al. (2023), recently carried out a relevant study. As the authors describe it,

“We describe the historical development of popular messages about depression and draw from the fields of evolutionary psychiatry and social cognition to describe the alternative framework that depression is a “signal” that serves a purpose. We then present data from a pre-registered, online randomized-controlled study in which participants with self-reported depression histories viewed a series of videos that explained depression as a “disease like any other” with known biopsychosocial risk factors (BPS condition), or as a signal that serves an adaptive function (Signal condition) …. The Signal condition led to less self-stigma, greater offset efficacy, and more adaptive beliefs about depression.” 

In a recent blog post, I describe in far more detail this healthy way to understand the nature of depression (see HERE) and a no financial cost process to maximize its benefits. There the reader learns that transforming one’s belief that depression is a “really so bad” experience, to one that develops a friendship with the experience is doable. Once the transformation is complete, I prefer the term “melancholy” for it becomes a distinctly different experience without all the insults directed at oneself and thoughts of being mentally ill.

For many people, it takes more than reading a few paragraphs about this way of thinking. It typically takes some practice over a few months. By beginning with my very first blog post (see HERE) many will find that for free the practice sessions provided are sufficient. Having a counselor/psychotherapist that reacts to such folks’ depression experiences with kindness and empathy, rather than with insults and seeking to convince them that their experience is so terribly bad, can also be enormously helpful. Such counselors/psychotherapists provide a model that leads one to emulate this way of being supportive of themselves throughout their days even when their therapist is no longer present.

Conclusion

Dr. Jeffrey Rubin

There is a subgroup of people who, upon becoming depressed, end up seriously considering, or even attempting, suicide. I am in no way attempting to make light of the experiences of people who reach this level of desperation. Some kind empathetic support can be very helpful to deal with such situations. What I am seeking to convey is that the vast majority of people experiencing depression don’t go to such extremes. For them, the argument that their experience is so bad they need to rush out and get someone to provide “antidepressant” treatment might not be wise.

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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.

Categories
Taylor Swift

Taylor Swift’s Song, “Don’t Blame Me”

by Jeffrey Rubin, PhD

Welcome to From Insults to Respect.

In a few days, Super Bowl Sunday will arrive. Sadly for me, my Buffalo Bills won’t be playing. I’m not blaming them, though.

Most of us assign blame based on adding together degree of intentionality and harm. Said another way, Blame = Intent + Harm. To me, the Bills did not intend to lose the crucial game against the Kansas City Chiefs. Additionally, the harm to me because of that loss consisted of a few days of disappointment. At this point, I’ve pretty much fully recovered.

Some people will blame a person, a group of persons, or even themselves for extensive periods of time. Their blame can lead to disrespecting the blamed person or persons to such an extent that they spend a great deal of time throwing insults at the blamed person, and it ends up diminishing the blamers’ quality of life. Therefore, we might want to consider whether we would be wise to transform some of our blaming to a more peaceful understanding.

As I thought about writing a post about this, word came to me that talented superstar Taylor Swift will be attending the Super Bowl. Then it occurred to me that one of her popular songs is “Don’t Blame Me.” Perhaps a little meditation on the song’s lyrics might be a fun and useful way to explore this issue. So, I invite you to join me in giving this a try.

Meditating On the Lyrics of “Don’t Blame Me”

The first few lines, sung with passion, are:

Don’t blame me, love made me crazyIf it doesn’t, you ain’t doin’ it rightLord, save me, my drug is my babyI’ll be usin’ for the rest of my life
Hmmm. I imagine different people will react to these words differently. Here’s my take.

The character that is being portrayed perceives that she might be blamed for how she acts when she’s in love, which she characterizes as crazy. She doesn’t want to be blamed for this and defends herself by making the argument that the right way to do love is to do these crazy things. Moreover, just like you shouldn’t be blamed for being addicted to a drug, she argues, you shouldn’t be blamed for acting crazy when you are in love. I’m not sure this is a convincing argument, but let’s move on to the next set of lyrics to clarify just what she means by acting crazy.

I’ve been breakin’ hearts a long time, andToyin’ with them older guysJust playthings for me
These three lines tell of her having fun with older guys even though she knows this ends up hurting them. Doing something that can hurt someone, when you know it will very likely end up hurting someone can add up to being blamed for the hurt. However, she does not here claim she intends to hurt these guys. Given the earlier lines, she appears to be doing this because she’s addicted, and therefore, perceives no control over her actions.
The lyrics go on to say,

Something happened for the first time,
In the darkest little paradiseShakin, pacin’, I just need you
For you, I would cross the lineI would waste my timeI would lose my mindThey say, “She’s gone too far this time”
At this point, she sees that some are blaming her for going too far, and it seems as well, that she recognizes her “darkest paradise” has her doing things that may not be sane.
The next stanza, she repeats the first set of lines and goes on to say:

My name is whatever you decideAnd I’m just gonna call you mineI’m insane, but I’m your baby (your baby)Echoes (echoes) of your name inside my mindHalo, hiding my obsessionI once was poison ivy, but now I’m your daisy
And baby, for you, I (I) would (would) fall from graceJust (just) to (to) touch your faceIf (if) you (you) walk awayI’d beg you on my knees to stay
She seems to be struggling with her emotions. I can certainly relate. The powerful feelings of love can lead us to do some things that strike us as terribly undesirable.

Here, she feels obsessed, and deeply concerned about how she would deal with her love abandoning her. She sees that she would go so far as to beg her love to stay, which is not a desirable situation to find oneself in.

The next set of lines again repeat the earlier ones about asking to not be blamed and asking the lord to save her. Then she says:

I get so high, ohEvery time you’re, every time you’re lovin’ meYou’re lovin’ meTrip of my life, oh
Here, she uses words that imply a drug-like experience (“I get so high,” and “Trip of my life”) to express the feeling of this obsessive love experience. However, with drug experiences perhaps we have some choice to take the drug or not. With some love experiences, we meet the person, start engaging, and before we know it, we’re in love.

The final lines of the song just repeat, over and over again, her pleading to not be blamed because if you are doing love right, this is just what happens.
Dr. Jeffrey Rubin

In my view, when people go through such experiences, if the blaming amounts to a bunch of name calling, and beating oneself up in other ways, than that’s going to make such challenging experiences worse. During such times, people might be calling you names, and you may be calling yourself names, especially if some degree of intention is perceived.

In our society, this is a common experience when what you are doing is hurting others and yourself. Perhaps it is wise to accept that the insults are based on old habits, but not helpful. Perhaps by accepting blame, in the sense of accepting responsibility, would be better. What I mean by this is that we fully observe the internal physical sensations that go with the recognition of the hurt, fully experience this during periods of meditation, along with a sense of confidence that these feelings will spur a search process for creating a better path forward. The search may not immediately produce the results you might wish for, but such challenging experiences through patience and self compassion, might be a more fulfilling path than one that takes to heart the various insults getting thrown around.

My Best,
Jeff
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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 intelligence. To begin at the very first post you can click HERE.
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CSM Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders-5 DSM mental disorders mental health concern model Mental Illness

Mental Illness or Mental Health Concern?

Welcome to From Insults to Respect. 

The two dominant manuals for “diagnosing mental disorders” are the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) and the International Classification of Diseases. (ICD). Their overarching concept is mental disorders. Synonyms are psychopathology, and mental illness. To access mental health services, most people are required to accept being labelled as having a mental illness. Not everyone respects this requirement.

These manuals continue this pathologizing despite the long history of such terminology being cogently criticized. In contrast to this pathologizing concept, there exists a peer reviewed published article that advocates an alternative method for accessing services, one that replaces the “mental illness” overarching concept with “mental health concerns” that includes the idea that these concerning experiences often serve adaptive functions. It is argued that this approach is a significant improvement over the pathologizing concept.

Criticism of the Mental Illness Concept

Professor William James

William James (1902/1961) was an early critic of the concept of psychopathology, referring to it as “simple minded” (p. 29) and “superficial medical talk” (p. 324). In his 1896 Lowell Lectures on Exceptional Mental States (which were reconstructed by Eugene Taylor in 1984 from James’s notes), he stated that experiences that are commonly viewed as unhealthy or morbid are really “an essential part of every character” and give life “a truer sense of values” (p. 15). James went on from there to note that medical writers tend to,

represent the line of mental health as a very narrow crack, which one must tread with bated breath, between foul friends on the one side and gulfs of despair on the other…. There is no purely objective standard of sound health. Any peculiarity that is of use to a man is a point of soundness in him, and what makes a man sound for one function may make him unsound for another…. The trouble is that such writers use the descriptive names of symptoms merely as an artifice for giving objective authority to their personal dislikes. The medical terms become mere appreciative clubs to knock a man down with…. The only sort of being, in fact, who can remain as the typical normal man, after all the individuals with degenerative symptoms have been rejected, must be a perfect nullity. Who shall absolutely say that the morbid has no revelations about the meaning of life? That the healthy minded view so-called is all? (pp. 163-165)

In more recent time, Schroder, et al. (2023), carried out a relevant study. It presents data from a study in which participants with self-reported depression histories viewed a series of videos that explained depression as a “disease like any other” with known biopsychosocial risk factors (BPS condition), or as a signal that serves an adaptive function (Signal condition). The Signal condition led to less self-stigma, greater offset efficacy, and more adaptive beliefs about depression.

Additional recent criticism of the mental illness concept has been presented by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations (UN). In its jointly published report titled “Mental health, human rights, and legislation: guidance and practice” (2023), it states:

The biomedical model of mental health is based on the concept of mental health conditions being caused by neurobiological factors (1, 2). As a result, care often focuses on diagnosis, medication, and symptom reduction, rather than considering the full range of social and environmental factors that can impact mental health. This can lead to a narrow approach to care and support that may not address the root causes of distress and trauma (p. xiii).

The same report also states:

Every person should have the opportunity to define what recovery means for them, and which areas of their life they wish to focus on as part of their own recovery journey. Recovery considers the person and their context as a whole, and no longer adheres to the idea or goal of the person “being cured” or “no longer having symptoms” (p. xiv).

Is it possible to respectfully address these issues?

Dr. Jeffrey Rubin

I  have proposed an alternative classification system (Rubin 2018; Rubin in press) titled “Classification and Statistical Manual of Mental Health Concerns” (CSM). This approach does not simply exchange the mental illness concept with mental health concerns; rather, the mental health concerns concept is different in several important ways.

The CSM assumes each person seeking to access services as a unique individual. Rather than labeling anyone, it labels expressed concerns. Whereas the mental illness concept declares there is something wrong with the person, the CSM emphasizes, mental health concerns often turn out to be indispensable stages in acquiring valued fruits.

A mental health concern, as defined in the CSM, occurs when a person seeking mental health services expresses to a mental health service provider a concern about any of these topics: behavior, emotion, mood, addictions, meaning of life, death, dying, managing chronic pain, work, relationships, education, eating, cognition, sleep, and challenging life situations. This is an observable event that occurs at a specific time and place, and therefore avoids the well documented reliability and validity problems of the mental illness concept.

Once it has been established what the concerns are, a collaborative effort between the mental health service provider and service seeker, begin creating answers to a semi-structured psychological formulation that looks at:

  1. How distressing is each of the concerns that were mentioned on a scale of 1 to 7?
  2. When and in what situations is the concern most problematic?
  3. When and in what situations is the concern least problematic?
  4. What are personal strengths?
  5. Levels of functioning in the areas of sleep, eating, employment, education, relationships, on a 1 to 7 scale?
  6. What is a tentative theory of cause or causes, jointly created, that considers the full range of social and environmental factors.

Arguments for the Practicality of the CSM

In Some Settings Using Expressed Concerns Has Worked Fine

When I was doing my PhD practicum at the University of Minnesota’s Counseling Center, I worked there for a whole year and we had no need to use the “mental disorder” jargon of the DSM and ICD to communicate. When my advisor asked me to quickly tell him about my morning cases, I would reply with words like, “My 9:00 a.m. case is concerned about feeling depressed, my 10:00 case is concerned about his failing grades, my 11:00 case is concerned about how anxious she is in social situations.”

If my advisor wanted to know more about a case, we went into the psychological formulation type of information. This informal way to communicate among the professionals and graduate students at the counseling center flowed smoothly while we provided a wide range of mental health services.

The CSM Is Practical Because It Maintains the Concept of “Mental Health”

Currently, we have such enormous organizations as Mental Health America and its state and regional affiliates, the National Institute of Mental Health, university and college programs offering degrees in mental health counseling, and states offering certifications in this field. Psychologists, social workers, counselors, and psychiatrists regularly refer to themselves as providing services under the umbrella of “mental health service providers.” For these reasons, the CSM would maintain the concept of “mental health” so it can be comfortably and realistically accommodated into the many large organizations currently using it.

However, the CSM would use the term “mental health” in a way that is different from what is implied in the DSM and the ICD. The CSM would explicitly reject the idea that the opposite of mental health is mental illness. Rather, the word “health” in the CSM’s “mental health” would be phrased in a manner that indicates that professionals dealing with mental health concerns are part of the allied health professions. The reason for thinking of these professionals as health providers follows.
Many of the concerns that would fall under the CSM’s list of related topics have been identified in scientific studies as “physical health risk” factors. For example, people who express a concern about being addicted to alcohol are at increased risk of developing sclerosis of the liver (O’Shea, Dasarathy, & McCullough, 2010). Those who express concerns about eating more than average may be at greater risk of diabetes and heart disease (Mokdad et al., 2003). Quality of interpersonal relations, lack of sleep, depression with thoughts of suicide, and various other concerns or clusters of concerns can be studied for the degree of physical health risk that they pose.

A major goal of mental health providers under the proposed CSM system is to turn “physical health risk” factors into “physical health protective” factors. The degree to which this is successful can be studied using currently available methodologies. It is in this very specific sense that the mental health concern topics are viewed not merely as mental concerns but also mental health concerns. By being explicit about this change in conceptualizing mental health, we have good reason to believe that the CSM proposal holds promise for avoiding most of the negative baggage that comes with this type of terminology.

So, in brief, the CSM approach promises to reduce stigma, improve care, increase self-efficacy, and open new avenues of research. In going forward, I encourage people to begin the process of reconceptualizing what has been promoted as mental illnesses to a mental health concerns. Moreover, for those who have any influence with those in the world of psychology and psychiatry, please encourage them to adopt the CSM approach.

My Best,
Jeff

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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 intelligence. To begin at the very first post you can click HERE.

Categories
Anti-establishment Establishment Politics

Is Trump Really Against the Establishment?

Welcome to From Insults to Respect. 

This week, I witnessed a guy saying he respected Donald Trump because he is a fighter against the establishment. A skeptic nerve in my body, like an overheated teapot, started going wild.

Upon thinking about this, it occurred to me that Trump is a big time businessman whose main businesses are high end hotels, residences, and private golf clubs. Doesn’t Trump seek to stay in the good graces of members of the establishment?

And then it occurred to me that he picked as his running mate, Mike Pence, hardly someone viewed as an anti-establishment kinda guy.

Having said that, I hasten to point out that I mean no disrespect toward the former vice president, nor to any who fall under the vaguely defined headings of “establishment” or “anti-establishment.” I’m quite certain many are folks of good character. Of those that I know personally, we might respectfully disagree on a political issue or two, but, unlike Trump who hastens to vilify individuals with whom he disagrees, that’s not an approach that sits well with me.

On the day I was writing this post, when I took a quick break I just happened to notice a remarkably relevant analysis by CNN. Dated December 16, 2023, it’s titled, “Donald Trump is now the GOP establishment.” To support this contention, the analysis utilizes data on the number and types of his endorsements, fund raising, and who is supporting him in the polls.

To explore this issue more deeply, I put the title of this post into the Google search engine to see what others thought about this. A top Google hit was by Quora, a social question-and-answer website. Someone there had asked back in 2016, when he first won the presidency, “Is Donald Trump really anti-establishment?” The most highly rated answers stated:

No. Look at the people with whom he has surrounded himself.

The greatest trick Donald Trump pulled was convincing voters he’d be ‘anti-establishment.’

President-elect Donald J. Trump, who campaigned against the corrupt power of special interests, is filling his transition team with some of the very sort of people who he has complained have too much clout in Washington: corporate consultants and lobbyists.

Mr. Trump was swept to power in large part by white working-class voters who responded to his vow to restore the voices of forgotten people, ones drowned out by big business and Wall Street. But in his transition to power, some of the most prominent voices will be those of advisers who come from the same industries for which they are being asked to help set the regulatory groundwork…. If you voted for Trump because he’s “anti-establishment,” guess what: you got conned.

My Google search also came up with an article by NPR titled, “People Keep Talking About ‘The Establishment.’ What Is It, Anyway?” There I learned that the word “Establishment” has different meanings to different people. Among those reported in the NPR article are:

It’s kind of what we used to call ‘The Man,’ when you are against The Man. The establishment has become ‘The Man.’

[T]he Establishment’ … precisely because of its vagueness and its shapelessness, can be used in almost any country about almost any thing.

[T]he establishment was a conspiracy of a few secret kingmakers based in New York [who] selected every Republican presidential nominee from 1936 through 1960.

The establishment was also not blue-collar. The key to next November lies in the real fears and deep resentments which are beginning to agitate the working and lower-middle classes of white America.

It wasn’t the common man.

Powerful, rich, old, out of touch, secretive, moderate — these are how the establishment has been painted over the years. The players may have changed, but those connotations have stuck around for decades.

I was able to find a Google hit that supported the idea Trump was a successful anti-establishment president. It’s a statement released by the White House during 2020, the last year of Trump’s presidency, and clearly designed to promote his bid for reelection. Titled, “Donald Trump Fought the Establishment—and Won,” it begins:

Donald Trump won the presidency by challenging both the Republican and Democrat Party establishments. For too long, the political class of party leaders, paid consultants, lobbyists, donor-funded think tanks, and partisan media outlets ignored the concerns of millions of working- and middle-class American families.

It goes on from there to insult career politicians, and then it blames Democrats in Congress for Trump’s inability to achieve many of the things he had promised. It then provides a lengthy list of what it claims are Trump’s accomplishments that are benefitting the working-and middle-classes. The first item on the list states:

He replaced NAFTA, something both Republican and Democrat politicians had promised to do for years. His new USMCA rebalances trade, protects American labor, and levels the playing field for U.S. manufacturers and automakers.

This was actually a bipartisan bill supported by Republicans and Democrats alike. In the Democrat controlled House of Representatives the vote was 385 for, and 41 against. In the Senate with a one vote Republican advantage, the vote was 89 for, and 10 against. Trump, by supporting this effort and agreeing to sign the bill, eagerly takes credit for it without mentioning all of the hard work of all of those on both sides of the aisle that actually wrote the bill.

The second item on the list states:

He cut taxes for over 80 percent of Americans by lowering rates for middle-income families, doubling the child tax credit, nearly doubling the standard deduction, and lowering costs for employers.

Critics of this bill express concerns that actually eighty-five percent of the money saved by tax payers went to the wealthiest Americans, and those cuts were made ‘permanent’. The remaining fifteen percent of the dollars went to the remaining tax payers, and those cuts were made ‘temporary’ (ends in five years). Meanwhile, the loss of tax revenue results in an additional national debt of a trillion dollars per year, a debt burden left for tax payers in the future. To many, the tax cuts actually feel like a bribe, to secure votes in the following election cycle.

This claim that Trump is offering a sweeter reward to the wealthy establishment and a far less valued reward to those who are not wealthy brought to my mind a study by primatologists Sarah F. Brosnan and Frans B.M. de Waal. They trained capuchin monkeys to perform a certain task for which they receive, as a reward, cucumber slices. The monkeys performed the task just fine until they were permitted to see another monkey being rewarded with grapes, a higher-value payment. Suddenly many of the cucumber-receivers refused the cucumber, sometimes even throwing those measly, unfair cucumber payments at the experimenter who was giving out the reward. Behavioral economists call the behavioral characteristic exhibited by the monkeys “inequity aversion”—the tendency to turn down a perfectly good offer if others are getting a better deal.

Upon recalling this study, I wondered why so many people who are getting so much less than rich folks under Trump’s tax plan aren’t as angry as these monkeys. Then I realized that the monkeys that received the cucumber rewards could plainly observe the other monkeys getting the grapes. In contrast, in our society, many Trump supporters get their information from so-called news agencies and internet groups they belong to that support Trump’s anti-establishment hero image.

Trump’s tax plan, not only gives an extra sweet deal to the wealthy’s personal taxes, it also cuts corporate taxes as well, also reducing significant government revenue. Claims are conveniently made that these benefits will be trickled down, despite the lack of convincing evidence to support this. Meanwhile, executives, and disproportionately wealthy corporate shareholders, clearly reap economic gains from the Trump corporate rate cuts.

Dr. Jeffrey Rubin

As I looked over the rest of the 2020 White House list of benefits of the “Trump Fought the Establishment” document, I see items completely irrelevant to this issue, while others are designed to indeed help those who are not super well off in our society. However, in the end, when all of Trump’s economic policies are taken together, it seems to me the super well-off got the grapes and the rest of society got the cucumbers.

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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.

Categories
Antidepressant withdrawal problems antidepressants

Withdrawing from Antidepressants: A Woman’s Personal Experience

Welcome to From Insults to Respect. 

Regular readers to this blog know that I have some serious concerns about dealing with emotional experiences referred to as depression or melancholy with the so called antidepressants. Certainly, people should be free to make their own decision regarding whether or not to take these types of pills, and I recognize very intelligent people decide to take them. That said, because I have been employed as a PhD level psychologist, people from time to time have asked me for advice. This led me to evaluating the research on their effectiveness, risks, and side-effects. Having extensive training in evaluating this type of research, sadly, I’ve been dismayed at what I have, and continue to find.

There is an excellent site titled Mad In America that does an excellent job presenting the relevant science. Here, I’ll just say that the research indicates these drugs are not anywhere as effective as they are promoted to be, side-effects are worse than claimed, withdrawal effects are frequently awful, and there are safer, healthier approaches to handling these types of concerns than taking these pills. More and more troubling findings are regularly being revealed to the public. Just this week, The New York Times ran a story about numerous reports of a loss of sexuality from taking these types of drugs, and even upon stopping the drugs, the problem for many people persists.

Dr. Audrey Bahrick

The Times story provides the example of Dr. Audrey Bahrick, who started taking Prozac in 1993 when she was 37. At that time, she was struggling with a difficult job in a new city. Within one day of taking the pill, her clitoris and vagina felt numb. “It was like there was a glove over them — a very, very muffled sensation,” she recalled.

For a while, she said, the trade-off was worth it. The antidepressant made her feel energized and more resilient. But after two years, she stopped taking it for the sake of her relationship. The sexual symptoms persisted, however, and the relationship ended. “It never occurred to me that this would be something that would in fact, in my life, never resolve,” said Dr. Bahrick, who is now 67.

A major strategy that is used to convince people to start taking these drugs is terribly misleading. Doctors claim that it is crucial for depressed people to take antidepressants because depressed people are at an increased risk of committing suicide. This implies that the antidepressant diminishes the likelihood of committing suicide. The facts are just the opposite. The weight of the research evidence indicates these drugs increase suicidal thoughts, behavior and  likelihood of suicide (see HERE). To use the increase in suicides argument despite the evidence to the contrary has always been a very disturbing sales pitch to me.

Now, when reading about all of the serious concerns regarding this type of treatment, many folks who are already taking these drugs begin to consider chucking them. To help with this decision, and how best to go about doing so if they so choose, it helps to hear from people who have made that decision.

One Woman’s Personal Experience

May Cause Side Effects, by Brooke Siam, is one of the first books on antidepressant withdrawal to make it to the mass market. A wonderful interview with the author can be found HERE. Ms Siam’s work on antidepressant withdrawal has appeared in The Washington Post, the New York Post, Psychology Today, and many more. She is also an award-winning chef and Food Network Chopped Champion.

When asked in her interview how she first got involved in the mental health system, she replied:

“This was in 2001 and the timing is important for context as the world was a little different then. I was 15 years old and my father had suddenly passed away. When I look back now, I don’t see someone who was going down a terrible path. I wasn’t suddenly into drugs or hanging out with the wrong crowd, my grades didn’t tank, but I was different than I was before. I was very stoic. I was a serious ballet dancer, so the mantra of ballet is to smile through pain, and so, my reaction was concerning to the adults around me.”

Siam was then referred to a psychiatrist, and at her first appointment was given a prescription for a psychiatric drug.

“I don’t remember which one. I think we started with Prozac and then moved on likely to Zoloft since those were the two that were approved for use in children and teens at the time. I had obvious physical reactions to both drugs and so, in the end, we ended up on a combination of Effexor XR and Wellbutrin XL, neither of which were approved for kids and teens at the time and still aren’t.” 

This approach of deciding in one psychiatrist visit to start throwing one type of pill after another at her because of a very understandable reaction to the loss of her dad is all too frequent from what I have been able to see during my many years of psychological practice. Often it’s not just the loss of a parent, but other grief experiences as well that leads to perfectly normal reactions that lead to this prescribing practice. Sometimes people are normally built to have periods of melancholy, and this too is pathologized and one pill after another begins to be prescribed.

Eventually, Siam began to believe this drug approach wasn’t doing her any good:

“…the only frame of reference I had as an unmedicated person was as a 14-year-old kid, I was in my 30s and I was on the same cocktail of drugs. I didn’t wear the same clothes I wore in high school, so why in the hell was I still taking the same cocktail of drugs every morning? There was just something about that that just didn’t make any sense to me because I knew I wasn’t the same body. My brain wasn’t the same, so if the science was sound why hadn’t it adjusted over time? That was the question that put me on this path.”

It was at this point that Siam began her journey to wean herself off the drugs. She covers such topics as what problems one might face along this weaning journey and suggestions on overcoming them. Her story is well worth reading.

My Best,
Jeff

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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 intelligence. To begin at the very first post you can click HERE.