Can you help me escape politicians who are taking away the ability for women to have safe abortions, attempt to overthrow the government, and their voters who brag about it by flying fascist flags on their cars? What about massive inflation without a similar rise in income that is needed just to survive?
Thanks in advance.
Yes this is snarky, but the stressors that most people are talking about in this thread are completely out of their control AND things they can’t just avoid.
Yeah, with the state of things right now, I’m not sure anxiety is so much a bug but a feature. The vast majority of the population is being exploited or ignored while a small group of people plunder the world’s resources and talents and continue to do so despite it obviously threatening the balance that life on this planet currently depends on. And different factions of those assholes use some of the population to try to take or protect what they have from others and have enough weaponry to devastate the entire population.
Even if it can be consciously ignored, the subconscious will figure it out and try to warn us and I think that denial is one of the big causes of mental health issues.
Can you help me escape politicians who are taking away the ability for women to have safe abortions, attempt to overthrow the government, and their voters who brag about it by flying fascist flags on their cars? What about massive inflation without a similar rise in income that is needed just to survive?
Nope, that’s going to take a lot of work to do anything about. What (imo) your therapist should be helping you do is develop strategies that let you deal with your anxieties. If therapy was only for dealing with things after the fact I don’t think I would be doing it because I agree with you, we can’t escape all the awful shit in the world but what we can do is make it not so debilitating that you can’t do anything.
The original point was that therapy doesn’t address the underlying problem. It led to the post above:
If therapy was only for dealing with things after the fact I don’t think I would be doing it because I agree with you, we can’t escape all the awful shit in the world but what we can do is make it not so debilitating that you can’t do anything.
Which doesn’t address the underlying issues or solve anything when it comes to actual problems that directly impact people. It is also worded as if the therapy helps by avoiding the awful shit so someone can do something. Which probably means not letting stress about one thing keep you from doing something else you can control, but in the context of the comment it was replying to could be read as doing something about the examples.
Therapy is great for addressing personal issues such as anxiety and trauma that are keeping someone from successfully acting on things they do have control over. But when it comes to things people can’t control it is just a coping mechanism that doesn’t solve the underlying problems that someone is reasonably responding to with frustration and helplessness. Yet it keeps being suggested as a solution.
Something that has always helped me with things like this (I’m trans in the uk, and have various other things around decentralised networks and such, also the economy and like 5000 other things, personal situations, etc.) is doing concrete steps towards my socio-techno-politico-economic goals and personal stuff.
Things like organising with other people (not just for protests/riots, but also things like underground services, discreet information leaflets, and just general community), trying to develop new tech, etc. ^.^
Decent therapy can help at least with dealing with some of the effects of this stuff, and manage interpersonal causes of mental health issues, in theory, if you can access it - though there are many issues imo with certain types of therapy that promote accepting shitty sociopolitical situations and personal situations, though this seems to be more of a philosophy thing than really therapy related specifically.
Techniques for managing the effects of poor sociopolitical situations - and working with someone to come up with more strategies to deal with these effects as well as avoid more common self-destructive thought patterns - might help you act more towards fighting the root causes even if it can’t solve them itself ^.^
For people in these situations, if you want someone else to help come up with personal coping strategies and to practise identifying more destructive thought patterns and manage emotional states, my opinion is that this is where a good therapist may be helpful if you can access one and want one.
For solving the more underlying issues? They probably can’t help directly, but they may help you gain more ability/mental bandwidth to deal with them either personally or via organising and political strategy. However this is all very conditional on therapist quality and some therapists may be actively harmful.
At least, this is my view. I have a pretty complex set of thoughts about therapy and mental health systems - and am familiar with the ways they can be used as weapons against individuals and larger groups as a trans and autistic person, as well as how they can be helpful - but hopefully the stuff about acting to do political things is useful to someone.
Actually doing something rather than just watching things get worse is helpful for me personally at least ^.^
If I was your therapist, while I couldn’t change the world for you, I could certainly help you change how you’re thinking about all of this political shit to reduce your stress and distress. Most of us have political misgivings, but only some of us have those misgivings create serious problems in our lives. I’m obviously sympathetic to—for example—women who can’t get abortions in their state, but therapy is about coping with reality, not changing reality in ways that correspond to wishful thinking.
Can you help me escape politicians who are taking away the ability for women to have safe abortions, attempt to overthrow the government, and their voters who brag about it by flying fascist flags on their cars? What about massive inflation without a similar rise in income that is needed just to survive?
Thanks in advance.
Yes this is snarky, but the stressors that most people are talking about in this thread are completely out of their control AND things they can’t just avoid.
Yeah, with the state of things right now, I’m not sure anxiety is so much a bug but a feature. The vast majority of the population is being exploited or ignored while a small group of people plunder the world’s resources and talents and continue to do so despite it obviously threatening the balance that life on this planet currently depends on. And different factions of those assholes use some of the population to try to take or protect what they have from others and have enough weaponry to devastate the entire population.
Even if it can be consciously ignored, the subconscious will figure it out and try to warn us and I think that denial is one of the big causes of mental health issues.
Nope, that’s going to take a lot of work to do anything about. What (imo) your therapist should be helping you do is develop strategies that let you deal with your anxieties. If therapy was only for dealing with things after the fact I don’t think I would be doing it because I agree with you, we can’t escape all the awful shit in the world but what we can do is make it not so debilitating that you can’t do anything.
So a therapist can help a woman in Texas get an abortion and overcome inflation?
Great to hear!
I’m confused, I thought I was pretty clear that therapy isn’t going to fix any of the societal issues that give you anxiety, it’s not supposed to…
The original point was that therapy doesn’t address the underlying problem. It led to the post above:
Which doesn’t address the underlying issues or solve anything when it comes to actual problems that directly impact people. It is also worded as if the therapy helps by avoiding the awful shit so someone can do something. Which probably means not letting stress about one thing keep you from doing something else you can control, but in the context of the comment it was replying to could be read as doing something about the examples.
Therapy is great for addressing personal issues such as anxiety and trauma that are keeping someone from successfully acting on things they do have control over. But when it comes to things people can’t control it is just a coping mechanism that doesn’t solve the underlying problems that someone is reasonably responding to with frustration and helplessness. Yet it keeps being suggested as a solution.
Something that has always helped me with things like this (I’m trans in the uk, and have various other things around decentralised networks and such, also the economy and like 5000 other things, personal situations, etc.) is doing concrete steps towards my socio-techno-politico-economic goals and personal stuff.
Things like organising with other people (not just for protests/riots, but also things like underground services, discreet information leaflets, and just general community), trying to develop new tech, etc. ^.^
Decent therapy can help at least with dealing with some of the effects of this stuff, and manage interpersonal causes of mental health issues, in theory, if you can access it - though there are many issues imo with certain types of therapy that promote accepting shitty sociopolitical situations and personal situations, though this seems to be more of a philosophy thing than really therapy related specifically.
Techniques for managing the effects of poor sociopolitical situations - and working with someone to come up with more strategies to deal with these effects as well as avoid more common self-destructive thought patterns - might help you act more towards fighting the root causes even if it can’t solve them itself ^.^
For people in these situations, if you want someone else to help come up with personal coping strategies and to practise identifying more destructive thought patterns and manage emotional states, my opinion is that this is where a good therapist may be helpful if you can access one and want one.
For solving the more underlying issues? They probably can’t help directly, but they may help you gain more ability/mental bandwidth to deal with them either personally or via organising and political strategy. However this is all very conditional on therapist quality and some therapists may be actively harmful.
At least, this is my view. I have a pretty complex set of thoughts about therapy and mental health systems - and am familiar with the ways they can be used as weapons against individuals and larger groups as a trans and autistic person, as well as how they can be helpful - but hopefully the stuff about acting to do political things is useful to someone.
Actually doing something rather than just watching things get worse is helpful for me personally at least ^.^
If I was your therapist, while I couldn’t change the world for you, I could certainly help you change how you’re thinking about all of this political shit to reduce your stress and distress. Most of us have political misgivings, but only some of us have those misgivings create serious problems in our lives. I’m obviously sympathetic to—for example—women who can’t get abortions in their state, but therapy is about coping with reality, not changing reality in ways that correspond to wishful thinking.