I made this comment in another thread but I want more of your eyeballs on it, maybe somebody has something useful to say.
I have some serious anxiety about the fact that modern civilization is all of us in a bus driving towards a cliff, with the driver’s foot firmly on the accelerator pedal. Therapy is available to me, but what the fuck are they gonna say? Tune out?
I'm in graduate school to be a therapist. All of the students, and the professors, acknowledge that managed care/insurance is absolute bullshit and limiting; however, we're told we have to learn to maneuver the system in order to work. At least at my school, there's a large cohort who critique capitalism and pretty much recognize how solution-focused therapy, CBT, etc. are just tools to be able to create functional workers--professors laugh and agree--but there's little discussion about what to do about it.
If I'm being totally honest, as someone who has been in therapy since 15-years-old, in-patient rehab, IOP, etc., what helped me the most was using mushrooms therapeutically and connecting with nature, meditation, and reading spiritual texts (Taoism, Mahayana Buddhism). I am embarrassed to admit this, as I'm well aware of the pitfalls of "new age" thinking. But it took something radically different for me to see the bigger picture. Is it possible to spawn this kind of change through talk-therapy alone? Probaly not. Mental health research is not making any important discoveries (apart from neurological advances), things are getting worse. Labels provide a convienant language to discuss mental health but it's to complex to narrow diagnosis down to "depression, bipolar, anxiety" etc. As you can tell, I'm frusterated to no end about this and trying to figure out how to create systemic change (or atleast acknowledgement of the problem?) within the system itself.
It's discouraging to hear that even someone in your position feels there's no hope of addressing these systemic issues that are leading to public mental health crisis. This is an issue I've been thinking about a lot lately, in response to articles like this where it seems like almost everyone could be diagnosed with depression/anxiety or some other "mental health" issue. It seems like clearly that's wrong, obviously we can't attack that problem by feeding more and more individuals antidepressants or whatever. Clearly we need to address this on a societal scale, so it feels pointless to try to treat individuals.
But
An individual in a room with a doctor, psychiatrist, or therapist can't fix that. It's not their fault that the mode of production is alienating and our society is isolating. All they can do is try to get the person to a place where they can go on and maybe enjoy the life that the world makes possible. It's like if a person had cancer, but we had no treatment for cancer (or maybe more realistically, they have such an advanced stage of cancer that it's not treatable with current medicine.) It would still make sense to treat their symptoms, if it were with painkillers or whatever. We can only do so much, and individuals are suffering. And sure, if mushrooms and meditation are what get us there, we should do that.
Well said. I'm working with well-off people in their 90's who, apart from different societal woes (e.g. agism, poor elder care, etc. etc.), are largely unaffected by the material results of capitalism/colonization. Still, a 96 YO losing his hearing, memory, sight, and ability to drive has every right to feel "depressed." If all I'm able to do is be present and open-hearted with them, maybe that's enough?
And for someone who is struggling with material needs: providing a space where they feel heard, understood, and inherently worthy of existence may be a catalyst to greater peace, whatever that looks like for the individual.
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Really feel this with the person I'm working with who has dementia. Forces me to refrain from the novice "problem-solving, advice-giving" tendencies and practice a more here-and-now approach.
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Oh sure! While I'm kind-of embarrassed about expressing my opinion about psychedelics, I'm infinitely fascinated with them. Stanislav Grof, Ram Dass, Tim Leary, Mckenna, Paul Stamets, Bruce Damer, Gabor Mate, etc., have all been big influences on me. It's hard to be "out of the psychedelic closet," especially as I'm still in school, but I'd love to pursue psychedelic therapy work in the future. Even (or particularly) MDMA has exciting potentials for healing. I guess I feel some hesitation being a white male, as I have deep respect for the indigenous practices/shamanism, as well as great respect for the intensity profundity such substances induce.
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Yeah, knowing the healing potential of such substances first hand, to not integrate these two approaches to health would be doing humanity a disservice. A lot of healing needs to be done, a lot of perspective shifting..
That kind of "new age" thinking is a problem when profits gets in the way, or if you use it to form yourself a cage to be safe from the outside, I think. The good part about it is opening oneself to other types of thinking, people from other lands, which thought of some existential questions you ask yourself too often, which are all humans but so removed from our own lives that it can only be of great use. Hence why the best "spiritual" works are, maybe, often those that are anonymous and survived through the ages, that one guy just wrote for the sake of giving his perspective and knowledge to others, without seeking anything in return.
Anyway reading is cool. And following obsessions someone plunged in all the same 200 years ago, is pretty neat, too, to better our understanding of.. various problems, and the struggle with our current world.
Seconding shroom therapy. I did shrooms last year and I felt like my brain was cleansed. It really helped see things from a "macro" level and it helped rid me of the feeling of having the world on my shoulders. It didn't solve everything, but it reduced/removed a lot of PTSD trauma and it helped me kick a pot addiction.
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