by jodrellblank | 2025-12-11 15:04:47+00:00
> "I think that it should be clear from the above extended metaphor that I fundamentally disagree with this idea, and so dismissing it with "No it isn't" will do nothing at all for me."

I'm citing a medical doctor and clinical psychologist with decades of experience who has recorded a hundred hours of training podcasts, and linking actual therapy sessions that you can listen to, and you're saying "no it isn't" with nothing to back that up except "you reckon it isn't".

> "the idea that therapy is always easy "someone gives you a bit of information, like a switch was flipped, done": No, it isn't. Habits that are learned over decades aren't that easily changed."

Nobody said it was always easy. Yes they are. People try to quit smoking cold turkey three times a week for five years. Then they read Alan Carr's "The Easy Way to Quit Smoking" and then they don't want to smoke anymore and there's no talk of "quitting" because they aren't smokers and non-smokers don't need to quit. With the right understanding, the viewpoint flips and the mind is changed. Same with overweight people who try dieting for years and then have a health scare and sometimes that switches it so they change instantly (and sometimes it doesn't). Most things won't easily change a habit, like most changes in code won't fix a specific bug. But some changes can, and we should look for them.

> "Like a gym session, if it's always easy then you're not doing the work."

This is some Puritanical suffering-culture, or some one-upmanship manliness culture. This is the reason I mentioned the int32 to int64, sometimes it might require searching to find insight, but there's no points for searching harder and trying harder, if you can have the same insight in two hours instead of two years, that's good not bad. The Universe doesn't give points for "doing the work" and brute-forcing a solution instead of a quicker solution (I suspect one of your beliefs does).

> "Reassurance can work, but IMHO you'll be back soon enough, as the root cause hasn't been addressed"

This is strawmanning or not understanding; this is addressing the root cause and not reassurance; the step of "paradoxical agenda setting" gets to the heart of why reassurance doesn't work. Someone who says "I lost my job, I didn't work hard enough, I am a loser" doesn't get helped by reassuring them that they are not a loser. It might be that they have a deep-seated value that "hard work is good" and they are getting into a human race condition where "reassurance that you aren't a loser" goes to "if I can think I'm a winner even when I don't try, then laziness can be winning, and I don't want that. I won't go there. So I reject the reassurance and return to my belief that I am a loser".

The fix is trace that loop and find the sticking point, and find a working technique to unstick it. Which is case-by-case individual, but somewhere like "I understand that feeling like a loser is the flip-side of my belief that hard work is good. How does my brain implement hard-work-is-good? By making hard work feel good and lazy work feel bad. This feeling-bad is the mechanism of how my ideal works! I actually want to keep the bad feeling because that's one of the things which guides me to work hard, and I value that. I can't get rid of one without getting rid of the other. What I've done is try to grab tightly to one side of this (hard work is good) and push away the other side (I'm a loser because I didn't work hard) but they're the same thing, so grabbing it hard is pulling it back while pushing it away. Brain has responded by dialing it up to 11 and shouting "LOSER" all the time louder and louder because I'm trying not to listen. It doesn't make sense to judge a whole self as a winner or loser, people have lots of components some good and some bad. It doesn't make sense to say "I didn't work hard" at work because there were times when I did work hard. So actually I want to keep the feeling "I am a loser if I don't work hard" because it encourages me to work harder (which I value). I want it dialled down instead and focused on individual areas of life, not judging all of me all the time".

and with that understanding clicking, finally listening to the thought that's been running around, accepting it as a thing you asked for, that reminds you of something else you value, it 'suddenly' calms down. Acknowledged. Part of you, accepted, integrated, welcomed.

> "if chugging some simple agreeable affirmations are all that you need, by all means listen to the LLM. The sycophancy machine can do that."

Can you see this as the typical HN cynicaler-than-thou putdown? Maybe the reader will think you're a really tough C++ programmer who only values science and muscles, instead of a woke hippy gullible loser? But you don't look tough for changing "therapy skills developed over decades" into "simple agreeable affirmations" you just look like you don't understand and are embarrassed.