What if your life (seems) to go better with prayer?

[Minoosh]

Just to clarify that too, we're talking about a woman who was spectacularly good at finding the dumbest imaginable reasons for not dumping the abusive idiot, even when help was offered. E.g., and I swear I'm not making any of this up:

I totally believe you. Do you know what kind of talk therapy she was getting, and if she was on any medication? It sounds like her thoughts were ... disordered, to put it mildly.

Maybe if she'd been in a therapy group something might have broken through. Something maybe combined with cognitive-behavioral interventions (countering irrational thoughts with new thoughts). These interventions are initiated by ... talking.

Most even used the information that she's vulnerable and gullible to take advantage of her.

Of course they did.

Look, I know a little pop-psych is a dangerous thing. But dysfunctional people find each other all the time, and if they're reasonably healthy the points of friction can even serve as tools to chip away at the causes for discord. My ex and I learned how not to fight on our third trip to the UK together, when we'd been divorced for 20 years. It doesn't really work if one of the partners is a psychopath though, so it's all on her.

So, yeah, that's how good humans can be at rationalizing nonsense, when they're the ones doing all the talking. As in, not listening to anyone who asks uncomfortable questions, and only talking to gods, ancestors, and therapists that don't ask any uncomfortable questions.

I don't know where you get the idea that therapists never ask uncomfortable questions. IMO a therapist would be remiss if they didn't ask, "So what's the payoff? What are you getting out of this situation?"

If she spends 17 years on a couch talking about Daddy, only hearing the occasional "Hmm," yes, that's ineffective by definition.

Also, just for the record, I dunno what gave you the idea that my lack of trust in psychotherapy is based on just and solely that case I had the (mis)fortune of obverving first hand. Kinda like being the guest star to observe a train wreck in slow motion. That's just supposed to be an illustration. Just jumping to the conclusion that that's the only reason for a hypothesis, is like seeing someone use Mercury's orbit as evidence for GR (General Relativity), and concluding that that's the ONLY evidence ever for GR.

Because you didn't provide any other examples but fell back on the position that you don't have to do jack; it's up to me to support my claim, but when I did, you apparently developed a problem with your eyesight.

 

[Minoosh]

Thinking is inaudible talking.

Not always. Some people think in pictures.

 

[p0lka]

To answer the OP,
I would pray more and just naturally rise above the people who aren't praying, by doing nothing other than praying.
I'm not sure that works.

 

[SpuriusMaximus]

I totally believe you. Do you know what kind of talk therapy she was getting, and if she was on any medication? It sounds like her thoughts were ... disordered, to put it mildly.

I know that at some point she was on Lyogen, which IIRC is an antipsychotic, but other than that -- and the fact that she pretty much role-played being my little sister, and in fact CLONE, for some reason -- I really have no idea. I also know that she ditched at least one therapist for, tadah, asking questions that make her really uncomfortable. Really, I'm just a guy who some people thought to be the perfect therapist for some reason, but probably just because I used to shut the <bleep> up, never offered any advice, etc, though in all fairness, mostly because of not giving nearly enough of a screw. Yeah, you wouldn't guess it from my current ass hole persona but people used to pretty much do their confession to me instead of to a proper priest.

But yeah, we're talking a woman which, as far as she was concerned, she'd get testicular cancer if I ever got that (which, thank the elder gods was never the case), if I ever had it. Because she was somehow a clone of me. Don't ask me whatever the hell sense that made, it sure didn't to me. Which also explains, I suppose, hearing about how said hubby punches the pillow next to her to make her scared crap-less enough to accept sex. (Read: rape.)

Mind you, I could have probably gotten even further, if I wanted to. At least one guy scored some sweet sex by preying on her distress. So when I say that she only cultivated relationships with ass holes, yeah, you get the flipping idea, right?`

It still gives me nightmares. But you never heard that from me. I still have an ass hole persona to maintain

If that makes any flippin' difference, it was around the time I had read just Freud, and actually believed that letting someone talk, without "barging in" with uncomfortable question or advice or anything, will actually let them sort out their thoughts. Especially, I wouldn't offer just "barging in for advice" to someone who wasn't ready to get advice, nor so something as heinous as getting someone's kids taken from her by callling the cops, when that was her biggest fear in the first place.

Yeah, I'm not saying it was the RIGHT course of action or train of though, but then I'm just an ass hole anyway. She drove away everyone who wasn't one. Not flippin' me. Haven't you been paying attention?


That said, much like the whole episode makes for a rather emotional illustration, rest assured that it's NOT why or when I started having doubts about the efficiency of just being an enabler for someone's cognitive dissonance rationalizations. In fact, at the time I was a VERY FIRM believer in Freud and Jung and all, to even consider that "barging in with advice" might actually be the RIGHT thing to do, and that acting as an enabler for people's cognitive dissonance might be the WRONG thing to do-

In fact, it took reading many many nonsense, wishful-thinking, ode-to-cognitive-dissonance defences of it -- in fact, that every single person tying to defend it, was just writing an ode to cognitive dissonance; and even in more than one way -- to start suspecting it is just that: a defence of keeping one's cognitive dissonance.

 

[SpuriusMaximus]

Because you didn't provide any other examples but fell back on the position that you don't have to do jack; it's up to me to support my claim, but when I did, you apparently developed a problem with your eyesight.

No. YOU really didn't. Other people may have, but YOUR didn't. YOU offered exactly ZERO support for your claims. You

Edited by Agatha: 

Edited breach of rule 0 and rule 12

postulated that someone is personally accusing you of being delusional if they dare not instantly believe whatever you want to believe. AKA, just offering yourself as a practical example of cognitive disonace, aka, wishful magical thinking. Whenever you see someone feel personally attacked if you don't instantly believe whatever they really like to believe, yeah, that's textbook cognitive dissonance.

So, anyway, yes, it's still up to you to support your claim, silly. And no, my not just believing your postulates is not MY developping some kind of eyesight problem, silly. It's just you being irrational, as usual.

Mind you, that doesn't preclude you from being COINCIDENTALLY right.

Edited by Agatha: 

Edited breach of rule 0 and rule 12

It's still YOUR burden to support it, IF you're doing the positive claim. It's really that simple. It's some 2500 years too late to pretend you have the logical high ground just because you play the victim. It's literally THAT late for the rules of logic to be up for debate.

 

[Minoosh]

No. YOU really didn't. Other people may have, but YOUR didn't. YOU offered exactly ZERO support for your claims.

You seem incapable of recognizing the link I provided, which I will link to once again in case anyone is interested in evidence, which you obviously aren't, as far as I can tell.

Research Again Finds That Talk Therapy Can Change The Brain

But whatever, OK? If you're not willing to take a look I can at least demonstrate that you will ignore anything that does not jibe with your intuition or personal experience.

 

[Minoosh]

To answer the OP,
I would pray more and just naturally rise above the people who aren't praying, by doing nothing other than praying.
I'm not sure that works.

I'm not either. Maybe that depends on what you mean by "rise above other people." That was never a concern of mine. I'm talking about doing better relative to my past self. And never did I say "nothing other than praying." There's all kinds of other stuff I can be doing as well.

 

[Minoosh]

I know that at some point she was on Lyogen, which IIRC is an antipsychotic, but other than that -- and the fact that she pretty much role-played being my little sister, and in fact CLONE, for some reason -- I really have no idea. I also know that she ditched at least one therapist for, tadah, asking questions that make her really uncomfortable. Really, I'm just a guy who some people thought to be the perfect therapist for some reason, but probably just because I used to shut the <bleep> up, never offered any advice, etc, though in all fairness, mostly because of not giving nearly enough of a screw. Yeah, you wouldn't guess it from my current ass hole persona but people used to pretty much do their confession to me instead of to a proper priest.

But yeah, we're talking a woman which, as far as she was concerned, she'd get testicular cancer if I ever got that (which, thank the elder gods was never the case), if I ever had it. Because she was somehow a clone of me. Don't ask me whatever the hell sense that made, it sure didn't to me. Which also explains, I suppose, hearing about how said hubby punches the pillow next to her to make her scared crap-less enough to accept sex. (Read: rape.)

Mind you, I could have probably gotten even further, if I wanted to. At least one guy scored some sweet sex by preying on her distress. So when I say that she only cultivated relationships with ass holes, yeah, you get the flipping idea, right?`

It still gives me nightmares. But you never heard that from me. I still have an ass hole persona to maintain

If that makes any flippin' difference, it was around the time I had read just Freud, and actually believed that letting someone talk, without "barging in" with uncomfortable question or advice or anything, will actually let them sort out their thoughts. Especially, I wouldn't offer just "barging in for advice" to someone who wasn't ready to get advice, nor so something as heinous as getting someone's kids taken from her by callling the cops, when that was her biggest fear in the first place.

Yeah, I'm not saying it was the RIGHT course of action or train of though, but then I'm just an ass hole anyway. She drove away everyone who wasn't one. Not flippin' me. Haven't you been paying attention?


That said, much like the whole episode makes for a rather emotional illustration, rest assured that it's NOT why or when I started having doubts about the efficiency of just being an enabler for someone's cognitive dissonance rationalizations. In fact, at the time I was a VERY FIRM believer in Freud and Jung and all, to even consider that "barging in with advice" might actually be the RIGHT thing to do, and that acting as an enabler for people's cognitive dissonance might be the WRONG thing to do-

In fact, it took reading many many nonsense, wishful-thinking, ode-to-cognitive-dissonance defences of it -- in fact, that every single person tying to defend it, was just writing an ode to cognitive dissonance; and even in more than one way -- to start suspecting it is just that: a defence of keeping one's cognitive dissonance.

I don't know what you're trying to say here.

I've never been a firm believer in Freud/Jung/etc. Not being sure about anything to begin with maybe affects my degree of cognitive dissonance. If I had absolute faith in something that's been thoroughly debunked I might understand you better.

One thing I can tell, you care about her. I can't tell you if that will ever make a difference. But it might.

 

[arthwollipot]

Very few modern psychologists consider Freud or Jung to be of anything but historical interest.

 

[SpuriusMaximus]

You seem incapable of recognizing the link I provided, which I will link to once again in case anyone is interested in evidence, which you obviously aren't, as far as I can tell.

Research Again Finds That Talk Therapy Can Change The Brain

But whatever, OK? If you're not willing to take a look I can at least demonstrate that you will ignore anything that does not jibe with your intuition or personal experience.

It's an article in a business magazine, rather light on details, and it DOESN'T actually say that any change in the chemical baseline of the brain actually happened. Not the least because it's talking about MRI imaging, which can't in fact measure that.

Also all the link to the supposed actual studies are broken. So essentially it's not even possible to actually go to the source and see what the actual doctors said there, as opposed to what some business journalist understood from it.

The rest of it is a lot of "might" and "could" and "possibly", and it's not especially clear if anyone actually put those guys in an MRI too. The social anxiety study for example falls back to it being self-reported again, so again indistinguishable from placebo. The article does say that anxiety correlates with the amygdala, but doesn't actually say that anyone actually measured that with an MRI.

In fact the only study where they say anything was measured (again, with the caveat that they don't actually have a working link to the actual study) is about schizophrenia, or rather apparently some forms of it where differences in brain activity can actually be picked on an MRI. It also was in conjunction with taking actual medication.

For specifically depression we're back to that big fat "might work", rather than any actual data.

And it's also only really supported for CBT, which is kinda the opposite of not asking uncomfortable topics. It's a VERY different kind of therapy than most other forms of therapy, such as for example IPT. It's actually more like specifically problem and action focused. Two of the phases in it are specifically about teaching you skills for dealing with your problems and making you practice them. (Which, incidentally also explains why it's not unexpected to find differences on an MRI. Everything you ever learn IS in the form of brain wiring.) And for anything else basically we're back to that "might work" instead of any actual study data. It doesn't mean that you can automatically take the results for CBT and extrapolate that the same applies to any other form of therapy.

But the most important part is just what I started with: it doesn't actually say that anyone measured the chemical balance before and after. Which was what I was talking about.

I.e., as a way of contradicting that which you quoted from my message back then, it was utterly irrelevant.

So, yeah, I decided to ignore it instead of just calling BS, since it didn't seem worth the effort. But I guess that's the problem with not calling BS: people end up imagining that they delivered some kind of killer evidence, when it fact it was not even on the right topic.

 

[SpuriusMaximus]

But to return to the topic of the thread, basically the problem there is: you can't do CBT with an imaginary therapist. No matter if it's God, your imaginary cat, or whatever. It actually involves someone challenging warped beliefs and teaching you some skills for dealing with your problem.

Now to various extents this CAN be a book or an online course, but some imaginary friend that's essentially also in your head is not it. That one isn't going to tell you anything you didn't already know. It's not like whatever imaginary therapist in your head has a diploma in that kind of stuff, when you don't.

So whatever brain changes can be supported for CBT, yeah, no, it doesn't mean you're getting the same from prayer instead.

 

[Minoosh]

It's an article in a business magazine, rather light on details, and it DOESN'T actually say that any change in the chemical baseline of the brain actually happened. Not the least because it's talking about MRI imaging, which can't in fact measure that.

Is there a test to measure serotonin levels in the human brain? Because I'm not finding it. I looked. I found promising evidence of experimental techniques for real-time tests of serotonin levels in rats and pigs.

From Healthline:

There are no reliable tests available to find out if you have a chemical imbalance in your brain. ...

The most common evidence used to support the chemical imbalance theory is the effectiveness of antidepressant medications.

From Harvard Medical School, "What causes depression?"

It's often said that depression results from a chemical imbalance, but that figure of speech doesn't capture how complex the disease is.

Why do you suppose Harvard calls it a "figure of speech"?

In fact the only study where they say anything was measured (again, with the caveat that they don't actually have a working link to the actual study) is about schizophrenia, or rather apparently some forms of it where differences in brain activity can actually be picked on an MRI. It also was in conjunction with taking actual medication.

There were two groups: Both of them took medication. The changes that showed up on MRI's were found only in the group that also had CBT.

And it's also only really supported for CBT, which is kinda the opposite of not asking uncomfortable topics.

And whoosh go the goalposts.

It doesn't mean that you can automatically take the results for CBT and extrapolate that the same applies to any other form of therapy.

I never said you could.

But the most important part is just what I started with: it doesn't actually say that anyone measured the chemical balance before and after.

Because at present, there is no such test.

But to return to the topic of the thread,

Now that the side trip isn't working out?

... you can't do CBT with an imaginary therapist.

I'm not sure about that.

Now to various extents this CAN be a book or an online course, but some imaginary friend that's essentially also in your head is not it. That one isn't going to tell you anything you didn't already know. It's not like whatever imaginary therapist in your head has a diploma in that kind of stuff, when you don't.

You are the world's expert on how it feels to be you, right? Do you have a psych diploma? The stuff that's going on your conscious mind is not the sum total of your brain's activity.

So whatever brain changes can be supported for CBT, yeah, no, it doesn't mean you're getting the same from prayer instead.

Who said anything about "instead"?

 

[Clutch Cargo]

Not always. Some people think in pictures.

Pictures are proxy talking.

 

[SpuriusMaximus]

Is there a test to measure serotonin levels in the human brain?

You can measure it in the cerebrospinal fluid, or even in the blood, though the latter is much less of an indicator of actual brain levels than the former.

But frankly, all you seem to be saying there is that it's ok to believe that something happens, just because (you think) it's unfalsifiable at the moment. Which is just as nonsense when it's about medicine as when it's about gods.

From Harvard Medical School, "What causes depression?"


Why do you suppose Harvard calls it a "figure of speech"?

I'm not sure YOU understand why. Because even the text involved does say black on white that such chemical reactions ARE involved, and that the medication DOES produce an improvement. What the text you linked says is that it's (generally) not as simple as just one chemical being off, and getting an effect does take some time. Which, yes, it usually is the case.

So maybe try to understand before going on the offensive

There were two groups: Both of them took medication. The changes that showed up on MRI's were found only in the group that also had CBT.

Which would imply that either they were not taking the right medicine, if the changes associated with healing didn't have anything to do with taking it, or the journalist didn't really understand what was actually being said by the actual doctors who did the study.

And what you would see is not that new connections have formed per se, since MRI doesn't image the individual neurons. And ALL of the neural columns in your brain are connected by a high speed hub, so saying that the amygdala is any more or less connected than before is 100% nonsense. What you can actually image on an MRI is that when asked to think about certain things, there is activity in one or more areas of the brain. (Or rather, blood flow, which is a proxy for brain activity in that general area.) So you can say that activity in one area now also involves more or less activity in another area, but saying that that means they're somehow more physically connected is nonsense.

And for that matter, it's not very clear how more activity being triggered in the amygdala for those schizophrenia sufferers is a good thing. Since, you know, more activity in the amygdala is associated with things like depression. I suspect it could be taken as an improvement in simple schizophrenia, since that one is associated with flat affect, but I'd be curious to see what the doctors doing the study were actually saying there. I'm sure they have SOME reason for why it's a good thing, but the article is lacking it.

And basically that's why I wanted to see the original studies and what the actual doctors said. But, as I was saying, the links seem to be broken.

And whoosh go the goalposts.

Actually, it's you who's trying to move the goalposts, with an article that addresses something completely different than the my statement which it was supposed to refute. In fact what you're demanding is that if you can't touch my goalpost, I should accept whatever your googling turned up as a goalpost.

So: project much?

I never said you could.

Because at present, there is no such test.

Yet you accused me of covering my ears and whatnot if I don't accept that link as refutation of my claim. If you didn't claim anyone could actually do what I said couldn't be done, then on what basis do you accuse me of not accepting evidence? How is it then even a refutation? Or was just the slinging accusations that was supposed to be the refuting evidence in your world?

Now that the side trip isn't working out?

I wasn't aware I was supposed to justify posting on topic. Or that I'd actually get any OP actually asking me to stay on a tangent instead of the topic. But I suppose sometimes keeping your own thread derailed is the best thing you can do to avoid actually supporting anything, eh?

You are the world's expert on how it feels to be you, right? Do you have a psych diploma? The stuff that's going on your conscious mind is not the sum total of your brain's activity.

Never said only the conscious stuff is happening in the brain, but I AM saying that your brain can't pull expert knowledge (medical or otherwise) out of nowhere. Unless you want to claim telepathy of some sort, that is. If you didn't actually learn some information, nor all the study data it's been deduced from, expecting that some imaginary entity produced by your brain will somehow have that information anyway and teach it to you (which is what CBT involves,) is rather misplaced.

 

[SpuriusMaximus]

Or, as the shorter version, Dara O'Briain said it best: "Science knows it doesn't know everything; otherwise, it'd stop. But just because science doesn't know everything doesn't mean you can fill in the gaps with whatever fairy tale most appeals to you."

The same applies to neurology or any other domain. Just because something isn't yet possible to measure in real-time in humans (but we can measure it just fine in lab rats) yet, or there are more details still being studied about medication, etc, doesn't mean that one can just use an imaginary friend instead and it will work just as well

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

The argument wasn't just that prayer is useless - Hans said talking to therapists was also useless.

But therapy is not useless for everyone.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Not always. Some people think in pictures.

Schizophrenia is a unique case. It should be discussed by itself. But if there is evidence therapy enhances drug treatment, that's great.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Very few modern psychologists consider Freud or Jung to be of anything but historical interest.

Plus one. This is my understanding as well.

I was surprised to hear the UK still promoted Freud. It was decades ago. I hope they are no longer using Freud's concepts.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

I'm to tired right now to hunt for the sources but there is evidence prayer helps believers when the person knows they are being prayed about but not when they don't know.

The implication is obvious. But so what if it helps someone?

 

[arthwollipot]

I'm to tired right now to hunt for the sources but there is evidence prayer helps believers when the person knows they are being prayed about but not when they don't know.

The implication is obvious. But so what if it helps someone?

Just don't do it exclusively instead of treatment.

The other thing to note is that placebos - and prayer, if they person knows they are being prayed for, is a placebo - increase self-reported outcomes, but when outcomes are actually objectively measured, there is no increase. In other words, they think they're getting better but they're not.