To help gamers on Twitch, Dr. K balances mental health advice and medical ethics
npr.org
npr.org
Dr.K has been such a breath of fresh air and been so real about how some people could use coaching vs a therapy. Where you do have an issue, but it isn't clearly on the DSM-5 approach or drastic enough to approach it as such.
Following his content has helped me understand my ADHD and anxiety so well that I feel like I'm in control for the first time. Where his explanations though through corny gamer analogies have me the most happy and productive I've ever been.
Where Dr. K's ''solutions'' are just usually more work you have to do and how to learn it on your own effectively, it's not a quick fix or some philosophy. The solutions are basically: this is how your brain most likely works, here's how to plan around it in broad strokes, do your best to be consistent to that plan, and let neural plasticity will do the rest of the work for you.
I had a lot of trouble with talk therapy as well. There seemed to be a focus on "acceptance" and coping. Wanting to eliminate a symptom was seen as running from the cause. I felt expected to play a role within the office. And disagreement was being difficult, which meant I didn't really want to "dig in" or was an indication of some deeper issue or trauma. "Ah I see you don't want to talk about your mother. Interesting." So should I indulge them in their curiosity simply to appear "normal"?
> The solutions are basically: this is how your brain most likely works, here's how to plan around it in broad strokes, do your best to be consistent to that plan, and let neural plasticity will do the rest of the work for you
I so often tried to extract this information from therapists. I remember specifically saying, "Yes, I know it's _ok_ to be anxious, but sometimes I don't want to be. Sometimes you want to be the person in the room people depend on, and a jittery coward can't be that person. How do you plan for the inevitable anxiety? How do you push to achieve despite some hurdles?" I think a lot of folks cope fine with their mental health. But they still need help achieving their goals or putting limits on the worst aspects of their personality.
The one who I had some success with also said I needed 'coaching' moreso than therapy, and taught me about cognitive-behavioral therapy. Which is a simple process of conditioning your own thought processes to be more productive and healthy.
If I had to do it again, I personally wouldn't go through the trouble of trying to find a good therapist. Luckily I think cognitive-behavioral therapy is something a competent and self-aware person could absolutely learn and practice on their own(I'm sure I'm breaking some rule of psychology by saying that though).
I think just reaching young guys who have trouble sharing their thoughts, feelings, difficulties with anyone is really huge. There are a lot of young male gamers who are struggling and spend huge amounts of time gaming because they don't know how to deal with mental health problems or even things like social anxiety or low self-esteem. And he's encouraging people to take care of themselves and find / work with mental health professionals.
I'm not sure that the fear mongering over whether his interview streams are therapy or not is useful. I can see why licensed professionals might be wary of new techniques, but requiring that everyone get 1-1 therapy doesn't seem to be scalable enough to meet modern needs; and maybe an preview of what therapy can be like is enough to get some to go.
That said, I didn't like the article much, and only want to stand up for the other people who were quoted in the article.
I thought some more and don't think Dr. K can be blamed at all because Byron felt he had already tried a lot of what conventional medicine provides, so he was very open to Dr. K making any attempt to help him. Maybe it did help him some. I worry that Dr. K might get in the way of someone seeking professional help but I don't think it happened here.
There has also been other streamers that have taken his public talks into a deeper private session or gone to see other doctors after realising that they have things to be talked about and resolved.
That said I generally appreciate his content, even if it's a bit formulaic/Tony Robbins-esque (who I also like): 1. Casual smallchat with someone, expertly sniffing out any trauma they might have. 2. Expose the trauma, causing strong emotional reactions in the participants and the audience. 3. Offer general advice, some practical and some spiritual. Reject bullshit excuses from the participant. 4. Everyone feels positive from picturing a brighter future/getting something off their chest.
Is this a similar format to 1:1 therapy?
Sometimes, the model of your engagement can speak more to how you think others should act than stating your opinion explicitly. At least that's where you should start. There be dragons in meta, don't invoke the dragons if there's still another way.
The most eyebrow-raising moment: there was one front-page article published around the time of the election with a headline including a quote like (iirc) "We're in a real civil war". A headline like that just seems designed to spark violence. (BTW, they did later change the title to something less inflammatory)
That seems simplistic. If people know he's a Dr, and they do, they might treat the advice differently.
On the surface, Dr. K's channel is a good way to talk about mental health. But I feel like most people would just take advantage of his audience and try to make up situations to get sympathy and thus lead to follows, subscriptions, and/or direct donations.
There’s certainly interesting stuff here and there. But more and more of it is just vapid, contemptible people with nothing to contribute to society looking for attention and money by catering directly to the attractors that work best on humans.
I am not even saying it is bad. Entertainment is something people want and need. But, it was literally that all the time.
Twitch is a weird place, the parasocial dynamic has become so mixed with the gamification of twitch via subscribers. It is kind of gross and I agree with the other poster here, it eventually turns you off. I really wish things like sub counters and goals would be banned. Yet, twitch is run by complete morons, seriously the worst run platform I have ever seen. It has become super corporate, partnering with shady companies like cashapp, promoting garbage content like slots and soft core cam girls who use it as an advertising platform for their onlyfans. Meanwhile the “good content” is just an in group of content leeches who got lucky.
Dr K proves how much power a streamer has over fostering a positive community. The community is a reflection of the streamer regardless of how much effort they put into building it. Many streamers ignore this and complain their community is toxic. It is a shame twitch doesn’t give a shit about the community it is building anymore.
That seems to be a pattern with Amazon companies...
(not DrK) Ex. This is amazing social anxiety course that uses CBT & various exercises + worksheets
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S6k6SOtPGqA > worksheets: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1Fa61yQHoOkU8F5Zc2Sg1...
I found DrK's discussions quite by accident and I was shocked at how often he's able to tease out an insight that cuts deep.
This might not apply to on HN, but if you're part of a subgroup where you feel like you suck/incompetent/no-good/etc just listen to some of these interviews and you'll likely learn something or at least open up
Here's an instructive example-- young man from intensely-competitive Singapore slipping behind and comparing himself to his super successful friends.
Singapore, helping people: https://youtu.be/Xxb-HovgjjM?t=883
Throwaway line @ 27:00 ("I don't think you are your friend. You're not one of them. I think the harder you try to be them, the more you will miss out on who you are"): https://youtu.be/Xxb-HovgjjM?t=1620
I've watched Dr K and his discussions. They are a kind of positive cold reading - allowing the other to do the talking and join the dots with subtle suggestions. Similarly with the audience, many people benefit.
It's primarily entertainment though, we shouldn't fall into the trap of thinking we are privileged to a private therapy session but see it as a kind of wholesome entertainment.
I can definitely see the value of a service like the one Dr. K provides... helping to destigmatize psychiatry and provide mental health help to the gamer community. Though I am sure the article is right that there are some potential ethical issues since Dr. K isn't truly providing therapy to anybody.
But I do get very annoyed personally because it seems like he often makes a lot of assumptions/judgements early on and leads the person he's talking to into agreeing with his original assumption, as opposed to continuing to listen to the other person and keeping an open mind. He'll often ask the same question over and over with different wording until he gets the answer he's expecting, or will just put words in the 'patients' mouth until the patient half-heartedly agrees.
Again, therapy is very hard, and Dr. K is much more suited for it than the majority of therapists I've interacted with, from what I can tell. Some of the ones I've met just absolutely should not be allowed in that profession.
Streaming seems to only make much of the already existing issues potentially worse. For twitch or others, they don't take much of an active role in ensuring creators are taking care of from that perspective. For mental health to be a priority it seems like that piece needs to be separate from the business of stream as much as you can or your missing out on $$$.
While it's early https://altair.tv/ is one that jumps out at me as an early but interesting take.
It has been my experience that it's safer for women to open up about mental health challenges than it is for men. Online at least, it seems that men are treated pretty poorly when they begin to open up about issues like these. Mental health issues affect everyone, but I wish we could try to be equally receptive to people regardless of their identity, especially since it is young men who tend to lash out in very violent ways when mental health issues go unchecked.
https://media.samaritans.org/documents/Media_Guidelines_FINA...
https://www.who.int/mental_health/prevention/suicide/resourc...
https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/00031539.htm
Though the Samaritans one lists "took their own life" as actually being okay and warns against phrases like "committed suicide".
I'd prefer "died by their own hand" to "took their own life" but some might get hung up on the word hand. "Died by suicide" is my preferred phrase, though.
I personally don't read into any of the nuances of the different phrases, so for me they are directly equivalent. I suppose if I were a writer, I might pay more attention to the phrasing.
I guess as defined in my own vocabulary, suicide is always deliberate, or else it would be an accidental death caused by the victim.
I think I prefer "killed himself/herself". I think this doesn't whitewash what it really is. "Took their own life" can theoretically sound kind of romantic and poetic to some people. "[X] killed himself" makes it clear what the implications of the actions and effects are, without adding any sort of moral or legal judgment (e.g. "committing" implying committing a crime).
It's jarring - which a professional news outlet may not want to come across as - but I think it should be.
Not quite analogous, but if someone has epileptic seizure and falls and cracks their skull and dies, we don't says they threw themselves to the ground, even though their own brain caused them to go off balance and fall.
But, yeah, as you say, that's not a good analogy. Barring a scenario like extreme drug influence or a total psychotic fugue, suicide is still generally an intentional or mostly intentional act, even if it may be an impulsive one. If you shoot and kill someone in a crime of passion, you're absolved of some blame, but not all of it. It may be the potentially deeply regrettable intentions of someone who's in a very bad state of mind, but unfortunately a lot of decisions a lot of people make fall into that category.
For me, the important bit is the clear, grave consequence ("killed"). My goal isn't to suggest blame should be put on anyone. I don't think such a term would work in English, but if there were something like "were killed by themselves" or "auto-killed", I would've said that, instead.
My intention was to just prevent sugarcoating it and hopefully slightly reduce the chance that a suicidal person might read it in an abstract or idyllic way. "Died", "passed away", "life taken", "perished", "succumbed", "departed", "deceased", and even "suicide" just don't have the same gravitas as "killed". I know that's partly because "killed" implies intentionality, but I think it's also because it also encompasses the visceral act of it truly happening. And the word itself has a visual and verbal harshness to it. It's not just that they were here and now they weren't; they were killed.
Well, it's obviously time to stop (playing). Better fight your problems in real world.
And a lot of those people are on HN.