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Comment by Seb-C | Hacker News Reader

Every time I see such an article that dismisses psychotherapy, I cringe a little bit.

It is obvious that the author is ignorant of the topic (psychotherapy).

It sounds like a hardware engineer dismissing software engineers and strongly affirming that all bugs can be solved with hardware solutions.

Some problems are indeed due to psychic issues and not physiological ones. Yes, you can probably workaround symptoms with drugs, but that does not really solve the problem.

If you have mental blocks and a shitty life that makes you depressed, and alleviate the depression with drugs, you still have mental blocks and a shitty life.

I wish that both disciplines were not as independent from each other as it is today. Having experts at both subjects could probably do wonders to help people and make proper progress.

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Option 1: Confront your mental blocks and shitty life with depression.

Option 2: Confront your mental blocks and shitty life with less depression (due to pharmacology).

Option 3: Confront your mental blocks and shitty life with a guide and less depression (due to pharmacology and therapist).

Option 4: Wait for the law of averages. https://youtu.be/3s_BqdZrUbE

I'm taking option 3 all day, every day.* (e.g. I agree with you. They should always be done in tandem / there is no silver bullet).

*It's very important that your therapist shares your zeitgeist or directly counters it as a devils advocate. The drugs... not so much.

Option 4: Convince yourself your life isn't shitty via self-gaslighting / culture. (Often achieved historically via religion. Listen to stories of Jesus' suffering at church once a week for your entire childhood and any suffering you go through despite your good behavior suddenly seems less bad when you compare it to the ultimate Good Person who was tortured and killed on a cross).

Option 5: Convince yourself it's worth suffering through your shitty life because if you're a good moral person, you can keep your eye on the prize (eternal afterlife in paradise with all your dead relatives and loved ones in eternal abundance and joy), also historically achieved via religion.

"According to their analysis, religion is positively associated with life satisfaction, happiness and morale in 175 of 224 studies (78%). Furthermore, religion is positively associated with self-rated health in 27 of 48 studies (56%), with lower rates of coronary heart disease in 12 of 19 studies (63%) and with fewer signs of psychoticism (“characterized by risk taking and lack of responsibility”) in 16 of 19 studies (84%)."

https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2019/01/31/religions-re....

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