We talk to Andrew Kay about the political and cultural aspects of psychiatric disorders — looking specifically at how OCD has gone mainstream because of the kind of society in which we live.
My daughter has OCD. Her compulsions are driven by thinking that if she doesn’t do something like organize her room in a certain way, something very bad is going to happen—she is going to die, her parents are going to die. That is very different from me compulsively checking my phone out of boredom and procrastination and wanting to busy myself with something easy. The implications for the day to day of our family life are very different between the two.
This convo feels very unscientific and dangerous, particularly given the current anti-science atmosphere and governments looking for an excuse to limit free access to technology and information.
I get your concern and I understand. But the person who we talk to suffers from lifelong OCD as well so maybe allow him to form his own opinions on the matter and allow convivial discussions rather try to shut us down. Thank you.
Oh I’m not trying to shut it down at all (see my final comment about free access to info). Great convo and I’m glad it’s happening. Maybe I’m just reacting since it’s been a daily struggle for our family, and I often hear people at work flippantly say “it’s my OCD” in the context of design perfectionism when they don’t really have the disorder. It’s a touchy subject for people like my daughter, who do have it.
I sympathize and as a father myself I can only imagine how hard is. I dont think we downplay the seriousness of this condition by those who suffer from it. I do think it makes sense to talk about the interplay between society and mental health, though. Its not always applicable but it’s relevant.❤️
Yes, 100%. I apologize for the mischaracterization—it’s not a dangerous un-scientific convo—quite the opposite. I am glad you and your guest are addressing it in a serious way, looking beyond a medical diagnosis and seeing how the environment and social structures affect things like OCD and ADHD. It is very helpful.
This was such a great conversation, thank you! It’s so obvious our society is making us sick, but it’s easier to medicate people than actually change our environment.
Attempting to wrestle with the political, cultural, and psychological foundations of human behavior/motivation just happens to be one of my current obsessions. In my opinion, one of the many reasons for the collapse of the New Left of the 1960s is its collective failure to more seriously consider this issue. (Most movement people back then were pretty sure they had all the answers when, in fact, we didn't know much about anything but, especially, we had little insight into ourselves and the full spectrum of potential reasons about why we were actively political.
As your discussion quickly revealed, you first found yourselves face to face with what the sociologist Philip Rieff, in his book written in 1966, called "The Triumph of the Therapeutic." (check it out)
Then you ran into the more current quagmires of debates about the nature of human consciousness, the scientific method, and the current apparent stagnation in the field of neuroscience (including the metaphor of mind/brain as computer).
There is so much to say on all these issues. I will raise just one.
Thomas Kuhn stated in his book,"The Structure of Scientific Revolutions" that, historically, science often found itself in what he called a pre-paradigmatic situation, where it is fundamentally in some kind of crisis-- because of some disturbing anomaly.
Such a situation then usually demands some kind of large-scale paradigm destruction.
For more on this issue please see "The World Behind the World: Consciousness, Free Will and the Limits of Science," by Erik Hoel.
I know this issue appears quite far afield but each of us does swim in our own stream of consciousness which is instrumental to how we behave.
how yasha describes himself around min 45 is really relatable, not sure it's something anyone could diagnose, or some symptoms that could be seen as adhd, but I know how to navigate the world around me. You learn how your own mind works and what works for you.
My daughter has OCD. Her compulsions are driven by thinking that if she doesn’t do something like organize her room in a certain way, something very bad is going to happen—she is going to die, her parents are going to die. That is very different from me compulsively checking my phone out of boredom and procrastination and wanting to busy myself with something easy. The implications for the day to day of our family life are very different between the two.
This convo feels very unscientific and dangerous, particularly given the current anti-science atmosphere and governments looking for an excuse to limit free access to technology and information.
I get your concern and I understand. But the person who we talk to suffers from lifelong OCD as well so maybe allow him to form his own opinions on the matter and allow convivial discussions rather try to shut us down. Thank you.
Oh I’m not trying to shut it down at all (see my final comment about free access to info). Great convo and I’m glad it’s happening. Maybe I’m just reacting since it’s been a daily struggle for our family, and I often hear people at work flippantly say “it’s my OCD” in the context of design perfectionism when they don’t really have the disorder. It’s a touchy subject for people like my daughter, who do have it.
I sympathize and as a father myself I can only imagine how hard is. I dont think we downplay the seriousness of this condition by those who suffer from it. I do think it makes sense to talk about the interplay between society and mental health, though. Its not always applicable but it’s relevant.❤️
Yes, 100%. I apologize for the mischaracterization—it’s not a dangerous un-scientific convo—quite the opposite. I am glad you and your guest are addressing it in a serious way, looking beyond a medical diagnosis and seeing how the environment and social structures affect things like OCD and ADHD. It is very helpful.
This was such a great conversation, thank you! It’s so obvious our society is making us sick, but it’s easier to medicate people than actually change our environment.
Paradoxically, it seems how people bond socially now is through sharing their clinical diagnoses with each other.
Attempting to wrestle with the political, cultural, and psychological foundations of human behavior/motivation just happens to be one of my current obsessions. In my opinion, one of the many reasons for the collapse of the New Left of the 1960s is its collective failure to more seriously consider this issue. (Most movement people back then were pretty sure they had all the answers when, in fact, we didn't know much about anything but, especially, we had little insight into ourselves and the full spectrum of potential reasons about why we were actively political.
As your discussion quickly revealed, you first found yourselves face to face with what the sociologist Philip Rieff, in his book written in 1966, called "The Triumph of the Therapeutic." (check it out)
Then you ran into the more current quagmires of debates about the nature of human consciousness, the scientific method, and the current apparent stagnation in the field of neuroscience (including the metaphor of mind/brain as computer).
There is so much to say on all these issues. I will raise just one.
Thomas Kuhn stated in his book,"The Structure of Scientific Revolutions" that, historically, science often found itself in what he called a pre-paradigmatic situation, where it is fundamentally in some kind of crisis-- because of some disturbing anomaly.
Such a situation then usually demands some kind of large-scale paradigm destruction.
For more on this issue please see "The World Behind the World: Consciousness, Free Will and the Limits of Science," by Erik Hoel.
I know this issue appears quite far afield but each of us does swim in our own stream of consciousness which is instrumental to how we behave.
how yasha describes himself around min 45 is really relatable, not sure it's something anyone could diagnose, or some symptoms that could be seen as adhd, but I know how to navigate the world around me. You learn how your own mind works and what works for you.