Mental Health:The Canary in the Coal Mine

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slowtraveler
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Mental Health:The Canary in the Coal Mine

Post by slowtraveler »

The guns thread inspired this one. It's obvious declining mental health leads to these outbursts of violence. But litigation hasn't and won't do much to solve these. These are canaries in coal mines. Like the high amount of drug use, it seeks to alleviate stress or feel powerful after one has been down for so long.

So what ideas are there on how to systematically improve the mental health of the individuals in a developed society.

I've heard that during the bombings on England in WW2, the government expected many people to have psychological trauma but actually didn't. This was believed to result from the increased community closeness that arise as a result of shared suffering. Humans are increasingly isolated nowadays through the sheer addictiveness of technology.

To me, it is clear that increasing the frequency of warm human connection would go a long way to alleviating the psychological stress of modern day life. But that is much easier said than done.

Many nowadays grow up in a single parent household, getting little attention from the parent they do have as they are often stressed from working so hard. Perhaps the guaranteed basic income would help a lot here to create closer families.

Though I am not religious, I have seen religion as being able to help create a sense of belonging and warm love in somebody.

When you have love, you have something to lose, something to rest into, and you understand people get pissed off sometimes and treat others poorly but that doesn't mean you have to kill anyone. Without it, who cares?

So, what are your ideas on how to best improve psychological health to actually alleviate the symptoms that act as canaries in coal mines?

daylen
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Re: Mental Health:The Canary in the Coal Mine

Post by daylen »

Not much we can do at the policy level. This is a problem that will be indirectly dampened by improving individual strategy for stress reduction. The consumerist culture promotes a wide assortment of behaviors that lead to mental instability (processed food, economic inequality, hyper-competition, social isolation, and so forth).

BRUTE
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Re: Mental Health:The Canary in the Coal Mine

Post by BRUTE »

brute thinks that policy has something to do with it - zoning and city planning, for example. suburbia leaves millions of humans alone in a sea of highways and concrete that are only navigable by isolated boxes with combustion engines. now, technology has alleviated the need for any personal contact via phone and computer. TV did it a bit, but not nearly at that level.

to be honest, brute isn't super optimistic. if there's one thing the US can learn from other cultures, it's probably community. here, only churches and a few other special groups do community right.

Jason

Re: Mental Health:The Canary in the Coal Mine

Post by Jason »

When you look back at the beginnings of the US, the main concern of the founding fathers was the ultimate ability of the average citizen to function in a Republic (which in its essence, is a watered down version of Protestantism). That's why each and everyone of them, despite possessing a multitude of theological leanings and seriousness of devotion, encouraged church attendance in order to curtail what they accurately predicted would transpire: rampant and unrestrained self-interest. The basic moral teachings of religion were considered necessary to keep guardrails on the pursuit of new found freedom.

If you ask any suburban US Pastor what his greatest challenge is to maintaining a sense of community he will point to the cars in the parking lot. Mobility prohibits community, especially in church's. Something is said that is perceived as a personal slight or a heresy, and you just haul ass down to the competitor. Plus, community in its ultimate sense, is not just shared experience, but the ability to discipline and impose accountability. And, dare I say it, a sense of shame if necessary. That is no longer possible in most of America due to the ability to move and the amount of competition between denominations. And the community that is found, is not a real community in a true sense. The only place I have experienced is it in rural communities where options are limited as the greatest threat to community and to a feeling of belonging is in fact, options. When you and everyone else in the room can be anywhere else at anytime, there is limited impetus to personally invest.

Campitor
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Re: Mental Health:The Canary in the Coal Mine

Post by Campitor »

The focus on church and community reminds me of this article: Amish Community Not Anti-Technology, Just More Thoughtful

The Amish will contemplate if a technology will help or hinder community and reject anything that threatens their social bonds.

chenda
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Re: Mental Health:The Canary in the Coal Mine

Post by chenda »

@jason Indeed, and competition between religions and more religious syncretism. Original sin and judgement day now competes with Karma and reincarnation. Every religion is at our fingertips, which does not lend itself to community engagement.

Campitor
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Re: Mental Health:The Canary in the Coal Mine

Post by Campitor »

chenda wrote:
Mon Feb 26, 2018 5:57 pm
@jason Indeed, and competition between religions and more religious syncretism. Original sin and judgement day now competes with Karma and reincarnation. Every religion is at our fingertips, which does not lend itself to community engagement.
Some societies congregate around clubs that focus on their hobbies. I saw a documentary about happiness: Happy. The people with the highest reported happiness were those that were part of a community or club - religion not required although I think it can't hurt if its a community aligned with "turn the other cheek" and "do unto others as they would do unto you". Fire and brimstone religions tend to be more divisive in today's current climate.

I know there are lot of lonely people who get their fun via MORPGS "guilds". You use voice chat to coordinate actions in order to conquer online content. I remember some of the funnest times I've had (and biggest laughs) were playing with people online while on voice chat; World of Warcraft. Sometimes even real world friendships develop with people meeting up for drinks or visiting folks in other countries. Playing with online friends, in moderation, can be fulfilling. There are "guild" forums with chat boards for members and meetup events - online and in real life.

Jason

Re: Mental Health:The Canary in the Coal Mine

Post by Jason »

Campitor wrote:
Mon Feb 26, 2018 7:08 pm
Some societies congregate around clubs that focus on their hobbies.
De Toquesville in "Democracy in America" observed that the ultimate strength of America was found not in its founding documents nor in it's Judeo-Christian origins, but in its plethora of social groups. In "Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community" by Robert Putnam he addresses the very issue in our current context and associates many ills to the radical decline of individual membership in any type of social organization, whether its Church, bowling leagues etc. Obviously the continuing disintegration of unions hasn't helped. The political repercussions is that many organizations (PACS etc) have arisen that cast a net over voting inclinations filling the void that was left behind when pre-existing organizations that historically voted in a certain direction collapsed.

The fear of moral turpitude was always a fear and addressed in a similar manner as it is now: Anti-Federalists railed against legal attempts and Federalists stated government needs to be involved. However, social groups kept people bound to one another within the discussion. I'm not saying being in the chess club is going to stop a kid from shooting up a school, but people are creatures wired for relationships and when they are lacking in that regard, good things don't normally flow from it.

Paula
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Re: Mental Health:The Canary in the Coal Mine

Post by Paula »

slowtraveler wrote:
Sun Feb 25, 2018 10:13 pm
When you have love, you have something to lose, something to rest into, and you understand people get pissed off sometimes and treat others poorly but that doesn't mean you have to kill anyone. Without it, who cares?

So, what are your ideas on how to best improve psychological health to actually alleviate the symptoms that act as canaries in coal mines?
A loving environment and being part of a community are both critical for the development of healthy, happy children. Their development is an ongoing, growing process

In America 11% of kids are taking a stimulant for ADHD and one is six adults is taking an anti-depressant medication.

The Parkland shooter was one of them. As were the shooters at Columbine, Sandy Hook, and many others. The warning label for these drugs clearly state that the side effects include agitation, irritability, hostility, aggressiveness, and impulsivity.

Brains are continually growing and changing to adapt to the environment. The brains of children are developing especially rapidly. Humans evolved so that caring touch and love are critical for this development. What happens when those brains are saturated in stimulants? This is a societal experiment.

Campitor
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Re: Mental Health:The Canary in the Coal Mine

Post by Campitor »

Paula wrote:
Tue Feb 27, 2018 10:47 am
Humans evolved so that caring touch and love are critical for this development. What happens when those brains are saturated in stimulants? This is a societal experiment.
As a Latino, our culture is filled with familial affection even amongst friends; we hug each other when we greet each other. I don’t see that level of affection in American culture unless it’s a small town. Is there a stigma about that in general, aka inappropriate touching despite it being a “bro” hug?

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Re: Mental Health:The Canary in the Coal Mine

Post by jacob »

@Campitor - Scandinavian greeting culture generally demands either a nod or a [firm] handshake. Touching beyond that for greeting (e.g. a double handshake, touching the arm or shoulder, or hugging) would be considered weird or an invasion of personal space. Hugging is reserved for the closest family (parents, siblings) and really good friends and even in those cases, a handshake would not be weird, except for your SO. (It's weirder to go too far than not to go far enough.) There's absolutely no cheek kissing, ever. In contrast, standard American culture has way more expected hugging than I'm generally comfortable with and DW likes to make fun of me when I get into those "situations". In the US, it seems the rule is to hug females and shake hands with males (hug only if known well). There's no gender or age differences in Scandinavian countries for greetings, same procedure for everybody. (Well, actually, royal family is different/complicated, so best study up first.)

7Wannabe5
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Re: Mental Health:The Canary in the Coal Mine

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

I think we need to be a bit careful in describing this as a mental health problem, because there are many people who suffer from "real" organic diseases of the brain, and the majority of them aren't violently ant-social, and many of them can be helped with appropriate treatment.
...most criminologists believe that violence itself is a form of pathology. This is a mistake. Although some killers are indeed insane, violence itself is an organized, evolved capability of normal human beings, pursuing their interests in a world in which people's interests conflict."
If one of these shooters engaged in similar behavior against a squadron of enemy combatants, with the support of nation-state, or even inner city gang with which he was known to be affiliated, "need for a hug" would not come into solution set. Most exhibitions of violent behavior by young human males are more linked to perceived inequities related to status or "demand for respect" rather than "lack of affection."

Riggerjack
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Re: Mental Health:The Canary in the Coal Mine

Post by Riggerjack »

Cross post from the guns thread, after someone suggested that maybe small schools are the answer.
As to smaller schools, that was my first thought. In the smaller schools that I attended, there was far less social stratification. But the cruelty was just as present. I remember one kid got cornered, stripped, stuffed folded into a trash can, and walked out to the fifty yardline during half-time, where he was left, struggling to knock over the trashcan, crawl out, and walk off the field, carrying the can. He was a decent guy, but he had been the dedicated subject of bullying, from the same bullies, since elementary school. He's one of the people who graduated and never looked back, so I don't know what happened to him.

I think of him when I think of school shootings. He never did anything to give the impression that he would, but just all the crap he went through, that never stopped, that came from the same people, year after year. I had it rough as a kid, but I at least knew every shitty situation was temporary. No matter how bad, it would be different in a few months or a year. Now that the school shooting template is out there, I don't know how to stop kids dealing with this kind of regular abuse at school from choosing it.

It would be nice to think antibullying measures would fix this, but the evidence points the other way.

Since I can't see a way to separate the bullied kids from the guns, I think our best hope lies in stopping the abuse in school. But that would require throwing out the industrial schooling model, and starting fresh.

Which is just so much more work, than just calling for a gun bans, and going back to watching TV.
Now the school I'm talking about was a "B school". A k-12, where small classes were single digits, and big classes were double digits.

As 7w5 points out, young men lash out against lack of status/respect, rather than lack of hugs. Can you imagine a greater display of lack of status than I described above? (Probably)

But if that happened to you, what would it take to make you feel like you had made it right? Now try it again, imagining it happened and you had the skills, experience, and resources of a 15 year old boy.

I don't think shooting a school full of the same people who observed and didn't help the situation above, requires mental illness. I think it takes rage, and a real feeling of helplessness, and a gun.

We see the same behavior in road rage incidents. Mainly white, male, and young. Mainly economically engaged. By this I mean has a job, and from the outside is at least getting by. But cut him off in traffic, and there is a whole other side of him. Afterwards, they can't describe the rage that overcame them, or why.

I see these as linked, but I have no proof.

The only solution I can think of is to not let young men feel so enraged and helpless, but I don't know how we could do that in our society, nor that the necessary changes wouldn't create other, worse issues. But I think completely reworking the school system is a reasonable place to start. The industrial model is outdated, anyway.

Riggerjack
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Re: Mental Health:The Canary in the Coal Mine

Post by Riggerjack »

http://slatestarcodex.com/2018/02/07/gu ... tivation/

Since we are talking about ssris.

This is s look at how dopamine affects basal ganglia and how competing thoughts get turned to actions, with speculation about how drugs that raise dopamine lead to more actions.

Paula
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Re: Mental Health:The Canary in the Coal Mine

Post by Paula »

7Wannabe5 wrote:
Tue Feb 27, 2018 5:52 pm
Most exhibitions of violent behavior by young human males are more linked to perceived inequities related to status or "demand for respect" rather than "lack of affection."
A violent act requires three things, a propensity to be violent, a trigger and the means of violence. Perceived inequities are triggers. Triggers are usually harmless because they cannot set off a person who does not have a propensity to be violent.

Why do we suddenly have so many people who have a propensity to be violent?

daylen
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Re: Mental Health:The Canary in the Coal Mine

Post by daylen »

@Paula We all have the propensity to be violent, because we all have ancestors that killed people.

Campitor
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Re: Mental Health:The Canary in the Coal Mine

Post by Campitor »

daylen wrote:
Tue Feb 27, 2018 7:20 pm
@Paula We all have the propensity to be violent, because we all have ancestors that killed people.
The neural correlates of justified and unjustified killing: an fMRI study

"The data suggest that certain situations in which violence is seen as justified can lead to less activation of the typical brain responses associated with harming another human being. As such, these results have important implications for a better understanding of how ordinary people can override constraints to violent action against particular people in specific situations."

daylen
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Re: Mental Health:The Canary in the Coal Mine

Post by daylen »

Justified or unjustified, anyone will act violent in certain situations, though the threshold required to trigger violence obviously varies.

Campitor
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Re: Mental Health:The Canary in the Coal Mine

Post by Campitor »

daylen wrote:
Tue Feb 27, 2018 10:09 pm
Justified or unjustified, anyone will act violent in certain situations, though the threshold required to trigger violence obviously varies.
That is what that research paper was about. They are trying to figure out how they can measure that threshold as an aid to identify when someone is at the precipice of violence and respond with the appropriate cognitive and behavioral therapy.

daylen
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Re: Mental Health:The Canary in the Coal Mine

Post by daylen »

@Campitor Interesting, I'll give it a read tomorrow.

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