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I read Edelstein's Three Minute Therapy last summer who practices Rational Emotive Behavioral Therapy. It's been a while, so I don't claim what I write here as definitive. I hope I don't misrepresent it, so if anyone think I do, please let me know. What I found valuable with the approach was that it encourages discussion between the different parts of yourself with a rational arbitrator to evaluate what your parts are saying (Example: What is your evidence for this statement you are thinking about this person/yourself/situation?. I don't think that it goes deep enough though, in that I got the impression that if a utterance is not deemed rational as per your arbitrator, it is to be brushed aside. I think, to the contrary, that it is worthwhile to dig deeper in what that part of you really is communicating. At some point in your life this statement was 100 % rational as a tool for surviving in your environment, and it fundamentally wants to help you survive. I also think there is a risk of ending up in an exhausting war against your emotions with this approach. "I feel angry because of this and that" -> "You have no reason to be, what is your proof for this and that?" -> "But I still feel angry and now I also feel frustrated because you don't empathize with me" -> *Repression*. Rinse and repeat and you go from this holier than thou Roark-type elevated above your emotions to a bitter and entitled Toohey-caricature of rationalizations and far-fetched abstractions over your inner life in no-time. Conclusion: It is valuable to an extent, there are some risks to watch out for, and I don't think it goes deep enough.

You were bullied? If that is what you meant, how were you bullied?

Many speak about really boring bullshit which I find impossible to even fake interest in if I wanted to do that. It is ok to be a little dominant in conversations and change the subject if it is not satisfying. Conversations are constantly ongoing negotiations over topic, depth, power-(a)symmetries, presentation-and establishment of identity etc.. You do have a lot of power regarding those things. Questions I enjoy asking to expand the depht are "Why is this topic important to you? Why is that band so important to you?" etc... The answer always reveals a lot about your conversation partner and something I usually find interesting to listen to regardless of what the actual answer is. Another one is: "Tell me more about that particular view/argument/thing/person" (that you in fact found interesting yourself while listening). It is also interesting to disagree where you disagree and to challenge where you think opinions are not nuanced enough. Makes you feel alive and gets the blood boiling a little. Often, anxiety kicks in for me before asking such questions, but I have most of the time been happy I did it after the conversation for different reasons. Anyways, I think honesty is the most important thing to have in mind, and be conscious of it if you choose to not be. I don't know if this was helpful, but those would be my 2 satoshis.

That is a really good pont. I think she was motivated by anxiety over other people's opinions. The evidence I have for that is that she has told me several times how happy she was by the fact that in a customer-facing job I had at a local kiosk 5 years ago I provided great service for the customers, with big smiles and overall creating a pleasurable experience for them. She was happy for this because she got cred by many people who praised my service and who also told her I was a dream guy for their daughters to marry blablabla. I think it is safe to assume she took this as something that reflected her moral character and "parenting skills"... So, yes, I think your objection to my story of her not being motivated by anxiety over other people's opinions is valid! Good catch, William. She was not a pillar of any church or community. I am not really sure about her status in the community at the time, but I think it was low as both my father and my mother had bought and moved to a farm pretty far away from their own families and friends. She has most of her life been lower or lower middle class although now she is most definitely upper middle class with many friends. She has told me that we were very poor back then. I am sorry for contradicting in this post and in the previous post in that i wrote she has always had a lot of friends: She has always had friends, but in this period I would correct it to be not "a lot".

According to your definition of sadism, which I agree with, I think the fact that he told you the boogie man story falls into the category of a sadistic act since I think the most plausible and easiest explanation for him doing that is for his own amusement. I fail to see any other explanation? I think your father's method of addressing your bed wetting is evidence for a complete lack of empathy. I am not sure whether that specific act falls into the category of sadism though as I don't know whether he did this for his own amusement or not. But maybe he found an eloquent way of exercising his sadism under the guise of teaching you how to not wet your bed? However - and I don't want to make this about me, but I want to share my experience with you - I feel really pissed off at what he did to you. First he scared the crap out of you with this boogie man stories you had nightmares about, and then he put in place these draconian measures to "fix" your bed wetting which he most likely was responsible for in the first place by telling you these stories!

I agree with your advise. Thanks for sharing! I have similar concerns regarding my mother as you know. I have a question, "sadist or atleast leans in that direction" leaves me a bit uncertain whether you think he is or not? I still remember the stories of hell when I was little and they made me very afraid.

Hello, Thanks for your questions and discussion nobody & J-William. Those are really important I think. It was hard to fall asleep last night. No wonder I guess. I was constantly churning over this question you guys brought up over the value of me knowing these things about my mother. I am now as I write ambivalent about it. On the one hand, I can think of two intellectually understandable reasons for it. To know what destructive memes my mother might have infected me with so I can be more conscious of them and be less likely to act on the impulses that arise from the abuse in a detrimental way. To better be able to detect other people who are the same as my mother, so I can better avoid them. On the other hand, I feel angry about trying to understand the origins of her evils. Like it is a betrayal of my true self. I will notice and report how I feel while I answer your questions J-William. She grew up in a somewhat poor family being the youngest of 4 siblings. Stay-at-home mom which was diagnosed with cancer when my mother was 9 years old. My mothers's mom died from the cancer when my mother was 19 years old, around the same time she had my oldest brother. Her father worked alot and were only home with his family on sundays. She was spanked by both parents. When I asked her what she thought about that she said she was happy her parents did it. "It was with love" is the paraphrase that comes to mind. She experienced her social environment as unfair for girls in that his brother got things for himself while the three sisters had to either borrow from him or share a duplicate amongst them. I think she always has had a lot of friends. I think she was pretty, maybe an 8 or a 9. After the divorce I remember there were like a swarm of men trying to get with her. Low-life scum types of course, but nonetheless. I think that this incidence was right before he started to become bigger and stronger than her. I now also remember a very paradoxical incidence. I had a friend over when we were 12 ourselves and he was throwing red currants on a guinea pig we had in a cage outside the house. My mom saw this and got angry and raised her voice to my friend telling him that it was animal torture. What a hypocrite she is/was. I felt good writing this. I think it might help to never lose sight of where the responsibility of her evils lie. But I also feel like I have big blindspots as if I am not seeing something obvious. Any help would be appreciated!

Thanks for your understanding and deep thoughts! I do think you brought up a very good point in that it in general should not be an obligation on the part of the victim to seek understanding of the abuser. Thanks for that! I am currently mulling over my own motives for wanting this knowledge. I do think it can be of value if it helps you unravel your own unhealthy behavior which origin in past trauma. For instance, I realized because of that mentioned podcast, that I in some situations manage my anxiety stemming from bullying in school through manipulating others to act differently/more conform. Me and my girlfriend had hefty discussions to be sure because of that. It was immensely helpful for me to know the origins of this behavior to start turning it around (I am not saying that I have, but I am sure that I will because I feel I know what is needed to be known to explain and change this behavior of mine properly). I am open to being wrong,please let me know if you think so.

I am sorry your mother beat you. 700 times is a breathtakingly high number. I know my mother is not a good person and she has not redeemed herself. I am not asking for an exact answer. That I won't get from her either. But her not being a good person is not very satisfying for me. I did, for instance, care alot about the origins of why the mother in the podcast beat her kids when they were small. Stef and the mother were able to untie a knot through general evolutionary explanations, cultural conditions and childhood experiences without taking away the responsibility she had for her evils.I am not seeking this understanding to excuse my mother, but I want to know what particular manifestation of evil I was subjected to.

Thank you for your reply, congratulations and sympathy, Yeravos. It means a lot to me. I am going to a therapist in the near future. I am happy the therapy is helping you process. I know I will benefit from it aswell.

Thanks for your reply and sorries. It means a lot to me. Sometimes it is hard for me to fall asleep (it can take like 2-3 hours to sleep in on occasion) and need distractions to do so (e.g. podcasts, series etc.), but I am not sure whether it is because of this. It would make sense though! Next time sleeping in is problematic I will try to not distract myself and see what happens. Although I have not spoken to my brother in like a year now because he is a bully, I know that he gets up very early in the morning every day, and that he judges it very negatively if someone chooses to sleep in: It is lazy or a sign of weak character. He literally got that value beaten into him with a carpet beater. I just realized that it probably triggers anxiety in him if someone does that, so to protect our mother from negative evaluation on his own part he rather berates those who sleep longer. Does that make sense?

Hey, In the aftermath of the recent podcast - where a mom who beat and yelled at her children due to anxiety of them reflecting negatively onto her if they didn't do what was expected from them (e.g. homework) - me and my girlfriend have tried to figure out why my mother hit my brother with a carpet beater, and we are not sure. The same explanation does not seem to fit in this case. Let me give an account of what happened. I will just explain it the way I experienced it and as far as I can remember. It was a Saturday, I was 4 years old, and my oldest brother was then 12.My memory starts with my mother halfway through my brother's room running towards him while he was asleep. She started to whack him uncontrollably with the carpet beater while screaming hysterically that he was supposed to have gotten up long ago for his chores on the farm. I think she was swearing too, but I'm not sure. I felt terrified then, and now while writing this I feel tears knocking on my eyelids, yearning release. My inner mom is at the same time accusing me of betrayal and that all sorts of excuses made this act an understandable thing to do against my brother (e.g. frustrating and stressful marriage (divorce 2-3 years later) with verbal and physical fights with my dad, her mom had breastcancer from when my mom was 9 until my grandmothers death when my mother was 19, PTSD etc.). I think this event was very significant in my development: I did not get beaten nearly as much as my older brothers because I conformed through doing the opposite of whatever they got beaten for. That is, I obeyed my mom while eviscerating my true self. In fact, I remember being beaten only once. This was when I was 2 years old and did not want to go to bed, so I tried to run away from my mom. She beat me open-handed on my bare butt for this. I was laughing when I tried to run away, but I was crying while and after she beat me. I felt humiliated and helpless. Three months ago I told my mom that I was angry at her because she hit me, but she waived it away with "but it wasn't systematic...". No more needs to be said about that response... She also went on to say that I needed to talk with a therapist about this and that she can't talk with me about it because her PTSD gets reactivated leaving her unable to sleep for days. I haven't talked to her since, and I have not returned her calls because I am extremely infuriated by her response. While she is right in that a therapist would be beneficial for me and that she won't be able to sleep, her complete lack of empathy and concern for my needs demonstrated by her response turn my gut, soul and heart black of anger. This is exactly what she has done my whole life; sacrificing my needs on the altar of her needs. I fundamentally does not exist in her eyes. Only as a convenient carcass to pour her prejudices, and, wait for it, emotional garbage in. This post evolved into being much longer than I thought it would become, but it can atleast serve as background information and a way of conveying how important this is to me. My question is, why did my mother beat my brother with a carpet beater? Was it a way for her to blow off steam? Sadism? We don't understand, because this act does not make sense as a protection from negative evaluation from others.

I don't have anything to add to that, but I want to say that you made good arguments and objections! Thanks!

I think you have a really good point there, and I think I know what you mean. You are saying that scientific study of ADD won't benefit the labelled ones as long as it is used as distraction rather than something to accompany knowledge about the mistreatment of people? If this is your meaning I think you are right because there is already talk about developing new meds to cure the "root cause" of ADD as a result of this study.

Yes, many of the people I have discussed these things with are very eager to put forward genetics and evolutionary knowledge, but I see it in their body language that they get uncomfortable the second I mention epigenetics, plasticity, child abuse etc.. And it gets downplayed or ignored. It is both fascinating and ridiculous to observe That said, knowledge about genetics and evolution are valuable so one knows potential limitations of environmental explanations. E.g. genetics of blue eyes.

I'm curious what you mean by optimistic? I share the anger of this whole travesty that is modern psychiatry. But I don't think this is reasonable, and I think it is worthwhile to pursue neurobiological knowledge: What I find valuable is not whether it origins in the brain or not, but where specifically can we point inside the brain and say that something origins there. Calling something "Bad science" is a very high stake claim since it is in the methodology one can find evidence of such. I can't see where you pointed to any methodological limitations except the problem with transferring knowledge about mice to humans which several posters here already have done, including the OP. What I do think it gives basis for though is to say the title of the popular scientific article is imprecise, false, or not proven. The title of the actual journal article is "Defective response inhibition and collicular noradrenaline enrichment in mice with duplicated retinotopic map in the superior colliculus". And in the abstract of the journal article is says: "Our results suggest that structural abnormalities in the superior colliculus can cause defective response inhibition, a key feature of attention-deficit disorders". I think you should change your assertion from bad science to bad journalism, which I would wholeheartedly agree with While it was obvious for you, I was oblivious of that Thanks, interesting!

I came over this article which states that the biological origins of ADD have been confirmed. I must say I am not knowledgeable at all about ADD, but I am interested in it and I don't know what to think of it this study so I thought a discussion here could be helpful. This quote serve as a good starting point: So, they have found that giving a genetic mutation to mice brains had the following consequences: Visual hyperstimulation. Larger amounts of noradrenaline, a "fight or flight" molecule that increases heart rate and prepares the body to react to a stimulus. I skimmed the comments (don't do that if you want to keep your sanity btw ) of this article and the sentiment seems to be that this study proves ADD is hereditary, that is, environment has nothing to do with it and people who get ADD are just unlucky in the same way people with Huntington's disease are. While it certainly is an empirical question, I don't think this extrapolation is true. Firstly, there is the question of whether studies which provide knowledge about mice brains can be directly transferable to human brains. This does not necessarily follow for obvious reasons, but it can be an indication. Secondly, it does not explain why there have been many times more people diagnosed with ADD over the decades. Thirdly, it does not explain why some countries have more kids diagnosed than others. Fourthly, it does not explain why five times more boys than girls get diagnosed with ADD. Fifthly, while genetically induced mutations in mice can give physical changes in the structure and function of the brain it still is possible that epigenetics play a role here. That is, stimuli provided in the environment change the genetics of the kids, thus altering how the brain develops so that it is reflected both in the structure and function of the brain as well as in the resulting behaviors typical for ADD. I think point 2-4 can be explained by politics and incentive structures, but point one and especially point five are the most valid objections to a 100 % genetic explanation of ADD. I often get the impression in the public discourse that the protection of parental figures and significant others in the upbringing bias people towards a predominantly genetic explanation of for instance ADD. If we flip this around though, and find evidence for that ADD is caused by epigenetics, knowledge about brain structure and ADD can in the future turn out to be a very reliable tool for determining whether children who have symptoms associated with todays ADD-diagnosis have been abused. Just some thoughts. What do you think?

A new study was published in March that looked at the impact of inflated praise on children which is something that has been a topic in the Freedomain Radio conversation. For example in this interview of Edelstein "The Death of Self-Esteem": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6nYCsx4wanoExcerpt from the British Psychological Society blog on the study: Abstract of the study: Link to the blog: http://bps-research-digest.blogspot.co.uk/2014/04/inflated-praise-for-your-children.html Link to the study: http://pss.sagepub.com/content/25/3/728

That's interesting. I think many protect themselves from knowledge so they don't have to take responsibility. There are a lot of gems in sci-fi.

What are those and in what way do they remind you of them?

Thanks for the correction. I mean child sexual abuse, yes.

Stef talks a lot about trusting your gut and then often refers to Gladwell's Blink which proposes that "spontaneous decisions are often as good as, or even better than, carefully planned and considered ones". A study published two weeks ago reinforces such a notion. From http://www.bps.org.uk/news/our-subconscious-mind-may-detect-liars: The Abstract of the study: Link to the study: http://pss.sagepub.com/content/early/2014/03/19/0956797614524421.abstract

Yes, I would certainly not be one for abolishing personal responsibility for ending up in bad situations as if no choices were made before the incidences. I agree with your list except the statutory rape; in the example you gave further up where a 12 year old boy had sex with an 18 year woman I think is borderline if not outright pedophilic behavior on the part of the woman.That said, women who do this are responsible for their manipulative behavior.I also feel a bit sad for young men who do not get proper advise from their family so they don't end up in these situations and when in them, how to respond. Furthermore, that their personal boundaries are so blurred that they think that when a woman has needs you should obey them in spite of not wanting to fulfill them.

It includes both:

It is perfectly fine to start a discussion with defining the terms and then take it from there. Whatever follows then refers to that exact definition. Sexual coercion is clearly defined so it should be obvious that it is something different than coercion in the libertarian legal sense. Noone is "loosely" redefining terms, it is stated very precisely what is meant by it.That Hayek analogy you use is a slippery slope logical fallacy. With exploitation I mean manipulation of another person for one's own advantage. AKA being a giant dickhead (clithead in this context ? ). I don't see that happening in a mutual employee-employer written and signed wage for labor agreement. This study shows that sexual coercion leads to both distress and risky behavior for the 43 % of young men who have experienced sexual coercion. I care a lot about the well-being of men and this behavior perpetrated by women on men is not good. Women who do this should be called on it (as men has been for as long as I can remember for similar behaviors).