I just naturally gravitated to intellectual pursuits since I was young, because everyone always told me how smart I was, and even though no one around me is interested, or knows fuck all, I still do it. Reached a point where my cultural capital is rarely matched.

Safety? Comfort? Lack of negative stigmatizing judgement? Sounds awful. — Wosret

These are the worries that run about in a schizophrenic mind. To think that you are fundamentally flawed, as many schizophrenics think about themselves is a label that's hard to get rid of yourself. Once some understanding or therapy takes place, or even meds for those that need them, then recovery can take place.

I wonder if now we've begun to practice the topic, rather than discuss it abstractly?

I rather turn it around, and think that thinking that I was too entitled, and beyond reproach would be worse than thinking that I was fatally flawed. Great philosophers and religions are predicated on this notion. Not much room for improvement for the already perfect. Though no point in improvement for the completely worthless and broken. Somewhere in the middle is best, I'd think.

Well, by your logic, do you live as if you were entitled? I mean as long as you're not spending 100k on a diamond crusted car or golden watch, then I think you're fine. O:)

Gotta think you're worthy in order to be comfortable with owning anything, including negative things. Are you entitled to asshole status? (as an example, not calling you one). The trick is to earn it, and not just rationalize it, but take the judgement of those around you in order to ground you in your entitlements, good and bad.

I work hard at all of my jobs, even this one, so that those around me will feel that I'm entitled to it. I behave so as the world witnesses my entitlements.

Ultimately, that's a solipsistic philosophy of mind, don't you think?

The one I outlined for myself? Or the one I criticized? The latter yes, the former clearly no.

Well, I don't mean to insult your Protestant worth ethic; but, yes the latter, although the former wasn't all that clear.

It doesn't look like there's going to be much discussion of intersubjective consciousness. :( — unenlightened

I am game to talk about it. :) Per LInell, whom I mentioned earlier, talks about the inter-world. In his online 'dialogical notebook' which you can find by Googling, he has (pp 46-49) sections on this and intersubjectivity, they are little more than stray thoughts like ours but illuminating to me! Part of the dialogical approach is that ideas rarely happen in an 'inner world' but rather in the inter-world. Conversation for instance doesn't happen in the way fragments of talk are exemplified in philosophical textbooks. People just don't talk the way they are quoted as talking. All those neat sentences from Frege onwards are idealised-into-written-language sentences. Most actual talk is a flow between people who anticipate each other, fill in gaps, take things off at a tangent, speechify for a bit, grunt, explain with gesture and mutual touching.

Well, that's the rough outline of the approach. Does that speak to you?

But, anyway. If the results from this study are valid, then self-worth does not originate from the amount of 'worth' you produce. Ultimately, it seems to be about self-love in my opinion.

I meant to say that it is of utmost importance to be in agreement with those around you about what you aren't, and are not entitled to.

I meant to say that it is of utmost importance to be in agreement with those around you about what you aren't, and are not entitled to. — Wosret

What do you mean about, 'what you aren't'? That seems to be like wanting to prove a negative like 'Unicorns don't exist', quite futile.

Edit: And, if we attempt to try and prove a negative, then we need to know all about what we are in the first place.

I don't think that it's possible to love yourself without the support of others, unless it comes at the cost of resentment, and disregard of others. Their ultimate devaluation, as they have devalued you.

Like, most people would agree that you aren't entitled to kill the neighbors... for instance...

I feel like I've said something you don't like, so communication is breaking down now.

Why does this topic have to be about 'me'? — Posty McPostface

Well what it's supposed to be about is how 'me' is a social construct, so this ...

I should also mention that places like this forum and the old PF, have given me a sense of stability. Listening to what a fictional Marcus Aurelius would say in my mind also helped. Philosophy itself is a dialectical art that began with the dialogues of Plato and Socrates, and if you take a harder reading, then all philosophy is a sort of dialectical art according to Hegel. — Posty McPostface

... is exactly on topic.

There isn't much I can say to any of that. The claims are apparently both unconfirmable, and denied out of closed-mindedness... — Wosret

Hey, dude, I'm only shooting the messenger, because he seems to have bought the message wholesale. It's not clear, it's not confirmed, it's not been properly investigated. It is interesting, and particularly so because it seems to come out of, or play into, a rather interesting philosophy, which is what I would rather be looking at than defending a practice I don't have any experience of from summary dismissal.

I think we're talking about two different things. On the one hand, there's the self-serving asshole, and on the other, there's the good Samaratin that needs no praise or feelings of resentment to do good, who is filled with self-love.

Different things, no?

How do you know what's good unless you're getting feedback? Need others in order to send you sanity, and socializing feedback. Isn't that the very suggestion of open dialogue? That sanity arises out of intersubjectivity, and erodes in isolation?

Need others in order to send you sanity, and socializing feedback. Isn't that the very suggestion of open dialogue? That sanity arises out of intersubjectivity, and erodes in isolation? — Wosret

Perhaps, we need someone to chime in from the Finnish experiment, but I would assume that the unmentioned, all important, factor in any form of recovery or therapy is for the patient to love and accept themselves before they can acknowledge any sort of positive feelings. I would go as far and say that this is the end goal of Open Dialogue. Fostering a sense of self-acceptance at the very least, through intersubjectivity. There can be no dialogue where there is no subject or an unresponsive, cold, close minded, dogmatic, and insensitive subject at least.

It may be interesting, but yeah, I have some faith in society to think that the standard is good, and any challenges to it need clear support. Not just claims that they don't offer the information to be able to verify, and no one can, even the local authorities on the subject.

The article I linked doesn't deny that it is interesting, and worthy of investigation, but just notes that the claims don't really seem true, and warrant further investigation. They have more information, like how many of their research subjects that required medication a year later were of the schizophrenic group. Just releasing that information would make all the difference. Otherwise, one can assume that since the subjects that had schizophrenia made up a minority of the total subjects, then the numbers may be less impressive than the standard treatments. It's implication alone that makes their claims seem extraordinary, not even explicit data.

But it's apparently I, who've bought it wholesale.

This is clearly only true if there is an imbalance between guilt and responsibility. I'd think that a narcissist, or megalomaniac needs to love and accept themselves less. As anyone that is wrong does.

I'm highly skeptical of the idea that it all comes down to self-esteem anyway. It probably does if the goal is just to feel good all the time. Mine though, is to be healthy, and right.

I'm highly skeptical of the idea that it call comes down to self-esteem anyway. It probably does if the goal is just to feel good all the time. My though, is to be healthy, and right. — Wosret

Is that a truism?

Why have you become senselessly critical?

I give actual substantive points, and reasons, and have been receiving personal asides, and vacuous dismissals. It's frustrating.

Why have you become senseless critical? — Wosret

Well, if you want to think about this logically, then let's assume that the goal of every therapy is to increase self-esteem, something that is notoriously low in people with schizophrenia, psychotics, and major depression, barring some bipolar mania. Then, the efficacy of said therapy can only be increased by including the ones closest to you in an open dialogue therapy? Don't you think?

Anyway, I'm deviating, I think.

That would depend on the goal of the therapy, to think about it logically... if one is going to treat low self-esteem, then for sure, but if one is going to treat schizophrenia and psychosis, then unless they are caused by low self-esteem, then clearly no. Obviously no.

Then, how may I ask one treats schizophrenia and psychosis? And what does that even mean, 'to treat it'?

That ultimately doesn't matter to the logic of your suggestion without the entailment that low self-esteem is causal.

I don't fucking know, ask an expert. The topic is about that. My position is that I put my faith in the experts, and am open to new and alternative angles as long as they support their claims with hard data, and not insinuation, wishful thinking, personal investment, or motivated reasoning.

That ultimately doesn't matter to the logic of your suggestion without the entailment that low self-esteem is causal. — Wosret

Well, all people have to go about are the symptoms, that's just how the shit works in psychology and psychiatry. If self-esteem is a core issue for people with schizophrenia, psychosis, and major depression, then I think it's worth investing resources in trying to quell all the negative thoughts about having the label of each or in combination; 'schizophrenia, psychosis, and major depression' that are put down on you by a psychiatrist. One them becomes the diagnosis.

Yeah, and I dismissed them all out of hand when my sister came to stay with me. I didn't want her to be tied down to them (they also were learning towards a schizophrenia diagnosis), on the off change that they aren't true at such a young age. I could have been wrong and damaging, but childhood diagnoses are highly controversial across the board, I think that you gotta start owning what you've become, regardless of cause or reason, when you get old enough though.

I'm don't think that categories are all motivated power games, or completely whimsically constructed, and even if they are, we still gotta live with others, so deal with it.