I meant that emotional integration (like focusing) is helpful for avoiding destabilization.
I would say the signs are the normal sort you ’d see in mental health breakdowns:
Depression, social withdrawal
Hostility or suspiciousness, extreme reaction to criticism
Deterioration of personal hygiene
Flat, expressionless affect
Inability to cry or express joy or inappropriate laughter or crying
Oversleeping or insomnia; forgetful, unable to concentrate
Odd or irrational statements; seeming difficulty with communicating in a normal way
However, a few people seem to have an overall cognitive strategy that crucially depends on not looking at things too closely (or something like that), and this is actively bad for some of them. If you try this for a minute and hate it, especially in an “I feel like I’m going crazy” kind of way, I do not recommend continuing. Go touch some grass instead. I’ve never seen this cause damage in just a few minutes (or at all, as far as I can tell), but I do think there’s a danger of dismantling somebody’s central coping mechanism if they push past their own red flags about it over and over again, or for a whole hour at once.
The “notice something new” exercise in that post is extremely similar to “pay attention to the delta between thoughts”. Seems to me that it’s directing attention toward the same psychological event type, just not in the context of attempting to solve a problem.
I meant that emotional integration (like focusing) is helpful for avoiding destabilization.
I would say the signs are the normal sort you ’d see in mental health breakdowns:
One of my “responsible use” notes in “How To Observe Abstract Objects” seems directly relevant here:
The “notice something new” exercise in that post is extremely similar to “pay attention to the delta between thoughts”. Seems to me that it’s directing attention toward the same psychological event type, just not in the context of attempting to solve a problem.