This post is an observation about a difference between the patients in the doctor’s prior practice dealing with poor Medicaid patients, and her current practice dealing with richer patients. The former were concerned with their relationships, the latter with their accomplishments. And the former wanted pills, the later often refused pills. And for these richer patients, refusing pills is a matter of identity—they want to be the type of people who can muddle through and don’t need pills. They continue at jobs they hate, because they want to be the type of person who has that job. These richer patients are obviously more similar to LW readers.
In one sense this idea that people make decisions that cause suffering because of their attachment to identities, this has been observed for mellenia, most famously in Buddhism. This post simply makes the observation from a more scientific standpoint, from inside our community and epistemology. That is a contribution.
The author acknowledges that she isn’t sure what the point of these observations is, and I wish she had written a follow up post on that. For me, I have certainly felt resistance to the idea of even talking to a mental health professional because of this same type of identity, not wanting to be the kind of person who needs that. Perhaps the point is that members of our community should be more open to the help of mental health professionals. Perhaps the point is that in a community where we pride ourselves on keeping our identities as small as possible, we ought not to identify as people who don’t need professional mental health care in general or pills in particular.
This post is an observation about a difference between the patients in the doctor’s prior practice dealing with poor Medicaid patients, and her current practice dealing with richer patients. The former were concerned with their relationships, the latter with their accomplishments. And the former wanted pills, the later often refused pills. And for these richer patients, refusing pills is a matter of identity—they want to be the type of people who can muddle through and don’t need pills. They continue at jobs they hate, because they want to be the type of person who has that job. These richer patients are obviously more similar to LW readers.
In one sense this idea that people make decisions that cause suffering because of their attachment to identities, this has been observed for mellenia, most famously in Buddhism. This post simply makes the observation from a more scientific standpoint, from inside our community and epistemology. That is a contribution.
The author acknowledges that she isn’t sure what the point of these observations is, and I wish she had written a follow up post on that. For me, I have certainly felt resistance to the idea of even talking to a mental health professional because of this same type of identity, not wanting to be the kind of person who needs that. Perhaps the point is that members of our community should be more open to the help of mental health professionals. Perhaps the point is that in a community where we pride ourselves on keeping our identities as small as possible, we ought not to identify as people who don’t need professional mental health care in general or pills in particular.