
Why pretend to care about others when we have professional therapists? (2003) - tokenadult
http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/philg/2003/12/01/why-pretend-to-care-about-others-when-we-have-professional-therapis/
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pg
The title sounds like a post by amichail.

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yummyfajitas
In case the point of the post isn't obvious, read comment #23.

Comment #12 is also quite awesome: _I agree with Phillip on this one,
especially with regard to neurotic concerns of women. They shouldn’t be
encouraged in their irrational beliefs._

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michael_dorfman
A nice attempt at satire, but let's be real: there is a significant difference
between "sympathy" and what most therapists offer, and there's a signficant
difference between the kind of problems our friends help us with and mental
illness.

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eugenejen
Philp Greenspun (hmm, another PG) likes to satire. Before I applied my
graduate school in 1995, I found his "Career Guide for Engineers and Computer
Scientists"(<http://philip.greenspun.com/careers/>) and laughed my ass off.

Unfortunately, what he said finally rings true in East Asia. After we churned
out tons of our home grown engineers and computer scientists, there are no
jobs for them due to credit bust.

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kragen
Where are you?

I'm pretty sure things will get better soon for CS folks.

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jrockway
I am not sure if he is being sarcastic or not, but I agree with comment #4:
"It’s not that you are obligated to care, it’s that you should want to care."

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DanielBMarkham
Humor is really tough to do

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rtperson
He was writing satirically -- see comment 23.

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minutes
There can be a signficant difference between the kinds of problems our friends
help us with and and the kinds of problems that shrinks have unique
information to help us with.

For example, I have a friend who has just turned 40, is still a virgin and is
consulting a psychiatrist to decide whether to lose his virginity to a
prostitute. I have given him my take on it which basically boils down to "get
laid by whatever means necessary" but he is taking a more empirical approach
and wants the advice of an expert on all of the possible psychological
ramifications of his act before the fact.

Am I delinquent as a friend because I don't have enough information to answer
his question? No. I'm not trained in psychology although I can give him some
of my guesses about possible psychological ramifications - excitement,
anxiety, guilt, wanting to go back for more.

However, because of his empirical leanings, his question is best answered by a
professional. But to say that all he is looking for is "sympathy" would be a
gross misunderstanding of the valuable role that a therapist can play because
of his/her unique traning. My friend wants facts backed up by studies and he
doesn't have the time or training to find those answers efficiently himself.

So to talk about 'mental illness' and 'sympathy' as being the primary
distinguishing features of psychiatry vs friendship is a gross
oversimplication of both.

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kragen
He's not taking an empirical approach; he's taking an _argumentum ad
authoritam_ approach. An empirical approach would involve observing other
people doing this and seeing what the effect is. The best you can say is that
he's consulting an authority whose information he hopes is empirical.

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minutes
Ok, fine. But it's as close to empirical as he's going to get since he can't
do an observational study.

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kragen
Well, he might be a lot better off talking to his friends about their
experiences. Historically, Scholasticism was a big part of the background
against which the 18th-century empiricists were rebelling, so from my
perspective they're almost opposites.

