Social anxiety

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Karpel Tunnel
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Re: Social anxiety

Post by Karpel Tunnel »

Burning ghost wrote: July 17th, 2018, 1:40 am Karpel -

Have you heard of micro adventures? Where people finish their work in the office, go climb a hill or venture into a forest, and stay there the night. Then they wake up and go straight into work the next day.
I've lived in the woods in a tent for months, though I also had access to people when I wanted, so your preaching to the choir.
People do this willingly because they get something from it. There is a primal urge to be truly cut off from society.
Su re, though for me society and certain people are two different things to me. But even with people I like to get out on my own.
And yes, I am not saying one is preferable to the other, but I would argue that encouraging people to think they are helping themselves by complaining about the state of their place in society instead of finding ways to adjust is likely more damaging to the individual becasue they are ignoring their individuality by expressing the problem as an external one rather than taking on their own faults and exploring their own myopic view in order to break free from it and deal better with life at large.
I don't see this as either or. Yes, you can complain and never change and get nowhere. But it can also be wpart of natural reactions to what is happening and part of a process where one understands what is sick about society and limited AND you come up with better solutions for yourself.
Murderers and rapists deserve that kind of “violence.” If we are going to start apologising for murderers and rapists as being merely “sick” people we’ve got an issue. Not that I would wholly disagree with looking upo criminal acts as symptomatic of some indivdual “illness”, but practically speaking the less ethically conditioned people of the world will simply use such sympathy as a weapon against well doers.
Pehaps I came in the middle of something and seemed to be saying things I am not saying. I am not apologizing for rapists being sick. I did mention something about a rapist in response to Greta I think. But it was not meant as some excuse for rapists. I would react violently to a rapist raping my wife. I would violently stop the rape and I would violently incapacitate the rapist and call the police.

I was mainly reacting to the idea that its weak and modern to be powerfully affected by isolation or the judgment of peers. I think it is neither. We can have bad habits and focus only on one part of our reactoins to negative treatment. But part and parcel with all the advantages we get out of being social mammals there is a downside, we miss intimacy, we long to be accepted. And these are not weaknesses they are part of what makes us strong. The people who do not need other people strike me as partial humans and rather broken.
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Re: Social anxiety

Post by Belindi »

Mark1955 wrote: July 16th, 2018, 8:17 am
Belindi wrote: July 10th, 2018, 2:29 am Survival involves more than the means of staying alive.
I think this is where you're missing the point, survival means exactly that, 'staying alive'. Everything else is further up Maslow's hierarchy of needs. Your Id does staying alive, your ego and superego do worrying about how you do it and if you can get hold of a colour television.

I remain puzzled, Mark. I agree with you, and I also agree with me. I may discover a compromise or I may have to go on feeling uncomfortable.
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Burning ghost
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Re: Social anxiety

Post by Burning ghost »

Karpel -

I wasn’t presching, nor as I attacking you in any way. We see to mostly agree and you’re probably nitpicking due to the habits of others forcefully conflating anything you say when it suits their excuse to bring out their soapbox - such is life on internet forums.
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Burning ghost
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Re: Social anxiety

Post by Burning ghost »

Greta wrote: July 16th, 2018, 4:59 pm The logic presented goes like this:

1. Survival is related to the id
2. Social awareness is associated with the ego, not the id
3. Therefore social problems are not related to survival.

This is an example of how logic that is poorly applied can lead people to claim obvious absurdities. The issue is that they don't check with what they know of reality to see if their notion is realistic. Do people become depressed and kill themselves through social problems? Daily. Thus the logical statements" need to be ditched.

Speaking of logic, the capacity to buy a colour TV has nothing to do with social anxiety.

Rather than using logical statements, you can just accept that there's mountains of anecdotal and clinical evidence that social anxiety can be a life and death issue. Some, however, might figure that is not important enough to consider - just the natural elimination of the weak. Wouldn't you say some people think that way, Mark?
And the point of what Freud said, and his use of the term “id,” flies in the facd of such nonsense presented above. The point is Freud was NOT talkgin about the id in term of “social anxiety” because he said so himself. It was correctly pointed out by Mark that within Freud’s particular set lf terminology the post should’ve referred to the “super ego” not the “id.”

It is a trivial point being made more and more trivial by a willfully opposing someone without any warrent - other than perhaps disliking what Mark says about other things; as I do too. Just because someone says one seemingly ridiculous thing doesn’t mean everything they say is foudned upon that singular statement (obtuse, disgusting, and/or offensive as you may deem it to be.)

It is possible I am wrong. If so present an extract of Freud referring to social anxiety and the id - I am guessing he has made such a distinction somewhere (I’ll have a look in my book later.)
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Sy Borg
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Re: Social anxiety

Post by Sy Borg »

Burning ghost wrote: July 17th, 2018, 3:54 amIt is a trivial point being made more and more trivial by a willfully opposing someone without any warrent - other than perhaps disliking what Mark says about other things; as I do too. Just because someone says one seemingly ridiculous thing doesn’t mean everything they say is foudned upon that singular statement (obtuse, disgusting, and/or offensive as you may deem it to be.)
I take your point but your assumptions about my motivations are muddle-headed because your point is still simply wrong. It's not bias but logic. Nice try, but you won an exploding cigar.

Do you think that psychodynamic divisions are stable and don't feed into each other? That's the assumption - the upshot of Mark's comment. A person under social threat might have their superego and/or ego activated based on Freud's model, but while that's happening the implicit assumption is that the id would be lying quietly waiting for genuine existential threats - something more impressive than "first world problems".

Of course that's not the case. Our fight-or-flight mechanism will trigger just as surely in the face of a bully as a rabid dog. The larger point was that survival is obviously not just about base physical needs.
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Burning ghost
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Re: Social anxiety

Post by Burning ghost »

Mark commented on “social anxiety” NOT being about the “id.” He was correct. My analysis of your reaction was merely a guess. If it was wrong it was wrong; it happens (although not very often - he says in a self-righteous smuggness whilst doning his “Mr. Smug” hat.)

For emphasis:
Id: In Freud’s theory, the basic, instinctual core of drives inherited as part of the animal ancestory of the human race; tendencies toward self-gratification and self-preservation without the regulative influences of civilization.

- Prof Daniel Robinson, from his The Great Ideas of Psychology course, Georgetown University.
As you can see from the above definition the “id” is very spceifically outlined as being disconnected from the needs and wants of society at large. Any argument you have here is pedantic at best - that doesn’t mean that it’s pointless I mean “pedantic” as in extending beyond the original meaning of the term as far as is laid out above.

Physiologically people have made the analogy between the midbrain and the “id” and our neurological understanding of the “social brain” is generally considered as a cerebral function in the prefrontal cortex.

The point terminology is to present delineation between items of experience and to establish more refined concepts. So no, I don’t think it is blakc and white, but the term “id” is meant to demarcate between distinct ideas of human psychology. Social anxiety, in Freudian terminology, would be firmly placed in the super-ego category which is defined, very generally speaking, as the area of confliction between the id and ego. Emphatically and concisely “social anxiety” is not part of the “id.”
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Sy Borg
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Re: Social anxiety

Post by Sy Borg »

That was one of the problems with the psychodynamic approach and why it fell out of favour, despite its valuable contributions; woolliness and impracticality. The mind is all about feedback and thus not so neat, hence the "animal response" of fight-or-flight to "first world problems".
Karpel Tunnel
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Re: Social anxiety

Post by Karpel Tunnel »

Burning ghost wrote: July 17th, 2018, 5:52 am
Id: In Freud’s theory, the basic, instinctual core of drives inherited as part of the animal ancestory of the human race; tendencies toward self-gratification and self-preservation without the regulative influences of civilization.

- Prof Daniel Robinson, from his The Great Ideas of Psychology course, Georgetown University.
As you can see from the above definition the “id” is very spceifically outlined as being disconnected from the needs and wants of society at large. Any argument you have here is pedantic at best - that doesn’t mean that it’s pointless I mean “pedantic” as in extending beyond the original meaning of the term as far as is laid out above.
None of this means the id is not involved in social anxiety though I sure wouldn't say social anxiety is in the id. I may not fully get the complete and somewhat fuzzy context of the disagreement here - a disclaimer. But it is not like we react to a situation with one part of our mind. Any threat is going to involve the id's reactions. Any perceived threat is going to involve the id's reactions. To whatever extent it seems like -and it always seems like- other people's attitudes may interfere with the id's urges, the id is involved. Informed by the perceptions of other parts of the mind that something negative is going on, the id is involved. To say social anxiety is part of the id seems off to me. But given that we are integrated - to varying degrees - organisms, much of the power of social anxiety comes from the id. And given that satisfying our desires, our freedom of action, and that our desires often involve other people, the id will be engaged in the pattern called social anxiety. The ego will obviously be invovled since social anxiety generally includes a heightened third person type self-awareness - the reality principle in overdrive-and of course is very focused on the self, how it seems. It will often have superego components dealing with how whatever I am must not appear bad wrong given societal standards.

If you suffer from social anxiety the problem is not in the id. It's in the other two. But the id is infused in social anxiety, all through it.
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Re: Social anxiety

Post by Belindi »

Burning Ghost wrote:
Physiologically people have made the analogy between the midbrain and the “id” and our neurological understanding of the “social brain” is generally considered as a cerebral function in the prefrontal cortex.
People who have lesions of their prefrontal cortices are social eunuchs unable to make thorough judgements that involve others and empathy. A man is not some solitary tyrannosaurus rex but is a social animal in these present times and has been a social animal ever since his ancient beginnings, and throughout his evolution.

The 'older' , in evolutionary terms, parts of the human brain are influenced by the frontal cortex and vice versa. However the frontal cortex and its function is essential to the human species.
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Mark1955
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Re: Social anxiety

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Belindi wrote: July 17th, 2018, 3:36 am
Mark1955 wrote: July 16th, 2018, 8:17 am
I think this is where you're missing the point, survival means exactly that, 'staying alive'. Everything else is further up Maslow's hierarchy of needs. Your Id does staying alive, your ego and superego do worrying about how you do it and if you can get hold of a colour television.
I remain puzzled, Mark. I agree with you, and I also agree with me. I may discover a compromise or I may have to go on feeling uncomfortable.
Because you and I do not genuinely have to try and survive, we know where our food is coming from, we are not at risk of predation by others, we will not die of exposure overnight; then we can believe that we require more than this. If we were really reduced to the state where we were half starved, hunted and close to death from exposure we would not care about what others thought of us. The best [in the sense of most easily observed and clearest] example of this is the way a military unit falls apart when it's morale breaks. Men who have trained together, team bonded together possibly already risked life and limb together with turn feral, discipline breaks down, co-operation ends, it becomes 'every man for himself'.
If you think you know the answer you probably don't understand the question.
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Sy Borg
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Re: Social anxiety

Post by Sy Borg »

Mark1955 wrote: July 29th, 2018, 3:25 pmBecause you and I do not genuinely have to try and survive, we know where our food is coming from, we are not at risk of predation by others, we will not die of exposure overnight ...
Mark, as a conservative, you must surely be proud of your realism - the and refusal to fall into the sentimental humanitarianism of lefties, yes?

Yet, if we check the statistics for the main killers in Australia we don't see starvation, predation or exposure. Rather:

1. Coronary heart disease
2. Lung cancer
3. Stroke
4. Suicide and self-inflicted injuries
5. Bowel cancer

Times have changed, champ. We no longer need worry about being et by sabre-tooth tigers.
Karpel Tunnel
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Re: Social anxiety

Post by Karpel Tunnel »

Mark1955 wrote: July 29th, 2018, 3:25 pm
Belindi wrote: July 17th, 2018, 3:36 am

I remain puzzled, Mark. I agree with you, and I also agree with me. I may discover a compromise or I may have to go on feeling uncomfortable.
Because you and I do not genuinely have to try and survive, we know where our food is coming from, we are not at risk of predation by others, we will not die of exposure overnight; then we can believe that we require more than this. If we were really reduced to the state where we were half starved, hunted and close to death from exposure we would not care about what others thought of us. The best [in the sense of most easily observed and clearest] example of this is the way a military unit falls apart when it's morale breaks. Men who have trained together, team bonded together possibly already risked life and limb together with turn feral, discipline breaks down, co-operation ends, it becomes 'every man for himself'.
Though soldiers will often risk their own lives for others in the worst possible situations. And I think this often has to do with social pressures, empathy, group identification, etc. I think the military example actually cuts rather strongly against your argument. Even when being shot at and bombarded for long periods, solidiers still are strongly affected by social bonds, guilt, shame, empathy. Saying 'when morale breaks' is a straw man. Of course this happens, but there are countless examples of people in precisely those survival type situations still prioritizing social connections. Where nationalism and patriotism have long since been deprioritized, keeping the other people in the troop alive at the risk, even certainty of death, is still chosen. And people will reenlist and go back to their fellow soldiers, leaving comfort and relative safety to go back to hell for social reasons.

And as an aside: I do not necessarily think all these social motivations are necessarily good ones.
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Mark1955
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Re: Social anxiety

Post by Mark1955 »

Karpel Tunnel wrote: August 1st, 2018, 9:35 am
Mark1955 wrote: July 29th, 2018, 3:25 pm
Because you and I do not genuinely have to try and survive, we know where our food is coming from, we are not at risk of predation by others, we will not die of exposure overnight; then we can believe that we require more than this. If we were really reduced to the state where we were half starved, hunted and close to death from exposure we would not care about what others thought of us. The best [in the sense of most easily observed and clearest] example of this is the way a military unit falls apart when it's morale breaks. Men who have trained together, team bonded together possibly already risked life and limb together with turn feral, discipline breaks down, co-operation ends, it becomes 'every man for himself'.
Though soldiers will often risk their own lives for others in the worst possible situations. And I think this often has to do with social pressures, empathy, group identification, etc. I think the military example actually cuts rather strongly against your argument. Even when being shot at and bombarded for long periods, solidiers still are strongly affected by social bonds, guilt, shame, empathy. Saying 'when morale breaks' is a straw man. Of course this happens, but there are countless examples of people in precisely those survival type situations still prioritizing social connections. Where nationalism and patriotism have long since been deprioritized, keeping the other people in the troop alive at the risk, even certainty of death, is still chosen. And people will reenlist and go back to their fellow soldiers, leaving comfort and relative safety to go back to hell for social reasons.

And as an aside: I do not necessarily think all these social motivations are necessarily good ones.
Every soldier has his cracking point and it is a while since anyone but a fool in the military fails to acknowledge this. For every heavily documented man who throws himself at death there are literally thousands who quietly avoid dying by just not quite doing that, otherwise defined as 'not taking stupid risks'. Team cohesion helps keep you all alive, this is why it's been observed that vehicle crews fight on when infantry have taken to the ground, in a tank you have to work together, but even then individual crew members can pack in leaving the rest of crew to cope with them not participating.

The psychology of those who re-enlist is complex and often involves an inability to adapt to or accept a non military existence, which eventually gives them problems post service.
If you think you know the answer you probably don't understand the question.
Karpel Tunnel
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Re: Social anxiety

Post by Karpel Tunnel »

Mark1955 wrote: August 12th, 2018, 3:29 am
Karpel Tunnel wrote: August 1st, 2018, 9:35 am
Though soldiers will often risk their own lives for others in the worst possible situations. And I think this often has to do with social pressures, empathy, group identification, etc. I think the military example actually cuts rather strongly against your argument. Even when being shot at and bombarded for long periods, solidiers still are strongly affected by social bonds, guilt, shame, empathy. Saying 'when morale breaks' is a straw man. Of course this happens, but there are countless examples of people in precisely those survival type situations still prioritizing social connections. Where nationalism and patriotism have long since been deprioritized, keeping the other people in the troop alive at the risk, even certainty of death, is still chosen. And people will reenlist and go back to their fellow soldiers, leaving comfort and relative safety to go back to hell for social reasons.

And as an aside: I do not necessarily think all these social motivations are necessarily good ones.
Every soldier has his cracking point and it is a while since anyone but a fool in the military fails to acknowledge this. For every heavily documented man who throws himself at death there are literally thousands who quietly avoid dying by just not quite doing that, otherwise defined as 'not taking stupid risks'. Team cohesion helps keep you all alive, this is why it's been observed that vehicle crews fight on when infantry have taken to the ground, in a tank you have to work together, but even then individual crew members can pack in leaving the rest of crew to cope with them not participating.

The psychology of those who re-enlist is complex and often involves an inability to adapt to or accept a non military existence, which eventually gives them problems post service.
I suppose I agree with much of this, but I don't see how it contradicts what I wrote.
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Mark1955
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Re: Social anxiety

Post by Mark1955 »

Karpel Tunnel wrote: August 28th, 2018, 7:10 pm
Mark1955 wrote: August 12th, 2018, 3:29 am
Every soldier has his cracking point and it is a while since anyone but a fool in the military fails to acknowledge this. For every heavily documented man who throws himself at death there are literally thousands who quietly avoid dying by just not quite doing that, otherwise defined as 'not taking stupid risks'. Team cohesion helps keep you all alive, this is why it's been observed that vehicle crews fight on when infantry have taken to the ground, in a tank you have to work together, but even then individual crew members can pack in leaving the rest of crew to cope with them not participating.

The psychology of those who re-enlist is complex and often involves an inability to adapt to or accept a non military existence, which eventually gives them problems post service.
I suppose I agree with much of this, but I don't see how it contradicts what I wrote.
My argument is simply that the desire to stay alive will at the last resort mostly overpower social pressures. Nothing is absolute but when 90% of an army runs away they've lost whatever the other 10% do. To return to the original point, social anxiety is something you only have when you don't have other more pressing needs, which doesn't mean it isn't a big problem when you have it or that sufferers should be belittled.
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