Comment by derefr
6 years ago
> possibly due to his being terminally online
I mean, Scott is a practicing psychiatrist. Whether or not he’s online, he spends most of his time listening to people trying to justify (usually irrational, mental-illness-borne) positions, and then trying to give arguments powerful enough to actually change their minds (i.e. convince them to inculcate a sub-self who wants to change the mind of the rest of them.) Or drugs, if the sub-self who would “do the right [i.e. ego-syntonic] thing” exists but is overpowered by some other sub-self.
I sure hope not, that sounds like an ineffective way to help anyvody. (Not to mention that it would only work on dumb or unimaginative people.)
You can't argue someone out of a mental issue. If you really think it would be helpful for them to realize they're wrong, the best you can do is be a mirror so they can convince themselves.
But generally, the fixation on whether something is right or wrong is a distraction, a mechanism for avoiding facing the real issue.
It’s called cognitive behavioural therapy. You help the person better arm themselves with arguments to convince themselves. But to do that, you have to convince them on the value of the arguments, such that they adopt them.