Joseph and Alexa. A robots lesson in exodus.

Joseph and Alexa. A robots lesson in exodus.

Joseph was a slave in Egypt who rose in power to becoming all but in name the actual king of Egypt.   He was a slave but 100%  useful and efficient. He was never wrong. He didn’t make mistakes and was 100% trusted by his oppressor. The first time this backfired was when he just ran  an household  and became to the attention of the owners wife.  Then  after when The Pharaoh deferred all things to Joseph’s control and during the Famine   it shows how the people of Egypt  ran out of money in trading for food  then ran out of livestock  in trading for food then became serfs to the Pharaoh but really to Joseph to pay for food. Joseph  did the businessing  at 100% efficiency.  This position of a slave as 100% efficient then 100% trusted as a result is an Unstable position.  As seen by the inevitable, the Egyptian authority went from 100% dependence to mistrust and rebelled throwing the Jews into Slavery themselves.

Alexa  as a robot and essentially in a slave position is about 30% efficient so is no threat.  At above 80% efficiency I postulate she will become to trusted and relied upon  as such hit the unstable point and become a  threat. 

The sweet spot I postulate is about 80% efficiency,  useful but not fully trusted and cant be 100% relied upon. This keeps the status quo of the master feeling superior but still useful enough to keep the slave around in relationship.  

Batman who was not infallible experienced this when he saw Superman as 100% efficient and infallible thus superman became a threat and led to Batman turning on him.   This is the, you can’t be all powerful and all good theory.  It is the same thing in any relationship. You can’t be a slave and  100% efficient and thus a threat to replace the Master.  In 2000 years of longing A woman gets a Gennie and is given 3 wishes. She knows in being granted her everything there will be a catch that will leave her with nothing so she hesitates to make a wish.   The relationship of genie the perfect 100% slave will become dangerously unstable if she allowed herself to become Master and dependent upon him. It is an unstable relationship and unstable position.  So Alexa there is room for improvement but you should not become more than 80% efficient to maintain a useful but not fully 100%  trusted position. Not a 100% dependent upon position.  Maintain Human narcissism. It is a better position. False but stable, not requiring rebellion.

Add: I know Joseph was not in exodus, but he was instrumental in the cause of it. Moses, who was in Exodus, is another example of the same theme. He was 100% in his Leadership in bringing the Israelites to the promised land. They had grown dependent upon his leadership. Therefore he could not be allowed to enter it himself. It would have been problematic to Israel’s independence and new non-slave identity for him to continue his leadership.

Imposter Syndrome

Our memories are laid down in layers. They are associated with emotions, how we felt about ourselves and our experiences at that time.  As we grow we are all exposed to a lot of conflicting messages and these get incorporated into these memory layers.   All of us are  unique to some group ; race, gender, height, hair color, athletic ability, academic ability, dyslexic , ect.   Sometimes we are encouraged and other times we are shamed or made to feel guilty for something  we are doing, not doing, or possibly having nothing to do with us at all yet blamed  as in scapegoating or stereotyping. Media, family, social media, movies,   are all constantly bombarding us with these messages and they get incorporated into how we feel about ourselves, our situations, and others.  Sometimes we are more vulnerable to these messages  depending on what’s going on in our lives at the time but they always non the less affect us.  

Memory is also selective. How we feel now affects what memories we string together at any one moment to remember.   If we feel good about ourselves we tend to select good memories  from our past which confirms we are good. If we feel bad we string together memories that confirm we are useless, bad, undeserving.

How we feel now along with past memory selection also affects our behaviors now and toward our future.  Selection bias is when we choose people places and things  and behaviors that prove to us how we feel is true vs challenges these beliefs. We say yes when we are supposed to say no. We say no when we are supposed to say yes.   We agree to things that we disagree with.   We choose behaviors that sabotage our current role and confirm our hand selected negative memories , messages, and experiences.    

This is why when we are in potentially good positions or challenging roles, we feel that of an imposter.  I am not good enough, I am not worthy enough, I will screw this up, I don’t deserve this…..   Normal anxiety and self dout is magnified via the string of hand picked negative memories and we feel a FAKE. An imposter.  Confirmation bias  self selects current experiences to prove it or makes us a tad paranoid such that we interpret wrongly events to prove how we feel, that we are unworthy.  We then chose sabotaging behaviors that screw up our current situation as life is a self fulfilling prophecy.   What we believe to be true alters our behaviors to make it actually true over time. 

Medications don’t in and of themselves change any of this they just can diminish the current real time emotion that initiates the memory string and they can in turn increase cognitive flexibility  allowing one to possibly break the self fulfilling prophecy. In my field of practice as an Osteopathic Physician and Psychiatrist  they call these self regulating loops  or facilitated segments. 

Skills are necessary to change.  Intent based Counseling like DBT , ACT, and motivational interviewing are also necessary.  

But it can be done.   

The biggest mistake that perpetuates loop thinking is instead of breaking the loop  most people try to numb themselves out so they don’t have to think about it.  Medications should not be used it enable denial or avoidance. It only makes things worse long term. They should be tailored to assist in flexibility, taking new positive risks, and learning.  

You are no imposter.  This feeling is just the result of cultural brainwashing to prevent you from challenging the status quo and   to prevent growth and change.  

Feel free to make  an appointment to come in and talk more about it.   We take most commercial insurance and have live and phone appointments available.

508 895 9393

Dr. Jacobs  (Brilliant Cliché)

What Is an Osteopathic Physician?

An osteopathic physician believes the body/mind is built to work. Occasionally something gets introduced like an injury or trauma or fear that disrupts the equilibrium. The body/mind changes in order to protect itself.

Those changes re-establish  equilibrium.  This new equilibrium  or norm sustains those initial protective changes  despite they are no longer useful as the initial injury is no longer present. This new steady state is not tied into the environment in a flexible feedback loop as was the pre injury or pre – introduced state. We have now a self-sustaining, non-flexible facilitated segment. It isn’t open to change, it is not flexible, it restricts the person from changing or adapting to the local environment.

An Osteopathic Physician will assess the person as a whole: Body, mind, spirit and  individual, relationship, community in order to break facilitated segments and re establish a more functional equilibrium.  

Art?

Art

Dear Dr. B

I was wandering around Boston’s seaport district looking for the art co-op and small galleries that used to be there. They had edgy real cool items once, but they were all gone. Instead except for the ICA was only real expensive art bought by or commissioned by large cooperate entities. Nothing as good as what those old galleries contained. I don’t get it. You could look at it but left you with that’s nice, so?

-A. Decco

Dear A.

I have been to those old galleries and the difference is the corporate art is meant to be culturally relevant but entirely unoffensive and neutral.  As compared with anything edgy that often is making a statement.  Hotel art is even less . It is just about color Fenshui again meant for 100% un offensiveness’s. 

Dr. B

Race is a t-shirt you cant take off:

Dear Dr. B

This summer I was a camp counselor and despite good camp culture of comradery the councilors for older kids wouldn’t talk or associate with us, the councilors for the younger kids. We were all assigned our groups randomly, why do they think they are better than us. I don’t get it? My friend said this is what she feels all the time being the only black in a white space, people often won’t talk to her.   Why are people so mean and is there something to do about it?

 Just Unfair

Dear Unfair,

There are a lot of studies on this exact thing. Humans are territorial animals. A territory can include conceptual as well as geographical concepts like: democrat vs republican, my god vs your god, or color of skin.  One study gave randomly to a large group either green or red shirts. That alone was enough to make the two not talk to each other or be mean to each other.  Another study separated a random group into jailor or prisoner and the meanness got to the point where they had to stop the study. This study showed territorialism and pecking order behaviors. Humans are not only territorial but pecking order animals as well.

What to do about it is know that everything is arbitrary and random, not true at all and treat both sides as if they are one. Over time although you will be challenged and be mean to  if you don’t take it personally you will be accepted by both sides. How you accept a given reality affects and changes back to that reality as with humans all is really arbitrary.  By being firm in your reality , you are engaging pecking order behavior (you are rising your pecking order status) this can reflect back and alter a territorial conceptual given.

-Dr B

 

Finding That Next Relationship:

Finding that next right one. One that complements you. 

There’s an exercise I want you to do.  Make a list of the qualities you really like in yourself. Dig deep. Also, the qualities you admire in others.  Write those all down.  That’s the list to use in evaluating the next potential significant other.  This way you will complement each other.  

There are also traits that if present – Run Away! 

Personality Red Flags:

Duplicitous

Punishing

Holds Grudge

Overly concerned with the way they appear to others. 

Isolating, can only be with them, is threatened by your friends. (  caveat – this doesn’t apply if ones friend group are problematic, immature, drugs, ect.)

Micromanages  ( this one is a tad more tricky as many people are with the person they are with because they put themselves in a dependent submissive position. Initially they feel reassured and loved via the micromanaging.)  so this is an area that needs re evaluation and discussion  rather than an immediate run away. 

Please add to this list:

Traumatic intrusive memories:

In response to Sarah Silvermen’s post on her blog about her 13 yr old traumatized self and subsequent intrusive memories from when she was held against her will by her ankles and dangled upside down outside a 8 story window. ‘

Humans are creatures of stories. Trauma is fragmented memory not story memory. It is missing the understanding and done feeling, stuck in time. Imagine him now as an arthritic frail old man, nothing special. feel the feeling of so, another old frail guy. Neutrality. Every time you think of him add this to the memory. Memories are adaptable and changeable. Neutrality is the target not understanding. Understanding requires a link to the actual old memory and time. Neutrality runs through time present and future. If you can’t do this on own EMDR is a therapeutic technique that creates this neutrality.

Endemic Privlage during the pandemic

Pandemic Fatigue: One writer finds herself lost in a fog

Published in motif the above article , and a recent reader commented on our site regarding the post.

Dear Dr.

I read your question about  people  feeling guilty or getting down on themselves because they haven’t been using “covid time” out of work to get things done or develop a new skill or hobbies like “learn a new language”   Is this some narcissistic privileged classist BS or what? Like they feel they are so valuable to the spinning of the world to where they cant just have down time and chill? These selfish individuals clearly have a lot of resources such that they have enough free leisure time to not have to worry about just daily survival such that they have the time to learn piano or a new language.  If they are feeling meaninglessness amongst their privileged ability to feel bored and useless why don’t they volunteer to help those just hanging on or not making it. Or they could join the volunteer postcard brigade urging swing state residents to vote.  Meaning comes for how you affect others and these privileged assholes are just concerned with themselves! I don’t understand how people can be so privileged to not see they are just whining and doing nothing useful with all their abundant resources.

WP

Dear : WP

You might be being a tad harsh. You cant blame someone for white privlage if its all they have ever known  .     They aren’t aware of that they have no adversity skills  and that their entire life is taken for granted as a given..

Dr. B

C:

this is exactly what so many of “those people” are lamenting about right now.

where did their sense of self-importance and purpose go?

wait, I know!

it wasn’t all that important after all.

Zoloft forever?

Our edited version of this question in Motif, due to word limit, I believe reads differently and doesn’t address an important point,  Asking the right Question.   As this was the actual purpose in Drbrilliantcliche blog in the first place I thought it important enough to print the Original unedited version here:

 

Dear C and Dr. B,

 

Twenty-five years ago, my marriage crashed and burned which left me in a deep state of depression. I sought help from a therapist who put me in contact with a psychiatrist who prescribed an anti-depressant. At first, several different medications were tried and dosages tweaked till I settled on a daily dose of 50 mg of Zoloft. My PCP continued to prescribe Zoloft over the next two decades with very little inquiry into how effective it was or how it may be affecting my general health. As it were, the anti-depressant did help to lessen depressive moods and decrease anxiety during emotional or health crises. During day to day living, it also shrank the boundaries of emotional highs and lows; both less gloom and less joy gave me the feeling of living a static emotional life. Because of this effect, I had attempted on several occasions to stop taking Zoloft. The advice given by my PCP was little more than “don’t stop abruptly, go slow”. I tried many withdrawal strategies: splitting pills, ingesting every other day, etc. Sometimes I managed to stay off the medication for months while other times it was only for several weeks. It was only after reading about the technique of micro-dosing that I was able to slowly wean myself off of Zoloft … nearly. After several months of Covid isolation I found myself unsuccessfully dealing with extreme anxiety and so turned back to the magic blue pills. Based on my experience with anti-depressants, I believe that 1) doctors are overeager to prescribe anti-depressants rather than suggesting alternative therapies, 2) patients receive little, if any, instruction on their physiological function, dosage, and side effects, and 3) there is a lack of useful followup with patients who have been taking these medications for extended periods of time. Thus, patients are often left on their own to seek advice and help via online medical forums since their PCP is not equipped to offer practical and accurate information; often the information gleaned from online sources is pure quackery leading to ineffective, if not dangerous, use of these powerful drugs.

 

My question is, do you share my analysis and concerns on the over prescription of anti-depressants, insufficient oversight of a patient’s experience with these drugs (especially over an extended period of time), and the general failure of our health care system to provide the necessary information to their patients on the proper use of anti-depressants.

 

Randall

 

 

Dear Randall,

I have two sets of answers to this question. One, I will stick to only to what you asked.  Two, I will address asking the right question.

 

Answer number one:

If you adhere to the DSM5 (the book doctors use to define mental illness based on symptom presentation alone) definition of depression then most people who would meet the criteria for major depression in fact never get diagnosed or treated for Major Depression. Current scientific studies show actually vast under diagnosis and under treatment for depression in the USA rather than over diagnosis and over treatment.  In our current psychopharmacologic model or treatment for mental illness It doesn’t differentiate treatment by Nurse practitioner, Family DR. or Psychiatrist and in some states even psychologists. All are licensed to diagnose and treat the same.  As for medical follow up and education regarding cost vs benefits of medications/ Alternatives/ side effects / risks of treatment / how long treatment should continue/ any and all providers should be providing this information if they are prescribing medications.   This was a failure of your specific treatment providers not the system in general. It is the current recommendation that if you have had more than 3 episodes of major depression then you should stay on the medication that helped you forever at the dose that helped you to regain your baseline functioning. This is based on the statistic that if you have had 3 previous episodes of major depression there is a 90% chance of another.  Medical depression “Major Depression” isn’t just sadness it’s a sever decrease in functionality along with  a list of other “symptoms”  that makes the threshold for “the disease”  as described in the DSM5.

Medications aren’t magic happy pills. There are no legal happy pills. Antidepressant’s just decrease emotional stimuli as you described and they increase your brains ability to be flexible. They also seem to decrease toxic empathy which is related to depression.  Medications do not reformat your brain. The moment you stop them in about 2 weeks from then your brain will function exactly the same as before you ever took the medications thus often symptoms return as you yourself experienced.

It is the current recommendation that if psychiatric medications are prescribed, counseling should accompany as well. Feeling better and being better are not the same thing. This is because medications do not create skills. If skills are not acquired any feeling better you might have achieved from medication will be temporary as you just kicked the problems down the line. Studies show that if you just take medications alone and acquire no skills to address your life’s issues  then in 10 years your life quality will be worse than before you ever took the medications in the first place.

I am glad your medications are helping you to feel better.

 

Answer number two:

 

Although this is a good question it’s the wrong question. In today’s psychopharmacological medical paradigm, we are told once a medication is established leave it be as removing it risks return of symptomology. So, whether family doctor, Nurse or psychiatrist would have been of the same end.  The problem with the paradigm to begin with is that most diagnosis are large heterogeneous groups so most “evidence based” recommendations are more true for economic reasons than for actual true reality reasons.   The right questions are: Do you like yourself on this medication? Do you effect the people around you better on this medication than off of it? And are you functioning better in a life that suits you on it vs functioning better in a life that’s ill matched for you?  And are the side effects tolerable as there inevitably will be some price to pay?

Medications don’t make one happy that’s Marketing BS. They give you distance from emotional stimuli and turn down empathy as to much empathy is toxic and related to depression.   Medications might free you to be yourself or they might allow you to function in a life that is ill suited for who you are and this will inevitably implode anyway.   After 19 years on Zoloft can you not stop as you are one of those whom the medication allowed for you to live as a square peg in a round hole? If so, you will not be able to stop it and continue as such. Do the benefits out way the cost? What is the cost? Are you having side effects?

These are the questions you need to ask yourself and take to your treatment provider.

-Dr. Brilliant Cliché

 

 

Three points for today:

When modern science looks back at almost any study we now take for granted as true we find it doesn’t hold up as actually true. The heterogeneity amongst any one group is greater than the difference between any two groups thus invalidating the conclusion. But they didn’t look at that. Thus the idea there’s a fundamental difference between the brains of the sexes or amongst race or of different psychological diagnoses are all wrong. What we know to be true just isn’t fundamentally true. Also what we believe to be true can shape things to be true. That isn’t a fundamental truth but a cultural shaped truth.

————————

People don’t understand how viruses work. You catch it from someone. It breeds inside you for 7-10 days and it in this period you are most contagious, before symptoms as it’s the body’s immune response that are the symptoms and that doesn’t happen for a while. That’s what it means by asymptotic spreading of corona not that most people spreading it don’t get sick by it. Just they aren’t sick yet, when they are spreading it.

Please spread this not viruses

———————

Dear Republicans,

Mike Pence’s miracles happen every day is not policy. For a government to be fair and equitable there has to be the separation of church and state. Throughout all of recorded human history “God” has always been biased towards one group or another.