Responding to Suicide

Most of the psychological studies had to be thrown out due to lack of reproducibility, . . .
Hmmm, seems to me there's an evening's worth of scotch soaked musing you could do on that one - "How to create a reproducible psychological study?" Titan, got any thoughts on it. Like what kind of experiment would you set up? What question would you want to ask, and what would you like to observe? Given limitless resources, what would your experiment be?
He often replies with the overall meaningless nature of our existence and that the majority of our lives don't really matter.
If his depression is solely based on the way he's looking at life right now, chances are he will come out of it but it is difficult for me to know exactly what is going on in his life, day to day. Are you sure he's not suffering from some kind of biochemical imbalance? Maybe he's not being totally honest with you. Anyway, as I said earlier, it seems to me your friend feels powerless to change his life for the better and the danger is this apathy is self-fulfilling in that the more he does nothing to improve things the more apathetic he will become because he will feel convinced he can't change anything. I would say he's fallen into an unhelpful way of thinking. Focusing too much on what he sees as a meaningless existence will reinforce his depression and he needs to look at things in a more positive light by recognizing that there are many rewarding aspects to life, or at least potentially, if only he would seek them out and make them happen. Once again your responses aren't addressing the issue here. I keep telling you it isn't depression. It seems like he's logically worked out that life isn't worth it. You haven't attacked the argument which is what I'm having an issue with. This being a key part that I have stated: You say productive but if that means being a robot for life then death does sound preferable. You aren’t being productive, you are just upkeep in the machine. When you die someone else takes your place. You’ll receive a few special things (birthday greetings, raises, etc) to make you feel like you matter but you don’t. Every other cog gets the same treatment. Your mentions of "improvement" are the life he describes, and I have to agree. That life is the fate of many people. I've known too many that graduate college only to end up in careers they don't like just to make a wage. The you mention vague notions like positives but neglect the bulk of the time we spend while awake. It doesn't seem like a good trade off. He is kind of right, what we do does not matter. The majority of us won't do anything notable or great, we are one in billions. I want to be positive, but I can't ignore facts. Things today seem different, but not much has really changed. Why are you assuming his point of view is the only possible one to take? Why is it most people lead a productive, fulfilling life without feeling they are living a pointless, empty existence? Has it occurred to you or your friend that you could be the ones that are wrong? You have both convinced yourself that your points of view are unchallengeable, which is why you both cannot release yourselves from this way of thinking. In fact, you are both very unscientific about this because science examines the evidence and then makes conclusions based on this but you and your friend seem to refuse to examine any evidence that might challenge your rigid way of looking at things. You are both simply 'rubbishing' the whole of psychology, which has been developed over many years by many brilliant thinkers and helped many people in psychological turmoil. Don't you think this is a tad presumptuous? Most of the psychological studies had to be thrown out due to lack of reproducibility, which was rather damaging to the field and shook people's trust in psychology. If you are talking about science and evidence then you don't really have much to support the "positive" view. Most people on the planet live in poverty, most individuals work either in retail or corporate world. They spend a large amount of time stuck in one place for the majority of their lives. You haven't given any evidence to discredit his view or prove it wrong, all you have is the same pop psychology nonsense that's just to sell books. In fact you could say your advice is ignorant of the general reality of most people. You can look at middle America and at the factory jobs that aren't coming back. People are trapped since their lives are tied to such things. It's not that his view is unchallengeable, it's just that the evidence when one looks at the world tends to favor his view. That the one who says otherwise tends to be a bit privileged. Your words just don't match the evidence. I can't call him or either because I know he is right, I don't have any evidence to back up the positive platitudes I know. The fact is, psychological intervention requires the willing participation of the person in need of help and if they are unwilling to co-operate or believe in the possibility of improvement no therapy will be effective. You and/or your friend have it in your own hands to change things and if there is no enthusiasm there you will continue to live like this. Many therapeutic approaches actually coax people to heal themselves, so it's not like other disciplines, in fact, psychology is more of an art than a science. People have to do the work to change things themselves and it seems clear you and your friend aren't prepared to put in the effort. You just seem to prefer to argue and be negative and dig your hole even deeper. What makes your opinion about how the world is any more legitimate than the opinions of millions of other people who lead happy, productive lives? It strikes me that you and/or your friend are unable to see any other point of view other than your own, and don't really want to change anyway, which is part of the trouble I suppose. I'm not even convinced you have a friend with troubles. Maybe you just like to argue for the sake of it. Good luck, it's your life. :blank:

Is become clear to me that you are useless in solving this issue. You haven’t provided any alternative point of view to the argument he is making, which is the main reason why no one else has been able to help him. They all try to default to “depression” as a source but I don’t think that’s the case. Also isn’t part of treating depression showing how illogical their thoughts are? Yet you haven’t provided any argument towards that. I came here because I don’t really know how to reply to what he says. But the only one answering this thread is the one least equipped to tear his argument down.

Is become clear to me that you are useless in solving this issue. You haven't provided any alternative point of view to the argument he is making, which is the main reason why no one else has been able to help him. They all try to default to "depression" as a source but I don't think that's the case. Also isn't part of treating depression showing how illogical their thoughts are? Yet you haven't provided any argument towards that. I came here because I don't really know how to reply to what he says. But the only one answering this thread is the one least equipped to tear his argument down.
It's not for me, you or anyone else to solve his problems. He has to do that for himself. But if you continue to agree with him and justify the way he's looking at life you are not doing him any favors. It is regrettable that it seems you are simply not open to any alternative point of view, so change seems unlikely at the moment. Maybe he and or you have never had to care for anyone else, as I have to, or you might realize that by taking the focus off yourself and onto someone else who relies on you, you forget your own troubles and find something constructive to accomplish instead of moping around all day thinking how cruel the world is.
Is become clear to me that you are useless in solving this issue. You haven't provided any alternative point of view to the argument he is making, which is the main reason why no one else has been able to help him. They all try to default to "depression" as a source but I don't think that's the case. Also isn't part of treating depression showing how illogical their thoughts are? Yet you haven't provided any argument towards that. I came here because I don't really know how to reply to what he says. But the only one answering this thread is the one least equipped to tear his argument down.
It's not for me, you or anyone else to solve his problems. He has to do that for himself. But if you continue to agree with him and justify the way he's looking at life you are not doing him any favors. It is regrettable that it seems you are simply not open to any alternative point of view, so change seems unlikely at the moment. Maybe he and or you have never had to care for anyone else, as I have to, or you might realize that by taking the focus off yourself and onto someone else who relies on you, you forget your own troubles and find something constructive to accomplish instead of moping around all day thinking how cruel the world is. Seriously webplodder, slow it down a little, pick a few threads and leave the rest alone.

Try this philosophy on for size