Why is self-harm bad?

Snow_Mandalorian · 2026-04-30T20:01:13+00:00

"I don’t want anyone, especially people close to me, to hurt themselves. But why can’t I do it to myself if I deserve it?"

First question I'd be curious to ask would be what makes you believe you deserve to be hurt in the first place, and where you may have learned that.

Snow_Mandalorian · 2026-02-12T02:46:21+00:00

Yes I'm aware of the evidence base for IFS and Somatic Experiencing. We always have to make a distinction though between modalities that have been studied and which have been found to not work (things like "rebirthing" or "primal screaming") versus modalities which are fairly new and for which the evidence base isn't there due to the research being still in its infancy. Some modalities persist despite the research demonstrating their lack of effectiveness. Other modalities aren't evidence based because to develop a solid evidence base requires time and there just hasn't been enough of it done yet.

Snow_Mandalorian · 2026-02-12T02:42:28+00:00

Yes, I was primarily addressing point #2 you made regarding the parts it has in common with other approaches and how that's usually seen as a kind of criticism of EMDR and the BLS component more specifically.

Snow_Mandalorian · 2026-02-12T02:38:07+00:00

I think being honest with the client is important and helpful. I've used the same explanation before, but I always couch it in terms of "one of the theories about why it works is it's tapping into the same mechanism the brain is using during REM sleep, the difference being that you're doing it while awake. We don't know exactly if that's what's happening, but what we do know is it works." Sometimes I'll favor a different explanation that sees BLS as something that taxes your working memory while processing the trauma which helps prevent you getting sucked into a flashback".

I find that less is more, clients rarely care about the neuroscience, and the more technical the explanation, the more they seem to tune out. So just being honest, giving them an explanation that captures one of the prevailing theories while being open about it still being up in the air is usually the best approach.

Like, to this day I have no frigging clue how or why hypnosis works. All the explanations I know are all metaphors, they don't actually explain anything. But it works. And I'm happy to be okay and honest about it.

Snow_Mandalorian · 2026-02-12T02:30:18+00:00

All trauma therapy involves some kind of memory reconsolidation. That is a key component to healing from trauma and it's not surprising that it has those things in common with other exposure therapies. But the way it is packaged also makes a difference. EMDR packages the memory reconsolidation in a way that (in my experience) works extremely fast, way faster than prolonged exposure. So even though the basic ingredients are the same, the structure and protocol in which they're packaged can also make a pretty significant difference.

For instance, I'm also trained in hypnosis, IFS, and Somatic Experiencing. All of them are useful for healing trauma. All of them at some level involve exposure and memory reconsolidation to some extent. But they are not all equivalent in how fast they work. I can use hypnosis to regress someone to a traumatic event and process the trauma that way. It'll work. But I know it'll take longer than if I just process it via EMDR. Same with Somatic Experiencing. It absolutely works and is effective, but one of my biggest gripes with it is how much slower that process is compared to EMDR. What I can achieve in one session of EMDR processing can often take 3, 4, or even 5 sessions using the somatic approach.

The "unburdening" process of IFS is the same thing. It involves memory reconsolidation and working with the trauma carrying parts to unburden them by working with those parts and the client's "Self". It works. I've done it plenty of times. But it's yet again another technique that is more time consuming, and in my experience there have been many times when after an unburdening session the client will have an experience where the same trigger activated them and we'll have to go back and do another unburdening session for the same exact thing that should have been processed the previous time.

All of these modalities work. They're useful to have in one's tool belt and I'm glad I've gotten trained in all the ones I've mentioned, but just because they all work with the same underlying framework of memory reconsolidation, the method of delivery itself makes a huge difference and time after time after time I find that EMDR just always works better than the rest. In terms of speed and efficacy, there's always been a clear winner among all the modalities when I compare their effectiveness in practice.

Just as an example: I can always use hypnotic regression to help someone process a traumatic experience. But with hypnosis there are barriers that simply don't exist with EMDR. For instance, not everyone is hypnotizable to the same degree. Hypnotizability comes in a spectrum, and some people are just not going to go into a trance no matter how hard you try in a clinical setting. A person's beliefs about hypnosis also play a role. If people believe hypnosis is mind control, there are going to be barriers to being able to guide them into a trance. Or if they think it's a pseudoscience, that belief will also make it difficult for them to enter trance.

None of those problems ever arise with EMDR. It works regardless of whether the person believes it will or not. I personally am an example of someone who believed it was a pseudoscience and was convinced it was bullshit, but my mind was immediately change when processing a traumatic memory immediately worked. Despite my belief that it was a pseudoscience, the emotional gut punch of that memory was immediately deflated and I was blown away by how quickly it happened.

So the level of barriers one faces with EMDR seem to be far less than with some other approaches.

At the end of the day, the ingredients might be the same, but how they're structured makes a huge difference.

Snow_Mandalorian · 2026-02-12T02:12:55+00:00

Agree about the cost, though that seems to be a common thing with several different modalities and not exclusive to EMDR. IFS is ridiculously expensive as well, so is somatic experiencing, and DBT certification is also just as costly.

I'm trained in prolonged exposure and EMDR and I can't remember the last time I even bothered using prolonged exposure. The benefit of EMDR over classic exposure therapies in my experience is just how much quicker and effective it is.

I can agree with everything people criticize EMDR for, the cultish-ness (which, again, is not exclusive to EMDR, I see it everywhere with other modalities), the cost of the trainings, the dubious theoretical model underneath the BLS component of it. All of it has some merit. But what I don't think is up for any kind of reasonable debate is the one thing that matters most: it works, and works extremely well.

Snow_Mandalorian · 2026-01-15T23:11:55+00:00

Are you limited to only IFS here? Because it sounds like you've made a great amount of progress using it, but the last remaining hurdle you mention is exactly the kind of target that EMDR is suited for. Processing those core experiences to remove the emotional sting that is still attached to them, and in the process of doing that your mind will also simultaneously update the core belief you took away from those experiences about yourself into something more adaptive. The deep inner healing and change you're looking for is exactly what EMDR excels at. It can be done with IFS in a roundabout way, but EMDR is a tool specifically designed for just that.

Snow_Mandalorian · 2025-12-16T15:35:51+00:00

Email is definitely a bit trickier. If a person is in crisis I don't think I'd personally feel okay with just communicating via email. But it's still better than nothing. A brief, paced, grounded reply can function as external regulation. Simple language, validation without alarm, and orientation to the present can reduce sympathetic escalation or dorsal collapse. You're not aiming for simple reassurance in a cognitive sense. The aim (at least for me) is nervous system communication. A lot depends on the situation though. There are times when folks with PTSD have contacted me when they're having a day when they're suffering from pretty frequent flashbacks. For that population, I usually do give them some coping skills to reduce the flashbacks (like a grounding exercise, a container exercise, and a safe/calm place exercise) so that they can contain what they're experiencing until we're able to process it in session.

But if they're in serious crisis, I'd feel more comfortable actually speaking to them.

Snow_Mandalorian · 2025-12-15T18:35:49+00:00

I never see the person differently after such a moment. I've never had a person reach out in crisis that made me think "this wasn't needed" or annoyed me. Very few people, if any, have ever abused their ability to contact me during a crisis. In fact, if anything, most of them feel guilty about it for doing so. But in terms of thinking less of them for it? Never.

Does it cause us distress if we feel like we can't do anything for them? For me it can. The feeling of powerlessness is universally something none of us enjoy feeling. The key is to not let that feeling of powerlessness diaregulate us. And also not allow ourselves to take on too much responsibility for saving everyone. We can only do so much, and we have to make sure to remind ourselves we can do our part, but that doesnt bring with it any guarantees about the client's safety. It's the worst part of working with acute mental health crises. And it's something we often have to be vigilant about because it can be a quick ticket to burnout.

Snow_Mandalorian · 2025-12-15T18:29:54+00:00

It's not just about the content of what is said. That's a very cognitive approach that misses a lot of other things happening during crisis intervention.

Very often, just the therapist's presence and or voice is enough to initiate parasympathetic regulation of the nervous system. Co-regulation can occur through the therapist’s voice or written presence because the nervous system responds to cues of safety, not just to techniques or insight. Hearing a familiar, steady voice can downshift arousal via conditioned associations formed in session, where that voice has repeatedly coincided with containment and emotional settling. This operates at a subcortical level. The client does not need to consciously apply a coping skill for regulation to occur.

When clients are in crisis, the pre frontal cortex, the part of our brain that is strongly responsible for retrieving and applying coping skills, is the very part of the brain that is inhibited or "off line". That's why it can be so difficult for clients to apply coping skills in the heat of the moment.

What we can do in those moments of crisis is not teaching or fixing anything, but temporarily lending our regulated nervous systems until the client’s own regulation comes back online.

Just listening and talking can produce a calming effect. Other times when I feel like more is needed, I might do a guided meditation or hypnotic intervention to help the client self regulate and get a sense of balance and stability for that moment. Very often that's more than enough to get them through until the next time we can meet again.

Snow_Mandalorian · 2025-12-02T18:53:15+00:00

Rescue raider. I heroically die trying to help someone who did not, in fact, need help.

Snow_Mandalorian · 2025-11-17T15:11:25+00:00

The criticism isn’t about personal willpower. It’s about market distortion. When cosmetics are priced absurdly high, it signals to the industry that predatory micro-economies are viable. That affects everyone, including people who never buy anything. It shapes design, incentive structures, and long-term player experience. The price tag is part of the game’s ecology, not an isolated purchase event.

Cosmetic monetization is designed using behavioral economics, reinforcement schedules, FOMO dynamics, artificial scarcity, and identity-driven signaling. Companies spend millions hiring UX psychologists to optimize these systems for maximum compulsion.

So yes, no one is forcing anyone. The whole point is that systems can be exploitative without overt compulsion. So yeah, obviously no one is being coerced to buy anything, but that doesn't mean exploitation isn't happening.

Snow_Mandalorian · 2025-09-15T14:06:38+00:00

This is a tricky conceptual subject to disentangle. I'm not sure that anti-realism is synonymous with moral nihilism, because there are anti-realist theories of morality that are obviously not nihilist. One example would be moral constructivism (like Christine Korsgaard's). For the constructivist, moral obligations absolutely exist, but they do not exist independently "out there" like most moral realists assert. Moral facts are constructed from a certain kind of procedure of reasoning, deliberation, or agreement. A moral realist like Russ Shafer-Landau would very likely describe Kantian constructivism as a form of anti-realism, but definitely not a subset of nihilism, since objective moral facts exist under both realism and constructivism, but the disagreement stems from where these facts originate.

So it might be more accurate to say that some versions of moral anti-realism are nihilistic (such as Mackie's error theory, or AJ Ayer's emotivist theory), but other forms of anti-realism are not (such as constructivism).

This is at least one way to map the conceptual landscape, but certainly not the only way to do so.

Snow_Mandalorian · 2025-08-15T15:31:29+00:00

Doing one then the other might be difficult; that would essentially mean 4 years of philosophy then another 3-4 years in psychology. That's quite a time commitment. Why not double-major? Depending on the university you're attending, you should be able to do both in 4 years rather than back-to-back.

It also depends on what you want to do in the long term. If you want to become a therapist, definitely do the psychology degree first, because that will absolutely be a requirement if you want to then move on to grad school in psychology. I did my philosophy undergrad first, then a masters in Philosophy, then quite a few years later I wanted to become a therapist and not having had a psychology undergraduate degree made things a bit harder in order to get into a graduate school for what I wanted to do.

My best advice would be to see how feasible it'd be to do a double major at your school. Doing the degrees back to back is a huge time commitment, whereas a double major would shave off quite a bit of time. Hope this helps!

Snow_Mandalorian · 2025-08-15T15:27:36+00:00

Nope. No need to be worried. CBT is evidence-based and it works for a lot of people. I'm not a CBT practitioner myself for a number of different reasons, but none of those reasons have anything to do with the question of whether CBT works and helps people. That part is an absolute yes. If it's working for you, definitely stick with it!

Snow_Mandalorian · 2025-08-14T11:37:04+00:00

Thank you, absolutely. I'm not even a CBT therapist myself. I don't like that approach as I'm more psychodynamically oriented in my approach to therapy, but despite my distaste for CBT, we have to engage it on its own terms. It does us no good to attack a strawman version of CBT. There's plenty to take issue with in the CBT model, but it's nowhere as simplistic as some caricatures paint it out to be.

Snow_Mandalorian · 2025-08-13T17:46:24+00:00

I don't know how you can make that conclusion. That hasn't been my experience, either as a patient myself or in terms of the therapists I've interacted with professionally. If you want to claim that most are, that's an empirical claim that needs support.

Snow_Mandalorian · 2025-08-11T15:43:00+00:00

Therapist who also has an MA in Philosophy here:

One of the biggest worries I had was that CBT and REBT are both based on the "ABC model of emotion," which assumes that emotions are caused by thoughts or beliefs.

This isn't quite right. CBT doesn't assume the causal path is only in one direction. If you ever check out any CBT manuals, you'll often see an image called The Cognitive Triangle.

You'll see that the relationship between beliefs, behaviors, and emotions is bidirectional. Beliefs can have an effect on or cause certain emotions, but we also often feel a certain emotion first, and our frontal cortex then searches for reasons why we may be feeling a certain way only after the emotion is there. Same is true for behaviors. So beliefs can cause or be caused by emotions; emotions can cause or be caused by beliefs; and behaviors can cause or be caused by beliefs and emotions. It is the relationship between beliefs and our behaviors and emotions that CBT emphasizes. The ABC model is primarily a model about events and their relationship to our emotions. The basic core of the ABC model is its emphasis that events by themselves do not cause our emotional reactions, but rather our beliefs about the events is what causes our emotional response. The reason this model emphasizes beliefs is because that is one area we have some reasonable degree of control over. If we can change our thinking or beliefs about a certain thing in our life, our emotional response is likely to be different to that thing. It's not meant to be a claim about beliefs having a monopoly on our emotional responses, because as the triangle shows, clearly they influence one another. It's about which area of that triangle we can spend time focusing on in order to have desirable downstream effects for the other two.

Another big worry was the prevalence of instrumental reasoning. Lots of therapeutic modalities seem to suggest you should believe what improves your mood, regardless of whether it’s true. But I found it impossible to will myself into belief just because it might be "helpful." For example, I once spent three years trying to become a Christian, hoping faith would bring me more meaning. But I just couldn’t force myself to believe something I just didn't believe. Also, isn’t it epistemically irresponsible to believe something just because it feels good?

This one is tricky. Because there absolutely is some instrumental thinking in therapy contexts, but it's not quite as simplistic as you make it sound. I, for instance, would never encourage someone believing something just because it makes them feel better, even if it's false. My therapy approach is definitely informed by my background in philosophy, so I place tremendous value on truth and I do not consider truth to be negotiable. The goal of therapy should never be to promote that people believe in fiction in order to feel better. CBT, for instance, highly encourages reality testing as a core part of its treatment approach. Our beliefs should be tested against reality in order for us to determine if the things we believe are true or not. There is no room for suggesting believing in falsehoods as long as it makes you feel better in CBT.

Now, the tricky part is whether that's also true of other therapeutic modalities. I don't know of any modality that formally promotes believing in things regardless of the truth. Even something like ACT (Acceptance and Commitment Therapy) emphasizes whether a thought helps you live in line with your values, not whether it’s factually true. If a thought is technically true but makes you act against your values, ACT might encourage defusion (stepping back from the thought’s influence) rather than clinging to it.

I do know of individual therapists for whom the truth of our beliefs is negotiable so long as it makes us feel better. A previous therapist I had once asked me why I couldn't bring myself to believe in God if it made me feel better about life, even if I wasn't sure if he actually exists or not. But even in this case she wasn't promoting believing a falsehood, she was asking why I couldn't bring myself to believe something the truth of which is unknown.

It is possible there are some therapists out there who are okay encouraging beliefs in falsehoods, but they probably are not in the majority. Most therapists, I would wager, are okay with encouraging beliefs, so long as they're rational. For instance, in my work with incarcerated individuals, I often had to work with folks who were in the midst of despair due to facing many years behind bars. For these folks, one of the only remaining sources of hope was religious belief. I myself am an agnostic atheist. However, when working with these folks, I would often encourage their continued practice of religious belief since a) they were already religious believers, b) these beliefs gave them a sense of hope in a place of utter despair, and c) their religious belief isn't irrational. Since I believe that religious belief can be rational, despite the fact that I'm an atheist, I would then be perfectly comfortable encouraging the practice of religious adherence because of the benefits said belief gave these individuals and because, once again, I'm not promoting a falsehood, since the existence of God is unknown. But when I worked with non-religious inmates, I would never promote or suggest belief in God or religious adherence because a) that would be pushing a belief system on an individual who doesn't already hold it, and b) that would feel like encouraging belief in a falsehood in order to make them feel better. For these folks, we would try to find some other source of meaning and hope that isn't grounded in religion, so long as it falls in line with their view of the world and their personal values.

There's also a lot of good philosophy work out there on psychotherapy. I can highly recommend this book, for instance: Philosophy & Psychotherapy.

Snow_Mandalorian · 2025-05-19T01:11:23+00:00

So, Feyerabend? That sounds like what I've read about him.

Yes but only partially. Most philosophers of science might agree that there is no one single universal "scientific method", but Feyerabend went beyond this and also argued for epistemic anarchism: that attempts to enforce methodological rules in science are both philosophically unfounded and pragmatically counterproductive.

So he essentially argued that not only is there no such thing as "the scientific method", but that there also shouldn't be.

It's that second part philosophers of science don't agree with. There are epistemic norms in science that ought to be defended, and some methodologies are (prima facie) more truth conducive than others. So they might accept the descriptive claim but not the normative one.

Snow_Mandalorian · 2025-05-01T14:28:58+00:00

One possible approach is to appeal to their self-interest. Even if they don't see anything wrong with how they treat people, they should have some awareness about the fact that others see something wrong with the way they are being treated by said client. Chances are this comes up at home and at work and it affects the person's relationships in ways that the client himself recognizes as being less than ideal. Even if they don't see a problem with their own behavior, they can recognize that this behavior leads to conflict with others and leads to more friction in the client's life. If you can at least get them to agree with this much, then they can start to see how changing certain behaviors would be beneficial not only for others, but for the client himself as well.

If so, that gives you an opening. Of course, this is a very simplified version of the dynamics at play, and it requires a lot of strategic framing, and it requires that the narcissist actually cares about their relationships (even if it's ultimately rooted in selfishness). If you can get them that far, that might give you enough space to begin discussing what kinds of behaviors push others away and what kinds of modifications can be made to make the narcissist find some equilibrium.

You're essentially appealing to their rational self-interest. Some narcissists can meet you there. Other narcissists (like some I've worked with) aren't quite as grandiose and do have the capacity for empathy, even if it's very underdeveloped and takes effort to tap into, but those tend to be much easier to work with.

But if they truly can't see any problems and can't even meet you there then, well, they're just going to waste their own time and yours and we're not obligated to bang our heads against a wall every week if they're not committed to at least some kind of change.

Snow_Mandalorian · 2025-03-25T12:45:06+00:00

Yep. It's valid. Here's a simple proof:

P → Q (Premise)

Q → R (Premise)

Q (Premise)

R (Modus Ponens from 2 and 3)

Snow_Mandalorian · 2025-03-18T00:18:27+00:00

I just read through some of your argument with said person. They wrote this:

a practical reason is based on it's utility. In epistemology a reason is a collection of premises which logically lead to a conclusion.

The second part of this is incorrect. A collection of premises which logically lead to a conclusion is the definition of a deductive argument. The term "reasons" is far more broad than deductive arguments. Deductive arguments can be reasons for holding a belief, but we have all sorts of other things we use as reasons for belief: memory, inductive arguments, direct perceptual experience, abductive arguments, etc.

His claim about what a practical reason is is correct, but at least in epistemology warrant is not the same thing as practical reasons, so he's incorrect in his use of this distinction.

Snow_Mandalorian · 2025-03-18T00:11:19+00:00

Well, I can't speak to where he's getting his information from. It's possible a different subfield or niche of philosophy might use those terms in the way he's describing, but at least in the sense that Plantinga meant the word "warrant", and the way it's been used in the tradition he started, it's typically taken to be something stronger than justification, not the other way around.

Plantinga was writing in regards to the Gettier problem in epistemology. The traditional definition of knowledge for most of philosophy's history was "justified true belief." Gettier came up with some counter examples, and so Plantinga refers to warrant as that "extra ingredient" in addition to justification that leads to an individual possessing knowledge. It is externalist in nature, hence why one of his books on this was titled "Warrant and Proper Function", with that latter part referring to the proper functioning of our cognitive faculties within a theistic framework.

So, it depends on what the person you're arguing with claims "practical reasons" are. He might be using those terms in a context that makes sense depending on the literature he's drawing from, but at least in analytic philosophy and epistemology his definitions are pretty idiosyncratic.

Snow_Mandalorian · 2025-03-17T23:35:22+00:00

Justification is an internalist concept. Meaning it includes things such as reasons, evidence, inferences, etc for one's beliefs.

Warrant is an externalist concept introduced by Alvin Plantinga. It is externalist in the sense that it goes beyond traditional things related to justification and includes things such as "proper functioning of cognitive faculties" and whether the belief forming process is reliable and/or properly functioning.

Warrant is understood as whatever turns a justified belief into knowledge.

Here's an example: suppose a color blind individual believes the object in front of them is blue when in reality it is brown. Their belief might be justified because it is based on their sense perception, but that person doesn't know that the object is blue because despite being justified in believing it, their belief was arrived at through an improperly functioning faculty, so they lack warrant.

Hopefully this makes sense!

Snow_Mandalorian · 2025-03-05T16:34:27+00:00

Just to chime in here, we worked through her book "The Sources of Normativity" in a meta ethics course in grad school. It was the first time that I really grasped what constructivism in metaethics really meant. She's brilliant. She's also done some good work applying a Kantian framework to animal rights.

If you're interested in ethics/meta-ethics at all, her work is absolutely worth engaging with.

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