First, I don’t know why you feel the need to include a hostile ad hom barb like “You seem to think evolutionary theory came to an end in 1882”.
I’ve done multiple Google searches and even done Google Books searches in the very book you linked, for the exact phrase “promoter gene”, and it really doesn’t seem to be a term that’s used, at all, really.
DNA promoters are well recognized, but not in the context you’re talking about.
I can very much understand the notion that genes may act to further their own propagation at the cost of the host’s fitness - sure.
It’s just that we first need to see evidence that it’s happening, by having a clear definition of what favours vs costs the host’s fitness.
The hypothesis you’ve cited (and from the book reviews it seems even the authors concede their hypotheses are highly speculative), seems to start with the assumption that these mental illness traits are opposed to the host’s fitness and confer no benefits whatsoever.
But all we have to do is point out the many cases in which these traits actually do benefit the host, which I did and you even conceded in the last line of your comment, and the hypothesis is void.
It reminds me of the “junk DNA” hypothesis, where researchers couldn’t find an obvious use for large sections of the genome so just assumed it to be useless and called it “junk”, only to be later found to have very important roles:
There are perfectly plausible reasons why the conditions we regard as mental illness are adaptations that help evolutionary fitness:
- Depression puts one into a low-energy, contemplative state that enables reflection, healing and formulation of reformed ways of thinking and being ("dark night of the soul");
- Bipiolar is a pattern of swinging between high-energy bursts of inspiration and creation, and low-energy states of recuperation and reflection;
- Schizophrenia is a way of disassociating from real-world experiences that are too painful to experience with normal consciousness, and is a preferable alternative (from an evolutionary perspective) to suicide, buying time for processing and healing to take place, given the right kind of support.
Of course, that could be seen as a "just so" story too. Except that evolutionary theory says that only genes that promote evolutionary fitness should survive and spread through the genome, particularly given that replication of any given gene carries a significant cost. We can also easily observe that conditions like depression and schizophrenia normally develop in response to a trigger - i.e., a traumatic life event or extended period of abuse.
So, it's far less of a confected story to just accept that these conditions have been retained in the genome for the reason that makes most sense according to evolutionary theory: it's evolutionarily beneficial for them to be there.
I’ve largely overcome CFS with a variety of treatments over more than about 15 years. Most of the treatments are physical therapies (particular nutrition and exercise approaches), but an unconventional subconscious emotional healing modality has been fundamentally important. After a few years of doing just physical treatments, things only really started to change once I tried the emotional healing approach, which only happened by chance when a physical therapist said “maybe this will help”; I didn’t go looking for it as I was so focused on the physiological symptoms (pain, inflammation, weakness/exhaustion), and psychologists/psychiatrists I’d seen before said I seemed fine enough.
So, yes, the treatment that worked for me is unconventional. I mean of course it’s going to be unconventional: as this article reminds us yet again, the medical establishment has been trying to explain (or dismiss) this condition for decades by adhering to conventional understandings of health and getting nowhere. So an approach that currently seems unconventional is the only way there can ever be any headway with this issue.
I’ve long said I would like to be involved in research into the condition and into the treatments I’ve found beneficial. Any researchers who want to talk to me, or anybody interested in supporting or being involved in this kind of research is welcome to contact me.
As this article reaffirms, CFS/ME advocates frequently insist that the condition must be taken seriously because it is fundamentally a physically-rooted condition; as if (a) emotions/traumas can’t cause or exacerbate physical symptoms, or (b) that conditions that are rooted in emotions and trauma should be taken any less seriously than those that are primarily physical. Of course both these positions are plainly false.
The real problem is that mainstream medicine just doesn’t give much credence to the notion that emotions and physical symptoms can be deeply connected. (And to be clear I come from a background of strict acceptance of scientific and medical orthodoxy).
I’m not sure if it is meant to make me aware of anything I wasn’t already aware of, but for the record, I’ve spent much of the past 10+ years thinking about the pros and cons of this work and wrestling with the risks/pitfalls she describes (as well as eschewing stoicism for pretty much those reasons).
One of the biggest changes from doing this work is that I’ve become less repressed and more compassionate and emotionally available, as well as being more committed to working to overcome societal injustice and dysfunction.
I'm not "stoic" or much into any other "ism", and don't particularly align with many other people in "STEM" fields.
The practices I've discovered came after many years of experiencing debilitating emotional and physical pain, which is now mostly resolved, though not completely, hence the ongoing work.
That it's common for people to be influenced more by cognitive biases and other emotional patterns than logic is not exactly a novel or controversial notion, but it's easily forgotten, particularly by people who self-describe as "rationalist" (which I very much don't).
Anyway, I frequent HN in the hope of avoiding sneery comments like this one, which seems to break the guidelines.
You have an illness. That's all there is to it. Don't be ashamed. I think you probably have an illness of the kind that mainstream medicine/society is very bad at understanding, treating and accommodating. I know you think it's "in control", but that's likely because you don't even know what it's like to feel and be "normal".
Everyone who seems to be doing so much better than you is doing it in a way that comes fairly naturally to them, as their health, and the way the feel and think is very different. It's not your fault that it hasn't worked out this way for you yet.
I've been through a somewhat similar path. It's awful, I know, I really do. I'm 45 and only just fully overcoming the illness I've had for much of my life - I desperately hope. It took till my very-late 30s to start earning a good income, and I became a father for the first time at 43. Life is now pretty good and getting better. But I've had to endure so much pain and shame on the way here.
Be kind to yourself. You're still very young. Keep getting therapy. Do more research into what's doing on in your body and how to get your body and mind working better. There are many options. It will probably take a long time to figure it out and get to a place where life is really great, but you absolutely can get on to a path where you're feeling better, functioning better and achieving better things week by week, then in several years you'll look back and be amazed at how far you've come.
Pay no attention to your peers who seem to be doing "better" than you now. Many of them will crash and burn in their late 20s or 30s, or just end up mediocre in middle-age. I see it a lot. If you get onto a path of healing and growth now you can live a life of steady improvement and optimism that will be incredibly fulfilling.
It's a very common reaction for people to assert that the solution to a deep societal problem is to "stop [group] from [doing action] to [another group]", as if that's an answer, rather than the beginning of a very long list of questions, most of which don't currently have answers, or at least not widely accepted ones (hence the problem continuing to be pervasive).
I spent a lot of my early adulthood thinking the depression/anxiety/dependency that afflicted me was the fault of others, including parents, peers who'd bullied me, former partners/friends who'd betrayed me, etc. And on one level there's truth to it, until you realise all those people were acting in reaction to abuse and trauma they'd suffered, so it's futile to scapegoat everything onto particular individuals or categories of people.
For what it's worth, I am personally trying to undertake work that over the long term would help society to be better at alleviating these trauma cycles and avert the patterns of abuse we see everywhere, but I'm under no illusion that it will be fast or easy, or even that it's likely that the approaches I've found to be effective would be embraced widely enough to have any impact at all. I'll keep trying, however.
I've been living "as if" this is true for over 10 years.
After years of struggling with confidence issues, anxiety, and physiological issues like muscle tension/pain and inflammation, and trying all the conventional modalities with minimal lasting benefit, I came onto a form of healing that seeks to address subconsciously-held traumas picked up and earlier life and inherited from parents.
Without making this a long, detailed post, the results are profound and lasting, though slow, given how deep this stuff goes and how much there can be to work through once you start digging.
There are books and talks about it by a former Stanford biologist called Bruce Lipton, who gets panned for various reasons that seem mostly to do with him being out of step with conventional thought, and (I think) for having a manner that doesn't seem science-y enough, but in my experience his research and teachings on the links between inherited/held emotions and biology and on the physiological benefits of subconscious healing are very solid.
I'm really hoping to see more research and widespread interest in this topic, as after experiencing it and contemplating it for so many years, I'm convinced it offers many answers, or at least clues, to issues that medical science and broader society have been stuck on for a long time.
I think you're ending up splitting hairs here, starting out by initially (apparently) saying drugs should be avoided, but then coming around to the position that LSD or mushrooms would be much better than MDMA, even though plenty of others would warn people off LSD and mushrooms in just the same way as you've done with MDMA.
It's tricky talking about drugs that are illegal and that can be harmful, but can also be highly beneficial and safe when taken under the right conditions. Let's try to avoid blanket condemnations and moralising; HN is meant to be a place for more nuanced discussions than that.
MDMA has for several decades been widely reported, anecdotally, to bring about profound, lasting, changes in people's emotional states, and to set them on long-term journeys of personal growth. And in recent years many governments around the world have green-lit medical trials into its benefits for various kinds of emotional/psychiatric conditions, though of course few people have access to these trials.
So, let's not be so dismissive of someone being open enough to share their personal experience.
Some friends have a 7-year-old son who is being assessed/treated for autism-spectrum disorder; he's outgoing, sociable and highly intelligent, but has issues with emotional and behavioural dysregulation and can often get into kind of manic states. One of the techniques I've seen his parents use when he's getting into these states is to ask "where are you feeling this in your body?", then for him to focus on that region while using controlled breathing to calm down.
Re this: There is also the possibility of using interoception training as a form of mental health treatment
This kind of thing exists, though still in the fringes. I've been using versions of it for over 10 years to resolve the effects of many earlier-life experiences caused ongoing charged reactions and chronic mental and physiological issues (after years of mainstream medical treatment and therapy was ineffective). It's very much a process of identifying and letting go of the way these experiences (often described as traumas, but not always in that category) are held/felt in different parts of the body ("butterflies the stomach" when nervous is the most obvious example, but goes much much further/deeper than this).
I'm now completely free of depression and mostly free of anxiety and fatigue/pain issues (CFS/ME) but still continuing to progress.
If any researches/professionals working in this field happen to be reading this, I'd love to get in touch.
I think I understand what you're feeling. I'm lucky to have found my way through my period of feeling lost, and have come to a pretty good place as I approach 45 (fathered my first child two years ago, have increasingly good relationships with my partner, family, friends, etc, and have new career/startup opportunities taking shape that are exciting to me). But it's been a long road of feeling very lost and doing deep soul searching to get here.
Some places I'd recommend looking for guidance/inspiration/support:
- Writers/speakers on topics relating to "the meaning crisis"; people like John Vervaeke, Iain McGilchrist, Rafia Morgan and Jonathan Pageau. There are some good video interviews with them and others on the Rebel Wisdom YouTube channel.
- Consider a men's group (assuming you're male; equivalent groups exist for women and other identity groups); I've been in a local chapter of Evryman for the past couple of years, and others I've known have been in The Mankind Project. These kinds of groups can be a great way to connect with other men who are seeking meaning and encouragement to achieve better life outcomes. I've seen some amazing transformations in the men I've known to go through these groups.
- Don't think you're "just depressed". While of course it's possible you could have a clinical condition, and it's worth exploring that and seeking treatment if need be, don't let people tell you that feeling lost in this world is merely a sign of depression. It can be a very healthy reaction to notice that the world is pretty messed up and to feel that there must be a way to find a more fulfilling life path.
Also, feel free to contact me (email address in profile). I'm thinking about starting a new kind of community for people who are looking to heal and grow.
It's hard to recommend stuff here (I've been trying for years to work out how to reply to this answer FWIW), as a lot of the popular books about it are too close to law-of-attraction, Tony Robbins, Think and Grow Rich kind of stuff, or linked to the chiropractic field, which is a turnoff for a lot of for most people here, for reasons I understand, as I don't subscribe to much of that myself.
I also don't want to recommend particular practices here, lest I be seen as making health recommendations, which I'm not qualified to do.
I've written a lot of content about my own journey, which can help people to know what different practices are available and enable people to decide for themselves what practices are worth trying. Anyone is welcome to email me (address in bio) if they want to read what I've written. I also have a Discord group for people who want to discuss this stuff with other folks who are interested (pretty much everyone in the group is from HN).
But if you just want publicly available info and modalities, try these:
Authors: Gabor Maté, Peter Levine, Bruce Lipton, Bradley Nelson, Stan & Christina Grof.
Modalities: NET, Psych-K, Somatic Experiencing, Holotropic Breathwork, EFT/Tapping, Family Constellations, Ericksonian Hypnotherapy (but not NLP, in my opinion).
Not sure if it counts as spiritual, but for 10 years I've consistently done subconscious, mind+body healing exercises. It's been profoundly transformative.
Prior to that (and for quite a while after) I had a huge amount of drama and chaos in my life, and after searching far and wide for answers (starting with the usual stuff - mainstream therapy, meditation, etc) I learned about these healing practices, which address the physiological reactions that happens when we experience triggering events.
Over time, my practice has developed into this: try to live a normal, well-functioning life, do my best at whatever I do. When things happen that trigger reactions - anger, resentment, arrogance, jealousy, contempt, shame, etc, or anything that makes me feel a jolt or even very mild visceral reaction, undertake the practice, which enables me to find where in my past the reaction comes from, then do a brief breathing exercise to let it go. Rinse and repeat. Over time, the reactions weaken, my overall stress burden diminishes (along with physiological issues like inflammation, chronic pain, etc), and bit by bit life gets simpler and important indicators like relationships and career steadily imrove.
https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Demystifying_Depression
Still holds up well two decades later.