From: Anders Sandberg (asa@nada.kth.se)
Date: Tue May 18 1999 - 03:40:48 MDT
Jfvirey@aol.com writes:
> In many science-fiction novels, psychoses and neuroses are presented as a
> things of the past, and the humans of the future are shown to be much more
> sane and psychologically balanced than those of today.
>
> Has any good novel ever tried to envision what a psychotherapy of the future
> would look like, or what conditions would make this general increase in
> sanity possible?
Walter John Williams' _Aristoi_ has an interesting take on
things. Beside having a stable, wealthy society where every child is
wanted (due to a low reproduction rate) which of course in itself
promotes mental health to a large extent, people used various mental
techniques to control their emotions and thinking. From an early age
they learned tricks like meditation, posture and other mental
exercises, as well as having a language/symbolism that had been
deliberately designed to make discussing psychological states and
techniques easy. In addition, people had deliberately created multiple
personalities - the various aspects of the psyche could be separated
(through more or less radical means, ranging from hypnosis to
gruelling rituals) and then employed as semi-independent
subpersonalities connected to AI.
-- ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Anders Sandberg Towards Ascension! asa@nada.kth.se http://www.nada.kth.se/~asa/ GCS/M/S/O d++ -p+ c++++ !l u+ e++ m++ s+/+ n--- h+/* f+ g+ w++ t+ r+ !y
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