PSA! DNS attacks have hit Convex and Ribbon frontends in the past 24 hours, featuring particularly nasty vanity address spoof. Ape safe!
As crypto prices have steadily nuked over the past several months, I’ve observed something. Speaking strictly as an amateur, it appears clear that the already tenuous mental health of our crypto community has been in severe decline. With trillions of dollars in wealth destroyed, paper gains disappeared, and losses abounding, many people within the community are becoming quite nasty.
The prolonged doldrums of 2018-2020 were bad partly due to this phenomenon. The thought of immersing yourselves into a community of depressed and embittered traders for a potentially infinite amount of time wasn’t exactly enticing. Once the number started going up it papered over these flaws to some extent. With prices plummeting again, it’s a good time to work out our demons.
As mentioned, I’m not a professional, so these are merely my ignorant observations on the state of things. I’m even less suited to offer psychological advice than financial advice. So I invited a real expert, the Web3 Clinical Psychologist of record Gray Matter, to clear things up for us. Ordinarily we like to paywall our Q&A sessions over the weekend to give paid subscribers first crack, but this subject is sufficiently important we’ve opted to open this immediately.
Finally, if anybody ever feels they are suffering, please reach out to members of the community! As snippy as we can get sometimes, the crypto community is at its core very friendly and collaborative. Most of us want everybody to succeed together!
CMC
Ser Matter, welcome! Tell us a bit about yourself
GM
Hello, Gerrit, thank you for the invitation and the initiative. It is always a pleasure to talk about psychology! I have had always a passion for clinical psychology, but I did not have a clear path to follow, so, for a long time, I did a lot of travelling and other bunch of stuff.
Actually, I was even scared of being a clinical psychology at some point, since I did not want to face the fact of having a patient committing suicide —something that, sadly, is quite common when you spend a lot of years in the profession—, or also, having a patient I could not help.
So, I dedicated myself to writing novels and poetry for quite a few years. I worked as a dramaturgist and critic, writing theater plays and also as an actor with little to no success. I have been also drawing for the most part of my life but I mostly stopped when I started writing when I was around 20 years old. After a long travel throughout USA, I came back home and had a pretty rough year without any purpose in my life. It was probably the worst year of my life, and then, I came back to psychology and started studying for the clinical residency in the hospital to get the specialization in clinical psychology and the PhD.
CMC
And now you're putting your degree to good use, among other things taking care of the mental health for eGirl Capital?
GM
Yes, that is correct. I am working for eGirl Capital as a clinical psychologist with two other fellows. I firmly believe that psychology should have a more important role in the space, since this ecosystem is formed by a variety of professions that are constantly exposed to large amounts of stress and tough situations. CL is very concerned about mental health in the space and he is investing in the well being of their discord users, not only the members of eGirl Capital.
CMC
This is one of the reasons thought to chat with you on the subject. Recently noticed a lot of followers of markets are all extremely emotional the past few months as the bear market really started roaring. It's not just isolated to crypto Twitter either, have noticed the same among followers of TradFi offline. Seemingly others have noticed the same as well
As somebody who understands these subjects on a more theoretical level, have you observed any supporting evidence? Are people actually suffering more mental health issues? And if so, how have you seen it being manifested?
GM
This is a very complex questions to tackle and it has been around for some time now.
Specifically talking about the global pandemic with COVID, yes, the ratio of mental health problems have increased exponentially. But I am referring to people who either already had subclinical problems that passed the clinical threshold, or clinical problems that got worse.
But we have to do a very substantial distinction here between psychological problems and clinical problems —where a diagnosis of a mental disorder is in place—. And this is a very problematic issue because the short answer is also "yes". We, —and when I say we, I refer to the occidental world— have more mental health disorders now than one hundreds years ago. But it is a tricky assumption. Broadly speaking, clinicians would differentiate two spectrums; neurotic and psychotic one. And you would have all the modern mental health disorders as we know them stuffed in there. Now, we understand better these mental disorders and recognize that there are more than these 2 different entities from the psychiatry of the XIX century.
Another issue worth mentioned is the "pathologization of the western world" where everything is treated as a mental health problem with meds. Got fired from your job? anxiolytics. Did you break up with your partner? anxiolytics. We have to understand that meds have side effects and can not be prescripted for every major problem we have in our lives. But the current system is walking towards this path. It has been doing so since the first antipsychotic was discovered in the early 50s.
So, in conclusion: we have the same ratios "kind of" of mental health problems that we have ever had but, due to COVID, this ratio has been, naturally, altered. Also, it is quite obvious to come to the conclusion that bear markets stress people. But we should not confuse stress with mental health problems. Stress is a normal response of the body and it is good, this is, it has a function. Chronic stress, on the opposite, is bad for your general health and it should be addressed properly.
CMC
Is there an easy rule of thumb people can use to help figure out when the stress they may be experiencing crosses the line into something problematic?
GM
Very good question. I think there is this misconception where people tend to think that the psychologist is a professional who treats with "crazy people". I want to demythify this. In fact, this is almost never the case. Secondly, you should always consider your mental health top priority and never wait to be "bad enough" to search for some help.
Treating early/mild problems is always easier and prevention is key. When the stress starts affecting your health, your work or your life in any aspect whatsoever, it is time to act. If you feel that the tools you had to deal with stress are not working anymore, or you feel overwhelmed, it may be a good indicator.
CMC
I wasn't even aware there were "tools" -- I always assumed stress was something to be bottled up and tucked away while you distracted yourself by finding new stressors. What are some of the "tools" people often use to cope with stress?
GM
I want to highlight two important points; a) adult people have their own ways of dealing with stress they are not “helpless” and paternalistic approaches don’t help. b) When addressing psychological problems there is no “jack of all trades”. A proper functional analysis of the person’s context has to be in place. (there’s a joke in psychology about a parrot who got his degree just by saying “it depends”).
This been said, for most common problems we can proceed by creating some calm space, take paper and pen and try to figure out how to solve it by coming with a plan:
For your plan to work it has to have some requisites;
it has to be realistic
specific
achievable
gradual
short-term/long-term goals, this is, phases
constant
The trick is to do them everyday, the minimum possible time that requires no effort and build up from there.
All these "advices" are just based on learning laws and how behaviors are learned, maintained, extinguished or modified. So, they are not advices but rather scientific methods to modify our behaviors in the most efficient way possible, always backed by science.
CMC
In my non-professional observation, the appeal of watching a one-minute chart resembles an addiction. Is this a fair assessment? If so, can this plan be useful in the case of an addiction?
GM
Addiction is a very complex disorder and it is not defined by one single behavior isolated of the context. In the case there was an addiction, the answer is no. These techniques alone would not be enough to assess the addiction problem. A multidisciplinary assessment with a whole psychological therapy taking place should be the way to go.
If we are talking about subclinical problems where we are aware we are starting to have behaviors that may resemble to an addiction problem or we want to prevent these kind of behaviors going forwards, the answer is yes, this techniques can help to some extent. We have to take into account that there are no general "techniques" that will help everyone. The psychological treatment should always be adapted to the client specific problems and context.
CMC
So perhaps it's not fair to say "addiction," but maybe "habit-forming?"
GM
Yes, that would be a better term.
CMC
I imagine some of the frustration people are feeling is due to some sense of "loss aversion" -- ie the cognitive bias that losing hurts more than gaining. Do you think this is accurate? Are there other cognitive biases you're aware of that people should be on the lookout for?
GM
The best advice I have for this is this; whatever trading operations you do, if you are nervous and can't stop thinking about it, it means it is size you are not comfortable trading with and you should lower the amount you are putting at risk.
I guess that losing is really worse than gaining. I'd rather have 1 apple than the possibility of having none or 2. Just a personal opinion.
CMC
We've heard a lot of painful stories from people -- what's the best thing we can do when people tell us they're struggling?
GM
Being there is enough. Showing up and listening is incredibly helpful. Let them know you are there for them and available. When the problem is getting worse, looking for a mental health professional is recommended.
Most of the time, asking “how can I help you” would point you in the right direction.
CMC
How about you, how's your mental health doing?
GM
Well, my mental health is better than before. I have been thru a lot in my life and nothing has come easy. Crypto has given me amazing opportunities and has helped. These last years has been probably the most intense of my years regarding mental health.
CMC
Good, at least that's one crypto fren I don't need to worry about. Now several thousand more to go
GM
Hahaha, kek
CMC
I've already taken up so much of your time, but it's been so fascinating I couldn't help myself. Any other thoughts or ideas I should have mentioned?
GM
I just want to add that when people have problems, usually they try the best they can. Doing psychotherapy is not easy, it requires a lot of effort and it is a battle every day and, sometimes, we don’t have the energy for it, and that is ok too.
Thank you for this space to talk about psychology.