the_twilight_bard

I don't know what OP's motivation is, but there are a lot of people who are concerned (myself included) when people throw around terms like "clinical" and "therapist", because laypeople oftentimes misconstrue that with an actual psychologist, psychiatrist, lpcc or mtf/etc.

That doesn't mean hypnosis can't have beneficial effects, but is it on par with actual cognitive behavior therapy practiced by a licensed mental healthcare professional? Not as far as I'm aware. The field of "hypnotherpy" is also plagued by lack of oversight, and many programs exist that grant you all kinds of titles with varying degrees of effort. That's simply not the case in mental healthcare or medicine. A doctor must go to medical school, and equitable rigor exists, such that we accept someone with a medical doctor degree to reasonably know what they're doing. That's not the case in this field.

So while OP is being prickly and hostile, I have to say the sentiment of questioning things like this is quite important. If someone has a serious mental health crisis and can't differentiate when they seek care between a hypnotherapist and someone actually trained to help a given diagnosis, they're in big trouble, not to mention it also puts the hypnotherapist in some questionable positions too...

How much did the town cost you, and what made you decide to try to do this? Are you a western-nerd or are you seeing this as an easy financial opportunity? Sorry to be blunt but trying to get a handle on how this whole thing came about...

I don't want to sound like a complete ass but the reasons you listed above can and are done frequently all over the world, in big cities and small, etc., and are usually done when you're young and living life carpe diem, as they say. Was your point that something about Zimbabwean culture allows that kind of in-the-moment-living more frequently?

I think I get the point. I feel like there's kind of two ways of looking at this (overgeneralizing), and they, like much of life, can drive down different paths...

I guess the question really hinges around ambition. I don't begrudge people here in the West from being super preoccupied with studies because they are ambitious to do something, but I do feel bad for most people who are just going along with the flow and settling into monotonous robotic lives. At the same time, I've known so many truly gifted people that spent their best days living carpe diem, or at least thinking they were, but really they just convalesced into creature comforts-- sucked the lotus roots to throw out a pretentious allusion. It's hard to know where to draw that line.

And as an aside, good for you for fucking doing this. I remember vividly reading your thread from three years ago and thinking damn, people need to travel more. So much fear-mongering. I'm glad you had a blast.

It feels like you're clutching at straws. The fact that the legal age will increase is something that I imagine all anti smoking campaigns would support, yet you are calling into question motives and saying the bills are not doing enough, or are doing what they're doing to feign action and avoid doing more.

Yet what they are doing is ostensibly a good thing, so it's aittle hard to look at this nefariously.

In your opinion do you think that there is anything positive about these bills?