Re: Psychotherapy in science-fiction

Damien Broderick (damien@ariel.ucs.unimelb.edu.au)
Tue, 18 May 1999 17:45:00 +0000

At 02:50 AM 18/05/99 -0500, Eli wrote:

>Greg Egan and _Quarantine_ would be the best SF.
>Evolutionary psychology is the best we've got now.

Highly doubtful. It's potentially the best *explanatory* system, in the broad. But it offers very little of practical benefit, as yet. Transmitter-modulators and cognitive/emotional discursive methods are not incredibly effective, but they are the coal-face for intervention. Speculations about life in the Pleistocene, however engaing and brilliant, don't help a depressive get out of the trough.

Damien Broderick