The Inherent Paraox of Psychotherapy

Originally published on Medium on June 2, 2019

Contemporary wisdom asserts that we are not evolving or moving towards or from a state. Our existence is a product of a random evolutionary process. The dynamic state of the world at large also renders many of our existing behaviors obsolete.

In the previous iteration of evolution, it was believed that the universe is locked in a battle for the survival of the fittest organism, with the winners receiving their reward, the right to reproduce. This lead to the conclusion that might makes right, and consequently social Darwinism, which was responsible for millions, if not billions of deaths. The implication of survival of the fittest -that might makes right and the left side of the bell curve should be removed from the gene pool-is evil.

Now survival of the fittest is anathema to modern evolutionary theory. Instead, every passed on genetic trait is believed to have happened for survival relative to a certain point in space time, and may or may not help fitness or survival long term.

Accepting the argument that evolution is at its core random implies that genes are only effective relative to the environment at the moment. This, of course, removes the idea of evolution as omniscient, or even really efficient relative to the contemporary rate of environmental entropy.

Thusly, modern evolutionary theory implies that psychotherapy and mental health treatments are useless. If traits are designed to be efficacious relative to a shifting and dynamic environment, and the derivative of our environment nor the position of the environment can be known (A more uncertain Heisinger’s uncertainty principle), our interaction with said environment has to be largely random. If that is the case, how can a baseline mental condition even exist, let alone have an ideal state that can possibly be known by humans?

The alternative for an atheistic evolutionary theorist is that there is an ideal mental state, which leads to long term survival of the fittest. If that’s the case, if mental conditions are caused by genes, they shouldn’t be treated. If they aren’t, then treatment is fine but you still don’t want the left hand of the human potential bell curve to reproduce. This is also known as eugenics. So either mental health can’t exist as an effective tool, or you must endorse eugenics to be a consistent evolutionary anthropologist. To be clear, I endorse neither removing mental health treatment nor eugenics.