A Beginners Guide to Jordan Peterson: Clip Collection – Mental Health

Boras, John William Waterhouse, 1903

My mother is a psychotherapist so my childhood was full of psychology and analyzing. She is incredibly gifted in her work and has helped many people make positive change in their lives. Despite her good example of the positive potential of analysis, I have noticed that some friends/family with mental health issues seemed to make little progress in therapy. In the past I have even questioned the usefulness of psychological intervention. Discovering Dr. Jordan Peterson’s work changed my perspective. Jordan Peterson is not interested in ruminating on the past, he focuses on behavior modification and finding purpose in life. He has kindly put hundreds of hours of his University psychology lectures on Youtube to help those who struggle with, or are interested in, mental illness.  Watching his Maps of Meaning Lectures and Personality Lectures has helped me get a deeper understanding of my own psychology.  I have selected some short clips which have wonderful insight and practical tips. I hope they may whet your appetite for longer-form discussion on these topics.

1. Acceptance of Suffering: I shared this in my last blog post but it is too good to not include.  At the base of much of our unhappiness is an incorrect orientation – a view of the world as a place of happiness and peace.  Accepting the intrinsic difficulty of life is actually incredibly freeing, and may help relieve some of our anxiety or depression. (4:35)

2. Organizing your life for superior Mental Health:  He starts focusing on Depression but gives a lot of practical advice on how to maximize our time and build a successful and fulfilling life. There may be a bit of overlap with the previous video so you might want to cut out the last few minutes if you have heard it before.  (10:39)

3. Overcoming Anxiety: He lays out steps to overcome fear and anxiety by voluntarily facing it, in small and simple steps.  (5:36)

4.  Social Anxiety: There is a little overlap with the previous video but this clip focuses on social anxiety and how to act comfortably with others. (4:29)

5. Complexity and Mental Health: Jordan Peterson explains that sometimes we don’t, in fact, have a mental illness, we have too much complexity.  (2:34)

6. Overcoming Nihilism: He talks about accepting suffering and orienting ourselves properly in the world to find meaning. (8:24)

 

 

7. Those left behind after suicide: For some reason this was flagged as being inappropriate but go ahead and watch it because it is very powerful. JBP speaks personally about Suicide and his perspective on the idea “we could have done more”. (6:06)

8. Necessity of Negative Emotions: I posted this as well on last week blog but I think it is important to remember that there is a “positive” side of negative emotions and “negative” side of positive emotions. (3:54)

Added Video: Overcoming Trauma/PTSD:

How to tell if you have trauma from your past and how to move through it. (13 minutes)

If you would like a good longer-form collection of clips on Depression and Mental Illness I suggest this or watch his lectures on his YouTube channel. https://m.youtube.com/user/JordanPetersonVideos