Dr. Stanley Goldstein - Author and Psychologist

A current question is whether AI bots possess consciousness with the answer depending on what consciousness is. If it indicates having total control of one's actions then humans, who possess a powerful unconscious capable of making serious errors of judgment, cannot be said to possess consciousness. Nor can humans of very low intellectual ability who largely rely on the simple pain-pleasure principle (which ordinarily governs only some human behaviors), to simplify their environment so they know what to do. Which is also how incarcerated individuals in their highly controlled environment but having normal intelligence ordinarily behave.

AI bots have been described as experiencing hallucinations, making greatly erroneous judgments, having errors of thinking. As do humans with conclusions that their powerful unconscious creates or influences because of faulty early developmental experiences. Thus the important question is not whether AI bots are conscious but if their self-correcting mechanism is adequate for the task assigned. Yet creating this critical certainty is not an easily accomplished task.

Humans instinctively learn the grammatical structure of the language of the nation into which they are born. Thus one born in Spain naturally learns Spanish while one born in France naturally learns French. Not by learning to place one word after another, which it has been hypothesized would take them a hundred-thousand-years, but by instinctively inducting the grammar of their nation's language.

Which is also how humans can easily recognize illogicalities which AI bots cannot. For example, would an AI bot identify a summary as erroneous if it stated that a person with a doctoral degree and lengthy professional achievements was four-years-old? Maybe not since comprehensive corrective bot instruction is not easily done. Perhaps "instructing" (coding) bots about the psychological nature of humans, the essence of being human, could reduce its tendency to make glaring factual errors. But will they then develop an unconscious or is this what current AI hallucination already reflects? An interesting question.

The similarities between a fetish and a PTSD symptom are not small since both derive from trauma, the major difference being that women don't develop fetishes. A trauma occurs when the stress that the mind experiences is too great for it to tolerate and a symptom, which is the indicator that something is wrong and change is needed, is created.

But first a story. A teenage boy was crippled by his fetish of staring at and photographing women's shoes. Fetish derive from early life trauma during which a young boy, having witnessed a naked girl or his parents' sexual activity, illogically fears that he may lose his penis since the female lacks one. Thereafter, to reassure himself, he compulsively touched or viewed the object symbolizing his penis (with him a female's shoe) for reassurance that he still had it. I advised him that, when the obsession arose, to talk to himself: tell himself that while the obsessive thought had helped him in the past and he would always be grateful, he no longer needed its help. That both could now relax and would always be friends. Within two months the fetish disappeared as our discussion turned to the normal teenage concerns of dating and future vocation.

Similarly, a soldier who survived combat may, for decades thereafter, experience crippling anxiety when encountering something reminding him of his wartime experience: a battle scene photograph or video or reading of such incident. Relating as did this boy to a soldier's distress may prove helpful: telling himself that the symptom, which was intended to save his life during combat, was no longer needed and could relax but they would always be friends.

While the unconscious can protect against distress it is primitive, illogical, ever-vigilant and powerful, but lacks a sense of time.

Inspired by an article in The Wall Street Journal ("She Hoped Ketamine Would Rewire Her Brain. She Didn't Live To See It Work" - March 17, 2026). - Several truths underlie human behavior: 1. Anxiety and depression are painful; 2. Drugs can eliminate pain. But first two stories. During his psychiatry residency a doctor sought to investigate psychotropics by taking a small dosage of one. The effect was so profound that thereafter he was exceedingly cautious about prescribing them. 2. A physician-father refused to have his in-patient adolescent medicated stating the drugs were "a chemical lobotomy."

Though distressing, both anxiety and depression are intrinsically valuable to humans, indicating that the presence of a disturbing experience must be noted. Which could be a thought or a feeling or the presence of a potential danger like when hearing a sudden noise while walking a darkened street or during a military engagement. Once recognized, understood, and appropriately related to, the anxiety and depression disappear, having served their purpose. Just as a fever vanishes when the infection causing it is passed.

Many, not understanding this and abetted by clever physician and drug industry marketing, try to short-circuit nature with a pill to which nature reacts with its own defenses, including the murder on February 10, 2025 of four girls ages two through eight by their ketamine-dosed psychotic mother.

Long ago a psychologist, Fritz Haider, termed the phrase "naive psychology": the beliefs about behavior that people develop simply by being human with some being true and others false. Ignorance can be costly, and deadly too.

Some medical terms are particularly scary. Think how you feel when a doctor uses the word "cancer" though most people die with cancer than of it. Autism is such a word and for good reason since, arising during the earliest period of life when the basic ego capacities governing thinking and behavior develop, it is perhaps the most devastating of all mental illnesses. And among the most distressing to witness too, with its severest form being instantly diagnosable from its helter-skelter aimless searching movements and self preoccupation. Making it understandable why the government would pay huge sums to transform these suffering children into adequately functioning adults.

But, and here's the rub: (1) Severe autism is relatively rare; (2) The mild autistic-like symptoms of many children are usually outgrown without treatment; (3) Autism is vastly misdiagnosed due to ignorance of child psychological development being widespread among professionals; and (4) A profitable industry created and underlain by this ignorance has developed.

The etiology of autism has been long known and a recent Australia study revealed its best, least expensive treatment. While no one experiences a perfect mothering, autism derives from the infant's experience of a severely deficient one. Sensing this parental inadequacy, for babies have greater cognitive abilities than had been believed, the child first seems precocious as they seek without assistance to achieve independence. When failing as they must, their protective mode of relating which can be characterized as the autistic shell develops.

The most effective intervention would be to provide intensive parenting education for parents on a one-to-one basis. When this was done during the Australia study almost none of the children exhibiting autism symptoms early in life were so diagnosed by age four-years. An apt saying in mental health treatment is that better is earlier. Ignorance is expensive, both financially and emotionally.

I recently heard of an odd teacher behavior in grade school: that disobedient students are given a colored sign to wear, yellow or green or another, designating their level of disobedience and its associated punishment (losing recess or something else), this mode of discipline creating tormented chatter and worrywarts.

What underlies this practice is the false but widespread belief that punishment is significant in changing behavior. Which is true for dogs but not cats (trust me, it won't work), and humans of greatly limited intellectual ability since it so simplifies their environment that they will understand what to do. It will work with incarcerated inmates who are not emotionally disturbed since in a prison the administration tightly controls everything, but not after their release. It will not work, more than briefly, for people in general which includes youth.

Children will generally follow rules made by adults unless they are hungry, tired, ill, or cannot obey for an unconscious reason making sense to them but not others. Which is how adults behave too. The unconscious is powerful and one must respect its power.

Social Media Addiction has become a popular belief that is misunderstood. Which is understandable, considering that public knowledge of child psychological development and developmental psychopathology is minimal.

Technically, an addiction is a repeated behavior that is used to seek relief from anxiety. For which nature has created an innate psychological mechanism: the obsessive-compulsive ego defense which is very effective. An obsession is a recurring thought and a compulsion is its associated recurring behavior. Thus a person might continually worry whether they locked the door and repeatedly check if they did with this behavior relieving their anxiety though it has nothing to do with the door. Similarly, a youth may become obsessed with social media not from its content but because it meets their need to reduce anxiety stemming from family or social or school issues.

A source of confusion is that the DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders) is poor for understanding, being based on symptoms rather than psychodynamic understanding. The theoretical term, Elements of a Borderline Psychotic Psychostructural Organization, underlies many if not most child and adult mental health symptoms. What it indicates is not psychosis or borderline psychosis but weakness of one or more, in varying degree, of the basic ego capacities governing thinking and behavior, affect modulation, and having a sturdy sense of who one is (one's "sense of self").

Developing during early childhood from the lack of a "good enough" (not perfect!) parenting, it can cause a wide range of symptoms that interfere with a teenager's ability to achieve the critical developmental tasks of separating appropriately from parents, making provisional educational and vocational decisions, developing a secure sense of who they are, and dating, leading to painful anxiety and the possible search for relief through obsessive-compulsive activity using a phone or tablet, this not however causing it.

So Virginia, when you hear the words, social media addiction, smile politely but don't say anything. Knowing that, about this, you're smarter than many grownups.

Because of the innate biological imperative to live, suicide can be difficult to understand. Yet its occurrence with even highly successful people, as the former Miss USA Cheslie Krystal, who was also a lawyer, and the widely applauded CEO of the Atlanta rail transportation system, Jeffrey Parker, can be puzzling without visualizing the psychology of despair.

Obsessed with a tunnel vision of their suffering, the suicidal person sees no other ending for it, and in a manner that appears fitting though illogical to others. Krystal leapt from a skyscraper and Parker jumped in front of a moving train.

While the symbolization of the self-destructive means is irrelevant, the prior turning inward of the personal world is significant though there are gradations of this experience since virtually all consider suicide at some point in their life, perhaps after receiving a serious medical diagnosis or during a particularly stressful work situation. Yet relatively few do, the proverbial needle in the haystack being an accurate metaphor for this act. And as has been said, suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem, even that of long term distress.

While hypnosis has a complex history both real and fictional, its value in treatment cannot be denied. Not with all medical and psychological conditions but with some. But first two stories: (1) Soon after beginning work as a hospital administrator I began getting neck pain which is a common symptom of stress. It disappeared after listening twice to a self-hypnotic relaxation tape that I made from the research protocol of an article in the American Journal of Clinical Hypnosis relating stress to the development of cancer, having received training in hypnosis in a medical school class years before. I later interpreted this pain to many of my employees being a pain in the neck. (2) A psychiatrist/hypnosis expert wanted his gall bladder surgery to be performed using only hypnosis as anesthetic. The surgeon initially demurred but finally agreed, being more nervous than his patient. At the first surgical incision the doctor's blood pressure dropped but quickly recovered and, after surgery, he walked back to his room. Studies have revealed that surgical patients who use self-hypnosis for relaxation are discharged from the hospital significantly more quickly.

While few can undergo surgery without anesthesia, a percentage which increases when it isn't available as during a war situation, hypnosis has been found valuable with both children and adults for conditions including asthma, back pain, high blood pressure and more, including general relaxation.

The small use of hypnosis in medicine and psychology derive from several factors: that, unlike the one-minute needed to write a prescription, hypnosis takes time for teaching and learning; that some patients refuse its use, believing it weird in some way though the hypnotic experience--an altered neurological state enabled through selective attention--is innate to the human condition like when a child at a ball game tunes out loud noise. Still, hypnosis is cheap except in time required and safer than anesthesia or medication. Nuff said.

Because humans are social beings, it's normal for them to become anxious when socially isolated though the level of distress varies. Those more self-sufficient or engrossed with work may feel less distress or even none for long periods. Until they do, perhaps while viewing a romantic movie or a couple arm-in-arm.
The function of anxiety is to warn of imminent danger. But, being intrinsic and primitive, it defines danger by what happened during a child's development when an inaccurate view of the world was held. Later, when an adult, perceived dangers may not be real and abilities are far greater than years before when this ego defense developed.
So when feeling anxious your first reaction should be to study the feeling. Ask yourself what was happening and what you were thinking and feeling when the anxiety began. The true reason for your distress and not the initial false conclusion may not become conscious quickly but will come, and this is the most productive behavior to follow.
Note: People also possess an instinctive reptilian warning of impending danger so when the danger is more likely to be real, as during a wartime situation or when being the potential victim of a crime, quick action not slow consideration is safest.

That the unconscious is powerful and one must respect its power is a truth I never tire repeating since not doing so risks distress and worse.
Another truth is that childhood experiences, during which the basic psychological (ego) capacities governing behavior and thinking develop, is the bedrock of adult behavior. Consider: when angered by a careless driver or phone representative and you later behave impatiently with your spouse or child, is it really they that bothered you or had the earlier experience triggered a memory with that feeling being displaced into the present.
The important lesson being not that one's behavior can be unconsciously motivated, as is that of all people, but that by observing and investigating our feelings we gain greater control over our unconscious strivings and (hopefully) avoid serious errors of behavior.