An anonymous reader writes:
Slashdot has covered articles about Asperger's syndrome, autism, and how it might relate to the (somewhat stereotypical) geek mindset. I've been diagnosed as borderline autistic, so in a similar vein, I've found myself in an unusual position when it comes to getting therapy. I'm very analytical, investigative, and detail-oriented, so when I'm the patient of a psychiatrist, psychologist, or therapist, I feel like I'm coming in at a very different angle than other patients. I want to fully grok the pharmacology of the medications prescribed to me and how they interact with my nervous system. I analyze all of the methods and suggestions my therapist offers. I'm told that working with me as a patient is quite interesting (and often enjoyable), contrasted against many patients who are unaware of the therapy process or have no interest in it or its effects. I see the brain as the machine that coordinates my life, therapists as debuggers, and pharmaceuticals as hardware tweaking.
I'm extremely curious to know if other geeks have this mindset, or have any interesting experiences or viewpoints. There are other questions that can be considered, as well: are you very self-analytical? Perhaps you avoid therapists and attempt to diagnose and debug your own mis-programming?
There's a book online about hacking your body's energy management system. Meditation is also along the lines of hacking your psyche, and there's the OpenEEG project, which is worth noting.
I think there's a lot of unexplored territory here, at least considering that it hasn't been explored by people with a coding/hacking mindset. Do you hack your own mind? If so, then how?
Providing a lot of detail would probably generate the best discussion, so be careful; anything that you might not want future employers to know about you, post anonymously!
