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Comment by notduncansmith | Hacker News Reader

That sounds like a job for a mental health specialist. There are psychological reasons underlying the initial interests and the subsequent fading of interest, and the right specialist will be able to identify those and use them to guide you down the path to sticking to something.

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Speaking as a mental health specialist:

No that is not. We treat disease. Pretending we can fine-tune personality traits is quackery, and no respectable mental health specialist would lay claim to that.

But don’t worry - quacks abound, and they even take your insurance.

How does one go about identifying a non-quack in your field? I’m in the market and I’ve been disappointed with the 2 I’ve seen...

My wife is a therapist, her suggestion is to go call up the largest local University and talk to folks in their psych department for recommendations.

They're usually much more science driven and grounded.

I was more thinking that not finding enjoyment in anything would be indicative of depression and that would be something that a mental health specialist can help a person navigate.

I think most people have a capacity for introspection, but some need more direction than others to actually do it and connect the dots. So maybe a core personality trait is largely unchangeable, but being able to recognize its existence and zero in on how it is affecting your life can lead to some real breakthroughs.

I don't know if the best person to help someone through this process of introspection is a psychologist or a life coach or a spiritual director or a teacher or a stranger in a coffee shop, but it seems like there's a place for it somewhere.

To be fair though, a part of ADHD can manifest itself this way. From what I've read it's a pretty common complaint that people with ADHD have trouble doing things they're not interested in. In a lot of those cases you also hear about how their interests change all the time.

Not really enough information to base a diagnosis on and not that I would be qualified to do so, but the thought certainly crossed my mind that the poster might consider being tested. Lack of interest and lack of maintained interest is certainly in the realm of possibility. Unlike other psychotropic meds, ADHD meds have a fairly high success rate and a rapid onset of effective treatment. Pretty much with one dose a person can tell if they are going to work for them or not. For most that suffer it's like night and day.

I am not really sure a mental health specialist can help you if nothing interests you. It's difficult to imagine every human being having interest in making something. A lot of people may just want to live a chill life.

Unfortunately, UBI is very far away, so whether something interests you or not, you got to pick up the least worst choice and get on with it.

I'd find it more strange if something did interest people for over 40/50 years. Trains for example - that's a long time to be interested in trains!

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