Well... yeah. I mean, imagine you had super critical parents who picked on your every mistake as a child. Now you suffer from social anxiety and feel intense shame and fear in public because you think everyone is constantly criticizing you and talking about you.
Being able to relax and be yourself knowing that most people won’t care either way is a huge step forward.
For some people, I suppose.
For others, a non-trivial point of the work is to learn not to care that other people don't care. It's about improving yourself, changing the relationship you have with the only person you will always be with, regardless of what other people might say, think, or do — that their behavior is entirely about them and has nothing whatsoever to do with you.
And that trying to make their behavior about you is just as much an ego-trap as the more obvious things you'd associate with that notion.
It's pretty remarkable the degree to which a little compassion and self-awareness can take the sting out of other people's lacking those things.
Hence the psychological narrative may be backed by an actual psychiatric, physiochemical change. An actual change, in “reality” - in other words, assuming some form of inflammation is involved in most depressive states...
[1] DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0075426
The most exciting part of these type of studies is the ability to take depressive people and ‘kick’ them out of the cognitive ruts they are in.
Those cognitive ruts are often world-views, thought structures and learned behaviours from childhood or their parents which constantly reinforce that the sufferer is worthless or stupid or unwanted etc.
In those world views, other people are often seen in very negative light - they’re critical, or assholes, or dangerous, or perhaps you’re so needy for love and attention that you endlessly see other people as your savior (and constantly make bad relationships as a result).
The idea that we just need love and kindness and selflessness and we’re all connected maaaan - that’s a childish interpretation. As is the idea that interconnectednesa and empathy falls apart in a realistic adult world of possessions and basic needs.
In the context of mental illness, being able to experience connectedness and heightened empathy might mean seeing other people for who they really are, not who they appear to be in your distorted worldview. It might mean realizing that other people are similar to you and you’re not alone in your struggle, or realizing that you can give support to someone else instead of constantly needing support from them. Sometimes breakthroughs like that take years in therapy, but might be achieved much more quickly using mushrooms.
Hope that helps dissolve the cynicism.