Posted by twinleaf on December 12, 2010, at 21:02:18
In reply to Re: a quote which deserves to be quoted correctly....., posted by alexandra_k on December 12, 2010, at 18:38:00
Alex has identified a really important thing which keeps recurring in our interactions with Bob. We repeatedly identify real problems in how Babble is run, and in how our relationships with Bob play out. We hope for real change. Bob almost invariably responds by either stating directly, or by inferring, that our responses are transference-based. He seems convinced, every time, that we could not possibly be discussing, and offering solutions for, a REAL: problem. Once our ideas have been devalued in this manner, it follows that Bob has no need to do anything. It is obviously very convenient for Bob to consider every critical comment, and every offered solution, to be based, not on the posters' intelligence and creativity, but on some hypothetical transference distortion left over from childhood.
The posters here are highly intelligent and aware. If anything, having an emotional illness requires one to be much more aware and sophisticated about feelings and motives than is average in society. By and large, people here don't miss a thing!. When Bob tries to attribute very sound, intelligent, accurate assessments and suggestion about Babble to childhood distortions or transferences, he risks sounding rather naive. I feel certain that he would not want to appear this way, and we certainly don't want him to.
Ideas about transference have changed a lot since Merton Gill, a psychoanalyst who helped make a major change in modern psychotherapy, suggested that, when things went wrong in the therapeutic relationship, it was usually because of blind spots or mistakes by the therapist. The concept of transference was reserved more for basic unmet needs arising in therapy, such as impaired attachment. When a psychiatrist attributes much that he doesn't like, or that he considers problematic, to others' transference, he runs the risk of being considered rather unsophisticated,
Wouldn't it be great if we could create, or perhaps recreate, a truly happy, mutually respectful community here? I don't think it would be so hard to do - people's ideas and suggestions could be received accurately and respectfully, even when they are not agreed with. Blocks can be reasonably short- perhaps never more than a few weeks. Civility actions could be kept below the level which begins to interfere with natural spontaneity and communicativeness. There would always be problems from time to time, just as there are everywhere else. But there is the strongest possible reason for believing that we can once again have a vital. healthy Babble community: we had one a few years ago.
It's the memory of how important it was to me then that keeps me struggling to get it back!
poster:twinleaf
thread:964630
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/admin/20101201/msgs/973334.html