Posted by Mark H. on February 20, 2002, at 2:50:44
In reply to you said I could ask more questions :-) » Mark H., posted by judy1 on February 19, 2002, at 23:35:51
Dear Judy,
I think that complex psychological explanations are generally useless, since they tend to change every decade or two and are supplanted by new theories of motivation and abberation based on intellectual speculation. Freud was merely the earliest really noteworthy example of this.
The arrogance of most of the literature of psychology is both horrifying and embarrassing. In the end, *concepts* themselves are meaningless and shallow, so why on earth do we strive so to take refuge in them?
If a concept such as "manic defenses" helps you to be well, then it has value. However, I've yet to meet anyone whose life was improved by knowing the name of his or her illness or so-called neurotic tendencies. I've known many people, however, whose suffering was increased by being saddled with a label that carried a negative connotation within the psychological community.
In practice, there is a certain "aha! gotcha!" quality to insider labels. If a psychologist has 45 minutes to stick you in a pidgeon-hole (so as not to experience the anxiety associated with uncertainty and the inherent mystery of being), he or she will "apply models" as quickly as possible.
Too often, these models are wielded like weapons -- as though they were "real" or had inherent meaning -- when in fact they have less basis in the history of healing than the reading of Tarot cards. Believe me, the old adage "to a man with a hammer, everything looks like a nail" applies just as much to the practice of psychology. Depending on the modality in which one is trained, evidence of the relevance of that modality is found at every turn. Again, if it is useful, if people improve their lives with it, then fine. But how often is that the case?
The classic example is one of the saddest in our modern history. I have a dear friend whose practice was limited to "uncovering" events of childhood sexual abuse that in most cases never happened. There was a period in the early 90s when every other person I saw (male or female) who had some unnamed inner aching would ask me in all seriousness if I thought they had been "sexually abused" by one of their parents and suppressed the memory of it.
It was as though the collapse of the Soviet empire had left a gaping void in our collective unconscious that had to be filled with a "forgotten" boogey-man, whether it was abduction by aliens, ritual killing of babies by non-existent satanic cults, or long-suppressed memories of sexual victimization. One particularly notorious author claimed that childhood sexual abuse was so prevalent that denying it had happened was evidence that it had. Hmmm. Apparently logic wasn't part of the curriculum in her graduate program.
Accusations based on confabulated memories created by suggestive questioning under hypnosis led to actual lawsuits, criminal prosecutions and families being torn apart over "recovered" memories. Several states went so far as to change their statutes of limitation to allow "victims" to press charges during the period *beginning* with their "recovered" memories!
This widespread phenomenon not only created immeasurable suffering (while providing job security for participating psychologists), but also later tainted the cases of those who had actual, uninterrupted memories of corroborated childhood abuse. Very few psychologists were ever civilly sued or criminally prosecuted for these grave offenses, and some still defend this dark era of widespread hysteria as "real."
Today, the fad of universal child sexual abuse has fallen out of favor, as the sheer claim of numbers collapsed on itself. Yet we now live in a society where adults are understandably uncomfortable being alone with children for any reason, and where children have a dangerously exaggerated sense of the power and importance of their sexuality. Tomorrow's psychologists will surely profit handsomely from these children as they reach adulthood -- children untouched for fear of accidentally being touched "inappropriately."
During the height of the fad, a local doctor was prosecuted for sexual molestation. The incident? In front of numerous other adults (including the parents of the "victim") in the middle of a summer afternoon, he rode his own 4 year old daughter on one knee and her 4 year old friend on the other knee while mowing his front yard with a garden tractor.
Under questioning, the four year old friend was coerced into claiming the doctor had touched her genitals during the ride -- although every competent adult witness swore he never even took off his thick garden gloves and grabbed the kids only to keep them from falling off. The jury acquitted him in a matter of minutes, of course, and chastised the District Attorney's office for charging him in the first place, but just the fact that a local prosecutor chose to bring the case to trial is frightening and repulsive. Her conclusive statement to the media was, "Children don't lie." Huh?
In the late 40s, the Nobel Prize was given to the person who later developed the transorbital prefrontal lobotomy. At the height of his popularity, he could "do" more than a dozen patients a day by laying them out in a row and slipping a glorified icepick behind their eyeballs, popping it through the thin part of the skull and wiggling it around a bit, effectively scrambling their brains in a most uncontrolled and unscientific fashion. It only went out of favor when someone pointed out that among others he was "treating" adolescents whose only mental illness in some cases was "defying parental authority." Whoops! Sorry about that!
I fully accept the biomechanical models of single and bipolar depressive illnesses AS LONG AS they are considered within the larger context of our complete experiences as richly complex human beings. If our circumstances make us sick, and they can; if our reactions -- conscious and otherwise -- can harm us, and they do; if depression can increase our susceptibility to heart disease and cancer, and it does; then we must also consider the *possibility* that our minds are capable of miraculous healing as well.
We have created educational degrees, meaningful long-term relationships, homes, families, jobs -- why would we stop short of thinking we can choose to influence the levels of neurotransmitters in our own brains? Any model we investigate is only useful and applicable if it helps us towards greater wholeness and fulfillment as human beings. All others should be discarded. I believe beyond doubt that we do *not* have to understand our past to heal in the present. This belief is not particularly supportive of most models of psychotherapy with which I am familiar!
You certainly evoke passionate responses from me. I hope these ramblings are OK with you.
Best wishes,
Mark H.
poster:Mark H.
thread:18403
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20020214/msgs/18551.html