There are a few things that I glossed over in the first pass. A lot of that had to do with being careful to protect the personal information of another. I’m not nearly as concerned with my own personal information. My tale is a tale of triumph. At any rate, I have always been a particularly honest person, though frankly my strain of honesty has always been tempered with a great deal of flippancy. But if I ever sound dodgy at times, it’s likely a sign that I’m trying to be careful to avoid the appearance of speaking for another.
At any rate, I’m not psychologist. My brother was a psychologist at one time, and I have been dating a psychologist.
However, I have learned a bit about psychology. It is a fairly broad science with several competing theories; the behavioralists, the medicalists, the Freudians, gestalt theory, etc. It’s something similar to auto mechanics, where some only do body work, while others only work on transmissions; except in this instance, everyone believes that they can fix anything.
I prefer the behavioralists; in particular Ernst G. Beier and William Glasser. I like things that can be verified by data.
There is also junk psychology; most notably criticisms of Gardiner’s theory of multiple intelligences have been getting a bit of airing these days— not that it’s absolute crap, mind you; just that it has been bent way out of proportion by others who have seized on it, particularly education professionals. In like manner, there is a wide body of parenting literature that has been seriously skewed by parenting coaches in all manner of media. But I find the fallacy behind that last one to be particularly obvious.
Ok, let’s accept it at face value that to parent children in any other method than the fairly inane one being proffered results in ill-adjusted children who grow up to be pretty screwed up adults. Very well then. Now, unless this parenting coach’s own parents utilized these same fairly inane methods, then it follows that the parenting coach was an ill-adjusted child who grew up to be a pretty screwed up adult. And now we’re asked to believe that this pretty screwed up adult is the best of all possible options to advise us concerning our own decisions.
That sort of thing is what passes for typical Leftist thought in the States. You see, here we have both the right to own a firearm and the right to have an abortion. If you believe that the government shouldn’t be forking over the money to buy people abortions, that’s misogyny; however, if you don’t believe that the government should be forking over the money to buy people firearms, then that’s not anti-firearm in the slightest— in fact, it is held to be quite ridiculous to suggest that the government should be providing people with a personal arsenal, regardless of the rights involved.
Back to behavioralism now.
One thing I wanted to discuss was the young man’s feelings of anger toward his sister for having done herself in; not at all uncommon. Likewise, not uncommon to see suicide described as ‘selfish.’
I disagree.
In the absence of predisposing cultural factors, all persons commit suicide for the very same reason— desperation. Suicide happens when three conditions are met: 1) a person’s current set of coping skills has been strained to the limit, 2) a person possesses inadequate resources to learn new coping skills, and 3) the person is being pressed, either by internal considerations or by external events. Please note that not one of these conditions might be quantified as particularly ‘selfish.’
I had a friend one time that was especially prone to depression. “I hate my life,” he would say. “Bullsh!t,” I would tell him. “You say that, but what you really mean is that you hate the way that you’ve been living your life. And who could blame you? Who on earth would want to go through life living as a jackass? It doesn’t mean that there’s anything wrong with you that you’re feeling that way. It means that something is very, very right with you. The big question is— What are you going to do about it?”
Something I picked up from Glasser.
You see, Glasser worked at the veterans’ hospital in Los Angeles, and he worked extensively with patients with PTSD, and a lot of amputees. One day, he decided to try something a bit different. Instead of asking his patients, “How are you feeling today?” when he made his rounds, he asked, “What are your plans for the day?” There was no solid science behind it at the time; he was just being a bit of a prick and wanted to test the responses. But it brought about results. That’s how behavioralism was born, from humble beginnings.
Whereas the first question brought about a familiar litany of complaints, where only a few would ever get better, the second question gave them a feeling of empowerment— they could do something. And almost all of them got better. He relates that, in 40 years of practice, there were only two patients that he was unable to cure of their depression; both of them were housewives, and both of them were unwilling to do the things necessary to rid themselves of their depression.
But these days, in America anyway, we have the tendency to substitute medication for therapy, and believe that the medication itself is the therapy. In other words, there has been a paradigm shift away from enacting cures to alleviating symptoms.
Along with that, and in the category of ‘junk psychology,’ is the whole ‘troubled teen’ warehousing program. Also from Glasser— real world coping skills can only be learned in a real world situation; a clinical situation can only teach clinical coping skills.
The scam runs like this: Little Johnny is a bad little sh!t, and this kid really needs some professional help. So, off to the warehousing program he goes. Little Johnny gets doped up a bit and starts to get better. But shortly after he’s released, he starts being a little sh!t again, and it’s off to the warehouse for you, you little bastard.
What’s going on is that Little Johnny is only reacting to his environment. It’s typically the whole family that needs therapy. When the kid is out of the sick household and placed in a safe, structured environment, he does ok. As soon as he’s thrown back into the sick household, all hell breaks loose. It’s an endless cycle. But it’s convenient for the parents, because they never have to believe that they might have ever done anything wrong— it’s all his fault, or the fault of some condition that no one really understands. The cure was never at issue. It’s an industry.
Dr. Fricke, the fellow that my brother did his internship with, was a behavioralist. Even though, like all good behavioralists, he believed that ADHD was a syndrome rather than a disorder, he nevertheless diagnosed a lot of kids as having ADHD. Asked about this, he said that the kid obvious had problems, and that giving that diagnosis might be the only chance for that kid to ever get any help.
I wanted to share with you a story about a kid going through an evaluation, but I think I’ll save that for another time.
All pertinent stuff here, but still I feel as if I missed the mark as far as saying what I wanted to say. I’ll let it stand for now.
[UPDATE]:
This is part of what I was forgetting.
While I was writing that last post, there were several text messages exchanged between the apprentice and myself. This is one of them:
That kid re-invigorated me.
Our Oath obligates me to “assist members of the [Union] to the extent of my ability, defend them when unjustly treated or slandered, and cultivate for each and every member the warmest friendship and brotherly love.”
I’ve done all that with this one apprentice.
I wouldn’t have it otherwise.
At any rate, I’m not psychologist. My brother was a psychologist at one time, and I have been dating a psychologist.
However, I have learned a bit about psychology. It is a fairly broad science with several competing theories; the behavioralists, the medicalists, the Freudians, gestalt theory, etc. It’s something similar to auto mechanics, where some only do body work, while others only work on transmissions; except in this instance, everyone believes that they can fix anything.
I prefer the behavioralists; in particular Ernst G. Beier and William Glasser. I like things that can be verified by data.
There is also junk psychology; most notably criticisms of Gardiner’s theory of multiple intelligences have been getting a bit of airing these days— not that it’s absolute crap, mind you; just that it has been bent way out of proportion by others who have seized on it, particularly education professionals. In like manner, there is a wide body of parenting literature that has been seriously skewed by parenting coaches in all manner of media. But I find the fallacy behind that last one to be particularly obvious.
Ok, let’s accept it at face value that to parent children in any other method than the fairly inane one being proffered results in ill-adjusted children who grow up to be pretty screwed up adults. Very well then. Now, unless this parenting coach’s own parents utilized these same fairly inane methods, then it follows that the parenting coach was an ill-adjusted child who grew up to be a pretty screwed up adult. And now we’re asked to believe that this pretty screwed up adult is the best of all possible options to advise us concerning our own decisions.
That sort of thing is what passes for typical Leftist thought in the States. You see, here we have both the right to own a firearm and the right to have an abortion. If you believe that the government shouldn’t be forking over the money to buy people abortions, that’s misogyny; however, if you don’t believe that the government should be forking over the money to buy people firearms, then that’s not anti-firearm in the slightest— in fact, it is held to be quite ridiculous to suggest that the government should be providing people with a personal arsenal, regardless of the rights involved.
Back to behavioralism now.
One thing I wanted to discuss was the young man’s feelings of anger toward his sister for having done herself in; not at all uncommon. Likewise, not uncommon to see suicide described as ‘selfish.’
I disagree.
In the absence of predisposing cultural factors, all persons commit suicide for the very same reason— desperation. Suicide happens when three conditions are met: 1) a person’s current set of coping skills has been strained to the limit, 2) a person possesses inadequate resources to learn new coping skills, and 3) the person is being pressed, either by internal considerations or by external events. Please note that not one of these conditions might be quantified as particularly ‘selfish.’
I had a friend one time that was especially prone to depression. “I hate my life,” he would say. “Bullsh!t,” I would tell him. “You say that, but what you really mean is that you hate the way that you’ve been living your life. And who could blame you? Who on earth would want to go through life living as a jackass? It doesn’t mean that there’s anything wrong with you that you’re feeling that way. It means that something is very, very right with you. The big question is— What are you going to do about it?”
Something I picked up from Glasser.
You see, Glasser worked at the veterans’ hospital in Los Angeles, and he worked extensively with patients with PTSD, and a lot of amputees. One day, he decided to try something a bit different. Instead of asking his patients, “How are you feeling today?” when he made his rounds, he asked, “What are your plans for the day?” There was no solid science behind it at the time; he was just being a bit of a prick and wanted to test the responses. But it brought about results. That’s how behavioralism was born, from humble beginnings.
Whereas the first question brought about a familiar litany of complaints, where only a few would ever get better, the second question gave them a feeling of empowerment— they could do something. And almost all of them got better. He relates that, in 40 years of practice, there were only two patients that he was unable to cure of their depression; both of them were housewives, and both of them were unwilling to do the things necessary to rid themselves of their depression.
But these days, in America anyway, we have the tendency to substitute medication for therapy, and believe that the medication itself is the therapy. In other words, there has been a paradigm shift away from enacting cures to alleviating symptoms.
Along with that, and in the category of ‘junk psychology,’ is the whole ‘troubled teen’ warehousing program. Also from Glasser— real world coping skills can only be learned in a real world situation; a clinical situation can only teach clinical coping skills.
The scam runs like this: Little Johnny is a bad little sh!t, and this kid really needs some professional help. So, off to the warehousing program he goes. Little Johnny gets doped up a bit and starts to get better. But shortly after he’s released, he starts being a little sh!t again, and it’s off to the warehouse for you, you little bastard.
What’s going on is that Little Johnny is only reacting to his environment. It’s typically the whole family that needs therapy. When the kid is out of the sick household and placed in a safe, structured environment, he does ok. As soon as he’s thrown back into the sick household, all hell breaks loose. It’s an endless cycle. But it’s convenient for the parents, because they never have to believe that they might have ever done anything wrong— it’s all his fault, or the fault of some condition that no one really understands. The cure was never at issue. It’s an industry.
Dr. Fricke, the fellow that my brother did his internship with, was a behavioralist. Even though, like all good behavioralists, he believed that ADHD was a syndrome rather than a disorder, he nevertheless diagnosed a lot of kids as having ADHD. Asked about this, he said that the kid obvious had problems, and that giving that diagnosis might be the only chance for that kid to ever get any help.
I wanted to share with you a story about a kid going through an evaluation, but I think I’ll save that for another time.
All pertinent stuff here, but still I feel as if I missed the mark as far as saying what I wanted to say. I’ll let it stand for now.
[UPDATE]:
This is part of what I was forgetting.
While I was writing that last post, there were several text messages exchanged between the apprentice and myself. This is one of them:
Thanks man. I’m very very greatfull (sic) for all of your motivation, pushing me, teaching me, and all over kind hearted hospitality. Means alot man. Let's (sic) me know I'm not always alone
That kid re-invigorated me.
Our Oath obligates me to “assist members of the [Union] to the extent of my ability, defend them when unjustly treated or slandered, and cultivate for each and every member the warmest friendship and brotherly love.”
I’ve done all that with this one apprentice.
I wouldn’t have it otherwise.
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