Beyond the fear....

Tue Aug 11 13:29:48 CDT 2009

Hi Regina, many aspects of your recent email, and I can't respond to all of them at one time. But first, two responses:

    First, about Fritz. The man was 50% rascal and genius, capable of significant empathy and moments of warmth, and in other ways, riddled with faults. I see a number of therapists---including Moreno---as afflicted with this mixture of role competencies and incompetencies. Let us avoid an argumentum ad hominem rhetorical fallacy: Just because a far-from-perfect person makes an observation, it doesn't make it false. I simply acknowledged his statement, but the point stands on its own. 

    You write: I respectfully, and perhaps blissfully in denial, disagree with Perls.  I believe that we as beings move towards balance and that we want wholeness and health and that we don't go there out of fear.  Think Carl Rogers. 

     AB: I respectfully suggest that indeed you are in denial and that a large, very large, percentage of the population move towards balance only in the sense of psychic stability, which involves the least effort, the most complacency. They may utilize a variety of short- and medium-term reliefs including low grade alcoholism and other subtle addictions. Many are able to keep these "in control" enough to keep going, but there is little true movement into increased awareness or "deep maturity" (as I described it on my website). 
        Only a few educated readers of new age literature give even lip service to such "in" words such as wholeness and health. 
 And one might indeed argue well that most people ONLY go there out of fear, or, in the words of another old saying: 
    Pain makes men think; thinking makes man wise; wisdom makes life endurable.
          Only I would substitute for the middle level not wisdom but a more stable coping arrangement which might last as long as it's not disturbed by the impact of a conflicting reality. 

   Carl Rogers appealed to a population who was inclined to work on themselves. This is hardly representative of the large bulk of people presently being dealt with by psychotherapists or counselors---many of whom feel forced into the process by courts or desperation of other "secondary" symptoms.  

    Some therapists believed that many if not most clients wanted to become more conscious. I used to think this way, and appreciated the idealism of humanistic psychology. I still do appreciate it, but it's tempered by dis-illusionment.
     Dis-illusionment need not be a bad thing. It need not be terrible, sad, or involve a loss of a deeper faith. It just recognizes that the illusion that, for example---one tiny example of thousands---, kids and teenagers will work through their separation conflicts without some bucking and kicking if the parents play their cards right is probably ... well, an illusion. If there are adequate extra-familial wholesome holding environments, youth clubs, a pro-social ethos at school, etc., that peer- and extra-family-model group will absorb some of the expressions of the need to individuate away from the family, and the overall pathology will be minimal (i.e, not compound on itself in maladaptive ways). But providing a holding environment is different than keeping a warm and friendly relationship with young teens. 
      Anyway, of course there are exceptions, but I think we need to recognize more vividly how vulnerable, defensive, burdened by shame, oppressed by fifty or so different culturally misleading values and norms, and deprived of adequate supports the average person is.

     I envision a gradually increasing penetration of psychology in postmodern culture, but it's (my estimate) more like 4-12% rather than 24-55%---meaning that the vast majority of folks find psychology, introspection, and self-management to be a bit weird and relatively unnecessary, irrelevant, as people a century or 125 years ago felt literacy was---okay for some jobs, but ordinary folks didn't really need to read or write. 
       I think psychology may become more mainstream over the next few generations, and I hope to help that happen in a small way, but on the whole, I think it worthwhile that our idealism is tempered by our reality-testing. 

    I'll work on the paper on resistances to consciousness-raising and send it to you in a short while. Warmly, Adam
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: REGINA SEWELL 
  To: Adam Blatner 
  Cc: list at grouptalkweb.org 
  Sent: Monday, August 10, 2009 10:38 PM
  Subject: Beyond the fear....

  Adam,  

  I would love to read what your draft on resistance to consciousness-raising.   Recently, I have been highly influenced by Joanna Macy's work on eco-psychology in regards to consciousness-raising.  And, in my role as a self-defense instructor and a member of a feminist bookstore collective, one of the things that I learned is that people don't really want to think about, acknowledge that they are at risk.  They don't want to think about it.  I remember, doing research on anti-gay, lesbian, bi-sexual and transgendered harassment and violence and hearing people say they'd never experienced anything, only to regale me, 10 minutes later, with a horrible incident.  I still remember one young man, a high school student, tell me that he wasn't allowed to go into the bathroom at school if anyone else was in there -- bullies threatened to beat him up.  He told the principal and the principal's response was something to the effect of, "Learn to fight or have someone knock before you go in."  He had no idea that this was a basic violation of his humanity.  

  This is, I think, part of Ed's push...  to raise awareness to the issues.  Perhaps this displays my cultural background, but my experience is that when it comes to things that are painful and/or scary, to smash them on the head with the facts (like with the PETA films) is to overwhelm them and shock them and leave them feeling powerless, hopeless and paralyzed.  (I actually had a social movements professor write something to this effect on one of my early papers on the anti-gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgendered violence movement...  and then she broke down in tears in class describing having been raped because some men perceived her to be a lesbian.)

  <<AB: This merges with thoughts I've been having about the resistances to consciousness-raising or maturity-development, what they are and how they might be thought about. I'll soon post a paper on my website on this. Would you or anyone else like to see a draft and to comment, make suggestions about what should be revised or added? I was just writing about it this morning and adding some new elements myself.>>

  <<The key point is how specifically can we help people move past fear and guilt--- especially regarding warming-up to becoming more psychologically-minded.>>

  This is where Joanna Macy is really helpful.  I actually put together a workshop on this for a group in Columbus called Simply Living.  I might still have the outline if you're interested.  I think Kaya out in AK has done work with local organizations to help them get on with the business of social change.  My plan focussed on Sociometry, Playback Theatre, and sociodrama and Boal's theatre of the oppressed.

  << Of course we do so implicitly in building a treatment alliance with those who go out of their way to seek help. (i.e., they voluntarily enter the sick role). Even then, a significant number of patients, as Fritz (Perls) noted, "... don't really want to stop being neurotic; they just want to get better at it." I take this to mean that many patients suffer from the consequences of deeper character patterns, misleading aims, entrenched games they play---which they don't experience as mistaken; but they want relief from the anxiety and depression that follow being fired, having their partners or friends leave or give up on them (disgustedly, hurt, bewildered, angry), and so forth. They don't want to look at why they were fired or abandoned, note, but just don't want to feel so bad. I wonder what percentage of clients you see who would be more like this? 20,  40,   60,   80% ?

  I respectfully, and perhaps blissfully in denial, disagree with Perls.  I believe that we as beings move towards balance and that we want wholeness and health and that we don't go there out of fear.  Think Carl Rogers.  I never met Fritz Perls but I did have the "pleasure" of being in a group led by a very confrontational Gestalt therapist.  What I learned in the group was to shut up, look at the floor and how NOT to do group therapy.  I was afraid to put myself out there for fear of being shredded by either the group of by the leader.  Given my limited exposure (a few films of Perls assaulting clients), I'm guessing that many of his clients felt the same way.  

   <<So envisioning our goal is good, but we need to envision quite specifically, concretely  If we envision an abstract idea it won't work. 

  I totally agree here!  You have to envision the board your punching through, not a random something....  the landing strip you are trying to land on, not magically landing safely....

  <<    Well, about your role as a sociometrist: I've been having some further ideas about that issue---in part because I've become increasingly impressed with how deep the associated sociodynamics and psychodynamics of tele are!--- so let me know if you'd like to pursue that. Warmly, Adam

  Tell me more here....   My dream/vision is to create an action/creativity oriented class on psychoneurobiology bringing in, among other things, what Moreno sensed by didn't have the capability to demonstrate re:  interaction and Ann Hale's work on psychodrama and interpersonal neurobiology 

  Peace,
  regina

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