non-allopathic perspectives

[Adam Blatner]

Hi Ed, responding to your recent question as to what I am concerned with in the material. 
You say, "I think staying open to non-allopathic perspectives (non-psychiatric) would be 
great by the way - there is nothing wrong with the psychology of the ancients, in my 
feeling.
        AB: Yes and no. Staying open operates on a spectrum between having an open mind 
and allowing your brains to fall out. The question involves the degree of belief, 
authority, literal fact we attribute to this or that idea. These questions also involve 
the degrees of financial, emotional, and time investment we make in this or that claim. If 
the activity is voluntary and doesn't hurt anyone, I don't mind what a person does. If the 
activity is something professionals are advocating that requires a significant outlay of 
money, or that people feel entitled to ask the government to provide funds, it makes more 
sense to rise to requirement for more stringent evidence.
        What if there are 50 approaches being proposed out there that will make major 
contributions to health care if not being quite revolutionary? Great, but they need to 
make their case; it is not the mainstream's job to do that for them. After all, there are 
1000 types of alternative healing being proposed (general numbers)--- and probably 900 - 
950 of them are mistaken or misleading.
         Finally, about there being nothing wrong the psychology of the ancients. Hello? 
This was an era that treated women as property, when slavery was okay, etc. So I think 
there was a lot wrong! True, there was some wisdom then and it doesn't require ancient 
authority to recognize that wisdom today. Anyway, the problem is the differentiation 
between general psychological principles and fact.

    This does speak to a problem in the field of psychodrama today regarding the standards 
of evidence, the levels of serious intellectual rigor, the confusion between high 
aspirations and clarity of actual issues, and so forth. (Well, this problem exists and has 
always existed for just about every field.)

    Warmly, Adam