"fully" and "judgment"

[Adam Blatner]

Hi Anath, please forgive me for nit-picking, because on the whole I agree with you... but on this line I would offer mild modifications:
      AG: " as long as  the therapist fully accepts this notion -there is no possibility of  judgment-there is a possibility of suggesting different beliefs to  "reshape reality " of the person: whether shamanism,ritual,  etc-does not matter,as long as therapists do not confuse consensual reality, with "Reality".

     AB: In general in intellectual discourse I've become more sharply aware of words like "fully," "completely," "totally," and variations of this, which seem to me to be reaching for degrees of perfection that are impossible---they represent asymptotic limits. Such words are common in new age discourse and they are in that sense quite misleading, because we rarely get even near that degree of high-skill- ness. 
        Second, no possibility of judgment is I think misleading. We do judge all the time, in our preferences, in resonating with values. We may not affirm our judgments once we become conscious of them, we need not think everything we feel (nor feel everything we think, as the cognitive therapists point out), but biases just happen. Your point has validity in that we should not too easily and uncritically accept our judgments as valid. On the other hand, it may be wise to comment on values, as discussed in Karl Menninger's book in the 1960s, "Whatever Became of Sin?"  He wasn't talking about getting saved through believing in this or that myth, but rather responding to the current in mid-century psychoanalysis to be non-judgmental. At certain points in therapy it may be wise and helpful to note that a person is overly nurturing attitudes that are anti-social, overly egocentric, unkind, etc. 

     These points are less for you, Anath, because I know you think about such things, but I am making them on this forum because I agree with the need to really think about the complexities of our work and its resistance to easy formulation. Warmly, Adam
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