Two cousins...

Matilda who is singing is cousin to two of my nephews and my niece, their fathers are brothers. And Peter is cousin to Matilda on their moms' side.

Ulrika - utsatt för incest...

Ur Aftonbladet idag "Så överlevde jag att pappa våldtog mig":

”Som liten flicka var Ulrika Olson hos doktorn nästan hundra gånger, för urinvägsinfektioner och sprickor i underlivet.

Ingen förstod att hennes pappa våldtog henne.

Det har gått trettio år sedan Ulrikas pappa plötsligt kunde bli 'monstret'. Monstret som /…/ tvingade sig på henne på toaletten eller i sängen./…/Ingen kan ana vad hon gått igenom.

Spåren finns kvar. Hon måste ha kateter när hon kissar, eftersom hon var så rädd för att gå på toaletten när hon var liten att något gick fel med signalerna till urinblåsan. Mardrömmarna skrämmer, och vissa stunder kan Ulrika bli ’avstängd [dissocierar?].

Men hon har överlevt./…/

Vid hennes första minne av en våldtäkt var hon sju år. Övergreppen fortsatte tills hon var fjorton. Tecknen fanns där: skador och blödningar. Vädjanden om att inte vara ensam med pappa.

– Ingen förstod. Man pratade inte om incest då. Pappa och jag hade en fruktansvärd hemlighet, och jag vågade inte berätta. Han var som två personer, en snäll och social, en som drack och var ’monstret’./…/

Under sin tonårstid förträngde Ulrika allt. Hon blev en strulig, lite mobbad tjej som ’lät’ killarna ligga med henne.

När hon var 21 kom minnesbilderna, och hon polisanmälde./…/ [han blev dömd för]

…att ha haft samlag med sin dotter vaginalt, oralt och analt. Förutom Ulrikas minnen finns läkarjournaler där hennes skador dokumenterats. Hovrätten fastställde domen. Hon tog makten över män. Detta blev hennes sätt att hantera det hela.

”Pappan har aldrig erkänt, och de har inte sett varandra sedan hon anmälde honom. Med mamman har hon viss kontakt.

– Jag trodde att domen skulle sätta punkt. Men det var då nedstigningen i helvetet började.

Minnena slet i henne – och förstörde. Genom åren har hon försökt döva sig med alkohol, shopping, arbete, mat och sex.

– Ångesten blev ett sug i kroppen, ett tomrum som jag bara måste fylla med något. Det var som en demon i mig, något helt okontrollerat.

Hon beskriver att hon hade två delar: Den ’stora Ulrika’, hennes riktiga jag, med känslor och sliten själ. Den ’lilla Ulrika’ var kaxig med fin fasad, hon gjorde karriär och raggade upp hundratals män.

– Jag iscensatte övergreppen genom att ta makt över män. Jag fick dem att ha sex med mig och satte mig i förövarens roll, förklarar Ulrika.

Just sexmissbruket och dess konsekvenser är det som plågar henne mest i dag./…/

Vändningen kom för sex år sedan. En man på krogen nobbade henne plötsligt. Nu är han hennes make, och pappa till hennes yngste son. /…/

Det har inte gett sig självt, utan har krävt otroligt mycket. Man måste ner i det djupaste svarta.

Ulrika ler. Det finns hjälp, och det lättar att berätta. Det vet hon.”

Tydligen beskriver Ulrika en ångestrektion som kan vara vanlig bland utsatta barn.

Barn som varit eller är usatta för sexuella övergrepp kan återupprepa det skedda och bli sexuellt utåtagerande som ett sätt att göra ett internt kaos till ett externt. Ett barn som blir sett som sexobjekt får en skev självbild och en sned bekräftelse av sig själv som en bloggare skriver.

Genom att försätta sig i situationer som de tidigare varit med om hoppas de att problemet ska få en lösning.

“Jag iscensatte övergreppen genom att ta makt över män. Jag fick dem att ha sex med mig och satte mig i förövarens roll./.../

En man på krogen nobbade henne plötsligt. Nu är han hennes make, och pappa till hennes yngste son.

Oavsett vad återupprepningen består av är det smärtsamt att ändra på beteendet, det kan ha blivit som en snuttefilt och ett sätt att avleda den inre ångesten.

Bortträngingsmekanismer tränger bort ’det som hänt’ som en skyddsmekanism men upplevelsen kan aldrig försvinna .

Trygghet är en viktig pusselbit för utsatta barn som skall ’minnas, berätta vad som hänt samt få hjälp med kontrollbehov som oftast drabbar dem./…/

Första kontrollfasen är att tränga undan känslor och händelser.

Andra kontrollfasen är fasaden – man kan leva ett exemplariskt liv på ytan. Det räcker inte med att förtränga känslor.

Tredje fasen innehåller ritualer och tvångshandlingar/återupprepanden . Under allt finns skuld, skam men även andra sidor som trängts undan, resurser och kreativa sidor.”

Helga – part 3…

Helga replied that she had needed those six months to get more clarity. Now she thought she had come so far so she would have written to Michelle on her own, without being reminded.

“When you went to Peru it was as if you had died. You probably think this sounds strange, because of course you were reachable, I could have written. I could have replied to your loving letters to keep our contact going. But I couldn’t.

Even if I wrote kind letters to you I experienced myself as cut off from you for ever. For a long time I couldn’t understand this.

It was not until we met half a year ago I found the key which had been missing during the whole long therapy.

First it was Brigit who found it strange that I hardly knew anything about you. She wanted to know how it was when you left ten years ago. I didn’t remember. This surprised me. She said:

“How strange! Your best friend goes so far away, and you have no memory of your farewell? Did you feel abandoned then, after her departure?”

“No,”

I answered,

“I didn’t feel anything at all.”

I said these words calmly, surprised myself over my equanimity. But I discovered that I in some sense felt defiant, as a hurt child who isn’t possible to speak to.

"How come?"

I wondered.

"Brigit is kind; there is no need to react like that to her. She wants to help me. There is no reason for me to reject her."

At this simple truth my defiance broke down, I don’t know why it came then, but I started to cry. Now I suddenly felt the pain in being abandoned (the pain I had refused to feel and had held from myself when you left and with it memories of the whole event). At last I understood how motivated this was.”

When Helga was four her father had died. She was left with her mother, whom had a lot of problems herself and was incapable of giving Helga any security. A mother who strictly controlled her and at the same time clung firmly to her, because she needed someone and there was noone else but Helga. Helga had to take care of and fill her mothers needs and think of her.

It was impossible for Helga to feel or show her sorrow and despair over the loss of her father in her mother’s presence. Her mother first and foremost expected self-restraint from Helga and a good manner, but no expressions of emotions (but, once again, self-control!!!), not least as she was jealous to Helga’s love to her father.

Helga had to cleverly accept that her father was gone, i.e. silently and without emotions “accept” it.

Helga experienced Michelle’s departure in the same way. She couldn’t cry, as if somebody had forbidden it, and in a way she metaphorically "buried" Michelle.

Michelle’s mother had used all opportunities to teach Helga good manners. And maybe Helga thought that if she behaved well her father would return? Helga got used to not posing questions, this was forbidden (she had to figure things out on her own? And as good as she could on her own?).

After Michelle had left Helga met a man, but when she got pregnant this man left her, because he didn’t want the child. Helga had to handle all this. But her inner tension showed in difficulties to sleep. She started to take sleeping pills, and had to take stronger and stronger dozes till she realized that she had to do something about it. And thus the therapy.

But this therapy left her in the same childish state of helplessness and dependency, and the powerless anger which this led to, and she didn’t know how she should be able to change the state of affairs. She didn’t succeed in getting any use at all of all her crying. This state lasted for several years. And it was only the therapist who (greatly) benefited on this.

This man profited on Helga’s constant crying and idealized transference, instead of settling it, and Helga couldn’t break the vicious circle. She had got stuck at the same level as the little girl, who can’t understand what is done to her.

The therapist systematically depreciated all people whom stood her near, even Michelle and her co-workers and cousins, so at last she had noone else but him.

Helga thought the therapist only had figured out how he could intensify people’s childish needs, which aren’t possible to fulfill any more, till they were unendurable, to mitigate them with promises about cure. To reach this cure people are prepared to let themselves be exploited in different ways; economically, emotionally and sexually.

But this affair was so good that he probably saw no need to help her even if he had had those prerequisites, which he hadn’t.

The sexual violation often plays a special role. The women’s humiliation and the alleged intimacy shall prevent them from seeing the one through who is using them.

Helga thought that the sexual relation had given her an illusion of love, and as her therapist stayed alive she could tolerate his infidelity. What she had feared the most was her father’s death, because this had meant that she was handed out to her mother’s universally prevailing power.

But what she to whatever prize had tried to avoid occurred. She had become limitlessly dependent on a person who made her believe that he wanted and could help her, and who without hesitation or doubts wanted to drive her into a psychosis, only for to cover up what he himself had done.

Already with her mother Helga had experienced being talked away from her observations and thus made deeply insecure on her senses; on what she saw, heard, sensed (see Mellody on excessive control of reality or överdriven kontroll av verkligheten). She was so used to this that she had no chance of becoming aware that her therapist did the same thing to her once again. But much more consciously and skilfully.

It wasn’t until she met Brigit that she understood why she had let herself be blended for such a long time by this human being. And been able doing this with Brigit’s help in only six months.

He even succeeded in making her believe in his healing powers by showing her written “proofs”; letters from “healed”, which much later showed to be falsified. Emotionally she had got stuck as the small daughter in this relation, a daughter bravely enduring with her mother in the hope that she should “deserve” her father's return.

She had met with a man who had specialized in exploiting his patients’ special distresses as much as possible for his own aims

What gave him so much power over Helga were her early denied sorrow and the defence against the helplessness she had felt then. He now awoke this in the grown up woman, added fuel to it and exploited it.

When Helga met Michelle again then, six months ago, she wasn’t capable of telling her all she now had told her. It was the return of Michelle that helped her getting access to her history.

Helga, part 2 - the exchange with Michelle...

sign of spring.

During the therapy with Brigit, Helga met her best friend Michelle, whom she hadn’t seen since Michelle left for Peru ten years earlier. Helga told Michelle about her therapy, but wasn’t free from the shock yet, so she wasn’t capable of telling her friend everything. She promised her to write her, but Michelle was in advance of her.

Michelle wrote that she didn’t want to loose the contact again. And since she hadn’t gotten a life-sign so far in the passed six months she wrote.

“When I went to Peru I missed you a lot. But I dived into my work and got used to not having a friend standing me as close as you did. I tried to maintain the contact with you, but your replies came seldom and were relatively brief. I couldn’t understand the reason to the distance between us. I assumed you had got hurt because of my departure or that you had closer friends now, and therefore I didn’t ask about the reason.

Not until now, when I saw you again after I had returned you told me that your therapist had held you from all people you loved and trusted. Although you have seen him through and have found Brigit you don’t seem to be entirely free from him. That was at least my impression.

I traced a relief in you that you had allowed yourself to escape from this charlatan, but at the same time it looked as if you didn’t dare to feel the whole amount of your anger and indignation. You were controlled and told those shocking facts with a calm voice, sometimes you even laughed, and my impression was that you partly have been untouched by these circumstances. You told me these facts as if you were far away from the person exposed to all this.”

A tip I got...

---

Kirkengen writes about (three) Norwegian men in therapy, with a male therapist, who were sexually abused in their therapy by their male therapist... And how greatly they suffered after this. They weren't capable of saying no. And was fooled by their therapist to believe this was part of their recovery? (I don't remember the facts now and don't have the book here). They put their therapist to trial.

So it isn't only women whom are abused but also men.

But women are the greater part of those that gets abused, not only sexually, but in other ways too (not least emotionally)??? Are they more often met with disrespect too, or with more disrespect than men, even by professionals despite the professional is man OR woman? Yes, investigations has shown that men and women are treated differently by doctors for instance. Where men are treated better and have gotten better help, generally?

All should be treated equally! But why aren't we treating all alike?? From where does this come?

Kirkengen also writes about power-imbalances, and what power abuse means... See this review of Kirkengen's book "Inscribed bodies..."

Oh, how tired I am of everything!!! Think if I should disappear into work?? And book a journey, go away… Relax from everything… Draw a blanket over me… Over the head.

Helga – the lucrative affair with the tears…

picture taken from here.

Eight years ago Helga sought help at a therapy-center where she lived. She was between 27 and 32 years old, just divorced and left with a one-year old daughter. She had got problems with sleeping-pills due to problems with her sleeping, and wanted to get help with this and with sorting things out.

Although the waiting-time (waiting-list) was two years she got an initial talk with the director for the center immediately. This together with the director’s allusions to her pronounced attractive external appearance flattered her, but also gave her a certain lack of confidence. But she pushed this away because of her desperate needs to get help as soon as possible.

During the first time in therapy she cried a lot. This phase lasted several weeks. The therapist didn’t say much about this, but it made her good that someone listened to all she had to say. In the beginning of the therapy they agreed about that she could call whenever she wished, if the agony became too much. She used this possibility a couple of times.

But at one of the occasions when she called the therapist wasn’t at home, but his wife answered. To Helga’s’ astonishment the wife started to tell her husband's patient about her own problems without being asked. She told her that her husband used young female patient’s dependency on him for sexual plays and neglected and hurt her, who yet was his wife.

Helga quickly ended the talk, because she didn’t want to listen to this “slander” against her savior. Later she even admitted that she wasn’t even shocked by these disclosures. At that time her confidence in her therapist was still unbroken and she interpreted the wife’s words as an expression for jealousy and envy against younger women.

She told her therapist about her talk with his wife, but he pushed everything away (implying that it was something wrong with his wife), and Helga was satisfied with this, and didn’t even reflect over her talk with the wife at the moment when she entered into a sexual relation with her therapist. This relation made her believe in everything the therapist said, and she felt loved and chosen by him. This strengthened her self-confidence to that degree that she walked like in an ecstasy of luck for some weeks. Until she got to know that there were other patients this man had entered a sexual relation with. And then for the first time she started to think in patterns of exploitation and betrayal.

She entrusted herself to a co-patient, Barbara, who immediately told the therapist, the therapist in turn showed Barbara Helga’s intimate letters to him, and spoke about psychotic disturbances and declared perfectly untouched that what Helga had said was lies, fantasies and expressions of Helga’s feelings of being violated. On the contrary, it was Helga who had tried to seduce him and now she wanted revenge because he had rejected her.

To Helga the therapist also showed the image of an absolute honest, upright man who neither had nor had had anything to blame himself for.

Helga had no experiences of such perfect defensive position and rather doubted herself, her own senses and her own memory than the therapist's character.

Helga’s therapist was even prepared to accompany her through this psychotic “episode” and treat her for “paranoiac visions”. With this he tried to obliterate or reinterpret every memory she had of sexual experiences with him. For a while Helga was attracted to his care. But when she was threatened with an admission note to hospital and prosecution for slander her suspicions were awoken that her case wasn’t the first of this sort for him.

Helga remembered her call with the therapist’s wife and understood that she had tried to warn her. This man was apparently a specialist in threatening people to silence. This insight came undoubtedly late, but not too late. If Helga hadn’t got to know this (through her talk with the wife) she would have found herself in the brainwash a longer time.

Now she broke the contact with the therapist. But it took a long time before she could liberate herself from her confusion and the severe bodily symptoms she had got.

She got help from Brigit, a social-worker and therapist, with a long experience of incest families, who helped her processing the damages the therapist had caused her.

Today Helga thinks that the reason this man succeeds in keeping his patients in a state of fear is that he only accepts people in therapy that are easy to frighten and make insecure.

Helga thinks that her experience has protected her from looking down on other person’s credulousness or even joke about it. On the other hand she wanted to profit from this experience for better understanding of how it could come that she for such a long time wasn’t capable of estimating her situation.

I will write more about this later...

Yes, it is 36 years since I read English, and haven't used until 3 years ago... Only read English (French and German) texts on note-books and such things during the meantime... And during my whole school-time I moved several times, so I wonder how the education was too? So if my English is what it is...

I went the nature-science program at the gymnasium... But chose music in the end... But didn't read English till I quited the gymnasium...

Gurus and leaders…

from tea now at around 10.30, with new-baked bread :-).

Gurus and leaders - a topic I have thought of writing about for a long time…

Miller writes about this and the roots to it in her book “Paths of Life” in the chapter “Reflections” and in the chapter about Helga and her therapy in the same book. And she also mention these topics in the revised version of "The Drama of the Gifted Child" and in "Thou Shalt Not Be Aware."

I googled on "Thou Shalt Not Be Aware" ("Du skall icke märka") and found this text from the bible. Also see here. The illustration below is from the last site, illustrating "Thou Shalt Not Be Aware"?

My summary of what she writes (in "Paths of Life") and eventual comments and thoughts below (from the Swedish edition, the last book that has been translated to Swedish of Miller’s books. Why is that? A societal and professional denial? Is it only due to Miller herself? And why has Miller turned the way she seems to have turned?).

Miller writes that we live in a time where it looks as if dictatorships seem to be replaced by democracies. But at the same time we see how totalitarian systems are growing in different sects.

People who have grown up with freedom and respect and whose distinctive characters have been tolerated and not been throttled with the help of education, would scarcely voluntarily let themselves be drawn into a sect or at least not stay in it if they by coincidence or skillful manipulations should land there.

But many people don’t seem to bother that there exists mechanisms which once again will deprive them of the freedom of thoughts, actions and feelings/emotions (see Pia Mellody about codependency and violations of a child's inner life). They don’t seem to worry that they are put under totalitarian control and are forced to obedience in a way that they will never free themselves from, because through the years they will become objects for an indoctrination which makes it impossible for them to acknowledge or of seeing what damages their personalities have suffered - once again.

Miller writes that the form of secterist groups she has been occupied with are the ones with the unconscious manipulation; the way in which parents or therapists suppressed and unconscious childhood-history influences their children’s and patient’s lives, without anyone observing. In their education they have learned to handle conscious manipulation, but not the unconscious. They haven’t sufficiently dealt with their suppressed history Miller thinks. Other therapists have similar ideas.

Stettbacher says something I think is true; that we ought to protect the watchers of life in ones children. Which means treating our children from the first moment with all the respect we are capable of, so they don’t have to suppress things, so they have to suppress as little as possible? And this is the best way to protect them.

Schools of different kinds and educational methods are never free from all risks for manipulation, how fine ideals one even has. I have had a discussion about Summerhill school system. Not even that system can entirely guarantee anything!? And there has existed things there too from the (very) little I have heard... And also see these experiences of private schools or rather boarding-schools in England. by a former boarding-school student.

In my work I have also seen things I have reacted against, maybe less harmful than other things though… Methods that almost becomes like sect-like things, with a guru a top… For instance as in the Suzuki-metod, we also use the Montessori-method etc. etc. etc. (not inthe music-school though). Noone of us are free from all those tendencies?

Miller writes that among the sect’s founders there are many paranoiac and megalomaniac psychotics who, in the crowd of followers, are seeking protection from their own agony, in that they offer themselves as helpers and healers. They want to avoid their childish powerlessness and impotence and fight this on the symbolic level. At the same time they offer themselves as saviors, because through their followers eulogizes they at last feel powerful instead of powerless/impotent.

But as soon as they fear being seen through they force their disciples to silence. Scary.

See what Arthur Silber has written about obedience and the obedience culture in his Miller-essays. What our early experiences of obedience can mean and lead to even (or not least) on a societal and political level too.

It’s not only the victims but also the leader/guru that regresses to the childhood Miller thinks. The leader/guru also looses the contact with reality (to different degrees) through the followers’ praising-songs, depending on how much or little he has suppressed or later processed (to what degree he is willing to question himself).

Gurus obtain a common assent through fatherly and motherly care, which blends the masses and through regression to early childhood makes them caught in a limitless admiration. In this regression critics of parent-figures as leaders and gurus are not possible at all. And self critic from the part of the leader also disappears in the power-inebriation and self-idealization.

The jubilation of the masses works like a drug on the leader’s excited affects and all the jubilant people doesn’t realize that he uses them only for this function.

The followers don’t question if they are sent out into wars (literally or metaphorically) by their loving and supposed loving leader, just because his personal history demands this. They join, don’t think, leave the thinking to him (and he wants them leaving the thinking to him), they trust him as small children, who don’t have any conception of future and planning yet, they are just trusting that their “father” wants their best - and knows best. They stop thinking themselves (or many do?). Even if he (metaphorically) comes home from work, shouting and with his hand lifted, greeting and correcting them, he is only doing this for their own best (and he knows better than them what is the best for them), he says.

Often well-formulated theories are offered, which despite the scientific façade has nothing with science to do, because they only replace lasting facts with those they make up or deduce from their own theories.

And I think Miller is right concerning failures in therapy (my amateur-translation!!):

If one uncritically cling to old methods' alleged infallibility (and she includes regressive techniques here AND primal therapy) and blames the client for failures, you inevitably land in the same fairways (waters) as the sect-guru, who also promises entire liberation. Such promises only produce self-destructive dependence which stands in the way for the individual’s liberation.

How many haven’t experienced the same (or similar things) as Helga experienced, in this case in therapy (another form of manipulation)? I think I will write about her story too in a later posting.the not best well-mannered dog at the table, begging (I have serious problems resisting him)!! :-)

Addition after lunch: On my walk (with a dog that has to arm himself with an enormous patience before anyone is ready to go out. It was wonderful out; sun and a blue sky, and we met a woman on a horse and a man with the dog in the forest! So this forest isn't so wild as it maybe looks!?) I thought further on what Mellody has found about violations and abuse:

The child could be violated by being told how to

• think,
• behave,
• feel,
• not think,
• behave,
• feel,
• what friends the child should have,
• and not have,
• which cloths it should wear,
• and not wear…

It was told:

• how it was
• and how and what it wasn’t,
• how it thought,
• and didn't' think,
  
• how it felt,
• and didn't feel,
• how it reacted
• and accused for not reacting, feeling, sensing…

How does a child meet this?

"No, I am not! I am not thinking that way!!"

Words, feelings, thoughts, reactions etc. put in its mouth?

Which Mellody thinks are violations and abuse. And disrespect for the child as person, a disbelief and distrust in its wishes and strivings. Mellody calls this “excessive control of reality” (my translation from Swedish).

And this is also abusive adults between and seldom leads to anything constructive (if it ever leads to something constructive)!? How do one meet:

“You are!!”

With:

“No, I am not!!”

How does one prove neither the first nor the second?

Projections has to be worked out in some way? And they aren’t (are they) by saying

“You are!!”

But it’s very tempting to use these words sometimes?? And where are the limits for when it's no idea to go on trying???

Using these words, is that to take responsibility for oneself? And to say things like that one need to be very self-aware?? Knowing what is about oneself and what is about the other part. But this is tricky! Is the alternative entire solitude??

How would the best way be to communicate? Taking responsibility for what we say, do, how we behave? We will probably go on making bigger and smaller mistakes with all what follows, but we can try to communicate???

No wonder there are wars in this world? But from where does this enormous rage and fury come where you are capable of killing, not only verbally but also literally? Did he child once experience its fathers outbursts as threats for life??

And both parts probably have to want to develop, and care about the relation? And this isn’t always the case? Thinking loudly here... Wondering, thinking (WHAT?? "Thinking!!!??" If one is emotional than one is too emotional and not thinking?? And when one is thinking, one is thinking too much and maybe also insensitive. Yes, it's that too: "You shall not think so much!!" that is also an expression of "excessive control of reality"?), not trying to write a hand-book...

Jenson writes something: from where does all the… in the world come? All needs for mood-rising medication? It’s obvious that there is something lacking? Is it the child’s….?

Mellody speaks about other emotional violations, as demands on perfectionism, neglect, abandonment (both emotionally as physically) etc too, and she is one of those who have pointed out that there exist emotional abuse and disrespect too.

Easer said than done all this!?? With all we probably have in our back-packs??

We can and maybe should communicate how we feel, react etc. And ask

“What did you mean? I reacted in this and this way! It felt...”

or I don't know. Think if there existed a hand-book in this!!??

See Bosch on boundary violations and a posting under the label integrity violations.

From an earlier posting:

"I came to think of the Norwegian doctor Anna-Luise Kirkengen and that she has written about boundary-violations and their effects (if not immediately so later), and the concept revictimization.

There were several references to boundary-violations in her book “Inscribed bodies”, and in the first the concept bio-medicine was mentioned too.

At page 2-4 she writes (my italics):

“Those human conditions which are embedded in interpersonal relations, societal values, and culturally constituted meaning, are, through the very logic of biomedical theory, made invisible. The logic of the dominant methodology also renders them incomprehensible. Finally, they are deemed ignorable or irrelevant since values and meaning are non-issues according to objective science. The result is that the power implicit in social rank and the humiliations of human beings due to abuses of power are turned into non-medical logics, making medicine, inevitably blind to the adverse effects which abuse has on human health [the results of abuse isn’t ‘only’ psychological ill-health to different degrees!]. This becomes even more the case whenever the practice of such abuse is either societally legitimized or culturally taboo./…/

As medicine is a respected societal institution, and in its guise as a science, the normative character of biomedical epistemology accrues crucial influence. It effects central decisions with regard to what is, and what is not, to be considered relevant in drawing medical conclusions. Purporting to apply objective scientific knowledge while actually applying societal norms, medicine as a practice maintains the mandate to define the categories of ill health and malfunctions. By defining these categories, medicine has the right to include any conditions which meet the categorical criteria. Thus, according to the rules of formal logic, medicine also has the power to exclude those conditions which fail to meet those criteria. This distinction between ‘proper’ and ‘improper’ states or conditions plays a role in every medical decision. The norms of biomedicine are embedded in the practice of any medical examination and treatment, and affect every living person who addresses a medical institution in the role of a sick patient. Through application of these norms, distinguishing the ‘proper’ from the ‘improper’ within a formalized societal context, medicine has the power to stigmatize people who ask for help for ‘improper’ conditions. While acting in the name of giving help, medicine may, in fact, violate a person’s dignity. But even those who present apparently ‘proper’ conditions may risk stigmatization if presumably appropriate medical interventions prove ineffective. According to objectifying medical theory, such measures ought to result I a predictable outcome. If they consistently do not, the most probable question is not, ‘what is wrong with medical judgment and medical theory?’ but rather ‘what s wrong with this patient?’ Failures stemming from the foundations of professional judgment, namely medical knowledge acquired by applying rules requiring objectivity, are more likely to be attributed to those whose conditions fails to improve. In other words: Medical norms exclude, marginalize and then stigmatize.”

Side-track: is this the case even more today, with doctors’ limited time with each patient?

And in school: shouldn’t we all try to improve the school in general, together, isn’t this our common concern?"

Here a sender-in in a newspaper here in Sweden on ”Abuse, a tool legitimized by the goal?”

A nail in the foot…

I have started to read a book about Social Grammar. There it stood about people replying that it was worse 70-60 years back (during the depression) in the work life, if someone is complaining about the stress and press today.

The author writes that he has never understood these arguments. That people today aren’t allowed to complain about how they have it today because people had it worse earlier.
For the first this is no sign of social competence – always comparing with someone who had it worse.

We have a classical and famous sketch here about a “nail in the foot” ("Spik i foten!").

“A nail in the foot!?? During the French revolution people would have been glad if they had had a nail in the foot!!”

The author thinks that the principle must lie steady: Each human being has her/his right to her/his suffering, irrespectively of how many there are that have had it worse. If it wasn’t so it would only be one person on this earth (and during all history) who had the right to complain, and that is the one who had it worst.

But this social competence includes wondering over in which situation and to whom I am complaining.

But I think it is "similar" with Social Competence as with Emotional Intelligence… The Dutch therapist Ingeborg Bosch writes in her book at page 82 about Daniel Goleman and his concept Emotional Intelligence:

“The reader should be aware that many of the ideas on emotional development put forward in Mr. Golemans book are contrary to PRI [Past Reality Integration therapy] ideas. In PRI it is not considered as desirable for young children to control their ‘socially undesired’ emotions or feelings such as fear and anger. When this sort of behaviour is desired by adults of children PRI regards it as poisonous pedagogy.

/…/ Also, many of the behaviors that are considered by Mr. Goleman to be essential elements of ‘emotional intelligence’, are considered by PRI to be defenses (False Hope and False Power Denial of Needs) employed in order to avoid feeling pain. The general profile of Golemans ‘emotionally intelligent’ person fits the PRI idea of someone who is quite defensive, albeit in a socially desirable way. This might therefore lead to social success, while simultaneously sacrificing contact with the True Self and inner autonomy.”

And Jennifer Freyd writes at page 195 in her book:

“For a child dependent on abusive caregivers, lack of internal connection can help maintain some sort of external connection to necessary others. But I disagree with those such as Daniel Goleman (1985), who suggest that while truth is generally a good thing, some times even privileged members of our society are best served by living with ‘vital lies’ in which the truth is best kept from oneself and one’s intimate partners.”

From today's walk. It is icy everywhere. It snowed yesterday... After my fall yesterday I still feel it when I am coughing or laughing...

Eskil suddenly threw himself down into the snow and started scrubbing himself, first on one side, so the next!! He needs to get trimmed or cut?

Before and after that he ran here and there in the wood, behind me and in front of me... Awoke on the right side today!? Despite the weather. He is a weather-dog, when it's raining he doesn't want to go out! He senses this before he has even stung (??) his nose out!!! And he isn't a morning-dog, which suites me fine!! :-) And suits many here fine too!!

He also likes when there is people in the house?? That's fun?? :-)

Now I am going to bake bread, and hopefully practice piano for some hours, so vacation I have... Need it.

Baking bread and listening to Ann-Sofie von Otter… This music is so passionate (at least to me trained in it) and she is singing so well… Practicing piano while the dough is rising (used cold water, so this took a couple of hours). Look forward to a cup of tea with honey, still a little warm bread with butter and cheese…

See earlier postings under the label EQ.

Nanny-programs and children in Africa...

About Nanny-programs, and how children are treated in schools in Africa.

Life is too short...

Yes, it was someone who said: a continued public 'constructive criticism' of ones thoughts making one-- precisely as it certainly would make anyone--feel like shit. Life is too short and too valuable to waste in subjecting one's self to the products of an uncanny ignorance of the Golden Rule.

I fell on my walk and hit my back-head in pure ice now...

Think if I could relax and just enjoy my being?? And my 46 year old friend got buried a week ago. A small child lost his father... What relation did they have?

And there is a young woman I know of probably dying, leaving an even smaller child and a husband after her...

The Swedish singer Ann-Sofie von Otter in a song I have accompanied...

von Otter doesn't sing as it stands in this score!! In baroque music the singers improvise, making ornaments (if they can). I think von Otter does from the score she sings. And I guess extra-tones are written in the score that is shown here.

No indeed, you don’t have to have fingerspitzgefühl or be aware of other people’s feelings because you are “enlightened” the Alice Miller-way. You can even be very little aware. Yes, there are indeed people, who have never read Miller or aren't especially well-read on Miller, who are the most sweet??

Two women...

from a walk February 4, 2007.

Struck me when I had gone to bed yesterday, had to turn the light on again and write:

Even grown ups can need support and encouragement (together with compassion and empathy. The least they need is being met with contempt or of being scorned!!?? Outspoken or not??) to leave an abusive relation, to speak up, to articulate what they have been exposed to, for being able to protect themselves properly, constructively and adequately, and maybe for protecting other weaker (if they have children).

How many don't protect the abuser/perpetrator (of shame that they "allowed" the bad treatment, that they made such a mistake, took so wrong, accusing themselves for what they are and have been exposed to, that they were such fools, admitting to how wrong they took and maybe being blamed and even laughed at "We told you!!" as so many times earlier maybe, and maybe also believing they deserved it. And the sad thing is that they are probably feeling more shame the worse they are or have been treated)??

The abused has to be explicitly asked (especially if she/he has problems of leaving), by a person that makes her/him feel confident enough?? Kirkengen also writes...

And how many doesn't have to be asked about their thoughts, you have to draw them out of them (why is this)? And then, when they later start to express them, how can they then be met? (“damn if you don’t, and damn if you do”, which is a master suppression technique). Quite ironically.

But a person's inability of leaving doesn’t excuse the abuse with that the abuser wasn't hindered from committing it (whether he/she is abusing verbally, emotionally, physically or sexually)!!!! But how often isn't this done? (as was written about in Swedish in this posting and in English in this posting about "Evilness and responsibility..."). The abuser is still responsible for his/her abuse. And also responsible whatever his/her history is or how conscious or little conscious this history is???

The Norwegian physician Anna Luise Kirkengen writes about this. As General Practitioner she met two women who got breast-cancer. When Kirkengen at last got their confidence they told her about abuse by their husbands. Both these women died in their cancer, but Kirkengen thought that if she had been aware of such connections, and seen and understood the signs those women showed, they would still have been alive.

People are often very loyal and don’t want to reveal things… And shame holds them from it too (see Jenson on shame). And from the child's point of view; the abusing parent isn't granted discharge because the other parent (non protecting) was incapable of protecting it!!? The abusing parent is still responsible for his/her abuse and deeds!

And that people have read Alice Miller doesn't have to mean a thing!!

Kirkengen writes in her book “How Abused Children Becomes Unhealthy Adults”;

"I have been a General Practitioner in western Oslo for 30 years. Most of my patients have been women, of all ages and stages of life. I remember well my shame when I realized how little I actually knew about my patients' lives. I had been examining and trying to treat two of my female patients for extensive loss of function for quite some time, though without success. I then discovered, and at about the same time, that they were both being beaten regularly by their husbands. Both men customarily ‘legitimatized’ their violent acts. One blamed his drunkenness, the responsibility for which he assigned to my patient as she had provoked him by nagging, and for that provocation she would have to accept her punishment. The other man cited the Bible giving him the right to chastise a sinful and disobedient wife, which he claimed she was. For him, it was always useful to drink a little hard liquor before the punishment began, but that too was her fault: he, a believing Pentecostal Christian and a highly regarded leader of the congregation, had to drink from time to time because she was promiscuous and ‘cozied up’ to other men at the Church meetings. Both women later developed breast cancer, and both told me after their operations that their men had stopped beating them. One of them experienced severe complications during follow-up treatment. The other struggled with unyielding pain in the area where she had been operated on. Both died of their cancers within two years of their operations. Both left behind teenage children.

It is possible that these women might still have been alive had I understood sooner just what of a strain they were under. However indirectly, their bodies had in fact sent me signals of their powerlessness. Both had an abundance of those symptoms which medicine tends to define as ‘diffuse and indeterminate.’ [and these women were so forbidden to speak up, and took this pattern with them in their marriages?] What appeared that way medically would have been quite palpable socially. But they each had a public standing to uphold and a family’s reputation to protect. They were ashamed of being married to such men and tried as hard as they could to act as if all were well – even as their ebbing energies betrayed them. This took the form of an illness with no medical findings, and pain without organic malfunction. They were constantly on the alert to prevent an outburst and, failing that, to keep the children from noticing and the neighbors from hearing. Still, they knew well that the neighbors knew. But ‘everyone’ entered into a tacit social agreement to maintain silence about the paternal violence going on behind closed doors within the protected zone called private life. I contend that this protection cost these women their lives.

I had to admit that I had been a blind and deaf physician to these two women. During the same period, I gradually understood that even nonviolent violation can kill, albeit indirectly. One of my young, healthy and happily pregnant, well-educated and self-aware patients was expecting a second child with her equally well-educated and healthy husband of her dreams. From the 24^th week on, she became increasingly ill and the outpatient maternity clinic and I were at our wits’ end. The baby needed to be rescued in the 32^nd week by means of Caesarean section. Once the woman came out of the anesthesia, she fell into a deep depression and the staff at the women’s clinic mobilized all their resources. An experienced family therapist was called in to meet with the couple and, it emerged slowly that the woman’s husband had had sexual relations with six different partners during her pregnancy. She had known nothing of this but had felt a deep sense of anxiety that she could not attach to anything concrete. His escapades, which he covered up with politeness and seemingly generous care, had nearly cost their child his life.

In the meantime, several others of my female patients, whose extensive medical problems necessitated their going on disability, revealed to me another destructive font of suffering – sexual abuse during childhood [but that they were abused in childhood doesn't excuse abuse later in grown up life!!]. This led me to conduct a half-year pilot study in my practice in which I followed-up gynecological examinations with a questionnaire about sexual violation experiences. Eighty-five of the 115 women who met the study’s criteria allowed me to interview them. Twenty-four of these had been sexually violated at least once in their lives. I had known all of these women prior to this study, most of them for years, yet I knew about the violation experience of only one of them. My further research into how childhood sexual violation can lead to adult health problems sprang from there.

I have spoken with many adults who lived out their childhood in what I would call ‘unboundaried’ families. By that I mean families in which the adults did not respect closed doors, personal letters, diaries or closed drawers, in which the children’s body parts were not off-limits to other people’s hands, in which all confidences were made public, homes where children were shamed and ridiculed in front of others, where corporal punishment was meted out, arbitrarily [godtyckligt], and where the adults lied and refused to take responsibility. In short, these were homes in which the child was not shown respect, and where the child’s personal integrity was scorned. [Does this excuse later abuse? Or contempt for weakness? Because these later adults are incapable of properly protecting themselves in abusive relations/marriages? Kirkengen writes that the environment didn’t help those women either, to (constructively) deal with what they experienced or to leave. A help they obviously would have needed? Because they were so harmed earlier, probably in many ways? Emotionally, physically and probably much more often than we believe sexually. But of course from the children’s point of view this is no excuse; that a parent isn't/wasn’t capable of protecting better or maybe at all etc. But because they weren’t able of protecting themselves and maybe on top very insecure, this gives noone the right to abuse them more and further – or to scorn them for their lack of security or inabilities. The one doing this isn’t much better than the husbands above!!?? Excusing their abuse with that it was the women’s (own) fault that they were abused, both physically and emotionally - and maybe also sexually. And they have no responsibility for that their children had to witness things either? Or for their abuse of their children because their mothers were incapable of protecting them from abusing their children??].”

And Kirkengen also writes about so called “helpers” abusing once again (in the name of help and for the other person’s best). I think of the father publicly offending? His public "constructive criticism"?? Because "they needed it, it was for their own best," and he was in his rights?? And the abuse goes on and on??

But from the child's point of view: how many children haven't had to understand their mothers' helplessness?? But both parents in such a family are responsible, but in different manners. For abuse, abandonment etc. Freyd has written about these things... In her book "Betrayal Trauma...", about betrayal of trust??

I reacted so strongly on a brother expressing his contempt for his sisters, incapable of leaving abusive relationships... And not only that?? But a general contempt for weakness (including for the weak sex and insecurity etc.), despite supposedly being enlightened? And didn't he show a general disrespect for human beings? And their struggles? Despite a so called enlightenment!?

Wasn't I clear enough? Am I too well-mannered to speak out more clearly? (yes, of course it is my fault?? For not being clear enough? Not expressing myself more clearly?? It has nothing with the other part to do? Not understanding, sensing, hearing?).

And I have wondered and thought earlier about a wall of words too... And that is of course also forbidden?? (but how harmful for others??)

Earlier postings with the label shame. Jenson on shame (in Swedish).

My fantastic English... Excuse for it, and excuse again...

---

Jean Jenson skriver om skam sidan 150-151 i sin bok ”Att återerövra sitt liv”:

”… är skam en känsla som orsakas av att vi behandlas som om vi är dåliga, elaka eller onda när vi är barn. Jag tror att skambegreppet är en följd av att föräldrar fått lära sig att tro att människor har en medfödd tendens att vara onda (vilket inte innebär att det inte finns onda vuxna). Om förmågan att känna en normal känsla av att man begått något fel eller gjort något ont har blivit skadad kommer det destruktiva beteendet att hålla i sig. Det är vanligt att barn som har blivit svårt kränkta eller överdrivet bortskämda växer upp till vuxna med skadad förmåga att känna empati eller ha medlidande med någon annan än sig själva. Eftersom dessa människor inte kan känna skuld har de inget som driver dem att bättra sig, och de kommer troligen att fortsätta begå onda handlingar. Människor är dock inte onda av naturen.

När föräldrar reagerar på sina barns mänskliga tillkortakommanden som om de inte bara är uttryck för misstag eller ofullkomlighet utan handlingar som beror på deras inneboende ’ondska’ (en föreställning som får stöd av den religion som de flesta i vårt samhälle bekänner sig till), behandlar de sina barn på sätt som ger upphov till en känsla av ’skam’ (ondska). På grund av att dessa övertygelser är så allmänt spridda och att våra egna föräldrars reaktioner på oss som barn grundade sig på samma övertygelser, accepterar vi med barnslig tillit utan vidare att vi har en ondskefull natur som måste kontrolleras och att vi, när vi inte lyckas göra det, borde ’skämmas’. Min egen upplevelse av denna känsla var att jag var helt igenom ond, bortom all möjlighet till försoning – att jag var någon som ingen kunde älska. Det är min övertygelse att känslan av skam skapas av att man blir illa behandlad under barndomen, medan skuld är en normal känsla som kan upplevas under alla faser av livet.”

Bosch skriver också om skam under konceptet ursprungligt försvar sidorna 66-67 i sin bok (min översättning och se detta blogginlägg):

”…babyer och unga/små barn är hjälplösa och beroende av andra (vårdnadsgivaren) för att fylla alla sina behov (mat, tak över huvudet, kärlek, vårdande, trygghet osv.). När dessa behov inte blir fyllda utifrån av andra, skyddar barnet sig mot den livshotande sanningen genom att tänka att hon borde ha kunnat möta dessa behov inifrån sig själv. Men naturligtvis är barnet fortfarande för litet för att kunna göra detta. Resultatet blir negativa tankar om oss själva. ’

Det är något fel med mig, därför att jag inte kan ta hand om mina egna behov’.

Det ursprungliga försvaret kan bestå av tankar sådana som

’Jag kommer aldrig att klara detta’, ’Jag är dålig’, ’Jag är inget bra’, ’Jag är skyldig’, ’Jag är alltid den som krånglar till saker’, ’Ingen bryr sig om mig’, ’Jag är värdelös’, ’Jag kommer alltid att vara ensam’, ’Jag är en skam’ osv.

Det ursprungliga försvaret karaktäriseras av uppfattningar, tankar och idéer som närmar sig en allvarligt negativ självutvärdering/självvärdering. För vissa av oss fokuserar dessa uppfattningar mer på idén om att vara skyldig och inte god nog, slutligen ledande till förkastande (vanligtvis falskthopporienterade människor). För andra ligger betoningen på att man är en inneboende dålig människa, vilken förr eller senare kommer att bli avslöjad av andra och då bli förkastad (vanligtvis falskmaktorienterade människor). För vissa ligger det ursprungliga försvaret mer på ytan (falskmaktidentifierade), för andra är det skjutet mycket långt bort ifrån personen (falskmaktidentifierad) /../

Det ursprungliga försvaret är ett effektivt försvar därför att när någon tänker att något är fel med oss, så behöver vi inte känna skräcken och smärtan över den gamla livshotande verkligheten [att mamma och pappa faktiskt inte visste vad vi behövde och det de visade faktiskt inte var särskilt kärleksfullt, hur mycket de än påstod det och själva var övertygade om att de älskade sina barn]: att våra överlevnadsbehov inte blev mötta. Att känna att någonting är fel med oss, skyddar oss från att inse att det absolut inte fanns någonting fel med det barn som vi var. Men att det däremot var något fel med den omgivning som vi befann oss i: omgivningen (vanligtvis våra föräldrar) var inte förmögen att förse barnet med vad det behövde.

Medan vi får ett effektivt sätt att undvika att klart se människorna omkring oss för vad de verkligen är, så ger det ursprungliga försvaret också barnet en känsla av kontroll. Om barnet tror att hennes behov inte fylls, därför att något är inneboende fel med henne, så betyder det att hon skulle kunna ändra det predikament hon är i. Hon förtjänar det predikament hon befinner sig i, så därför kan det kanske finnas någonting som hon kan göra för att ändra denna. Här blir kopplingen mellan ursprungligt försvar och falskt hopp väldigt tunn: det ursprungliga försvaret kan lätt röra sig över till falskt hopp. Naturligtvis kommer detta att fallera, men barnet vi var kunde i alla fall leva med denna livräddande illusion. Detta blev möjliggjort genom det ursprungliga försvaret.”

Barnet klandrade sig självt för att det blev dåligt behandlat, kränkt osv. Och detta beteende tar den vuxne med sig och reagerar med självklander och skam när han/hon blir dåligt behandlad som vuxen, blir vittne till kränkningar eller befinner sig i en kränkande miljö. Alternativt förnekar att hon/han blir det eller bevittnar kränkning eller befinner sig i en kränkande miljö. Och att vi känner skam även som vuxna tror Jenson har med tidiga upplevelser att göra, som vi inte fått möjlighet att bearbeta tillräckligt och kanske också är helt omedvetna om.

Tillägg efter cykeltur: barnet och den senare vuxne tror inte hon/han förtjänar bättre och tiger av skam... Blir skamsnare ju sämre hon blir behandlad? Och skamsnare över kränkningar och övergrepp ju sämre hon/han blev behandlad tidigt? Alternativt har ingen kontakt alls med skam eller skuld? Men agerar ut den på andra, företrädesvis på dem som står under honom/henne i något avseende? Intar själv kränkarrollen? Och låter andra känna hur förödmjukad han/hon en gång kände sig om han/hon får chansen (känslor som troligen är bortträngda och förnekade dock?).

The nature...

A walk in the forests in Hälsingland in the afternoon!! Eskil, the dog, pulled me so my hands weren't so steady on all the pictures.

And below from house-painting last summer with the "professional" house-painters (my two brothers and I)... Hmmm... This house really needed to get painted!!

Miller on a devoted son:

“…Checkhov. He could see the truth in all of his writings, especially in 'Uncle Vania', but in his own life he was a most devoted son to his father, without any rebellion. The strong fear of the severely beaten child did not allow him to protest.”

And about showing the child who is the boss.

Childhood and adult needs...

Childhood and adult needs what's the difference?

Trying to fill childhood needs as grown ups always cause problems, bigger or smaller. And which are our adult needs actually?

Wondering... Perhaps I will come back to this later.

The video is a tip from a friend...

Won't Get Fooled Again...

We'll be fighting in the streets
With our children at our feet
And the morals that they worship will be gone
And the men who spurred us on
Sit in judgement of all wrong
They decide and the shotgun sings the song

I'll tip my hat to the new constitution
Take a bow for the new revolution
Smile and grin at the change all around me
Pick up my guitar and play
Just like yesterday
Then I'll get on my knees and pray
We don't get fooled again

The change, it had to come
We knew it all along
We were liberated from the foe, that' all
And the world looks just the same
And history ain't changed
'Cause the banners, they all flown in the last war

I'll tip my hat to the new constitution
Take a bow for the new revolution
Smile and grin at the change all around me
Pick up my guitar and play
Just like yesterday
Then I'll get on my knees and pray
We don't get fooled again
No, no!

I'll move myself and my family aside
If we happen to be left half alive
I'll get all my papers and smile at the sky
For I know that the hypnotized never lie

Do ya?

YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!

There's nothing in the street
Looks any different to me
And the slogans are replaced, by-the-bye
And the parting on the left
Is now the parting on the right
And the beards have all grown longer overnight

I'll tip my hat to the new constitution
Take a bow for the new revolution
Smile and grin at the change all around me
Pick up my guitar and play
Just like yesterday
Then I'll get on my knees and pray
We don't get fooled again
Don't get fooled again
No, no!

YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!

Meet the new boss
Same as the old boss

Real, genuine respect...

coltsfoot, tussilago or hästhov in Swedish.

Thinking loudly...

What is real, genuine respect? What would it be like? Mutually listening? What would real, genuine communication be about? Why aren't we capable of this (yes, and I am including myself in this. I have probably a lot to learn here and will probably never be full-learned, and make many mistakes the rest of my life? Be hurt and hurt, but hopefully not so bad? And having to deal with that)?

A Swedish woman Lisa Gåhlmark has written a book "Skönheter och odjur" (Makadam, 2005) . I haven't read it, but have been searching on it. In one of these articles it stands:

”Samma mönster går igen i den västerländska historien; mental avtrubbning och förtingligande av den andre, som börjar i relationen till djur, blir en hållning och ett sätt att behandla andra människor på främmande kontinenter, så kallade främlingar.

Gålmark lyfte något som för många är okänt - att de flesta av slavarna som arbetade på plantagerna i Västindien och USA var kvinnor. För att få människor att begå den typen av handlingar, att fängsla mängder av människor, så jämförde man slavarna med djur. Eftersom djur redan var förslavade kunde erfarenheterna och kunskapen därifrån överföras på människor. Djur blev så att säga ’träningsobjekt’ för den vite mannens förtryck mot andra. Människor behandlades som djur redan behandlades. Mest groteskt användes modellen av nazisterna. Det var ingen slump att just agronomer var de som utvecklade koncentrationslägren. Systemet var redan utvecklat på djur i den industriella djurslakten.

’Vad vill vi vara för människa?’, frågade Gålmark. ’Vill vi ha ett samhälle som bygger på kuvande, våld och dödande? Eller vill vi vara den människa som får använda sin samarbetsförmåga, sin kreativitet och empati och som bygger samhällen som kan bevara den här planeten?’ För, som Lisa Gålmark betonade: ’Människomanssamhällets sätt att exploatera jorden och förtrycka människor och djur kommer att leda till en total katastrof. Det är dags att punktera myten om det goda livet i västvärlden.’

’Det är inte underordnade grupper som ska tävla om resurserna och pengarna’, var ett uttalande som Gålmark återvände till flera gånger under sin föreläsning. Detta för att poängtera att inga förtryckta grupper egentligen står emot varandra [eller borde inte stå emot varandra, men kan nog spelas ut mot varandra??]. Maktanalysen måste alltid finnas där. Ett exempel där pensionärers rättigheter ställts emot djurens rättigheter lyftes här.”

A summary of the Swedish text: Gåhlmark talks about similar patterns throughout the Western history; a mental blunting and “förtingligande or reification” in Swedish (förtingligande is making a person and/or animal a thing, a non-feeling object, yes, thing or article). In English it seems to be this. Starting in our relation to animals she thinks (but I think it starts in childhood, and probably earliest in life and this in turn influences our behavior towards other weaker or in our power, to which animal belongs, or can belong. Hmmm, yes, I grew up in an environment with a lot of domestic animals, and yes, I saw things, which I reacted on and against). A sort of attitude and a way of treating other people on foreign continents, so called strangers, (seeing them) as animals.

Yes, do we (I) see another human being in front of us (me) always or very little as a real human being, a living, sensing, feeling? Why don't we (I) if we (I) don't? And can this be even more difficult if you only write to each others? But what is excused there either? And is it just to leave an abusive relation/circumstance neither here nor there? And is this an excuse either for the abuser: you can leave if this doesn't suite you! You are an adult now, with adult options, possibilities? You aren't a helpless or powerless child any more! So... It's up to you! Does this grant discharge?? I don't think so... How incapable of leaving a bad realtion or circumstance noone is allowed to abuse that person. And, by the way, abusing a paralyzed, a person not capable of leaving, what is that? Power abuse? Contempt for weakness? And what more? Tormenting another person, and maybe enjoying it (or just showing plain disgust to) the other person? What is that about?

Can all be provoked doing this? And what is needed to provoke such things (the victims fault, is it)? The victim who has drawn this upon him/her?? Which legitimizes abuse?? And often is used to legitimize abuse?

And in one of the texts (or both) "reification" was mentioned together with alienation.

To be able to treat people as has been done through history, starting with serfs, slaves and later the prisoners in Nazi concentration-camps (and later in other prisons, and not only in prisons), you view and compare these people with animals. Animals became training-objects she thinks for the white man’s oppression.

And animals were the first scapegoats for many children? Kicking and/or beating them more or less cruelly??

The most grotesque expression was what the Nazis did. She thinks it was no coincidence that it was agronomists who developed the concentration camps. How to slaughter animals was already developed and now used on human beings.

She wonders what sort of man we want to be. Do we want a society building on subduing, violence and killing? Or do we want to be the man allowed to use our ability to cooperate, our creativity and empathy, building societies which can preserve this planet? (but can't this be used to oppress too?? If one part speaks out for instance... You can accuse this person for being a lousy cooperator!??). Because as she also says, human society's way of exploiting the earth and oppress human beings and animals will lead to a total catastrophe. It’s time to puncture the myth about the good life in the Western world.

And I don't know; people who has and had "good hand" with animals around me are they better human beings? Better with their relations to other human beings? Or is their good hand with animals something else? I think I have had such people around me - and still have.

It’s not the oppressed groups who shall compete about the resources or money, Gåhlmark comes back to once and again. To emphasize that oppressed groups aren’t (or shouldn’t be) opposed to each others (but we are played out against each others!!??), in the interest of the power (and this occurred already in the family? But is still no excuse for behaving in the same way as grown ups, towards either weaker or equals!??).

Why is one group’s rights put against another ones?

Yes, the ones in power have interests in this??

But where did this all start actually?? Didn’t it start in the family? And already there the parents were excused (and excused themselves) with their early childhood experiences (which also proves that only insight isn’t enough??), with marital problems, a heavy workload etc. Pushing the responsibility away??

And even blaming God that they got unexpectedly pregnant, not so seldom!! Ones again pushing the responsibility away. And in rapes (even verbal, emotional rapes) pushing the responsibility away, by saying it was the other part's fault??

"It's all your fault! Everything is wrong with you (but nothing is wrong with me)!"

And I came to think: is there anything that excuses abuse? Even to the worst criminal??

Gåhlmark seems to talk about superiority and/or suborder, and about dichotomies… An either/or perspective and the problems with this? Where there only exist two alternatives. Either you are superior OR you are the suborder?

And there are other dichotomies: either you are man or you are woman (there are no its!!??), either you are white or you are black, either you are adult or you are a child, either you are human being or you are an animal, either you are heterosexual or you are homosexual (or bi-sexual!!), either you are normal or disabled, either you are rich or poor, either you are intelligent or unintelligent etc.

In one case we belong to the superior group, in another to the suborder group. So in one case you can be an oppressor and in another the oppressed!? But is it right to meet abuse with abuse? Ever?

But from where comes this need to oppress? To oppress the weaker if one gets the opportunity? The need to use ones superiority, power, strength (physical, verbal etc.) when one gets the chance?

And do all use this possibility or even need to use it if (or when) they get it? Why do some need it and others not?

But sadly many of us need to exercise power?? And very few don’t have these needs?

And never the two meet??

And, still, I wonder if abuse ever is justified? If it is justified to meet abuse with abuse? An once again: what responsibility do we have as adults? Can we blame our early childhood (how many parents haven’t done this)? How many abusers haven’t done this?

And radically; can we excuse with unconscious things either??

About these things we can talk in all endlessness… And we have also done that!!?? Throughout history…

Oh, this was very intellectual?? God forbid!!!? Either one isn't intellectual enough or too intellectual?? But working with young people has that colored my way of speaking, my way of expressing myself, the words and expressions I use? In short the sort of language I use?

I wonder if I didn't express myself differently when I for instance studied pedagogy 25 years ago on distance at the University in Uppsala (because I didn't think I was good enough teacher)? And why was I so insecure or unsure? I who had got everything offered on a silver plate (something I ought to be punished for and ought to apologize for, apologize to whom and why)? Had I (what do anyone know about that, and no wonder there are wars in the world)?? And by the way, what does a child need actually??

A female physician I had contact with for a period (1994-2000), quite wise and I still feel fairly warm for her, pointed out to me that I had managed both this and that, she seemed to think I needed to be reminded about this. Yes, despite all that insecurity!!?? Despite my "favorable" upbringing (and who can judge about that, and who knows how it was, and do I have to account for it either, or excuse my whole life through that I was brought up in this middle-class, observe, not over-class, family??? And maybe I have the right to give my confidences only to those I feel for and think I want to give them too, if my confidences are worth anything at all?? Or if I am worth anything at all? And if I don't value myself, does that mean I deserve contempt or disrespect or something? A sort of contempt for, such, "weakness"? How disgusting, isn't it?).

And actually, I also "took myself in the collar" when I was 10, and went back to school after a (deep) crisis. I think I just decided to do that?? I guess I have done that later in life too? Cleverly... Even with hardly any support. And shall I apologize for this too? My eventual strength?

This female physician also said (to my surprise), that:

"He is afraid of strong women!!"

I dropped my chin (was taken aback?).

"What?? Does she think I am a 'strong woman'?? And is he maybe afraid of ME???"

I got totally dumb.

Such thoughts didn't exist at all in my wildest imagination?? I don't know what this resulted in: best not challenge this? Not embarrass this man (my boss then - a man)!? Another thing I had to control and check??

And in spite of my shyness I can also be fairly spontaneous?? Yes, there is a both/and?? And then I had started to bloom? Started to take space? Not so afraid of being seen?

And how was it now with the Master Suppression Techniques?

Yes, what are the consequences of contempt for weakness??

And can there exist an oppression in the opposite direction so to say: you can be exposed to oppression if (when) you come from a "class" above another too?? And what is this? (and why do classes exist at all?? Aren't we worth alike actually?? Is this only a lot of fine talk? Excuse my naivety).

What do I deserve? Because I am so bad, unlovable, too intellectualizing, not intellectual enough, too little in my feelings and emotions, or maybe too much? Too insensitive, or too sensitive? Aslo see about the Primary defense. And about False power denial of needs.

And do prejudices only exist in one direction?