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?”