More of the same…

children (not mine) bathing till they had blue lips! :-)

A Norwegian blogger writes about “more of the same.” I want to translate the last two paragraphs (here done a little freely):

“The Swedish psychiatrist and feminist Kerstin Aldén has said that where the patient’s narrative contains enlightenments and statements which challenge the psychiatric treatment personnel’s conception or idea about reality this awaken resistance and one questions the one who has pronounced her/himself. Diagnosis also reinforce taboos, by locking out what one in different time doesn’t want to define as problems. That psychiatric diagnosis can be politic repression ought to be known through history [she mentions Drapetomania or runaway syndrome here and refers to a Norwegian article with the heading 'When the means become holy…' Also see Citizens Commission on Human Rights]./…/

The diagnosis can make the patient’s relation to her (or his) own reactions alien, and make her seeing herself with the eyes of the one treating her – in the same way as she has identified herself with what the perpetrator said. The consequence of the diagnosis can become revictimization. As the essence in the trauma is extreme impotence (powerlessness) and isolation, the diagnosis can become more of the same: being exposed to other people’s power of definition and exclusion from the fellowship.”

Miller on poisonous pedagogy, punishments…

[addition June 29 in the end, the posting is also slightly edited]. At page 64-65 in “The Truth Will Set You Free” Alice Miller writes about corporal punishment in schools (which still exists in the world, but not here in Sweden, or the other Scandinavian countries since long):

“…a teacher who understands these children’s fears [for a blow from the teacher, expending energy on observing the teacher so as to be prepared for the physical ‘correction’ that they feel are inevitable] might move mountains – provided, again, that the abused child’s reality is never played down.”

And it can be (is) something similar with other forms of correcting measures, of other nature, which aren’t of physical nature. The same things are true for grown up people? If they are fearing to be punished in different ways? Grown ups react in the same way? But are usually not (at all) as powerless as children??

She continues:

“We come across the same phenomenon in politics. As long as we are unaware of the degree to which the right to human dignity was denied us in childhood, it will not be easy to concede that right to our children, however sincerely we may want to do so. Frequently we believe we are acting in the interests of the children [for their own good!! Which is no excuse for what we do] and fail to realize we may be doing the very opposite, simply because we have learned to be callous [förhärdade, okänsliga!!!] in this respect at such an early stage. The effects of that learning are stronger than all the things we may learn later./…/

[The punished, humiliated children] are learning to fear their parents, to play down their own pain, and to feel guilty. Being subjected to physical [or others sorts of] attacks that they are unable to fend off merely [blott och bart] instills in children a gut feeling that they do not deserve protection or respect [they aren’t good enough for that they think]. This pernicious false message is stored in their bodies and will influence their view of the world and their attitude toward their own children [and other people’s children, and not least other people in general]. They will be unable to defend their claim to human dignity, unable to recognize physical pain [and other sorts of pains; emotional pain for instance, which of course also can be physical] as a danger and act accordingly [more or less unable to protect themselves adequately]. Their immune systems may even be affected. In the absence of other persons on whom to model their behaviour, these children will see the language of violence [physical and emotional violence, and maybe even sexual violence] and hypocrisy as the only efficient means of communication. Naturally, they will avail themselves of [benytta sig av!] that language when they grow up because adults normally suppress feelings of powerlessness and helplessness. This is the real reason why so many defend the old system of parenting and schooling.”

And this language is used by politicians we see today too! And because this language is well-known to so many is the reason why so many support our current school minister’s ideas - and all other “reactionary” (and "inhuman" or unempathic, contemptuous, in my feelings) ideas our current government has? No, I don't like it and their politics...

In the Swedish part of wikipedia it stands that this “epithet” can be used by people both to the right and left about their “adversaries.” :-)

PS. Silently: I must be struggler, of the worst sort... Struggling with the most impossible things... Where the success is minimal, not even existing... I must think I am not worth anything better?? Responses or mutuality... Humiliating myself... But of course I can't blame the other part for this... And in fact, I am not ironical here, but very serious. I ought to know better. Why don't I? Am I so little worth? Not at all lovable? Seeking things where I can't get it?

Listening to (watching) the birthday celebration-concert (50 years) for and with Esa Pekka Salonen (he is from Finland, but speaks Swedish, too) and the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, part 2. Here part 1 and here part 2.His home site. Håkan Hardenberg played so beautifully (his homesite here) in Piazolla's Oblivion (se below played by a flutist). I didn't know of this piece. I think Salonen has chosen both the music and artists to this concert in the Berwaldhallen in Stockholm.

Addition June 29: Skimmed Miller's "The Body Never Lies" in search for something. She wrote in the chapter "Kill Rather Than Feel the Truth" at page 136-137, about why people become criminals or murderers, about the rapist and serial killer Patrice Alègre:

"In each case he was killing the person who had condemned him to such unspeakable torments as a child [cruelly beaten by his father, the policeman, and being lookout to his mother when she was entertaining customers as prostitute]. He himself could hardly realize that fact. Hence he needed victims. Even today he asserts that he loves his mother. Because there was no one to help him, no enlightened witness to stand by him and help him admit to himself, become aware of, and understand his death wishes toward his mother, those wishes proliferated inside him and forced him to kill other women instead of his mother [but one can 'kill' in other manners: emotionally, by exercising power, seeing so people don't have the economic means etc.]

'Is it as simple as that?' many psychiatrists will ask. My answer is yes - it is much simpler than what we have been forced to learn in order to honor our parents and not feel the hatred they deserve [the effects of suppression and denial - and what can it cause if you have a lot of power?? As our politician leaders have...]./.../

The price for this illusion [about his loving mother in this case, and the illusion, belief that she wanted his best] was paid in this case by his victims. Feelings do not kill. The conscious experience of the disappointment caused by Patrice's mother, or even of the desire to strangle her, would not have killed anyone. It was the suppression of such a need, the disassociation of all the negative feelings unconsciously directed at his mother, that drove him to his terrible crimes."

This is the extreme. Miller also writes at page 135:

"There may be many children who survive a confusing fate without turning criminal at a later date./.../

Such a child may even achieve fame, like Edgar Allan Poe, who ultimately drank himself to death, or Guy de Maupassant, who 'came to terms' with his confused and tragic childhood by engaging with no fewer than 300 short stories. But he too, like his younger brother before him, became a psychotic and died in an asylum at the age of forty-two."

Or you become politicians or leader... Or, yes, teacher... And pass what you experienced further on people under you. Even if your need (or even strong urge) to exercise power is disguised. Exercising power by for instance claiming that you do things to other people for their own good (in law-making, political decisions etc.), things which are in fact harmful in different ways, but you have no awareness of what you are actually doing or access to the origins of your acts or emotions connected to this.

And those people who have learned to honor their parents, like maybe our school-minister, pass their unprocessed things further... Pupils and students shall learn to obey and keep quiet!!! And they need whips and carrots (rewards and punishments), if not they will never do their utmost or learn anything!!! (how does one create creativeness? Is it the old belief that the artists need to suffer to create the greatest master-pieces??? What rubbish!) As we grown ups also need rewards in form of for example money to make our best!!!???

Loudly thinking... Oh, please, can somebody help me saying things with fewer words??? :-) And (much) more condensed!! :-) But I get so speechless, so I get lost in a lot of words and emotions??

About the Alègre-case here and here.

Politics and poisonous pedagogy…

Are there parallels?

“It doesn’t matter! One has to dress (so one doesn’t freeze)!”

That it is chilly indoors, one has to adjust to simply? Chilliness out of no reason, because it isn’t about lack of money that is the cause to the cool temperature...

“It doesn’t matter!”

about being controlled concerning the use of the telephone. Again not because there is lack of money.

For having no needs or demands (at all) you can get a reward? Or prize? A big, “glorious” reward? Storms of applauds? Very upset writing...

Making things wrong is a catastrophe? You can’t get loved unless you aren’t perfect (= conditional love)? Perfect in every single little detail and respect (and therapists in therapy: how do they see those high demands on perfection, very ironically? As a character flaw?)? And noone will ever become… Or rather; they didn’t love because they couldn’t, their lack of love had nothing to do with the child. Their inability to love didn’t come from the child’s character. But this is too painful to realize. It is easier and less painful blaming oneself.

There is a stubborn refusal to take proper care of herself.

A burden of responsibility, and guilt, was put on the child(ren). A heavy burden…

The children couldn’t develop freely; use their energy on their own development. Tied up with invisible ties…

Everything should be perfect: perfectly fixed up, the children neat and cute and well-mannered and modest, the garden later perfect as the yard, the etiquette was important (in a way)… If it hadn’t been perfect (and when it wasn’t, because it was seldom perfect) what then?

Very often (if not always) grading the food she has made: too little (or much) salt, to this and that... Depreciating. So as to be in advance of an (or two) internalized parents??? Proving to them she knows how bad she is?? I wonder how much I have got of this??

My one year younger brother uses to tease and says:

"They weren't enough salted these meatballs, too much pepper..."

He too being in advance of her self-critics, phew!??

Yes, this with the cleverness…. And when you can’t manage being that perfect of whatever reason, not least out of age, what then?

Can that mother truly love or be there? Occupied with other things, herself not least… And of course all this fixing up, being the perfect wife, mother and also lady of the house for people dad could take unexpectedly with him from work (we lived at his work-places).

And what our politicians show is contempt?? Contempt for people, and not (genuine) respect or a wide variety of feelings either… Oh yes, strong feelings, but against and NOT FOR!!

They believe in the poisonous pedagogy: For your own good we need to… They think they need to educate and teach people. Passing the contempt for weakness further they learned very early in life and have kept denied behind many, many locks? Tragic and very damaging (destructive) because there unprocessed things befalls other people! So the effects can be really harmful, yes, even disastrous!

I saw the leaders of the alliance parties yesterday on TV and couldn’t watch further, wanted to vomit at their appearance… And the school minister said something that was filled with malicious pleasure and even enjoyment, delight.

How does one handle this attitude from the politicians, of malicious pleasure, of contempt for people and for weakness and all other similar attitudes? In the most constructive, really efficient way, in the constructive way?

Their attitude probably triggers a wide variety of reactions in people: in some as me disgust, in others it functions as approval of the same contempt and of treating other people, some people badly… In other harmed people this attitude from our politicians causes thunderous applauses, enjoyment and yes, malicious pleasure, but they don’t know why and they don’t care about why?? The pleasure when people get “corrected” and punished and suffer because of the punishment, the more the better, whether they deserve it or not, that doesn’t matter at all?

In others this attitude of contemptuous attitude and entire lack of sensitivity and empathy causes another reaction, which comes as automatically, triggers something, but with another result; rather a strong against-reaction??

Early experiences all these never have gotten help questioning and seeing as wrong, but now afterwards regard as love and for their own good?? We needed to learn?? Measure executed by complete individuals, standing high above us??

But what did we learn?

Our school minister, whose ideas I dislike from deep in my heart, is educated officer, major I think. Some use the expression baton-major… And his ideas are applauded by horribly many! What have he and they experienced? And haven’t child-raising improved more since I was a child???

One can get afraid of the dark for less…

Yes, “the more defended tend to lead”???

After a 30-minutes walk in rain, coming home almost like a drowned cat: How does one teach children respect? Genuine, real respect? And the lack of respect: Where does it come from? Why don’t they show respect? Can it be because of lack of respect? And that they have been treated disrespectfully? Probably from earliest in life?

Is the right measure more of the same? Is punishment the right measure? Or what should we try with, do?

The power can punish without being forced to explain why he is punishing?? Authoritarian, totalitarian!

I will write more about this later… Referring to what Miller writes about poisonous pedagogy and politics…

Addition in the evening: In fact Arthur Silber writes about similar things in his essay “Four More Months of This Crap? Noooo…” And writes great as usual. I have to smile at this title!!! Addition July 3: I have blogged about this essay (translated parts to Swedish) here.

I have to quote:

“…in an article I wrote two and a half years ago, I set out what I consider a significant part of the explanation. (Precisely how these dynamics initially take root and the often complex ways in which they operate require a longer explanation, which is the one I hope to get to in the future.) In ‘The Roots of the Politics of Power,’ I noted Alice Miller's term ‘poisonous pedagogy’ and her explanation of its meaning:

‘Poisonous pedagogy is a phrase I use to refer to the kind of parenting and education aimed at breaking a child's will and making that child into an obedient subject by means of overt or covert coercion, manipulation, and emotional blackmail.

In my books For Your Own Good and Thou Shall Not Be Aware, I have explained the concept using concrete examples. In my other books I have repeatedly stressed how the mendacious mentality behind this approach to dealing with children can leave long-lasting imprints on the way we think and relate to one another in our adult lives.’

In introducing a further excerpt from Miller, I wrote:

The following is from one of her first books, Thou Shalt Not Be Aware. We should note the revealing subtitle: Society's Betrayal of the Child. As Miller once again makes clear, it is our childhood experiences -- and learning to internalize completely the obedience-denial-idealization mechanism -- that explain so much of our adult behavior.

And those earliest experiences and their resulting psychological damage also throw light on the nature of politics and political debate.

Here is Miller:

‘There is a good deal else that would not exist without 'poisonous pedagogy.' It would be inconceivable, for example, for politicians mouthing empty cliches to attain the highest positions of power by democratic means. But since voters, who as children would normally have been capable of seeing through [see the child in 'The Emperors New Clothes'] these cliches with the aid of their feelings, were specifically forbidden to do so in their early years, they lose this ability as adults. The capacity to experience the strong feelings of childhood and puberty (which are so often stifled by child-rearing methods, beatings, or even drugs) could provide the individual with an important means of orientation with which he or she could easily determine whether politicians are speaking from genuine experience or are merely parroting time-worn platitudes for the sake of manipulating voters. Our whole system of raising and educating children provides the power-hungry with a ready-made railway network they can use to reach the destination of their choice. They need only push the buttons that parents and educators have already installed.’”

A control-society...

more pictures here.

In a chronicle a journalist wrote that “Big brother decides if you have nothing to hide” or as we say “if you have clean flour in your bag”(om du har rent mjöl i påsen).

She writes about the routine screening for Phenylketonuria (PKU) since 1975 on newborn babies, under the excuse that it saves 35,000 people from the disease Phenylketonuria (in Sweden). The tests are then saved with the promise they are going to be used for research only. But the police got access to this register to capture the murderer of the Swedish politician Anna Lindh.

These tests are so far voluntary, but the author of the article felt a pressure saying yes to it last year when her daughter was born, but managed saying no to it. When her son was born 1996 she didn’t oppose. How is this test for a small child?

She writes that when the purpose sounds good we don’t protest, but who protest when the purpose is dubious?

She means that the control-society is carried out with the help of fear, consolation and disinformation. Yes, see Naomi Klein and shock-therapy. Such as:

“Your child can get a deadly disease! You can get burst or broken into pieces. Assaulted in the subway! Leave the supervision in the hands of the state for your own good. Practical and simple!”

And right and liberal government aren’t less prone than left in this respect it looks??

She means that a control-state neither deter, prevent not protect from crime. A spiral of fear and an arms race is rather built. Something happens with the soul when one builds a prison of self-censoring.

The human factor always leads to misuse she thinks. Those who have a passion for the FRA-law for example, she writes, mean that it won’t affect any average Swede having nothing to hide, only terrorists with full beard. Always this “we and them” she thinks

The one knowing his Kafka knows that it’s never you yourself who decide, but always the one in power judging how much you have to hide or how clean your flour is.

I want to write about poisonous pedagogy and politicians/politics too later… Or very soon.

Wanted to add some passionate music-pieces... Played by fantastic pianists. Want to share this.

Addition in the evening:
A female Norwegian blogger wrote:

“But the control mania of the citizens’ private-life as we see nowadays seems quite simply morbid. If individual citizens had been as paranoiac as the politicians are, they had been locked up long ago.”

Yes, I think this was quite well said!

Suppression and its effects, enlightened witnesses...

From ”The Truth Will Set You Free – Overcoming Emotional Blindness and Finding Your True Self.”

Page 19-21 about elderly people Miller has seen at the pharmacy collecting the pills and potions prescribed to them:

“Sometimes I persist and ask whether there is anyone at all they can talk to about their lives.

‘What are you driving at?’

they ask.

‘When I was younger I went out to work and had no time for talking. Now that I do have the time, who’d be interested in hearing the story of my life? When it comes down to it, you’re on your own.’

True, most of us are indeed on our own in that respect. But we would benefit tremendously from having someone to talk to about our childhoods, particularly when we are older. As our physical strength fades and we lose our youthful vigor, we are particularly susceptible [mottagliga, känsliga, ömtåliga] to flashbacks to a time when we were helpless children. And that may be what makes us cling to a bagful of tablets in much the same way as we clung to our mothers for the help we urgently needed. Perhaps this symbolic substitute really does help in some cases. But it can never be a replacement for the presence of someone truly interested in our personal history. That kind of interest does not take up anywhere near as much time as we might think./…/

How do we fend off [avvärjer] feelings? Frequently by resorting to measures that will silence the language we cannot comprehend, thus making ourselves feel powerful again instead of ineffectual.”

Page 42-43:

“Many therapists believe that exploring childhood is actively harmful because clients will then experience themselves as victims instead of responsible adults.

I, too, firmly believe that adults are responsible for their actions, and that only in childhood were they helpless victims. But I also believe that owning up to [erkänna, kännas vid] their early history can help them understand why they still feel and act as if they were helpless victims. Psychotherapy can give them an understanding of the processes involved, which in turn can help them abandon the victim posture [hållning, attityd]. There are said to be people whom behavior therapy has helped banish their anxieties. They are to be most warmly congratulated. Many others, however, are unable to profit from such an approach. They are also unable to free themselves from depression with the help of medication because their urge to find out who they are and why they have become the way they are might be stronger in them than the wish to be free of depression.”

Page 45:

“…some psychiatrists who specialize in treating people suffering from post traumatic disorders, people who experienced severe traumas in adulthood, don’t necessarily work with these patients on their childhood. Yet it is logical, and has been scientifically confirmed, that a person who grew up in a relatively healthy family will be more likely to overcome later psychic trauma (such as results from a plane accident or a physical assault) better than somebody who was mistreated in childhood. Working with that person on his whole history may thus lead t better results.”

Page 70 about a program in Canada where fathers who had sexually abused their daughters:

“Encouraged to talk about their own childhoods with people they had learned to trust, they came to understand hat they had been passing on something that they themselves had experienced very early n their lives.

We are accustomed to keeping silent about childhood suffering, and because of this silence we often do things blindly. Talking liberates prisoners from their blindness, giving them at access to awareness and protecting them from mindless acting out.”

This is true for all kind of abuse…

Page 97:

“Small children cannot survive the truth; for purely biological reasons they have no choice but to repress what they know. But this repression, this refusal to recognize one’s own origins, has a destructive effect. To offset that effect we need enlightened witnesses – therapists, counsellors, and teachers who do not regard the emotions of and adult as haphazard [som händer av en slump eller tillfällighet] but see them as the logical fruits, sometimes poisonous fruits, of a misguided process of insemination./…/

If someone is present to help us recognize the behavior patterns of our parents in the context of our own childhoods, then we will no longer be forced to perpetuate these patterns blindly.”

Page 124-125:

“Merely [blott och bart] forgetting early traumas and early neglect is no solution. The past always catches up with us, in our relationships with other people and especially with our children.

What can we do about this? We can try to become aware of what we ourselves suffered, of the beliefs we adopted in childhood as gospel truth [dagsens sanning], and then confront these beliefs with what we know today. This will help us to see and feel things to which we have closed out minds, for in the absence of an enlightened witness who can empathize with us and genuinely listen to us, we have no other way of protecting ourselves from the searing force of pain. With the help of an enlightened witness, our early emotions will stand revealed, take on meaning for us, and hence be available for us to work on.

But without such empathy, without any understanding f the context of a traumatic childhood, our emotions will remain in a chaotic state and will continue to cause us profound, instinctive alarm./…/

…barriers [are both a protection but also] our enemies, as they cause emotional blindness and urge us to do harm to ourselves and others.

In a bid to blot out the fear and pain of our abused younger self, we erase what we know can help us, fall prey to the seductiveness of sects and cults, fail to see through all kinds of lies.”

Page 133-135:

“For me, enlightened witnesses are therapists with the courage to face up to their own history and thereby to gain their autonomy rather than seeking to offset heir own repressed feelings of ineffectuality by exercising power over their patients./…/

…needs to be able to identify all those points in everyday life where traces of his infant reality rise to the surface, to learn to recognize them, for what they are and not to act out blindly. He needs assistance in coping emotionally with present situations as an adult while at the same time maintaining contact with the suffering and knowing child he once was, the child he could not muster the courage to listen to for so long but now, with help, can finally heed./…/

Unfortunately, it is rare for therapists to have enjoyed such company in their own training. I am only too well aware of the various forms of anxiety assailing therapists, their fear of hurting their parents if they dare to face their own childhood distress head on and without embellishment, at the resultant reluctance to support their patients fully in heir search. But the more we write and talk on the subject, the sooner this state of affairs will change and the anxieties lose some of their power over us. In a society with a receptive attitude toward the distress of children, none of us will be alone with our history. Therapists will be more inclined to forsake Freud’s principle of neutrality and to take the side of the children their clients once were. This will give those clients the perspective they need to confront their own histories.”

Page 151-152:

“Once the child [or rather the grown up, because I don’t think we have a child inside, thinking like this leads to alienation rather than integration?? And can lead to a false hope that we can give a child inside something it didn’t get then. Which we can’t, because we are no longer those children, and what’s done is done, we ought to feel the pain in this truth instead and all we have missed because of this?] has shaken off its chains, been allowed to see and to judge what it sees, it can walk out of its prison on its own. The fear is gone because it as recognized the manipulations for what they are. It is not afraid of to see because it is not reduced to silence, because it can say what it sees, because it is not alone with what it has seen but has its perceptions confirmed by an enlightened witness. That witness has at last given the child what its parents withheld: the confirmation tat its perceptions are right, that cruelty and manipulation are precisely that and nothing else, that the child need no longer deceive itself into seeing them as a form of loving care that this knowledge is necessary in order for the child to be genuine and capable of love, and that the fruit from the tree of knowledge is there to be eaten.”

More about the need for power and control – and the ruling classes paranoia…

Marianne Mikko.

It stood on the Swedish Radio site that registration of bloggers is on its way in Europe – The European Union wants to control bloggers.

The parliament is voting about a draft law this fall that EU shall register and control bloggers on the net.

The Estonian European parliamentarian Marianne Mikko (belonging to the socialist group!??) the initiative taker to the law, says that if we see name and picture on the one writing this promotes the freedom of speech. She thinks the anonymity on the net is a problem. And wants that bloggers legal status shall be clarified and categorized from their opinion and agenda.

This new law has been lively discussed among bloggers on the net the last days and many are upset. One of them are Emma Marie Andersson *who blogs about politics and integrity questions.

“For most bloggers I should in fact think that anonymity is a prerequisite, because all employers for example don’t think it’s so good if one sits and writes and has opinions.”

Marianne Mikko means that the possibility replying in charge to a blogposting has to be strengthened for the sake of democracy!! One needs to be able to reply in the same manner as to articles in for example newspapers she says!! She says:

“I don’t believe in one-way-communication!”

But Emma Marie Andersson thinks the blogs rather are more open than traditional media. And now in the aftermaths of the FRA-law politicians need to really think over what one can and shall regulate she thinks. So true.

“Precisely this, with replying, is extremely strange, for this only proves that she has obviously never visited a blog./…/ The fact is that you as blogger and person discussed on a blog has more opportunities answering in a blog than in a newspaper actually.

Now people have got the taste for airing their opinions and therefore more and more people are interested in how things like these turn out. So it’s in all people’s interest trying to become friend with the Internet and realize that Internet isn’t a thing lying somewhere far away, but Internet is actually a part of the society, and it’s we, the people, who find ourselves there.”

Yes, it was this with the need for power and control… And the ruling classes paranoia??

A female Swedish blogger I appreciate a lot also writes about this new law. She writes that everything is obviously going to become controlled! Where does the boundary go? If one want to stop a blogger there are already possibilities. And now comes extra controls or demands the bloggers shall display their photos and names. Postings are already possible to report and stop. And that's fully enough. She also wonders how one shall be able to control if people use their own names or photos, and not others...

"By the way - photo??"

she writes.

"Maybe one has to be both beautiful and photogenic to be allowed to blog? And soon we have the entire control-society."

Another female Swedish blogger writes that "Perhaps it's time for the European Union to register our private diaries too..." She thinks one of the worst things is that politicians prove they don't know what they are talking about or what Internet is! And thinks this is like the pure Soviet-state! And we have a right government in Sweden!!! And it's a right wind in Europe!!! Many have written about a big-brother society!

And here an article "The Economics for Nice People" concerning incitements for people, that they are all and only economic? And selfish?? I.e. that we never do anything without expecting something in return...

* "Vissa lagar som syftar till att bekämpa kriminaliteten är ännu mera kriminella " — Friedrich Engels

“The poorest man may in his cottage bid defiance to all the force of the Crown. It may be frail, its roof may shake, the wind may blow through it; the storms may enter, the rain may enter - but the King of England cannot enter; all his forces dare not cross the threshold of the ruined tenement.” — William Pitt

Really something for me???

The best mobile phone tricks – something for me??? Yippee!! One can use the mobile even as a gym-tool (a weight)!!

But how was it with being addicted? Where has Google got the idea this video could be interesting for me?? Because I got tipped at youtube about it! I can’t understand!! Or all with a youtube account get tipped about it?

I had to laugh when I watched this video! Yes,mobile phones are really useful!! :-) I have an Sony Ericsson 750i (I think)!!

More mobile tricks here!

Some personal reflections…

During a tough period I tried with a lot of ”therapies”: qigong, Feldenkrais, meditation, different relaxation-programs, mental training…

During some weekends training Feldenkrais there were physiotherapists (sjukgymnaster) also attending… They and the course-teacher (yes, they call the sessions lessons) spoke very enthusiastically about neuro linguistic programming (NLP), and how they used it in their work. And the Feldenkrais teacher spoke about a Norwegian couple in particular having courses in NLP in Sweden too, for instance on the island Öland (if I remember right), and she thought they were so great. However I got a bit suspicious, because it sounded as keeping barriers on place... I don't believe in that method... Deliberately cutting upcoming things off. If what you as whatever therapist you are "release" things in the client or patient you must be able to deal with it, and have tools dealing with it too. And these things are nothing you should "play" with as we say!!

I have a sister who is educated occupational therapist (arbetsterapeut). During her education they had a course in psychiatry I think. Or they read about how to handle (and/or avoid) psychosis. Because when you start to work with the body and release tensions, when you meditate etc. things can happen… People can start to react very powerfully? Even become psychotic (quite often become psychotic, or more often than we maybe believe)? See Reich about the bodily armour! And this seems to be a reality, so that they have to learn about these things in their education!

In my work or rather during my piano-playing education I have come in contact with the phenomenon the kinaesthetic sense. That is, how it feels doing a movement, finger or body. Being able to imagine how it feels.

In dancing for instance the pupils/students watch their teacher making a movement and at the same time make a sensory imagination of how it feels doing this movement, what’s happening.

Riding horses is the same or can or ought to be the same??

Singing is too; to find ones voice, the breathing etc.

This also makes me think of therapists working with peoples’ breathing… One of the parents to a couple of our pupils (she is mother of five or more children!!), educated from college for social workers, works as breathing-therapist. I would never go to her. I think all these tools can be dangerous used wrongly and by the wrong person, which means a person with unresolved things!! This is true for all sorts of therapies, how attractive they even may sound. See what Miller has written and said about unconscious manipulation.

Yes, many of us probably want there were quick fixes? We are maybe even in desperate need for them! The years are passing, and we live not so fulfilling or rich-containing lives (but what is a “rich life”?). We want a change, and an immediate change?

And maybe there are reasons choosing the presumptive therapist very carefully! Trying to give oneself that time, even if it feels hard and the need for help and change is very strong. Using Miller’s FAQ-list (frequently asked questions) "How to find the Right Therapist?" in our search, or creates our own questions if we are capable.

We also speak a lot (especially during higher education) about feelings and emotions and expressions… But this doesn’t mean we working with artistic things are healthier… I can immediately mention a lot of musicians and other artists with sever problems. Even during history. Which proves that just talking doesn’t really change things? But our work maybe keeps many of us working with it alive. Alive but going crazy? Or as Robert Schumann committing suicide…

Working with all these things above one has to be prepared and really capable of dealing with what’s perhaps coming up!! As in all other therapies! Having solved ones own things to that degree so one doesn’t harm the other one by ones own denial and unsolved/unprocessed things.

One can click on the labels “gurus”, “cults”, “manipulation”, “Helga’s story” etc. in the sidebar to the left…

Beethoven in fury over a dead friend (the third movement from the moonlight sonata).

Addictions in parents and other grown up authorities…

summer-view from the middle of Sweden.

[slightly edited and updated June 26]. In the news today they say that many children are worried over parent’s internet dependency (or Internet addiction).

Many children have called Bris, Children’s Rights in Society’s worried over their parents’ Internet habits. A study from 2007 shows what influence Internet has for children’s ill-health.

“They are often filled with shame, anger and sorrow, but also questions about what they shall do.”

Mothers who are caught in Internet-playing many hours a day or fathers porn-surfing (even child porn!!!) and sex-chatting. When children get to know this they get worried and don’t know how to handle it. And Bris-Children’s Right in Society has noticed this. Last year they noticed a striking increase in the number of calls and emails from (exactly) children, not knowing how they shall solve their parent’s problems. According to an investigator at Bris this discovery can be compared with when children discover that their parent’s abuse alcohol, drugs etc. because the set of problems are the same.

“It is as shameful as addiction, and they have to handle it in the same way as other forms of addictions.”

In first hand it is parent’s visits to porn-sites children are reacting most strongly at. Most of the children calling have seen their parent’s visiting porn - and even child porn Internet-sites.

They write in the article that parent’s (and other grown ups, if they are authorities of any kind for young people my addition) ought to wonder what sort of models they are to their children or other children they are authorities for. True I think... We are or can be models in many different respects...

Addition (quickly translated and written): I searched under the label addictions and there was one on “Parasiten – the Parasite…” A swift translation of parts of that blogposting:

This year a book came in Swedish written by a man Fredrik Ljung just above 30. A book about "a drug-addicted in suit", a man newly examined from school of economics and business administration (the most prestigious in Sweden in this case), with a

“well-paid job in the finance-branch, dressed in expensive suits.”

As the author once was.

He and his companion mean they could work high pressuredly and at the same time abuse drugs without anybody noticing it.

They mean that alcohol-problems are still more common in working-life, but drug-problems are increasing (earlier drug-addictions were less common, people used alcohol instead?). These two men are now treating other people with the same problems as they had.

10 % of the employees in average on a work-place have problems with alcohol and drugs they think, and those coming to them are young, just above 30 and they have an already established pill and drug-addiction. Most of them are men, but they think women are much cleverer in hiding their problems (so THAT problem, with drug abuse, is partly hidden).

Alcohol and drug problems are overrepresented in high achieving professions and in circumstances where kick-seeking people search themselves to. Pressure achieving and a feelings of insufficiency make many seeking help in alcohol and tablets, and maybe later also drugs, to handle their live (things that drove them into these works in the first place, and on wrong premises?). Most common are marijuana and amphetamine, but cocaine is also increasing.

Silently (feeling so sad and horrified again rereading this): Hiding ones problems by using drugs of all kinds… Keeping silent of shame? And if you can’t manage things you are no real man (or woman)??? The hypocrisy! Showing a façade. And that about being “a real man" again… Does women want that sort of “real men”??? Or what sort of women want such a man?

The author thinks it is important focusing on the request (demand) for drugs, and to watch so people feel better and don’t have to resort to drug use to make their lives endurable. And this should actually have started early in life, where children ought to feel they are worthy, lovable just as they are etc. Silently: how nice is a life being drugged all the time or a lot of the time actually? Being blunt (avtrubbad) most of or the whole time? Oh, this is so sad.

What is lying at the bottom? From where comes the mania being clever and achieving? The feeling one isn’t good enough if one doesn’t achieve and even achieve enormously? The feeling one has to control oneself, or rather not being weak, but showing a (false) façade of strength?

The author said he had never had any problems getting the tablet-store renewed!! No physicians refused to prescribe new, or more, tablets (he visited 20 doctors and there were never any great problems)! This also made me think… It has been a lot (or at least some) talk about being observant towards this phenomenon, i.e. that people goes to many different physicians to get medicine, especially when it comes to calming medicine, sleeping pills (But thre hasn't been any straight talk about narcotics)… But they have found in research that women and men are treated differently by doctors, and employees at for instance the Social Insurance in Sweden etc. Treated differently because of their gender - AND thus their status in society (quite ironical)?? Women with problems are treated with more contempt and less respect!?

Ljung says he succeeded keeping himself “floating,” as he says, for eight years. He started abusing alcohol systematically when he was 19 years. During these years he changed his whole acquaintance-circle, only associated with criminals (in suits??), he was heavily in debt, had two broken relations behind him and hardly any contact with his parents. In short his life was in a real mess.

Suddenly he realized the truth; he wasn’t the successful and enviable person he had struggled so hard to become.

It stands:

“Henrik is filled with contempt, both against the society and against people in his environment and this permeates [genomsyrar] his strivings in reaching the top, which is a well paid, status-filled job on a bank in London or New York.”

Oh, how fun! And really something to strive for!! Observe the irony! The principal figure in the book is ironical, arrogant, show contempt for weakness, is floating above… The reviewer of the book earlier this year characterized the principal figure with the expressions "hubris" and "self-contempt. "

Yes, what does Miller write about irony for instance? And about addiction?

This really made me think once again…

Addition June 26: Struck me about Jane Fonda's bulimia. Also see "Starving for Attention." She thought that she was so occupied with her eating that she lived like in a glass-bubble, cut off from the environment and not really their for her children (Vanessa and Troy?). And she could slightly imagine how this for them. If I remember right. Sidetrack: but it feels as she is still in denial to a high degree, and have been "taught" forgiveness by therapists...

And I recently also read about Britt Ekland (actually Eklund!!), the Swedish actress, who has problems with osteoporosis, and it struck me this can (must) be because of constant concern about the weight. And she must have done plastic surgery (the lips??) which hasn't been really successful... I have done plastic surgery too, a (really) big (and tough) operation. I was offered another one, but at that time I had accepted how I look and didn't make a second operation... And before this operation the female doctor said she didn't think this operation was necessary, but if I wanted to make it they should make it... Oh, this is a long story...

About the FRA-law, the need for power and control - and integrity violations...

a sea of meadow flowers.

The Swedish Riksdag or Parliament has voted a new law (what is called the FRA-law) through where authorities are allowed to check our emails, the text-messages we send, what sites at the internet we visit etc. and to store it. And we have a right-government and a right majority in the Riksdag…

The blogger Jenny W. writes that (a little freely):

“An important reason that this FRA-law is so horrid is that it can be used against dissidents and whip consensus forward through fright. For us who don’t see more than said diseases [everyday and everywhere] when we read the daily and evening papers and in our talk with the rank-and-file [gemene] journalist, the law comes out as a codification of the already present state of affairs than a real change of them (excuse me for not crying myself to death over the threatened protection of sources [källskydd], but it feels as if that isn’t really the obstacle for newspapers writing about ’dangerous’ things – but, fine, it’s sickly serious that the state has usurped this tool of controlling nevertheless, and of course I understand that protection of sources is important)./…/

Say something dangerous instead [she thinks the rage in the bloggosphere over this law is mostly because it is comme il faut, and for people to prove they stand on the little human being’s side], something dangerous, so it feels as if the law really can’t be imported without threatening values which usually ought to be important. Not this sort of copies' rattle against the power, so they can feel as part of the power.”

The need for power, and control from the power! See Bob Scharf’s essay “Leaders,” that

“…the more defended psychoclasses tend to lead.”

Yes, what we see in many (maybe most) politicians, and from where does the need for power come (be it on a familial level or a societal, even a global)? The power’s arrogance!!! And entire lack of feelings or empathy…

Another blogger at Motvallsbloggen writes that

“There is another reason, the more serious, to be critical to the FRA-law [than file-sharing] because it implies a great departure from democratic principles. Such as that this law is just another part of a pattern that becomes clearer and clearer. The pattern shows a strong will from the governing elites' part to control the populations in the West-world before what’s coming, namely the entire abolishing of the democracy and an even greater pressure on the populations, where it won’t feel as important in the future whether you can share files from the net or not. The FRA-law is only part of an even darker and disagreeable pattern.”

This blogger also writes that there is no real opposition today either! Not from the left either!!! True! And this is really scary...

What can this law mean? That we become careful about what we write and express without even being aware of it too?

And is this really a control-instrument against terrorism (as is said)?? Because the ones with bad intentions already have all means to hide their doings??

It’s violation of the integrity of people in general in the worst manner!!

I come to think of parents reading their children’s letters and diaries…

Yes, there ought to be reactions even from the surrounding world!??? Both on what’s happening here and what’s happening in ones own home-countries! It IS very important we try to influence the state of affairs?? By voting if nothing else!?

Once again, yes, we minimize and belittle, if not deny, that we are violated??? In a similar manner as stood in “The Prize we pay for shaming little boys”:

The reluctance of Germans to ‘know about’ what was done to them after the fighting was over reminds me of those three little monkeys: See No Evil, Hear No Evil and Speak No Evil. In my twenty years as a psychotherapist treating survivors of childhood trauma, I am familiar with this tendency of those who were once helpless to minimize the impact abuse has had on their lives. It is the same with my abused clients who trivialize the beatings of their childhood, saying they deserved to be hit, that they were very bad children. People who have been traumatized tend to normalize their traumatic situations.

It is hard for humans to accept that they were powerless to protect themselves from deliberate mistreatment. They are much more likely to take the blame for having been abused."

And that about obedience, instilling it in children, to be in advance of their supposed innate evilness... Arhur Silber has come back to the theme obedience in his Alice Miller-essays... That's what we see in too many of our politicians in our government today?

From Symphony no 5 by Mahler...

Summer reflections...

more pictures here.

Questioning and seeing things as wrong makes one less inclined to passing the same things forward. Realising that the treatment one received wasn’t deserved due to ones character.

A long time ago I had a piano-teacher who had severe problems with stage fright. So he started to study psychology on distance. He meant that bad self-confidence isn’t something inherited!

“I am that sort of person! That’s my character!”

The implications of that – which are they? There’s nothing I can do! I have to live with this! One push the responsibility away, doesn’t one? I can’t do anything! And adults between one perhaps can stand it? And help the other person overcoming this hopefully. But parent-child between how is this? Who has to take responsibility actually?

I am bad, wrong! I was and still am the guilty one for the bad treatment I received! I am to blame myself.

Oh, I get so tired.

What does this lead to??

There is a self-destructiveness I can get so furious at!!!

Totally paralyzed! Paralyzed by all guilt!

“To the ground bent!”

a mother used to say. The child(ren) felt extremely guilty!!?? Responsible! As if they should go in as counselors or therapists? And on top not add to that burdening!

I know of a girl, around 12 who had got measles. She got a slight ache in her joints (phalanxes) in connection with the disease. The girl was actually 13 because at this time we had switched from driving on the left side of the road to the right. Her mother should drive her to the nurse, and was so nervous so she almost drove in the ditch! So paralysed. So the child almost had to hold her mother’s hand, comforting and calming HER!!!

Addition in the evening: searching on the web I found this article “The Prize we pay for shaming little boys,” In this it stands for instance:

“Sulzer, in 1748, explains that humiliation of children is key to producing obedient citizens who are willing to submit to the laws and rules of reason once they are their own masters, since they are already accustomed not to act in accordance with their own will (Miller, 1990, p. 10). Dependence on authority plus the intense shaming of children produced the generation of Germans who obediently followed Hitler into the second World War and found their emotional release in carrying out its atrocities./…/

What surprised me most, though, was that the German people I have spoken with about this deliberate and immoral cruelty either do not know these facts or have only a hazy awareness of this period in German history. When I first attempted to discuss this with German colleagues and friends, I was bewildered by their reaction. These well educated and knowledgeable people knew nothing of these chapters in their own history. Generally, they expressed amazement, a hazy familiarity with the details or simply uncomfortable refusal to talk with me about what was clearly a forbidden subject./…/

The reluctance of Germans to ‘know about’ what was done to them after the fighting was over reminds me of those three little monkeys: See No Evil, Hear No Evil and Speak No Evil. In my twenty years as a psychotherapist treating survivors of childhood trauma, I am familiar with this tendency of those who were once helpless to minimize the impact abuse has had on their lives. It is the same with my abused clients who trivialize the beatings of their childhood, saying they deserved to be hit, that they were very bad children. People who have been traumatized tend to normalize their traumatic situations.

It is hard for humans to accept that they were powerless to protect themselves from deliberate mistreatment. They are much more likely to take the blame for having been abused. For example, people who have been sexually abused as children tend to blame themselves, at least unconsciously, for somehow causing the abuse by being too sexy or too bad. Part of therapy is to help them realistically assess what was done to them and to what degree they are responsible for the shame they feel. (Of course, children bear no actual responsibility for being abused.) A first step in healing, then, is to accept that you were hurt by the trauma./…/

How, Gilligan asks, can a person who does not experience any feelings himself know that others have feelings or be moved by the feelings of others./…/

Fathers' contempt for their sons produces men who believe they are worthless, who are hyper-vigilant to signs of disdain, who are defensively ready to attribute negative intent to others, and who find a quick fix for making themselves worthwhile by degrading those less powerful than themselves, such as their wives. They believe they can make themselves feel some worth by making someone else lower than themselves.

In Bierman's programme, therapeutic procedures based on Eugene Gendlin's Focusing enable the participants to work through their own remembered physical or emotional abuse. The men are encouraged to let their feelings happen, to resist telling themselves what they should feel and to stop judging their feelings. They are taught to quietly put their attention into the part of their body where they usually have their feelings. They are instructed to let go controlling and to simply follow what is happening inside. For most of us the physical sensation connected to a feeling occurs as a tight knot in the stomach, a choking in the throat or a heaviness in the chest. Bierman trains the men to pay attention to these physical body signals which provide a way into unconscious knowing (Gendlin, 1996)./…/

In the methods of schwarze pedagogik, the child never experiences hatred for the father. When it is not possible to admit and express hatred for a parent, the rage gets projected onto others. As with Ralph Bierman's battering men, those who are weak and vulnerable (the way the batterer was as a child) become targets for this pent up rage. The adult who is filled with rage and shame becomes the perpetrator making others feel the way he felt when he was helpless.

This shame/violence cycle clearly played itself out when Germans who had been traumatized in childhood took out their rage on Jews and others who reminded them of themselves when they were helpless children. They projected onto others all their own ‘bad’ qualities which they had never been able to accept in themselves. Jews became dirty, greedy schemers, plotting to overthrow the rightful authorities. Concentration camp guards had the perfect opportunity to restage their own childhood traumas. Prisoners were helpless to defend themselves or to escape.

Their captors, urged on by the state, indulged in humiliating defenseless Jews. In fact, every German's repetition compulsion seems to have found a place in the hierarchy of terror which characterized the Nazi period. Men who had once been shamed as children now had the opportunity to demand from others, the cadaver-like obedience their fathers had exacted. They, in turn, gave automatic, unthinking obedience to their masters in The Third Reich's hierarchy of terror./…/

This paper deals with shaming in the childhood of Germans. But this is not specifically a German problem. It is a problem throughout the world. It is my hope that once we better understand the underlying causes of violence, we will be able to find some solutions.

How do we protect little boys from being shamed and abused by their fathers? This is a generational problem. It is self-perpetuating. Men who have been abused and shamed by their fathers tend to shame and abuse their small boys. As a society, we must find ways of cutting into this cycle of abuse where fathers humiliate their boys and passive mothers stand by without interfering on behalf of the children. But before we will be able to do this, we will have to accept whatever we ourselves experienced as children, as well as the ways in which we act out of our own traumatic experience.”

See this with “Evilness and responsibility…”; how badly we even became treated this is no excuse for what we do, how we behave, “Evilness and violence…” and “Anger, outbursts…” And postings on the label manipulation.