A physician’s conscience – more on the Nanny-pedagogy and demands on harder grips…

"In TV-programmes like 'The Supernanny' children are taught to do as the parents say – without understanding why. This sort of 'poisonous pedagogy' goes against an upbringing characterized by humanism."

[Slightly updated August 18]. Threats and punishments are not the recipe to get more order in the school and in the homes the physician Lars H. Gustafsson means. He is critical to the ”neoauthoritarian movement.” And says that he sees a trend where it is said that children shall learn to obey and follow the grown ups’ order.

He is worried for a return to old times where children and adolescents were taught to obey for to get away from punishment(s) (something they didn’t get away from how much they even tried I think).

This kind of treatment (with punishments) can lead to that we get “obedient soldiers” without personal responsibility to lean back on in difficult situations Gustafsson says. Blind obedience (and what has such obedience led to?).

My addition: and probably also people with a need for revenge and for to punish other, weaker, people!! And today the society approves of this too!!! Why do so many approve of this? And see what the American neurologist Jonathan H. Pincus writes in the chapter “Hitler and Hatred” in his book “Base Instinct – What Makes Killers Kill.”

Gustafsson (who has been working as child and school physician) says that it has become more and more common with being put in the corner. But today this is called something else: put on “timeout benches” or “rowdyism mats.” Benches and mats where kids have to sit for a couple of minutes (or more) if they have done something “wrong.” Nobody really asks (or dares to??) ask seriously why children are behaving as they are!! And call punishments as the right method in question!! If this maybe isn’t more of the same.

And in the British TV-programme ”Supernanny”, which is sent in Sweden too, the parents are taught to use a “naughty chair” where the kids are placed if they aren’t doing as the parents say.

People supporting methods like these are probably defending methods that once (severely) harmed themselves, but this is too painful to admit to. They had to believe this was done for their own good and thus they are probably the strongest advocates for methods like these, and this is really horrible and very tragic. And even more horrible when they get power positions, the higher the worse (as becoming ministers in governments, or leaders for schools etc.).

And why do they get those positions? Why don't more people oppose to this? Is it because so many have been badly treated as children in turn? And not only by grown ups around them, but not least at home? I think that IF we grew up under ideal circumstances we would be more immune (or even totally immune) to later bad treatment, or recover quicker from later bad treatment. But such ideal circumstances don't exist? But this is no excuse for not trying to improve our treatment of kids. With that ideal circumstances don't exist. And for anyone (therapist, psychologist even less) to say that "Each generation has to recapture its own." Because the recovery is so hard, so we should try to avoid as much as possible from the first beginning. Even though recovery is possible to that degree so you can live a decent life. But in too man cases with A LOT OF hard work! A work that COULD have been unneccesary. And should be unneccesary.

Instead of passing this forward those people should get help to call their own experiences in question by a society that started to talk much more openly than is the case about those things. And we ought to be a much more enlightened society today really. But it seems to be a backlash in the whole society (all over the world) not only in this respect, but when it comes to human rights and respect for each other in all.

Of course programmes of this kind influences the debate in Sweden and how grownups are behaving towards kids Gustafsson means (but why were they accepted from the first beginning I wonder???). The last years many licensed programs for education of parents with the roots in the same philosophy have become introduced in Sweden. They are building on the same thoughts on tighter reins and a firm discipline.

He refers to older times when corporal punishment strengthened the verbal imposing of shame. Children were also confined in the own room, in a basement storage space or a dark wardrobe to think over its sins!!! What ”sins” I wonder??

The child advocate Andrew Vachss thinks that

“...of all the many forms of child abuse, emotional abuse may be the cruelest and longest-lasting of all.”

"Emotional abuse is the systematic diminishment of another. It may be intentional or subconscious (or both), but it is always a course of conduct, not a single event. It is designed to reduce a child's self-concept to the point where the victim considers himself unworthy—unworthy of respect, unworthy of friendship, unworthy of the natural birthright of all children: love and protection."

To avoid the pain of such bad treatment we tend to use defense strategies, for instance by blaming ourselves, and thinking it’s something wrong with us, instead of calling the received treatment in question. And by this we tend to reenact the same thing with those with less power than we have later, and think we are doing this “for their own good”!!

Gustafsson says further that the darkness in the wardrobe should remind us of how dark we were in our souls. And even in homes that were more humane there existed “whining-wardrobes.”

Gustafsson says that he becomes sad when he hears all the demands on more order in school and home, all the talk about rougher treatment and punishments as the solution to (all) problems. But this is something that permeates the whole society is my addition!!! To moralize and put yourself on high horses.

We are on our way to return hundred years back in time he thinks. I agree.

A personal conscience isn’t created through demands on order and discipline, through orders to feel more empathy and understanding for other people. Such things can only grow from inside! Yes, I agree, through genuinely respectful treatment of children from the first beginning of their lives. But you CAN recover later, if you meet people that are able to confirm you and show you what true, genuine respect and love is. And we CAN become more respectful in our way of meeting young people, but it’s probably a very painful work.

The examples on how bad things can turn with peoples’ consciences through an upbringing built on threats and punishments are in fact many. But we don’t really discuss them or talk about them!!!?? We still believe that some people are born evil (or at least with bad genes).

Right to the WWII the German school (and the treatment at home) was characterized by blind discipline (see about blind obedience and its consequences), where threats and punishments were pedagogical tools for creating obedient students. Those young people later defended their support and cooperation in the Holocaust with that they only obeyed order.

And their suppressed anger (from the early treatment) got an outlet in the annihilation of Jews etc.

The personal conscience can never become formed via threats and punishments. And therefore the blend of new and old views on the bringing up of children that is growing stronger and stronger in Sweden is unfortunate he thinks. I would say it’s horrible. What sort of human beings are created by this way of treating young people – and very small children??

We should instead settle account with our own individual and personal history to the degree that is possible, but yes, this work is a tough work for many, many because of the pain that such treatment caused in our early childhood. To recover from such treatment is a hard work in many cases. And isn't this a reason as good as any to treat kids better?

And that people became harmed has nothing to do with a special vulnerability, i.e. the roots don’t lie in some genes that makes us more sensitive than other people (and by the way; is sensitivity bad).

And what sort of problems, and to what degree we get problems later in life from those early experiences, has with how badly treated we were and if we had the luck or not to encounter one or more person that could help us realize on some level that we were bad and unfairly treated by people who in fact didn’t show love, and not with genes I think (but it's eaier to blame genes than our parents or their substitutes). But we had to believe that they (our early caregivers) loved us and did what they did for our own good.

And it’s awful when people act this out - in politics for instance, as I think happens today, with our current government and (too many of) its supporters...

Addition after lunch: see about Corporal Punishment in the United States of America; Number of Students Receiving Corporal Punishment, by State School Year: 2006-2007, and Number of Students Receiving Corporal Punishment, by State School Year: 2006-2007 (students with an without disabilities).

Addition August 18: And how is it with emotional punishment (and manipulation)? Why is manipulation needed?

See what Alice Miller writes about conscious and unconscious manipulation in therapy for instance.

And also see the interview "Violence Kills Love: Spanking, the Fourth Commandmentand the Suppression of Authentic Emotions."

The dangers with calls for strong leaders – and hearing tramp of boots in the distance...

The Swedish professor in religion psychology Owe Wikström writes at page 44 in his book “In praise of the slowness – or the danger of driving moped through Louvren”(2001) that the age in which we live is formed both by collective (I hardly dare to write this word!!) and personal factors: with a coarse simplification you could say that the divided society is playing together with individualistic personalities. These two processes strengthen each other.

If they are brought together breeding grounds are created for the relativism that appears, the ad hoc* attitudes that often characterizes religious as well as political ideology. Nothing has the obvious' strength. The collective values and Christian interpretations have eroded (and when collective values have eroded many go back to religion; as is the case in for instance a big country like USA?? A strict, moralizing).

Each person has become more deserted to her/himself, to find her/his own way in life. My addition: And an enormous burden can be (and is) laid on the individual's shoulders.

But if the manifoldness becomes confused and straggly you can soon have presentiments of tramps of boots in the distance. The calls for strong leaders, clear command(ment)s and simple solutions can be attractive sooner than we can anticipate.

At least a couple of Swedish bloggers are writing about returning Nazi and fascist tendencies in the society not only here in Sweden...

But see the American neurologist Jonathan H. Pincus on the underlying causes for fascism in the chapter "Hitler and Hatred" in his book "Base Instinct - What Makes Killers Kill."

*From the Swedish Wikipedia: “Ad hoc kan även användas om ett felslut, där man anpassar sitt argument efter situationen genom att lägga till premisser som inte ingick i det ursprungliga argumentet. (Exempel: 'Jag har aldrig druckit alkohol.' 'Men du tog ju ett glas vin till maten.' 'Ja, men jag har aldrig druckit mig redlös.') Jfr ingen sann skotte, generalisering.”

Alexithymia is increasing in the world... Why? And what is this about?

More on identification with (the) power...

[Updated June 30]. Yes, why do we? And why do we tend not to question it? Why do we tend to look up on people in power and have small and sometimes non-existing demands on them? And at the same time have big demands on those under, those with no or little power? Why don't we question (high) demands on those latter (but on the former)? Where are the roots?

How can we make fair and justified demands on ALL people?

Do we even sometimes have the right to make higher demands on those in power? The more demands the more power they get? At least if they have power over our lives!? But as fellow human beings we should have the same demands on all people, no matter their position in the society, rich or poor!?

Why aren't we capable of making those distinctions? On justified demands that has nothing with people's position to do.

Why don't we see clearer than we do? because I think many of us are more or less blindly admiring.

Is it because we weren't allowed to really see how our early caretakers were, what they did, question what they did etc.?

Are we doomed being forever incapable in seeing things through (seeing the power through for instance every time it's needed, as the child in The Emperor's New Clothes)?

I don't think so. We can recover.

The American neurologist Jonathan Pincus has written about the roots for racist ideas in his book “Base Instinct – What Makes Killers Kill” in the chapter “Hitler and Hatred.”

And Alice Miller has also written about Hitler.

Read "Adolf Hitler: How Could a Monster Succeed in Blinding a Nation?" by Alice Miller and "The Emotional Life of Nations" by Lloyd deMause Chapter 4--Restaging Early Traumas in War and Social Violence and "The Political Consequences of Child Abuse" by Alice Miller and “See No Evil -- A political psychologist explains the roles denial, emotion and childhood punishment play in politics” Michael Milburn interviewed by Brian Braiker.

And at last a quotation:

"What good fortune for those in power that people do not think"

- Adolf Hitler, as quoted by Joachim Fest.

Addition June 30: Sigrun wrote about class in a blogposting yesterday, the class you belong to and what this class-belonging means.

She had read a couple of comments on an article in a Norwegian newspaper about a right wing politician retired because of sickness. She complained that the social insurance becomes reduced with five percent because she receives compensation as representative in the board for the community where she lives.

Sigrun doesn't think that the few crowns it's about in this case is any problem. She thinks it's even worse when people with such tasks don't become paid at all, but maybe even have to pay from their own purse.

But after this comes what I thought was even more interesting:

Sigrun thinks it's probably much easier for unable to work coming from a middle-class background to become recruited in resource-strong organizations as political parties, than for unable to work with a less resource-strong background.

Journalists (as those on this Norwegian paper) probably don't understand this, because they are identifying themselves easier with middle-class people.

I think she is right. But there are exceptions??

See the British researchers Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett in "Equality of What?" I have blogged about this in Swedish in "Jämlikhet till vad? Eller att ge alla en jämlik chans att bli ojämlika - att bara ha sig själv att skylla..."

The zombies are attacking…

zombie.

Yesterday I watched “Stars on Ice” on TV, and today I read the article "Zombierna anfaller" ("The zombies are attacking") by the Swedish journalist Maria-Pia Boëthius, and I have also started to read the book “Stridens skönhet och sorg” (in English something in the style “The fight’s (or battle’s) beauty and sorrow”) by the Swedish historian Peter Englund, with portraits of ordinary people during the WWI built on real accounts and real people - and what I read, and am reading, made me think. You can read parts of the book here (in Swedish).

Boëthius writes (in my a little free amateur translation):

“That journalists are nasty at work doesn’t mean anything? Hey? Yes, they are only playing their roles. What!? The typical case is Alex Schulman, or we can call him ‘Alex Schulman’. Because he doesn’t exist in real life, he says himself. The bullying style is just a funny gimmick.”

Alex Schulman was invited to the Swedish radio apropos bloggers and that he had become unfairly flown on the throat by another Swedish journalist in a debate-program in Swedish TV because of his nasty style as blogger for one of our biggest evening papers.

Now it was revealed that it isn’t the real Schulman that is nasty in the blog, but his fictive self! He has taken the literary and, as one could understand, the heavy burden on his shoulders being the one flying on peoples’ throats.

Boëthius draws parallels to when she and her siblings were children and her brother had a brilliant creation, namely California, whom was identical twin with her brother, but a twin their parents didn’t know of. Sometimes her brother and California changed places, especially when he was up to some mischief. Then it was of course shown that her brother always was innocent.

Boëthius wonders where all those probably million fantasy-mates people had when they were children have disappeared. She wonders if not many of them have gotten jobs on Swedish newspapers (and on papers, and other media, in the world?).

My reflection, spontaneously, over what Boëthius wrote was:

“...not taking on the responsibility for (what you say or do or who you are)!"

And it also struck me that Alice Miller has written about cynicism and irony in one of or both her last two books.

I also reacted quite a lot at the jury members in “Stars on Ice” and what they said to the ones competing during the competition, their style of saying it and the content in what they said. I don’t think what they were saying and how they said it was fun at all. And not entertaining either. And not interesting. They were just nasty! Nasty for the competing people's own good? But they could probably handle it as they were grown ups. But the young people in "Idol"!?? See Bob Scharf on "Reality TV".

I have only read the first 30 pages (of over 600) in the book “The fight’s beauty and sorrow” and my interpretation so far is that people actually didn’t know why that war started. The conflicts underlying it weren’t so big so they hadn’t been insoluble and the war wasn’t unavoidable at all. But there was an excited rhetoric and a high-pitched worked up propaganda, and all this contributed to making the war unavoidable when it was viewed as unavoidable. Many people seemed to go out into the war with high expectations to fight for their country! And people at home said goodbye with flags and music! Many people didn’t seem to really realize how horrible a war actually is!

The American neurologist Jonathan Pincus writes about societal approval unleashing drives in people harmed early in life… See the earlier posting “Evilness and responsibility…” and earlier postings under the label Trent Scaggs.

Alice Miller writes at page 206 in her book “The Body Never Lies”:

“Inability to face up to the sufferings undergone in childhood can be observed both in the form of religious obedience and in cynicism, irony and other forms of self-alienation frequently masquerading as philosophy or literature.”

And at page 139 she writes:

“…feelings (one’s own and those of others), are something to be jeered at [hånad, gjord narr av]. In show business and journalism the art of irony is a well-paid commodity, so it is possible to make a great deal of money with the suppression of one’s feelings. Even if one ultimately risks losing contact with oneself and merely functioning as a mask, an ‘as if’ personality, there are always drugs, alcohol, and other substances to fall back on. Derision pays well, money is no object. /…/

But because these emotions are not genuine, not linked up with the true story of the body, the effect is bound to wear off [avta] after a time. Higher and higher doses are required to fill up the void left by childhood.”

So you need more and more and more until you can face up to the things underlying...

Authoritarianism…

ballet dancers.

Some morning thoughts…

On a meeting at work this week it struck me:

“Not explaining 'why' is authoritarian”

With the addition today:

"...even when it is about grown up people on a workplace."

We shall just do. We don’t need to understand "why" we shall or have to?

Something that is quite symptomatically at my workplace (and maybe many other workplaces): on one of our last workplace meetings we were asked to fill in a form about side work, if we have any. And some side work has to be approved of by our boss. We have done this a couple of times the last years, but nobody have made clear why. Least of all our boss(es) (ordered from above in turn, but not questioning why? Only "obeying orders"?). And all are filling this form in without asking why!? Like obedient children! Maybe they don't bother?

Because you don’t question the one in power? You just do as he/she says!? I have done too but reacted, more strongly in the beginning… And maybe my bosses don't even think in those patterns at all! They don't understand this at all? And why don't they? Something in their authoritarian background?

My next thought writing this is: is this respectful from our boss’s side? Is this to treat us with respect and as people thinking and feeling and wanting to do our best, cooperate etc.?

And we in turn, how are we supposed to treat our students? In the same manner?

“You have to just do, and you don’t need to understand why!”

Plainly!

In the local newspaper there is a series of articles about the school now. Today it was an article about how politicians from different parties see on cuts of money to the school (!!!). A recurrent theme during all my years in school for the first… I get so tired. There is no talk about what we actually do (or should do) in school. No real passion or interest or anything it feels…

Now it is opportune being quite authoritarian again! You have and shall set limits. And many teachers are so tired so they can’t even think or really question this!?

And our school minister’s policy is “keep quiet and be obedient”!! He is liberal! But aren’t liberals for freedom? For respect for the individual? Or?

There was also a leader in the newspaper this morning with the title “The offender is a woman” in which you can read about a new book pointing out or putting the focus on that women can commit as horrible crimes as men. A traditional view on women as victims, mothers and incapable of using violence. Something that isn’t rue. The leader writer (a woman) writes that the authors (two women) show that it isn’t only the men’s violence that is a problem – but also women’s violence against men, children and other women. Each one of us is obliged to realize this. We have to face the truth: the woman isn’t only a victim, but also an offender.

Reading this I came to think about the first case Jonathan Pincus writes about in his book and had to look for this book again in the piles of books here in my home. Yes, he writes about a thirteen year old girl Cynthia who stabbed a one year older girl Mona to death on a school-bus already around 1990 I think (I skimmed the text now in the morning).

Pincus writes (at page 23):

“No attention was given to the question, ‘What made thirteen-year-old Cynthia kill?’

Yes, we CAN admit that her background probably plays a role here today? But, there is a but… Can and do we want to take the truth in really, even on an emotional level, not just with our heads? And is there anyone capable of dealing with this truth and maybe prevent such things in the future?

I have actually thought about this: more and more girls are adopting the same behaviors as boys!??? And women the men’s worse sides (women in power positions for instance)!! And vice versa: men are adopting the worse sides women have (how they look for instance, so more young boys have anorexia for instance. But also see what Miller writes about anorexia in “The Body Never Lies”. I wonder a lot about the treatment those young people get, have students under such treatment here... My dance colleagues need to deal with anorexia, a problem they have become aware of the last 10-15 years? No wonder, dancing in front of mirrors!?).

PS. Just for fun: The flutist I have played with a lot you can listen to here! :-) Actually we have practiced this morning...

Macho ideals and the state of the world…

Jonathan Cook.

Gordon Gekko.

Patrick Bateman.

More voices in Sweden about the current states of affairs in the world:

One writer, Maria-Pia Boëthius, writes: An economical tribunal ought to become established. Not for imposing a penalty, but for making clear for the people around the world what has happened and who carry the guilt actually.

Such a tribunal should be sent directly over the web and in the public service channels all over the world. What we than got to know wouldn’t be dependent on the Medias’ reports and filtering of news because the Medias – the big – are also guilty to what has happened!

No of these bubbles would have been possible without the Medias’ eager cooperation and collaboration. But when the responsibility is to become claimed the medias always try to run away, only for to become the money-world’s obedient weapon in the next bubble.

The truth is that the media earn great money on that these bubbles are built, with the help of advertisement, PR and trademark building. The media and its owners have all interests in puffing the consumption up, because they seldom live on our direct buying but on the advertisements and the trademarkings’s (the making of trade marks) distorted message.

See about the British journalist Jonathan Cook here and here.

And read about ”The Intellectual Cleansing” part one and two here (Part one with the title “Keeping the Media Safe For Big Business”). Quotation from that site on what Media Lens is:

“Media Lens is our response to the unwillingness, or inability, of the mainstream media to tell the truth about the real causes and extent of many of the problems facing us, such as human rights abuses, poverty, pollution and climate change.”

The world needs an unbiased tribunal where even the Medias’ have to answer for their actions she thinks.

Another writer writes about our short sight needs and a sick system, something our politicians haven’t wanted to accept, and they haven't wanted to accept that they are responsible for a lot of what’s happening either. If we don’t see, hear… we have no responsibility? Yes, that about being in denial...

This writer writes about more and more advanced financial instruments in the financial world and thinks a financial system ought to see so the resources there are in the world are where they are needed. That all people ought to get their basic needs met. All financial institutions ought to account for what they do in this respect.

The earth has limited resources. All financial institutions ought to account for how they reduce the consumption of resources and leave space for other species to live.

All systems need time for reflection (thoughtfulness), even the financial systems. But the ones working in this system wants oscillations (?) because they earn money on differences. And are driven by mania??

But the instruments shouldn’t be there for the instruments' sake! Creativity ought to become encouraged too. Regular controls of the financial instruments so they don’t loose their transparency are needed.

A great part of this crisis is due to the fact that the politicians, put there to regulate these markets, in fact don’t understand those instruments.

We need to find a system where all people can live. We should need to steer the society in a transparent, fair and ecological direction.

A third writer (Martin Halldén in the Swedish magazine ETC) writes that it’s a sick man’s ideal behind the crisis! And I think that's really true! A CEO (VD in Swedish) for an investment company said a couple of years ago something in the style that:

“Buying house shares is like buying women. You don’t want to buy a cheap whore if you can buy an expensive whore.”

But this statement isn’t strange the writer thinks. Because in the financial world a sick man’s ideal rules he means. And has even contributed to the global financial crisis. Young men with Gordon Gekko and Patrick Bateman as models are competing about taking extreme risks and the climate in those circles favours lack of consideration - and has quite musty values.

Stockbrokers are mostly men working on workplaces dominated by men, and the financial market has become a reserve for young, aggressive men (yes, what are they playing out and what do their actions cause and have they caused?).

It is this sick macho culture that has created the decisions we now see the results of – when the stock markets now are falling all over the world.

Read Barbara Ehrenreich on Positive Thinking!!

The Swedish journalist Jan Guillou also wrote the other day about Blackwater and “Murder as Business Idea – Jan Guillou on the privatisation of the war – and Blackwater’s notorious mercenary soldiers.”

On a bike ride I came to think once again about what the American neurologist Jonathan Pincus writes about societal approval. And that's exactly what we see, societal approval and scapegoating. Here the politicians and media use scapegoats (unemployed, people on sick pay etc., claiming they are misusing the system) to put the blame on to steer the society in a direction they wouldn't have been able to steer it in otherwise (or not so quickly, without this it would have taken even more time than it has actually taken), and they have become accepted targets for people's needs to act all sorts of things out (probably childhood experiences in the bottom)!!! I react a lot towards this.

What parents are actually capable of doing…?

the serial killer Thomas Quick with twin-sister at 2 years.

as grown up.

The fourth part in a series, where you can find the other three here, here and here. It's another extremely warm day here. But now a bike-ride to pick the last lilies-of-the-valley!

Pincus writes at page 212-214:

”For example, one person who had just said he had never been abused told me he was once severely punished or running away to avoid discipline for having broken a window when he was six [did he deliberately break this window? And this boy was ONLY SIX YEARS OLD!! From where came this “urge” to break that window one can wonder too? That need to abreaction?]. His sister and father immobilized him and burned the soles of his feet with a lighted candle to prevent him from running away again. In his opinion, this punishment fit the crime. He considered it to be reasonable and not abusive.

Another telling indicator of abuse is bed-wetting. Many abused children continue to wet their beds at night until adolescence. The physiological reason for this is not clear, but bed-wetting is one manifestation of stress. The response of parents to this behaviour can open a line of very informative discussion about abuse. Some children are beaten daily for wetting the bed [how un-stressing??] or are humiliated by such disciplines as being forced to wear stinking, urine-soaked clothes to school, being tied to a post at home like a dog, or recording bed-wetting on a calendar so the whole family and visitors can see whether the child wet his bed the night before.

Other childhood behaviors are also hallmarks of abuse, like fire-setting and cruelty to animals. When there was a fire in the house, who was thought to have set it? This is important because virtually every child who sets a fire to his bed or that of his parents has been sexually abused [but all sexually abused children don’t set fires to their own or their parents’ beds??]. Victimizing helpless animals is also a way a child can direct his feelings of hatred and his desire to be in control without fear for retaliation./…/ …the association of this behavior with abuse has been empirically proven.

‘Who was the main disciplinarian?’ and ‘What were you beaten with when you were spanked?’ are very useful questions. Even violent inmates who have forgotten severe abuse may remember what they consider to have been good parental practices. Some of these practices are clearly abusive by my definition, like the use of a belt or wooden instrument directed elsewhere than their buttocks, spanking with the buckle of the belt, breaking of the skin, and punches to the face [but ALL spanking is harmful! Both physical, literal, and emotional! And spanking always leaves bigger or smaller damages in the brain recent brain-research has proven!].

Being locked in a closet for an hour or more or in a room for a week can be quite terrifying to a child. Uncovering these extreme punishments raises other questions, like ‘What was the punishment for leaving the closet or the room before you were given permission? What happened if you tried to run away during a beating?”

When I am sitting writing this I come to think of what Ingmar Bergman has written about his childhood. Bed-wetting children had to wear a dress when they had wet their beds. And children were locked into wardrobes, dark wardrobes. Their father (the Lutheran priest) also beat his sons, Dag and Ingmar, so they bled. And their mother washed them afterwards with cotton-wool (she was nurse). That she didn’t intervene? Noone of these children became criminals though. Dag, four years older (and the oldest) became diplomat I think, and Ingmar director. Dag died at 74 I think, in a disease that suffocated him. And Ingmar used his creativity to survive.

Their sister Margaretha (four years younger than Ingmar) married an Englishman and moved to England and got four sons. She suffered from severe depressions. She was held VERY hard by her mother and was her father's good little girl? Her creativity was suffocated. She wanted to write, and also tried with this, but Ingmar dismissed her writing (felt shame – and contempt - over how she wrote), thought it was too superficial, no wonder? Something he regretted later. Thought he should have supported her instead and help her develop her writing, and thus also help her develop personally, and survive better than she did. I think she made a suicide attempt (to free herself? She saw no other way out?).

He later thought he had silenced her and stifled her voice instead of the opposite. And it wasn’t because she revealed horrible things about their family (because it had nothing with that to do is the impression I have gotten), but because of how she wrote, the way she wrote and what she wrote about. See Jenson on the roots for shame-feelings. Even for shame-feelings on behalf of other people!!!! (very, very ironically!).

Pincus writes further:

“I always ask about the worst punishment the person ever received for misbehaving. Some patients have told me very disturbing stories. Some children are forced to kneel on dry rice and salt for an hour; the more the child moves to try to relieve his pain, the more grains dig into his raw, bleeding skin, leaving permanent and verifiable scars. Abusive parents use electric wiring, broom handles, and other cruel ad inappropriate tools to beat their children. Some parents even use lighted cigarettes to burn their children or hold their hands over an open flame as punishment.

The circumstances in which physical scars were sustained provide a window into the world of the violent individual. Linear scars and round scars on the back are usually caused by whips and cigarettes and cannot be self-inflicted. Almost every normal person remembers the incidents that have caused scarring on the portions of the body visible to him and can proudly tell the stories of how the scars were sustained. But frequently, violent people cannot identify the causes of many of their scars which are clearly the result of burns, knife wounds, bullet wounds, and other trauma.

Such memory lapses suggest that the person may be engaging the kind of psychological mechanism for forgetfulness that is used in dissociation and that bespeaks severe abuse. This is particularly telling when the cause of scarring is stated in the medical records.

When I ask about sexual abuse, I try to make it sound as if many people are sexually abused and that it is no big deal. I often start by saying we know from watching television programs like Oprah that a lot of children are asked to d sexual things for grown-ups. Then I ask, ‘Who did that to you?’

Because the anal penetration of children damages the rectum and colon, common symptoms in victims include lower abdominal pains of unknown cause, painful bowel movements, bloody movements, and constipation. Asking if the person has ever had these symptoms is accepted as the ordinary questioning of a family doctor. A similar approach is taken to determine whether sexual abuse of bys was inflicted by putting objects into their penises. As the memory of such experiences maybe repressed, it is often more revealing to ask, ‘Did you ever have blood come out of your penis? Did you ever have bladder infections?’ These questions are interspersed with benign questions about nose-bleeds, earaches, rashes, and so on.

The family may provide [???] convincing details of abuse that the patient has forgotten. For example, one convicted rapist-murderer on death row, who did not remember his crime, denied ever being sexually abused as a child. However, his older sister testified that she had seen him being repeatedly anally penetrated when he was eight by their uncle, in whose home their family was living. She described her brother crying and screaming while he tried to escape from his uncle. Although the rapist-murderer recalled that he did not like his uncle, he did not remember being raped by him.”