On melancholia, lack of rebellion - not speaking the truth (lying) deforms the man...

Karin Johannisson, professor in History of Ideas at the University of Uppsala, spoke in an interview on the Swedish TV the other night apropos her last book on melancholia that she thinks the lack of rebellion is striking in today's society. Yes, where’s the wrath?

Is it strange if people are depressed (melancholy), exhausted, burnout if they have to keep quiet, if they aren’t allowed to rebel or protest at the state of affairs?

The Swedish author Henning Mankell spoke in the morning-sofa on his last book about Kurt Wallander, also in an interview on Swedish TV, about the 60-year old man as distant or reserved (his home site). And apropos politicians that

”Not speaking the truth [lying] deforms the man.”

Karin Johannisson has also contributed to an anthology with the title (in my amateur translation from Swedish) ”The Power of Diagnosis: On Knowledge, Money and Suffering.”

About this book you can read:

The psychological suffering is extensive in the millennium shift Sweden. Burnout, stress related tiredness syndromes, depression, self damaging behavior, overweight, anorexia, Asperger syndrome and ADHD are only some of the names.

The stronger the medicalization, and making human beings psychological and social problems psychiatric, the more the biomedicine is given the preferential right of interpretation when those conditions occurs and makes so that those explanations (biomedical) are seldom called in question.

In the book researchers and clinical practicians meet around controversial questions concerning psychological suffering and the treatment that is offered.

“Is burnout a disease? How do new forms of psychological suffering arise [and from where does psychoilogocal suffering come?]? What’s normal respective divergent behavior? Has the space for what’s normal become narrower? How is a diagnosis created? Is ADHD a scientific diagnosis? Is there an oscillation movement between putting emphasis on inheritance respective milieu as causes for psychological suffering? Is medicine (pills) cheaper than psychotherapy? Is it the money that governs the creation of new knowledge? What sort of conditions favor researcher-cheating and how are the researchers’ integrity preserved?”

The editor Gunilla Hallerstedt sketches in the introduction the last decades’ changes in the society, the new forms of psychological suffering and ways of talking about them.

Karin Johannisson asserts that the diagnosis’ is working as a comment to the society, a limit for what’s seen as normal, reasonable and acceptable.

A head for a psychotherapy unity in Stockholm, Sigmund Soback, asks what sort of help all those sick, as those who became outburnt, depressed and severely stressed during the years 1998-2003, get, numbers that increased five times those years (among people under 35 years these numbers have increased nine times. Are people, and especially young people, weaker today?).

And what does evidence based treatment on the psychotherapy field mean?

According to Eva Kärfve, associate professor in sociology at the University of Lund, the biological outlook on man has been dominating for many centuries; the explanation to characteristics and peculiarities has been “inheritance by blood.” How does this come through in the view on divergences and when diagnosing?

Aant Elzinga, professor emeritus in Philosophy of Science, is reflecting from the other contributions in the book and shows how the world of science, entrepreneurs and politics are enmeshed in each other.

Yes, who writes the history? Who has the power to do this? And what does this power want to create? From where do those ideas in the power come? Is their outlook on man and society "right"?

It lies in the profit's interest that stress becomes individualized...

af Chapman, Stockholm, with the Royal Palace in the background.

[Updated July 28]. The Swedish professor in religion psychology Owe Wikström writes in his book “In praise of the slowness – or the danger of driving moped though Louvren”(2001) in my quick amateur-translation from Swedish that:

“Laying the blame for exhaustion on the individual solely is directly devastating, especially in times when fewer people has to do more things on a shorter time.

It lies in the profit's interest that stress becomes individualized [and that people start to blame themselves!!! Who are blaming themselves and who are not? The ones that ought to?? Or? We are punished for other people's doings???].

Structural reasons are momentary more expensive to take care of, but cheaper in longterm for the [whole] society.

That's the reason why it's important that the slowness' culture isn't made banal or becomes reduced to the private individual's task. It's also about politics and society.”

But of course each individual has a responsibility for her/himself, what she/he does to other people, to and for the society too!! But those two things, each individual's responsibility and the responsibility those with more power have, doesn't have to exclude each other or how you shall express it. There ARE things (structural) you can't master on your own!

Addition in the evening: Read Sunder Katwala (Guardian) in "When is inequality unfair?" And Paul Krugman in "Kings of Pain."

Addition July 28: When I read George Montbiot in "Politically Transmitted Disease" I had to smile a little. He ends his article with:

”When Unicef compared teenage pregnancy rates in different parts of the world, it found that the Netherlands had the rich world’s lowest incidence – five births per 1000 girls – and the US had the highest: 53 per 1000(16). Unicef explained that the Dutch had 'more open attitudes towards sex and sex education, including contraception.' There was no 'shame or embarrassment' about asking for help. In the US, however, 'contraceptive advice and services may be formally available, but in a ‘closed’ atmosphere of embarrassment and secrecy.'

Obama’s new budget aims to change all this, by investing in 'evidence-based' education programmes(17). The conservatives have gone ballistic: evidence is the enemy. They still insist that American children should be deprived of sex education, lied to about contraception and maintained in a state of mediaevel ignorance. If their own children end up with syphilis or unwanted babies, that, it seems, is a price they will pay for preserving their beliefs. The denialogues are now loudly insisting that STDs and pregnancies have risen because Bush’s programme didn’t go far enough. The further it went, the worse these problems got.”

Education and talking openly about those things seem to be preventive!! Even though some maintain that other programmes with worse results didn't go far enough.

He starts it as follows:

“All of us are in denial. Without it we couldn’t get through life. Were we to confront the implications of mortality, were we to comprehend all we have done to the world and its people, we wouldn’t get out of bed in the morning. To engage comprehensively with reality is to succumb to despair. Without denial there is no hope.

But some people make a doctrine of it. American conservatism could be described as a movement of denialogues, people whose ideology is based on disavowing physical realities. This applies to their views on evolution, climate change, foreign affairs and fiscal policy. The Vietnam war would have been won, were it not for the pinko chickens at home. Saddam Hussein was in league with Al Qaida. Everyone has an equal chance of becoming CEO. Universal healthcare is a communist plot. Segregation wasn’t that bad. As one of George Bush’s aides said, 'We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality.'

Collective denial has consequences. A new study by the US Centers for Disease Control (CDC) shows that during the latter years of the Bush presidency, America’s steady progress in reducing teenage pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases was shoved into reverse(2).”

Fighting for a cause, for justice, against bad conditions - cooperating or not…

we are celebrating Walpurgis Night this evening.

People are reacting at conditions at their workplaces… How do they deal with them? How do different people solve such problems?

Some go out like heroes, trying to rescue all and everyone? Try to point to the bad conditions. But how many of those succeed to change the situation? Or what happens with them?

Whistle blowers use to get into real troubles.

The advice is to not trying to change things on your own, but try to get together with other people. And if there is nobody to get together with try to "live" with things in some way anyway or look for another job.

Can one cooperate without obliterating oneself? In good conditions you can I think. In worse or bad this can be difficult. And this is even more difficult if you have things in your backpack you haven’t gotten help or been able to deal with. Then it can really be difficult acting constructively.

What about caring about other people, caring about another person?

The need for control, super egos, responsibility, independency, dependency…

[Slightly updated December 18. Brief addition December 19]

A blogger writes: Now we are going to become controlled down to the last detail, everything we do on the net shall become stored. Orwell’s society is here, twenty years later, but nevertheless. However more veiled.

Today we have the war against terrorism, a war we can never win. And this serves as argument for detailed control of every citizen.

The ones in power are playing on peoples’ tendencies to paranoia; in a similar manner as for instance Hitler once did to justify the Second World War?

Not so healthy leaders are playing on human being’s less healthy sides!?

Are the ones ruling today better in this respect (in not controlling people) than the former who were accused for a Big Brother Society this blogger wonders? (and are they less fundamentalistic or as much, and in some cases more?) And of course you can wonder with all right?

What about the freedom the ones ruling now spoke about before they came to the power? Was this freedom only for the economical elites’; their freedom doing as they like, to not have to contribute to all people’s welfare (including their own), while the people should become held down, in all respects, and become controlled in all ways you can think of?

Yes, I think an economist here is right who said (in my interpretation) that if the resources are distributed more equally this gains the whole societal economy, i.e. us all. And it creates a better society, than a one where we are played out against each other. Something the Scandinavian countries have shown? So far at least. But today... And in the future...

Where does the selfishness come from?

I read an article on Friday “The more we are together. When the crisis advances the ego has to back.”

There you could read that you don’t have to “sharpen your elbows” any longer. Not show your paces either. The ones used to focus on her/himself has maybe not seen this earlier/yet, but the individualism’s time has passed. The most sound would be if individuals could exists in the collective!?

For those individuals it felt right to say: I take responsibility for my own life. I trust myself. But a winner can loose the self-confidence too, when you realize that it wasn’t so easy with the self-realization. When it was shown that it wasn’t enough taking the matter into one's own hands.

A 60 hours week is always a 60 hours week. Even if you chose it yourself. How much individualist you even are, it isn’t enough, you become exhausted/burnout nevertheless.

Child psychologists tell us that our kids have been forced to develop their egos so much so they can’t function in a group at day care centers. The article writer writes that the superego is lying on lit de parade.

Disillusioned people are calling programs at the radio here to talk about old-fashioned things like “societal planning, the community and solidarity.”

However, some are feeling relief over this, among those thinking the “I” has gotten too much space.

What would a healthy “I” be? What is our true self? What needs are we striving to fulfill?

Some even admit that they are a bit malicious. One of those is the Swedish leader writer Göran Greider. In a TV-programme he seemed to have been talking about “the own responsibility.” Another Swedish writer also wrote about responsibility. Who are accused for not taking responsibility for themselves, their lives etc. And are there other people you don't demand responsibility from? The ones governing are talking quite moralistic about responsibility. But are the ruling classes taking responsibility? Are they demanded to take responsibility? Or do they cover it up as if they are taking responsibility "for people's own good"? Things that are really huring are done for our own good!? And they truly believe it is for our own good!

Greider meant that certain amount of selfishness is needed to push the development further, but the results of this selfishness ought to become distributed better to more people. I am not sure... What sort of selfishness should we have? One where we protect ourselves constructively and against real threats?

He means that the society needs solidarity values, so we dare (and can) trust (on) each other, even in the economy.

Alone is not strong, we need each other and are dependent on other people, what other people do and don’t do. What too many govening do is dividing and ruling? Getting power through diving and ruling.

The writers means that the big “I” doesn’t make us happy, not secure or rich either. Is it time for more collective solutions now?

Why are young people today so selfish or egoistic? They haven’t become brought under control enough? They have to learn to be more humble? From where does evilness come? Are we born this way? Do we have innate drives for destruction? I don't think so. I think this is something we have learned very early in life...

That many don’t seem to be why is that? Where have they learned this? What sort of role models have they had? And what society have they grown up in?

I.e. how should we raise young people, small children?

See this reader's letter to Alice Miller on obedience and being a living dead.

Addition December 19: and rebelling... If you are less harmed you rebel in a more constructive way? In a sounder and healthier way? And maybe in a more effective way? With fewer or in the best case no victims?

With a (very?) low status…

In a review on a dissertation “Att leva som utbränd” or “Living as burnout” by Mia-Marie Hammarlin it stands (my maybe a little free translation):

“Being burnout is feminized with the help of media, where the word ‘burnout’ gets a clear low status face – the middle age woman in public sector. Men retire to loneliness [solitude] and seem to be afraid of the connection with shame [and nerve weaknesses]. ‘Real chaps don’t get stricken with nerve weaknesses.’”

This review triggered a lot of thoughts and emotions, not only connected to the topic burnout. Here are some of those reactions and thoughts. It resulted in a lot of threads. And will maybe result in more postings than this one. So this posting is loudly thinking once again, and in many directions.

Even if it isn’t straight outspoken one can hear (or is this projection, a symbolic reaction/interpretation from my part?):

“What weakling you are! Why not just… One can seek oneself to other environments! To get more healthy and sound you have to seek yourself to a healthy and sound environment![what that is? If it exists and where.]”

The contempt for weakness - and for all those incapable of controlling themselves!! Something we have seen here around the debate about social insurances, things I am reacting very strongly and angrily at.

Women are since long schooled to stay (vistas) in powerless places it stood in the review. 35 years ago women overly trained in a traditional patriarchal pattern went right out into the public sector and was locked in there. Their own fault? How stupid of them! Blaming themselves too: How stupid of me! My own fault! I should have been able to handle it better! See the Primary defence.

The author of the dissertation seems to mean that being burnout is deeply embedded in sex and class problems. And wonders if depression and diffuse aches and pains can be an expression for female dissatisfaction, if these things can’t be seen as downright political actions, as a sort of demonstrations.

I don’t know, maybe they are, but if so not consciously?

And the reviewer writes that she wants to scream

“OF COURSE!”

as a reply, and she also hear a choir of female anger, furiously filling in in her scream.

Yes, reading this triggered a lot of thoughts and probably emotions around things that have happened and things I have experienced recently!!

About blaming the victim, false power denial of needs, lack of empathy and understanding/enlightenment - and once again - contempt for weakness.

And all these phenomena are there for to protect the ones reacting (reacting with contempt and rejection, wanting to educate and maybe also punish the ones not having any “stake” as we say) against the truth, a too painful truth, a SO painful truth so we need to protect ourselves against it. Seeing it from the Miller-point-of-view!

But these protections (or defences) turn to problems, not only for ourselves but also for other people (self-destructiveness and destructiveness), so if not sooner we ought to work on this now as adults. Because they can result and have resulted in political decisions with grave and severe consequences and continue to result in such things.

Thinking further and loudly in an attempt to understand and grasp these phenomena (how can people be so stupid and insensitive?): And contempt for weakness is also a protection: a protection against the realization and to this connected feelings on HOW in fact powerless the child once was and how this power and helplessness was used by the ones that were/are supposed to care for us the most. Realizations we and many want to avoid at all costs. With all what that means.

In circles where people are supposed to be enlightened I have heard things in the style and with the meaning (in my feeling and interpretation):

“But take yourself in the collar!! The question is about seeking oneself to an environment which is healthier, with healthier people.”

And if one doesn’t succeed in this… Then one is only to blame oneself?
And I have heard from those (men) that it’s the mothers’ fault how things are. Yes, that’s true, the mother is the first one in a child’s life… Does this mean that dads – and men – have no responsibilities thus?

But don’t we all have responsibilities each one of us, and the same responsibilities and should also have the exact same demands on us, no more or no less, whether we are women or men? And especially as or if we are grown ups! We all have responsibilities to contribute in making things better, and each of us have a responsibility for ourselves? And exactly the same responsibility?

But then, if we actually have those means in all circumstances is another question and to what degree? The structures can contribute to less power – in some circumstances? Oh, what am I after?

The more power you have the more harm you can do? And some don’t have any other power than the one over their children!

Fields of Gold.

You'll remember me when the west wind moves
Upon the fields of barley
You'll forget the sun in his jealous sky
As we walk in fields of gold
So she took her love for to gaze awhile
Upon the fields of barley
In his arms she fell as her hair came down
Among the fields of gold

Will you stay with me, will you be my love
Among the fields of barley?
We'll forget the sun in his jealous sky
As we lie in fields of gold
See the west wind move like a lover so
Upon the fields of barley
Feel her body rise when you kiss her mouth
Among the fields of gold

I never made promises lightly
And there have been some that I've broken
But I swear in the days still left
We'll walk in fields of gold
We'll walk in fields of gold

Many years have passed since those summer days
Among the fields of barley
See the children run as the sun goes down
Among the fields of gold
You'll remember me when the west wind moves
Upon the fields of barley
You can tell the sun in his jealous sky
When we walked in fields of gold
When we walked in fields of gold
When we walked in fields of gold

Morning reflections...

the dreadful (gruvliga) part of the town, not the sweet or delightful (ljuvliga). The poor people lived here earlier, but now these small red-painted houses are pretty expensive.

[Updated during the day]. Jenson writes at age 73-79 in her book "Att återerövra sitt liv" or "Reclaiming Your Life" about a pair, Mary and Joe, with problems in their relation. Joe is joiner and has become unemployed. But he doesn’t want to take his share of the work at home now when he doesn’t have a work any longer.

Mary works as nurse and has had the total responsibility for the home at the same as she has worked full time.

Joe gets very irritated when his kids or wife want something from him (his childhood story Jenson thinks), and Mary takes a lot of responsibility on her and has done from they got married.

When Mary can’t stand the situation and starts lashing out on her kids and gets headache and an enormous tiredness she wonders if she has got a depression and consults a doctor she works with. When he has heard her history and that her mother also suffered from depressions he thinks there is a hereditary tendency for depression and prescribes mood-rising medicine.

For a while their problems are relieved. But a pair like Mary and Joe often gradually realizes that antidepressants doesn’t lead to any positive changes and seek family advisory service (counselling or therapy for pairs).

This can be a good start – if the family counsellor understands that it is childhood experiences at the root of the problems. The relation is possible to improve, but to achieve the final healing, which gives the best possibility to create a sound closeness and a prospering love relation both need to work on their early experiences/history (take a look at it maybe for the first time, question things and see them as wrong etc.), not just relearn from the outside so to say (my, a little free, interpretation).

And they need to encounter a counsellor/therapist who understands these things (and has worked on them her/himself). I think Jenson is right, but the work doesn't necessarily has to be done through regular, proper (regelrätt) regressive or primal therapy... But a therapy where one gets help to process and integrate ones history. Without this the changes will be small and shallow. And maybe some ARE satisfied with this, of course.

And - this work is probably also so hard and painful so many retreat of understandable reasons?

Yesterday a female colleague (47 or 48 years) hitch-hiked from the music-school (and three workplaces meetings - phew!!) to a school we both work on on Mondays and she told me how she had it at home at present, upset (we have known each other for long). With husband, an old mom, and everything. How exhausted she is on Fridays (when we get vacation colds break out and things like that). But now she tries to get up early to take a walk (get some exercise) to prevent this and take care of herself.

Her dad recently died in cancer and her mom couldn’t stay in their house alone (and they have recently established the mom has a weak heart, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, what we call KOL etc. etc. and she got very worried over all this, and has to take all this). The mom has moved to an apartment in the town one month ago or so though and x thought maybe now things would calm down (and on top the new owners of the house complained about things in the house, so they have had to deal with this TOO).

X has two teenage kids, and they are reacting too in different manners (the son with compulsory behaviours. Yes, x is very open-hearted. And they have tried to treat this with changing his behaviour - only?).

x's only brother, 6 years older (and not married) died in cancer a few years ago, and x had to be hand holder to her parents in this - too. So she has no unloading (avlastning) through other siblings either now, to handle old parents sickness for instance. But she hadn't earlier either? And one can wonder whose responsibility things are too (for other grown up people,like her parents for instance, easy to say though)?

X has taken antidepressants and been in therapy or counseling for a lot more than ten years. Her husband has been to a therapist too, pushed by his wife. And it is possible they have been in therapy for couples for a short time…

And at work x is very responsible-taking, with a lot of initiatives. And she is quite outspoken and spontaneous, quite open about hers, and says things from the bottom of her stomach (med stödet).

But despite all this very little has actually changed I think!

She is still in counselling I think and maybe that has held her on her feet. But isn’t something lacking in this counselling/therapy? Or are real, genuine improvements impossible?

I think this man is right about how it is in the society (and in therapy too), see here.

Addition before lunch: Too great nearness can invoke fear in one of two… And feel like a violation to one of the parts. But this part can nevertheless feel a need to keep the individual who makes him (her) frightened, keep her (him) in his (her) grip in different manners (be attracted AND afraid). At the same time as this person fears she (he) is going to get too near he (she) can try to create, and maintain, a dependence relation, yes, even a sort of property relation with the one he (she) is fearing, through different manoeuvres, explicit or implicit, subtle and less subtle. For example about what is possible (and allowed) to speak of, and what not. Even concerning things that are important for one of the parts (the private/personal life, a passion, even that person’s work etc.).

Where the one kept is stifled in many different ways (both subtly and less subtly, but where the mechanisms perhaps aren’t clear for either part in what is happening, where the parts are confused over what’s happening, or at least one of them), and thus more and more limited and restricted, in all those traits that perhaps originally was attracting? Maybe liveliness that attracted?

Measures are taken which shall prevent an engagement that inspires to fear. Through this process the other is held on distance, between boundaries that feel safe. Through suffocating the other and at the same time demanding that the other shall be at ones disposal. But a controlled disposal, that isn’t frightening.

In a pair relation (love, friend etc.) which functions "normally" there “has” to be a mutual narcissistic confirmation (Marie-France Hirigoyen writes at page 30-31). But a pair driven by a perverse narcissism constitutes a deadly union; the degradation and attacks in the hidden, secret then becomes systematic.

The process is only possible with one part’s too great tolerance. But it isn't sure both agree to who has shown and is showing the greatest tolerance (or who is the most "tolerant", sensitive/insensitive, self-occupied/less self-occupied). Or do both (always) think in those terms (labeling the other)?

It can be about approval of a role as the caring about the other parts narcissism, a sort of mission where she (or he) has to sacrifice herself (himself).

And never the two meet... Sometimes even very sad - and tragic. To all involved. Not only to one of the two but both (all involved, if more people are involved).

PS. And with a sigh, I AM long winded, and I use question marks after statements, because I am wondering about things, not bomb-proof on things, testing thoughts, searching myself forward (onward?)...

Earlier postings under the labels empathy deficit, EQ and SQ. And I don't say I don't suffer from empathy deficits, or that I have any EQ and SQ to speak of... A totally hopeless case? More than people in general? Unable to teach, how much I even work and try and read?

I wouldn't quote a friend who was saying stupid, lousy things, but a friend saying good things, things I think more people ought to hear (if they should read what I write). Not link to a friend saying, writing stupid things. Maybe mention things I react against, if other people (than friends and people I respect) write stupid things (stupid in my mind, feelings, thoughts).

Addition in the evening: I got some books with the mail today. One was "Nystart i livet - hitta tillbaka till livsglädjen efter utbrändhet" by a Madeleine Åsbrink (her home site in Swedish). Translated a little freely it would be "Starting anew - finding the joy of living again after a burnout" (the other book was one about Lev Vygotsky). See this article in a Swedish newspaper, Aftonbladet.

At page 19 in the first book it stands, also this a little freely translated:

"I look myself around and see that there aren't many (role) models [there are very few successful, 'perfect' relations?]. In most cases one wants more in a relation than the other. This makes nearness impossible, a nearness we are all longing for but many times are unconsciously afraid of."

At page 20 she writes:

"I think many people clench their teeth and try with showing a facade that isn't true or genuine [the hypocrisy was worse 40-50 years ago though? Then one clenched the teeth even more?]. This work [with clenching and clenching our teeth] only drain our power and strength and doesn't lead to any changes [we have no power for these, or much less power for them?]."

I have many tired women (young and old) around me.

We have done an evaluation with the group I am one of the responsible for. On the last meeting yesterday we spoke about what the students have written. They want to make a journey of some kind as a kickoff this fall when we start again, to learn to know each other and especially the new ones.

With a smile I couldn't help saying:

"And I know who answered what, and it is the 'social' girls wanting this!"

They boys (in general) doesn't care really about those things. This is also something stress research has found; that women (in general) care (more) about the atmosphere at work (than men in general) and as the atmosphere and stress has become worse the last 15 years (economic steel bath and slimmed organizations) this has become another burden for women.