Anorexia and psychological treatment...

I get so furious (not on the young woman, but at the grown up world, our stupidity); one of my students haven't come to her last two lessons. After the first lesson I sent a text message to her... After the second I contacted the headmaster and according to one of her other teachers, whom I met yesterday, this young woman tried to commit suicide (halfheartedly) a couple of weeks before Christmas, with pills.

She is under treatment for her anorexia. What was this young woman's message? Is she aware of it herself? What was her cry for help about? Does she know herself? Is she allowed to acknowledge? I have my wonders...

See Miller's book "The Body Never Lies" and the third chapter "Anorexia: The Longing For Genuine Communication", where you can read "The Fictional Diary of Anita Fink."

Can I bring my doubts up about the treatment she is receiving for her anorexia with this student I wonder?? And I have to wonder too how MY communication with this young woman is! If it's lacking "genuineness"?

See Miller's site under the label "anorexia"!

The life ought to be so beautiful and wonderful for us all as the picture above...

The keyword is respect…

Unlikenesses to each other (or differences) in a relation can be stimulating – so long as one respects each other (mutually).

No dating-firms (businesses) pair a meat-eater with a vegan. But in real life love doesn’t make such considerations. Some people are even drawn to what’s different (or unlike).

“It’s a question of personality,”

a female Swedish psychologist says.

“People whom are fearless or daring in their attachment style can think differences are exciting.”

And by age you can develop more and more into that direction, from being quite cautious?

During the falling in love time (or phase) differences can even be charmy. It’s not until the hormones are calming down one starts to wonder.

“How will this function?”

You don’t use your “left brain half” when you are in love. No (or little) logic thinking is involved.

Therefore one needs to sit down and resonate:

“We are very different, how shall we handle this?”

If you can solve the problems together, communicate and have a good sex life most of these things will get fixed and function. The keyword is respect.

“The best is to accept that this person is in a certain way and learn to handle this.”

With time you adjust to each other. This doesn’t have to mean compromising yourself to death, but can on the contrary (on the other hand) mean that you broaden your mind ("widen your views" or "vidgar dina vyer" as we say here in Sweden)!

“Love is to compromise a little (on the same conditions and mutually). To get a good relation you need to preserve both your own self and adjust to each other. You shall not change yourself to please, but to discover new things and have fun together.”

“But sometimes a relation with someone who is the entire opposite of oneself is entirely precarious.”

“When the differences becomes too big it ends up with that you make things with other people (maybe entirely) than with your partner – and what sort of relation do you have then?”

Miller writes about our longing for true, genuine communication. Yes, that’s what we seek, even if we aren’t aware of it or are thinking in these terms??

Read here, here and here.

Love and communication…

from a very nice walk in a stream bed...

In one of our evening papers they wrote about love, sex, and partnership a couple of days ago…

I quote from it: A cut off communication can be difficult taking up again. But it is possible, even if it demands both patience and understanding.

Things that happened here made me reflect on the topic “understanding” and forgiveness on a walk late this afternoon… I was quite upset walking in the woods. Thought on where I want to give it, of free will because a person is so important, and where I don’t really want to give it, because I am not really free to choose and have never been free choosing, but forced to understand and forgive and think on!!! Do I at last have this right? In the age I am!! Horrible it is like this! That I am still not really, really sure? Or am I, a bit more?

Lack of lust can have many bottoms, often a combination of both outer and inner factors which influences us.

Long term stress, anxiety and lack of sleep can create an undefined depression. A low self-esteem and inner demands can be reasons.

The basic, fundamental rules for communication are honesty, respect and sensitiveness for hearing. From both parts I want to add (seen to my parents’ marriage, where there wasn’t balance in that respect!!).

When you want to bring something up/about with your partner, try to start from your self, your thoughts, emotions and needs.

Describe what you appreciate and what you feel good by.

• Remember/don’t forget: to talk, laughter - and sex.
• Show consideration and solicitude. Do something that is good for your partner. A showed consideration makes a big difference and it doesn’t always have to be something magnificent to have effect. Rather small expressions of love each day than one big half a year.
• Give each other time: both you and your partner need space and time for recovery and for resting. That’s beneficial for the lust. In everyday life you can take responsibility for different days when it comes to household things. Let one evening be your own, where you yourself decide what you want to do. If you want to sleep, do exercise, meet friends or just be.
• Touch is life important. Upgrade everyday petting/necking! A kiss, a caress and a warm hand are things which gives us power and energy. It awakens desire and lust and all our senses. Everything doesn’t have to lead to sex necessarily, but being reminded about the partnership and that longing exists is beneficial.

• Be glad over the differences. You and your partner are different. Remaking (?) each other (trying to make the other person to somebody else) is nothing to aim at. Allow the differences and see them as an inspiring source to development. However, some conflicts are important clearing out. Then do this with great respect for yourself and the one you love. You ought to have the sight directed at finding a new balance in feeling well together.

Communication and communicating...

a peaceful place I visited during my journey last week.

In the magazine MåBra (or FeelWell) a woman wanted an advice and asked, the heading to the question was "Now I want to have children - but he doesn't":

“Since some time I live with a man older than I am. All the time he has been clear with that he can’t give me any children. He feels too old he thinks and has children since earlier.

I have been satisfied with that as I haven’t wanted any children either. But the last time my feelings have started to change. I love the man I live with and want to live with him, but the realisation I will never become mother has started to gnaw in me. However, I don’t dare to talk to him about this; it feels as if I desert him. What shall I do?”

The adviser answers, this is only part of the answer and true for other things too it felt:

“You have changed your mind about having children. Who knows, maybe he also has. If you don’t ask him you will perhaps never get to know. Explain to him how you feel and ask him how he feels confronted with your changed mind. And how he feels about the thought of getting children together.

You are failing him if you don’t tell him what you feel inside. Being honest, sincere and talking about your dreams, fears and other important things is not to desert, on the contrary. This is what brings one nearer, both nearer oneself and the other part in a relation.”

Yes, this is true for a lot of other things in a relation too? And - it is a VERY tricky thing? Many times one thinks one is very open and communicating everything, but one isn’t to that degree as one thinks?

Instead one interprets and imagines what the other part thinks, wants, and feels (or doesn't even reflect)? Mind reads, and the other part maybe also demands mind reading, i.e. that you shall know what he (she) feels, wants, thinks, how she (he) reacts etc.!? This causes misinterpretations and misunderstandings… And broken relations, both necessary and unnecessary…

Miller writes about the wish and/or quest for open, genuine communication (a longing which also contains fear, why it is so difficult?)…

The therapists Jenson and Bosch thinks there exists a defence they call False power denial of needs… By denying one has needs one gets a false sense of power, and if you have no needs you can't get hurt. The opposite/other side of the coin is that we never get close or near neither to ourselves (really) nor to other people? We never get real contact with our true selves?

But we have probably reasons not to open up… Afraid of showing our Achilles heals, maybe with good reasons sometimes too, but more seldom than we think and believe?

More on music…

Lars-Erik Larsson.

Hjalmar Gullberg.

In the magazine Opus a Swedish priest says:

“I believe in the synthesis between the verbal message and the music. And don’t forget that many people are tired of words. Many people prefer listening to the music [listen to music more than a lot of words. We need to express ourselves with other means than words too! For instance through different artistic expressions. And communicate with other means! And we need to be active communicators and executors, not only passive receivers! People have written and expressed earlier...*].”

At another place it stood about music-execution:

“They know the entirety is dependent on the parts, that the parts are cooperating or working together for the harmony's and for development's sake, and that the differences and distinctiveness (särprägling) are resources.”

It also stood about "Disguised God" in this magazine, with music by the composer Lars-Erik Larsson and lyrics by Hjalmar Gullberg.

Listen to Disguised God here with Håkan Hagegård as soloist. Here Erland Josephson reciting from it. And Hillevi Martinpelto soprano-soloist in it. Two years ago I finished a course that was held in this school.

* The mind and soul - and brain needs stimulation? The whole person needs nourishment, nourishment of other kinds than only things we take in through the mouth! Many live on starvation-diets of many different kinds? Living in environments giving little too? Drawn to them, into them, in a sort of re-enacting of their early lives? Lonely (but maybe not always literally), in soils where one can't really grow? And many look down on these persons? Admire the intelligent and successful? Contempt for weakness I would say... Something even so called "enlightened" show.

More on communication, dialog, individualism…

[May 23: the language slightly changed. I hope to the better a little]. Written in a hurry: In a leader-chronicle with the heading ”Human fellow being rather than supporter on distance” the leader-writer and priest Helle Klein reflects upon communication, active talk, dialog, being human fellow being… She writes about building bridges between the author and her/his reader. A Swedish author Stig Dagerman thought that literature should be an active talk. Involving the reader in a way of being or doing to life.

She also referred to the author Sonja Åkesson whose communicative credo was that the author must be a human fellow being. Also see here about her.

It stood about solidarity and understanding, that we are alike towards life.

If one should judge from the current debates on literature here art seems to become more and more like monologues rather than being carried by a will to a meeting with The Other Klein writes. The human being of today is either a distanced viewer of other people’s misery or totally blinded by what we call “navelskådande” (sitting watching ones navel, see about hesychasm). “Me” stands in front of “You” and the talk ceases.

She then draws parallels to the political world, to politics. We are daily reminded about this distanced “we and them” thinking in the talk about outside-ship, insurance-cheating and integration. The old popular movements are crackling. You are rather supporter than member in political parties today. The members are no longer team-players but rather a claque of supporters. The political pros manage the societal work. We others are viewers watching. As supporters we maybe get season-cards and MAYBE an autograph by the team-leader or favourite-player. But that we should have viewpoints on the play. No, that would be impossible. We can of course scream till we are hoarse (husky) in the galleries (bleachers).

Even our social democrat language (here) has lost the sense that solidarity sprouts in mutuality.

How would it be if the strategists invited to a realization of the vision about a social and democratic society?

Is it time for the campaign: the politician as human fellow being? How realistic?

And today there is a leader in a local newspaper here about the biggest party to the right, the Moderate party, saying that this party isn’t democratic either (something we don’t really expect however).

The leaders have turned more and more authoritarian again, it looks (feels) as they are thinking they are doing what they are doing for "our own good"? As if they think they know best what our best is (talk about having high thoughts about themselves). Authoritarian – you don’t have to listen, you can sail above people arrogantly.

And at last; I found "A disobedient child is worthy of death"! There it stands in the beginning:

“FIRST BIBLE LESSON: MATTHEW 19:19

‘HONOR THY FATHER AND THY MOTHER: and, THOU SHALT LOVE THY NEIGHBOR AS THYSELF.’

SECOND BIBLE LESSON: LUKE 2:51

‘And he went down with them, and came to Nazareth, and was subject unto them: but his mother kept all these sayings in her heart.’

GOLDEN TEXT: MATTHEW 15:4

‘For God commanded, saying, HONOR THY FATHER AND MOTHER: and, HE THAT CURSETH FATHER OR MOTHER, LET HIM DIE THE DEATH.'"

Many still live after this?

What sort of models do we have? Why have we voted for those (lousy, yes, I think they are :-)) politicians?

Systematic work on the childhood history…

from a museum one year ago.

Miller writes at page 50 in her book “The Truth Will Set You Free – Overcoming Emotional Blindness and Finding Your True Adult Self” in the chapter ”Evading Childhood Reality in Psychotherapy”:

“…anxieties cannot be dissipated if clients sense their therapists’ fear of their own childhoods. They will identify with that instead of seeking as adults to fathom their childhoods. They will merely end up reliving the panic of their traumatic early years without understanding it fully. Only systematic work on the history of their childhoods can give clients a frame of reference that will enable them constantly to improve their understanding of the crippling fears beginning to surface and to recognize their origins.”

---

"…ångestar kan inte skingras om klienter känner sina terapeuters rädslor för sina egna barndomar. De kommer att identifiera sig med detta istället för att som vuxna försöka begripa och omfamna sina barndomar. De kommer blott och bart att sluta med att återuppleva paniken i sina traumatiska tidiga år utan att förstå detta till fullo. Bara systematiskt arbete på deras barndomshistoria kan ge klienter den referensram som kommer att göra det möjligt för dem att förbättra sin förståelse av de förlamande och [faktiskt] förkrympande rädslorna som börjar komma upp till ytan och att känna igen deras ursprung.”

Yes, systematic work would be needed.

Anxieties can be unconscious? And often are? We should need to get help recognizing them instead of playing them out in different manners. Playing them out without being really aware of it?

If one doesn’t get this help what do one do in the meantime?

Miller also writes at page 49-50:

“But the more strongly the parents’ urge to exercise power manifests itself as a way of covering over their own helplessness, the more enigmatic [difficult to explain] the language of the child’s symptoms becomes. Ultimately, there is no hope of any genuine communication. Only when the parents give up their bid for power can the child’s distress find a voice. We will not get very far if we try to escape the truth we are carrying within us. The denied truth will be with us wherever we flee. It will cause us pain, prompt us to do things we will regret, increase our confusion, and weaken our self-confidence. But if we face up to it, we have a chance of finally recognizing what happened, what didn’t happen, and what has forced us to end up living our lives in opposition to our most profound needs.”

---

“Men ju starkare föräldrarnas drift att utöva makt manifesterar (uppenbarar) sig som en väg att täcka över deras egen hjälplöshet, ju mer enigmatiskt (gåtfullt, svårförklarligt) blir språket i barnets symtom. Till slut finns det inte något hopp om en äkta, genuin kommunikation. Bara när föräldrarna ger upp sitt anspråk på makt kan barnets trångmål finna en röst. Vi kommer inte att komma särskilt långt om vi försöker fly från sanningen vi bär omkring inom oss. Den förnekade sanningen kommer att följa oss varhelst vi flyr. Den kommer att orsaka oss smärta, den kommer att driva oss att göra saker som vi kommer att ångra, öka vår förvirring och försvaga vårt självförtroende. Men om vi försöker möta denna har vi en chans att slutligen känna igen vad som skedde, vad som inte skedde och vad som tvingade oss att sluta i att leva våra liv i motsats, motsättning med våra djupaste behov.”

She continues with recounting the story of Birgitte and Henry both therapists in training, see this blogposting, where I have translated the English text to Swedish.

Therapists and many (maybe most) so called helpers walk in the leading-strings of the power, and pass what's opportune at present or for the time being forward in their work with people.

Once again see the blogpostings on "See no Evil..." here and here, and also the blogposting on "Seeing, hearing or speaking no evil..."

But the trick is not seeking help in a sect or cult or with a guru. But seek help with persons whom can handle those things without using, misusing or exploiting ones plight. Miller has written quite a lot about this.

We can in the meantime try to write about these things and maybe narrate our histories in contexts and circumstances that feels safe? The more we do the better?

And it's true as Marie-Louise Wallin wrote in her article about Dr Phil "Boycott Dr Phil...", that

"...human beings can only grow in interplay with others."

A truth with modification as we say? Because it can be the opposite too, even in therapies, where you are supposed (rightfully!) to get help. But in general we think much better when we talk about things in dialogs. In a giving and taking. Something that isn't so easy always, no...

On my own I wouldn't have achieved what I have achieved here in my blogs for instance?? That's absolutely for sure? And I hope what I have done has inspired and will inspire other people doing the same or similar things...

Silently thinking... And I am so grateful to many people in this world who have spoken up and continue to speak up! I use my writing as a way of processing things I read, meet, react on... And I use my blogs as a sort of library for myself, in collecting things somewhere I want to return to.

Digital navel-strings – shall one cut those?

Visualization of a portion of the routes on the Internet.

[Updated after lunch and in the evening, see the end of this posting]. I skimmed a magazine “Smockan” from “Sveriges musik- och kulturskoleråd” or “Sweden’s music and culture schools council” (a club for mutual admiration?? :-)) at work the other day and found an article there I thought was interesting or which made me think and not least feel “Digitala navelsträngar – ska man klippa dom?” or “Digital navel-strings – shall one cut those?” *

And I also read a leader-chronicle on “Vi mår nog inte alltid bra av att allt är offentligt” or (a little freely) “We probably don’t feel well by making all and everything public” by the leader writer and Lutheran priest Helle Klein. I thought these two articles paralleled each other.

First the former article which was about a lecture on the theme communication by a Micke Gunnarsson working on the web and communication bureau Noisy Cricket (Gunnarsson's own home site).

On this lecture or seminar he gave a quick history lesson, history light as they wrote, where he said that the society has developed from an agricultural society where it was demanded of people that they should be able to work with their bodies, have strong bodies to work with, and that one should be stationary and collective, to an industrial society where more education and brain was needed, with the demands being more functional and being more of a specialist (what about being a complex individual?) and where it was more focus on the individual.

But now when I reread this it strikes me that being able to think, i.e., having a brain wasn’t less necessary then probably, was it? Not even for a stone age human being! Even then people needed to figure things out to solve problems of different kinds and to anticipate or foresee the results of their actions.

He said that in today’s knowledge society communication, networks, speed and complexity is needed.

“You share knowledge in another way today, the techniques for exchanging knowledge happen all over the world.”

Being young today means largely becoming confirmed (a need becoming confirmed), it is no coincidence you can upload pictures and information about yourself on different portals on the net he said.

Children and youth need to have full control all the time, they want to know perpetually and constantly what’s going on (the need for power and control?). It’s about speed; you shall be able to find things quickly on the net. It’s also very important with contacts and networks; it’s status having a lot of contacts.

A lot of the communication happens on the net too, something media in large has realized and uses.

The second article was about a funeral of a small 10-year old girl Engla that was brutally murdered. Her funeral was sent in Swedish Television last week. And this is something that has never happened here earlier. Earlier it has only been well known people’s funerals that have been sent on TV. And it has been a hot debate on this here.

Helle Klein reflects over tendencies in the society, making everything public. She points out (which is true!!!) that the church’s all ceremonies are public, so also funerals.

According to her a lot of people use to call the editorial offices in crisis and catastrophes wanting to share their despair.

In today’s individualized world the mutuality is shaped in our collective mourning she thinks. In that sense she thinks it’s a good thing the grief isn’t privatized.

At the same time there is a narcissistic back of cancelling (en narcissistisk baksida av upphävandet av) the boarder between private and public (yes, I come to think of integrity, of boundary violations and the expressions of these things and the roots for these things). She thinks it is as if people’s sorrow doesn’t exist if the media hasn’t reported about it. The seduction in being mirrored is strong she writes.

But she doubts if we feel well in long term making everything public.

We get married in media, vi are operated in media, we talk about our marriages in media, we make love in media, we mourn in media, yes, we even die in media.

She thinks the blog-culture is the outer expression of today’s narcissism (!!). All shall get passed forward.

There are traits of elitism in the (recent) debate though. Nobody question if the great director’s funeral is televised, but televising a 10-year old girl’s funeral is awful in people’s minds.

The church need to help people safeguarding their integrity instead of making the publicity easier. We need to protect the soul from unsound exploitation she writes.

Present-day people should need the experience of being part of a context exceeding herself without that this should mean cancelling the private sphere.

She thinks it’s time preaching freedom as relation but not necessarily as publicity.

In the old popular movements (folkrörelserna) empathy was exercised in meeting with the Other person in different contexts. The human being was seen as relational and the social bonds were strongly interlaced. Today it’s different. Through TV-cameras a sort of connection, coherence is shaped, that’s true, but when the searchlights are turned off the individual stands there alone on the stage. The audience has gone home.

Klein thinks the public’s perspective is as short-sighted as the speculation on the stock. We need room for long-range seeing, where the social bonds remain, beyond the medialization’s fugitiveness. We ought to greet each other with

“See you tomorrow. We live in each other’s company.”

Human kindness needs the eye of eternity.

---

Earlier postings on autonomy, boundary violations, and integrity. How would it be if we were capable of meeting children from the first start and onwards with true, genuine respect? What sort of society would we have? How would young people's needs be?

But we would probably need help with this ourselves first, to develop awareness and sensitivity. I imagine we aren't even aware of what we do always. But of course that's no excuse! We are probably not aware of what effects our actions have emotionally on young people?

But the more we write and speak about these things the better? But I guess this will be met with denial from many people?

* In the Swedish part it stands about the naval string or navelsträng:

"Navelsträngen används ibland metaforiskt för att antyda att en person inte har frigjort sig ifrån sin moder."

Translated:

"The naval string is sometimes used metaphorically to imply or suggest that a person hasn't liberated hím/herself from her/his mother."

And it is used with a contemptuous undertone. A sort of contempt for weakness. But from where does the inability to cut the ties to one's mom come? See about autonomy above and what Miller has written about this. Something in the style that if the child hasn't got the opportunity, help and support to develop an own, genuine, true self she can't be autonomous either **(my free interpretation). And how does one help (or rather support) a person in reaching such an autonomy? Not by contempt though?

And I don't say I have come to terms with these things at all. I am still struggling, and will probably continue struggling with them! Maybe the rest of my life?

** But maybe the later grown up can disguise it's lack of autonomy very cleverly and intelligently, and fool both her/himself and the environment?? Or become too independent? Deny his/her needs of other human beings?

Updated after lunch: Sigrun at Sigrun's blog wrote that this popular Norwegian Christmas song was written on May 17, 1992, the Norwegian Constitution Day or the National Day of Norway.

Happy May 17!

En stjerne skinner i natt

Nå er den hellige time
vi står i stjerneskinn
og hører klokkene kime
nå ringes julen inn

Englene synger høyt i kor
synger om fred på vår jord
verden var aldri helt forlatt
en stjerne skinner i natt

En nyfødt kjærlighet sover
nå er guds himmel nær
vår lange vandring er over
stjernen har stanset her

Englene synger høyt i kor
synger om fred på vår jord
verden var aldri helt forlatt
en stjerne skinner i natt

Se himmlen ligger og hviler
på jordens gule strå
vi står rundt krybben og smiler
for vi er fremme nå

Nå kan vi drømme om den fred
som vi skal eie en gang
for dette barn har himmlen med
og jorden fylles med sang

~Eivind Skeie / Tore W. Aas~
---
En stjärna lyser så klar

Nu i den heliga timman
ser vi mot himlens höjd
och vi hör klockorna klinga
känner vart hjärtas fröjd.

Änglarna ger oss hopp och tro
sjunger om fred på vår jord
allt som Gud aldrig övergav
en stjärna lyser så klar

Kärleken världen behöver
vet vi att barnet bär
vår långa vandring är över
stjärnan har stannat här

Änglarna ger oss hopp och tro
sjunger om fred på vår jord
allt som Gud aldrig övergav
en stjärna lyser så klar

Himmelen ligger och slumrar
på jordens gula halm
vi känner fröjd och förundran
för vi har kommit fram

Här kan vi drömma om den fred
som vi skall äga en gång
barnet som fötts tar himlen med
och jorden fylls utav sång

Änglarna ger oss hopp och tro
sjunger om fred på vår jord
allt som Gud aldrig övergav
en stjärna lyser så klar

Updated in the evening: Thanks for the Swedish text, Sigrun! Maybe I will use this Christmas song, a song I actually haven't heard earlier. The text was very beautiful!

Communication...

picture taken from here.

Here some great things I found I would want to save, and keep here. The thread was about pressures people like Alice Miller (and all other struggling for these issues) have/had to resist on all sides, but it felt as this is applicable in other circumstances.

And see earlier postings on "giving and taking voice." And as van Dyke wrote:

"Use what talent you possess - the woods would be very silent if no birds sang except those that sang best"

(Henry van Dyke)

And I also found this in Quotations when I scrolled my blog to listen to a video:

"But with adult freedom and responsibility come the potential to break silence, to use voice and language to promote internal integration, deeper external connection, and a social transformation, Through communication – integration within ourselves and connection between individuals – we can become whole; embodied, aware, vital, powerful”

(Jennifer Freyd in the chapter “Removing Blinders, Becoming Connected” in her book “Betrayal Trauma…”)

John Stuart Mill writes in his essay on "The Subjugation of women" (1869) or “Underkuvandet av kvinnor” according to this site (also see his book "The Subjection of Women", are these two actually the same book, but with slightly different titles?):

“But was there ever any domination which did not appear natural to those who possessed it? ... the generality of the male sex cannot yet tolerate the idea of living with an equal... In the present day, power holds a smoother language, and whomsoever it oppresses, always pretends to do so for their own good...”

Translated it would be something like:

“Men fanns det någonsin någon tyranni som inte tycktes vara naturlig för den/dem som ägde (besatt) den?...

…allmängiltigheten hos det manliga könet kan dock inte tolerera idén att leva med en jämlik… Som det är idag så håller makten ett mildare språk, och vem den än förtrycker, låtsas han/hon alltid att han/hon gör det för deras eget bästa…”

From where do these needs come? Other quotations from Mill's book "The Subjection of women" see here.

The person writes that she (he) would like to see her (Alice Miller's) 'failures' given the same level of compassionate understanding that she asks for children. And she (he) does this so well; how to communicate, or how we could try to communicate… She puts things in words so well. I couldn’t find better words I think... It could have been written by me...

“Someone is always first to walk a new path; everyone who follows finds rough places left untrodden. What's more important is that she took the first steps - it is up to the rest of us to smooth the way and widen the path, without criticizing her for not finishing the whole job in one go [but we are allowed to question things, and shall question things too? But how do we do this? How can we do this to reach out with our message? And, of course, is it always possible to reach out with our messages?]."

“…we humans are just barely beginning to evolve beyond the raw violence of the jungle. We have a LONG way to go; let's not waste our energy attacking other wounded souls who, like us, are doing the best they can with damaged goods.

We're a bunch of wounded, limping, bleeding folks struggling along as best we can; let's help each other! [and not least to people trying to understand and working hard on trying to understand, who aren't mean and don't want to harm other people, and who aren't mean. And maybe also is dong this mostly on her own, in a sort of monologue. Of course she can be "misled" from time to time? Or? Even less if what she says or writes isn't really met]. To me, criticism has no place in this. And how else do we learn, you might ask? Well, there's a zen saying that goes ‘Do not teach unless asked’ (something like that). In other words, a person is not going to learn something until they're ready. So it's a waste of time to criticize.”

Yes, I think that is true, but we are allowed to question things…

”Instead, we're each responsible to try to get the healing we need, and as we heal, we become available as 'enlightened witnesses' for others who are still suffering. We are there, ready to offer a hand if and when a person asks for help.”

She (he) thinks that we use different ways in our processes of making sense of our own life experiences? We walk different paths, use different strategies, more or less? Can't we do this? Walking there in parallel? And can't this be to complement each other? Respecting each other in our struggles? So long as we don't hurt other people (or ourselves)? But this is probably not easy. Hmmm, this easily sounds so pretentious?

Continues here. Well worth reading!

Psychosocial stressors in children…

from the Swedish child-film Dunderklumpen (1974, English site here and Swedish here), I have played the first tune with a couple of pupils.

Peter Währborg (see former posting "Empathy and Stress...") also writes about children and psychosocial stressors at page 79-81 in his book (mentioned in the former posting).

He writes that in the main the same things which are stressing children are stressing adults.

The most important stressors are emotionally significant separations, for instance parents divorce, but also getting new teachers and classmates. When children loose a part of the body because of illness or accident they react with a powerful stress reaction, as when a person whom is important dies or moves. Children lives in a world which is a little bigger than adults understand Wärhborg writes.

Discomfort (vantrisel) being in a school and a class which only causes social and psychic suffering is of course not fun and causes (sometimes severe) stress in children. If you experience (thinks) you don’t manage especially well in school each failure gives new proofs on your insufficiency or inadequacy. The self esteem is jeopardized, and the inability to live up to the demands parents, teachers or others put turns into chronic stress.

Difficult relations are another source of stress in children. It looks as children in this case reacts more equal to grown up women, i.e., they react more pronounced on difficult relations than men do.

Children have many different sorts of relations which can play a significant or important role for the risk developing stress (my addition: and for minimizing the bad effects?).

Especially powerful are the stress reactions in children exposed to insulting “specific treatment” (särbehandling) or victimization (?) such as mobbing. (See this pdf-file on "Victimization at Work" from the Swedish National Board of Occupational Safety and Health).

Währborg thinks that children’s sensitivity means that the best would be if the classes were small and stable.

Encroachments (abuse), accidents, maltreatment or other severe traumas also causes stress. Sometimes this stress state is of a more serious nature, so called Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome. Not least children who have immigrated can carry things with them that they haven’t got any opportunity to process.

Währborg also mentions time and decision conflicts as a source for stress reactions in children something we also see in adults. When children feel powerlessness or that they don’t have control over their situation they react with stress.

Children suffer more seriously because of lack of security and social stability. The family-situation plays an important role in this (in moderating, and in moderating both this and that?). Here it isn’t only a question of interaction-patterns in the family but also about events happening to the family.

My brief reflections: We have tended to minimize and belittle things children experience, and to sweep it under the rug? And it was even more so earlier? If you didn’t talk about bigger and smaller events or traumas they didn’t harm one thought. And the child and whole events became surrounded by silence.

See about the ACE-study here and here.

Loud thinking…

from a walk April 17, 2007.

[Updated in the evening, see the end] I thought yesterday about writing about my role as teacher, triggered by both this and that probably during a long time, and my possible influence on young people – in a negative sense. Of course? What do I have to contribute with?

But there was so much at work, so I hadn’t time writing then. And now it feels as I don’t have that inspiration or drive any longer. Probably temporary. But I will make a try.

I think we as grown ups aren’t aware of what we are doing always despite all good intentions. But as long as we try to have a good communication we can at least talk about these things.

And still, I don’ feel like a real grown up, am still feeling like a girl… What are they calling it in the co-dependency movement? “Grown up child”?

I got the great honour joining eight speech-lessons with my oldest nephew and two of his friends (they were 20 years and just below) and his sister (my niece, then soon 16 years) a little more than a year ago. And the speech-teacher said after our first initial telephone-calls that she thought I was younger than I was… I felt very ambivalent about this...

Sounding very kind? And nonthreatening? Mom’s cheerful girl? So she wouldn’t get bent to the ground, as a lousy and bad mother? Not adding to the burden of guilt on her shoulders? And not threatening dad with being a strong, competent woman?

Miller writes about a longing and wish to communicate directly, openly without taboos or ideological walls. Yes, many f us have that longing, but not always consciously? Many of us aren’t even really aware of it? Noone has helped us put words on it?

She writes in Path of Life that she thinks she has developed a greater patience by the years, because she thinks she doesn’t have to prove to other people something that is obvious to her any longer.

With time she has become more tolerant and patient she writes. She thinks she can wait for others easier than she has been able earlier, and that she can give others the time they need to convert or transform her thoughts in action.

The fact that she hasn’t felt less alone as twenty years ago (today thirty years ago?) has helped her in this she thinks.

Many people, autodidacts and professionals (fact-people) have with time confirmed her thesis, expanded and broadened them from their own experiences, both inspired by her and also totally independently.

She thinks it was very painful realising what she had done to her children of pure ignorance. What she neglected for their and her own sake. She thinks it was (and I guess it still is, when she today realises more and more) painful realising that with more information many things could have developed differently and better, and that much isn’t possible to get back. Things you can’t make it undone. For some this can be so painful so they don’t begrudge other people (many times own children) other and much better experiences?

She writes that most women she knows are glad that they at least today are better informed than earlier about how a small child sees the world and better informed about its most vital needs. The increased knowledge makes it easier to have a more open dialogue with their now grown up children and develop a new understanding for their grandchildren.

But still she thinks these people amount to a minority.

She writes that many get depressed when they one day with astonishment realises or establishes how they in their relation to not least their children and partner are lacking the freedom which they have longed from since their youth. Not always consciously longing?

Maybe they then feel as if they were in a sort of blind alley or dead end (återvändsgränd). As children they couldn’t find their way out. They had no choices, had to adapt to the environment, and as grown ups they don’t even know they have any alternatives.

If we get more aware about those stampings (??) we don’t have to behave like automats.

And yes, how does one handle these things as grown up?

How does one react when one sees things, or think one sees things? What is about me and what is about the other part? Now I am thinking about what I see among children and young people… And what I see in the interaction between children and parents. When it comes not only to pupils, but also to siblings, cousins, friends’ children?

So I act in a way that isn’t harmful for anyone, but constructive…

And also; how do I avoid myself too adding damage? And how do I handle if I see things colleagues do? How do we talk about these things?

The best way would be trying to work on ones own issues? And try to find people with whom one could talk about these things with (face to face would be the best?), in a non-moralizing way?

PS. This afternoon our Youth Symphony Orchestra has 25-year jubilee, with concert and buffet after the concert. Former colleagues coming...

There's a lot more I would want to blog about: the school... For instance a long article about our grade system (which has been and is a hot debate here) in the teacher's paper, which I got yesterday, and Education at a Glance, a report from OECD I was tipped about by a friend (a shorter version than the linked though), which I have printed out and started to read here and there. And, no, it isn't really about education at a glance (med en flyktig blick)! This report is 451 pages long, but my shorter version is "only" 58 pages long.

There's a backlash in society? Our current school minister is very authoritarian I think.

At wikipedia it stands about his political views (I didn't vote for this government, whose politics I don't like...):

"Björklund is often seen as a representative of the more right-wing, hard-edged faction of the Liberal Party. He has focused most on school issues, where he is known for his support for orderliness and discipline. He has criticized the Swedish schools system for being to 'muddled' and not focusing enough on knowledge. Among other things, he has advocated more frequent assessments and a reformed grade system.

In 2002, as first deputy chairman of his party, Björklund expressed his support for the coming U.S. invasion of Iraq and urged for Swedish participation in the multinational coalition."

Updated in the evening: In a programme at the Swedish TV Beckman, Ohlson and Can, with for instance our current school minister (se above) and the director Suzanne Osten (her home site in English), they spoke about our “muddled” school - and “muddled” society in general (a deep sigh).

Osten said something I think was worth thinking of, a little freely related by me:

“Scared people are screaming about ‘muddle’ (flum)! They try to find one single solution to all problems! A kind of black-white thinking. We want to define all human weakness away. We have a dream of a hero [a father-figure, hard but just?], who shall come there and save us [the Swedish professor in religion-psychology Owe Wikström wrote something similar in one of his recent books; that he feared people would scream for tough leaders]. We live in a loveless society!”

They also spoke of the school achievements in countries like Finland and Korea (top ranked one of them said, which probably is true if I remember the OECD-document right I have skimmed and started to read), where the school-system is much harder than here. But Osten pointed out that these two nations are relatively respectively (my history knowledge isn't especially fresh! Thanks to our lousy school? Or thanks to how hard it is to teach me something? But yes, I have my thoughts about my schools) much younger than our society, and still have something to strive for and look forward to. They still have a drive. But we are lacking this! I agree.

Actually the Swedish actress Lena Endre said something about this in an interview many years ago, that there are noone among all our leaders and politicians who have visions for our society (something positive worth striving for), and she sounded upset over this.

They also spoke about how “we” (who are those "we"??? Maybe I'm remembering wrong what they actually said) rely on the society in all situations. Björklund mentioned (took as an example) a mom in a meeting at her 9-year old daughter’s school just outside Stockholm, where the mom said to the headmaster and all other parents and the teacher/s that she thought the school should look so the kids weren’t out at town at 9 PM!!! Of course one can wonder if THIS is the school's duty?? But this Björklund sees this single event as a sign for how we push responsibility away (all of us) and a need for teahing people personal responsibility (my free interpretation!) and of course he also advocate “harder grips”? Is this, one and only event, representative and to what degree? And if it is; what would the proper “medicine” be? I don't believe in his ideas (and I don't think Osten and the other two women did either).

We are too spoiled?

Many politicians are so fond of speaking about the individual’s responsibility today… Putting the emphasis on this. I just sigh. Of course I think we all have responsibility for ourselves, but there is a but... And this (authoritarian talk?) is applauded by many (??). I wonder: must the one exclude the other? The individuals and the society's responsibility I mean.

And why have people put everything in the hands of society – if they have? What are the roots for this?

And as always, some are overly responsible taking (but they are forgotten in the societal debate) and some are pushing their personal responsibility far away? But actually how many suffer from the latter “disease”.

Bewitched...

From the ballet "Trolltagen" (or"Bewitched") in Storforsen, Pite river, Älvsbyn. I have been here, but haven't seen this ballet.

A child has hundred languages but is robbed of ninety-nine…

I wrote a blogposting on my other blog, a posting I have thought of writing for quite a long time. About a dancer and dance-pedagogue Eva Dahlgren, 92 years, who introduced “child-dance in school” in Sweden 30 years ago (see this link about such an "activity" that looked very nice). I am interested in dance too. I have danced ballet one year when I was 9, and jazz dance as grown up. And accompanied dance when we introduced it at my work-place a little more than 15 years ago. I sew between 12-15 ballet-skirts then, they are still used I think...

On one of the pictures I linked it stood:

Kroppen som talar.

• Inifrån det egna jaget
• Känslomässiga upplevelser
• Att förstå andra
• Kroppsliga erfarenheter
• Utvecklar medfödda och grundläggande förmågor
• Stimulerar känslo- och tankemönster.

Translated it would be something in the style:

The body which speaks.

• From the own self
• Emotional experiences
• To understand other people [one way, among (many) other, in processing things?]
• Bodily experiences [expresses what we have experienced?]
• Develops inborn and fundamental, basic faculties, powers, capacities.
• Stimulates feelings and thought patterns.

But it's probably not easy (and sometimes not even possible) for children to enjoy dancing or expressing themselves? I can have experienced this too. But my activities were many times about survival??? Fantasizing and doing things...

I came to think about Reggio Emilia a “school-system” created after WW II as a reaction to what happened then and to avoid something similar to occur (if I remember right)?

Their idea is that:

"A child has a hundred languages but is robbed of ninety-nine. Schools and culture separate the head from the body, they force you to think without a body and to act without a head. Play and work, reality and imagination, science and the fantastic, the inside and the outside, are made into each other’s opposites.”

The body, body and facial expressions (and dance) is one way in expressing one’s self… Music is another. Painting and drawing are other expressions. We also have words, language, tone of voice… But we have a brain, intellect, intelligence too!! And thoughts, feelings, emotions, fantasy, imaginations...

I was interested in the school subjects (learning things etc.), and in all artistic expressions I think, not only music, but also dancing (I have been singing in choir since I was child, but am no "choir-person" strikes me, despite I sang in choir as child already, the only one of my siblings!!), theater, drawing/painting, writing, sewing, creating things with my hands... The only thing I haven't really devoted myself to is athletics!!! But I rode all my teens almost every day (as we had three ponies). And I had strong legs and a good VO2-max!! But something made me unsure in my body?? If it wasn't about dancing!? And today I enjoy walking (with poles), cycling, and things like "Friskis&Svettis" doing exercise to music (also see here) and if I had had the opportunity it would be fun to dance (jazz, ballet) or riding horses...

Aren't they cute???

I have also thought of writing about hypochondria (more or less severe)...

Real, genuine respect...

coltsfoot, tussilago or hästhov in Swedish.

Thinking loudly...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And never the two meet??

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"He is afraid of strong women!!"

I dropped my chin (was taken aback?).

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

I got totally dumb.

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

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

And how was it now with the Master Suppression Techniques?

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

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

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

And do prejudices only exist in one direction?