Judith Lewis Herman writes in the beginning of the chapter “A Forgotten History” in her book “Trauma and Recovery – From Domestic Abuse to Political Terror” that:
“The study of psychological trauma has a curious history – one of episodic amnesia. Periods of active investigation have alternated with periods of oblivion. Repeatedly in the past century, similar lines of inquiry have been taken up and abruptly abandoned, only to be rediscovered much later. Classic documents of fifty or one hundred years ago often read like contemporary works. Though the field has in fact an abundant and rich tradition; it has been periodically forgotten and must be periodically reclaimed.”
An explanation why works like Alice Miller’s aren’t translated to Swedish today?
“Diagnostic Mislabeling: The tendency to blame the victim has strongly influenced the direction of psychological inquiry.
It has led researchers and clinicians to seek an explanation for the perpetrator’s crimes in the character of the victim. In the case of hostages and prisoners of war, numerous attempts to find supposed personality defects that predisposed captives to 'brainwashing' have yielded few consistent results.”
390 people in occupational groups (???) working with the youngest of us got the brutal reality presented for them during an eight hour long day. For many it was a tough awakening. Many times the audience was exhorted to look at the horror awakening pictures that rolled over the big viewing screen (they had to avert their gazes from what they saw? Didn't manage to look at it?).
When two doctors for forensic medicine showed pictures of abused children's corpses with big head and fracture damages one person fainted. A physician were sent for and they had to make a break in the program (also read here about Forensic medicine).
Many occupational groups need a massive awakening according to the Norwegian Children's Ombudsman Reidar Hjermann (also see here about him, those links are in Norwegian though). Not least family doctors need this.
At the same time he eulogized the big awakening among Norwegian dentists. They can capture children who have problems with having things in their mouth.
A dentist, specialist on pedodontics, came with powerful descriptions of how children have been victims for oral sexual abuse.
She said that 2006 35,000 Norwegian children didn't meet up to their appointments with their dentists, and only 7,000 gave an explanation.
“It's so important that we care!”
was her clear message.
“Do we dare to see when we see?”
was the, or a, background motto to this day.
Sigrun writes:
“It is this method occupational people ought to become exposed to too I have thought for many years.
I said to a psychologist I visited [as a client], that the ones treating [my addition and interpretation: psychiatrists, psychologists, therapists etc.] ought to become tied up to the chair and forced to look at child abuse on film.
Then they would maybe stop offending patients with
'It's not about how you have it, but about how you take it',
'All parents make their best',
'It's never too late to get a good childhood',
'It's only the vulnerable children that don't stand violence'
And maybe they would start to listen to clients telling them about abuse that never was visible too (humiliation, neglect, emotional and psychological abuse etc.)!? Listen to clients when they maybe after a long time start to recall and/or dare to tell about things.
For ordinary people, the man on the street, maybe realizing what he/she has had to go without, forsake, and probably is forced to go without further * because of the politics that has been pursued (and realize the results of this politics) must be very hard. Where and how does this anger get expression? How is this (justified) disappointment (for the deceit and treachery to the man on the street) expressed?
Some people use denial to escape the anger?
Similar things exercised by people in power occur in other countries on this earth and have occurred during history.
What have they led to?
* But I am not sure that people should HAVE to forsake as much as they are probably going to be told... The governments here and there COULD do more for the ordinary man in this crisis!?? And then I don't mean just food and shelter or a roof over the head as we say!
I read something interesting, true and worth noting and spreading, on the blog Do nothing day. Anja writes about an interview with a victim for child abuse, and winner of a prize for freedom of speech, where she especially liked the wording
“What I was exposed to as a child has been a non-issue.”
Anja thinks that traumas really are non-issues, not just in health care but in our whole culture. Of course, sufferings are paid attention to when they occur, like for instance when a tsunami happens.But we don’t really know what we shall do with the trauma when it has become “old”. And that’s exactly what’s problematic with traumas – [if] they don’t pass off as quickly as we expect, maybe they never pass off – and chronic states have very low status both in health care and in our culture in general.
And people telling about abuse (that sort of traumas) they experienced as children is really non-issues. And those sorts of traumas are the ones that becomes chronic and later easily or most often becomes added with more traumas. And is also the reason why people have difficulties recovering from later traumas.
But with proper and adequate help a traumatized can recover I think... Unfortunately I think few really get this help. Some sorts of traumas are non-themes exactly as Anja and Sigrun says/writes! Surrounded with a Wall of Silence.
And this is the reason, or an explanation, why people like for instance Jordan Riak and Paula Flowe have problems getting economical support for their work; preventing child abuse to happen!? At the same time people are more than readily prepared paying to other causes.
What are the child’s needs? What needs does it have to get filled to develop as optimally as possible? That is to develop to a living human being. A human being capable of forming a life he/she wants that isn’t destructive or self-destructive.
The needs that didn’t get filled early in life will cause bigger or smaller problems later in life. Either for the individual itself and/or for other people, the extent or scale of problems the individual causes depends on the power he/she gets. Many exercise power on a micro level and some on a macro (addition November 17: the latter on a micro too, because usually those people also have families).
And some are so paralyzed so they direct everything towards themselves in different ways.
But it is possible to recover and heal to an extent so you can live a deeply meaningful life – I am sure. However, a big problem is the societal denial; the lack of talk about those things, I would assert or maintain! And the denial not least about how common those things probably are to different degrees! AND HOW HARMFUL they in fact are! WHAT they are actually causing. But if you have been a living dead more or less your whole life, from earliest childhood, you don’t know what you are missing or lacking either. And you don’t know what you are forwarding either! And maybe you don't want to know what you are forwarding...
If more people started to admit to those things I think this would be the only help many people would need! But not the only help for all. But it would be a help for the most harmed too. And a few are so harmed so you maybe can’t help them at all? As some of the worst serial killers and alike?
And what would real, adult needs be? How many of us really know?
And once again it also struck me that people have to be allowed to express themselves with the language and words they have: that not only the "educated" with a perfect grammar are allowed to write or express themselves!!! Is this actually contempt for weakness, i.e, contempt for the small child you once were, who didn't have the words yet of natural reasons, but needed to express feelings and emotions in some way. And in what ways?
Some of us need to search for the words really when we try to write about and investigate those things... For some (or maybe many) it's difficult to put these things in words!?? But it can be very important we try nevertheless. And why do we care about people looking down on our struggles and our imperfectness??? To be honest...
[Updated October 5]. I have referred to what Anna Luise Kirkengen has written about a young woman suffering from an aggressive arthritis, with several rheumasurgical interventions and a strumectomy (in Swedish below). After her first delivery she became psychotic.
Psychiatrists didn’t want to believe that she had been raped and earlier also exposed to sexual abuse as a child, until she met a young doctor in training, who listened and believed her. The recovery came very quickly. Read here about what I have referred to below in Swedish.
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Den norska läkaren Anna Luise Kirkengen skriver på sidan 96 i sin bok ””Inscribed Bodies” om den norske psykiatrikern Tormod Huseby som berättat om ett fall på en psykiatrisk klinik, med en kvinna som från tidig barndom led av aggressiv artrit (det finns olika former av artrit, bland annat reumatoid artrit, se också s.k. muskelreumatism). Vid 23 års ålder var hon helt handikappad av kronisk smärta, hade genomgått åtskilliga kirurgiska ingrepp för sina reumatiska besvär och hade genomgått en strumaoperation (om jag fattar begreppen rätt).Om struma se här.
När hon fick sitt första barn vid 25 års ålder blev hon psykotisk, med syn- och hörselhallucinationer. Och när hon tillfrisknade från detta insisterade hon på att bli steriliserad. Återkom med självmordstankar, psykotisk och förlorat medvetande. Till slut fick hon diagnoserna ”schizofren, paranoid personlighet, kronisk.”
Vid 29 års ålder remitterades hon till en långtidsbehandling på grund av terapiresistens (motstånd, icke mottaglighet för terapi) och en dålig prognos.
Denna nya relation förde dock fram nya aspekter. När den unge doktorn åter läste hennes journal blev det uppenbart att vid varje besök på psykiatrisk klinik berättade hon att hon hade blivit våldtagen. Denna historia hade upprepat tolkats som ”symbolisk för patientens livssituation”!! Dvs. inte som reella, faktiska fakta!!
Men nu blev faktiska sexuella övergrepp och en svår våldtäkt gradvis avtäckta. En vecka efter att våldtäktsmannen blivit identifierad var kvinnan inte längre psykotisk. Hennes mardrömmar upphörde, hennes sömn förbättrades, hennes depression försvann. Sju månader senare blev hon utskriven "enbart" hänvisad till ett lokalt stödjande nätverk.
Exakt vid det tillfälle då hon kände sig trygg och säker på att det hon berättade skulle mötas med ett öppet sinne, kom en detaljerad beskrivning av hennes synintryck, påträngande lukter, ljud och smaker upp. Hon beskrev förövaren som hon inte kände, men vilken hon talade om och namngav varje gång, så att hennes mamma kunde identifiera honom. När det var möjligt att knyta våldtäkten till denna man kom diskrepans vad gällde tidsangivelse upp, vilket i sin tur indikerar övergreppshändelser före denna våldtäkt.
Gång på gång bekräftas detta i samarbete mellan patienten, hennes mamma (vilken bra mamma!!!?) och hennes terapeut. Våldtäktsmannen och barndomsförövaren (jag tror det var flera förövare, nära anhöriga) identifieras och patienten blir avsevärt bättre inom loppet av några få dagar för varje steg i processen av att minnas, tala och bekräfta.
Patientens symtom har tidigare hela tiden blivit tolkade helt enligt psykiatrisk teori! Och alltså ansedda falska.
Kirkengen skriver (i min något fria översättning) att:
”Så länge psykiatrin definierar individen som platsen och källan för galenskapen, så styr psykiatrin sina ögon bort från galenskapen i mänskliga relationer och också bort från sociala tabun och maktasymmetrier sanningen att säga, i vilka vissa människor tar så mycket plats att andra blir deformerade genom deras inflytande.
Det är troligt att en dogmatisk[närmast religiös!!?] attityd gentemot det som måste vara sant [att patienten i symbolisk form talar om något i dennas/dennes nuvarande livssituatin, istället för något som skett, och kanske skett långt tillbaka. Och klienten/patienten talar för kanske helt döva öron, gång på gång på gång? Och kanske renav börjar tvivla på sina egna sinnesintryck. För det klienten berättar kan inte vara sant!? Men denna attityd från de 'professionella' kanske handlar mer om dem och deras egna erfarenheter än klientens? De kan helt enkelt inte ta in fakta och deras 'avnämare' blir offrade istället och har blivit offrade gång på gång i psykiatri och terapi över hela världen?], tvingar psykiatriker att ignorera relevant information för att upprätthålla klassifikationssystemet gällande 'individualiserad mental bristfällighet'.”
In her book ”The Truth Will Set You Free” Alice Miller writes in Part II “How we are struck blind” in the chapter ”Barriers in the mind” at page 135:
“Early anxieties stored in the body can be resolved in therapy as long as their causes are not denied. Initial moves toward a therapeutic concept of this kind have been with us for a number of years now, frequently in the form of counselling for self-therapy, counselling of a kind that I once advocated myself. I no longer recommend this course. I feel strongly that we need the company of an enlightened witness to embark on the journey. Unfortunately, it is rare for therapists to have enjoyed such company in their own training. I am only all too well aware of the various forms of anxiety assailing therapists, their fear of hurting their parents if they dare to face their own childhood distress head on and without embellishment, and the resultant reluctance to support their patients fully in their search.But the more we write and talk on the subject, the sooner this state of affairs will change and the anxieties lose some of their power over us. In a society with a receptive attitude toward the distress of children, none of us will be alone with our histories. Therapists will be more inclined to forsake Freud’s principle of neutrality and to take the side of the children their clients once were. This will give those clients the perspective they need to confront their own histories.”
I will translate this later I think…
Addition in the evening:Yes, I agree, the more we write and talk about these things and subjects the better.
Here my quick amateur translation of Miller's text, maybe a little freely.
”Tidiga angelägenheter (saker) som lagrats i kroppen kan upplösas i terapi så länge som deras orsak inte förnekas. Begynnande rörelser mot ett terapeutiskt koncept av denna sort har funnits hos oss i ett antal år, ofta i form av rådgivning för självterapi, rådgivning av ett slag som jag själv en gång förordade. Jag rekommenderar inte längre denna väg. Jag känner starkt att vi behöver sällskap av ett upplyst vittne för att inlåta oss på en sådan resa. Tyvärr är det sällsynt att terapeuter har åtnjutit sådant sällskap i sin egen träning. Jag är bara alltför medveten om de olika formerna av av ängslan angripna terapeuter, deras rädsla för att såra sina föräldrar om de vågade se sin egen barndoms nödläge klart i ansiktet och utan förskönande, och den resulterande motsträvigheten att stötta sina patienter fullt ut i deras sökande.Men ju mer vi skriver och talar om ämnet, ju förr kommer dessa förhållanden att ändras och ängslan förlora litet av sin makt över oss. I ett samhälle med en mottaglig attityd för barns nödläge kommer ingen av oss att vara ensam med vår historia. Terapeuter kommer att vara mer benägna att överge Freuds principer om neutralitet och ta parti för barnen som deras klienter en gång var. Detta kommer att ge dessa klienter det perspektiv de behöver för att konfrontera sina egna historier.”
The psychologist and psychiatrist spoke about an entire, complete need for power and control. Comment: needs for total power and control to keep ones own denied experiences of powerlessness and helplessness down from early? All memories of how it actually felt to be exposed himself, to what? And this goes out on others. And on and on.
The female psychiatrist: It is more damaging to trust if a close standing person commits encroachments, violence and abuse than if a less close commits it.
In a Swedish paper: The man is earlier charged for attempts to rape. Is described by the police as a very totalitarian and manipulative man. He has seven children with his wife and six with his daughter. The last six has their grandfather as father, and the aunts and uncles are also half-siblings. How is that? What a mess.
PS. And I would say the society at large is still in denial... Many "experts" too. Still thinking things like these are mysteries? Are they?
And the truth is held down in other circumstances too... What journalists write in mass media about the state of affairs in the world. Pharmaceutical companies silencing people telling truths... The same (or similar) forces driving all involved in these things? Their unlimited needs for power, control, money etc.... Needs that will never be filled, because they should have been filled early in these persons lives... And they should need to work on these things instead of acting them out destructively on behalf of other people. And many times also self-destructively, destroying their own possibilities for a truly better life.
PPS. And how come noone noticed anything?? Talk about betrayal? There are many people with a need to deny own truths??
A female Swedish blogger is writing things paralleling these I think - about Societal Denial and power abuse. But she is much more angry than I am!!! She is very upset, ironic, and sarcastic.
Really, really upset over male abuse in private life and in scientific circles in different circumstances. And she is married and have a son!! So she can't hate ALL men! In the beginning of her posting she writes about
"...depreciating comments have an important place for how we shall understand exercise/execution of violence."
Yes, she is right. Depreciating comments is a subtle (or not always so subtle) form of abuse... And not especially lovingly or respectfully overseeing? Often with quite harmless things. And once again I came to think of perfectionism and its expressions.
And with a tired smile: there are people saying pretty contemptuous things about how other people write, their spelling... But sometimes I notice misses they do these who expresses themselves critically. Sadly I start to doubt that I am right and have to look the thing I react on up - and, yes, in a special case I am thinking of I was right... An ironic smile. And I know I have a lot to improve myself! How was it now with using what talent you possess? And how many aren't said to have been curbed in their singing, creative and/or untalented painting etc. by teachers in school? But grown ups between these things are allowed???
The female blogger also wrote in the end of her posting (a little freely translated, interpreted by me):
“But, folks, let’s finish this posting [a long one, she had so much she needed getting off her chest?] – after all I have a work to do.”
As I too have, even if noone believes it seen to my diligence in writing, uploading photos, reading etc.
Oppression - what is that?
Played this song with a pupil yesterday.
Tears in Heaven. Would you know my name If I saw you in heaven Will it be the same If I saw you in heaven I must be strong, and carry on Cause I know I don't belong Here in heaven
Would you hold my hand If I saw you in heaven Would you help me stand If I saw you in heaven I'll find my way, through night and day Cause I know I just can't stay Here in heaven
Time can bring you down Time can bend your knee Time can break your heart Have you begging please Begging please
(instrumental)
Beyond the door There's peace I'm sure. And I know there'll be no more... Tears in heaven
Would you know my name If I saw you in heaven Will it be the same If I saw you in heaven I must be strong, and carry on Cause I know I don't belong Here in heaven
Charles Rycroft, reviewing Leonard Shengold's Soul Murder: The Effects of Childhood Abuse and Deprivation [NYR, March 1], notes that Shengold's text omits mention of my book about Daniel Paul Schreber. Shengold's book is at least the fourth work of his with Soul Murder in the title. The bibliography in his book refers to the second and third works, which were articles in psychoanalytic journals. However, it omits Shengold's first use of the title. That was an article entitled 'Soul Murder: A Review' (International Journal of Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy, August 1974). The review surveyed the history of the concept 'soul murder,' but mainly criticized a book by me. The title of my book? Soul Murder!
Schreber (1842–1911) was an eminent German judge, who went mad at forty-two, and spent many years in mental asylums. He was a classic case of paranoia and schizophrenia and probably has been the most quoted patient in psychiatric history. Schreber called his condition 'soul murder.' The term, he explained, referred to the idea 'widespread in the folklore and poetry of all peoples that it is somehow possible to take possession of another person's soul….'
Freud never met Schreber, but in 1911 wrote an analysis of him based on Schreber's book Memoirs of My Nervous Illness. Freud concluded that Schreber's paranoia had been a defense against homosexual love for his father, and that Schreber's experiences of persecution by God were originally his own loving feelings for his father, now replaced by hatred and projected onto God.
In my Soul Murder I presented a hypothesis about Daniel Paul's madness based upon the available evidence of his father's methods of bringing up children.
Psychoanalytic authors largely ignored my views, at least in published writings. A theme of the Dutch sociologist Han Israëls (Schreber: Father and Son, International Universities Press, reviewed by Phyllis Grosskurth in NYR, January 18, 1990) was that, in so doing, the psychoanalytic community was condoning an infringement of the rules of scholarship. Yet Shengold, who twice cited Israël's book in his own book, albeit only briefly, has infringed the rules of scholarship in just the same way. Despite using my title, Shengold's Soul Murder ignored my Soul Murder (except in the bibliography)—though it discussed at length the case of Schreber!
How, then, to explain the psychoanalysts' behavior? According to Rycroft, the reason, in Shengold's case, 'must' be that I am 'an outsider, not a psychoanalyst, and, therefore, not a member of that elect [utvald, utkorad] group, the American (or should it be the New York?) psychoanalytic establishment, which probably makes up a large part of Shengold's audience.' Yet Shengold mentions Israëls. Israëls is neither American nor a psychoanalyst, nor even a psychiatrist, whereas [då däremot!!] I am an American psychiatrist, educated and trained in New York City.
A more important reason, I think, for the exclusion of my views is that they are heretical [arv, ärvd eller arvegods in Swedish?]. They are at direct variance with Freud. The word 'heretical' is deliberate. I believe that from the start psychoanalysis has coped with dissent [avvikelser] from Freud's views in ways that have more in common with a religious movement than with a scientific or academic enterprise. Psychoanalysts have not considered what sort of evidence would be helpful in judging the likelihood that my views might be true—or false.
Rycroft has not 'excommunicated' [bannlyst] me, and confronts my views, but his thinking about them is muddled [röriga]. According to Israëls, writes Rycroft, Schreber's father 'was not as famous and influential as both Schatzman and Freud had assumed, was not such a paragon [förebild] as Freud had assumed or as vicious {ond, dålig, brsitfällig] as Schatzman had painted him, and neither Freud's nor Schatzman's aetiological theories stand up to critical scrutiny [kritisk noggrannhet].' That is all Rycroft says about the possible validity [giltighet] of the two theories. How famous and influential the father was is surely irrelevant to the question of whether he drove his son crazy. Israëls did not prove that the father was not as 'vicious' as I had painted him, but even if Israëls had, that would also be irrelevant.
This is not to say that I am convinced that my theory is true. A prevalent view is that whatever schizophrenia is, it is probably a brain disorder. However, we still have little understanding of what schizophrenia is, or why anyone becomes schizophrenic. I expect that the answers will come from people who value a search for truth more than loyalty to doctrine.
Morton Schatzman London, England"
How well said!!
Now soon a soup for lunch I am having on the stove... Something warm in the gray weather. Taco-tasting!! With bread and butter to (and cheese). Fruit after? Candles lighted?? Yes, I think so. So much soup that I am going to put (many!!!) portions in the freezer to have during the week, when I don't have so much time for making food!!
In this blog I want to explore the effects of childhood experiences on individual lives, the health (not only the emotional/psychological, but also, and not least, the bodily/somatic), the society, why people seek themselves to power positions, the effect of childhood on politics.
With the ideas that imbue Alice Miller's work and writing.
And sometimes just share things I have read and come across and I agree with and couldn't have said better myself.
I work full time with young people since many years, as teacher in music (piano pedagogue), and am interested in these things, both privately/personally and professionally.
But my time is limited to write and blog, even if it probably doesn't look so.
I will devote myself to loud thinking a lot here I think. And this blog is also a way for me to collect texts, facts, links, sites I want to save for further use maybe.
Makt avslöjar en persons grundläggande moral …
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View this post on Instagram Och detta gäller på ALLA nivåer. — Related Mer
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Crisis
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I suppose some people might wonder why I'm not completely hysterical. Why
would I be hysterical? The building where I've lived for 22 years is
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Pharmaceutical marketing expert witness [image: screen2largeMM]
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Påskuppropet mot sjukförsäkringar
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Idag var det manifestation. Mycket bra. Jag var där. Mycket bra.
Men någonting gnagde mig på vägen hem. För stämningen var mer uppgiven än
arg, och det ä...
Arbeidet med ny side er i gang!
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Nå har arbeidet med domeneregistrering og nytt design startet og jeg gleder
meg til jeg kan vise dere resultatet! Det skal bli bra å få Psykiskbloggen
over...
Click on the picture to go to Astrid Lindgren site.
Books I am referring to on this blog:
Bosch, Ingeborg: "Rediscovering the True Self"
Freyd, Jennifer J.: "Betrayal Trauma - The Logic of Forgetting Childhood Abuse" ISBN 0-647-06806-8
Jenson, Jean: "Reclaiming Your Life" ISBN 91-46-17409-5
Kirkengen, Anna Luise: "Hvordan krenkede barn blir syke voksne" ISBN 82-15-00713-9 ("How Abused Children Become Unhealthy Adults")
Kirkengen, Anna Luise: "Inscribed bodies - Health Impact of Childhood Sexual Abuse" ISBN 0-7923-7019-8
Lewis Herman, Judith: "Trauma and Recovery - From Domestic Violence to Political Terror" ISBN 086358430-6 (svensk översättning finns: ”Trauma och tillfrisknande” ISBN10: 9197263133, ISBN13: 9789197263139, Förlag: Göteborgs Psykoterapi Institut)
Miller, Alice: "Den dolda nyckeln" ISBN 91-46-15747-6 (The Untouched Key)
Miller, Alice: "Det självutplånande barnet och sökandet efter en äkta identitet" ISBN 91-7643-559-8 (The Drama of the Gifted Child)
Miller, Alice: "Du skall icke märka - variationer över paradistemat" ISBN 91-46-14374-2 (Thou Shalt Not Be Aware)
Miller, Alice: "Riv tigandets mur - sanning byggd på fakta" ISBN 91-46-16022-1 (Breaking Down the Wall of Silence)
Miller, Alice: "The Body Never Lies - The Lingering Effects of Cruel Parenting" ISBN 0-393-06065-9
Miller, Alice: "The Truth Will Set You Free - Overcoming Emotional Blindness and Finding Your True Adult Self" ISBN 0-465-04585-5
Miller, Alice: "Vägar i livet - sju berättelser" ISBN 91-46-17414-1 (Paths of Life - Seven Scenarios)
Pincus, Jonathan H.: "Base Instincts - What Makes Killers Kill?" ISBN 0-393-32323-4
Children baking...
Look, the joy in the children?? Enjoying what they are doing? (illustration from one of the books by Astrid Lindgren, click on the picture to go to her site).
"...of all the many forms of child abuse, emotional abuse may be the cruelest and longest-lasting of all.” "Emotional abuse is the systematic diminishment of another. It may be intentional or subconscious (or both), but it is always a course of conduct, not a single event. It is designed to reduce a child's self-concept to the point where the victim considers himself unworthy—unworthy of respect, unworthy of friendship, unworthy of the natural birthright of all children: love and protection." (Andrew Vachss)
"A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong, gives it a superficial appearance of being right, and raises at first a formidable outcry in defense of custom." -- "Common Sense", Thomas Paine, January 10, 1776
"Modern education is competitive, nationalistic and separative. It has trained the child to regard material values as of major importance, to believe that his nation is also of major importance and superior to other nations and peoples. The general level of world information is high but usually biased, influenced by national prejudices, serving to make us citizens of our nation but not of the world." (Albert Einstein)
"Normal men have killed perhaps 100,000,000 of their fellow men in the last fifty years... Given these and other conditions of contemporary civilization, how can one claim that the ‘normal’ man is sane?" (R.D. Laing, 1967)
"Organizations take on characteristics of the people running them./.../ There's always pressure within groups to conform, anyway. The top monkey exerts the most pressure." (Steve Thomas)
"Yet many psychiatrists and psychologists refuse to entertain the idea that society as a whole may be lacking in sanity. They hold that the problem of mental health in a society is only that of the number of 'unadjusted' individuals, and not of a possible unadjustment of the culture itself." (Erich Fromm in The Sane Society, 1955)
When a big kid hits a little kid, we call it bullying. When an adult hits another adult, we call it assault. When the adults in a family hit each other we call it battering or domestic violence. When an adult hits a child we call it discipline..
“Blindness and lack of connectedness whether truly needed or not, are ultimately tragic solutions to life. These adaptations keep us from knowing ourselves and others fully. We end up fragmented both internally and externally – impoverished spiritually and socially /…/ it seriously constrains our human potential /…/ Survivors of childhood sexual abuse and betrayal blindness have learned to cope by being disconnected internally so as to manage a minimal kind of external connection. 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…”).
“If you are very strong you have to be very kind” (Pippi Longstocking)
“In psychiatry, too, what a person says and writes can’t be divorced from who he is and how he lives.” (Thomas Szasz).
“The method of Marshall Rosenberg is very nice and may be helpful to people who have not be[been??] severely mistreated in childhood. The latter ones however must find their pent up, LEGITIMATE rage and free themselves from the lies of our moral system. As long as they don't do this, their body will continue to scream for the truth with the help of symptoms" (Alice Miller)
“To desire and strive to be of some service to the world, to aim at doing something which shall really increase the happiness and welfare and virtue of mankind - this is a choice which is possible for all of us; and surely it is a good haven to sail for" (Henry van Dyke)
“‘I have never met a man,’ said Grandma Georgina, ‘who talks so much absolute nonsense!’ ‘A little nonsense now and then, is relished by the wisest men,’ Mr Wonka said.” (Roald Dahl)
Look at his facial expression! Angrily carving… The stubborn, disobedient child... Or? How does he feel there in his joiner's workshop? (click on the picture to go to Astrid Lindgren site).
About the ACE-study:
"It's not just water under the bridge."
ACEs are surprisingly common among people of all social strata, and have far-reaching consequences. For many people, it's not possible to "just get over it".
What's an ACE (Adverse Childhood Experience i.e. "skadlig barndomserfarenhet")? Adverse Childhood Experience is growing up experiencing any of the following conditions in the household prior to age 18:
1. Recurrent physical abuse
2. Recurrent emotional abuse
3. Contact sexual abuse
4. An alcohol and/or drug abuser in the household
5. An incarcerated household member
6. Someone who is chronically depressed, mentally ill, institutionalized, or suicidal
I don't like being photographed, and don't have many photos of myself but here are some, though fairly old! Click on the picture to see two more pictures.
I was born in Umeå in Västerbotten, Sweden, and moved during childhood stepwise to Skåne in the south, and at last back to just below the middle of Sweden where I still live.
I am educated both as piano-pedagogue and church-musician and have a full time employment as piano-pedagogue. Church-music is side work.
I am interested in a lot of things and will blog about things I read, psychology, society, history, nature, my work too hopefully, and my everyday life… And both in Swedish and English.
This is a blog, with my (sometimes very) personal - and loud reflections on what I read, see, hear, react on, feel for - and not feel for and want to explore. I don't work in this field at all, but I have my reflections and thoughts nevertheless and have read fairly a lot I think, and here I reflect upon all this. I am searching myself forward. I link sites for information, if one want to know more about what I am talking/writing about and what is mentioned in the texts I am citing and referring to. And I link sites not least for my own sake. So it isn’t sure I agree with all that is linked on this blog, that's not why I link sites. I can agree with parts of what is linked, bigger or smaller, from almost everything to almost nothing.
I hope those who perhaps find my blog are reading everything here critically - including what stands in what I link.
And when it comes to therapy and all (self)help-concepts I think one shall be very careful. Maybe as a friend said it:
“Meaningful critical thinking.
Psychotherapists have been claiming that they have invented better treatment methods since Sigmund Freud in 1897. The amount of psychological distress in the world hasn’t become less. There’s money to be made from attracting more clients, whether the therapy works or not.
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