Do we dare to see what we see? Is shock treatment needed for so called “helpers”...

[Updated during the day]. The Norwegian blogger Sigrun wrote about the biggest and most important conference on child abuse that has ever been held in Norway. From the newspaper, Tønsbergs Blad:

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'

etc. [blaming the victim].”

How well said!!!

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.

Also read the posting "Here you have a stone" (more about the speech the Swedish author of childbooks Astrid Lindgren held when she received the German Bookseller's Prize 1978).

Addition at lunch-time: Also read the article about horrible ”Irish child abuse: The Ryan Report cover-up”. The report is avaible from here.

Traumas - a non issue…

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.

Those themes are non-issues in the world!?

About Jordan Riak in Wikipedia, see here. Also see Judith Lewis Herman on this topic.

The false hope of changing something and the wall of silence...

a hazy day.

A reader’s letter on Miller’s web made me think. It stood:

“I too had difficulty walking away from these people, I wanted to explain to them and help them understand, but I too from reading your books I learned I cannot make someone to see and understand if they refuse to see their own truth and now I can walk away without difficult.”

No, you can’t convert people who don’t want to become converted believing in things Miller for instance has written about…

But it can be difficult walking away!! More difficult the less response you get!? You stay and beat your head bloody (in a false hope).

Addition: this is the same or similar phenomenon occurring in therapies too! Where clients get stuck in bad therapies with bad therapists in a hopeless effort to get something from the therapist the therapist can't and/or don't want to give. Even things the client has all rights to get. See Helga's story. It looks like many people have experienced what Helga experienced, but there are probably many clients whom never realize this, unfortunately.

And abuse also occurs in other contexts resembling therapies, like in forums dealing with peoples' childhoods... Where people are exposed to abuse by the ones that are responsible...

To “understand” and “forgive”…

visited one of my old schools today (see here too.).

I had even more reflections over the phenomenon ”understanding” and ”to understand” when I drove to a service of my car and during the service of it today…

To understand OTHER people! But can you if you don’t (and haven’t been allowed or got the opportunity) to understand yourself? Doesn’t one have to start with oneself? And maybe understand not so pleasant things about oneself? Even very painful things? Truths about oneself and ones life?

Each one of us ought to have that responsibility understanding oneself?

Thought about forgiveness once again, and forgiveness connected to understanding. If you forgive you are a good, broad-minded, grown up person! But WHOM and WHAT have one understood actually? The forgiving is a higher standing human being, even morally? Is a better human being? And gets universal improvement and applauses!!!?? If you are faithful to one or both parents you get applauses! Even from so called helpers!! (therapists, psychologists etc.).

The back of forgiveness and understanding is what? Or what can it lead to?

Exploitation and being used? For some, preferably women (but probably also for many men).

You understand and forgive once again in a false hope of changing the other person/part? Or you use false power anger or false power denial of needs to avoid being forced to deal with anything that demands realization, recognition of a painful truth?

A fourth way is blaming oneself, maybe even harshly!!

And many possibly switch between these protection strategies or defenses…

And never the two really meet!

And you keep on directing things at scapegoats or symbols!? And this strategy will never solve anything. Because I think Miller is right: trying to solve your problems symbolically will never lead to recovery. Not even a slightest bit of recovery??

I think Bosch and Jenson are right here…

PS. And the whole society suffers from a cleverness mania! From cleverness at work to being able to walk further whatever has happened to you!!! Of course some manage with this!!! But why do they? And why do other people have difficulties with this? I don't think this has with genes or inherited traits to do!

I tried to find to whom Jesus said "Take your bed and go" and found a site called "The Bible-school" (Swedish site) and dropped my cheek over the underlying moralistic tone in the text!!! As I read it at least!

It didn't happen very often...

picture taken from here.

Wondering loudly: The old woman on a mother pulling her and her siblings hairs and giving slight blows in the face:

“It didn’t happen very often!”

Amazed: was it so harmless really? Didn’t it lead to anything? Were there no consequences?

After how many blows is the limit passed to when it becomes harmful?

What about questioning oneself? Ones fear for making things wrong? Wondering why about things? Ones bad self esteem and confidence? Not attributing (tillskriva) everything ones character (i.e. blaming oneself)? And doesn’t this denial have consequences – which, not only for the person who experienced this abuse first, but later for that person’s children? This is guaranteed not passed further in any manner?

The reaction:

“It didn’t happen very often”

came so quickly, as a reflex almost, and with a very sure voice.

This old woman now suffers from a lot of diseases, for instance muscle rheumatism. What is this rheumatism about? If you have gone a whole life with keeping things suppressed, in check and control, don’t you see effects sooner or later? A pressure and tension on the body day after day, year after year. Her two youngest siblings suffered and suffers from shaky hands, you can (could) see it when they wrote. And this old woman also has a scoliosis, but a milder form? Has had ache in her back, and had it when the kids were small (psycho-somatic?). She also ate very little, thinking of her kids, the totally sacrificing mother... I wonder if she suffer from a mild form of anorexia too, always saying: "I am not hungry!", with an excusing smile however. But as child this is not fun hearing. Of many different reasons probably.

I know of a man (an acquaintance of mine) who got rheumatoid arthritis when he was round 75 years. I think he too got beaten as a child, by his mom…

Both the woman and the man above know about these things, but they don’t rebel or question it really or at all, but belittle and minimize it. To the factual memories no real feelings are connected? Are these feelings so extremely painful and so extremely scary still, so bringing them up is too much, they have to keep them down and sacrifice their well-being and their true, real seeing and perceiving of the world?

So how little harmful are such things? Even though they “didn’t happen very often”? Because already the first blow was so painful and thus damaging because already the feelings from that first blow had to become suppressed? And that fact is the sign of HOW damaging it is, even this first little blow?

This is what for instance Jenson calls denial. As minimizing (bagatellisera eller förminska): you know what happened but you see it as having less of an impact than it did. You can say things like

"Other people had it much worse than I did."

"I know he (or she or they)...but it only happened sometimes (see above)."

And this sort of denial can be added with Resisting (göra motstånd): you know what happened but you believe it is irrelevant to your adult life. You can say things like:

"It was a long time ago."

"That was then, this is now."

"That's just how it was (back then)."

Balancing (uppväga/balansera): you know what happened but you think that the "good" balanced it out. One can say things like

"We got everything we needed."

"But they were good people."

Excusing/justifying (rättfärdiga, rättfärdiggöra, försvara): you admit to the past but find rationales for what hapened. You might say:

"I (or we) deserved it."

"Everyone did it in those days."

"It was all he (or she or they) knew."

"We knew they loved us, they just couldn't show it."

"They did the nest they could."

And your denial has no other consequences than for yourself? Especially if you have children and even grandchildren??? Wouldn't this person be even more eager and interested in breaking the chain, breaking the vicious circle?? Why shall a person with no own children do this work? I wonder quite ironically.

Denial and the possible, horrible effects of it...

a nuclear family (happy?).

A third posting on the American neurologist Jonathan H. Pincus’ findings. He writes at page 214-215 in “Appendix: Tools of Diagnosis, History, Physical Examination and the Role of Tests” that:

”Conventional wisdom among prosecutors and society at large holds that the fabrication of stories of abuse occurs often. But in twenty-five years of seeing the most violent people in America, I have only once encountered an inmate whose claim of abuse was reliably refuted by other family members. In my experience, falsification has weighed heavily in the other direction. I have seen many murderers whose claim not to have been abused was contradicted by independent evidence.

Many condemned prisoners would literally go to their deaths rather than consciously and publicly describe their abuse by their parents [abuse with really dire consequences]. Many families of the condemned would much rather see their relative executed than reveal the story of abuse that implicates them as either perpetrator or fellow victim.”

One denies and hides what has happened. And that’s why the abuse is passed further. This proves what for instance Miller has said. Things we see every day in society but in other forms and not as obvious? For instance in political decisions.

“Konventionell visdom bland kärande (åklagare?) och samhället i stort menar att påhitt om övergrepp ofta förekommer. Men under de tjugofem år som jag sett de mest våldsamma människorna i Amerika så har jag bara mött en intern vars anspråk på övergrepp var pålitligt vederlagda (motsagda) av andra familjemedlemmar. Enligt min erfarenhet så har förfalskning vägt tungt i den andra riktningen. Jag har sett många mördare vars anspråk på att inte ha blivit misshandlade har blivit motsagda av oberoende bevis.

Många dömda fångar skulle bokstavligen hellre gå i döden än att medvetet och offentligt beskriva misshandeln av sina föräldrar [man skyddar dem alltså snarare än berättar hur det verkligen var, med de ödesdigra konsekvenser det får. Och det är antagligen oerhört många i samhället oerhört tacksamma för att slippa höra!! Med de konsekvenser DET kan få! Hellre stoppar vi alla våra huvuden i sanden!?]. Många familjer till dömda skulle mycket hellre se sin släkting avrättad än att avslöja övergreppshistorien, vilken [samtidigt] skulle låta förstå att de antingen är förövare eller medoffer [också].”

I am for instance thinking of what we see in politics too. What sort of politicians and politics we (seem to) have today. Ideas opportune today. What society approves of today and what this can lead to?

Yes, the psycho-historian Bob Scharf is right when he writes in the essay “Leaders” for instance that:

“…the more defended psychoclasses tend to lead.”

I am not sure I agree with ALL he writes in his particular essay though… (psycho-historians seem to be influenced by psychoanalysis still? So brainwashed by it, not capable of shaking its influences off really? I don't believe in and don't like that language really, it's manipulative I think and more covering than relieving and liberating. But I wonder if thinking like this isn't like "swearing in the church"?) Rather see what Ingeborg writes about False power - anger defence and what Miller writes on anger, the justified anger, and scapegoats (anger directed at other targets than the factual perpetrators), I believe more in their ideas. And what these serial killers show is the extremes of this anger, their need for power and control??

I will write another posting later today I think about WHAT sorts of abuse Pincus actually has found and how the victims minimize and belittle the abuse. Probably the more the more horrible it is/was.

Yes, all these things: denial, belittling, minimizing can get dire consequences, because if you deny what you were exposed to you are a great risk of abusing other people as soon as you get that opportunity. From own children to committing murders etc.

The horrible thing is that the more serious the abuse the more difficult it is to admit that it was done… We should speak about these things much more? Even the abuse we (maybe) less harmed was exposed to. Making us more or less blind and more or less insensitive. And pone to voting for quite authoritarian and not so sound politicians and leaders for instance.

See the lasts postings on Pincus and this theme here and here.

Addition at 13:25: and now also here.

Our innate sinfulness…

we celebrate June 6, our national day, today. Not something I am very eager about though...

The Dutch therapist Ingeborg Bosch writes (pages 62-65) that traditional religions legitimizes and enforces the Primary defence (to blame oneself). Many religions consist of a core conviction that we humans are basically sinful, unworthy creatures, and only by following the religion’s rules and rituals there might be hope for us she thinks.

She means that this can have a destructive effect on our self-perception. Yes, I’m not worth a better treatment than this, because I am so bad - and sinful. I deserve being treated like this. It’s for my own good .*

She means that these religious ideas about our “true nature” can feed right into the Primary defence, leading to intense suffering (not always conscious? And all don’t have emotional contact with these feelings?) caused by negative thoughts and feelings about ourselves (which some deny, even powerfully deny and convince themselves about other things?). At the same time an almost insurmountable fort of defence has been erected.

She quotes a client saying:

“You could say that it was offered to me on a silver platter. What else could I do? I couldn’t do anything but accept. I couldn’t do anything but envelop myself in feelings of guilt. In this way I didn’t have to feel anything else. /…/ I only had to feel guilt. The church obliged me to feel guilt. Didn’t that come in handy, my rescue. I flee in feelings of guilt. I can handle those, because the church tells me they are good. Not knowing what I’m doing to myself. With this I kill every other feeling inside me and with that I kill every bit of life in me. Then I stop being alive. Only in that way can I continue, can I survive. There is no other way.”

This woman was raised in a strict Christian religion which teaches its followers that mankind is sinful from the moment they are conceived; that although mankind does not deserve to live because of his sinful nature (they shall be grateful and bow their heads?), people are alive and so must do penance daily; that it is vital to acknowledge just how sinful mankind is; that man shall live in continuous fear of God, that Jesus died for mankind’s sins etc.

Although not all Christian traditions preach such severe concepts, the idea of being guilty by nature is a basic premise in Christianity.

And therefore one needs to be educated, even as grown up, by other, better people, people that are enlightened and on the right side?

On the other side of God, good and power, is mankind, evil and powerless, the psychologist Aleid Schilder writes.

“Not capable of any good, but prone to all evil… The almighty and all good God has created as his opponent sinful, guilty and powerless mankind.”

It stands in the Dutch confession of faith (article 15) about

“…Adam’s disobeyance has extended the original sin to all of mankind’ which is a wickedness of all of nature, with which even small children in their mother’s bodies are contaminated, and which causes all kinds of sins in mankind, being in him as the roots thereof, and she is therefore so gruesome to God, that she is content in dooming mankind.”

The depth of these ideas of being sinful and guilty just for being part of mankind, and as a part of our innate nature, is maybe most clearly illustrated by the Christian idea that Jesus, as the son of God, took mankind’s sins on his shoulders (showing how sinful mankind is) by going to the cross and dying for mankind. This idea is at the very heart of Christianity and still is very much alive today.

She also writes that compared to Christian religions we tend to see Eastern religions as more positive toward us human beings. However, outward appearance can be deceptive she thinks. She means that similar guilt messages can be found in Eastern traditions.

She writes about the Tibetan Buddhist religion which for example tells how important it is to concentrate on the following points: The individual don’t really exist. Any identification with needs is therefore an illusion and induces attachment and suffering (false power - denial of needs). We need to come to understand that everything is ‘empty’.

Within the realization of emptiness (no ego, no attachment, no need) there has to be focus on compassion towards others (false hope). Anything that is done with an individual motivation is not done in ‘the right way’ (false power – denial of needs?). No matter how much good you do, if you do it to attain enlightenment for yourself instead of doing it for humanity, it is not desirable (denial of needs?).

We need to purify ourselves (the need for purification implies that we aren’t pure, that purification is necessary implies that we aren’t clean in some way). We can do this by engaging in rituals, meditations or through direct blessings from and devotion to a guru (guruism).

A closer look at many religious and spiritual teachings often reveals these defensive tendencies.

“Our suffering is caused by our own impurity, our guilt and sinful nature. We need to be strong and do our best.”

What happens to the child early in life and the influence hereof on our feelings and behaviour when we are adults is not addressed. Emotional problems are often seen as sand in the wind.

This demonstrates a Denial of the truth of the emotional suffering that was caused during our childhood because we didn’t get what we needed (then). The old pain won’t “blow away” until we face it, acknowledge and feel it, she thinks. The idea it will is an illustration of a denial of needs defence.

She writes about guilt-ridden religions, and the need for spiritual masters NOT linked to dogmatic, rigid, hierarchical religions based on power structures. Power structures and ideas of sinfulness that provide them with power over their followers. But she thinks that also in these new ways of thinking, the far-reaching effects of our childhood are overlooked nevertheless.

But Miller writes somewhere that we are neither as guilty as we believe nor as free from guilt as we maybe also believe. With this she means that we feel guilt for things that were done to us and for this we aren’t guilty. But later on, as adults and grown ups, we have done things we of course are responsible and guilty for (in my interpretation and understanding of her).

See similar ideas, but in other forms, about our innate evilness, in psychiatry, psychology, therapy etc. Freud's version of it with our innate drives (of sexual nature) and Melanie Klein and HER ideas for instance... I think many working in this field still believe in innate drives as the roots of our problems... Miller writes about her thoughts on Melanie Klein and her concept in the book "The Body Never Lies" for instance.

Miller has written (see this posting):

“Sigmund Freud himself, and above all Melanie Klein, Otto Kernberg, their successors, and the ego-psychology of Heinz Hartmann have all ascribed to the child what was dictated to them by an upbringing in the spirit of Poisonous Pedagogy: children are evil by nature, or 'polymorphically perverse."' (In Banished Knowledge I have quoted an extensive passage by the highly respected analyst Glover on his view of children [he was psychodynamically oriented?]). All this has very little to do with childhood reality, and certainly with the reality of an injured and suffering child."

See earlier posting "Parent's rights contra children's..."

*it stands about Miller’s book “For Your Own Good – Hidden Cruelty in Child-rearing and the Roots of Violence” at her site:

“In this book, Alice Miller opens our eyes to the devastating effects of education and care purporting to have ‘the child's best interests’ in mind. She does this first by analyzing what she calls the ‘pedagogic approach’, and secondly by describing the childhood of a drug addict, a political leader (Adolf Hitler), and a child-murderer. Her book succeeded in conveying not just factual (and hence uninvolving) but also emotional awareness of the way in which psychoses, drug addiction and crime represent a deferred and indirect expression of experiences undergone in early infancy. For a child to develop naturally, it needs respect from its caregivers, tolerance for its feelings, awareness of its needs and sensibilities, and authenticity on the part of its parents. This authenticity manifests itself in an upbringing style in which it is the personal freedom of the parents - and not educational dogma - that imposes natural limits to the child.”

Acting out…

from rehearsal yesterday with two of my students. Is it the anger's angel on the altar-piece, commanding: fall down?

I am thinking further on what I see around me in society, not least among politicians, and the politicians in our current government in particular. Wonder what is driving them? How they can resonate as they do. And of course: why do they need power? Why have they chosen political work? What are their actual intentions and motives, both the conscious and unconscious? Yes, what are their drives?

And I for instance found something Miller has written at page 168-169 in the Swedish edition of ”Paths of Life” about acting out ones hatred on scapegoats. She writes that it’s impossible for a child to consciously experience the abuse (physical, sexual and emotional) without aware witnesses. The knowledge about what it has been exposed to (or the meaning of it: this was no love, but hate and rejection) has to become suppressed. But what happened doesn’t disappear even if it is dispatched to the unconscious. The unconscious memories drive the human being once and again to reproduce the suppressed scenes to liberate her/himself from the agony the early abuse has left in the body.

But not even this gives him/her liberation. Once and again he becomes perpetrator and finds new victims. So long as he projects the hatred and fear on scapegoats one can’t master these feelings. Not until one realizes the true cause(s) and understands the natural reaction on injuries the blind, on innocent projected hatred can get dissolved. Its function, to hide the truth, is no longer necessary. And she also writes on another place that you can’t dissolve things symbolically either. If one could, all we with artistic and creative works would be liberated from neurosis (my free interpretation of Miller), but we are certainly not. But it’s possible our work helps many of us to survive.

Miller writes that perpetrators of sexual abuse are no longer at risk re-enacting their traumas (committing sexual abuse) in a destructive way if they get help and opportunity in therapy to process what they have been through. Where do they get this help I wonder? Does that sort of help exist? Or it is still very rare? Because people still try to invent a lot of other explanations, than abuse from parents and other caretakers and to what degree they actually occur and what is actually harmful? One ascribes or attributes the causes and roots to for instance sexual abuse other things than early childhood abuse in many, many cases still? There is still a lot of denial about those things, both in people in general as in professionals. People deny that these things are ALWAYS, with no exception, a question of mistreatment, from the mildest forms to the most severe? There are small islands of awareness and knowledge only in the world.

Miller also writes that so long as the anger against a parent remains unconscious and denied, it cannot get dissolved. It can only be pushed over onto scapegoats, on the own children (if one has any) or supposed enemies. Masked as ideology (as for instance in politics and political parties) the anger transformed to hate can become especially dangerous.

What I originally was searching for this time was ideas about he child’s evilness because earlier today I skimmed “Paths of Life” in the middle of doing other things and read those words somewhere and put them on my mind.

Yes, she writes about this at page 186 in the Swedish edition, something in the style: punishment is built on the assumption that the child is acting with an evil intention (I can see the horrified adult watching the child! But what is he/she actually seeing?? An evil child? A monster? But what is this “evil” or “monster” about?)

She writes on the next page (187) that the latter adult will miss a compass of experiences (achieved through consciously experiencing things and not having to suppress things) which would help her/him to orientate in the life and the being. Therefore he will bow for authorities and play master over the weaker; all in accordance with what he/she has experienced as a child with his/her educators. I came to think of an older acquaintance in my parents age, blindly admiring all people with a position, never questioning them or capable of seeing them as human beings as all other human beings. I wonder what ort of father (and mother) she and her six siblings had. She is the child in the midst? With three before her and three after her? I still get very surprised when I am confronted with this in her, can’t understand how one can be SO uncritical and seeing up to THAT degree, and that this person does.

Too bothersome and laborious…

On our way back to work after the lunch on Friday I took some photos in a hurry on pictures with old Volvos, hanging on the walls in the stairs to the restaurant where we ate our lunch, here is one of these pictures.

[Addition in the end May 26]. On Thursday and Friday I had a lot to do with one of our bosses, a man y, the "lower" of our two bosses (boss no 2!! :-)). We two only sat in a jury listening to candidates to a special course for our cleverest pupils, aged 13-20.

We spoke a lot with each other and with the pupils. y and I ate lunch on Friday too. We had a lunch-break for more than an hour on Friday, so we had time associating a lot!

There was a lot to process for me of all different kinds, both on a personal and general level, my reactions, what y said to the pupils, what they said, how they reacted, what their teachers (my colleagues) said etc. (typically female thoughts? Or?).

All of a sudden I got a very vague Aha-experience, something I am still trying to put words on.

I’ll start trying to do this in this posting (had to write a second posting today, let’s see if there comes a third too? :-))

On the balcony I wrote the following (in Swedish) with pen and paper:

“[It's] more comfortable shambling along (lulla på) in the same old ruts (hjulspår) [than changing the state of affairs]? Sometimes the profits and gains with this are outweighing everything else [or feel outweighing, easier than the hard and tough struggle and fight - and less scary?]? Men are maybe more forced giving up something quite comfortable (generally)? Changes feels like being forced doing something feeling too bothersome and laborious (besvärligt, mödosamt, jobbigt)? While many women don’t have any choices? They are forced doing the hard and bothersome work?

The profits in a [true, genuine] meeting with another human being (through a meeting with oneself) with all what comes along with that, all what that means, is – too much? [for many women too!] Something many men see as ‘changing oneself down’ as we say (byta ner sig)?”

A change to something that feels worse? Even if they on the other hand honour changes. But there are "changes and changes", and who define what changes actually are, and that they are against (at least a certain sort of) changes is covered up (and many of us probably don't see this either, because we aren't used to question these things, many are probably totally blind to this too, and I think I can be too to a high degree, even if I think I got a glimpse of something now)? The benefits with the old behaviour overweight. So of course they aren’t so interested, but cling to how it has always been? And defend that too, forcefully? With this not said that y is the worse example on men against changing oneself!! He isn't, but nevertheless... (I wonder what he would feel and think if he read this??:-))

They feel they will loose more than they will gain? And it struck me – they will loose many comfortable things??? So small wonder they aren’t so interested – in general?

At least not in this generation? But honestly I am not sure this is true only for that generation… Sad to say.

But there are probably men whom have no choices but doing the hard work too?

Cats are musical? :-)

Addition May 26: Miller writes in a reply to a reader's letter about

"...many professionals who are still stuck in the traditional way of thinking."

Yes, these things ARE bothersome and laborious? Everything in us “rises up against” this? After a while we don’t want to know about it any more? Want to push it away, ignore and minimize it? Are some more prone to this too? Denial turns on? As Judith Lewis Herman actually writes about the history around trauma? See for instance the chapter “A Forgotten History” in her book "Trauma and Recovery - From Domestic Violence to Political Terror":

“The study of psychological trauma has a curious history – one of episodic amnesia. Periods of active investigation have alternated with periods of oblivion [a defence reaction? Denial of the longterm consequences of what we were exposed to and how in fact common these things are? Why a person like Miller is less mentioned today, and why her last books haven't been translated to Swedish for instance? And the denial also expressed itself when Sweden's therapist hesitated on banning corporal punishment fearing abuse would express itself in other manners, and maybe get more hidden? See earlier posting on this here. Denial from their part too!]. Repeatedly in the past century, similar lines of inquiry have been taken up and abruptly abandoned, only to be discovered much later. Classic documents of fifty or one hundred years ago often read like contemporary works. Though this field has in fact an abundant and rich tradition, it has been periodically forgotten and must be periodically reclaimed.”

---

“Studiet av psykologiskt trauma har en besynnerlig historia – en av tillfällig amnesi. Perioder av aktivt utforskande har alternerat med perioder av glömska [en försvarsreaktion? Ett förnekande av de långsiktiga konsekvenserna av det vi blev utsatta för och hur vanliga dessa saker faktiska är. Varför en person som Miller är mycket mindre nämnd idag och varför hennes sista böcker inte har översatts till svenska. Och förnekandet uttrycktes också då Sveriges psykoterapeuter tvekade inför förbud mot aga därför att de var rädda att misshandel/övergrepp skulle ta sig andra uttryck och kanske bli mer dolda. Se tidigare inlägg här om detta. Förnekandet hos dem uttrycktes på detta sätt??]. Under det gångna århundradet har liknande undersökningstankegångar tagits upp och abrupt blivit övergivna, bara för att upptäckas långt senare. Femtio till hundra år gamla klassiska dokument kan ofta läsas som samtida arbeten. Trots att detta område faktiskt har en överflödig och rik tradition, har det periodiskt glömts och har periodiskt måst återerövras.”

The cold glance of the bureaucrat…

Maximilian Carl Emil Weber (21 April 1864 – 14 June 1920) was a German political economist and sociologist who was considered one of the founders of the modern study of sociology and public administration.

[Updated May 25 in the end]. The Swedish leader-writer Göran Greider wrote a leader today with the title ”Byråkratens kyliga blick” or “The cold glance of the bureaucrat.”

During the week it seems as there has been a row of programmes on radio about disabled people and their lives and life-experiences. Radio commentators have followed disabled people in the society, young disabled women have told about sexual abuse and mobbing and subtle actions of violence from the environment.

To Greider this comes as no surprise. During the former decade he worked with different disability organizations. Then, fifteen years ago, the old charity thoughts started to come back: instead of social rights – once again it was more and more about relying on idealistic forces and relatives. The last forty years many disability organizations have managed to cast off a lot of the yoke of charity. Now those achievements were about to get lost. And the problem went deeper than that: even the public welfare was – and is – in depth coined by inherited charity-thoughts he thinks, i.e., the view that the one receiving support shall feel grateful and preferably not be noisy when the gifts are falling over them. The core of the philanthropic thought was there and it is a very hard thought: those who need help have to do their full share and show their gratitude, if not they aren’t worth of help. Now the view on poor, unemployed and all sorts of exposed people is hardening. “The National Board of Health and Welfare” and “Social Insurance in Sweden” walk hand in hand with neoconservative social-politicians and those actors are more and more building an elite that is floating above the problems and seem to know best what sort of needs people have.

Greider thinks one can’t regulate what sort of help a disabled person needs on a bureaucratic level. The most banal things in everyday life can appear different dependent on if ones arms, eyes or ears doesn’t function.

He thinks that “Social Insurances in Sweden” doesn’t have to interpret the law as they are doing now – but the authorities choose to do that. Why? He wonders. However, he hardly thinks it’s out of evilness. It’s rather so that the obvious glance from above is what makes it difficult to see people as individuals. He thinks the directors of “Social Insurances in Sweden” have shown that they have become a part of the power-establishment who don’t understand the problems lower in the society then where they themselves are. They have lost contact with the grassroots. A sort of authoritarianism and totalitarianism? Beating their breasts?

The bureaucrat’s cold glance is directed towards the society. And Greider thinks we have to dare to meet it and not give way for it.

There was a letter to the editor in a local newspaper today where it stood:

“Sounds nasty.

The right alliance’s Reinfeldt [our current prime-minister] has difficulties winning peoples’ hearts.

Maybe the Swedish people need to do as Maud Olofsson [leader of one of the parties, centerpartiet, in the alliance leading Sweden now] said. Separate heart from brain. Ugh, that sounds nasty.”

Both the heart and brain is saying that what they are doing now is wrong – and VERY WRONG??

The Swedish physician Christina Doctare said in her book "Brain-stress" that the future's leaders need both IQ and EQ and jolly good broadband between those two, and spiritual dimension on top I think she added.

All sort of helpers (employees everywhere, psychiatrists, psychotherapists, psychologists, physicians, teachers too etc. etc. etc.) are walking in the leading-strings of the power? Run the power's errands!! See former posting on "John Read and Models of Madness..."

PS. Doctare actually writes (I looked in the book) something in the style:

“The future’s leadership, on all societal levels, will be about people with well integrated brain halves and jolly good broad-bands between them. Persons having IQ, EQ and a spiritual dimension. It says itself that a certain amount of maturity is required and a great amount of integrity and civil courage./…/

Leadership is about seeing both power and authorities as tools in obtaining goals formulated together, not as goals in themselves or as tools for ones own self-glorifying and nourishment for a stuck-up ego."

And also read the reader’s letter on Miller’s web “Interview with child advocate Andrew Vachss.”

See former posting with those videos. And former postings on backward psycho classes.

PPS. Miller summarizes it quite well when she says, apropos Oprah Winfrey in the talk with Andrew Vachss, where Vachss “confronts Oprah with her belief that anger resulting from an abusive childhood is a bad thing that one needs to overcome, and that the way to ‘healing’ is through forgiveness. And he thoroughly questions it" (as it stood in the reader’s letter). As we are learned so often in therapy; to feel but not to feel:

“Feeling and understanding the causes of our old pain does not mean that the pain and the anger will stay with us forever. Quite the opposite is true. The felt anger and pain disappear with time and enable us to love our children [therapists are afraid we shall get stuck in he old pain and anger. But if clients do - why? See below*]. It is the UNFELT, avoided and denied pain, stored up in our bodies, that drive us to repeat what have been done to [and which gives us all sorts of troubles, and it is help with feeling this pain we need?].

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”Att känna och förstå orsakerna till vår gamla smärta betyder inte att smärtan och vreden kommer att stanna hos oss för evigt. Snarare tvärtom. Den kända vreden [den vrede vi medvetet upplevt] försvinner med tiden och gör oss förmögna att älska våra barn [och oss själva och andra vuxna. Men många terapeuter är rädda att vi ska fastna i detta!? Något som är absolut förbjudet? Och jag har ju mina tankar om varför en klient 'fastnar'...*]. Det är den INTE KÄNDA smärtan, den smärta vi undvikit och förnekat, som lagrats i våra kroppar, som driver oss att upprepa det som gjordes mot oss [och som ger oss allehanda problem].”

Addition May 25: Struck me on my bike to the grocery store before lunch: And the more power we have the more important feeling and understanding the causes of our pain are. The more important it is that we don’t have unfelt, avoided and denied pain stored up in our bodies, driving us to repeat what was done to us.

I am thinking of the power parents, leaders (the greater and higher up the more), therapists and all sort of helpers have. In these circumstances awareness about ones own self is more important than ever for all around and under. The more serious the effects of the past from the childhood of the one in power can become; what he has experienced and endured and not been able to process – something we have certainly seen through history and still continue seeing.

And there can be pains we don’t even are in contact with? Pain we have never consciously felt. Pain that is so denied.

*“If one uncritically cling to old methods' alleged infallibility and blames the client for failures, you inevitably land in the same fairways (waters) as the sect-guru, who also promises entire liberation. Such promises only produce self-destructive dependence which stands in the way for the individual’s liberation.” (Alice Miller in “Paths of Life” in my amateur translation from the Swedish edition of this book)."

John Read and Models of Madness...

[Slightly updated May 24]. The blog ”Do nothing day” wrote in a blogposting about an “Interesting radio-programme on madness and science” which was about schizophrenia and the professor in psychology (?) at the University of Auckland, John Read.

From the introductory chapter to the book "Models of Madness: Psychological, Social and Biological Approaches to Schizophrenia" (Brunner-Routledge, 2004) or ”Galenskapens gåta - Psykologiska, sociala och biologiska modeller för schizofreni” ISBN: 9789187852435 edited by John Read, Loren R. Mosher and Richard P. Bentall it you can read (translated to Swedish):

“De flesta lekmän, många professionella och de flesta som kallas ‘schizofrena’ inser att psykiska problem har sitt ursprung i livserfarenheter. Bara en mäktig yrkesgren, den biologiskt inriktade psykiatrin, insisterar på att överbetona biologi och genetik. Den har en makt som hör ihop med stödet från läkemedelsindustrin.

Utöver att Galenskapens Gåta ger alternativ — och övertygande bevis som stöder dessa alternativ — går den igenom de historiska, ekonomiska och politiska förhållanden som givit denna förenklade biologiska ideologi en så skadlig dominans. Vi gör det för att inte svikta i den kamp som väntar alla, som vill föra psykosvården in på en humanare och mer effektiv väg. För att övervinna hindren krävs att alla deltar — personal i den psykiska hälsovården (inklusive psykiatrer), de som brukar kallas ‘schizofrena’, deras närstående, forskare, sjukvårdsadministratörer och politiker. För vår del har vi sammanställt de forskningsresultat som kan användas i denna kamp, för dem vars sinne är öppet för den ganska enkla tanken att förtvivlan oftast orsakats av andra människor, och att det är människor som kan avhjälpa den bäst och inte kemikalier.

Vårt bidrag består delvis av en uppdatering av bevis, delvis av ett återuppväckande av glömda eller tabubelagda resultat, och delvis av en introduktion av nyare synsätt, tex att förstå den roll barndomstrauman spelar. Det är också en rak, frimodig uppfordran till medvetenhet. Alla berörda borde göra något, efter sina möjligheter, för att få slut på denna galenskap.”

Taken from here. Here an article about the book in Swedish. Silently thinking: labeling and diagnosing another human being is a power-tool. And used by the power it can cause a lot of harm, and has caused a lot of harm... Used as a justification for quite abusive measures, in both medical, psychiatric treatment as in politics. And used to cover things up. Addition May 24: the Swedish leader-writer Göran Greider in fact writes about things paralleling this in the leader "The cold glance of the bureaucrat," about how disabled people are treated. When I return from work I will blog about this I think... Words came for me when I read this leader such as: humiliation, lousy politics, gratefulness, human worth... Übermensch-ideals, almost fascistic ideas...

And here you can read (parts of?) the book. There it you can read:

“Chapter 1

'Schizophrenia' is not an illness

John Read, Loren R. Mosher and Richard P. Bentall

'Schizophrenia is a chronic, severe, and disabling brain disease'. In June 2003, this was the opening statement of the US government agency, the National Insititute for Mental Health, on its public information website about the topic of our book. Such an opinion can be found in most 'educational' material, from Psychiatric textbooks to drug company sponsored pamphlets. We disagree.

The heightened sensitivity, unusual experiences, distress, despair, confusion and disorganization that are currently labelled 'schizophrenic' are not symptoms of a medical illness. The notion that 'mental illness is an illness like any other', promulgated by biological psychiatry and the pharmaceutical industry, is not supported by research and is extremely damaging to those with this most stigmatizing of psychiatric labels. The 'medical model' of schizophrenia has dominated efforts to understand and assist distressed and distressing people for far too long. It is responsible for unwarranted and destructive pessimism about the chances of 'recovery' and has ignored-or even actively discouraged discussion of-what is actually going on in these people's lives, in their families and in the societies in which they live. Simplistic and reductionistic genetic and biological theories have led, despite the high risks involved and the paucity of sound research proving effectiveness, to the lobotimizing, electroshocking or drugging of millions of people.

The research we have gathered together in this book supports our belief that our efforts to understand and assist people experiencing the 'symptoms of schizophrenia' will benefit greatly from a fundamental shift away from unsubstantiated bio-genetic ideologies and technologies to a more down-to-earth focus on asking people what has happened and what they need.

We have not attempted an even-handed, 'objective' approach. What is required, after a hundred years or more of the dominance of an approach that is unsupported scientifically and unhelpful in practice, is a balancing stance rather than a balanced one. The traditional viewpoint is omnipresent in textbooks, research journals and the media. Other views have had difficulty being heard [because of the denial in general, in society and individuals?].

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Kapitel 1.

Schizofreni är inte en sjukdom.

’Schizofreni är en kronisk, allvarlig/svår och handikappande hjärnsjukdom’ detta var det inledande påståendet från the US government agency, the National Insititute for Mental Health, på dess allmänna informationswebbsida i juni 2003 angående ämnet för vår bok. En sådan åsikt kan man hitta i det mesta ’undervisningsmaterialet,’ från psykiatriska läroböcker till broschyrer sponsrade av läkemedelsbolag. Vi håller inte med.

Den ökade känsligheten, ovanliga erfarenheter, nödläge, förvirring och desorganisation som för närvarande etiketterats/diagnostiserats som schizofreni är inte symtom på en medicinsk sjukdom. Idén att ’mental sjukdom är en sjukdom som alla andra’, kungjord av biologisk psykiatri och läkemedelsindustrin, får inte stöd av forskning och är extremt skadande för dem som får denna den mest stigmatiserande av psykiatriska etiketter/diagnoser. Den ’medicinska modellen’ för schizofreni har alltför länge dominerat ansträngningarna att förstå och hjälpa plågade och plågande personer. Den är ansvarig för obefogad och destruktiv pessimism om chanserna för ’återhämtning’ och har ignorerat – eller till och med aktivt avskräckt/slagit ned diskussioner om – vad som egentligen pågår i dessa personers liv, i deras familjer och i samhället i vilket de lever. Förenklade och reduktionistiska genetiska och biologiska teorier har, trots de höga riskerna och den knappa tillgången på sund forskning som bevisar effektiviteten, lett till lobotomering, elektrochocker och drogandet av miljontals människor.

Den forskning som vi har samlat i denna bok stöder vår tro att våra ansträngningar att förstå och hjälpa människor som upplever ‘schizofrenisymtom’ skulle tjäna enormt på ett fundamentalt skifte bort från obekräftade biogenetiska ideologier och teknologier till ett mer jordnära fokus genom att fråga människor om vad som hände och vad de behöver.

Vi har inte försökt [oss på att hålla] ett opartiskt, objektivt angreppssätt. Vad som erfordras är en balanserande snarare än en balanserad hållning efter hundra år eller mer av dominans från ett angreppssätt som inte är vetenskapligt stöttat och vilket inte hjälper i praktiken. Det traditionella synsättet är allestädes närvarande i läroböcker, forskningsjournaler och media. Andra synsätt har haft svårighet att göra sig hörda [p.g.a. det allmänna förnekandet? Och kraftfulla ekonomiska intressen; från t.ex. läkemedelsbolagen]“