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.”
Wikström writes further about that the philosophy of life-enjoyment has in turn become idealized, commercialized and exploited. What follows from this is that the one that cannot afford or feels unfairly treated and therefore evidently becomes tired and unenterprising or weak, disappears and is seen as a deterrent example on a human being who isn’t successful.
But the happiness or success myth means that aging, destruction and death are made invisible.
The existence’s fundamental tragic is at risk of becoming denied and concealed by too simple diagnosis made by the speedy answers' prophets; the success ideal can create a despair that becomes twofold heavy because lack of success is described as the individuals own fault.
The individualism is disregarding structural or political factors behind this lostness. Factors like class, ethnicity, and gender – social injustices – are almost vanished in the popular culture’s images of the good life – not to talk about the insight aboutthe need for common forces for changes.
Wikström writes that the more he looks himself around the more he sees a lack. In the strong confidence to the individual’s own ability – the American dream – there is an equally big leaving the weak individuals social and economical needs and justified demands out of account. It is as if weakness and fragility has become on equal footing with stupidity, dumbness. See Alice Miller on contempt for weakness. This means that instead of a common fight, opposition and revolt, many turn their disappointment inwards:
“I have to blame myself. It’s probably my own fault. I ought to think more positively, attend a course, and learn how to style my personality.”
Whenthe solution on gigantic social problems, the lack of equality and political questions are individualized by the popular culture’s the looking in the mirror increases.
More and more people are trying to repeat the mantra:
“I AM happy, I WILL become successful, I AM consciously present, I WILL get through well, I WILL become slim!”
He thinks he can suspect the weeping behind the tight smiles.
When he reads newspapers and is surfing on the websites on the net it is apparent that the spirituality’s interpretors as well as the feel-well-psychology’s self-appointed experts both are an expression of and are exploiting a lost culture.
In parallel with highly normal and serious channels for psychological care in the health care a more and more miscellaneous market has grown. There a lucrative line of business has become created, a profitable niche both creating and profiting on the present age’s confusion.
There is also a culturally created blindness for social tearing down, an obvious ignoring of the common responsibility for weak or old. Sometimes compensated with hearty speech about the good entrepreneurship or that people have to pull themselves together – exactly the things people aren’t capable of. Political ideologies and theologies are forced to fight against this popular culture’s individualistic rhetoric.
Everything is individualized and the blame is put on individuals entirely. How practical!?
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!
The author of the article linked above (Ole Jacob Madsen, psychologist coming with the book "Psychology and Society" fall 2009) writes that the last years the psychologists in Norway (as a group or union) have been operating with the strategic goal of getting the psychology out to people, at the same time as the profession shall become stronger represented in the society’s development and planning than it has been. A striving to become a central actor in the society and a political pusher, with a broad perspective.
But “The Era of Psychology” and “the Therapy Society” are sociological ideas that aren’t new in intellectual milieus. No, nothing of this is actually new though he tries to point out, in my understanding and interpretation (of a text in Norwegian, quite academic too).
The analysis of the psychology’s increased influence in the Western Culture contains interesting questions. Has human development with focus on treatment of illness only been amicable (good)?
Is psychology the answer to individuals’ problems, or is the illness a symptom on a greater cultural crisis?
The British professor in sociology Nikolas Rose has shown how psychological norms, values, pictures of ideas (or conceptions) and techniques have formed how different societal authorities are thinking about peoples’ illnesses, normality and pathology. The psychology becomes active in most areas of modern life with developing independent fields of subjectivity in accordance with the society’s needs for regulating this independence.
Yes, the profession has too often run the power’s errands, the power’s needs for steering people!!! (And once again: the most defended tend to lead!)
But yes, this science HAS contributed with good things too, and the author points to those too.
For instance see the well-known study “the Hawthorne experiment” in USA (the Hawthorne effect); the feeling of being seen on a workplace increases the productivity. This was the start point for the Human Relation movement.
The critical voices against the psychology’s increased influence, especially in the US, and later in the rest of the Western world, is focusing on that the clinical psychology preferably presents individual solutions to problems that rather are social (societal?) and political. Thus there are good arguments to understand the psychology in an ideological perspective, such as the real ground why people are suffering.
Yes, psychology can really become misused, by the power!? As all science can become!?
The author writes that the subject the nineteenth decade gave birth to and its neoliberal project has by many become described as (the creation of) a corporate-self, forced to administer itself as an achievement. The psychologist in this culture gets a central place, among a lot of new expert profession groups, helping people to self steering.
Yes, you have only yourself to blame!? You have to pull yourself together, get a grip on yourself!
From 1940 and forward the psychology profession and the number of psychological illnesses grew (and is still growing?). Individual critics maintain that many (new) illnesses are strangely sharp, followed by a wish about power on the one hand and by a narrow view or thoughtlessness on the other hand.
However, this sort of criticism isn’t gaining the relational of the state of things between psychology and society the author thinks, because psychological language answers to needs in the society.
The psychology’s legality became increased during the decade after WWII in the US, because federal authorities need an allied to defend its presence in the inmates’ life and living. Earlier one stimulated the lust of reading in the inmates with scaring with the evil; the way to damnation went through the Bible. But the institutionalized religion lost its power with time, and became exchanged or compensated by typical therapeutic motives where the danger now is becoming bullied or having bad self confidence, becoming tools against illiteracy. (???? I didn’t really catch this! Need to read this again and more thoroughly?)
Comparative historical studies are though at risk of becoming reactionary idealizations of past times, but there are interesting religion-sociology applications. They point to the unsound that existential guilt no longer is placed outside the human being. Or that a self-disciplined system like the therapeutic can represent the authoritarian patriarchy, because it is only rights and not duties that are promoted, something that creates an imbalance between the individual’s and the society’s needs.
Of course psychotherapy can be healing for individuals, but from a system perspective you can speculate if the well-meant help just as well is at risk of becoming a part of easy won political solutions, where the individual becomes garbage can for the society’s unsolved conflicts.
What does the profession itself say? Relatively little. The answer to the society’s conflicts is always more psychology. The psychology’s self-understanding as underrepresented in the society is standing in contrast to the general knowledge and the profession’s description of the therapeutic culture.
The author writes about the (psychology) profession’s lack of history (lack of awareness about its history rather?), when exposed to critical reflection, but with a shameless eager to offer its services.
If the psychology’s character in itself isn’t worthy critics, then its limited apparatus for understanding itself is alarming.
Addition February 4: As a thought it was a leader today with the title ”More Wallraffing in the Psychiatric care” where you can read in the beginning something in this style:
”Why does it never seem to become any order in the psychiatry? For centuries the mental hospitals were often shocking fields of experiments for different [pseudo] scientific and therapeutic ideas, from swings to cold baths, over lobotomy to a blind faith (superstition) on different miraculous (wonder making) psychoactive drugs.”
Read about Günter Wallraff here. There you can read:
"His investigative methods have led to the creation of the Swedishverb 'wallraffa', meaning 'to expose misconduct from the inside by assuming a role', which has been officially included in word list of the Swedish Academy."
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...
Read Alice Miller's conversation with a frustrated therapist here and here, about a small boy the therapist has as client/patient, beaten by his parents; thrashed so there are big red welts on his buttocks:
"...when he goes to other people, men, women teachers, parents, therapists, to try and get some help, some information, something of the truth to help him clear his confusion, the message he gets is that its his fault if his beatings upset him, its his fault because of the way he took his beatings, his parents are not to be blamed, its no-ones' fault, it was not wrong of them to beat him because the law allowed it. So he doesn't go to therapists any more. They just abuse him.
AM: Why don't you tell him that nobody has the right to hit and mistreat him and that you will talk to his parents and tell them that what they are doing is a crime. It is your duty to protect this boy from the lies he has been taught and to tell him the truth. Otherwise a so-called therapy is a farce.
JR: Oh, I tried that, believe me. They have full support in their abusive behaviour from his headmaster, his headmistress, all his teachers, the police, the vicar, the priest, the imam, the counsellor, and the doctor. They all assure his parents that their son is evil, it is a kindness to correct him. And then, there are all my professionalist colleagues who will insist, to his parents and to everyone else that it is not their job to say what is right or wrong, that people are entitled to their opinions, it is an issue of difference and that it might well be the way he has taken his beatings that is causing his problems. His parents feel very strongly that I am a commie beatnik and they did in fact threaten to call the police if I didn't quit their premises immediately."
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.”
“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.
“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?].
---
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]“
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
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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om självhävdelse – ord för hjärta är också metaforer för styrka, mod,
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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
scheduled fo...
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Pharmaceutical marketing expert witness [image: screen2largeMM]
Dr. Peter Rost is a former Pfizer Marketing Vice President providing
services as a marketi...
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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