Macho ideals and the state of the world…

Jonathan Cook.

Gordon Gekko.

Patrick Bateman.

More voices in Sweden about the current states of affairs in the world:

One writer, Maria-Pia Boëthius, writes: An economical tribunal ought to become established. Not for imposing a penalty, but for making clear for the people around the world what has happened and who carry the guilt actually.

Such a tribunal should be sent directly over the web and in the public service channels all over the world. What we than got to know wouldn’t be dependent on the Medias’ reports and filtering of news because the Medias – the big – are also guilty to what has happened!

No of these bubbles would have been possible without the Medias’ eager cooperation and collaboration. But when the responsibility is to become claimed the medias always try to run away, only for to become the money-world’s obedient weapon in the next bubble.

The truth is that the media earn great money on that these bubbles are built, with the help of advertisement, PR and trademark building. The media and its owners have all interests in puffing the consumption up, because they seldom live on our direct buying but on the advertisements and the trademarkings’s (the making of trade marks) distorted message.

See about the British journalist Jonathan Cook here and here.

And read about ”The Intellectual Cleansing” part one and two here (Part one with the title “Keeping the Media Safe For Big Business”). Quotation from that site on what Media Lens is:

“Media Lens is our response to the unwillingness, or inability, of the mainstream media to tell the truth about the real causes and extent of many of the problems facing us, such as human rights abuses, poverty, pollution and climate change.”

The world needs an unbiased tribunal where even the Medias’ have to answer for their actions she thinks.

Another writer writes about our short sight needs and a sick system, something our politicians haven’t wanted to accept, and they haven't wanted to accept that they are responsible for a lot of what’s happening either. If we don’t see, hear… we have no responsibility? Yes, that about being in denial...

This writer writes about more and more advanced financial instruments in the financial world and thinks a financial system ought to see so the resources there are in the world are where they are needed. That all people ought to get their basic needs met. All financial institutions ought to account for what they do in this respect.

The earth has limited resources. All financial institutions ought to account for how they reduce the consumption of resources and leave space for other species to live.

All systems need time for reflection (thoughtfulness), even the financial systems. But the ones working in this system wants oscillations (?) because they earn money on differences. And are driven by mania??

But the instruments shouldn’t be there for the instruments' sake! Creativity ought to become encouraged too. Regular controls of the financial instruments so they don’t loose their transparency are needed.

A great part of this crisis is due to the fact that the politicians, put there to regulate these markets, in fact don’t understand those instruments.

We need to find a system where all people can live. We should need to steer the society in a transparent, fair and ecological direction.

A third writer (Martin Halldén in the Swedish magazine ETC) writes that it’s a sick man’s ideal behind the crisis! And I think that's really true! A CEO (VD in Swedish) for an investment company said a couple of years ago something in the style that:

“Buying house shares is like buying women. You don’t want to buy a cheap whore if you can buy an expensive whore.”

But this statement isn’t strange the writer thinks. Because in the financial world a sick man’s ideal rules he means. And has even contributed to the global financial crisis. Young men with Gordon Gekko and Patrick Bateman as models are competing about taking extreme risks and the climate in those circles favours lack of consideration - and has quite musty values.

Stockbrokers are mostly men working on workplaces dominated by men, and the financial market has become a reserve for young, aggressive men (yes, what are they playing out and what do their actions cause and have they caused?).

It is this sick macho culture that has created the decisions we now see the results of – when the stock markets now are falling all over the world.

Read Barbara Ehrenreich on Positive Thinking!!

The Swedish journalist Jan Guillou also wrote the other day about Blackwater and “Murder as Business Idea – Jan Guillou on the privatisation of the war – and Blackwater’s notorious mercenary soldiers.”

On a bike ride I came to think once again about what the American neurologist Jonathan Pincus writes about societal approval. And that's exactly what we see, societal approval and scapegoating. Here the politicians and media use scapegoats (unemployed, people on sick pay etc., claiming they are misusing the system) to put the blame on to steer the society in a direction they wouldn't have been able to steer it in otherwise (or not so quickly, without this it would have taken even more time than it has actually taken), and they have become accepted targets for people's needs to act all sorts of things out (probably childhood experiences in the bottom)!!! I react a lot towards this.

Barndomen och dess effekter (senare) i livet…

[Lätt redigerad på kvällen, samt 22 augusti med länkar i slutet, för min egen skull]. Mitt i jobbstart med tusen saker i huvudet… Ville bara få ur mig detta.

Ju mer man är i förnekande desto större konsekvenser får den misshandel man blivit utsatt för, för en själv och andra. Jag tror att Alice Miller har rätt:

“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. 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]." (Alice Miller in an answer to a reader’s letter May 24, 2008, relating to a talk between Andrew Vachss and Oprah Winfrey)”

Översatt blir det något i stil med:

”Att känna och förstå orsakerna till vår gamla smärta betyder inte att smärtan och vreden kommer att stanna för evigt. Motsatsen är snarare sann. Den vrede och smärta som vi har känt [medvetet, eller så medvetet vi förmår] försvinner med tiden [och inte tvärtom] och gör oss förmögna att älska våra barn [oss själva, andra barn och andra vuxna människor]. Det är den smärta som lagrats i vår kropp, som vi undviker och förnekar, som driver oss att upprepa vad som gjorts mot oss.”

Och det är de som är minst benägna att erkänna dessa sidor i sig själva, som är i största (kanske det mest totala) förnekandet, som söker sig till maktpositioner (för att slippa ta itu). De man i psykohistorien kallar de efterblivna psykoklasserna (efterblivenheten har inte med gener att göra eller kan inte förklaras med psykoanalytiska idéer. Idéer som för övrigt förnekar och döljer/skyler över sanningen eller gör en i värsta fall totalt oförmögen att komma i kontakt med sanningen. Ville helt kort tillägga att jag inte påstår att jag har skådat sanningen, min egen sanning. Kanske bara vagt, vagt anat den?? Jag påstår heller inte att jag inte spelar ut mitt egna alls, tyvärr gör jag kanske det fortfarande hur mycket jag än skulle vilja att jag inte gör det).

I dag fanns en debattartikel i DD med rubriken ”Mobbare riskerar att hamna i missbruk och kriminalitet.” Där stod:

”Undersökningar visar, (Dan Olweus med flera) att mobbare som inte får hjälp med att komma ifrån sitt destruktiva beteende, löper fyra gånger så stor risk som andra, att så småningom hamna i missbruk och kriminalitet. Eller på annat sätt uttryckt. Fyra av fem av våra ungdomar som sitter på kåken, har varit mobbare under sin skoltid som inte fått hjälp./…/

Vilka barn och ungdomar är det då som terroriserar sin omgivning? Det finns inga starka allenarådande karaktärsegenskaper som kännetecknar mobbaren. Även om det finns en del att peka på./…/

Orsakerna till att en ung människa börjar att mobba andra står ofta att finna i hur barnet behandlas hemma. Om föräldrarna inte sätter tydliga gränser för barnets aggressiva beteende så kommer det sannolikt att fortsätta, till någon annan orkar att sätta gränserna.

Den främsta åtgärden vid all slags oönskat barnbeteende är, att en vuxen med kärlek omedelbart, korrigerar det felaktiga beteendet.”

I senaste lärartidningen står det också om mobbning. En skolpsykolog säger om hot om att flytta mobbaren att skolan då

”…använder sig av mobbarens eget språk och lär ut mobbarens egna strategier.”

Jag kunde inte låta bli att reflektera över allt detta sammantaget: För att verkligen komma tillrätta med existerande våld av alla slag räcker det inte med att se de ytliga orsakerna till detta våld. Vi borde (måste) gå till de yttersta rötterna. Och våga se dem klart och tydligt? Utan att göra detta kan vi aldrig hitta de åtgärder som ger mest effekt. Eller de åtgärder som alls ger riktig effekt.

Men då måste vi våga börja se var dessa rötter finns.

Annars kommer problemen att fortsätta kvarstå i samma grad (och kanske till och med öka i grad och omfattning). Och vi kanske ovanpå allt tillskriver dess existens gener för att alls kunna förklara varför beteendet fortsätter trots allt vad vi "gjort".

Och orsakerna till våld, och det handlar inte bara om fysiskt (inklusive sexuellt) utan också om emotionellt våld, ligger tidigast i livet; hur vi blev behandlade som barn. Och det handlar inte bara om uppenbart våld, utan inte minst (eller kanske framförallt) subtilt våld. Kanske sådant som vi förnekar medvetet och omedvetet (hån, förödmjukelser, ringaktning osv. osv. osv.).

Men dess effekter är kanske så allvarliga att vi inte borde bagatellisera eller förminska dem! Dess effekter är kanske sådana som de flesta av oss inte kan ta in. Vi ser dem förmodligen (utan att se dem) i politiken på allra högsta nivå, med allt vad det kan innebära för oerhört många människor. Vår förmåga att se dem kanske är så skadad, så att vi är så blinda att vi inte ser saker som för en oskadad skulle vara glasklara?

Olweus (som verkar rätt okej) tror dock att

”…att vi har fått fler barn som är aggressiva hänger ihop med en försvagning eller urvattning av föräldrafunktionen.”

PUST!!! säger jag. Men vad är en "bra" föräldrafunktion?? Se tidigare inlägg om "hur komma tillrätta med det tilltagande ungdomsvåldet och det påstådda behovet av föräldraauktoritet"!!! Vad för sorts auktoritet egentligen?

Och en annan skolpsykolog i Lärartidningen (än den i artikeln ovan) menar att barn och ungdomar måste lära sig impulskontroll och vikten av att kunna uttrycka känslor av sorg, glädje och ilska. För övrigt gillar jag inte riktigt chefredaktörens idéer och en viss underliggande ton i denna tidning. Som jag om jag ska vara riktigt ärlig reagerat oerhört start EMOT! Det finns något auktoritärt, patriarkalt i de åsikter han förmedlar känns det! Någon slags klappa-på-huvudet-tendens hos honom och kanske tendenser att slå sig för bröstet?

"Jag minsann!"

Något jag reagerat på oerhört starkt i alla fall...

Se också Olweus ovan om att sätta tydliga gränser, i detta fall för barns aggressiva beteende. Men vad handlar gränslöst beteende om hos barn? Har detta gränslösa beteende kommit ur intet? Vad sätter man egentligen gräns mot? Vad är det för impulser ett barn måste kontrollera? Ett människobarns natur? Undrar jag oerhört ironiskt!

Och jag kan hålla med om det senare; om vikten av att kunna uttrycka sorg, glädje och ilska.

Vilket kanske var just DET som det riktigt lilla barnet (läs spädbarnet) fick lära sig att INTE göra?

Se också artikeln "Mobbning är ett övergrepp, inte en konflikt." De två första artiklarna finns också här.

Tillägg 22 augusti: se "Om (o)förmåga att godvilligt erkänna misstag - samt psykopati..." (om prestige), "Ledarskap och föräldraskap..." (om bland annat vad övergrepp och misshandel egentligen är, dvs. att det inte minst finns känslomässig misshandel, som kan vara nog så skadande, kanske oerhört skadande och förmodligen långt mer skadande än vi inser eller vill inse), "Att vara en äkta auktoritet eller inte...", De som har det bra redan tjänar mest på Reinfeldts politik… (om auktoritär uppfostran).

Can a pill make a murderer “safe”?

Jonathan H. Pincus.

[Andra hälften av denna postning är på svenska, en översättning av den engelska texen]. Triggered by the previous posting, as a follow up: The American neurologist Jonathan Pincus writes in the chapter “Prevention and treatment” in his book “Base Instincts – What Makes Killers Kill?” at page 210:

”It is highly unlikely that any pill would ever make a murderer ‘safe.’ Certainly, no such transformation has been demonstrated to date. Treatment might lower the risk of violence in the predisposed, but will not eliminate it. I would strongly oppose the release of a murderer from prison based solely on an apparent successful medication regime. Nevertheless, drug treatments can be beneficial in the prison environment.

In my view, child abuse is the most important element in generating base instincts and the one that is most amenable to correction. The benefits to society of eliminating this cause of the impulse to act violently would be felt in lower rates of assault and murder and would break the devastating cycle of child abuse in succeeding generations. It might also decrease terrorist acts, dampen the will of citizens to fight aggressive wars, and reduce the number of hate crimes associated with racism.

Not less importantly, elimination of abuse would enable individuals to achieve their full potential. The brain of children would develop and grow unimpeded by the burden of the base instincts that abuse engenders. No longer victimized, they would be less likely to be perpetrators of violent crime and could enter the portals of normal society rather than the gates of prison.”

Pincus also writes (page 212) that when he examines the most violent serial killers he asks about things the patient did as a child that led to punishment. This approach is deliberately chosen because it puts the “blame” on the child as he writes. And here comes something interesting:

“Violent individuals have a strong bias toward preserving their good opinion of their parents and often do not wish to blame them for abuse or to characterize them as abusers.”

I will maybe write more about what Pincus writes about this topic later, what these killers actually consider as abuse and what can be signs in children of abuse.

And see once again what Miller said recently:

“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. It is the UNFELT, avoided and denied pain, stored up in our bodies, that drive us to repeat what have been done to us [and which gives us all sorts of troubles]." (Alice Miller in an answer to a reader’s letter May 24, 2008, relating to a talk between Andrew Vachss and Oprah Winfrey).

If they had been able to question and see as wrong what their parents did they wouldn't have committed those crimes, or a little less bad crimes? If they hadn't had to deny how wrong this was? And, mmm…, that about therapists preaching forgiveness and reconciliation... Seeing reconciliation as a/the goal in therapy. Even if the parents have sexually, physically and emotionally abused their child and not ever admitted to it or wanted to admit to it and ask forgiveness for it. Playing on the tendencies in the client to guilt and blaming her/himself. Awful!

Translated it would be (in my amateur-translation):

“Det är högst osannolikt att ett piller någonsin skulle göra en mördare ’säker.’ Någon sådan förvandling har till dags dato sannerligen ännu inte kunnat demonstreras. Behandling skulle kunna minska risken för våld i den predisponerade, men den kommer inte att eliminera den. Jag skulle starkt opponera mig mot frigivandet av en mördare från fängelse baserad enbart på en till synes lyckosam medicinering. Dock kan drogbehandling vara välgörande i fängelseomgivningen.

Enligt mitt sätt att se så är barnmisshandel det viktigaste elementet i genererandet av grundläggande instinkter och det som är mest mottagligt för att korrigeras. Fördelarna för samhället i att eliminera denna orsak till att agera våldsamt skulle märkas i lägre grader av överfall och mord och skulle bryta den ödeläggande cykeln av barnmisshandel i efterföljande generationer. Det skulle också kunna minska terroristaktioner, dämpa viljan hos medborgare att föra aggressiva krig och reducera antalet hatbrott associerade med rasism.

Inte minst viktigt, att eliminera barnmisshandel skulle sätta individer i stånd att uppnå sin fulla potential. Barns hjärnor skulle utvecklas och växa ohindrade av den börda av grundläggande instinkter som misshandel skapar. När de inte längre görs till offer skulle det vara mindre troligt att de skulle bli förövare av våldsbrott och de skulle kunna gå igenom portalen till ett normalt samhälle snarare än fängelseportarnas.”

Pincus skriver också att när han börjar att undersöka dessa de mest våldsamma seriemördarna i USA, så börjar han med att fråga vad för slags saker personen ifråga gjorde som ledde till bestraffningar. Detta angreppssätt lägger ”skulden” hos barnet skriver han och är avsiktligt valt. Och sedan kommer något mycket intressant:

”Våldsamma individer har en stark benägenhet [tendens mot] att bevara den goda åsikten om sina föräldrar och vill ofta inte klandra dem för misshandel/övergrepp eller karaktärisera dem som misshandlare.”

Om de inte hade måst förneka vad de blev utsatta för och att det inte fanns något som helst berättigande i det hade de aldrig begått de fruktansvärda brott de har begått.

Och det är det Miller skriver i ett svar till en av sina läsare i citatet ovan:

”Att känna och förstå orsakerna till vår gamla smärta [och kanske att överhuvudtaget ha kontakt med den, vilket troligen dessa seriemördare inte har] betyder inte att smärtan och vreden kommer att stanna för evigt [något många, kanske de flesta terapeuter verkar vara rädda för och tror kommer att ske]. Motsatsen är faktiskt sann. Den vrede och smärta man känt/är i meveten kontakt med [kunnat känna, om inte förr så med hjälp av ett eller flera medkännande, upplysta vittnen] försvinner med tiden och gör oss förmögna att älska våra barn. Det är den smärta vi undvikit och förnekat, som lagrats i våra kroppar, som driver oss att upprepa vad som gjordes mot oss [och som ger oss en hel rad med problem, somliga är vi kanske inte ens medvetna om heller, för vi vet inte av något annat? Och vi kan gå miste om ganska mycket! På ett sätt som kan vara direkt tragiskt??].”

Alice Miller i ett svar på en läsares brev 24 maj, 2008, angående den amerikanske barnrättskämpen och advokaten Andrew Vachss hos Oprah 1993, där han reagerar över den försonlighet hon visar och visat mot dem som begått övergrepp mot henne som barn (vilket förmodigen dock appåderas av väldigt många i samhället, av vanligt folk men inte minst av s.k. "professionella" inom psykoterapi, psykologi och psykiatri!? Se länken "reconciliation is a good thing" ovan, vilket är en länk till "Jesper Juul svarer" i en norsk blogg).

Brevskrivaren skriver att det verkar som om Oprah tror att det gäller för henne/handlar om att "komma över" det som gjorts och förlåta sina förövare, hon tror att vrede är en dålig sak. Och detta ifrågasätter också Vachss ganska rejält och han går på Oprah rätt bra i deras samtal. BRA!!! Och brevskrivaren undrar vad Miller tycker och Miller håller med om att hon inte tror på Oprahs metod.

Och återigen se intervjun med Vachss "You carry the cure in your heart."

Backlash in the society...

Commentators to the article I blogged about in the former posting "Boycott Dr Phil…" defended Dr Phil, and also a Swedish author Mia Törnblom who has written self help books in Swedish which are very popular here at present, she was also mentioned in the article I blogged about. This made me think.

One wrote that many older persons in Sweden think it is the height of the day when Dr Phil is on TV (my comment: no wonder they like these programmes? With a tired and ironic smile. Addition May 23: recognizing things they have experienced themselves and feeling comfortable with that these ideas are preached again probably. What is this form of denial called? Rationalization? Or excusing/justifying: where the person admits to the past but find rationales for what happened).

Are people (we) defending things which don’t challenge their (our) defences? They (we?) are challenged by things threatening their (our) defences? Why “older people” like Dr Phil and his programmes and his authoritarian (?) approach? Confirming the “right” thing in experiences they have endured: parent-figures (authorities) with an educating, authoritarian-who-doesn’t-allow-discussions-approach? And in fact, one of the commentators also wrote about Philip McGraw’s education, and that he uses his title, rightfully (my interpretation). She also thinks that people with a lower education are the one lying in a sofa zapping between channels on TV. Another wonders if the grudge from the author of the article comes from envy.

Here about Marie-Louise Wallin (in Swedish), she is educated teacher, so she isn’t entirely uneducated… See here too about her (also in Swedish). And she must have been working for quite a long time, as she was born 1933? Both as teacher and later as author. And even 75-year old women (with education), or did I count wrong, are apparently lying in their sofas at home zapping between TV-channels too (not only young people with low or no education)?

The whole title to her article is “Boycott Dr Phil – Marie-Louise Wallin has had enough of the self-help religion.”

In fact a leader-writer in a local newspaper here also writes about things paralleling this in a leader with the title ”Two years in each class.” He writes about the conservative thought giving the teacher in her/himself more authority, and about pupils/students and teachers as merchandise (??) on a tax-financed market at the same time as the school-world is becoming more and more segregated and jobs as teacher in some school de facto (or in practice) gets a lower status (I don't like this at all I want to add, and I don't watch Dr Phil of free will either. Maybe that has with my history to do of course. And I don't like the Nanny-programmes either. They also "fit" the trend? And I literally detest them. When I have seen them I have been forced, because I haven't been at home and had the possibility really to choose seeing them or not, being in other peoples' home).

I think the idea the leader-writer Göran Greider would support most is to value the whole idea with pedagogy more and see so headmasters can concentrate on those things (what's done in school and how) instead of those they concentrate on today (money and budgets), something he also writes about.

Our current school-minister refuses to compromise… He is quite authoritarian…

Yes, there is a neo-conservatism in the society, and a neo-authoritarianism. And when people are seen as merchandise everywhere no wonders we have problems? But what is the chicken and what is the egg? Which came first? Why are such ideas so spread today? How is it possible ideas like these, such views on human beings, get such a penetration (?) in the society?

The backlash is also shown in how little one talk about the ideas Miller stands for? And that Miller is hardly spoken about? At least not here or in the circles where I am in…

And that about pedagogy… But can there be a “pedagogy” with true, genuine respect for young people (and grown ups between too)?

Thinking loudly again, searching for something. In the middle of working.

And here Miller on self help therapy (Stettbacher's), and Miller writes quite a lot about other methods, such as positive thinking, NLP, meditation etc. I can't name them all, and now it's time for bed really!! Maybe I should blog about this too?

Something of what I have done today. :-)

Miller on scapegoats and hatred…

the scapegoat * by William Holman Hunt, 1854. Hunt had this framed in a picture with the quotations "Surely he hath borne our Griefs and carried our Sorrows; Yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of GOD and afflicted." (Isaiah 53:4) and "And the Goat shall bear upon him all their iniquities unto a Land not inhabited." (Leviticus 16:22).

[Updated May 12 in the end]. On my bike ride I came to think of anger, justified and unjustified, and scapegoats…

Wondered what Miller has written about this.

Yes, for instance she writes at page 146 in the paperback edition of “The Drama…” (the revised version) that human beings who have got help discovering their past, whom in their therapies have learned to unravel (reda ut) their feelings and find their true causes out, are no longer ruled by the compulsion to cast off their hatred on innocent people to spare (skona) these persons who really deserved their hatred. They have the capacity hating what’s worth hating and loving what’s worth loving.

As they dare to know who deserves their hatred they can accommodate to the reality without falling into the blindness the mistreated child fell into, the mistreated child who had to spare her parents and therefore needed scapegoats.

There is no point in appealing to love and reason so long as those steps for clearing the early emotions up are protected of fear for our parents (whether in client or therapist). And most often we need help with this.

One can’t fight the hatred with arguments; one has to realize their origins and use tools which make it possible dissolving the hatred.

Experiencing the justified hatred liberates, not only because the body gets relaxed (the inner tensions are released), but particularly because this experience open our eyes for realities, liberate us from illusions, gives us our repressed memories back…

When one at last has experienced the hatred and understood its justification it becomes dissolved, and is only shown when there are real, true reasons for it. If not, it comes back and comes back. It’s bottomless. And even creates wars, of different sizes. From personal vendettas between two persons or between two (or more) families to world wars.

It is the unfair, to innocent cast off or displaced hatred, that is endless, and can never calm down. Not the justified. The justified gets dissolved.

And about therapy: Miller thinks we need more than the pure intellectual insight. The pure intellectual insight isn’t enough for healing and recovery. But an important (first) step. Some therapists (Bosch and Jenson) mean that cognition, behaviour and emotion are equally important. But I am not sure regression or primal therapy is the only tool to recover and heal. But reading their books has meant a lot. They also talk about the False Power - Anger defense.

And Miller also writes (at page 145) that it isn’t the therapist's task to “socialize” his client or educate him. She thinks all education is guardianship (förmynderi?). Yes, how often isn’t it poisonous pedagogy (svart pedagogik)?

* In wikipedia it stands about the scapegoat:

“The scapegoat was a goat that was driven off into the wilderness as part of the ceremonies of Yom Kippur/.../

The word is more widely used as a metaphor, referring to someone who is blamed for misfortunes, generally as a way of distracting attention from the real causes.”

My amateur translation to Swedish:

“Syndabocken var en get som drevs ut i vildmarken som en del i ceremonierna runt Jom Kippur/…/

Ordet används bredare som en metafor, syftande på någon som är klandrad för olyckor, allmänt som ett sätt att distrahera (dra bort) uppmärksamheten från de verkliga orsakerna.”

PS. Also read ”See No Evil -- A political psychologist explains the roles denial, emotion and childhood punishment play in politics,” Michael Milburn interviewed by Brian Braiker in Newsweek, May 13, 2004.

Addition May 12: have blogged about the interview with Milburn om my other blog, see here.

Book review...

I had to write, despite all I have to do...

In the book reviews this morning at TV they spoke about the Swedish book "Alexandramannen" ("The Alexandra-man") by the journalist Katia Wagner.

A man, then in his twenties (now he is 31), called himself "Alexandra" on sites young people visit (chat-rooms etc.?). He contacted young girls and spoke about careers as models.

The reviewer Yukiko Duke referred to sites where you can publish photos on yourself and where how you look is scored. If you publish an ordinary photo you can get the judgment "pretty". But if you show a little more you get higher scores, and if you show even more even higher scores. And if you are naked the highest.

When this man had got the young girls confidence, he said they could earn even more money on selling sex (than on being models).

What was shown among his victims is that they came from all social environments (not only at the bottom of society). A common factor for all his victims was that they had bad adult-relations. And were concerned with if they were seen as pretty (snygga)? Popular? "Good enough" to earn love and attention?

The youngest victim was 12 years old.

Oh, it's so awful this... Difficult to write about...

Young people exploited because of their injuries probably? Injuries of all different kinds? I think of this phenomenon in general... Where the story about Helga is one example!!?? How peoples injuries can be used in therapy and so called help too! To fill the perpetrators (more or less perverse) needs??

And this probably occurs both here and there in society without us being aware of it (in different forms)??

I think Miller is right; she writes somewhere that perversions can become accepted in society, because we want to look as we are liberal, free and not judging (or how she expresses this?)... But then these perversions take other forms.

I got two tips about the 75-year old counsel for the defense (???) Tor Erling Staff again (and about abuse of children in general), who has gone out in Norwegian media claiming he wanted to have sex with older men as 12-year old see here. Also see Miller on Wilhelm Reich (the first half of this posting, with references, is in Swedish, the second in English)!

The author had interviewed the perpetrator too, got his confidence to that degree. He meant that sexual maturity has "gone down" in age, to 12-years. Today all young people are so enlightened about all those things. And referred to our youth centers (ungdomsmottagningar, the link is in English) where young people can get birth control information/help at an early age. So he thought they were mature enough, and that he had done no wrong...

Yes, and the violations are justified with all different things, "explanations", justifications etc.?

Yes, that about exploiting both young (even small) and adult peoples injuries... because that's what it is about?? And this is done more or less scrupulously!?

And when I searched on this I found a blogposting ("To be the most good-looking saps") about the Swedish "pop"-singer Charlotte Perelli who seems to have said that her dress in the Melody-festival on TV was SO tight so she could hardly breathe and had to lean on a desk, because she couldn't sit down in it really... Phew!

"Vill man vara fin får man lida pin"

is a say here. I am not sure how one would translate this, but the meaning is that if you want to be good-looking you have to suffer torments (sometimes even enormous torments?? Plastic surgeries, you are training extremely hard etc. Jane Fonda was bulimic, and cut off from her family she says now, as if it was an invisible wall between her and her husband and children and friends, when she all the time thought of and was occupied with how she should be able to sneak into a bathroom, and where the bathroom was located. Noone knew about her eating disturbances, not even in her nearest family, she thinks, and maybe it was so?).

How many aren't I wonder, to become good enough?? Trying in all possible ways?? Some by being extremely clever and good girls/boys (if they have no other options, or apparently no other options)?? This is so sad... Oh, I would like to draw a blanket over me, and disappear... Into nowhere. Not being reachable or accessible... Living my life in nowhere... With and in the nature...

Yes, Stettbacher talks about "perverted needs", and that's what it is about?

A general reflection over our says (in Swedish).

Further reflections in the shower: injuries made to injured by injured!!??

And I think there is violence that is legalized and legitimized in society too!?? Violence and violations we maybe don't even notice or see?? Which we are blind to? (made blind to??) Things we don't even regard as violations, which actually are violations??

And abuse goes on and on and on!!! And we are standing there nonplussed (handfallna) and help/powerless!?? The whole society is nonplussed!!?? Why is that?

Addition in the evening: see this reader' letter at Miller's web about "Unwanted children?"
Where it for instance stands:

"From my perspective...the truth about parents that continue to justify the virtues of beating their own children, is that they never wanted the child in the first place.

The child is seen as a burden, a mouth to feed. The adult either consciously or more often unconsciously hates the child. The adult takes personally every tantrum or misbehavior that the child expresses.

The adult has neither the intelligence nor maturity to look beyond the moment and see the child's frustration or acting out as a need for love and guidance. Instead the child is shown violence which further alienates and distresses the child."

Miller's replies for instance:

"You are right, unwanted children are usually mistreated. But there exist as a rule also a huge amount of people who were 'wanted' indeed, but only for playing the role of the victims that their parents needed to be able to take revenge on.

They were wanted to give their parents what the parents never had gotten from their own parents: love, adoration, attention and so many other things. Otherwise, why would so many people have five or more children when they have no time for them? Why do they adopt children if their body refuses to give them what they apparently 'want?'"

Soul murdering...

pictures from walks and bike-tours April 2007, soon we are there.

When I was sitting translating "The Political Consequences of Child Abuse" I found the link to this article by Morton Schatzman (my italics in the text below):

"Another Soul Murderer

In response to The Wound and the Bow (March 1, 1990)

To the Editors:

Charles Rycroft, reviewing Leonard Shengold's Soul Murder: The Effects of Childhood Abuse and Deprivation [NYR, March 1], notes that Shengold's text omits mention of my book about Daniel Paul Schreber. Shengold's book is at least the fourth work of his with Soul Murder in the title. The bibliography in his book refers to the second and third works, which were articles in psychoanalytic journals. However, it omits Shengold's first use of the title. That was an article entitled 'Soul Murder: A Review' (International Journal of Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy, August 1974). The review surveyed the history of the concept 'soul murder,' but mainly criticized a book by me. The title of my book? Soul Murder!

Schreber (1842–1911) was an eminent German judge, who went mad at forty-two, and spent many years in mental asylums. He was a classic case of paranoia and schizophrenia and probably has been the most quoted patient in psychiatric history. Schreber called his condition 'soul murder.' The term, he explained, referred to the idea 'widespread in the folklore and poetry of all peoples that it is somehow possible to take possession of another person's soul….'

Freud never met Schreber, but in 1911 wrote an analysis of him based on Schreber's book Memoirs of My Nervous Illness. Freud concluded that Schreber's paranoia had been a defense against homosexual love for his father, and that Schreber's experiences of persecution by God were originally his own loving feelings for his father, now replaced by hatred and projected onto God.

In my Soul Murder I presented a hypothesis about Daniel Paul's madness based upon the available evidence of his father's methods of bringing up children.

Psychoanalytic authors largely ignored my views, at least in published writings. A theme of the Dutch sociologist Han Israëls (Schreber: Father and Son, International Universities Press, reviewed by Phyllis Grosskurth in NYR, January 18, 1990) was that, in so doing, the psychoanalytic community was condoning an infringement of the rules of scholarship. Yet Shengold, who twice cited Israël's book in his own book, albeit only briefly, has infringed the rules of scholarship in just the same way. Despite using my title, Shengold's Soul Murder ignored my Soul Murder (except in the bibliography)—though it discussed at length the case of Schreber!

How, then, to explain the psychoanalysts' behavior? According to Rycroft, the reason, in Shengold's case, 'must' be that I am 'an outsider, not a psychoanalyst, and, therefore, not a member of that elect [utvald, utkorad] group, the American (or should it be the New York?) psychoanalytic establishment, which probably makes up a large part of Shengold's audience.' Yet Shengold mentions Israëls. Israëls is neither American nor a psychoanalyst, nor even a psychiatrist, whereas [då däremot!!] I am an American psychiatrist, educated and trained in New York City.

A more important reason, I think, for the exclusion of my views is that they are heretical [arv, ärvd eller arvegods in Swedish?]. They are at direct variance with Freud. The word 'heretical' is deliberate. I believe that from the start psychoanalysis has coped with dissent [avvikelser] from Freud's views in ways that have more in common with a religious movement than with a scientific or academic enterprise. Psychoanalysts have not considered what sort of evidence would be helpful in judging the likelihood that my views might be true—or false.

Rycroft has not 'excommunicated' [bannlyst] me, and confronts my views, but his thinking about them is muddled [röriga]. According to Israëls, writes Rycroft, Schreber's father 'was not as famous and influential as both Schatzman and Freud had assumed, was not such a paragon [förebild] as Freud had assumed or as vicious {ond, dålig, brsitfällig] as Schatzman had painted him, and neither Freud's nor Schatzman's aetiological theories stand up to critical scrutiny [kritisk noggrannhet].' That is all Rycroft says about the possible validity [giltighet] of the two theories. How famous and influential the father was is surely irrelevant to the question of whether he drove his son crazy. Israëls did not prove that the father was not as 'vicious' as I had painted him, but even if Israëls had, that would also be irrelevant.

This is not to say that I am convinced that my theory is true. A prevalent view is that whatever schizophrenia is, it is probably a brain disorder. However, we still have little understanding of what schizophrenia is, or why anyone becomes schizophrenic. I expect that the answers will come from people who value a search for truth more than loyalty to doctrine.

Morton Schatzman
London, England"

How well said!!

Now soon a soup for lunch I am having on the stove... Something warm in the gray weather. Taco-tasting!! With bread and butter to (and cheese). Fruit after? Candles lighted?? Yes, I think so. So much soup that I am going to put (many!!!) portions in the freezer to have during the week, when I don't have so much time for making food!!

More about touching and the need for attention...

two men hugging (how cute they are! :-))

Swiftly: I had got an email from a Norwegian friend this morning, with a text written by a British author, about the boarding school system and the effects of it (om internatskolor på svenska och norska kostskolor). In the bottom of this posting the text (in Norwegian) and a summary I have tried to write in English.

The author writes, that the boarding schools have been so effective in their forming of the kids, that an attack on them becomes like an attack on all those who have passed this school-system through. The most miserable victims are the system’s most angry defenders. But I would add that the problems probably have started earlier in life, already at home with the relation to the parents or other caregivers. And on top of this children are separated from parents they haven't got the support or respect from as they should have gotten? They have no real, genuine ground to build on. And they probably react to this in different ways; some (or many) by hardening themselves against all, everyone and everything? But functions socially and behaves normally, are capable of doing that (have learnt a role)?

See Jan Guilliou's "Evil" (based on a book)! Guilliou was cruelly hit by his stepfather.

The author writes (my translation):

“How may times haven’t I heard maimed or ‘cut off’ people [stympade människor på svenska] saying ‘I wasn’t damaged by this’?"

Here some tips: see the book “The Making of Them – the British Attitude to Children and the Making of the Boarding School System” by Nick Duffell (in its entirety?).

And also “Boarding School Survivors – workshops for men and women”. At this site it stands:

"Boarding School Survivors was founded in 1990 and has two principal activities:
Firstly, in order to raise public consciousness, they research, lecture, write, and broadcast about the psychological effects of sending children away to school, and the social system which has encouraged this process.

Secondly, they run a programme of therapeutic workshops for adults who have recognised that they may have paid a price for their education, and are looking for ways to understand and heal their wounds. These courses, which have been running for over ten years, receive referrals from GPs, community organisations and counsellors, and have benefited many people, by allowing them to leave aspects of their past behind, and to develop their true potential.

The founder, Nick Duffell, is an accredited psychotherapist registered with UKCP, a supervisor, freelance trainer and a Sexual Grounding Therapist. Boarding School Survivors is an organisational member of the British Association for Counselling. "

See this site. And about "Public Schools and the Platonic Ideal". And about "Unsentimental Education".

Also see “Imperial Reckoning - The Untold Story of Britain's Gulag in Kenya” by Caroline Elkins.

And once again what Alice Miller on the political consequences of child abuse.

And at last an article in the Gazette about that "Children need touching...", where it for instance stands (my italics in the texts below):

"Instead of letting infants cry, American parents should keep their babies close, console them when they cry, and bring them to bed with them, where they'll feel safe, according to Michael L. Commons and Patrice M. Miller, researchers at the Medical School's Department of Psychiatry.

The pair examined childrearing practices here and in other cultures and say the widespread American practice of putting babies in separate beds -- even separate rooms -- and not responding quickly to their cries may lead to incidents of post-traumatic stress and panic disorders when these children reach adulthood.

The early stress resulting from separation causes changes in infant brains that makes future adults more susceptible to stress in their lives, say Commons and Miller./.../

The pair say that American childrearing practices are influenced by fears that children will grow up dependent. But they say that parents are on the wrong track: physical contact and reassurance will make children more secure and better able to form adult relationships when they finally head out on their own.

'We've stressed independence so much that it's having some very negative side effects,' Miller said."

Maybe it is the opposite: if (small) children get respect from their parents, if they have been taken up when they are crying, and been allowed to sleep in the same room as their parents and maybe even in the same bed (respecting boundaries and integrity of the child) they develop to truly, genuinely independent individuals? With a sound, healthy independence? Where the individual can function both on her/his own and together with others??

The article ends like this:

"...other factors have helped form our childrearing practices, including fears that children would interfere with sex if they shared their parents' room and doctors' concerns that a baby would be injured by a parent rolling on it if the parent and baby shared the bed. Additionally, the nation's growing wealth has helped the trend toward separation by giving families the means to buy larger homes with separate rooms for. The result, Commons and Miller said, is a nation that doesn't like caring for its own children, a violent nation marked by loose, nonphysical relationships.

'I think there's a real resistance in this culture to caring for children,' Commons said. But 'punishment and abandonment has never been a good way to get warm, caring, independent people.'"

At last the article in Norwegian:

"Britiske privatskoler skaper en klassekultur av et slag som er ukjent i resten av Europa. Det ekstreme eksemplet er internatskolene som skiller barn fra foreldrene ved åtteårsalderen for å forme dem til medlemmer av en fjern elite. I boka ’The Making of Them’ viser psykoterapeuten Nick Duffell [se också om boarding school överlevare] hvordan disse kunstig foreldreløse overlever tapet av familien ved å distansere seg fra følelser av kjærlighet og tilknytning. Overlevelse innebærer ’en ekstrem herding av normal menneskelig mykhet, en alvorlig avskjæring fra følelser og følsomhet’. De er ute av stand til å knytte seg til folk (nære vennskap med andre barn hindres av en morbid homofili-frykt), og blir i stedet oppmuntret til å gi sin naturlige lojalitet til institusjonen.

Dette gjorde dem til ekstremt effektive kolonitjenere: Om kommandanten beordret det, kunne de organisere en massakre uten et øyeblikks nøling (jamfør offiserene som slo ned Mau Mau-opprøret, gjengitt i Caroline Elkins' bok ’Britain's Gulag’). Det betød også at lavere klasser hjemme kunne slås ned på uten den minste bekymring. I mange år har Storbritannia blitt styrt av avstumpede mennesker [anser hon!??].

Jeg gikk gjennom dette systemet selv, og jeg vet jeg vil måtte stri med virkningene av det hele resten av livet. Men en av de nyttige ferdighetene det har gitt meg er evnen til å gjenkjenne det hos andre. Jeg kan gjenkjenne et tidligere internatbarn på 200 meters hold - jeg kan se og lukte skaden dryppe fra dem som svette. Konservative regjeringer var proppfulle av dem - selv i John Majors 'klasseløse' regjering hadde 16 av de 20 mannlige medlemmene av 1993-regjeringen gått på privatskole, 12 av dem på internatskole. Privat utdannede dominerer politikken, embetsverket, rettsvesenet, militæret, finansverden, mediene, kunsten, universitetene, de mest prestisjefylte profesjonene - til og med, som vi har sett, overvåkningsorganet for frivillige organisasjoner. De gjenkjenner hverandre, frykter de uformede menneskene fra statssystemet, og gir sine privilegier videre til folk som dem selv, ofte uten å være klar over det.

Systemet er beskyttet av taushet. Fordi privatskolene har vært så effektive med å forme barnas sinn blir et angrep på skolen til et angrep på alle som har gått gjennom den. De ynkeligste ofrene blir systemets argeste forsvarere. Hvor mange ganger har jeg hørt avstumpede mennesker erklære at 'jeg tok aldri noen skade av det'?"

---

“Children are separated from their families at 8 years old to be formed to the coming elite. They survive the loss of the family with distancing themselves from feelings of love and attachment. Survival means ‘an extreme hardening of normal human softness, a serious screening for emotions and flexibility (accommodation)’. They are incapable of attaching to people (near friendships with other children are hindered by a morbid fear for hemophilia) and they are encouraged to give their natural loyalty to the institutions instead.

This makes them extremely loyal colony-servants; if the commander orders it they are capable of organizing a massacre without (any) hesitation."

The author thinks Great Britain is governed by maimed people. He has gone this system through himself and thinks he has to struggle with the consequences of it the rest of his life. But one advantage is that he recognizes another victim on 200 meters distance.

"Privately educated are dominating politics, governments offices, the judicial system, the military, the finance-world, the media, the art, the colleges, the most prestigious professions… They recognize each others; fear the unformed human beings from the state system and give their privileges to people like themselves, often without being aware of it.

The system is protected by silence.”

My maternal grandmother and her siblings lived during the school-year in something which was called "arbetsstuga", in a village called Korpilombolo (I think), so they wera also separated from their parents and family for long periods. How was that? After WWII they ("arbetsstugorna") were called "eftermiddagshem" and later "fritidshem."

Keeping things in check and control…

picture taken one year ago today.

When I was fixing up here I got a lot of thoughts (doing things practically; washing the dishes, sewing, fixing up etc., and going for walks or bike tours seem to stimulate thinking!? :-))…

Of some reason I came to think about that we admire people having things in check and control!? Those who don’t, we easily look down upon?? (the contempt for weakness!?? The weak child we once was and don’t want to admit to or come in contact with!??). We can get very unsure with people talking about emotions, expressing emotions. But one can express emotions and feelings in different ways that's for sure.

I knew a man with things in check and control, in a way, and in other ways (definitely) not!! With outbreaks/outbursts of irritation and impatience, not least at his children. Reacting at all and everything, but I am not sure to what degree he acted this out outside the family?? If he only came home and poured this out at the family?

With astonishment I watched this man when he got angry at his small grand-children when they and all sat at the dinner-table. He had not patience if they "messed about"!! But should they be able to learn if they weren't allowed?

Or his outbursts when a door slammed, or if they rocked on a chair at the table.

I reacted as if I had never seen this before! hadn't I? Was this new to me?? Or had I suddenly started to this this phenomenon, since more than 10 years living at another place, for my own.

The one keeping things in check and control, doesn’t he sacrifice things, loose things? What prize does he pay? Any? In his relation to other people, and not least with his children!??? As old he was very dependent on his wife, she was the only one coming him near at all? But the start of their marriage was problematic… Noone had thought he should get married and less get six children, which he got in the end. They were expecting their first child when they married. This child was born only less than three months after the marriage, three weeks earlier than she should.

He was quite insensitive in many ways. Literally almost walking over his children, so they had to jump out of his way… An insensitivity which also resulted in that he could come home or into the house and suddenly see that he was hurt and bleeding, when he had been out working.

And with the animals this family had he wasn’t calm or steady, but waved with his arms and could get angry with them too. So the children had to protect the animals too. Horses and later other animals, and not least the dogs the family had…

This man was physically very strong. Had a very strong heart. Low blood-pressure and low pulse. But at 80 he suddenly a spring (actually around his birthday March 22) felt a knot on one cheek. He had got malign melanoma, but noone could imagine he had got that disease, because he had never been a sunbather - at all. However, he had been working out in the garden and in farm-jobs before his studies and during them and for a period when he and his family had a farm. Probably a lot in the sun, and never protected himself.

When he grew he also had to contribute to the family’s providing, with selling ice-cream to tourist on a long-bridge during the summers. Did he burn himself then? Standing there on the bridge in the sun. Later, in fact the whole life till he died, he always idealized this ice cream selling, but one of his daughters wondered how it actually was… If he didn’t feel humiliated standing there bowing for people, the tourists with money… And what about being with friends? Doing things with friend? Going bathing for instance in the big lake they lived next to in a well known village here. A village I have had mixed feelings for, but have discovered again the last couple of years.

He made this ice cream himself too. They had a stack of ice behind an outhouse under sawdust. Incredible that this happened to a person in the generation just before mine. But this man wasn’t a very young dad. Probably very tied up by his mother? A mother he never spoke badly about at all. But when she was dead he never visited her grave. I wonder if that didn’t say things…

All this beside ordinary work, writing-table-work (skrivbordsjobb as we say). Despite this work he remained strong physically till he died! Shovelled snow the last winter on a big yard, cut the grass, chopped wood in the spring…

What was that melanoma an expression of? Things he had been holding down his whole life? But now screamed out its message?

But this man denied the severity of his disease entirely I think. Reacted in other ways.

A little more than three years later he died, with a tumor in his brain that caused a bleeding.

Who was this man? Yes, he was my father.

Addition: they have found connections between depression and malign melanoma I read somewhere apropos stress-research and exhaustion...