Some personal reflections…

During a tough period I tried with a lot of ”therapies”: qigong, Feldenkrais, meditation, different relaxation-programs, mental training…

During some weekends training Feldenkrais there were physiotherapists (sjukgymnaster) also attending… They and the course-teacher (yes, they call the sessions lessons) spoke very enthusiastically about neuro linguistic programming (NLP), and how they used it in their work. And the Feldenkrais teacher spoke about a Norwegian couple in particular having courses in NLP in Sweden too, for instance on the island Öland (if I remember right), and she thought they were so great. However I got a bit suspicious, because it sounded as keeping barriers on place... I don't believe in that method... Deliberately cutting upcoming things off. If what you as whatever therapist you are "release" things in the client or patient you must be able to deal with it, and have tools dealing with it too. And these things are nothing you should "play" with as we say!!

I have a sister who is educated occupational therapist (arbetsterapeut). During her education they had a course in psychiatry I think. Or they read about how to handle (and/or avoid) psychosis. Because when you start to work with the body and release tensions, when you meditate etc. things can happen… People can start to react very powerfully? Even become psychotic (quite often become psychotic, or more often than we maybe believe)? See Reich about the bodily armour! And this seems to be a reality, so that they have to learn about these things in their education!

In my work or rather during my piano-playing education I have come in contact with the phenomenon the kinaesthetic sense. That is, how it feels doing a movement, finger or body. Being able to imagine how it feels.

In dancing for instance the pupils/students watch their teacher making a movement and at the same time make a sensory imagination of how it feels doing this movement, what’s happening.

Riding horses is the same or can or ought to be the same??

Singing is too; to find ones voice, the breathing etc.

This also makes me think of therapists working with peoples’ breathing… One of the parents to a couple of our pupils (she is mother of five or more children!!), educated from college for social workers, works as breathing-therapist. I would never go to her. I think all these tools can be dangerous used wrongly and by the wrong person, which means a person with unresolved things!! This is true for all sorts of therapies, how attractive they even may sound. See what Miller has written and said about unconscious manipulation.

Yes, many of us probably want there were quick fixes? We are maybe even in desperate need for them! The years are passing, and we live not so fulfilling or rich-containing lives (but what is a “rich life”?). We want a change, and an immediate change?

And maybe there are reasons choosing the presumptive therapist very carefully! Trying to give oneself that time, even if it feels hard and the need for help and change is very strong. Using Miller’s FAQ-list (frequently asked questions) "How to find the Right Therapist?" in our search, or creates our own questions if we are capable.

We also speak a lot (especially during higher education) about feelings and emotions and expressions… But this doesn’t mean we working with artistic things are healthier… I can immediately mention a lot of musicians and other artists with sever problems. Even during history. Which proves that just talking doesn’t really change things? But our work maybe keeps many of us working with it alive. Alive but going crazy? Or as Robert Schumann committing suicide…

Working with all these things above one has to be prepared and really capable of dealing with what’s perhaps coming up!! As in all other therapies! Having solved ones own things to that degree so one doesn’t harm the other one by ones own denial and unsolved/unprocessed things.

One can click on the labels “gurus”, “cults”, “manipulation”, “Helga’s story” etc. in the sidebar to the left…

Beethoven in fury over a dead friend (the third movement from the moonlight sonata).

Our innate sinfulness…

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

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

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

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

She quotes a client saying:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Miller has written (see this posting):

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

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

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

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

Systematic work on the childhood history…

from a museum one year ago.

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

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

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

Yes, systematic work would be needed.

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

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

Miller also writes at page 49-50:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Cults, sects, gurus…

picture taken from here.

Miller writes in “Paths of Life” in the last chapter ”Reflections” about leaders and gurus, that we see many problems in a new light when (and if) we take the childhood dimension into account in our trials to explain them. Today we live in a time (era) when dictatorships seem to be replaced with democracies.

But at the same time we see how totalitarian systems grow up in different sects, which people voluntarily enter. People who have grown up in freedom and with respect and whose individuality (distinctive character) in childhood has been tolerated and not been constricted with the help of education, would hardly voluntarily let themselves be drawn into or at least not stay, if they by coincidence or through skillful manipulations would land there.

And if you are drawn into sects or cults it’s not because you are weak or have some sort of weakness you are born with (I think).

I was tipped about “Alcoholics Anonymous as a Cult” and “Boot Camps: Children’s Gulags or Child Abuse for Fun and Profit.”

And this really made me think further…

Oh, the nature is exploding?? It has been sun and a blue sky many days in a row!

Addition: what makes people drawn to bad circumstances, that are harmful for them? Can we avoid it? Prevent it? How?

Oh, how I long for summer...

Processing abuse experiences from so called help-groups and forums...

Came to think about the ourchildhood forum once again… Thinking loudly.

I think it’s important to process ones experiences from a sect or cult… (but it shall not be a prescription either, doing that?) To talk about it till you have talked about it enough…

And you can’t put everything back to childhood or to your family of origin (and maybe not even to a present dysfunctional family-building)! Some things you have to deal with here and now and don't put it back to anything but what you have just experienced. Under this you will possibly or very likely have to deal with earlier experiences, but not until you have dealt enough with the present, and actual abuse (which shouldn't be talked away)? And once again, if you get stuck - why is that? There is nothing wrong with the helper or the method you use?

Therapy abuse as sect and cult experiences you have to process I think. And probably talk about till you are free from these things? If you can’t let these things go it’s because you haven’t (got help) to process them I think. But I know people are encouraged to leave a subject (both by "helpers" and "friends") because now “it’s time doing that”. Because "that person has to think of something else, and don’t get stuck"!? (But why are people stuck?? And don’t get forward?).

And Miller writes that the utmost, the extreme form of silence is suicide. And suicides have occurred… Which is horrible. Because people didn’t really want to listen, whether this was conscious or unconscious in the “listener” and noone else wanted to listen (not even or not least those who were subscribers too at the same time and thus witnesses, but maybe not consciously knowing, and belonged to something looking like a sort of sect and cult?)? Helpers who thought they knew best what the one in despair needed???

Censoring (by rejecting postings) with no explanations except a message “Post was received” – what can that cause and what is that (quite authoritarian isn't it)? Don't the responsible have time writing an explanation, and thus not leaving the subscriber in wonders and fantasies and maybe even confusion? And what does it cause and has it caused?

Others on the list: have noone wondered where that and that person disappeared? And why?

And once again, this behaviour isn't it the same as many of our parents probably used, and as Miller has written about herself? That the parent didn't explain her/is behaviour and punishment. And the message turned out to be "If you don't understand why you are punished, rejected then you have really proved your badness! Seek, search for, do you utmost..."

How would people in real life react to a similar treatment? With anger? Some just walking away? And who are capable of just walking away, of leaving? Who are capable of processing this experience the best? Isn't it the less hurt??

If anything: in those circumstances it is even more important talking openly, and really communicating things. As honestly as possible, if you really want to do good (and how is t actually with that quite frankly)!?? Open, genuine talk. To avoid damage and abuse. And if there is nothing to hide I don’t understand what the problem is.

And people much be allowed to question and maybe even criticize, even strongly, forcefully criticize!? And be met in this, not being just "dismissed"!

Brainwashing can be very subtle? And very obvious too without people noticing it?

Miller writes in her book “Paths of Life” at page 157 in the Swedish edition (my amateur translation):

“Among the founders of the sects there are many paranoiac and megalomaniac [lidande av storhetsvansinne] psychotics who in the crowd of followers are seeking protection against their own agony in that they offer themselves as helpers and healers. /…/ they want to escape from their childish impotence/powerlessness and fight impotence/powerlessness on the symbolic level. At the same time they offer themselves as saviours, since they at last through their followers eulogizes feel powerful instead of powerless. But as soon as they fear being seen through/found out they force their disciples to silence.”

Miller (or her “team”) haven't met people (whose ability to question has got awoken, maybe through the exchanges with the others on the list and through processing and thinking on what is happening and wondering about it), she and/or her team has met people trying to point out “problems” with the ourchildhood forum not so good or professionally I think, from the experiences I have and what I have heard. Instead of listening and meeting the one writing people have been met with silence and if they have persevered even been threatened with retributions… Especially women have been I have a feeling, men have been (a little) better treated. Of some reason... I may be wrong.

And Miller has underscored (is this only my interpretation?) the importance that a therapist has adequate training and that he/she has revoked suppressions as much as possible to avoid projecting things on clients, and for being capable of handling transferences without hurting the client (help-seeker) even more...

Getting out of a cult...

A former primal therapist writes:

"The running of the business was based on human greed, deep hypocrisy, and a need for fame and fortune at whatever cost.

Nor were therapists the 'Post Primal' people Janov described. Many had disturbing personal problems which had easily survived their own therapy. The Institute was a difficult workplace. Training techniques were abusive. The political infighting and positioning among the staff was the same as any business which offers lucre at the top. The humor, for the most part, was mean- spirited. Attitudes were arrogant and insulting of anything which challenged the Primal belief system.

Above all there were unethical and unprofessional practices built into the system: dual relationships (business and sexual) between therapist and patient, false claims of results, false advertising, interns working beyond their level of skill, treatment of patients who were too disturbed for this kind of 'therapy,' emotional harm caused by a system that opened people up to intense feeling without adequate follow-up, perhaps even medical malpractice by the neurologist who prescribed medication according to 'Primal' guidelines.

In this context, even therapists who wanted to provide effective therapy would fail. There were well-meaning and creative people who worked hard to make Primal Therapy live up to its promise. We failed. The system was too destructive.

That it took me eight years to learn this indicated how desperate my life was when I went to the therapy, how much I needed to believe in a powerful and omniscient world view, how isolated I was in the world, and how well Janov's promises matched my personal desires as well as the political and cultural forces of those times. It also speaks to the effectiveness of the Primal indoctrination techniques.

I also think it is an indication that there are aspects of Primal Therapy which contain therapeutic value. The techniques for eliciting painful feelings can be quite effective. The grief process is well understood and may be healing, depending on the context. Patients' experiences are often quite real and dramatic. Unfortunately, whatever there was of value was completely overshadowed and negated by the destructive superstructure within which it was housed.

I worked hard to become a competent therapist. I struggled against the drawbacks in the system. I became competent, but the system burned me out. When I left that world in 1982, it was a shock. I realized I'd been in a cult. As with anyone who leaves a cult, I had to learn different ways of looking at the world and myself in it. It was a confusing and disorienting process which challenged my beliefs on many levels.

I experienced deep ambivalence. My self-esteem suffered tremendously. I know how destructive the Primal world had been, yet I couldn't reject it completely. I had given such a big part of myself to it. I had to believe there was value there. I rejected the Institute and its destructive practices. I could no longer be a part of that. But I wasn't sure about the theory.

After almost a year of 'floating' and 'decompression,' I decided to continue working as a therapist. I wanted nothing to do with Primal Therapy. This meant I needed to open up to other ways of thinking and working in my profession. Even though I was already a licensed Marriage, Family and Child Counselor, I knew I needed to start learning my craft all over again./.../

The Therapy takes responsibility for changes that are positive. Failure is always the fault of the patient.

Patients' vulnerability, low self-esteem, and high expectations make them easy to indoctrinate into the Primal mind-set. Perhaps if the therapy were effective it would be okay. But when the results don't happen, it becomes a destructive process. /.../

The main purpose, though, was to make Janov famous and rich. Even without him, it remained a cult. /.../

He is aiming his promise at vulnerable and desperate people in an unforgivable way./.../

So Primal Therapy doesn't work. Once this is acknowledged, alternatives become possible. None are easy. There's no simple, quick cure. Healing is a complex process.

The following are some steps people might find themselves taking if they decide to leave a cult:

Physical separation: One must actually separate from the people and places which reinforce the cult mind-set.

Breaking the ritual: Stop the addictive habit of thinking that you need to 'feel a feeling' to solve every problem or whenever you feel bad.

Decompression: a floating kind of disorientation, ambivalence, and depression. Uncertain who you are or where you're going. Expect it; watch out you don't try to 'Primal' it away; experience it -- it'll be a part of your life for a while.

Anger and loss: As with an eating disorder, Primal intrudes into an essential area of human activity, our emotional life. These feelings need to be dealt with in a different way. Sometimes long periods of repression are necessary at first. Remember, it's okay (even necessary) to repress things at times.

Reconnection with the person you were before you came: your hopes, dreams, desires, and interests. This can be an exciting time of discovery as the world begins to open up for you. Expect uncertainty and anxiety as well.

Creating a place in the world for yourself; friends, family, work, fun, community. Widen your context and your perspective. There are many possibilities in the world.

Acknowledge and honor the needs which attracted you into the cult and which were satisfied by that tightly controlled world.

If necessary, get professional help: this could include groups with others who have shared the experience. This is not always necessary. Many can leave without professional help, if they have work, friends, and interests which are supportive.

Attend to the problems which made you seek Primal in the first place: Chances are some of them will still be around causing you havoc. It's a terrible feeling to have spent years 'in therapy' only to discover the same old awful problems in your life. A lot of anger and hopelessness here.

Hanging on: If you do seek professional help, watch out for all the comparisons you'll be making wherein the 'new' therapy won't compare well at all with the Primal one. You'll ask, 'Don't you BELIEVE in FEELINGS?' and the therapist won't know what you mean. Remember, feelings are just one of many human processes and experiences: there's nothing to 'believe' in. Also, the new therapy won't satisfy your addictive need for intensity. That will be hard [at] times but ultimately is a good thing.

Shame: It brings many to Primal Therapy in the first place, and it finds a convenient hiding place in those dark rooms and that 'special' world. When you leave, it can emerge like a serpent from hell to torment you. It is tamable.

Separate what has been of value in the Primal experience: It's not an all-or-nothing proposition. Some of what you learned and experienced may be of great importance in your life. Honor that."

Abuse in therapy, groups, among individuals…

photo taken November 26,2006 (with a digital-camera from work).

Hmmm, writing further... More about abuse in therapy, groups, lists, forums, among individuals...

From “Group Conformity - Factors That Increase Group Conformity”:

"’Individuals who have generally low self-esteem are more likely to yield to group pressure than those with high-esteem... If individuals are led to believe that they have little or no aptitude for the task at hand, their tendency to conform increases’ The Social Animal, Aronson, page 21 [reviews of this book here]./…/

[Elliot] Aronson cites experiments that show this effect, again a universal social human effect, it is not one just restricted to certain personality types.”

Sounds cult-like, and guru-like…

Addition March 18: Hmmm, what did I mean? Low self-esteem makes one vulnerable for landing in cults and sects? Aptitude means "anlag" or "fallenhet"in Swedish. I.e., you don't believe in your capacities and ability? Who stole this capacity? How? And were we born this way? (I don't think so though).

From “Intellectual Abuse”:

“It turns dreadful results into across the board successes by redefining success! It redefines abreaction and catharsis to mean "non connected" feeling, when the real meanings of these words does not exclude the feelings being real or connected. It turns the story of the Center for Feeling Therapy around, so that no responsibility is taken by Janov for the people he trained and influenced, and uses the story to divert attention from problems that have happened and still may happen in "real" primal therapy. Like scientology, it is confusing intellectual abuse that is manipulative and misleading.

It is intellectual abuse because every few years they hail the therapy that they now do as "light years behind what was done before." After difficult periods or negative reports, they reinvent primal therapy by calling it "advanced primal therapy." However, in my experience it was not much better than old primal therapy, and even suprisingly similar in some ways (but different in other ways) to what I read about the Center for Feeling Therapy (in Insane Therapy, Ayella and Therapy Gone Mad, Mithers). The readvertising as advanced scientific primal therapy is again misleading and confusing to people. This repositioning may also occur in the future./…/

It is disturbing because that precise subject, epistemology, is part of the subject philosophy, and Janov tells his followers that 'the beginning of philosophy is the end of feeling' (citation needed, it is in several primal books, and in Journal of Primal Therapy) which basically is giving the message that you will lose your feelings (and chance to heal and become real) if you learn philosophy (basically if you think too much about it). It is also interesting that the subjects of love and ethics usually fall in the realm of philosophy [that about not being too intellectual!?].

The intellectual abuse in Janov's works has led to such things as people dropping out of college, dropping out of their profession, becoming psychoanalytically judgmental, incurring many opportunity costs, developing poor logic (unfalsifiable explanations for everything you can think of), developing a poor outlook, reducing ambition or even suicides.”

This occurs in other forms of therapy too!?

You need to have a lot of self-awareness? To avoid abusing? But lack of self-awareness is no justification either? That you are damaged doesn't grant you discharge from responsibility.

But you are entitled to have higher demands on therapists (and other people in power or authority positions of different kinds) for instance. But noone is allowed to abuse a person whether he (she) stands below OR above!??

When I scrolled this blog yesterday I read the label "En spik i foten"... Yes, that about that there is always someone that has had it worse than you... So when do things count for some people (maybe seeming privileged)? Maybe never?

And abuse is never justified, no matter who performs it or to whom it is performed!??? Whether he/she is much or less harmed, "privileged" (what is actually being privileged? What would be really privileged?) or not privileged etc.?

And intellect/intelligence isn't only bad... It can be a good thing used right!???

From “Self-justification”:

“Basically, wherever you find yourself, no matter how ridiculous, people will look around for cues to justify what they have just done, how they got there and the reason they feel the way they do.

‘Leon Festinger organized [the] array of findings and used them as the basis for a powerful theory of human motivation that he called the theory of cognitive dissonance... Cognitive dissonance is a state of tension that occurs whenever an individual simultaneously holds two cognitions (ideas, attitudes, beliefs, opinions) that are psychologically inconsistent. Because the occurrence of cognitive dissonance is unpleasant, people are motivated to reduce it.’ Aronson p.146

The example is given that a smoker will have two different cognitions: 1 ‘I smoke cigarettes’ which is dissonant with 2 ‘smoking produces cancer’. The person will seek to reduce this dissonance either by stopping smoking, or more often by justifying their actions in other ways such as exaggerating the importance of smoking or by dismissing the evidence for cancer. Aronson discusses some interesting statistics that back up his logic on page 147. He goes on to say:

‘Let's stay with the topic of cigarette smoking for a moment and consider an extreme example: Suppose you are one of the top executives of a major cigarette company- and therefore in a situation of maximum commitment...This would produce a painful degree of dissonance: Your cognition ‘I am a decent, kind human being’ would be dissonant with your cognition ‘I am contributing to the early death of a great many people...you might even succeed in convincing yourself that cigarettes are good for people. Thus in order to see yourself as wise, good, and right, you may take action that is stupid and detrimental to your own health [by smoking yourself]" p.149

‘[in 1994 in Congressional hearings]...top executives of most of the of the major tobacco companies admitted they were smokers and actually argued that cigarettes are no more harmful or addictive than playing video games or eating Twinkies!’ (p.149)

So can you see how cognitive dissonance in primal therapy would operate, in both patients and therapists?

For example, with patients if they had the two cognitions ‘I spent a lot of money on therapy’ and ‘I still feel bad, and my life did not change as I had been led to believe’. When this happens the patient will seek to reduce this dissonance, almost automatically. A quick way out of this dissonance is to find any change that did occur and to label that change as a positive change. For example if you quit or lose your job, you say how ‘unreal’ that line of work was. Or if you find yourself doing very little, with little ambition, you would say how so much more rested you are now after therapy. Or if you do a lot now you would say how therapy helped you drain the parasympathetic overload so that you can finally get down to business.

What if therapists have the two cognitions ‘I am a caring person who is helping people" and ”this therapy is not working very well at all?’ How would they deal with that? They would do so by deducing dissonance, that is the usual human response, changing ones actions in cases like these is much rarer. To reduce the dissonance the therapist, (much like the cigarette executives above) may exaggerate the benefits of the therapy to an extreme, and practice what they preach themselves. If the therapy is damaging even, it will not matter, the therapists will have to go and find confirmation that it works or else live in discomfort and dissonance. The studies they chose will be designed to find confirming evidence only, the questions they ask patients will be worded in the form ‘how did therapy help you?’. By finding such testimonial evidence the therapists can then feel better and continue to believe they are caring and are actually helping people. They may be forced to label those who don't supply the confirming evidence they need as deviants of some sort, ‘unreal’ maybe, so that they can continue to hold the cognition that ‘I am a caring person who is helping people’

After providing some evidence of cognitive dissonance reduction on pages 151 to 152, Aronson goes on to say:

‘People don't like to see or hear things that conflict with their deeply held beliefs or wishes. An ancient response to such bad news was to literally to kill the messenger.’ (p.152)

‘I have referred to dissonance-reducing behavior as 'irrational'. By this I mean it is often maladaptive in that it can prevent people from learning important facts or from finding real solutions to their problems.’ (p. 152)

Aronson then shows how cognitive dissonance theory predicts social psychology experimental outcomes better that what you would expect by just using a rational model. On pages 152-153 he discusses the experiment by Jones and Kohler which shows the irrationality of dissonance reducing behavior. On page 153 he discusses the Stanford University experiment with Lord, Ross and Lepper which showed that we do not process information in an unbiased manner. It was on the subject of the death penalty, and the subjects in this experiment rejected arguments that disagreed with their initial position, and the confirming arguments strengthen their initial beliefs. Presenting both arguments polarized the students more than they were before the experiment on the issue. This is not well explained rationally, you would expect them to come out thinking ‘that is a complex issue’ having heard both sides of the argument. What actually happened, polarization is better explained with cognitive dissonance reduction.

Dissonance reduction is even more interesting after a commitment or decision has been made:

‘In short, Ehrlich's data [on advertisement seeking on already bought products] suggest that, after making decisions, people try to gain reassurance that their decisions were wise by seeking information that is certain to be reassuring.’ (p. 155)

After presenting still more data from experiments that support the theory, on page 159 Aronson identifies the importance of irrevocability of decisions. If a decision is not easily taken back, if a commitment is made, ‘it always increases dissonance and the motivation to reduce it’."

Gurus and leaders…

from tea now at around 10.30, with new-baked bread :-).

Gurus and leaders - a topic I have thought of writing about for a long time…

Miller writes about this and the roots to it in her book “Paths of Life” in the chapter “Reflections” and in the chapter about Helga and her therapy in the same book. And she also mention these topics in the revised version of "The Drama of the Gifted Child" and in "Thou Shalt Not Be Aware."

I googled on "Thou Shalt Not Be Aware" ("Du skall icke märka") and found this text from the bible. Also see here. The illustration below is from the last site, illustrating "Thou Shalt Not Be Aware"?

My summary of what she writes (in "Paths of Life") and eventual comments and thoughts below (from the Swedish edition, the last book that has been translated to Swedish of Miller’s books. Why is that? A societal and professional denial? Is it only due to Miller herself? And why has Miller turned the way she seems to have turned?).

Miller writes that we live in a time where it looks as if dictatorships seem to be replaced by democracies. But at the same time we see how totalitarian systems are growing in different sects.

People who have grown up with freedom and respect and whose distinctive characters have been tolerated and not been throttled with the help of education, would scarcely voluntarily let themselves be drawn into a sect or at least not stay in it if they by coincidence or skillful manipulations should land there.

But many people don’t seem to bother that there exists mechanisms which once again will deprive them of the freedom of thoughts, actions and feelings/emotions (see Pia Mellody about codependency and violations of a child's inner life). They don’t seem to worry that they are put under totalitarian control and are forced to obedience in a way that they will never free themselves from, because through the years they will become objects for an indoctrination which makes it impossible for them to acknowledge or of seeing what damages their personalities have suffered - once again.

Miller writes that the form of secterist groups she has been occupied with are the ones with the unconscious manipulation; the way in which parents or therapists suppressed and unconscious childhood-history influences their children’s and patient’s lives, without anyone observing. In their education they have learned to handle conscious manipulation, but not the unconscious. They haven’t sufficiently dealt with their suppressed history Miller thinks. Other therapists have similar ideas.

Stettbacher says something I think is true; that we ought to protect the watchers of life in ones children. Which means treating our children from the first moment with all the respect we are capable of, so they don’t have to suppress things, so they have to suppress as little as possible? And this is the best way to protect them.

Schools of different kinds and educational methods are never free from all risks for manipulation, how fine ideals one even has. I have had a discussion about Summerhill school system. Not even that system can entirely guarantee anything!? And there has existed things there too from the (very) little I have heard... And also see these experiences of private schools or rather boarding-schools in England. by a former boarding-school student.

In my work I have also seen things I have reacted against, maybe less harmful than other things though… Methods that almost becomes like sect-like things, with a guru a top… For instance as in the Suzuki-metod, we also use the Montessori-method etc. etc. etc. (not inthe music-school though). Noone of us are free from all those tendencies?

Miller writes that among the sect’s founders there are many paranoiac and megalomaniac psychotics who, in the crowd of followers, are seeking protection from their own agony, in that they offer themselves as helpers and healers. They want to avoid their childish powerlessness and impotence and fight this on the symbolic level. At the same time they offer themselves as saviors, because through their followers eulogizes they at last feel powerful instead of powerless/impotent.

But as soon as they fear being seen through they force their disciples to silence. Scary.

See what Arthur Silber has written about obedience and the obedience culture in his Miller-essays. What our early experiences of obedience can mean and lead to even (or not least) on a societal and political level too.

It’s not only the victims but also the leader/guru that regresses to the childhood Miller thinks. The leader/guru also looses the contact with reality (to different degrees) through the followers’ praising-songs, depending on how much or little he has suppressed or later processed (to what degree he is willing to question himself).

Gurus obtain a common assent through fatherly and motherly care, which blends the masses and through regression to early childhood makes them caught in a limitless admiration. In this regression critics of parent-figures as leaders and gurus are not possible at all. And self critic from the part of the leader also disappears in the power-inebriation and self-idealization.

The jubilation of the masses works like a drug on the leader’s excited affects and all the jubilant people doesn’t realize that he uses them only for this function.

The followers don’t question if they are sent out into wars (literally or metaphorically) by their loving and supposed loving leader, just because his personal history demands this. They join, don’t think, leave the thinking to him (and he wants them leaving the thinking to him), they trust him as small children, who don’t have any conception of future and planning yet, they are just trusting that their “father” wants their best - and knows best. They stop thinking themselves (or many do?). Even if he (metaphorically) comes home from work, shouting and with his hand lifted, greeting and correcting them, he is only doing this for their own best (and he knows better than them what is the best for them), he says.

Often well-formulated theories are offered, which despite the scientific façade has nothing with science to do, because they only replace lasting facts with those they make up or deduce from their own theories.

And I think Miller is right concerning failures in therapy (my amateur-translation!!):

If one uncritically cling to old methods' alleged infallibility (and she includes regressive techniques here AND primal therapy) and blames the client for failures, you inevitably land in the same fairways (waters) as the sect-guru, who also promises entire liberation. Such promises only produce self-destructive dependence which stands in the way for the individual’s liberation.

How many haven’t experienced the same (or similar things) as Helga experienced, in this case in therapy (another form of manipulation)? I think I will write about her story too in a later posting.the not best well-mannered dog at the table, begging (I have serious problems resisting him)!! :-)

Addition after lunch: On my walk (with a dog that has to arm himself with an enormous patience before anyone is ready to go out. It was wonderful out; sun and a blue sky, and we met a woman on a horse and a man with the dog in the forest! So this forest isn't so wild as it maybe looks!?) I thought further on what Mellody has found about violations and abuse:

The child could be violated by being told how to

• think,
• behave,
• feel,
• not think,
• behave,
• feel,
• what friends the child should have,
• and not have,
• which cloths it should wear,
• and not wear…

It was told:

• how it was
• and how and what it wasn’t,
• how it thought,
• and didn't' think,
  
• how it felt,
• and didn't feel,
• how it reacted
• and accused for not reacting, feeling, sensing…

How does a child meet this?

"No, I am not! I am not thinking that way!!"

Words, feelings, thoughts, reactions etc. put in its mouth?

Which Mellody thinks are violations and abuse. And disrespect for the child as person, a disbelief and distrust in its wishes and strivings. Mellody calls this “excessive control of reality” (my translation from Swedish).

And this is also abusive adults between and seldom leads to anything constructive (if it ever leads to something constructive)!? How do one meet:

“You are!!”

With:

“No, I am not!!”

How does one prove neither the first nor the second?

Projections has to be worked out in some way? And they aren’t (are they) by saying

“You are!!”

But it’s very tempting to use these words sometimes?? And where are the limits for when it's no idea to go on trying???

Using these words, is that to take responsibility for oneself? And to say things like that one need to be very self-aware?? Knowing what is about oneself and what is about the other part. But this is tricky! Is the alternative entire solitude??

How would the best way be to communicate? Taking responsibility for what we say, do, how we behave? We will probably go on making bigger and smaller mistakes with all what follows, but we can try to communicate???

No wonder there are wars in this world? But from where does this enormous rage and fury come where you are capable of killing, not only verbally but also literally? Did he child once experience its fathers outbursts as threats for life??

And both parts probably have to want to develop, and care about the relation? And this isn’t always the case? Thinking loudly here... Wondering, thinking (WHAT?? "Thinking!!!??" If one is emotional than one is too emotional and not thinking?? And when one is thinking, one is thinking too much and maybe also insensitive. Yes, it's that too: "You shall not think so much!!" that is also an expression of "excessive control of reality"?), not trying to write a hand-book...

Jenson writes something: from where does all the… in the world come? All needs for mood-rising medication? It’s obvious that there is something lacking? Is it the child’s….?

Mellody speaks about other emotional violations, as demands on perfectionism, neglect, abandonment (both emotionally as physically) etc too, and she is one of those who have pointed out that there exist emotional abuse and disrespect too.

Easer said than done all this!?? With all we probably have in our back-packs??

We can and maybe should communicate how we feel, react etc. And ask

“What did you mean? I reacted in this and this way! It felt...”

or I don't know. Think if there existed a hand-book in this!!??

See Bosch on boundary violations and a posting under the label integrity violations.

From an earlier posting:

"I came to think of the Norwegian doctor Anna-Luise Kirkengen and that she has written about boundary-violations and their effects (if not immediately so later), and the concept revictimization.

There were several references to boundary-violations in her book “Inscribed bodies”, and in the first the concept bio-medicine was mentioned too.

At page 2-4 she writes (my italics):

“Those human conditions which are embedded in interpersonal relations, societal values, and culturally constituted meaning, are, through the very logic of biomedical theory, made invisible. The logic of the dominant methodology also renders them incomprehensible. Finally, they are deemed ignorable or irrelevant since values and meaning are non-issues according to objective science. The result is that the power implicit in social rank and the humiliations of human beings due to abuses of power are turned into non-medical logics, making medicine, inevitably blind to the adverse effects which abuse has on human health [the results of abuse isn’t ‘only’ psychological ill-health to different degrees!]. This becomes even more the case whenever the practice of such abuse is either societally legitimized or culturally taboo./…/

As medicine is a respected societal institution, and in its guise as a science, the normative character of biomedical epistemology accrues crucial influence. It effects central decisions with regard to what is, and what is not, to be considered relevant in drawing medical conclusions. Purporting to apply objective scientific knowledge while actually applying societal norms, medicine as a practice maintains the mandate to define the categories of ill health and malfunctions. By defining these categories, medicine has the right to include any conditions which meet the categorical criteria. Thus, according to the rules of formal logic, medicine also has the power to exclude those conditions which fail to meet those criteria. This distinction between ‘proper’ and ‘improper’ states or conditions plays a role in every medical decision. The norms of biomedicine are embedded in the practice of any medical examination and treatment, and affect every living person who addresses a medical institution in the role of a sick patient. Through application of these norms, distinguishing the ‘proper’ from the ‘improper’ within a formalized societal context, medicine has the power to stigmatize people who ask for help for ‘improper’ conditions. While acting in the name of giving help, medicine may, in fact, violate a person’s dignity. But even those who present apparently ‘proper’ conditions may risk stigmatization if presumably appropriate medical interventions prove ineffective. According to objectifying medical theory, such measures ought to result I a predictable outcome. If they consistently do not, the most probable question is not, ‘what is wrong with medical judgment and medical theory?’ but rather ‘what s wrong with this patient?’ Failures stemming from the foundations of professional judgment, namely medical knowledge acquired by applying rules requiring objectivity, are more likely to be attributed to those whose conditions fails to improve. In other words: Medical norms exclude, marginalize and then stigmatize.”

Side-track: is this the case even more today, with doctors’ limited time with each patient?

And in school: shouldn’t we all try to improve the school in general, together, isn’t this our common concern?"

Here a sender-in in a newspaper here in Sweden on ”Abuse, a tool legitimized by the goal?”

Guruer, helbrägdagörare och ledare...

from a walk January 23, 2007, taken with my cellphone camera.

Slog mig plötsligt vad Alice Miller skrivit om guruer och ledare, se bland annat sidan 157 i ”Vägar i livet”:

”Med ledare och guruer är det svårt att säga var det medvetna upphör och det omedvetna börjar manifestera sig. Mången guru drivs av krafter som han själv inte är medveten om. Annars behövde han inte bygga upp ett så komplicerat system åt sig att han endast med destruktiva medel kan vidmakthålla det. /…/

Bland sekternas grundare finns många paranoida och megalomana [storhetsvansinniga] psykotiker som i mängden av anhängare söker skydd mot den egna ångesten, i det att de erbjuder sig som hjälpare eller helbrägdagörare./…/

…de vill undkomma sin barnsliga vanmakt och bekämpa denna på det symboliska planet samtidigt som erbjuder de sig som räddare, eftersom de genom sina anhängares lovprisningar äntligen känner sig mäktiga istället för vanmäktiga. Men så fort de fruktar att bli genomskådade tvingar de med hotelser sina lärjungar att tiga. Självmord är en extrem form av tigande.”

Tänker på vad Ingeborg Bosch skriver om hjälp- och maktlöshet (dvs. om vanmakt). Om försvaren falsk makt vrede och falsk makt förnekande av behov (False Power Denial of Needs)… Försvar som ger oss en falsk känsla av makt och som är verksamma även idag som vuxna i den mån vi inte har bearbetat det som var upphovet till dessa försvar.

Tidigare postningar under kategorin powerlessness, power, power abuse, the need for power och the need for power and control. Se också om backward psycho classes.

Tror vi kan möta detta hos både ledare av olika storlekar (dvs. på lika nivåer), hos terapeuter och andra hjälpare (både profesionella och även på det privata området) m.m.

Men försvaren mot hjälplösheten då kan också yttra sig på andra sätt, helt motsatta mot (den oemotståndliga) driften och enorma behovet att skaffa sig makt tror jag...

---

Struck me yesterday all of a sudden about what Miller has written about healers (of all kinds, in form of therapists, both educated and not) and about gurus and leaders of all kinds, and quoted a passage in Miller’s book “Paths of Life” from page 157 in the Swedish edition. A passage where it stands that gurus and leaders of all kinds (even in the form of helpers) at last feel (or can feel or are given the opportunity to feel) powerful (potent) instead of powerless (impotent!?) when and if they get power (over a "weaker")... But as soon as they fear being seen through they force their disciples to silence. And suicide is the extreme form of silence Miller writes.

Above I have linked to earlier postings about these topics and connected topics.

On Miller's web it stands about "Paths of Life":

"How do our first experiences of pain and love affect our future adult lives and our relationships with others? This is the key question which runs through the seven 'life stories' collected here. Each scenario is a fictional account of a damaged past and the repercussions it has in later life. The narratives explore the suffering and loneliness felt in the individual's formative years. For some, the pain and inner isolation has dominated their adulthood and prevented them from enjoying fulfilling relationships despite the desire and need for contact and communication. For others, old fears and defensive patterns have been conquered, enabling them to enter into healthy relationships and find contentment."

from one of two places where I use to write.

I just got the message that a friend and former colleague of mine, a 46-year old (jazz-)pianist has died! He was rehearsing in Stockholm on Tuesday and got a bleeding in the brain. And died yesterday. He left a family with a 5-year-old son.

I haven't quite understood this!?

See here, here and here.
What a birthday present...