A raising method...

from the movie "Torment."

I happened to come across this text on shame and it triggered the following thoughts and reflections, loudly expressed...

A raising method is infusing guilt and shame feelings in a child to make it obedient, i.e. do as you want, or make it not behave as it does...

Just with a glance or if it is needed with tougher means, as surrounding the child with silence or even leave it and go out. Something Alice Miller was exposed to by her mom and has written about. Something that was extremely painful to recall as grown up Miller writes, and thus you need an enlightened witness to confront those memories or even to get in touch with them in the first place. Miller had forgotten how she was treated I think, but reclaimed it during therapy high up in age.

You can manipulate children and latter adults (who has unprocessed experiences of these things from childhood) by infusing shame and guilt in them. With subtle and less subtle means, openly or hidden/secretly. And this is emotional abuse. A child can't escape this, something an adult can - unless she/he isn't paralyzed by fear and shame etc. The less harmed a human being became early in life the less vulnerable to manipulation and brainwashing. So by abusing your child (physically, sexually - and emotionally/verbally) you play latter perpetrators in hand! You can really destroy your child's future by abusing it.

The writer to the linked chapter from the online book “Psychological Self-Help” (I am not sure I recommend this book as a way of healing though) writes about accepting who you really are. But the problem is to know who you actually are. And I think it isn’t enough accepting who you are. You have to understand to a certain extent why and how you became this way, not only with your head but also with your emotions. Question it and rebel against it.

If you succeed with this to a certain extent (unfortunately not easy) you won’t be at risk of forwarding it to other people whom are in your power or under you, or at people standing near you.

And the fact that this work is so difficult should be an incitement to try avoiding causing this sort of harm to small children in the first place.

And it is important to put the blame where it ought to be... Back to the first source... If you don't you will still be trapped in destructive and self destructive behavior. Who did the soul murdering in the first place?

Former postings under the label "soul murdering": "The political Consequences of Child Abuse" and "Soul murdering" (about raising children with the Schreber-concept and the different results of this upbringing).

Manipulation...

From an email from a friend this morning: With the help of specially trained psychologists the advisers of Acta are taught how they shall win the full trust of their clients.

There is no doubt that psychological competence can contribute to the training of sellers.

"There has been a lot of research on how to influence other people, without the influenced noticing that she/he becomes manipulated,"

a psychologist says.

He has seen how sellers use psychological competence.

“With technical language this technique is called neuro-linguistic programming, or NLP. In the clinical psychology such techniques are used without the patient being clear over this [not clear over what's happening]. You try to bring peoples' thoughts, and create feelings, in certain directions. But then [in this circumstance] they are used with a good aim [but is it better in this or any other circumstances?]. It is unethical using these techniques in selling businesses, [especially] when they are exclusively used in winning purposes [gaining money!?]”

this psychologist means. He thinks it’s important that people are aware that techniques like these exists.

“You need to have counter-knowledge, so you are better prepared in meetings with trained sellers,”

he says.

I wonder what Alice Miller has written about NLP and manipulation once again… Maybe I will look for this later. See articles by and about Miller and her ideas here, here and here.

Outlook on mankind…

from the site about The Woodwose

[Slightly updated May 24 in the end]. Went out onto the balcony with a letter from a friend to read it, enjoying the evening-sun. She had written things that together with other things I have read recently in a local newspaper triggered thoughts and feelings. I just HAD to go in to write, even before I had finished reading the letter!

She wrote about (inner) demands on being “useful,” or rather “of use/service to” (nyttig), and “successful,” which she doesn’t think she is at all. And all this has grown to a high mountain, making her even more paralyzed (my maybe a little free interpretation, angry on her behalf), even though this person has a lot of resources really of many different kinds. In a very long paragraph she also succeeds mentioning demands on “effectiveness” and “cleverness” too. Oh, I can vomit on it! I can recognize myself in this, a little silently? But it takes other expressions in me?

For the first it can certainly be too much of that!! And for the second this is high fashion now everywhere in society (and in the world)? I googled on “högsta mode” or “highest fashion” and got a lot of hits. One was that it is highest fashion to manipulate - in the advertising branch. In an article with the heading “Now it’s highest fashion manipulating” you can read (in a one year old article, in Swedish) that the campaigns of the future will have their ground in new biological and psychological discoveries!! Be about how to reach the subconscious. People are talking more and more about how we can manipulate others with knowledge about the body and brain. Used already??

But that was actually a sidetrack.

What I thought out there on my balcony was that today’s (right, conservative and bourgeois) politicians believe that one change people with punishments!

We use to talk about using “whip or carrot” (piska eller morot). These politicians' method is using the whip, not carrots (what are they playing out? In fact I wonder!). And this spring from their view on man strikes me, as if this was a new thought! A tired smile. There is a lot of talk about misusing the systems. I wondered their on my balcony quite ironically, sarcastically

“Do people? How many? And if people do – why??”

And I wonder too - who do?

And could and should one do something about that instead? Or is this impossible? Very naïve of me? And if we spoke about these things openly…

No, I definitely don’t like what politicians are doing now – at all. And I DON’T like the politicians who have the power now, at all.

Words that come for me: moralizing, contempt for weakness…

It stands in the Swedish part of wikipedia about “människosyn” or “view on man”:

”Människosyn kan sägas stå för de föreställningar om människan, såväl teoretiska idéer som praktiska antaganden, av allmän natur som vi antas omfatta. Dessa består då i föreställningar eller teorier om hurdana människor faktiskt i allmänhet är.”

Translated it would be something in the style:

“One can say that 'view on man' stand for the notions and ideas on man, both in form of theoretical and practical assumptions; of general nature we are assumed to embrace. These then consist of notions or theories how human beings in fact are in general.”

But when I studied pedagogy, we learned that "view on man" is different for different people and also changes from time to time (as can "view on society" or "samhällssyn"), all don't embrace the same views on man thus. But from where does the view on man originate in specific individuals? I have my ideas...

Also see this article “More whip than carrot” or "Mer piska än morot" (in Swedish though). And here a posting on “Natives and savages – on arrogance, ignorance, overweening confidence, intolerance and all people’s equal worth (or value?).”

I have practiced with four pupils/students this afternoon for a little more than two hours, for a concert in a little more than a week, a concert that is going to become filmed for a DVD we have been filming (with "professional cameramen") since New Year. Phew! I accompanied them on piano. Tomorrow and on Friday I am sitting in a jury listening to candidates to a course where the students get extended education, a course with our cleverest (!!!) pupils thus.

Maybe I should practice half an hour more myself and then take a bath before bedtime?

Addition May 24: Naomi Klein said that "Information is shock resistance" and that's true not only what concern the sort of politics she writes about. One can try to inform oneself... TRY to raise ones awareness and ones clear seeing. And hopefully protect oneself in that way, and avoid contributing to damage done?

Denying the truth…

from bike ride in the afternoon.

Denying the truth and its consequences.

In the morning sofa on TV this morning a male psychologist and female psychiatrist on the case with the man in Austria holding his daughter as prisoner for twenty-four years. And noone suspected anything. Not even his wife or children?

The psychologist and psychiatrist spoke about an entire, complete need for power and control. Comment: needs for total power and control to keep ones own denied experiences of powerlessness and helplessness down from early? All memories of how it actually felt to be exposed himself, to what? And this goes out on others. And on and on.

The female psychiatrist: It is more damaging to trust if a close standing person commits encroachments, violence and abuse than if a less close commits it.

In a Swedish paper: The man is earlier charged for attempts to rape. Is described by the police as a very totalitarian and manipulative man. He has seven children with his wife and six with his daughter. The last six has their grandfather as father, and the aunts and uncles are also half-siblings. How is that? What a mess.

PS. And I would say the society at large is still in denial... Many "experts" too. Still thinking things like these are mysteries? Are they?

And the truth is held down in other circumstances too... What journalists write in mass media about the state of affairs in the world. Pharmaceutical companies silencing people telling truths... The same (or similar) forces driving all involved in these things? Their unlimited needs for power, control, money etc.... Needs that will never be filled, because they should have been filled early in these persons lives... And they should need to work on these things instead of acting them out destructively on behalf of other people. And many times also self-destructively, destroying their own possibilities for a truly better life.

Needs to exercise power in different manners.

Addition in the evening: also see the blogposting "Pharma Watch Author Outed?" from one year ago.

PPS. And how come noone noticed anything?? Talk about betrayal? There are many people with a need to deny own truths??

A female Swedish blogger is writing things paralleling these I think - about Societal Denial and power abuse. But she is much more angry than I am!!! She is very upset, ironic, and sarcastic.

Really, really upset over male abuse in private life and in scientific circles in different circumstances. And she is married and have a son!! So she can't hate ALL men! In the beginning of her posting she writes about

"...depreciating comments have an important place for how we shall understand exercise/execution of violence."

Yes, she is right. Depreciating comments is a subtle (or not always so subtle) form of abuse... And not especially lovingly or respectfully overseeing? Often with quite harmless things. And once again I came to think of perfectionism and its expressions.

And with a tired smile: there are people saying pretty contemptuous things about how other people write, their spelling... But sometimes I notice misses they do these who expresses themselves critically. Sadly I start to doubt that I am right and have to look the thing I react on up - and, yes, in a special case I am thinking of I was right... An ironic smile. And I know I have a lot to improve myself! How was it now with using what talent you possess? And how many aren't said to have been curbed in their singing, creative and/or untalented painting etc. by teachers in school? But grown ups between these things are allowed???

The female blogger also wrote in the end of her posting (a little freely translated, interpreted by me):

“But, folks, let’s finish this posting [a long one, she had so much she needed getting off her chest?] – after all I have a work to do.”

As I too have, even if noone believes it seen to my diligence in writing, uploading photos, reading etc.

Oppression - what is that?

Played this song with a pupil yesterday.

Tears in Heaven.
Would you know my name
If I saw you in heaven
Will it be the same
If I saw you in heaven
I must be strong, and carry on
Cause I know I don't belong
Here in heaven

Would you hold my hand
If I saw you in heaven
Would you help me stand
If I saw you in heaven
I'll find my way, through night and day
Cause I know I just can't stay
Here in heaven

Time can bring you down
Time can bend your knee
Time can break your heart
Have you begging please
Begging please

(instrumental)

Beyond the door
There's peace I'm sure.
And I know there'll be no more...
Tears in heaven

Would you know my name
If I saw you in heaven
Will it be the same
If I saw you in heaven
I must be strong, and carry on
Cause I know I don't belong
Here in heaven

Cause I know I don't belong
Here in heaven

Brainwashing…

Margaret Singer.

[Updated April 6] In a comment to my former posting on “Emotional abuse…” I was tipped about a Margaret Singer and her 6 criterias for thought reform (my amateur translation from Swedish) I guess it was from the site "hjärntvätt" (brainwashing):

1. Keeping a person unknowing of what is going on and what is happening.
2. Controlling a person’s time and if possible its physical environment (milieu).
3. Creating a sense of powerlessness, secret fear and dependency.
4. Repressing a lot of the person’s old behaviours and attitude.
5. Infusing new behaviours and attitude.
6. Pushing a closed system of logic forward, not allowing critics.

The commentator wrote:

“Her description of brainwashing was very similar to what I suffered in a ‘normal’ psychotherapy (except milieu and time control)."

And it was like Singer describes it the child had it once and as many children still have it? Being obedient and keeping quiet? Not questioning or seeing through? As many of us had it more or less? So we are so used to it and thus have difficulties seeing this through?

Addition April 6: was tipped by a friend on Robert Jay Lifton’s "Theory of thought reform":

• Milieu Control (controlled relations with the outer world)
• Mystical Manipulation (the group has a higher purpose than the rest)
• Demand for Purity (pushing the individual towards a not-attainable perfection)
• Confession (confess past and present sins)
• Sacred Science (beliefs of the group are sacrosanct and perfect)
• Loading the Language (new meanings to words, encouraging black-white thinking, thought-stoppers)
• Doctrine over person (the group is more important than the individual)
• Dispensing of existence (insiders are saved, outsiders are doomed)

Also see "Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism" by Robert Jay Lifton.

And all these things you ought to avoid in therapy. And these are things many children have experienced when they grew up, in their families, to different degrees?

Translated the points above would be something in the style:

• Kontroll av miljön (kontrollerade relationer med den yttre världen)
• Mystisk manipulation (gruppen har ett högre syfte än resten, dvs. resten av världen? Manipulation av upplevelser vilka verkar vara spontana, men är planerade och orkestrerade)
• Krav på renhet (man pushar individen mot en ouppnåelig perfektion, världen ses svart-vit och medlemmarna är konstant förmanade att rätta sig efter gruppens ideologi och strävan efter perfektion)
• Bekännelse (man bekänner forna och nutida synder. Synder, som de definieras av gruppen, ska bekännas antingen inför en personlig ordningsman eller offentligt till gruppen)
• Helig vetenskap (övertygelser om gruppen är okränkbara, heliga och perfekta. Gruppens doktrin och ideologi ses om den ultimata sanningen, bortom allt ifrågasättande eller varje dispyt)
• Laddande av språket (nya meningar på ord, uppmuntrande av ett svart-vitt tänkande, tankestoppare. Gruppen tolkar och använder ord och fraser på ett nytt sätt så att den yttre världen ofta inte förstår)
• Doktrin över person (gruppen är viktigare än individen. Medlemmens personliga erfarenheter är underordnade den heliga vetenskapen och varje motsatt erfarenhet måste förnekas eller tolkas på nytt för att passa gruppens ideologi)
• Fördelande av existens (insiders räddas, outsiders är dömda. Gruppen har privilegiet, förmånsrätten att bestämma vem som har rätten att existera och vilken som inte har det)

Detta låter som något som skulle kunna existera i familjen för ett både litet och betydligt större barn i större eller mindre grad? Och dylika saker borde undvikas i terapi, både i individuell som gruppterapi.

Some more thoughts on therapy abuse…

Easter 2007 at the country-side, chocolate-cake with whipped cream and fruit.

In the shower: my relatives in the working-class (which I have had most contact with and have had further contact with, and where we played very freely when we grew up, as we did at home, but not at my paternal grandparent's home really) would never think of entering a therapist’s office…That is out of question. And earlier it was even more out of question. defenses (and denial) can take different expressions?

Not least was it so in my parents’ generation and earlier. Reading books could give one a lot of strange ideas, and working with creative things was no real occupation! And you shouldn’t think “too much”.

My youngest uncle is born 1935 and his wife is one year younger…

Helga was educated social worker, and she got her mom’s house in Santa Monica when her mother died, and thus she was seen as the rich and wealthy house-owner, who could afford paying expensive fees.

Michelle wrote that the sect-members she referred to (what Carol L. Mithers has written about in “Therapy Gone Mad…”) belonged to the middle-class; they were intelligent people, of whom many had Academic exams and was used to thinking.

How was this enslaving possible Michelle wondered? She thought that the patients through regression to childish helplessness obviously lost their ability for critical thinking or that they entirely directed the critics at themselves.

The people whom had come to the therapy-center to learn to perceive their feelings had been held away from exactly these true actual feelings instead, because their therapists had no use for those.

The members at the center had been exhorted to strict critics of their parents and at the same time been hindered refinedly seeing their contemporary extortionists through.

When the truths were revealed they became aware of that they had told the most intimate details about their childhoods and sexual lives in the “therapy-groups”, but that they had buried their true feelings and thoughts about the therapists behaviors inside instead. They had never really spoken with the other sect-members either. The patients’ lives were strictly controlled, day and night.

And they got a lot of perverse commands; couples who loved each others too much was ordered to have sex every day, so they should get enough of each others. People who didn’t’ really like each others were forced to intimate relations etc.

Michelle thought that regressive therapy-forms offer a certain favorable soil for these things. A human being suddenly thrown back to childish dependency can’t integrate her childhood. Only grown ups can do this with the help of a therapist who follows his patients and supports their independence, and who are not holding them in a childish dependency.

This dependency is the soil in which the illusion that the therapist can give a grown up human being all she lacked with her mother (and father) when she was a (small) child: being mirrored, understood, unconditionally loved (and given true, genuine respect, which is something a client has all rights to demand and expect!?).

If the mother is capable of this she has protected her child from being exploited later.

But expecting that shortages are possible to be taken back with a guru is self-delusion. It only leads to dependency on promises which can never be fulfilled, because the sect-follower isn’t a child any more and the guru isn’t his/her mother (or father) from the beginning of life. In spite of this this illusion is kept alive in many sects and religions.

Michelle writes that knowing this maybe can be of help to Helga; that she isn’t the only one who have done this experience (or been such a fool!) and succeeded to free herself from the confusion.

And I thought on the article I linked and quoted from yesterday (about the woman who was exposed to incest from she was 7, or earlier, till she was 14, and how her life had turned out later): how can it be to read this for the one that hasn’t been able to deal in the same way as this woman? How do newspapers nuance what they write? Are they “nuancing” things rather?? The Societal Denial again? Because I wonder if not more people have been exposed to things than we want to believe? Many more? Maybe almost all of us, but to different degrees. Some are less harmed, others more??

And - can a sexual abuser come to believe that what he (she) does isn't so harmful??

"See how she dealt with it!!!"

Minimizing and belittling the damage?? Which is absolutely intolerable and wrong!!! I guess most of those who have succeeded in their recovery would agree that the damage could have been undone, and the struggle to recover has taken so much of their time and life...

Also see the article "Compassion Gone Mad" by Heather Mac Donald.

And it was someone who wrote:

“I’m wondering why after many adult children finally say:

“Ok that’s enough! I’m done!”

and then they walk away and have little or nothing to do with the abusive parent after that, but they continue to or begin abusive relationships with others.

I know a woman who refused to speak with her dad because he molested her, but then started dating a man who was very mean to her and treated her like she was nothing.

He used her for sex just like her father did and abandoned her and then would come back just to hurt her.

After I stopped seeing my mother I became very friendly with a very mean woman who screamed at me when she got drunk I also dated a man who was mean and acted pretty much like my mother.”

Is it because they haven't actually worked things through (and this is certainly not easy or easy made)? And recovery isn't about solving things on a symbolic level??

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?”

Manipulation...

taken yesterday at work.

Some thoughts thrown down just before work, when I moved between work-places now before lunch. In my excellent and fantastic English (I wonder if you ought to be quiet, k!!?? You ought to realize your limitations!? To be honest!? Quite ironic).

A method to punish a child is to surround it by silence, meet it with silence. And I think this is more horrible than we can imagine… A grown up needing to demonstrate his/her power in this manner… Grown ups can be met with this too!?

You can act old things out in different manners, aggressiveness in destructive or self-destructive behaviors. Some people (or all more or less) use both methods to different degrees?

And abuse is more than spanking. But does spanking result in another sort of suppressed anger? That takes its expression in aggression and brutality? Together with self-destructiveness of different kinds (for instance more successful suicide-attempts?). While other forms of abuse more result in self-destruction, self-harm of different degrees, but not as much in aggression and brutality?

On my way to the first school (on bike, icy roads):

You can manipulate in other ways too, not only with silence (ignoring the child till it changes) if “necessary”!? By instilling shame in children, for their natural needs, for their imperfection (they should realize their utter, enormous imperfection!!?? Taken out of the delusion that they are perfect!? Realize their utter limitations?), their reactions, thoughts, behaviors, way of expressing themselves, in all: their ways of being, how they are!?

All this is done in different manners, more or less subtle, some of these measures are aware and some aren’t aware? Both consciously and unconsciously done?

You can do this to other grown ups too!? Of shame on behalf (!!!) of them try to change them, or not even reply to what they say? You react to how they say it, not actually WHAT they are saying in some cases). What is this shame about?? What does it awoke? Honestly I don’t think I want to understand THEM (the ones feeling shame and needing to change one), but to understand the mechanisms and roots.

Is this for instance about feeling superior? Maybe even powerful, knowing, capable!??? And maybe this is entirely unconscious? But does this mean that you aren’t responsible for what it can cause??

And the one exposed to this sort of (conscious or unconscious) power game

Need to be very self-aware!? But how many are?

Yes, shame for others what is that actually about?

And why does a child behave in the way he behaves? What would a “natural” behavior be if the child wasn’t abused at all, or hardly at all??

And why does a grown up behave as he/she does? And if that person isn’t harming anyone… What’s the problem? Or does this person harm just by her/his way of being?? By instilling shame in its poor environment??

Where has Miller written about her experiences with the Wall of Silence?? I would like to come back to that, but now I don’t have time to look for that book. I believe it is in “Breaking Down Walls of Silence” (“Riv tigandets mur”)!? But the forum ourchildhood.int doesn’t live up to this? Miller approves of how people are treated there? People are me with silence, they have to figure out on their own why contributions are rejected, and in first hand also why they are rejected, when they are rejected. People aren’t informed about why they are rejected, and don’t get any opportunity to defend themselves… Miller also writes about our wish for an open, genuine communication…

Don't anyone wonder why people maybe are objecting and reacting? If there may lie something behind?

So who is manipulative?

And what is actually manipulative?

Jenson and Bosch on shame (and guilt). About the different expressions of Walls of Silence, or the theme Walls of Silence, see earlier postings here and here.

The text above was very swiftly written in a pause in work...Franz Kafka.

Addition in the evening: I found the text I thought of, where Miller writes that she experienced the Wall of Silence already in her childhood. Her mother used to meet her with silence for days in a row to demonstrate her absolute power over the small girl and force her to obedience. The small girls' needs, questions and suggestions were taken aback against this wall without forcing her mother to defend herself for this sadism, at all. The mother saw this attitude as a fair and well-earned punishment for offenses the small girl had done, as her duty to give the child a lesson. "For her own good!!"

As in Franz Kafka's "penal colony" the small child wasn't informed about her punishable offense(s). In this omission there was a message; if the child didn't even understand for what she earned this punishment she had no conscience!! Oh, horrible!! If she didn't understand then she had proved her badness!!

The child was pushed away, had to seek, do her utmost till her conscience (hopefully?? with a lot of iron) told her what guilt she had drawn upon her. Not until then she could TRY to apologize and dependent on the mood in the one in power, if she was lucky, maybe be excused!!

The child then couldn't realize that this was actually a (extremely) cruel and even sadistic behavior/treatment. She couldn't realize this on her own, no. She needed a grown up who could help her to see, at all see, even if she didn't get the help to question it and see it as unfair. She couldn't take the truth in with her feelings on her own for what her mother actually had showed (lack of love), instead she questioned her own feelings and natural (and adequate) reactions, than questioned her mother and her behavior, that what she did was wrong and unfair (to what extent it was wrong and unfair), that she in fact showed despise and contempt for the small child.

The child was left in "the/a prison of confusion" as Miller writes!!

Bosch is talking about a defense she calls the Primary defense (det första eller ursprungliga försvaret), in which the child blames herself...

See also Arthur Silbers Miller-essays where he often mentions not only Denial but also obedience (that the child is learned to obey from earliest in life) here and there in these essays (in my feelings) and what it results in later, in life and in the society!!

---

Miller skriver på sidorna 23 och framåt i sin bok "Riv tigandets mur" i kapitlet "Ur förvirringens fängelse":

"Tigandets mur [The Wall(s) of Silence] upplevde jag redan i min barndom. Min mor brukade möta mig med tystnad hela dagar i sträck för att på så sätt demonstrera sin absoluta makt för [och över!!??] mig och tvinga fram min lydnad. /.../ Den lilla flickans behov, frågor och förslag studsade tillbaka mot denna mur utan att min mor behövde försvara sig för denna sadism. Hon betecknade sin attityd som ett rättvist och välförtjänt straff för förseelser jag begått, som sin plikt att ge mig en 'läxa'. /.../

Liksom i Kafkas 'I straffkolonin' blev nämligen den lilla anklagade aldrig upplyst om sin straffbara förseelse I denna underlåtenhet låg ett budskap: 'Om du inte ens vet vad du har förtjänat detta straff för har du ju inget samvete. Sök, forska, ansträng dig tills ditt samvete säger dig vad det är för skuld du ådragit dig. Först då kan du försöka urskulda dig och beroende på makthaverskans humör kan du, om du har tur, kanske få förlåtelse."

Defences...

I have been thinking about the topic gurus and power the last months and thought of blogging about it and yesterday I started to search in my books what stands there and found something else (or not?) in the revised edition of Miller's first book "The Drama of the Gifted Child" in the chapter "The vicious circle of contempt [for weakness, for instance in the client in therapy, not recovering as fast or at all as he/she ought to. The, still unconscious, contempt for the small child, not handling things better than it did!!]" (or how is it translated in the English edition?).

At page 151 (in the Swedish edition) it stood something that triggered some thoughts, something in the style:

“The human beings whom had the responsibility for us in our childhood made it impossible for us to develop our awareness (consciousness?). They wanted to prevent (or stop) this because it threatened their defenses.”

I thought further: And it is deplorable if the development of our awareness/consciousness is hindered in our therapies by our therapists because it threatens their (the therapists) defenses. Miller writes that therapists have learned about conscious manipulation, but they aren't always aware of the/an unconscious manipulation...

And it is the latter that is so problematic... If I have understood her right.

An unconscious manipulation neither the client nor the therapist is aware of.

And this is also the problem in other circumstances and relations!?? One example is the relation teacher-pupil, where the teacher (more often than we believe or are aware of) doesn't want to know something that would threaten her/his defenses... There are probably other examples on this... I also came to think about the conception power imbalance, Kirkengen for instance has written about this. And the power imbalance between in first hand physician/doctor and her/his client. About power abuse...

The conception "censoring" also struck me all of a sudden... What is this about? What are we censoring, in others and ourselves, and why? What is actually important and what matters actually?

Quite silently: Hmmm, and that about women's voices... Do they have anything to contribute with or come with? Are the worth listening to and respectfully be met as equals? In a real, genuine exchange on similar conditions, with mutual respect? Where the message is important, more important than how it is said...

But I guess; if you are truly interested in an exchange the form matters less or maybe not at all!!??

There is (or can be??) a lot of competition among musicians... And it isn't so unusual that people say very critical things about others playing for instance... Quite contemptuous things... But who are the most contemptuous? The ones that knows "most"? Who are the most generous and maybe less critical? I don't know if I am unfair now... An maybe is it so that the ones that knows "most" also can afford to be more generous?? I don't know...

I have taken lessons for pianists like Janos Solyom, Käbi Laretei etc. Been in master-class with the Swedish baritone Olle Persson and the Swedish pianist Matti Hirvonen (as 46 year-old woman!!!! Curious on everything, still trying to develop things. That I was accepted for this master-class a summer in the north of Sweden was unbelievable for me...). I have cooperated a little (very little!!) with the singer Erland Hagegård etc. To mention some... All these well-known in music-circles here... And other teachers during my educations...

And I have seen others in action... And of course seen both good and bad things, and probably been blind for things (maybe many things)... And in a way (maybe many ways?) I probably have a lot of respect for some, maybe too much respect!??? Too...

But I don't aspire at all to be well known myself, I am satisfied with how it is. If I had any opportunity to that, any more...

The last fifteen years have been about plain surviving, to different degrees (for ten years it was almost a question of surviving), for keeping the nose above water, despite all supposed (???) advantageous'... Not for developing any skills whatsoever actually... (Including not for developing my English or for communicating on that language). But I kept on working as the clever girl; both on work-things and on personal things (not my English!)...

"Oh, you must have had support!!!"

No, I hadn't, people disappeared... I became very lonely... (blowing my hair in the middle of writing).

Someone wrote to me recently:

"...these matters can be very painful. But having faced them we become stronger."

In the context this was said (actually written) these words didn't feel especially caring or empathic at all. Excuse me, but what bullshit!!?? It doesn't automatically make one stronger. You experienced this for your own good, for to learn!!?? You deserved this, or?

When I was showering now I came to think of blind admiration too... See above, about having too much respect maybe. I have wondered and reacted over woman I have had contact with for a long time, actually a woman in my mom's age (a mother-figure??), over how she resonates and reacts over people in certain positions, how shall I express this; as if they have no faults (or blind spots), as if they are perfect, not really human beings!? One isn't allowed to question them or criticize them!? One of them is a former head for a big company here in Sweden! A man she has had some private contact with, I don't know... Oh, I react so strongly when people admire "fine people", seeing like some sort of superhuman beings, of some reason... Has something to do with my background?

This woman (actually retired teacher!) grew up in a crowd of seven children as the one in the midst, on a farm in the middle of Sweden that has been in the family for over 400 years, fairly wealthy I think. They never starved, and they had opportunities to go further in school-education (opportunities my mom didn't have, coming from the working-class, the lowest working-class too)...

I have tried to imagine how it was, how her (my friends) parents were (my think I learned to know my maternal grandparents to that degree that I can imagine how they were. I was 31 respective 33 when they died, grandmother 90 years and grandfather 87)... How her father was... From what I have read (not least from/in Miller's books). I see an authoritarian father, maybe even totalitarian... And I wonder how her mother was too, actually?? Not so little authoritarian too? Yes, that about growing up in better conditions...

This woman married a man, colleague to us, and they got two children (in my age, or a little younger)... Her husband was alcoholic (as his older brother), but this wasn't something we spoke of at all. We haven't done it at all, not even today we do speak about it (so vital things!!?). And this was some kind of secret at work too!!?? When I came here I was a 23-year old woman, not so secure and not seeing things... Her husband died in cancer (due to his alcoholism, in organs which use to be damaged if you are an alcoholic) when he had just passed 60.

My father could have developed a totalitarian regimen too? But he couldn't really? I try to imagine how it was... There were moderating factors? Mom didn't really allow him?? But she couldn't really protect us!?? She in turn had been beaten (and probably also been exposed to emotional abuse, and maybe even sexual??), her self-esteem was (and is?) very low... But I don't want to idealize her either...

With the years dad changed I think (seen from the child's point of view)... He became more democratic, less strict, in a way?? And much more anxious for things, for us, when we were on the road home for instance, which made me very astonished!! Now he allowed himself to let things to surface more? But not the really vital things??

No, I must do something else than writing... Many threads and sidetracks here?