Culture makes man human the author writes. All despite class, sex, ethnicity, shall already from the beginning get an honest chance to practice and acquaint themselves with creative ways of expression; as writing, painting, drawing, acting, filming, playing an instrument and so on. I would add: and be allowed to continue doing this and develop those skills throughout life if she or he wants and feel a joy and lust in it.
If more and more people in new generations (and in the old ones too) dare raising their voices and express themselves, breaking silence, re-establish and rehabilitate a little of their self-esteem a lot is won.
Not pushing people away or thrusting them aside but letting them in. Rather not discourage people when they try to express themselves, no matter how developed their ways of expression are, whether in written words (even in a foreign language) or in artistic expressions. Even if these expressions aren't "perfect." People should be encouraged instead. More people should raise their voices.
And, once again, it's by training you become more and more skillful in what you are doing, depending what your starting point was.
Yes, no matter what voice a person has she or he should be encouraged to use it. Not discouraged.
When I was searching in Jennifer Freyd’s book “Betrayal Trauma – The Logic of Forgetting Childhood abuse” for something I wanted to quote I read something that struck a chord.
I am an eager photographer and it looks as I almost only have beautiful views around me?
I thought of painting rosy pictures of the “happy family” (of origin). I think I have contributed to this. Maybe not so much any longer. Something that maybe can disappoint some people, wanting to believe in the picture they saw, and want to believe that the happy family exists?
Freyd writes at page 194:
“Sometimes we are so overwhelmed by the horror of our world that we are blind to its wonder; sometimes we are fortunate enough to be so overwhelmed by the wonder of the world that we are blind to its horror. When fragmented by betrayal blindness we sometimes see neither the horror nor the wonder. But whether we see them or not, both elements exist.”
Another thing that struck me is: developing abilities and skills demands training, sometimes a lot of training! Few people (children) can make things immediately. And the older you get the longer time you need for certain things. But experience can balance for the longer time it takes to learn new things and new skills. Especially if you are going to learn something you have never done before.
“Practice makes perfect”!
And you need to get time to learn and train (train and train even more)! And space learning. Sometimes even a lot of time. And maybe also patience and understanding from the environment!?
So long anybody’s life isn’t dependent on that you have certain skills immediately! And this seldom occurs for a lot of things. This is said quite ironical!
I was actually thinking on using a foreign language, talking and not least writing in it.
If you are allowed to train and train and train you’ll probably at last develop skills in your writing and communicating.
If people around you don’t have the patience with your imperfectness it’s probably their problem!
I can see an impatient parent here, not having maybe ANY patience with his/her child and that it isn’t (can’t possibly be) like an adult person when it comes to a lot of things: like using a good language immediately, with no flaws.
My dad had no patience when we should learn to cycle.
And there are parents with a lot of impatience even if they have very easily-taught children! Maybe some of those parents don’t even realize that their child(ren) are above average?
Some loud thoughts in different directions and on different subjects.
Struck me about a former (second) boss after a phone call this morning with my second boss (where I got really angry, didn’t say yes or agree with everything he said, but tried to stay calm): Stiff (rigid) and inflexible, didn’t dare making own decisions at work. A stickler for details, a bureaucrat. Following the text-book totally.
Compared him with my current second boss. Struck me that some things worked better with the former, but... I wouldn’t want to have him back as boss anyway! But there were SOME advantages with the former.
Also thought about saying what you think, raising your voice. Because I wondered how much more I should say actually. And if I should raise my voice at all at the meeting after lunch, where what we had spoken about on phone should become taken up.
At a quite recent occasion I raised my voice and was told by my female boss:
“Now you have spoken almost all the time (during this meeting).”
She meant dominated it, on behalf of the two men (and her?)? I got a bit confused didn’t really know. But didn’t try to clear this up by asking:
“Please explain what you mean! Shall I be quiet?”
Shame on me who didn't! My own fault I am stuck with wonders!
And hmmm, isn’t this one of the Master suppression techniques in fact? I was fighting for things at our workplace for us all.
“Damn if you do and damn if you don’t.”
or something?
I haven’t been the one speaking up earlier. Rather very quite and back drawn, so… I really wonder, if somebody had measured the time each one spoke in that group (we spoke about the psycho-social environment at our workplace and a survey all had answered on our workplace anonymously!), maybe they would have found that I wasn’t the one speaking most of all four there? Or maybe “only” as much as my boss and another man.
It’s still so (despite all awareness about those things) that our “perception” of what we hear say us that a woman has spoken much more than a man even when she hasn’t. Because we are brought up that “the woman keeps silent in the congregation”?
When I studied pedagogy over 20 years ago at the University of Uppsala we spoke about how astounded teachers became when researchers told them that what they experienced in the classroom wasn’t true: that the girls were talking as much or even much more than the boys. Even when it was the opposite, that bys were talking much more.
We have an expression here (apropos raising our voices), translated it would be “talk in the corridors.” Instead of speaking up on meetings people are talking in the corridors. But how come? Why are people (quite ironically)?
Because they are silenced with different means, quite abruptly if needed?
Another thing I thought of was that clarity (legibility) is important so people know what they are supposed to, where the workplace is heading etc. And when you work with young people it is important being consequent. But this doesn’t mean you have to be rigid. Being consequent doesn’t have to be the same thing as being rigid. But of course it can be. As often is.
I also thought on self blame yesterday.
Had another phone call with a person standing close who said about her baking and dropping a bowl of dough on the floor:
“I made a (terrible) slip-up (tabbe in Swedish)!”
But nobody died because she did this.
Doing blunders or slip-ups or making mistakes are forbidden! Entirely forbidden.
Further on blame: you can also blame other people, the victim for instance.
“Blame yourself! Your own fault (that you became badly treated)!”
Making the victim feel shame. Making her/him crouch down and keep silent.Maybe even afraid?
“I am so bad! I deserve this!”
This can become used deliberately, to infuse shame and guilt.
“The knotty problem is how you make as many people as possible interested in watching a [TV-] programme not built on verbal warnography or populist contempt for knowledge and where the guests are treated with respect even if they aren’t communicating with cogent one-liners.”
This triggered other thoughts on a more personal level (as a one that works a lot and thus have limited time polishing my expressions up and am one who studied English a long time ago, but want to express things and share it with friends over the world who aren't Swedish speaking):
Yes, people have the right to express themselves with the language and the words they have - even if it isn’t perfect! Or even if they don't express themselves as well as a Nobel prize winner.
How many people haven’t become silenced when it comes to expressing themselves in both written and spoken words? Maybe in a similar manner as many have become stunted when it comes to music, something I as music teacher and my colleagues have heard many times! Quite ironically.
Maybe people need to become encouraged instead, as I and my colleagues are trying to (I hope) with our students!?
And if you don't get the opportunity to train how can you, or are you supposed to, develop skills in any area, respect?
Is it the belief that you just rise like a Phoenix from the Ashes, from nothing, in a similar way (with the underlying, maybe not conscious belief) as many of us were treated by an impatient parent? With demands on perfection and that the child should manage everything at once? Perfectly and like a grown up (or even better!). Even in cases when the child managed things (way) above average!?
“The big companies think stories like this one are too depressing. Instead products are produced attracting a big audience. Seen to what sort of films that sell best the American movie visitor prefer warnography rather than realistic descriptions of life, especially if they have a gloomy note. There’s a strong movement of individualism; that we are all separate isles who can manage without ever asking each other or the authorities for help [False Power – denial of needs?]. I think we are going to become over flown with detached fiction, by the fantasy’s escapism. It sounds hard, but I welcome an economic crisis. I hope it will give us a necessary understanding. It isn’t worth aiming at becoming rich to whatever prize and with all means, and it isn’t shameful being poor.”
Loud thinking: Does it has to be either/or? Can we be both individuals AND cooperate? Can we be both independent AND dependent? Can we be needing and other times not needing? Sometimes strong and other times weak? Does the one exclude the other? And if it does, why does it? Where are the roots?
Addition: See Miller on societal denial and traditional moral. And the reader's letter on her web stating that all physicians have been traumatized, first by their first caregivers and then during their education... Why they have reached this goal (this profession, with all which follows with it)...
I get so upset over the state of the affairs in the world and not least in our society so I don't find words, neither spoken nor written!!! But I write and talk nevertheless, though many times with blushing cheeks, over my language... Not over things like swearwords though, but over how I express things, and don't find the proper words or expressions...
Two leaders this morning and a discussion in the morning-sofa on TV made me think and triggered this posting. Here a quotation from the first leader “The Sources of Terror” about the events in Mumbai, India on Wednesday (my a little free amateur translation from Swedish):
“All terror has last of all its origins in social evils [sociala missförhållanden] or political injustices of some kind. Let us hope that heads of the governments in India, Pakistan, USA and Europe are able to keep this in mind even after this incomprehensibly brutal act of violence.”
I think he is right, but this (the social evils and political injustices) is only an explanation no excuse for the use of violence was one of my thoughts. However, it's no wonder people at last start to react.
I also found this blog about this event, see here.
Each Friday a panel (on three persons) use to speak about the last week’s events in Sweden and the world in the morning sofa on Swedish TV. Today one of them said something about:
“...anxious men [in the higher/highest positions in the society and the world] needing to ‘assert themselves’…”
by competing about who is the most highly (well) paid. Yes, why do they need this – and to that degree as we see? Aren’t they good enough being less paid? Will they ever become satisfied though? Aren't those needs actually bottomless?
The other leader "Martina and I" was about the documentary “Martina and I”, i.e, about the woman Martina with Downs Syndrome, who is working as cleaner at a service flat for elderly people (see earlier posting) since quite many years. In this leader it stood about the notion “normality”…
Martina doesn’t have sense for time. It doesn’t mean anything to her. She lives in the here and now, and this can cause problems for her both here and there. But this job is perfect for her the leader writer thought, because older people don’t care about (the) time either.
“A sharp light is falling over the modern working life. How tiny the space is for the divergent/differing, for things/persons/phenomena not being throughout perfect! All those whom aren’t really that productive are pressed out from the regular working life, and in a world where work is such a central part of the life this implies the most severe marginalization of all.
That Martina managed to get a foot into working life has made her to a stronger human being./…/
All aberrant/deviating we let into the ordinary life contribute to change, yes, to reform the normality.”
Yes, it was this with contempt for weakness… And with productivity and cleverness. We have to earn our right to live?? Observe the irony!
[Updated November 23 and 24 with a link to the article "Put a stop to the Super-Nanny"(in Swedish) below, and referrals to some articles from The Pedagogical Magazine here on a new grade system in Sweden and demands on more order in schools from our current minister of education].
Alandh met Martina 25 years ago when Martina was 5 years old and has followed her through the years. Now she turns 40 and the last part has been made, but Martina continues to be a friend of Alandhs. Martina works halftime as cleaner.
When Martina was born (1968) her mother was told by the doctors:
“Leave her and forget her! An idiot!”
But her mother refused and instead she dedicated her life to struggling for Martina's right to education and development.
Alandh about his series:
“I would want to say like this: of course it is about Martina with Downs Syndrome. But mostly it is about being a human being. One has to allow flaws and handicaps. A good life can look differently.”
But, no, these things are probably not easy…
Yes, this with perfectionism… Even the ones with a lot of talents don’t necessarily feel especially worthy…
Martina has stricken the surrounding with amazement, she can read and write so well that she has published collection(s?) of poems; she has a gymnasium (senior high school) education.
PS. I also read an article this morning in the newspaper "Put a stop to the Super-Nanny" where the Swedish journalist Ulf Lundén writes that:
”Now old ideas about child-raising have come back on a wide front. The Nanny acute [or Nanny ‘emergency center’] or the Super-Nanny has got politicians in the Alliance to swallow the bite about old authoritarian methods./…/
The government has deposited approximately 70 million Swedish Crowns to extend courses for parents practicing punishments as a raising method.
Which in practice is about creating as much bad conscience as possible in the child [!!!!]. The parents shall freeze the child out, refuse answering when spoken to, pretend the child is not in the room [but this is the Wall of Silence!] or to put the child in the corner. *"
Horrible!!! this is actually nothing else than CHILD ABUSE!! If this is true (IS IT????) then OUR CURRENT GOVERNMENT IS ORDERING NOTHING ELSE THAN CHILD ABUSE!!!
How do they spend the money actually?? They should spend it on what child abuse causes instead! And what child abuse actually is! But they don't know what child abuse is!!?? Because they haven't acknowledged it themselves in their own personal lives?? Which is sad (alternatively tragic) for them, and I don't say I have come to terms with things to a large degree. But what do they cause in this power position? How much more damage than other people having much less power cause!
Addition: During the shower I thought further... About intellect and the brain. About control, controlling emotions, reacting spontaneously... I have been auscultator to a colleague in music-classes with children with Downs Syndrome some years ago (maybe ten years ago now).
One thing that has engraved itself in my memory, made an indelible impression on me, is the spontaneous reactions and - maybe not least achievements in those kids! And I couldn't help comparing it to people with a lot more IQ! How we with more IQ can be censoring ourselves and so controlling so we actually don't manage things, as for instance rhythmic things. And most of us don't dance as freely as those kids.
“Raising children with rewards and punishments got a broad upswing with the TV-program Super Nanny. The program has inspired politicians and moulders of public opinion in many countries for projects of different kinds to learn parents posing boundaries (setting limits) for their children [see Miller on limit setting]. /…/
The child psychologist and author Penelope Leach says that adults over the whole Western World changed their view on children and upbringing. Many has stopped caring about why children behave as they do. Instead obeying ideals have come into fashion again [and that's really true: WHY are children behaving as they do? That's not interesting!!?? But maybe it ought to be. Yes, I think it ought to be interesting!].
‘Courses for parents and counseling columns are giving advises on how you make the children ‘behaving better then they do.’ In the main it’s about that the children shall not stand in the way for the adult-life, Penelope Leach says.
The journalist Erik Sandberg, dad to three small boys, explores why so many suddenly have become so anxious to making the children obey.”
You can find the last two last newspaper-articles here too.
Addition November 24: About the demands on order (from our current minister of education)… And even more on neoauthoritarianism and neoconservatism:
In the pedagogical paper “The Pedagogical Magazine” number 4/2008 there was an article about “A New Grade School” where a school researcher wrote about “Order in the grade-question.”
He writes that the new inquiry (investigation) “A New Grade-School” has been the one that has been best received among all inquiries on the question of grades (and evaluations of school activities) in modern time. But this is remarkable he thinks, because it’s the poorest founded of all investigations of grades ever made!!
The suggestion from this investigation (made only during one year, compared to earlier, which took between two and four years) has been very well received by the general public and people in school!!!
However, in this investigation there are no evidences that the new scale of grades (six grades) promotes learning, there is no connection to a view on knowledge in the curriculum, and an analysis on society, including a relevant analysis of consequences of a new grade system, is lacking.
The suggestion from the investigation is unhistorical he writes and it has no future-horizon (view on the future).
He continues with describing the history behind the grade system we have today, how the discussions have been during the last four decades and the decisions that have been made according to those discussions.
Yes, some people have looked for more order in the ones in power who are making decisions for us all today (in our current government, but people are also critical to the former government) as a quite ironic reply to the demands on more order in school from our current minister of education.
There was another article in this magazine too with the heading “Modern solutions are needed,” where you can read about that the liberal school policy (politics) has developed to an absurd antagonism between a “fuzzy-muzzy”-school and a swot-school. But Sweden needs a modern education-politics grounded on research and well-tried experiences, not based on personal memories from the own time in school.
However, another article writes about “What do the researchers have to do in classrooms?” There you can read that the evidence based research is at risk of simplifying the practice it wants to study. The reality is reshaped and adjusted to prevailing ideas. A critical perspective is looked for.
Thus the decisions that are made are based on lack of knowledge!!! Actually quite fuzzy-muzzy, something the school here in Sweden has been accused for by not least our current minister of education, and has been applauded by many others too, needing to avenging their own early experiences I can't help wondering quite ironically and angrily) and on top not based on understanding OR capacities to compassion, empathy or real, genuine interest in young people (my addition)!
Sidetrack about the wall of silence again: Hmmmm, and that again being surrounded by silence on lists and forums… Being silenced (met with a wall of silence) by moderators for instance. What has that caused in people exposed to this? What can it have been causing?
Maybe 'only' "doubts on themselves", becoming "blocked in expressing things and writing freely"? Have these persons "gotten any opportunity to speaking up for themselves", to the moderator, on the list (forum), to "free themselves from the destructive impact of this treatment and to reclaim their voices and their truths"?
There's a wave of neoconservatism and moralizing over the whole (western) world is it? Ideas that weren't really opportune twenty years ago you express openly today with no shame at all!
Loud thinking around and about things I have read recently, I don’t have any real solutions to these things though, am just wondering, thinking, reflecting over things:
“…September 11 became the starting shot for a medial idealization of the housewife, the family, childbirth and the man as provider.”
She compares what Faludi writes concerning USA with the state of things in Sweden; calling it the building of the home (isn’t it a form of regression we see, regression in an insecure world? People are seeking comfort in idealizing the family, because that early family had “flaws” and they can't admit to that, when this image is triggered we people regress. The more flaws the family had and the person hasn’t processed this or come to terms with it, the more he/she regresses to earlier stages? And this also occurs on societal levels, when a whole society is in crisis, then many become more conservative for instance, we can see a neoconservatism and a new moralizing? Sometimes harsh?):
“With the renovation, the weekend cottage summerhouse and the upkeep of the private house, the parent generation’s traditional gender role division is maintained. Dad cuts the grass and does the joinery; mom works hard, potters about and decorates [see the Swedish painter Carl Larsson whose wife, Karin, also was painter originally, she let her artistic talents and interests out in the family, in the shadow/shade of her husband]. The common prison is decorated with Italian glazed tiles. The dream wasn’t to spend all free time renovating. The dream wasn’t either to look after the kids when the husband was renovating.
The perfection which, as soon as the putty has dried, is completed, seem to be the explosive paste which transforms the love relation to bloody rags and bitter wars, about leases on the place to live and the weekend cottage summerhouse.
All which shall manifest our selves in the home [instead of our true selves??]/.../
Ironically enough it is the same homes that shall manifest the middle class status and the
successful self [being good enough!?] which threatens to become transformed into a prison.
You have to pay money for interests each month and this demands a high and steady income./…/
Hopefully we can start to talk about all peoples’ rights to a decent living instead of fancy and cool kitchens and the right making a good bargain on ones living.”
Yeah, we have to have perfect homes, be perfect, look perfect, express ourselves perfectly (if you don’t you can keep quite) and have perfect lives… Being perfect partners, lovers, workers... So those having problems with perfectionism gets problems too in such a society, problems which had been smaller in another society?? No wonder burnouts, exhaustions – and broken relations!??)
“Dead marriages create a milieu without dynamics and beliefs in the future. It makes me crazy thinking of how other people ave answers on how our lives are. Don’t let outer pressure and moral rule. Follow your heart; allow yourself a rich sex life.”
The journalist asks her:
“Do you think more people would divorce if they could afford it?”
Cecilia G. answers:
“Yes, I know from my surrounding that people having it damn [economically] well have to change living area or even to one with a lower status. They are cowards and don’t dare to break up from old patterns and ideals [on top it's great shame not succeeding - or maybe even being left]. The society has to be there and see so people aren’t forced to stay in marriages. We have to prevent so the right [right wing people] doesn’t let our moral govern our lives once again, so the marriages aren’t strengthened in the society.”
We ought to wonder what healthy and sound relations are, and how to create them?? Because even if we are entirely independent we need other people!! Even autonomous people need other peoples in their lives. And a truly autonomous person doesn’t even think or reflect over this, but just has other people around, in healthier relations than many other people have?? And if they don't have people around they don't blame themselves, as if this is their fault?? And shouldnt't become blamed...
A sound, autonomous person can admit to her/his needs, wishes, and desires?
A man, Marcus Birro, has a different view on if it is too easy to divorce.
“Of course there are people feeling very lonely in a relation, but it is nevertheless a defeat with a divorce [yes, something to grieve!?]. Giving up is a loss [yes, and you have to grieve a loss].
The love is stronger than the self-centered cynicism that is rewarded in the society. The ultimate proof of this is that people can marry four times and really believe that it shall function each time, despite that all knows that it can go to hell.”
But he also wonders:
“Is it better being stuck in an emotional desert just because you want to continue driving a golf-car during the weekends?”
Yes, there has been a lot of hypocrisy, and selfishness… How it looks on the surface…
People stayed together earlier who should have divorced!?? Or who should have worked their problems through and gotten help with it too. But because of the moral and taboos people couldn’t talk openly about their problems, maybe at all! And many also became scorned:
"Oh yeah, now you are coming here and complaining! You should have listened to me/us in the first place!"
Or something. So instead of helping people solving mistakes, people became punished, and many times didn't really work anything out. Didn't work things ot that could have been worked out, or in the worst cases didn't work a divorce through for all involved parts best... Or was stuck in a bad relation.
I think it was like this not more far away than in my parent’s generation, where nobody is divorced… Were/are their marriages better and established on better grounds?
Are we dealing with the most painful things here though? I.e. our relations with our parents from the first beginning? Betrayals, disappointments, making our lives more difficult than they had to be, maybe far more difficult and painful than they ought to be??
And people don't get proper help dealing with this from their therapists, counselors, helpers! Because it isn't only about understanding those things on an intellectual level! But understanding it on an emotional - to some degree...
What is the eager glorification of the family about? How are the actual experiences of the early family actually for the biggest promoters of the family? Because they are promoting it in a quite moralizing way? How sound are those people?
And that about power, the needs for it and leaders again... See earlier posting with the label "backward psycho classes" and the essay "Leaders" by Bob Scharf, that the more defended psycho classes tend to lead!!! Yes,so it is!? This is what we see in the society and world!!?? With some (few) exceptions!?
In this blog I want to explore the effects of childhood experiences on individual lives, the health (not only the emotional/psychological, but also, and not least, the bodily/somatic), the society, why people seek themselves to power positions, the effect of childhood on politics.
With the ideas that imbue Alice Miller's work and writing.
And sometimes just share things I have read and come across and I agree with and couldn't have said better myself.
I work full time with young people since many years, as teacher in music (piano pedagogue), and am interested in these things, both privately/personally and professionally.
But my time is limited to write and blog, even if it probably doesn't look so.
I will devote myself to loud thinking a lot here I think. And this blog is also a way for me to collect texts, facts, links, sites I want to save for further use maybe.
Makt avslöjar en persons grundläggande moral …
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Påskuppropet mot sjukförsäkringar
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Idag var det manifestation. Mycket bra. Jag var där. Mycket bra.
Men någonting gnagde mig på vägen hem. För stämningen var mer uppgiven än
arg, och det ä...
Arbeidet med ny side er i gang!
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Nå har arbeidet med domeneregistrering og nytt design startet og jeg gleder
meg til jeg kan vise dere resultatet! Det skal bli bra å få Psykiskbloggen
over...
Click on the picture to go to Astrid Lindgren site.
Books I am referring to on this blog:
Bosch, Ingeborg: "Rediscovering the True Self"
Freyd, Jennifer J.: "Betrayal Trauma - The Logic of Forgetting Childhood Abuse" ISBN 0-647-06806-8
Jenson, Jean: "Reclaiming Your Life" ISBN 91-46-17409-5
Kirkengen, Anna Luise: "Hvordan krenkede barn blir syke voksne" ISBN 82-15-00713-9 ("How Abused Children Become Unhealthy Adults")
Kirkengen, Anna Luise: "Inscribed bodies - Health Impact of Childhood Sexual Abuse" ISBN 0-7923-7019-8
Lewis Herman, Judith: "Trauma and Recovery - From Domestic Violence to Political Terror" ISBN 086358430-6 (svensk översättning finns: ”Trauma och tillfrisknande” ISBN10: 9197263133, ISBN13: 9789197263139, Förlag: Göteborgs Psykoterapi Institut)
Miller, Alice: "Den dolda nyckeln" ISBN 91-46-15747-6 (The Untouched Key)
Miller, Alice: "Det självutplånande barnet och sökandet efter en äkta identitet" ISBN 91-7643-559-8 (The Drama of the Gifted Child)
Miller, Alice: "Du skall icke märka - variationer över paradistemat" ISBN 91-46-14374-2 (Thou Shalt Not Be Aware)
Miller, Alice: "Riv tigandets mur - sanning byggd på fakta" ISBN 91-46-16022-1 (Breaking Down the Wall of Silence)
Miller, Alice: "The Body Never Lies - The Lingering Effects of Cruel Parenting" ISBN 0-393-06065-9
Miller, Alice: "The Truth Will Set You Free - Overcoming Emotional Blindness and Finding Your True Adult Self" ISBN 0-465-04585-5
Miller, Alice: "Vägar i livet - sju berättelser" ISBN 91-46-17414-1 (Paths of Life - Seven Scenarios)
Pincus, Jonathan H.: "Base Instincts - What Makes Killers Kill?" ISBN 0-393-32323-4
Children baking...
Look, the joy in the children?? Enjoying what they are doing? (illustration from one of the books by Astrid Lindgren, click on the picture to go to her site).
"...of all the many forms of child abuse, emotional abuse may be the cruelest and longest-lasting of all.” "Emotional abuse is the systematic diminishment of another. It may be intentional or subconscious (or both), but it is always a course of conduct, not a single event. It is designed to reduce a child's self-concept to the point where the victim considers himself unworthy—unworthy of respect, unworthy of friendship, unworthy of the natural birthright of all children: love and protection." (Andrew Vachss)
"A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong, gives it a superficial appearance of being right, and raises at first a formidable outcry in defense of custom." -- "Common Sense", Thomas Paine, January 10, 1776
"Modern education is competitive, nationalistic and separative. It has trained the child to regard material values as of major importance, to believe that his nation is also of major importance and superior to other nations and peoples. The general level of world information is high but usually biased, influenced by national prejudices, serving to make us citizens of our nation but not of the world." (Albert Einstein)
"Normal men have killed perhaps 100,000,000 of their fellow men in the last fifty years... Given these and other conditions of contemporary civilization, how can one claim that the ‘normal’ man is sane?" (R.D. Laing, 1967)
"Organizations take on characteristics of the people running them./.../ There's always pressure within groups to conform, anyway. The top monkey exerts the most pressure." (Steve Thomas)
"Yet many psychiatrists and psychologists refuse to entertain the idea that society as a whole may be lacking in sanity. They hold that the problem of mental health in a society is only that of the number of 'unadjusted' individuals, and not of a possible unadjustment of the culture itself." (Erich Fromm in The Sane Society, 1955)
When a big kid hits a little kid, we call it bullying. When an adult hits another adult, we call it assault. When the adults in a family hit each other we call it battering or domestic violence. When an adult hits a child we call it discipline..
“Blindness and lack of connectedness whether truly needed or not, are ultimately tragic solutions to life. These adaptations keep us from knowing ourselves and others fully. We end up fragmented both internally and externally – impoverished spiritually and socially /…/ it seriously constrains our human potential /…/ Survivors of childhood sexual abuse and betrayal blindness have learned to cope by being disconnected internally so as to manage a minimal kind of external connection. But with adult freedom and responsibility come the potential to break silence, to use voice and language to promote internal integration, deeper external connection, and a social transformation, Through communication – integration within ourselves and connection between individuals – we can become whole; embodied, aware, vital, powerful”(Jennifer Freyd in the chapter “Removing Blinders, Becoming Connected” in her book “Betrayal Trauma…”).
“If you are very strong you have to be very kind” (Pippi Longstocking)
“In psychiatry, too, what a person says and writes can’t be divorced from who he is and how he lives.” (Thomas Szasz).
“The method of Marshall Rosenberg is very nice and may be helpful to people who have not be[been??] severely mistreated in childhood. The latter ones however must find their pent up, LEGITIMATE rage and free themselves from the lies of our moral system. As long as they don't do this, their body will continue to scream for the truth with the help of symptoms" (Alice Miller)
“To desire and strive to be of some service to the world, to aim at doing something which shall really increase the happiness and welfare and virtue of mankind - this is a choice which is possible for all of us; and surely it is a good haven to sail for" (Henry van Dyke)
“‘I have never met a man,’ said Grandma Georgina, ‘who talks so much absolute nonsense!’ ‘A little nonsense now and then, is relished by the wisest men,’ Mr Wonka said.” (Roald Dahl)
Look at his facial expression! Angrily carving… The stubborn, disobedient child... Or? How does he feel there in his joiner's workshop? (click on the picture to go to Astrid Lindgren site).
About the ACE-study:
"It's not just water under the bridge."
ACEs are surprisingly common among people of all social strata, and have far-reaching consequences. For many people, it's not possible to "just get over it".
What's an ACE (Adverse Childhood Experience i.e. "skadlig barndomserfarenhet")? Adverse Childhood Experience is growing up experiencing any of the following conditions in the household prior to age 18:
1. Recurrent physical abuse
2. Recurrent emotional abuse
3. Contact sexual abuse
4. An alcohol and/or drug abuser in the household
5. An incarcerated household member
6. Someone who is chronically depressed, mentally ill, institutionalized, or suicidal
I don't like being photographed, and don't have many photos of myself but here are some, though fairly old! Click on the picture to see two more pictures.
I was born in Umeå in Västerbotten, Sweden, and moved during childhood stepwise to Skåne in the south, and at last back to just below the middle of Sweden where I still live.
I am educated both as piano-pedagogue and church-musician and have a full time employment as piano-pedagogue. Church-music is side work.
I am interested in a lot of things and will blog about things I read, psychology, society, history, nature, my work too hopefully, and my everyday life… And both in Swedish and English.
This is a blog, with my (sometimes very) personal - and loud reflections on what I read, see, hear, react on, feel for - and not feel for and want to explore. I don't work in this field at all, but I have my reflections and thoughts nevertheless and have read fairly a lot I think, and here I reflect upon all this. I am searching myself forward. I link sites for information, if one want to know more about what I am talking/writing about and what is mentioned in the texts I am citing and referring to. And I link sites not least for my own sake. So it isn’t sure I agree with all that is linked on this blog, that's not why I link sites. I can agree with parts of what is linked, bigger or smaller, from almost everything to almost nothing.
I hope those who perhaps find my blog are reading everything here critically - including what stands in what I link.
And when it comes to therapy and all (self)help-concepts I think one shall be very careful. Maybe as a friend said it:
“Meaningful critical thinking.
Psychotherapists have been claiming that they have invented better treatment methods since Sigmund Freud in 1897. The amount of psychological distress in the world hasn’t become less. There’s money to be made from attracting more clients, whether the therapy works or not.
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