In a discussion on elderly care in Sweden last night a professor in Social Gerontology Mats Thorslund said that the question “What care without dignity is” wasn’t interesting in the commission of inquiry concerning what care with dignity is. He had tried to raise this question with no response (whatsoever?) from the others in the committee (except from one person?).
Someone also spoke about that by redefining the needs (in this case the needs of elderly people) the politicians can get around the laws.
Is the solution to go back to old time’s class differences? Should we rethink everything in the society? Is this with elderly care a symptom on something in the society and the whole world?
Earlier many human beings were spared from the painful choice situations because everything was embedded in a frame that was commonly decided. Assuredly this was on good and bad.
Now a new sort of loneliness is forced upon a lot of people – we are forced to choose (is this freedom? Or what sort of "freedom") and "judge" about almost everything, from the color of the toothbrush to the choice of phone company and pension insurances. This is called forced reflexivity by sociologists.
The numbers of choice-situations have become more, increased (a lot), and also become more complicated. Compared to earlier.
The responsibility weighs heavily upon the individual.
Sisyphus’s torment is rather confusion more than heavy work.
The autonomous human being the existentialists were talking about is in its way becoming replaced with the constantly insecure human being. She isn’t the one choosing between clear alternatives, but rather more and more irresolute and hesitating (if she doesn’t hide this both to herself and to other people).
Addition: who are gaining most on this insecurity and confusedness?
The choice situations don’t correspond with assets of time for reflections. Sisyphus the younger is at risk of becoming hit by paralysis over how to act.
If Sisyphus the younger becomes sick, stressed to pieces or unhappy depends entirely upon himself. And if he becomes unemployed this is due to lack of success in getting a winning personality and thus being capable of walking successfully from an interview after having written an impressing curriculum vitae. If he is insecure or being in agony over the future it’s because he isn’t good enough at getting friends, he fails thinking positively, that he hasn’t succeeded in the art of making impressions on other people OR because he has problems expressing himself.
Quickly the new market’s entrepreneurs and life style coaches are there to exploit Sisyphus the younger's situation. New markets are profiting on and maybe even trying to increase his feelings of insecurity and confusedness.
My addition: yes, for the ones who can afford these coaches and can pay for advices and therapy. The others are left behind, entirely. And this is their fault entirely. Has nothing with structures to do!?
"If that sounds politically unfeasible, consider this: When Clinton was cutting welfare and food stamps in the 90s, the poor were still an easily marginalized group, subjected to the nastiest sorts of racial and gender stereotyping. They were lazy, promiscuous, addicted, deadbeats, as whole choruses of conservative experts announced. Thanks to the recession, however – and I knew there had to be a bright side – the ranks of the poor are swelling every day with failed business owners, office workers, salespeople, and long-time homeowners. Stereotype that! As the poor and the formerly middle class Nouveau Poor become the American majority, they will finally have the clout to get their needs met."
Chomsky on applying standards on ourselves we apply to others (hmmm...):
“Girls are whipped on their hands with a leather strap wielded by Principal Curtis Weathers -- a 6' 6" former football player. The girls to be whipped await their turn while the audience watches in anticipation. As he swings his belt, Mr. Weathers counts off 10 strokes. If the victim, out of fear or pain, retracts her hand, the count starts over again. If she cannot make it through ten strokes, she is suspended and must try again the following Friday. She is not allowed to resume classes until she successfully completes the hand-beating ritual. The psychological effects on a child undergoing such an experience -- or witnessing it -- can only be guessed, and the high risk to the delicate anatomy of the hand cannot be over-stated.
Girls are also beaten on their buttocks. When Ms. Biles, President of Middle School, does the honors, the paddle is her weapon of choice. The victim moves to the center of the floor, grasps the back of a chair and assumes a rump-presentation posture, whereupon Ms. Biles, delivers five swift blows to the buttocks.
It should be noted that the human buttock area is an erogenous zone, and research scientists have long recognized that abuse to that region can cause sexual confusion, low self-esteem and a host of other long-term issues. When done to a non-consenting adult, it constitutes sexual battery.
The paddling of boys, done by Mr. Weathers, has a few added features. He first looks down into the boy's pants to be sure he hasn't padded his seat with extra clothing. Anything that might cushion the blows is removed. Then, he typically grabs the waistband or belt of the boy's pants and jerks him into position for the paddling. This upward hoisting of the garment, causes child's genitals to be jambed against the body. This is a form of sexual bullying commonly referred to in youth culture jargon as a ‘wedgie.’ The effect of a ‘wedgie’ on a male's genitals is similar to that of being grabbed. When the student is in position, Mr. Weathers whacks him repeatedly with the paddle. Mr. Weathers has two paddles which he has affectionately dubbed, ‘The Terminator’ and ‘Mr. Wood.’"
[Updated and a little edited during the whole day]. From an article "Björklund more and more resembles a politician's Caligula" in which you can read that, with some right you can say that, Sweden’s leading school pedagogues are raging against the government’s school politics, or the lack of such politics:
The one and only solution are Nanny-ideals; more discipline, more grades, more tests. Something sounding like “the good old school, from the good old time”: the teacher standing in the teacher’s desk, pointers, chalk and detentions quite ironically.
On Wednesday Sweden’s current school minister Jan Björklund debated these things with the pedagogy professor Mats Ekholm in a morning sofa on TV (you can watch this debate here till March 18 2009 only).
Ekholm namely delivered a petition on the rigths of children to the school minister earlier this week, a petition that was sharply expressed.
All sorts of people (pedagogues, psychologists, grandparents, people in all sorts of occupations - and from abroad) have signed it protesting against the current government’s school politics. A reaction from the initiative takers of the petition leaning on decades of school studies, all showing the same thing, namely that demands only and slavish discipline doesn’t lead anywhere. My addition: probably causes problems instead, problems that can come much later too.
My comment: And it wasn’t much better earlier either according to a book about a study from the fifties on the discipline problems in the school then! Maybe these problems were of another kind then though, but discipline problems in the school are definitely not new!
It was long since one saw such a totally uninterested and arrogant politician in TV the author of the article wrote. Björklund openly derided the critics, cited deliberately the petition wrongly, ascribed Ekholm opinions he hasn’t expressed. Björklund lied casually for the viewers.
Ekholm and his colleagues are worried about the current societal climate and the climate of debate about children. Opinions, ideas and behaviors from people in power that has become more and more strict and a talk about the school and kids without nuances, about politicians in our current government talking about more punishments, new forms of being put in the corner for instance even though they are called something else (in a hope that this would cover what it's about up?).
According to the author of the article Björklund didn’t want any talk; he just wanted to pass his simple populist message to anxious parents forward; children need a steady hand, now we will get order. He knows that such messages go home in people. “Fuck pedagogy!”
And what was worse was that he didn’t seem to understand what use an intellectual talk about those things has. He didn’t even understand the problem formulation according to the article.
The author of the article thinks Björklund’s patronizing, superior politician style will become his flop sooner or later (my addition: it was authoritarian and arrogant!). Yes, I certainly hope so. To listen isn’t what he is best at.
Addition just before lunch: And also see ”The obedience culture or ‘well intentioned’ violence…”; violence can be of other natures too, not only obvious, visible violence in form of spanking, but also in form of emotional abuse - and disrespect. See Andrew Vachss on this theme:
“...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."
Now I have seen the talk on TV. Here are my notes:Björklund spoke about what’s “best for the children”! I was just taken aback with astonishment. Yes, he believes he is doing those things “for their own good”! And too many people think he is right, sounds reliable.
He also used the words or notions "order, peace and calmness" in school. And I don’t know if it was the programme leader or I who wondered
“But why ISN’T there calmness and peace? (And are, a little, noisy classrooms ALWAYS bad???)”
The topic or discussion why there isn’t peace and calm, when it in fact isn't, never comes up! And not either if it can be something good with children daring to talk, doing this frankly and openly! Or if we can (ought) to handle it (IF it is disturbing) without “stick and carrot” but in other ways! By the way, teachers over the world are reacting at the neoliberal winds in the school and what those mean for the school and all those working there (children and grown ups)!!
What outlook on children does Björklund have? Björklund has been talking about the importance of children getting “knowledge” in school. But he himself demonstrates the opposite; that he doesn’t respect findings from researchers and “people who knows”! And that he isn’t even familiar with what he is talking about (that he isn't familiar with school research for instance, i.e. the knowledge that in fact IS there!).
Ekholm tried to say that it’s important that we on a system-level have proper knowledge about how children are functioning (in different situations and respects, and that we want to learn more about this, MY addition).
Ekholm also tried to raise the topic what sort of public talk we ought to pursue in our/the society (a much more nuanced!!??), but with very little result or feedback from the school minister.
A retired university teacher, Pia Hellerz said something about frightening and alarming tendencies in our society, mirored in the school and the school politics, how we see children and the school and it's purpose. To use methods like disciplining, early grades and other control measures is to simplify for oneself she meant. So true!
And on top, Björklund said quite frankly that how the parents are raising their kids at home isn’t the politicians’ duty! They have nothing with this to do! With this he said, in my feeling and interpretation, that nobody (not we private people either belonging to the society too) except the parents have anything to do with how they are raising their kids.
What he is saying (as I see it) is that CHILDREN ARE PARENTS' PROPERTIES! But all adults, be it politicians or other people in the society, have the duty to speak up on behalf of other peoples' children when and if a child is badly treated, whether it's his/her own or another person's child, and certainly if a parent is treating his/her child badly (if we recognize this at all!!?? And not all do. We rather tend to minimize and belittle abuse, probably a lot of emotional, and both subtle and obvious abuse)!
But how parents are raising their kids are certainly their kids' business however!!??
Ekholm tried to squeeze in that he wishes we raise the demands even more on showing more consideration to children! Not the opposite! He didn’t get any response on this either from the school minister.
Yes, we ought to, IF we can! And why can’t we?
Albert Einstein:
"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."
"A human being is part of the whole, called by us the 'universe',
a part limited in time and space.
He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings,
as something separate from the rest -
a kind of optical delusion of consciousness.
This delusion is a kind of prison for us,
restricting us to our personal desires
and to affection for a few persons nearest to us.
Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison
by widening our circle of compassion
to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty."
We need to treat children with respect from the first beginning. But how should we actually handle a child showing disrespect? Who probably shows what he/she has been exposed to? Because how a child behaves is no mystery!? With treating it with more of the same? Is that the solution?
What are the politicians, for instance the school politicians, playing out? They are convinced that what they are doing is “for our own good”?
I don’t know if I am mirroring a father (my own?) and his attitude: the ones in power thinks that what’s done in school shall be (so) “useful.”
But what do we actually have use of later in life?
What are we learning in school? About ourselves and the world and other people? What are we taught in school about not only school-things but also about those things (ourselves, the society, world, the life, living, being alive and similar things), or - not least about those things?
How are our school politicians brought up? What’s coloring their views? Yes, once again, the most psychologically defended tend to lead?
How do they use their power? A power they “need”? Why do they need it? What sort of need for power is sound, healthy? Are all needs for power unhealthy, unsound?
Are they abusing it, by forwarding suppressed things on the rising generation (when it comes to for instance school, an issue I have been blogging about recently, triggered by the last Pedagogical Magazine I got and things I have read and feel and react at)?
Are they begrudging young people to stay alive (or to recover from being emotionally killed), to develop all their human potentials? I suspect they don’t, because they were robbed from this early in life, and they deny this fact. Which is sad (even tragic) for them, but is, mildly said/expressed, problematic in the power positions they have gotten now.
And another question is why do people elect such politicians? I think it’s because so many people in the world have the same experiences!? And then they applaud all sorts of harder grips, think discipline is needed etc.
Or is it a question of money? (Being without anything else to blame!!?) There are limited amounts of money in the society/world for for instance the school? But is that the truth actually? Quite ironically.
And there are limited amounts of money for a lot of other things?? Are there?
Neoliberalism is another religion, teaching, with its gurus!!?? Is it better than other teachings, religions? What has it caused? Has it made the world better?
The author of the article linked above (Ole Jacob Madsen, psychologist coming with the book "Psychology and Society" fall 2009) writes that the last years the psychologists in Norway (as a group or union) have been operating with the strategic goal of getting the psychology out to people, at the same time as the profession shall become stronger represented in the society’s development and planning than it has been. A striving to become a central actor in the society and a political pusher, with a broad perspective.
But “The Era of Psychology” and “the Therapy Society” are sociological ideas that aren’t new in intellectual milieus. No, nothing of this is actually new though he tries to point out, in my understanding and interpretation (of a text in Norwegian, quite academic too).
The analysis of the psychology’s increased influence in the Western Culture contains interesting questions. Has human development with focus on treatment of illness only been amicable (good)?
Is psychology the answer to individuals’ problems, or is the illness a symptom on a greater cultural crisis?
The British professor in sociology Nikolas Rose has shown how psychological norms, values, pictures of ideas (or conceptions) and techniques have formed how different societal authorities are thinking about peoples’ illnesses, normality and pathology. The psychology becomes active in most areas of modern life with developing independent fields of subjectivity in accordance with the society’s needs for regulating this independence.
Yes, the profession has too often run the power’s errands, the power’s needs for steering people!!! (And once again: the most defended tend to lead!)
But yes, this science HAS contributed with good things too, and the author points to those too.
For instance see the well-known study “the Hawthorne experiment” in USA (the Hawthorne effect); the feeling of being seen on a workplace increases the productivity. This was the start point for the Human Relation movement.
The critical voices against the psychology’s increased influence, especially in the US, and later in the rest of the Western world, is focusing on that the clinical psychology preferably presents individual solutions to problems that rather are social (societal?) and political. Thus there are good arguments to understand the psychology in an ideological perspective, such as the real ground why people are suffering.
Yes, psychology can really become misused, by the power!? As all science can become!?
The author writes that the subject the nineteenth decade gave birth to and its neoliberal project has by many become described as (the creation of) a corporate-self, forced to administer itself as an achievement. The psychologist in this culture gets a central place, among a lot of new expert profession groups, helping people to self steering.
Yes, you have only yourself to blame!? You have to pull yourself together, get a grip on yourself!
From 1940 and forward the psychology profession and the number of psychological illnesses grew (and is still growing?). Individual critics maintain that many (new) illnesses are strangely sharp, followed by a wish about power on the one hand and by a narrow view or thoughtlessness on the other hand.
However, this sort of criticism isn’t gaining the relational of the state of things between psychology and society the author thinks, because psychological language answers to needs in the society.
The psychology’s legality became increased during the decade after WWII in the US, because federal authorities need an allied to defend its presence in the inmates’ life and living. Earlier one stimulated the lust of reading in the inmates with scaring with the evil; the way to damnation went through the Bible. But the institutionalized religion lost its power with time, and became exchanged or compensated by typical therapeutic motives where the danger now is becoming bullied or having bad self confidence, becoming tools against illiteracy. (???? I didn’t really catch this! Need to read this again and more thoroughly?)
Comparative historical studies are though at risk of becoming reactionary idealizations of past times, but there are interesting religion-sociology applications. They point to the unsound that existential guilt no longer is placed outside the human being. Or that a self-disciplined system like the therapeutic can represent the authoritarian patriarchy, because it is only rights and not duties that are promoted, something that creates an imbalance between the individual’s and the society’s needs.
Of course psychotherapy can be healing for individuals, but from a system perspective you can speculate if the well-meant help just as well is at risk of becoming a part of easy won political solutions, where the individual becomes garbage can for the society’s unsolved conflicts.
What does the profession itself say? Relatively little. The answer to the society’s conflicts is always more psychology. The psychology’s self-understanding as underrepresented in the society is standing in contrast to the general knowledge and the profession’s description of the therapeutic culture.
The author writes about the (psychology) profession’s lack of history (lack of awareness about its history rather?), when exposed to critical reflection, but with a shameless eager to offer its services.
If the psychology’s character in itself isn’t worthy critics, then its limited apparatus for understanding itself is alarming.
Addition February 4: As a thought it was a leader today with the title ”More Wallraffing in the Psychiatric care” where you can read in the beginning something in this style:
”Why does it never seem to become any order in the psychiatry? For centuries the mental hospitals were often shocking fields of experiments for different [pseudo] scientific and therapeutic ideas, from swings to cold baths, over lobotomy to a blind faith (superstition) on different miraculous (wonder making) psychoactive drugs.”
Read about Günter Wallraff here. There you can read:
"His investigative methods have led to the creation of the Swedishverb 'wallraffa', meaning 'to expose misconduct from the inside by assuming a role', which has been officially included in word list of the Swedish Academy."
she writes (see earlier blogpostings about her writings here). And wishes that any of our most courageous journalists, with sense for justice (and with a hidden camera), would make TV-programs about this.
“It’s so shocking so one want to cry.
Child abuse is increasing and many children are exposed to awful actions [and conditions] by their parents, almost always it’s the father that is the abuser Children’s Right in Society (in Sweden) says.
What are the Swedish men, young as old, doing? Because young women are calling Bris [Children’s Right in Society] and telling that they are abused by their boyfriends too. Why can’t we get any journalism not only telling us about innocent men for a while, but a journalism that sees it from the children’s perspective and dig into the world where violence is an everyday life context for small human beings who are totally defenseless in their own homes, with their own swine skunks to – mostly – fathers.”
Each tenth child is beaten the article says.
The number of children calling Children’s Right in Society to tell about abuse further increased during 2008 (see this report in English). And who are calling? Not the youngest. What are they exposed to?
During the last five years the number has increased with 20 percent.
Last year Children’s Right in Society got almost 22,000 contacts from children and adolescents around Sweden, 30 years after we got the ban on corporal punishment and 20 years after the United Nations Convention of the Right of the Child.
The report from Children’s Right is gloomy reading.
In almost each tenth contact children were telling about physical and psychological abuse. The report is terrifying reading.
Children have told about routine-like violence, where they have become beaten and sometimes even been beaten with weapons like belt and sticks daily, but some have also told about more torture like violence. And some children have also told about how they have become shaken and beaten till they lost the consciousness.
When children are exposed to violence the perpetrator is often a parent, almost always the dad. My addition: but I know of cases where the mother was the main abuser.
According to the report the violence is combined with psychological violence where the children are told that they aren’t loved and worthless and that that’s the reason why they are beaten.
How horrible, and not true! Nobody “deserves” being abused how “worthless” they even are!
Many calls come from young women telling that they have become beaten by their boyfriends. The girl has often moved from home to an older boyfriend (and why is that?) and is exposed to both physical and psychological abuse.
They realize that they maybe are badly treated, but they don’t dare to tell anybody, because they think they have to blame themselves because they have chosen this relation themselves.
One of five children expresses some kind of anxiety. It can be anxiety and agony in children living with violent and abusing parents, worry for friends or anxiety as an expression for psychological ill-health (no wonder the ill-health!).
Some children experience that they are let down by the society. When they have told other adults, as teachers and personnel in social services about the abuse they haven’t gotten any reaction.
“It’s frightening realizing that the children have told something [and somebody] but nothing happens. They are not taken seriously, “
the director-.general for Children’s Rights in Society Göran Harnesk says.
Many children express a fear for the duty to report, a duty which means that all working with children has a duty or obligation to report social evils (bad conditions), because the contact with the parents then is at risk of getting worse.
I think they (psychiatrists, psychologists, therapists etc.) too often run the errands of the power! Trying to adapt people to the “culture” in the society and at workplaces (as schools are for children and young people) where they live and work, instead of really questioning it… Are they adapting people to a sick culture that should become changed rather?
Addition January 31: also see this blogposting, about "Normalisation of abuse." I want to write about this posting later too.
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.
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Crisis
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I suppose some people might wonder why I'm not completely hysterical. Why
would I be hysterical? The building where I've lived for 22 years is
scheduled fo...
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Pharmaceutical marketing expert witness [image: screen2largeMM]
Dr. Peter Rost is a former Pfizer Marketing Vice President providing
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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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