Tony White

Well its happened again. Some high profile Australian Football league (AFL) footballer has been caught out. He apparently was at a strip club to 3.00am and left with a man he claims he met for the first time that night. he was to get a lift home. On the way home apparently there were shots fired out of the car at various places including the police. No one was hurt. The footballer claims he was so drunk he had passed out and knows nothing of someone firing a gun.

It is reported that he will be “forced to go to alcohol counselling”. So again its in the news - ‘He’s been sent for counselling’.

And again my response is, counselling for what? However this does raise some interesting points about counselling. When I worked in drug rehab many of my clients were ‘sent for counselling’. They were ordered by the courts to get drug counselling. In the counselling business this person is referred to as the coerced client. The person does not voluntarily attend counselling but are coerced into going.


(The coerced client)


This immediately changes the counselling from a 2 handed contract to a 3 handed contract. In usual counselling there are 2 parties involved - the client and the therapist. With this footballer there are 3 parties involved - the footballer, the therapist and the AFL - and thus we have a 3 handed contract.

Counselling for what? It would be very interesting to know how such counselling proceeded. In any 3 handed counselling it is imperative that the therapist be very clear as to what the coercing organisation wants. They have instructed the client to seek counselling from you and the therapist must know why they have done that.

Firstly the therapist needs to know, what outcome do they want and secondly they need to know how much confidentiality they want broken. One would assume the AFL would want the counselling to result in the footballer not taking any recreational drugs and only drinking alcohol in a very considered manner.



Whilst the therapist would ask the organisation (AFL) how much do they want to know what happened and what was the outcome (How much confidentiality is broken), the organisation does not really have a choice. In the state where I live breaking confidentiality in counselling is only done under exceptional circumstances. If a therapist breaks confidentiality without the approval of the client then that is considered a very serious breech of professional ethics. For a first offence the counsellor would probably not be deregistered but they would suffer some significant sanctions by the relevant professional body.

So in a 3 handed contract the therapist must fully disclose to the client before any counselling commences how much they will tell the organisation. If the organisation wants to know a significant amount of detail and did the footballer say he will take drugs in the future then that must be told to the footballer before any questioning starts.

So the organisation (AFL) does not have a choice. They have to say they want no information or very little feedback from the counsellor. If the footballer is told that the AFL want to be told if he is going to take drugs again then what is the footballer going to tell the counsellor?. You don’t need to be a rocket scientist to know the answer to that one. If they want detailed feedback then the counselling is by and large a waste of time.


(Yes all of us have one of these. If you know you are going to be 'dobbed in' who would give out the information in the first place)


In drug rehab I had to give feedback to the client’s parole officer. They wanted little detailed feedback and they were also very realistic. If someone has voluntarily taken a recreational drug 4 days ago then they are very unlikely to see anything wrong with that. Thus they are very likely to take it again in the future if they think they can get away with it. Footballers are no different than anyone else in this way.

Why we go to counselling
People go to counselling because they have some emotional problem, personal difficulty or some degree of mental illness. That is what counselling exists for. This identifies the basic faulty assumption that the AFL and society in general have about sending the drug user to counselling.

Their assumption is:

As marijuana is a drug (and illegal) one would only take it if they were mentally ill or had some kind of psychological problem. Therefore someone who smokes marijuana needs to go to counselling to cure the problem and thus they will then no longer take the drug. No ‘sane’ person would engage in substance abuse, is the assumption.

This is what the soviets did during the cold war. Their assumption was, if you didn’t agree with the soviet system then you must be mentally ill. Any sane person would obviously agree with it. Because the person is mentally ill they obviously need to go to a mental hospital. Thus people were ‘incarcerated’ in such hospitals (usually heavily medicated) for years on end. It is the same circular argument that Australia has about illicit drugs.

So when I hear, “He has been sent for counselling”, you can see why I ask the question:

Counselling for what?


(Counselling is by its very nature secretive. People are usually reluctant to expose their private life to the public)



3 handed counselling is an exercise fraught with dilemmas.

Graffiti

Many years ago my mother was on the executive of the "Spastic welfare association" here in the city where I live. In those day spastic was an OK word but nowadays has been changed into a put down word.

This association looked after the welfare of spastic children. These children were spasticated and deformed from mild to severe. Each year as the main fundrasing event this assocation would have a beauty contest. My mother would campagin against such a thing every year but no they voted for it.

Don't they get. What are physically deformed people going to feel like when they see beautiful women being paraded around for all to see?.

It was reported recently in our local newspaper that this year, Boobalicious 2007 was a great success. What is Boobalicious? It is a major fund raising event for the Breast Cancer Foundation.


To quote the report on the event:

"boobs were the centre of attention. Alluring evening wear and fashion parades of sexy lingerie added to the spectacle".

Don't they get it. What are women with breast cancer and who may have had a breast removed going to feel when they see and read about all these women partying with their boobs on display?
I would imagine they wouldn't feel very good and yet they are supposed to be thankful for the money raised.
Surely there is another way to raise funds that is of equal fun and daring.


Is it OK for this picture to be here on such a posting? Or does it just show that I am as dumb as the Breast Cancer Foundation?

Graffiti

I was speaking with someone the other day. Her ex of two years had recently gotten married and she was just furious about how he now had a life and she didn’t, none of which was actually true by the way. She was very clear in that her hurt Child wanted him to suffer and for him to hurt. She was emphatic about how she wanted him to suffer. Why? Because she perceived him to have ‘abandoned’ her, again none of which was true. I had not come across such a blatant example of pure undiluted revenge in a long time. I always find it a delight to see such pure expressions of such primal human emotions.






WHAT IS REVENGE
I have looked through various references and so forth and find there is not much agreement on what is revenge and vengeance so I will have to just state how I am going to use the terms.

From Collins Cobuild dictionary

Revenge = is something that you do to hurt or punish someone who has hurt or harmed you, that gives you a great deal of satisfaction. So revenge is an action or a behaviour

Vengeance = If you are vengeful, you feel a great desire for revenge. So vengeance is a feeling and a feeling that sometimes can lead to you acting with revenge

Question: Why am I writing these definitions?
Answer: To identify what is the word for the feeling.

Children and the Child ego state can operate as follows - “When you hurt me I hurt you”. This seems a natural part of human nature or a normal human reaction. So what is the feeling called. From the above vengeance is the feeling that goes along with this. So the child in the playground at school who gets taunted by another student feels vengeance - “you hurt me, so I feel like I want to hurt you.” This is very much an ‘eye for an eye’ type of thinking and action.

One could say that fundamentalist type of thinking comes from this primal urge of human nature. Using the law (in western societies) as a means to deal with someone who has assaulted another is much less of this type of thinking. It does not allow for the victim of the assault to get the expression of the revenge in its pure form.


Mud wrestling. Not all conflict is because of revenge.



HUMAN NATURE
As I mentioned before vengeful feelings are it would seem a normal human feeling. The desire for revenge is a natural human thing. One could even say that it has an evolutionary or survival of the species basis.

If someone attacks your group and kills some of its members then the first reaction is to defend self to stop the killing. The attackers then retreat. If one then feels vengeance and has a desire for revenge then that provides the motivation to go and attack those who attacked you. If done then that will weaken the opposition and thus make them less able to attack in the future. Without feelings of vengeance your group would be much less likely to attack the other group and thus you would be more likely to be attacked in the future. If Charles Darwin was right then all those people who do not have vengeful feelings would eventually have been killed and those with vengeful feelings would tend to survive more.


Lebanon. In some places revenge just seems to go on for ever.


JUSTICE
Listening to talk back radio one hears statements like, “I don’t want revenge I want justice”. That of course makes the statements sound much more ‘nice’ and acceptable. So what is the difference between justice and revenge.

From Collins Cobuild dictionary
Justice = punishment that someone gets for doing something bad, especially when this is regarded as being fully deserved.

So in my mind, it seems that justice is a more reasoned response to an act, then is revenge. Revenge is high Child ego state and is based more on emotion. Justice takes into account the emotions but allows more Adult ego state to be involved. Hence we end up with the law which is a much more reasoned Adult way of getting revenge or an eye for an eye.

SO WHAT NOW
Some time ago I saw a documentary about a man in the USA. He had been sentenced to death for killing a girl. He was endeavouring to get his sentence commuted to life imprisonment. In doing so he was allowed to talk with the surviving relatives of this girl to try and get them to make a request that the prison officials let him live. The show was about him talking with these relatives.

One of the things he said was, “Seeing me die by lethal injection is not going to make you feel better”. This was completely the wrong thing to say as it only got them more angry. The problem is that he is right or at least partly right and perhaps this is why the relatives responded so angrily in that at one level they also knew he was right.

This man hurt the girls relatives. They then feel anger and vengeance. They ‘get him executed’ by requesting it in court and then some of them are there to witness the execution. So once one has seen the execution what then? There may be a feeling of satisfaction at the time of seeing him die because revenge or justice has been achieved. The problem is, what happens with the anger and hatred that is also in the girls relatives. The act of revenge will not make those go away. And this is where the man was right, in that it wont make them feel better in the longer term.


(Some things are really hard to do. Letting go of your anger can be one of those.)



To stop feeling the anger and hatred one has to do other things than just witness the act of revenge/justice. Those feelings have to be dropped for one to get on with life. If not done then the person will take those feelings to their grave and of course that will be an early grave if they keep feeling such anger for a long period of time.

To drop the anger some people see as letting him off. They can sometimes think, “My feeling of anger, means I have not forgotten her and means I wont give up seeking justice for her death”. To drop the anger one has to just accept that sometimes, “Life isn’t fair”. Sometimes unfair things happen to people and the girl’s death was one of those things. Some people have trouble accepting this because it can be seen to trivialise her murder, as just something that was unfair.

Also if you do manage to drop the anger then you start to forget about her murder and it slowly fades away in the memory. Some people hang onto the anger because it gives them some sort of a feeling of connection with the girl. “I must not forget as it is a disservice to her. The least I can do is remember her and keep my feelings (anger)”.

IN SUMMARY
1. Some one hurts you
2. You feel vengeance (and anger)
3. You hit back with revenge
4. There is a feeling of satisfaction with that act of revenge
5. The anger remains
6. If you don’t drop the anger, let it go, forget about it, think ‘life is not fair’, etc then the anger remains in you. If this happens then you end up hurting yourself.
7. If you forget about (let go of) the injustice or hurt that was done to you then the anger subsides and you don’t carry it around, having it slowly killing you. To do this you must forgive and forget at least in part, the injustice that was done to you. The more those relatives of the girl forgive and forget the murderer the better they will be in the longer term. Not an easy thing to do I think I can safely say.


Sometimes life is just a bitch. Very unfair things happen to us from time to time. But life just rolls on relentlessly and if it is not accepted it can cause us a lot of pain. It can send us to an early grave.

Graffiti

Should I be a rent a friend counsellor, because I am being one at the moment.

I had this client called John (alias) who I saw for about 3 years on and off, about 10 years ago. He was a crew man who sails on those yachts that do those big ocean races all over the world. Like the Sydney to Hobart race, the Americas cup and so forth.


(Humans most often use this type of fine beast as a "rent a friend")


He apparently is very good at his chosen profession and is widely sought after by such ocean racing teams. His ‘home’ is just in the next suburb from me but he is away for a month or two at a time then back for periods of time in between races.

I like John, he is just a decent person. He is not trying to be the biggest and best at anything. He just goes about living his life and would help out anyone if he could. For instance he would often bring me some small gift unsolicited. Just because he is kind. I think you could say this is one of therapy situations where the client and counsellor have that special click. His and my personalities just “fit” right. You can’t manufacture something like that, its just luck.

He also is a grumpy bastard who mumbles most of the time and it is hard to hear what he says at times. As I said I saw him about 10 years ago. After a period of time it became apparent that this was rent a friend therapy. He would see me twice a week for and hour and a half each time. After time I became his social connection. The therapy was his social outings for the week.

In “psych speak” he has an attachment problem. Some would call it a lack of intimacy in relationships or a commitment phobe. His job of course was perfect for that. Travelling the world at regular intervals means you can never form an attachment with someone of any depth. All your relationships had this superficial quality because you knew they were going to be at least relatively brief when you took off to some new place.


(Social isolation is not the normal human condition)


With me he wouldn’t attend sessions and talk about the weather or the price of potatoes. We would discuss his life, thoughts and feelings and so forth but none of what would be considered psychotherapy was being done. I approached this from a number of different angles but nothing altered. I remained his bi-weekly social outing. I even at one point announced that the price of each session has now gone up by $30. Maybe this would precipitate some movement!.

His response was, “Mumble, mumble, mumble, fucking cheapskate, mumble, mumble”.

He then paid the new fee and continued to do so with no further mention of the topic. He certainly wasn’t short of a buck but all remained the same in what happened in the sessions. Eventually after a number of more months he finally went on another sailing tour and I did not hear from him again. That was 10 years ago.


(We all want to connect and belong with those similar to us)

About three months ago I get a phone call out of the blue from John. He asks if I am still alive and could he come and see me again. I was delighted to see him again and he is still sailing. Sure enough he wants the same 2 sessions of 1.5 hours per week. Again it has evolved into a rent a friend type of therapy.

By going along with this some would say that I am supporting the ‘pathology’. With me he has the same type of ‘half’ relationship. We meet for 3 hours per week within the strict confines of the therapeutic relationship. So I again have addressed it a number of times with him. He is fully aware of what is going on and he states that this is what he wants.

So that is what I remain to be - Rent a friend.


(Perhaps I need to expand my definition of what is normal for humans)

Graffiti

Roses says:

What in the... why do they... Who comes up with a word like - Phenomenological Diagnosis?????? Where in the UNIVERSE would a word made up of that compilation of letters, and still have a meaning, come from


Graffiti says:

Roses,
Who comes up with words like

Phenomenological Diagnosis?

I don't know, but I do know that we counsellors and psychologists have a shit load of them.

Did you know Roses that you once had polymorphous perversity?.

Did you know that words like imbecile, cretin and moron were perfectly normal words 100 years ago. They had no negative connotations at all.

At that time some French guy called Binet (no that is not the thing you sit on next to the toilet) developed one of the first IQ tests. For the people at the lower end of the scale they were given categories named like Moron and Imbecile.


(This is actually Binet's grandson today)



What happened over time is that the general population seized onto these words and they entered everyday language. They were of course used in a derogatory manner and thus they became words with a bad implication. They became a put down. If you call someone a “moron” today that is a quite an attack on them.


(Humans have a habit of changing the innocent into something else)


So what did Binet and his cronies do? They changed the words identifying the lower end of the IQ scale. The problem is that we ended up with a game of catch me if you can. Each new word they came up with would eventually fall to the same fate. Be used in general language as a put down, and thus we had sub normal, sub human, developmentally delayed, intellectually challenged, idiot and so on.


(What do you call a disabled or disadvantaged person?)


But us counsellors have words like:

Psychopathic deviant
Hypochondriac
Schizoid
Penis envy
Castration complex
Hysteric
Dependent personality
Passive aggressive
Sex addiction
Compulsive masturbation

We have some really good words Roses. Most often they were initially harmless terms but over time the general public have given meanings they originally did not have.

Graffiti

Kahless question:

I present mathematical/financial material which isn't that interactive and not always to people who want to listen! I tend to worry that I loose my audience and am boring them half way through the presentation. I try to get audience feedback throughout by asking open questions but get 30 sets of eyes boring into me with lips zipped tight. (I then dash through the second half of my presentation.) The group tends to be reflective thinkers.
Anything else I could employ, or should I just walk round into the room more like you suggested in tip two?

Graffiti Answer:

Not too sure on the actual specifics of your teaching circumstances, goals and so forth. However I have taught in a wide variety of situations and to various audiences. So what I will do, is talk about that and this may in some way answer your question my friend.



I used to work with my parents for a number of years. They were both psychologists as well. We were all clinically or therapeutically oriented in comparison to the ‘organisational’ psychologist whose focus is not counselling but doing organisation building and so forth. You know, they do courses for organisations like, “Communication for managers”.

We were asked to do some of this for a large organisation, which we agreed to. We discussed this and were advised that one needs to come from and ‘organisational’ point of view not a therapeutic one.

These people are sent to these courses by the organisation and have usually done many before. So they weren’t highly motivated but most were fairly co-operative and saw it as a bit of a holiday from work.

As we did the teaching we would tend give therapeutic examples of “communication’ because that was our background, which we were not supposed to do because it was an organisational workshop not a therapeutic one. However because we came from this ‘different’ perspective we stumbled onto a very good thing that worked. Instead of being bored out of their brains we were providing material that they came to quickly see was of direct personal relevance to them. This was not the usual type of training they would tell us and there were many, many questions about this problem their ‘friend’ had. Then you would get the ones who approach you in the break to ask privately how they can get on with their wife better or how to get the the kids do their chores and so forth.


Pakistani classroom

Once they are listening and being involved then you could relate how you communicate with the wife to how you communicate with your peers at work. The principles of communication are of course the same.

What has happened here? We have touched the Child of the participants and when that is done then you can feed in the Adult the information. This is the most important thing I have found repeatedly over the years. If you want a group to function successfully you MUST get to the Child of the participants



What do kids really like?
They like lots of things but you can be fairly safe and say the vast vast majority of kids like lollies. Kids like lollies, so give them lollies. At any group I run I will have a bowl of lollies prominently displayed for anyone to eat. Immediately that is stimulating the Child of the participant. It doesn’t matter if they eat them or not, they just have to be there in clear view throughout the entire workshop. Don’t give them the el cheapo lollies. Make sure they are good quality ones. (I am sure you would do that anyway Kahless).

In my office I have a one and a half foot tall glass jar that is filled with lollies that sits in the middle of the room. Of all things in the room that is the item that is most often mentioned. I have some very nice art hanging on the walls and so forth but no its the lolly jar that wins the most attention. Sometimes when it is half full you have to stick your hand 10 inches down into the glass jar to get your lolly. Sometimes people will look at me with a big smile and glee in their face as they do that. There you have it, what more could you want! A kid with his hand down deep in the lolly jar looks around to see the (parent) reaction. I love it when that happens.


(If you can get the Free Child into the class room, then this is a good thing)



I used to work in a prison and they are not fun places as you would guess. I had to chair a meeting everyday that had to make some serious decisions of prisoner management. If a bad decision was made some one could die and one may have to front a coronial inquiry at some point. In prison there are ‘big’ personalities in the staff. You have to be like that or you don’t survive very long. When I got there, there were some full on face to face confrontations in this meeting that I had to chair. It was harrowing at times to say the least.

After a couple of months, one day without warning I produced a bowl of lollies in the middle of the table that the 5 to 10 people would sit around. It was very interesting to watch. They all came in sat down and we started the meeting and there was this bowl of lollies that no one even acknowledged. After about 20 minutes some one finally said, “Can I have a lolly?” and there was almost a sense of relief that came over the group. There was this strange object that didn’t fit in a prison right in the middle of the meeting. I had introduced a tiny little bit of fun into this place of misery. This news spread all around the prison and I even had inmates asking me for lollies at times. Officers would attend the meeting to see what lollies they could get that day. It brought fun Child into the meeting.

The other thing I did was I paid for them out of my own pocket (about $10 per week). That was unheard of. You never give money to the organisation because they treat you so badly, don’t pay you enough and so forth endlessly. By producing the lollies unannounced and by paying for them myself I had put the participants “on the left foot”. This also immediately touches the Child. People come to a meeting they have been to many times before and all of a sudden something different happens. I behaved in an unpredictable manner and that will immediately grab the attention of the Child in the person.


Keeping people on the left foot heightens their attention and interest



Never have your audience in rows like a class room. Have one large group or a number of smaller groups who face each other. That forces people to have ’contact’. Always do a round of some kind if the group is not too large. People say their name and one thing about self - like they are married, have 2 children, play golf, like pizzas and so on. This personalises it and starts a sense of belonging to the group which again gets the Child involved.

Competition!. Now there is a thing that can get the Child ego state involved. I actually used this once and it may work OK for a group of mathematicians. People formed groups of about 6 and they had to find an answer to a puzzle.

How many triangles are there in this?



You need to highlight the competition aspect so say precisely that. “We are now having a competition and the winning group gets a prize”. Then when it is over you have a small prize for the winning 6 participants. Everyone applauds the winning group and then you then walk over (enter the audience territory) and hand each one the small prize so all the other people see you do that. Not only do the winners get a prize but they special attention from the teacher!! Remember the left foot.

This raises my final point.
What do kids really like?
Well we already know lollies but what else do they really like?
Kids like positive strokes. Kids like strokes, so give them strokes. A prize is a good stroke. Another thing that I learnt from the Singaporeans is they always have a certificate presenting ceremony at the end of the workshop. People love getting certificates so make sure they are of a reasonable quality. I have seen some workshops where the certificate for the course is emailled to you a week later. That is just dumb to do that. At then end call out the people one by one. Each person comes up to you at the front (enters the teacher territory) while everyone is applauding. You shake their hand, say congratulations and hand them the certificate. Strokes, strokes and more strokes and the Child loves every minute of it.

Graffiti

Opening of procrastination workshop



Contact:

agbw@bigpond.com


Graffiti

Families, families, families - what an amazing human organisation that is. From the outside very simple. Man meets woman they have child and then you have a family. Seems simple to me, but it ends up being one of the most complicated and difficult of all human organisations - the simple family.

CHRISTMAS
As a counsellor one of my busiest times of the year is christmas time. Not actually christmas day but the days and weeks surrounding that most festive of all days. People usually think that it is busy because it is a time when you are meant to be happy and be with family. So those who are already unhappy feel unhappier at christmas because you are meant to feel happy and those who have no family feel more ‘famililess’ at that time as well.


Watching some familes head into christmas is like watching this.



But this is not the real reason for a busy christmas for the counsellor. It is because of families. Imagine being a 5 year old child and having no other siblings. For 5 years you have had mummy and daddy to yourself. All the attention and strokes that one could want. Then one day “IT” comes along, your ‘lovely’ little brother or sister. From that day on all your attention gets cut by half, even more than half because the new baby requires so much of mummy’s attention that you are left out in the cold. To make matters worse mummy and daddy go on and on about how wonderful the new little package is and they even try and get you to like it!

Imagine what that would feel like. It would be the same as being a wife and one day the husband brings home a second wife and you are meant to like it and it is meant to be a wondrous experience for all. You would hate it! With siblings it is a fact of life but that does not stop the feelings. They can make you behave like you like IT, but they can’t make you feel like you like it.


Sometimes humans just don't get it



That is the thing about families, the emotions are the most primitive and primal you are ever going to get. Very strong feelings of love, hate, jealousy, fear, shame, rejection, acceptance, encouragement, abandonment and so on endlessly. The family has it all and in a stronger form than any other human relationships. Brothers, sisters, uncles, cousins, parents and children are all mixed in together with very strong feelings about each other.

MARRIAGE. WHOEVER THOUGHT THAT IDEA UP?
Then of course we have the heads of the family, mother and father. They are married which means they are soul mates, the closest things in their lives, the primary attachment for both. Because of this they confide in each other. They tell each other their most deepest secrets and feelings and fears about things. It feels wonderful to be able to have someone in your life who you can tell such things to and trust them with that information.

But man and woman have to live together and get along together. Sooner or later there is going to be a problem. Somebody is going to do something that the other does not like. Sooner or later they are going to feel angry at each other about something, often something fairly pointless. So if you have anger at the other person what are you going to say. Indeed if you get very angry all of a sudden you realise that you have all this very personal information about the other. All their deep secrets and feelings that they told you about previously. A perfect supply of ammunition by which to vent your anger on the other so as to hurt them.

To do such a thing is soooooo tempting. But if you do, then that is not a good thing. What happens a few weeks later after the angry fight is long gone. You are feeling something that is very personal and intimate to you. So you go to tell your partner and soul mate like you have before. Then all of a sudden you remember the last time I told him/her my most private feelings he/she threw them back in my face in that angry argument we had. She/he used these very private things to hurt me and it did.


Family relationships can get so complicated it is just easier to do this at times



Of course what happens is the husband and wife will be less likely to say such things in the future if they have been used in and angry exchange in the past. Thus we have a negative impact on emotional intimacy within the marriage. To have a man and woman living together in a house is not a set up that encourages the free flow of emotional intimacy between the two I’m afraid to say.

BACK TO CHRISTMAS
So here we have all these family relationships that are so emotionally charged and so primal. For most of the year various family members can by and large avoid each other. Or if there is contact it is in specific circumstances, like to help uncle Harry mow the lawn. So family members can meet for not long periods of time for a specific gaol if they so choose to.

At christmas time however everyone is forced together to eat food and spend time together. And then there is one other ingredient added in - Alcohol! Alcohol of course is a disinhibitor. The more you drink the less inhibited you become. So as the family members drink more during the christmas get together they become less inhibited and they start to say things which they wouldn’t normally say. And then finally the shit hits the fan and all the old feelings start to come out. So by the time you get to Nanna’s trifle for desert people are fighting or angry, or depressed or dejected or rejected and so on and on.


At christmas time some of the old family 'traumas' can surface again


Then the next day they are on the phone to make an appointment to see the counsellor to sort out some of this shit and to get over the feelings that have once again resurfaced. One thing for sure, psychologists are never going to be out of a job as long as the family exists.

Please excuse my cynicism, and there are many good things in family and marriage, this posting was meant to be somewhat satirical. Perhaps my job has had an impact on my view of the family. In fact there is no doubt it has. For instance the number of stories I have been told about sexual relations between family members or close family associates and I am referring to legal ones here, not incest. Sister’s boyfriends, brother’s girlfriends, ex-wives, ex-husbands, in-laws, cousins, uncles and aunts or just close long term family friends. Some people think shock and horror about such matters but when you think about it, it makes sense. This post is about how family involves strong feelings about other family members. Sexual feelings are just one of the whole array of feelings that occur and thus they will be strong at times like all the other feelings will be. Just because humans in 2007 have decided that sexual relations between that family member and this one is now immoral it is not going to stop those at times strong emotions from occurring. Mix in a bit of alcohol and those strong feelings can turn into behaviour.


What better way could a sister express strong feelings of sibling rivalry


Graffiti

I was watching one of the shows on TV where they discuss and rate the latest movies currently in the cinemas. One woman in the beginning of her summation of the movie stated:

“This movie is like Paris Hilton. Its good looking, its expensive and has absolutely no point at all”.

It seems with the “Divine Miss P” doing a stretch of prison time everybody is having a say about her. Indeed in a local daily newspaper an entire half page of comment was dedicated to Paris. The journalist, Michelle Phillips states that a petition was sent to California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger by Paris’s fans. Apparently it listed as one of her achievements - “Providing beauty and excitement to our otherwise mundane lives”.


Paris Hilton on the infamous night out with Britney Spears. Apparently Britney's mum never told her to always wear her good underwear in case she was in a car accident. Then again it seems Britney's mum failed to tell her to wear any underpants at all!!



Weather we like it or not, (and most of us don’t) Paris Hilton is a significant social statement of this current generation in the western world. And that really gets up the Baby Boomers collective noses!!

She’s a party girl, who consumes substances that make you feel good. She is like, into a whole self grooming thing, she is sexually liberated, she has all the gadgets like mobile phones, DVDs, HDTVs, CDs, credit cards and there is plenty of ‘greenery’ around to spend on things which are fun.


Life is fun for the now gereation

Welcome to the now generation of teens and 20 somethings, we could even call it the “P” generation. She sums them up, she epitomises them, why do you think she gets so much attention in the first place! It seems I disagree with the female movie commentator. Paris Hilton definitely has a point.

In my day (OMG I promised to my self that I would never say that) it was different we had the Sex Pistols, the Rolling Stones and Woodstock. That was about challenging authority and questioning the values of parents and society. The now generation is having to much of a good time to do that.


Keef. I wonder if that is his father's ashes rolled up in the cigarette?

In my day the youth were put in prison for protesting about the Vietnam war. The P generation are put in prison for partying too hard in their expensive cars. Where I live the number of 20 somethings living at home with their Baby Boomer parents is at an all time high. Never before has their been so many. Hey life is much easier if you do that, but the problem is that such a life style eventually does get mundane. It lacks a meaning after a period of time. So perhaps Paris’s petition to the terminator is really quite a poignant statement about what this current generation is feeling.


In my day man this is how we used to park the car!. Nowdays you pay the valet to do it for you.


It will be very interesting to see (I hope I am still around) when the P generation get to 60 years of age and run the economies and politics of the world. The Baby Boomers carried the struggle through to their 60s and maybe that is one reason why we are always at war. The now generation - what will they carry through? Maybe the world will start to party instead of fighting wars. Hey, why struggle when you can just have a good time!!

Graffiti

What is my product?
I am a counsellor so what is it that I am actually selling to the public?.

One could say things like, I sell my knowledge and expertise that has been acquired after years of dedicated study to the noble science of psychology. Along with my years of experience in exploring the depths of the human psyche in many thousands of people.


Exploring the human psyche is a fascinating pursuit



Sound impressive?

But is it actually true?

The fashion in scientific circles these days are meta-analyses. What is that you may ask. It is a really, really big analysis. When people do a scientific experiment they get the results and then they analyse the results of their experiment. A meta-analysis does not analyse the results but analyses the analysis of hundreds of different experiments in the same area. So this means you are getting the overall picture.

I came across an interesting meta-analysis the other day. It asked the question. What is it that makes people psychologically healthy? They came up with three consistent things.

1. Hope. People who have a sense of hope about life are more likely to be more emotionally robust.


If one feels life is hopeless then they are in line for a fall of some kind



2. Catharsis. People who are able to emotionally express themselves particularly in a sympathetic and confidential environment are healthier

3. A sense of belonging. You are more likely to be happy if you have a sense of belonging to some form of community or group. This could be a family, a church group, sporting or social group or some kind of group of you where feel like you fit, are wanted and belong to.

I sell hope.
In the very act of being a counsellor I am saying there is hope to solve your difficulties. If I thought there was no hope then I wouldn’t be a counsellor in the first place. So by simply being a counsellor I am selling hope to the consumer who comes in the door of my consulting room. If the person is coming voluntarily then they are automatically buying my hope. If they thought there was no hope then they wouldn’t attend the counselling in the first place, let alone pay for it.


Sometimes the future does seem hopeless



So what sort of radio commercial would I have to sell this product of mine called, hope. What would it say, what would the jingle be, what would my logo be?

The other interesting thing is that I am selling something you can’t see or touch. In fact I am selling something that is very ambiguous and difficult to understand. I give no guarantee and you can’t return the product because it is defective. If I sell false hope the person can’t make a complaint to the consumer protection department.

I sell catharsis.
I provide a place and a process where the consumer can express themselves verbally and emotionally. They can say very private things to me because they know I wont gossip about it to others and I am not emotionally involved with them so I don’t have my own agenda when they tell me these private things. They can also show their feelings in safety and know that they will be dealt with competently when they become emotionally vulnerable. I am selling the product = your expression of feeling will be dealt with in a way that promotes your psychological health. How do you have an advertisement for that on TV?

I sell belonging?
Only sort of as I don’t provide in most cases a group to belong to. There are some who develop a strong transference over time with me and that in one way is providing a sense of belonging. However this does raise another point and that is the similarity that is sometimes raised as to the parallel between the psychotherapist and the prostitute.

Both sell good feelings and strokes one could even say! The sex worker wants to establish a good regular client base. To do that she needs the clients to feel like they are the special one. They all know that she sleeps with other men but if they can imagine that they are the special one and she has special feelings for him alone then you have the regular client. So she has to fake it. She has to in some way communicate to the client that they are the special one when they aren’t.


The sex worker presents one thing on the surface but feels another underneath




This can also happen with counsellors and psychotherapists. The clients all know that he/she has other clients. They also know that they pay money to be in the company of the counsellor. Many counsellors with say that they have compassion and empathy and like the client. In one way this is faking it like the prostitute does with her clients. If you have 5 clients in a day, can you like them all in that one day. If one has say 25 clients in a week can the counsellor have deep compassion for them all, week in and week out? It seems unlikely, so in this sense it is faking it and some counsellors certainly do project this image to the client.


Its nice to feel like you belong with other people


However on the other side I know that I have consciously avoided myself getting into the frame of mind where the client becomes just a case number. By and large I think I have achieved this. And I do know that I can feel good and liking for clients. I am also a human as well as a counsellor and I will have normal human reactions to clients who may be displaying considerable distress in front of me. I most often have compassion for that and will admire the person for facing such demons, it is courageous indeed. So I am not faking this at least.

So now I know what I sell. Some have adverts for burgers and chips, and pizzas, and lawn mowers and plumbing supplies. I need a catchy little jingle to sell hope, to put on the radio and my business will multiply.


Something like this might work as a logo for my work.

Graffiti