Tony White

I have always found it an interesting distinction between adversarial psychotherapies and the non-adversarial ones. The different types of therapies of course have different ways of conceptualising what emotional problems are and thus have alternative therapies to remedy those problems. 

For instance take the four main forms of Transactional Analysis listed below and the which part of the personality (ego state) that they tend to focus on.

Adversarial therapies have been around since time began such as with Freud and psychoanalysis. He posited that the conscious and unconscious were adversaries. That these two aspects of the personality were combative. The unconscious was constantly trying to force itself into the conscious and the conscious was trying to avoid that happening. 

He even came up with the idea of the defence mechanisms. These allowed the conscious to be defended against the unwanted unconscious material. Of course one only needs a defence if one detects some kind of attack. Clearly a very adversarial explanation of personality where we have one part of the personality continually putting up defences against perceived attacks by another part of the personality. There is no concept of harmonious coexistence in such a theory.

In Transactional Analysis theory this view is typified by the Redecision school of therapy. They say one can explain human emotional problems by the three degrees or types of impasses a shown below:

Type 1 - the P2 and C2 ego states are in conflict

Type 2 - the P1 and C1 ego states are in conflict

Type 3 - the P0 and C0 ego states are in conflict

In each the Parent is seen as inhibiting or chastising the Child and the Child is seen as fighting back against that - a combative view I think one could say.

The impasses are explained as:

Therapy techniques like two chair are often used in these theories of therapy and are directly conflictual in nature. One pits the potency of the inhibiting Parent ego state against the needs and wants of the Child ego state. The goal of the therapist is to facilitate the Child overcoming the Parent and thus psychological growth is afforded. A directly combative approach is suggested by the therapist to the client.

One problem I have with with these theories and thus therapies is they say that such conflict is normal and is indeed deeply embedded in our psyche and personalities. As such conflict is inevitable, thus one has a winner and a loser context. There is no win-win dynamic in such therapies. The therapist is directly stating to the client that conflict and a combative approach to problem solving is OK and really the way to deal with such situations. Direct permission to seek a win-lose situation rather than win-win is given to the client through the therapeutic relationship and really the entire structure of the therapy.

Alternate to these are the non conflictual theories and therapies. A good example of this is client centred therapy as proposed by Carl Rogers. He suggests that if a client is placed in a unconditional positive environment in the therapy setting then that person will slowly develop due to their inherent tendency to grow towards health. It lacks any combative component. The good part about this is that it also says to the client that you are OK as you are. In the conflictual therapies the therapist is saying to the client that one part of them is not OK. Indeed the client’s Child ego state may hear being told that part of them self is bad.

Also what are now called the positive psychology approaches tend to be of this vein, like Abraham Maslow and many of the Life coaching approaches. The gaol is not to change things in the client but to take their positives and work with encouraging those. Again there is much less focus on the negatives or pathology in the client. So in the very nature of the therapeutic relationship the client is getting the message that they are OK.

In more recent times some Relational Transactional Analysis approaches are also non combative in nature. Some may even be regarded as completely pacifist in their view. The act of even diagnosing a client is considered insulting the client or shaming them. Whilst I don’t fully agree with this I do understand what they are saying and I do see its place with certain clients as is described below.

Some clients have a large and very vitriolic internal critic or Critical Parent ego state sitting in the back of their heads. Some times these people can use therapy to further their pathology  by giving the internal critic a good work out every session. By the very act of coming to counselling and identifying their script messages, or the games they play, or their racket feelings they are thus getting confirmation from the therapist that there is some thing wrong or bad about them. The counselling is simply used to provide further evidence for the Critical Parent with which to flagellate the Child within.

However back to the very non adversarial approaches where one is reluctant to even diagnose a problem. To do so as I said before is seen to insult the client and they would see this as interfering in the relational or the relationship between the client and therapist. They would then argue quite rightly that it is the therapeutic relationship that is usually seen as the thing that has the most curative powers and thus one wants to avoid disrupting it as much as one can. Weather making some kind of diagnosis does insult the client and thus disrupt the relational is a matter of debate but one does want to avoid disrupting the relational.

A further interesting point is that these approaches can not really be called psychotherapies. They cannot actually be a therapy. As soon as one engages in some kind of therapy then that automatically implies that there is some difficulty or problem that requires remediation. If there wasn’t then there would be no need for any therapy in the first place.

This leaves one a quite an interesting juncture. Two people can get together and investigate the relational contact between them where there is no therapeutic goal. It is simply a matter of investigating and understanding the relationship. So it is not therapy and it is not ‘just’ a relationship. A new entity or one could even say a new organism has been created. I am still looking for someone to have such relational contact with.

Graffiti

I have always found the area of social engineering a most interesting subject of study. When humans use the law to attempt to make people behave in certain ways. It is a very perilous task indeed, especially when they are trying to curb or modify basic human drives.

The most obvious example of this is the sex drive. Governments throughout history have tried to legislate on who can breed with who and it just does not work. Apartheid tried it, the Nazis tried it and it just does not work. Thank heavens for that. Imagine what we would be like now if governments discovered that they could actually make such laws that were effective in that way. Of course this has a downside to it as well and that relates to child sexual abuse. Such laws are just not much help in this area. They are good laws to have but one must be realistic about them. You can’t make laws that attempt control the human sex drive and expect those laws to be particularly effective.

I recall many years ago when I was studying anthropology in university and it was stated that every society ever studied always had a significant proportion of its members who used some kind of mood altering substance. Lets face it, humans like getting stoned in some way. Weather that be hallucinogens, stimulants like nicotine, opiates, alcohol and of course marijuana has a very long history of use in many, many societies.

So when governments try to curb this basic human motivation by using the law one needs to be realistic about how effective they are going to be. And with such social engineering there are always side effects that pop up like black markets and so forth.

In one of today’s newspapers (West Australian) there was a long article by Karl O’Callaghan who is the Police Commissioner or the top cop in the state where I live. He was noting the apparent success of alcohol restrictions in very remote aboriginal communities. A decrease in violence and alcohol related accidents and so forth.

The actual cause of decrease is a matter of some debate but he does note that children and women are better off and there seems to be less alcoholism. That does indeed seem to be a safe conclusion and a very good one. There is however one point that he fails to mention.

I can cure a person of alcoholism easily. A guaranteed cure using geographical therapy. You simply place the person on a desert island that has no alcohol. Alcoholism solved as the person can not drink. There is just one problem. For it to work long term the person is in essence imprisoned. They can’t get off the island.

Karl O’Callaghan is promoting a similar policy of aboriginal imprisonment. These remote communities are in essence islands because the distance to other communities is difficult to traverse. To remove access to alcohol from them is in essence imprisoning these aborigines on their alcohol free desert island. They can’t leave. If they do leave and go to another community or town in Australia then they will be confronted with every possible type of alcohol known to modern man available to them 365 days per year. What will they do then? To answer this question one needs to look at what happened last time.

250 years ago the aborigines did indeed live on an alcohol free desert island called Australia. As a result there was no alcoholism. Then one day the British decided to go for a bit of a sail in their boats and eventually landed on the shores of “Terra Australis” as it was known then. They also brought along with them their barrels of rum. Eventually the aborigines gained access to this rum and 250 years later we are where we are now.

The social policies promoted by Karl O’Callaghan in the newspaper of today create the same situation. It imprisons the aborigines on their alcohol free desert islands. They can’t leave. If they leave one can assume the same will happen that happened 250 years ago. They start drinking or at least a portion of them will.

Social engineering in action. One solves the alcoholism by yet another period of aboriginal imprisonment. This then of course creates a new aboriginal underclass. Because they can’t leave and because they are in very isolated areas they can only ever have a small impact on the politics and commerce of this country. Social engineering in action. The creation of a new aboriginal underclass because they are imprisoned in the deserts of Australia.

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I have recently added a few more composite blog postings to my list on my website.

Most recently on the trauma transaction and dual relationships. Of note in the one on dual relationships I discuss the BS therapists sell to their clients about why they can't do personal work in front of them. I also address therapist's own insecurities in the therapeutic relationship so they have to hide behind professional organizations regulations rather than being honest with their clients.

In the trauma transaction I discuss why men as compared to women do not have the same coordinated approach to their health in the community.

There is more coming soon on the home visit counselling and some on grief and bereavement counselling.

BTW the error in placement of post number 44 is being corrected.

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It’s funny how some clients will find their way to do something if the therapist will just let them.

There is an inherent contradiction in any model of helping. Any such model rest upon the patient being compliant to the treatment. If a client does not comply to the treatment then it is a waste of time doing the treatment in the first place. Indeed in the DSM-IV there is a specific diagnostic condition that is used when a patient is not complaint with an important aspect of the treatment of the disorder - Code V15.81 Noncompliance with treatment - is its official title.

Some treatment models try to get around this by saying that the treatment approach and goals are decided on by both the client and the therapist. So it is a consultative approach they argue. But of course then the client just has to comply with that! So in any helping relationship or transference relationship between a helper and helpee there is always a component of compliance to the assumptions and model that the helper happens to employ.

This becomes a significant problem when dealing with the highly compliant client which is where I arrive at a guy who I recently worked with. He had a high Conforming Child ego state. Mind you these types of clients are wonderful to work with because they do and say all the right things. He did precisely that and it would feel good when he came to a session because I know things would go how they are supposed to go which made me feel good and like I was doing a good job. BUT he was highly compliant. He had to comply with the treatment in order to become less compliant - a contradiction. The therapeutic relationship directly contradicts the therapeutic goals.

However he did do some good work and in particular restructured his relationship with his partner to a much healthier form. So I am not discounting what he did BUT in his therapeutic alliance with me he was compliant. And this was always a worry in the back of my mind and had me stumped on how to deal with it. In theory terms he was not being his own Free Child, he was just conforming with what I was suggesting. So he was not being who he was but was just another facsimile of what someone else was telling him to be - in this instance, me.

And of course, as so often is the case with such individuals they complain of precisely that. I don’t know who I am, or I don’t know how to be who I am, or I have no understanding of my Free Child, or words to that effect, which he did complain of.

One of the things he very much liked to do was homework. Some clients like homework and some clients hate homework. Homework is a task that the client does in between the sessions, such as trying out a new behaviour with a spouse, or experiencing some sort of feeling, or not doing the dishes for the week and so forth. He would always ask for his homework task and he even got a special book that he would record what happened with his homework and his reflections over the week on his homework task. Then in the next session he would bring it in and read out what he had written over the week.

He had many homework tasks on various ways of accessing his Free Child or homework tasks on various ways of suppressing his Free Child. He did these vigilantly BUT I still had this nagging thing in the back of the mind that he was doing my Free Child and not his Free Child.

Then before his last session with me he actually rang and stated that something had come up and he had to reschedule, which he did. This got the therapist bells ringing in my head. He had never done that before and he had even stated previously how he would reschedule this and that so he could come to the next appointment time with me.

Then he arrives at the last session (which we had previously agreed was his last) without his homework book. He said that he been very busy that week and had forgotten what the homework was. I stated nothing and just smiled. He then talked again about this author who I had never heard of. He had mentioned this book before and how the writer wrote about the male and female parts of the personality. He felt that he was not enough in touch with his male part and how he used his female energy as a persona. I just smiled and said nothing.

He then proceeded to describe to me how this week he had a number of times expressed this male aspect of himself in various relationships with others. I just smiled and said nothing. He spent the week doing precisely the homework that was agreed upon. But he did not realise it. He had at last found a way to do it his way. I just smiled and said nothing.

Graffiti

There are many colloquialisms used in the counselling field. For instance there is a thing called ‘Door knob therapy’. That client who has the habit of bringing up very important information just as the therapist is about to turn the door knob on the door to let the client leave at the end of the session. Typically a form of resistance as the client knows that the session will end and thus they don’t have to deal with what they just brought up. Ambivalence - they want to deal with it and they don’t want to deal with it at the same time.

I want to deal with it but it scares me.

Then there is another axiom where the client is said to have tried ‘Geographical therapy’. The person relocates geographically so as to get away from a person (most often mother or father) or a situation, or a job, or they may relocate geographically so as to get near some person or circumstance.

The magical thinking behind doing such a thing is, “If I can just geographically move away from her then my emotional issues will go away and I will feel less disquiet and more emotionally secure”. Although it can work it is rare. The key factor in geographical therapy is timing. If geographically therapy did generally work then there would be very few therapists and an awful lot of travel agents. Of course most people take their emotional angst and pathologies with them when they move.

Geographical therapy is particularly prominent in the area of drug abuse therapy. I worked for 5 years at a drug rehabilitation centre. This organisation had another treatment facility that was called the ‘Farm’. This “Farm”, was a farm and was located about 50 Kms out of the city and drug users could go there to live for months at a time. They would work on the farm which was a drug free environment and thus they were not consistently being tempted to use like they would be if they were in their usual domain. Thus the treatment method of geographical therapy was being applied.

I have my doubts about its effectiveness. Often removal to the farm was a last resort measure done out of desperation. “Nothing else is helping so we might as well try the farm”, was often the thinking behind going there. This also allowed the parents, partners and friends of the user to feel secure for a little while as they knew where the user was and that he was not using. Whilst that is good for them it may not have been so good for the user. Whilst being drug free, and it by and large was, the drug user is being placed in an environment with 20 other drug users who were trying to get off the gear.

Putting a drug user with other drug users is like getting two swines with the flu to kiss each other.

Now we in the counselling field are often banging on about the importance of relationships in the cure of emotional malaise. It is the relationship between the client and some significant other (usually a therapist) that has the most curative powers of all. At the farm the user was placed in a situation where he would establish a whole new set of relationship with others who were also drug addicted. There is something not quite right about that!

However geographical therapy in the treatment of drug abuse does on occasion work. I have a very dear friend of 20 years. A lovely woman and we have met regularly for all this time. She has a son who some years ago became quite a heavy amphetamine user and she would often talk to me about what was happening and really seek my counsel on it a bit. At one point it was decided that he would move from the west coast of Australia, where we were, to the east coast and live with his uncle and aunt. Now for those of you who don’t know Australia the east coast and west coast of Australia are a very long way apart.

Geographical therapy was being employed as this would remove him from the drug scene and his drug using comrades and he would be forced to establish new relationships. So the move was made and it worked a charm! He established himself over there with a job, found himself a girl and is now married with a child. He never sought out the drug scene over on the east coast.

So geographical therapy with drug users can be effective if the timing is right. It is very difficult for drug users to establish a non drug using peer group and geographical therapy can greatly assist with that as long as the user is ready for it. Geographically relocating a user to an environment with a group of drug users who are currently in remission I do not think is a wise move to make. The geographical relocation needs to be to an environment with very few ex users.

Graffiti

This is to upload a picture a different way.

I want to see if it works

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Kahless says:

"Well Widow Twanky, 

I recommend a washing machine to save your legs!"

(end quote)

Well I am back Kahless.

Not too sure what a twanky is but I am not a widow that's for sure.

I however will say no to the washing machine. My approach to domesticity is minimalist. I don’t like clutter in my home.

I have thought about buying a washing machine and I would have spent more at the laundromat than a machine would cost. However I have made my decision and I stand by it.

They are big items and thus take up space and usually you would get a dryer as well which is also a relatively big item that are also hard to move around. Goodbye space as well! So I don’t have one, also once it is there you have to insure it and eventually it breaks down and then you have to get a guy to fix it. He could not care less and does not turn up when he says he is going to and does a dodgy job anyway.

Also they inevitably leak water underneath the machine and then comes the fungal growths and with fungus comes other things like odours and insects and rodents.

It is far easier just not to have one and also laundromats are very interesting places. You meet all sorts of people there from all walks of life. From the homeless person who wanders in and asks for a few dollars to the lonely desperate guy who has just been told to leave the home as his wife no longer wants him. To the woman who uses about 5 machines all at once each only with a few items in each. Firstly this pisses everyone off as then there are no machines left during the busy times. She can’t put the colours with the whites and she can’t put her underwear with her skirts apparently. Then you have the young back packers who talk some odd language and whilst waiting they canoodle up the back corner.

I also know the guy who owns the place well now., I know all about his wife and how she nags him, who he follows in the football and how his teenage children show him no respect at all which accounts for why he spends so much time in his laundromat.

Graffiti

I was in supervision yesterday and I was asked a question about religion and psychology. It is not an uncommon question that one comes across from time to time. Is religion a Parent contamination of the Adult ego state? So I gave my answer which was maybe yes and maybe no. Then I gave further explanation and I came up with the following. It was one of those situations where as I gave my answer I stated things that I did not know that I knew. So I thought I would write it down here.

Now, I am no theologian. I am trained as a psychologist. So I am not making a statement here about religion or attempting to give some kind of definition of religion. What I am doing is making a statement about the psychological perception of religion. I am looking at how religion can be understood in terms of the personality or the human psyche.

The teaching of religion as is done by the church involves a doctrine being incorporated into the Parent ego state of the person. As the various scriptures are being taught and learnt they are being incorporated by the youngster into their Parent ego state along with various other Parent type tapes. It is a process whereby something from outside the individual gets incorporated into the personality. The diagram below shows this process where aspects of the religion are one of this person’s 4 various Parent ego state tapes

What the person then does with that tape is up to them. Some times it results in good things and sometimes it results in bad things. We need these Parent tapes or we have no society. It is these tapes that keep our Free Child in check. An unchecked Free Child will result in anarchy where people simply do what they want, when they want no matter how much it hurst others. So religious principles can be of a great assistance in this way.

Sometimes how ever the Parent tapes can be overly restrictive so the person ends up with virtually no Free Child left. When that happens the person will end up with some kind of problem like depression, anxiety and so forth. However this is yet to answer my student’s original question about religion being a contamination.

With some people the Parent can ‘contaminate’ the Adult ego state as is shown above. That is the person believes that what is a Parental opinion or value is actually an Adult ego state fact. So they begin to believe and act like their Parental tape is actually an Adult ego state fact and thus we have the contamination.

This is the first part of the answer to the supervisee’s question in the diagram below.

If those instances where the religious teachings become a dogma for the person then he is starting to see the Parental opinion or value as a fact and thus it is a contamination. They believe the religious principles as being incontrovertibly true. This may also be reflected in some kinds of fundamentalism. Their belief is perceived as being fact.

I must admit that I am amused sometimes when I hear those positing that science give the answers and that religion does not. Those who criticise religion for being a dogma and that such individuals are obviously misguided. Then they will say that they have the scientific approach to understanding the world. For instance in psychotherapy they say that they will only use approaches that are based on good scientific evidence. Such individuals are being just as dogmatic and fundamentalist as those religious people who they are criticising.

The scientific method is but one more Parental tape that explains a way to understand the world. It has its good points and it has its bad points like all other Parental tapes do. But to say that it is the only way to understand the outcome of psychotherapy is dogmatic and a Parent contamination of the Adult ego state.

However back to the student’s question at hand. From what I have observed there is another psychological component of religion that does not come from the Parent ego state but comes from the Free Child ego state. This is what I would see faith and perhaps spirituality as being. These things do not come from outside the person (like the Parent tapes) but come from within the individual. They are there already from birth. In some they get ‘expressed’ and in others they do not.

From a psychological point of view if a person has some kind of faith then they are more psychologically robust than that individual who does not. They have a belief in something that cannot be fully understood or seen or touched that maybe a higher power or benevolent in some kind of way. This may even be a living person.

For many this is what their religion or god is to them. It is something that they have a faith in and as I said before this can be a healthy thing to have from a psychological point of view. Indeed for some they could have a faith in science and that indeed would fulfil the same psychological function perhaps. 

If one does not have such a faith then perhaps they are missing something psychologically. In one way they could be described as lonely person or a person who lacks some kind of meaning. Indeed one could argue that the psychotherapy of Logotherapy as developed by Viktor Frankl is directly addressed at the person who has truly lacks a faith or belief.

I would also argue that in the diagnosis of the psychopath, anti social personality and narcissistic person one could also use the absence of a faith as a diagnostic criteria. These people in particular lack the aptitude of faith.

So to my student I would say that for some their religion is not a contamination at all but instead provides them with a way in which to discover, comprehend and express their faith. Which from a psychological point of view is a big plus and a sign of emotional health.

Graffiti

For my pommy mate.

watch?v=qNJ5AzVzpLY

Train spotting

Great movie.

In the video I love the bit where Spud explains why he lied on his application.

Such an anti social personality answer and so Free Child.

And the tempo of the video captures the life style so well.

How could one live with out that sort of tempo at least at times.

Graffiti

More women in politics. 

Originally written on March 26th, 2007.

A topic in the news where I live at the moment is the number of women in politics in the state where I live and around the world. Apparently there are more female heads of state now than there has ever been before. And that grand total is - 16. 

But to me it does not make sense. 

Typical masculine qualities are = assertive, competitive. tough, logical, 

unemotional, aggressive, dominating. lacking insight, unoriginal, vulgar. 

Typical feminine qualities are = domestic, creative, individualistic, sensitive, 

intelligent, passive, idealistic, conciliatory, peace loving, sociable. 

Is Amy physically female and psychologically male?

I am not saying that women are this and men are that. These lists are what are typically described as masculine and feminine qualities. Males and females have qualities from both lists. The more feminine qualities you have the feminine you will be and seem to others to be a feminine character. The same for masculine qualities. 

So what does it mean to count the number of females in politics (and commerce for that matter). It means the number of people who are anatomically female and at the upper levels of politics and business. But what does that mean in real terms. 

To be at such a level the LCD (Lowest common denominator) rules. You have to work very long hours, have to see little of your partner and children, suppress your feelings, be a bit paranoid and get them before they get you, be ruthless, be calculating, be competitive, etc. For a woman to succeed in upper level politics she has to think, feel and act like a man naturally does. 

Do you actually want to live like that? This list seems to pretty well much fit with the masculine qualities. If a person goes to a job in the board room of a large corporation and is sensitive, conciliatory, domestic, peace loving, how long are they going to last? I would guess that they will not be back for their second day on the job. 

Does the difference in physical strength between men and women have an impact on the psychological dynamics of their relationships?

So when one counts up the number of women in politics they are counting those people who are anatomically female and psychologically male. So that person is female but in another sense has a predominance of masculine qualities. It would seem more accurate to count those numbers who have more feminine personality traits than masculine traits. I would suggest that if you did that the grand total of female heads of state in the world - 0. 

To simply add up people who are anatomically female has no meaning like one could count up the number of people in politics who had red hair. One could do that but it means nothing. 

And if you added up the men who were in politics they would be the men who are anatomically male and masculine in personality as well. So its not the anatomical female who isn’t there it is the person who has a predominance of feminine characteristics who isn’t there. And that would include many men.

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