Tony White

Due to the fact that Blogspirit now wants a few Euros per month for me to stay here I have decided to move.  95% of people in the blogosphere don't pay so I think it is time to go.

You can find me at

http://graffiti99.blogspot.com/

Or you will see in the left hand column here under "Blogs I like" - Graffiti.

Just click on it and you are there.

I will keep this blog here for archival reasons.

Graffiti

Whenever I see a client for the first time, I will most often ask lots of questions about them and their life. Things like how many siblings were there, where they come in the line, who lived in their home, what schools they went to, were they bullied and so forth.

One other question I ask is what were they like as a teenager. Were they rebellious or conforming and so forth. The personality research shows that 75% of teenagers do go through a stage of “Storm and stress” as they call it and 25% do not. So 75% do have a significant period of rebellion. If they are in the 25% then it is quite possible that you will have someone who is primarily conformist in their life. They will tend to live too much in the Conforming Child and not enough in the Rebellious Child and some can then have very little idea of their own Free Child. 75% of teenagers spend a good deal of time in the RC and use that as the main means to communicate with others, particularly those perceived as authority figures.

However when I ask this question and listen to the answer I often wonder how would I respond if a therapist asked me such a question. I was never one of those kids who hated school and wanted to burn it down. I think I was reasonably rebellious but I would not say that I was overly so. In fact there may have even been more FC rather than RC.

I was raised with a permissive parenting style. Both my parents tended to do this type of parenting. There was not much that I was not allowed to do. By the time I was 16 or 17 I could basically do what ever I wanted and go where I wanted. However I was not a child who always wanted more and more stuff like bikes, surfboards, clothes, money, etc. So they did not have to say ‘no’ to me in such ways. I was the apple of my mother’s eye and as far as she was concerned I could do no wrong. She was not into telling me off much at all instead she spent much more of her time telling me what I could do and the potential that I did have.

I did not go out of my way to fight the system. I did it a bit but I knew what I wanted. If that did not cause trouble for the ‘system’ then I merrily went about my way and did it. There were times when I wanted to do stuff that the ’system’ had a problem with and then at these times I would be seen as highly stubborn and rebellious. I would be called by my mother - “bloody minded” - I can even here her saying those words now as I write.

For the latter part of my high school I went to one of those free schools that they had in the 1970s. You only went to the classes you wanted to and only did the projects that you wanted when you wanted. The theory being that if you place a child in a open and free learning environment then they will naturally learn and teach themselves. Hey! It sounded pretty good to me at the time!

Me on a camel with my mother

At one point I wanted to arrange a field trip to Rottnest Island (A local holiday resort). The school did not like the idea and my mother was also against it and there was a big ruckus over that one between me and authority. That went on for some time and there was a prolonged battle. I eventually got there but only in a modified form. So that is the kind of thing when I would be rebellious and fight the system. I never went out of my way to fight the system but if I wanted something that the system did not want me to have then I would fight it long and hard. So is that FC or RC?

Now I know what to say if a therapist ever asks me that question.

Graffiti

I saw a surprisingly good interview on television a few days ago. It was on one of those current affairs shows that come on right after the 6 o’clock news. Usually they are about shady tradesmen who are ripping off pensioners by getting prepaid for things like painting or gardening only never to be seen again. The news team approaches one of them in the street and he suddenly sprints off down the road with the poor old cameraman in pursuit and the reporter holding on to his trusty microphone hollering out questions that are never going to be answered. That sort of news report that is really more a combination of athletics and journalism as you hear the puffing and panting of the reporter and the cameraman.

However this was most illuminating interview with Chief Judge Antoinette Kennedy. The first woman to be appointed a judge in the state where I live and who is on the brink of retirement. First it is very rare for one of the judiciary to give any sort of interview.

She made a number of most interesting comments. She stated that sometimes she watches TV reports of those who have been involved in a trail in some way and they would say that the result gave them closure or it did not give them closure. She stated that such comments baffled her.

The court or trial system was never set up to give closure to people. That is not its purpose and is not its goal and its never has been. This is a very nice way of saying what I have been saying to clients for many years.

The goal of a trial is to answer a legal question of guilt or innocence. Its goal is not a therapeutic one. It is a court of law not a therapy group. It is not set up to or is trying to give people closure or some other kind of therapeutic gain. Its goal is to answer a legal question. It seems that for many of those involved in trials, they mistakenly look for a therapeutic goal from something that is not designed to provide one.

I have seen many clients who have been involved in various trials for various reasons over the years. My suggestion to them is that they try and emotionally distance them self as much as they possibly can from the trial and its outcome. I suggest that they have as little to do with the trial as possible and when it’s on and getting lots of press they leave the country for a few weeks holiday. It is very likely that something in the trial will result in some sort of further emotional scarring on the person and that is the last thing they need. A court room is not designed to be therapeutic for those listening on.

One does not need an outcome of a trail to get closure or to move on in life. That can be achieved much better long before any trial has taken place. Getting closure is a psychological process that can be achieved no matter what the outcome of a trial is.

The most common type of chronic anger in this community is those who seek or want revenge. Those who state what they want ‘justice’ for the crimes committed against them. These people are chronically angry in that they are holding onto their anger about some unjust act committed against them.

My counsel is to forget about winning the battles and just make sure you win the war. A trial is just a battle. If they feel like justice has not been done or they want further revenge for long periods of time then they certainly have lost the war. They are carrying around chronic anger and there is mountains of literature that clearly shows the physical damage that results from being chronically angry. It is singularly physically damaging and in many instances being closely involved in a trial will just increase the level of anger. It certainly does not help to win the war.

Graffiti

As a counsellor sometimes I feel like Pinquean Smallcreep. Or more correctly I feel like the factory in which Pinquean Smallcreep worked.  Good old Wikipedia gives us a run down on the book “Smallcreep’s Day” which I read in high school and it always fascinated me:

“The story is a surreal satire on modern industrial life. The central character Pinquean Smallcreep works in the slotting section of a vast and labyrinthine factory and has done so for years. He becomes curious about the purpose of the pulley that he puts the slots in and one day, having become obsessed by an idea, leaves his machine and goes exploring through the strange world of his factory. On a quest to find meaning in his monotonous existence, Smallcreep experiences many surreal and disturbing situations. Each scene explores some of the author’s ideas about human relationships, freedom and the value of human life. Some of the scenes are hilarious, some depressing and some macabre. The final two pages are taken up with a powerful vision of the futility of factory work and a passionate cry for the lost dignity of the craftsman.” (end quote)

In recent years with the development of the nanny state in Australia (and the western world) there has been a move away from dealing with deviant behaviour by legal means to dealing with them as a health issue as they call it. The best example is the drug courts which now for minor drug offences redirect the drug user into counselling rather than  punishing them through the law.

This theory is an enlightened idea except that it has subtly changed the idea of what counselling is. Another example of when counselling is so used is when an errant sportsman runs off the tracks. A good example of this was recently when a high profile cricketer got drunk at some event and made a mess of himself. He had done nothing illegal and the police were not involved but his behaviour was considered deviant and thus amongst other things he was sent for counselling.

The counselling is meant to convert him into behaving in a non-deviant fashion. It is meant to get him to see the error of his ways and thus he will then behave in ways that are considered non-deviant. This of course changes what counselling is about. In essence counselling becomes as mechanism of social control to make people behave in non-deviant ways. I must say this is a concern for the counselling profession in general. The word counselling gets used regularly in the press in these very circumstances.

I feel like I need to make some sort of public declaration that the counselling I do is not for social control and my goal is not to make people behave in non-deviant ways especially when the ‘deviant’ behaviour is not illegal. Indeed a lot of what I do is facilitating people to accept that their deviant behaviour is OK. If I was referred a sportsman who was sent for counselling because he got drunk and told someone to fuck off in front of the camera, this is what I would do.

1. The administrators of sport are power drunk.

2. They can tell you what to do because they dangle a big wallet of money in front of you and say unless you behave how we want then we wont give you any money.

3. Do you want to continue living under those circumstances?

4. If the answer is no, then the problem is ended

5. If the answer is yes, then you conform but you must never lose your spirit because if one does then one becomes like Pinquean Smallcreep.

The counselling profession needs to distinguish the two. I for one want to distance myself from those counsellors who are used by sporting administrations as a means of social control. That is not what counselling was originally about and it is not what I do.

Graffiti

I have added another 4 composite blogposts to my website., #46 to #49.

They are on the western society view of death, bereavement counselling and the error of the DSM in the lack of cultural differences in grief. Once again political correctness gets in the way of the truth.

Basic relationship diagram

I gain my sense of self or my identity in two ways.

Who I am as an individual? Margaret Mahler and others talk about how a child must separate and individuate. The child not only has to psychologically separate from the mother but it also has to individuate or define who it is an an individual separate from others. This is shown as the individual self in the relationship diagram.

Who am I in relationship? Whilst we can gain a sense of our identity by who we are as an individual separate from others, humans are also relational beings. They have an ever present desire to be relational. Of course when in a relationship they form an attachment and thus there is a merging of boundaries between self and others. The other becomes part of who we are. Thus our own identity or sense of self is also defined by our bonds or attachments to others. Our own identity is to some degree dependent on the personality of others. The relationship self in the relationship diagram.

As a result one could draw the following diagram. The circle of “Me” indicates who I am because of my individuation and because of my attachments. Thus my identity is a combination of my individuated self and my attachments.

If one person would suddenly die then I am left with a problem. Part of my self or my identity becomes confused as an attachment still remains but the person is now deceased.

With the death one then is supposed to grieve. One psychological function of the grief could be to get one’s own identity back in order. To realign it such that there is not the confused aspect any more of having an attachment with a deceased person. The completed grief process could be diagrammed as such:

The attachment is expunged from the sense of self or identity of the individual. So in this sense grief is quite a narcissistic act. It also further explains why some people find grief such a difficult process and will go to great psychological lengths to avoid it.

Our sense of identity is obviously very important to us and is not an easy thing to change. It can’t change quickly so upon a death one realises that this change of identity is going to be quite a process and quite a painful process. Hence all the tricks we play on ourselves to stop the Child ego state accepting that the deceased is actually gone for ever.

There are some people who are like this

Their sense of self is overly dominated by their attachments as their own sense of individuation is weak. They let those with whom they have relationship define who they are. As their sense of self is weak they seek out others so as to gain some sense of self. To have a poor sense of self is very difficult to tolerate. We humans do not like it at all and will go to great lengths to attain it some way.

This diagram explains how a young child comes into the world. It has a very poor sense of its own individuality so it latches onto mother’s identity and borrows hers for a time. It also shows the circumstances for some vine swingers. Those who swing from one relationship to another. When a relationship ends they are most uncomfortable and have a strong need to seek out a new attachment. To have a weak sense of identity is very uncomfortable for us and people will go to great lengths to get a more solid sense of identity. One way to do that is to get someone else define it for you by forming a bond with them

Finally this diagram is domestic violence waiting to happen. A woman like this is very vulnerable because to end the relationship is so psychologically devastating for her and her sense of self. As a consequence she will tolerate high levels of abuse without leaving. There maybe threats to leave and short term separations but no long term split.

Graffiti

I ran an all day workshop last week and as I look back on it now I did a bit of an unusual thing. In the morning session I ran a demonstration therapy group using the redecision method of therapy. This means the group members who attend the workshop are also the clients in the group. So people get an opportunity to get some personal therapy and to see me demonstrate how I do such group therapy.

In the afternoon the same set up was used except it was group therapy using the Relational approach. This is a very different style of group therapy and this is the part that I have thought about. I cannot recall ever doing such a thing in the past or seeing such a thing being done. That is where you have two very different styles of group therapy done with the same group members one in the morning and one in the afternoon. It was not until afterwards that I realised what was being done in this sense.

It truly did demonstrate the different methods, assumptions of the therapy, the therapeutic goals that the different styles set out to achieve. In both methods people did gain personal insights that they had not done so before and reported to achieve therapeutic gains. That is one of the things that impacted on me was how two very different methods still worked on the same group of people.

Some of the theory behind why the workshop was constructed as it was. In the morning when doing the redecision group therapy of course I used the redecison therapy techniques like two chair. This is shown in the diagram below

In this situation there are three components in the therapy setting. The client, the therapist and the techniques.
At point 1 the therapist directs and facilitates the client doing the technique which is point 2. There is also another thing going on at the same time and that is point 3, or the relationship between the client and the therapist. One has both the techniques and the relationship going on at the same time.

As we know in the literature there is quite a large group who state that it is the relationship between the client and the therapist that really has the curative powers. The client doing the techniques is good but it is point 3 that really has the profound effects.

If that is the case then lets try one other thing. Lets have therapy without any techniques. Lets have therapy where there is just the relationship. This is what happened in the afternoon Relational group therapy as is shown in the diagram below

In this instance the techniques are discarded and the therapist and client simply relate.

Overall a quite unusual and unique therapeutic experience I think having the combination of those two in the circumstances that they were presented.

Graffiti

I am a people watcher. I just find it fun and ti watching people. Now this is probably a good thing being a counsellor and all, where observing people is kind a of a thing you have to do.

For many years I have had the habit of going to restaurants and cafes by myself. If I find a particular one that I like which has a dish that I particularly like then I will tend to frequent it by myself. Instead of cooking a can of baked beans at home by myself I will go to a cafe repeatedly and order the same dish each time. Usually on the same day of the week and usually early evening when things are not too busy.

When there I tend to befriend the staff and suck up to the chef by getting the wait staff to pass onto him lots of strokes for the meal I just ate. After a time the chef often will come out and have a chat with me and then of course he puts in extra effort on the meal. When I first go to a new one I will disclose very little about myself and I see them looking at me kind of funny.

They think, “Who is this person who comes regularly, by himself and says very little about himself. I wonder if he is a food critic for a magazine?”. So then they really put in a lot of effort on the food and service.

However so much for my manipulative ways. Over the years when I have told people that I go to restaurants by myself some reply that they could never do that. They would be too embarrassed as the other diners would look at them as though they are lonely and desperate and that is why you dine by yourself. Such a thing had never even entered my mind until I was told it. Maybe the other diners do look at me like that and even worse maybe I am a lonely and desperate guy! But either way it does not worry me and I keep doing my little solo dining out.

The other reason I do such a thing is that it’s a good place to watch other people. You see all sorts of combinations of people come into restaurants and I just find it interesting to watch them and what they do and how they get on. Most often I can’t hear what they are saying so I just get the video and no audio. I don’t do it from a judgmental or critical point of view, I just find it fun to watch what they do.

I did another bit of people watching yesterday that was not in a cafe but in my local supermarket and it made me smile. It was unusually busy so there were lots of people around and at the checkout line one had to wait about 5 minutes before being ‘checked out’ which was much longer than usual.

There was this woman waiting in the line two people in front of me. From her attire she obviously had just been to aerobics or was just about to go. She was quite pretty and was noticeably thin. Very well presented, probably had a boob job as a woman who is that thin would not usually have such boobs. Her lips also probably had been recently injected with pig fat as they looked very African-American. This woman spent a lot of time and effort on her physical appearance.

But the thing most noticeable to me was how thin she was. The vertebra in her neck and between her shoulders were clearly visible. I would not call her dangerously thin but she obviously did not eat a lot of pizza.

At the check out there were the usual magazines and trays of chewing gum, throat lozenges and lollies. As you wait people often do that last bit of impulse buying and pick up a little extra thing. The woman mentioned had two items, a tray of very lean meat and a tub of diet, low fat yogurt. So there we stood for 5 minutes waiting amidst the trays of impulse buying items.

Finally when it came to her turn the checkout chick scanned one item and just before the second one was scanned the woman quickly turned around and reached over a long tray of chocolates and picked up a chocolate bar. She had been standing next to them for 5 minutes, why did she wait right until the very, very last moment to make her purchase. There were probably a dozen different varieties of chocolate bars and she reached over all the others to pick up hers right at the end of the tray. This woman knew exactly the type of chocolate bar she wanted and she knew exactly where it was.

This made me smile. There it was, human nature in action. The Child ego state in full display. Further evidence that the Child ego state always wins out in the long run. At the very last final moment it had got what it wanted, a chocolate bar. She probably has a huge 5 volume rule book in her head about what she can and can’t do. A large internal critic that clamps down hard on the Child and what it wants and telling it all the exercise it has to do and all the good foods it can’t eat and all the fun it cannot have.

If I was counselling her I would do the usual things like listen for the cough. Bulimics often have this light repetitive cough because the throat gets irritated by the stomach acid. Drop in the, do you self harm or throw up question when she is not expecting it and look for the slight shuffle of discomfort. Circle around her possible use of amphetamines or other stimulants of some kind. As she was so thin she could also be a heroin user.

The other interesting thing about people who clamp down heavily on their Child is it works both ways. They are highly restrictive on what the Free Child is permitted to do. It is punished with a comprehensive set of rules and regulations. On the other hand not uncommonly the fun and pleasure of the Free Child also gets very specific. For instance with bulimics they can have a highly specific ritual around their eating which is quite pleasurable to go through.

I recall one delightful bulimic woman who I saw on and off for a number of years. She had this elaborate ritual where she would go to a specific supermarket, at a specific time of day, purchase a specific brand of chocolate, and a specific type of chocolate in that brand and it was always a 250g block. She would then come home, sit in her lounge room with the TV on and reading the newspaper and proceed to eat the block(s) of chocolate. You don’t need three guesses to work out what her first homework assignment was. Do the whole ritual and chocolate eating but no TV or newspaper.

For the woman in the supermarket that could have been her ritual that she has done a hundred times before. But what I would be alert to is how her Free Child gets some fun and pleasure. It could easily be odd, highly ritualistic, specific and also very secretive. Especially around food, sex and other sensory interests. She is certainly not going to tell a counsellor about them in the first sessions so just circle around the topic and wait.

People watching is fun.

Graffiti