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New I beg your pardon?
Wanna-be science?

Granted, I had the same impression when I transitioned from the "hard" sciences (biology, chemistry, physiology) to the "soft" science of psychology. But Bowen's theory makes a nice bridge between the two, combining evolution, systems theory and emotions. Matter of fact, system theory is what ties it all together for me. I adhere to his approach when I do family treatment.

People will often ask me, especially in job interviews, how I came to be a psychotherapist when I started out with a degree in zoology. Systems. Different kinds of systems, but systems all the same, and the same rules apply.

A slight change in one component, say diet, of an organism will affect the whole organism. A small change in an ecosystem, maybe the amount of sunlight in a lake, can lead to catastrophic results. One person in a family changes a behavior, and everyone else in the family changes their behaviors in response. Everything is connected.

It's so cool.

Sometimes.
When a man is alone in his room...
he wears stretchy pants.
It's for fun.
New Psychology has been unable to coalesce around a paradigm
There are many camps of people in psychology. Each makes considerable progress within their own niche. But there is not a global shared understanding of reality that marks the shared paradigms of the hard sciences. Without that, it is hard for an external observer to look at the subject and discern clear progress. See Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions for more on this.

This is an objective statement, and can be proven in many ways. A fun instance of which is the inability of publishers, after carefully studying citation patterns, to identify core journals in psychology. Which is why the serial pricing crisis does not affect psychology. (I ran across this one in [link|http://www.arl.org/arl/proceedings/138/guedon.html|http://www.arl.org/a...s/138/guedon.html].)

Again, this is not to say that lots of progress is not made. And that one psychologist cannot look at another and agree that they made progress. It is merely saying that deep divisions about what the best approaches are exist and persist.

Furthermore this is not a statement about the quality of people working in the subject. It has more to do with the subject matter than anything else. People are complex, and there are multiple ways to accomplish the same goal. As long as people using different approaches see success, it is hard to get consensus that it is good to focus on any single approach.

An amusing but simple example of how different methods can accomplish the same goal is the question of how to teach people to project their voice when they sing. It is possible to go through a lot of exercises about posture, opening your throat, etc to learn to project. (At at some point a serious singer needs to learn that.) But you can accomplish a lot of the same thing by telling someone to bend over, and sing while paying attention to how it feels in your forehead, right between the eyes. Then stand up, sing, and try to reproduce that feeling. The same sensation that is caused by blood in your head is also caused by vibration, and the continuous feedback helps people figure out the posture etc on their own!

Cheers,
Ben
a very rich person should leave his kids enough to do anything but not enough to do nothing. -- Warren Buffett
New I have a task for you
I need you to do a little cult deprogramming.

I've invited a friend to meet us at the Grey Lodge.

Conversation snippet:

> I'd love too. What time (need to make arrangements, wife is working
> Friday)?
>
> > Three of them are even rabid creationists, so you don't have to worry
> > about me setting you of for an cult deprogramming intervention. Mostly.
> > Just don't talk to Ben about it, because you'll end up an athiest by the
> > end of the conversation.
>

So I gave him fair warning.
New I thought this was supposed to be fun?
I'll probably talk to him, but I'm unlikely to put a lot of energy into trying to convince him to change his beliefs.

After all I don't have anything useful to replace them with. If they work for him, then fine.

However I'd suggest that he not try to change my beliefs.

Cheers,
Ben
a very rich person should leave his kids enough to do anything but not enough to do nothing. -- Warren Buffett
New I agree, the field is nebulous
And until we can tie cognition, emotions and behavior more tightly to physiological brain function, it's going to stay that way. In the meantime, I believe clinicians adopt a treatment modality that fits with their own experiences and world view. Since we use ourselves as tools, there is never going to be a one size fits all model. I like Murray Bowen because his model jives with my belief system.

All in all, though, I dont think it matters what approach a therapist uses. The most important thing is to start where the client is, work to develop trust, and motivate the client to move towards change. If a client doesnt like me, I'm not going to have much success with that person. Fortunately, I'm pretty likable, but once in a while I'll see someone who I just dont click with, no matter how hard I try. If that happens I usually recommend a different course of treatment with a different provider.
Sometimes.
When a man is alone in his room...
he wears stretchy pants.
It's for fun.
New Au contraire, I think the therapist's approach does matter
For instance I have trouble believing that a Freudian analyst, no matter how likeable, is going to actually help much.

But within reason, you've got a good point.

Cheers,
Ben
a very rich person should leave his kids enough to do anything but not enough to do nothing. -- Warren Buffett
New Well, most of the time
I'm flying by the seat of my pants, anyway. Every person is different. It takes a few sessions to find my footing with each client. Whatever works, I use. I have one client I see who wants me to interpret his dreams all the time. I'm not a fan of this, nor is it my area of expertise. My client knows this, but I take a crack at it. It always leads to very lively discussions and it usually ends up with him identifying his own conflicts and gaining more insight. So, for us, it works.
Sometimes.
When a man is alone in his room...
he wears stretchy pants.
It's for fun.
New And you do better being flexible that way.
But it does make separating the effects of the methodology from the practitioner that much harder to do.

Cheers,
Ben
a very rich person should leave his kids enough to do anything but not enough to do nothing. -- Warren Buffett
New Acceding to the proof of experience -
of course.. I am iggerant of the rep of Mr. Bowen amongst those actually doing this work. And in generalizing about the plight of the 'soft sciences', I may have unfairly accented the negative.

The dilemma I encounter - as when others around are dealing with family peculiarites and seeking some kind of words to express that - is partly ~what Ben mentions above: there isn't / perhaps never can be a handy paradigm to which "most sane folk" generally adhere.

But then.. in the same sense that 'computers' represent the first truly Universal Machine; hence, the impossibility of cataloguing any future possibilities there -- ditto with Human Machines.

I've noticed too, that very much can be accomplished by those who focus upon our often machine-like daily operation. Evidence (cults, sects et al) demonstrates (to me - conclusively), ofttimes appallingly.. just how malleable is a psyche. Of whatever ""IQ"".

That you find Mr. B's theory of practicable use is a decided + since clearly ya gots cuth. I'll peruse a bit more of his site, when in that strange mode.

(I've had to explore alt.medicine matters for others through the years, just often enough to realize how precarious is our symptom-obsessed corp. allopathy, so fearfully akin to our corp. religiosity -- and have become convinced that.. only too-many-words can even scratch the surface of either behemoth.)

Psych. is a field that must operate on just as massive a scale as 'health' implies in any context. There won't ever be 'closure' re either, IMhO. Neither is amenable to the logical 'proofs' which science craves - even when it can't demand.. I expect no healing universal paradigm -- a matter which may be moot anyway, if the recent decade's performance accurately portends our/the planet's longevity (?)

We aren't remotely equipped for changing comfy mindsets: even to survive-at-all. Surely, we're an alpha - a beta would have shown Some improvement after all that experience.

Ta ta,

moi


But.. let's enjoy the show! As oft said: living well is the best revenge.
The local animals are fully Alive, know about shrubs - have no interest whatsoever in Shrub:
now That's mental health!

     I beg your pardon? - (bionerd) - (8)
         Psychology has been unable to coalesce around a paradigm - (ben_tilly) - (6)
             I have a task for you - (broomberg) - (1)
                 I thought this was supposed to be fun? - (ben_tilly)
             I agree, the field is nebulous - (bionerd) - (3)
                 Au contraire, I think the therapist's approach does matter - (ben_tilly) - (2)
                     Well, most of the time - (bionerd) - (1)
                         And you do better being flexible that way. - (ben_tilly)
         Acceding to the proof of experience - - (Ashton)

No! No! Not E.T.! Kill! Kill! Kill E.T.! Glock E.T.!
80 ms