Re: Who needs therapy?

From: Paul H. Dillon (illonph@pacbell.net)
Date: Fri May 12 2000 - 19:04:37 PDT


Pedro,

Yikes, your interpretation:

> I find the concept
> Hilarious and even anal....

of

> >But the change in these social definitions, and the person's own
relation to
> >their endogenic characteristics, occurs through a complex but clear
process
> >of social mobilization, through what is called a "movement" perhaps, and
not
> >through individual therapy.

 is distressingly Freudian but when I read it from that perspective I almost
have to agree with you.

How bizarre!I

>In fact they have, we have had instances of that....from retraining of the
> bourgeoise in Cuba to the K. Rouge..

You remind that the attempts to suppress, eliminate, purge, destroy
"bourgeois consciousness" have been found in all the communist states.
Well from this perspective we can also compare our current handling of
extremely "abnormal" psyches with the practices (e.g., sterilization) of
only 70 years ago. A problem doesn't stop being a real problem just because
the way it was handled was totally in error. And the issue, Che Guevara's
"moral vs. material incentives", .remains an issue for the construction of
socialist society even if we only do it fancifully, or is it that everyone
has just accepted that global capitalism will be the economic system that
will function for the rest of human history?

> I guess following the old practice of distinguishing psychotic from
> neurotic disorders,, we might postulate that the latter are more soc.
> constructed, context dependent that the former which oftem times are more
> hardwired /chemical/biol
>
> so perhaps there is a continnum extending from how social
> conflicts/relation produce indiv. illness to the other extreme of how
> "indiv. Biochem. disease produce social difficulties etc...
>
> BTW, I'm glad u brought Carl into this, his book is quite helpful in this
> regard (madness etc)

Just before receiving your mail I had an extended discussion with Carl who
denies any relationship between biology and aptitudes. I think the differen
ces in human biological endowments are very important factors in individual
psychology and that there is a relationship between the individual
biochemistry and the social person the individual becomes. It would seem
that you at least allow for this . . .

> I am much more confortable with proposing that we first educate would-be
> therapists in this dialectical approach to inform their practices and keep
> them in perspective rather than prescribing a chat practice, " here is how
> you do CHAT based psychotherapy, find the zpd , practice the 1st Law
> ....etc )and on & on.
>

This sounds like a sound way to go about it, not so much to introduce CHAT
into the mainstream as to draw some psychologists out of it. If you give
someone a tool and they start to use it and it's a good tool then . . .

Paul H. Dillon
Phenomenal Research



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