Esteemed xmca-folk,
Last Friday I mentioned to Carl Ratner that his name had come up in a
discussion of Pedro's paper. Carl said, "oh Pedro's a good friend of mine,
we were in Cuba together". He asked me to forward him the paper and
relevant discussion which I did although I urged him that he should
participate in xmca himself. He explained that he normally didn't find
much on xmca that interested him but since his name had come up in this
context (twice actually) he sent me these comments and asked if I would
forward them. I will continue to urge him to join especially if there's any
response to his observations.
Paul H. Dillon
----- Original Message -----
From: Carl Ratner <cr2@humboldt1.com>
To: Paul H. Dillon <illonph@pacbell.net>
Sent: Thursday, May 11, 2000 3:10 PM
Subject: Re: Re(2): psychoanalysis and...CHAT
> Hi Paul,
> Here are some comments which you can forward to xmca. thanks for doing
it.
>
> I found the discussion of CHAT and therapy to be most interesting and
impt.
> It is especially gratifying to see discussion of Pedro's paper which I had
> the pleasure of hearing in person in Havana last Nov. I'd like to offer
some
> comments on the issue.
> Any relation between CHAT & therapy, of course, depends upon one's
> definition of activity. There has been a distressing lack of coherence in
> this respect among activity theorists. Activity denotes everything from
goal
> directed action (which includes getting out of bed in the morning or going
> to the bathroom) to the use of artifacts (e.g., laser surgery) to the use
of
> language, to social institutions (work, politics, education). While all of
> these may be impt., it is necessary to formulate an integral understanding
> of their importance and interrelationships instead of simply dealing with
1
> or another singly. Whatever one comes up with has implications for
therapy.
> In my view, activities must primarily refer to the concrete social
> organization of activities such as work, politics, education, medicine,
the
> family. This was certainly Marx's point, although it has often been
ignored
> by contemporary activity theorists (who nevertheless cite Marx as the
> founder of activity theory). Participating in social activities spurs the
> development of concepts, representations, or schemas and also
psychological
> phenomena including emotions, perception, memory, intelligence, and mental
> illness. (cf. Ratner, "Cultural Psychology & Qualitative methodology"
chap.
> 3 + several of my articles on my web page, below). From this perspective,
it
> is necessary to trace forms of mental illness to social activities and
> concepts. Kleinman has done a good job of this in his work. Therapy would
> consist of elucidating this cultural basis of mental illness. It would
also
> encourage the patient to alter as much as possible the concepts which
> he'/she has internalized as coping mechanisms, and the activities which
> he/she has participated in that were stressful. Finally, malevolent
cultural
> activities and concepts need to be changed at the societal level to effect
> improvement and prevention on a mass level. I have discussed this in my
book
> "Vygotsky's Sociohistorical Psychology and Its contemporary Applications",
> and my article "A Sociohistorical Analysis of the Unconscious" available
on
> my web page).
> I agree w. Pedro that Freud was fundamentally opposed to this way of
> thinking about disorders and therapy. A good reference to consult is
> Lichtman's "The Production of Desire."
> How do others feel about activity theory and therapy?
> --
> Carl Ratner, Ph.D.
> cr2@humboldt1.com
> http://www.humboldt1.com/~cr2
>
> P.O.B. 1294
> Trinidad, CA 95570
> USA
>
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