Voicelessness and Emotional Survival > Voicelessness and Emotional Survival Message Board
Book: Voicelessness and Emotional Survival: Notes from the therapy underground
Hopalong:
I loooooooved that article too, Doc G.
And I look forward to the movie with its perfect lead actor for the part.
Those kinds of people soothe the soul, and we all need to remind ourselves
there are many of them. Somebody on every block who lives according
to kindness.
As YOU do!
Hugs
Hops
Dr. Richard Grossman:
Hi Hops,
Mr. Rogers would have made a wonderful therapist! I so appreciate what he said in the speech above. I have tried to do as much as I can as a therapist by combining art and science and finding out, in a loving way, who each individual person I’ve seen is. The question for me has always been how much of a difference a therapist can make in a person’s life. And learning as much as possible about the psychoanalytic approach, the cognitive behavioral approach, the mindfulness approach, etc., I discovered that the relationship between the therapist and patient had by far the most powerful and lasting influence on a patient’s life.
I’ll write about some of the “issues” of this approach in posts to come. Sadly, my father died in September, and I have been very busy taking care of all the legal and personal matters surrounding his death. So, I’ve had very little time to do anything else.
Thank you, also, for the compliment! You have been such an important and supportive member of this message board for 2 decades! And I know you have been very much appreciated not only by myself but other members.
Richard
Hopalong:
I am so very sorry you have lost your father, Richard.
What a hard and poignant time to be a son.
I hope many memories sustain you during this time.
Plus...pie.
with love,
Hops
Dr. Richard Grossman:
Hi everybody,
The human struggle between truth and status, which has come to the fore in our country in the past few years, has (as I write in my book) always been an issue in the “field” of psychotherapy. I very much appreciated the Vox article below as another example of this struggle:
“Is positive psychology all it’s cracked up to be?
Just over 20 years old, this field has captivated the world with its hopeful promises — and drawn critics for its moralizing, mysticism, and serious commercialization."
By Joseph Smith
https://www.vox.com/the-highlight/2019/11/13/20955328/positive-psychology-martin-seligman-happiness-religion-secularism
Richard
lighter:
Doc G:
I watched a TedTalk, bc I've never heard of Seligman, or read anything of his, and here's what I got from it.
It seems Seligman is an iconoclast, and a very rich one. Very successful.
He's created scales and measurement for everything to do with positive and negative emotions/experience/social interaction, and flow..... and he does it with confidence, which I'm sure is annoying to some.
He has categories, and he wants everyone to take tests so they can be labeled, and work on tricks and techniques to get more out of the 3 categories. If they're lacking in one, or more, he figures out if it's meaningful, I think he has 3 major things... work, social, and positive affect... can't quite remember, but he does go on with his interpretations, and what he's interpreting is.....
everything.
Everything old, new, I mean he's looking at Buddhism (2500 years old), exploring what makes sense to him from all walks of mind/body/spirit studies, doing more studies on what he finds interesting, but without boring anyone with details of why something works or advances in neuroscience, or exact studies proving what the Buddha knew back in the day. He just bounces along, hitting the high notes, and doesn't slow down to connect any dots, which is what I require, so I'm not a fan.
Honestly, he reminds me of my martial arts instructor (MAI) picking and choosing what he liked from all walks of battlefield arts, then honing them for himself, and teaching them to others. MAI created his own "art", but everything was found, not created BY MAI.
Seligman might not be coming up with anything "new", but his frank assessment of the standards of practice in mental health treatments, not effective enough in his opinion, along with his quick bouncy style from one idea to another... meaning he doesn't stop to bore anyone with the specifics of leaps in the study of neuroscience over the last 20 years..... certainly not mentioning energy work, or chakras for that matter either. I'm not sure he cares WHY something works or doesn't. He just grabs it, identifies value, and seizes on it... which does remind me a bit of Van der kolk, Levine, and Porges in that he claims he does long term studies and experiments, but it's impossible to know what kinds, or how accurate they are from a TedTalk, and how can he really study anything well, if he's studying everything?
Seligman seems to be standing on the shoulders of giants, and packaging that information for the masses. He's also getting rich and famous. I guess he might be considered a marketing wizard, but does that make him a cult leader? (There were a couple icky moments around victims making bad choices, and then something about moral choices, but.... he bounced right past, and didn't dwell on them. It was a red flag, waved once, then thrown down, and stomped past in his very eager pursuit of the next thing he felt worked, IMO.
Seligman packages other people's ideas using colloquial everyday language, and tremendous self-confidence, IMO.
He's unsatisfied with the current standard of practice in the mental health field. He's unapologetically curious about his exploration of everything and anything he feels might be effective.... it's a little like watching Willy Wonka show you around his idea factory.
How do you feel about him, Doc?
Lighter
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