My id always said that an article by a Freudian therapist would be a sloppy half-cooked pizza of generalities and buzzwords, and this one in the Guardian by Darian Leader is much as expected:
Therapy occupies a unique space in the modern world. In a culture obsessed with surface and statistics, it allows the detail and narrative of a human life to be explored. Where society tells us what to be, therapy allows us to reflect critically on the imperatives that shape us. Challenging received notions of wellbeing and happiness, we can try to find out what is really important to us, often with life-changing consequences. It offers a system of values freed from the moral judgments of social authorities.
Then he whinges away about how his woo is going to be regulated, and throws in a couple of digs at the “market-led vision of human life” for good measure. While complaining about being regulated. Boo Woo Hoo.
There is only one thing stopping me having a really good laugh. His complaint is just. His concern is justified.
(And, unusually, Tim Worstall, whose blog is linked to by the word “woo” above, is wrong.)
If people, for reasons that seem good to them, want to pay to spend time with a therapist, what right does the Health Professions Council have to force the interaction into a tidy format of input and output? Who asked them to the party?
There seems to be a growing belief among our dear protectors that whenever money changes hands then their guiding presence is necessary. They generously allow us to speak more or less as we choose to our friends, lovers, and random blokes on the Clapham omnibus, but as soon as a cheque is written, they say, away flew an invisible invitation to make a threesome: me, you, and the government.
I see no logical justification for this. Some people might end up paying for therapy and then feeling they had wasted their money. That is sad. It is also sad that in my time I have wasted good money on dresses that looked bad on me, plays that I left during the interval, and exercise machines.
Come to think of it, money you can get back. Time is irrecoverable. I am still traumatized by the fact that in 1978 I watched 17 episodes of the original Battlestar Galactica thinking something interesting might happen. Some people who have experienced therapy say it was a waste of time; others say it saved their sanity. My only opinion on the matter is that the Health Professions Council has no right to an opinion on the matter. Certain clear categories of abuse or fraud by therapists have long been forbidden in law. If someone’s beef with their therapist is big enough for them to sue, then the State might just have a role. Other than that, the bureaucrat should not intrude.
Agreed. Septic that I am, this is effectively regulating belief itself. Will they next say that the local vicar can’t give advice to a parishioner because he isn’t a qualified therapist and can’t prove the efficacy of the Holy Spirit?
It is also deeply worrying in scientific terms, since psychology is by its nature one of the least scientific sciences; so little is yet known of its subject matter, the functioning of the human brain. Nobody can really prove anything.
My only hope from this is that maybe as the State’s hobnailed boots clump harder and harder on progressivism’s natural supporters, they may start to feel some doubt about their presumption of its wisdom. We can only hope.
You’re not wrong, Natalie. But from the perspective of regulation of health-care being accepted as subject to regulation, therapy, as mental health-care, falls under that umbrella.
I think Ian is also right, as the inevitable outcome of the ever-growing state comes more into focus for many more, we may start to see more push-back. It’s one think when the camel has its nose in the tent, it’s another when its hoof is in your maqlooba
But, isn’t a priest a mental health carer? Can a buddhist recommend meditation? Does this render shamanism illegal? What happened to freedom of faith? Where does this end?
But, isn’t a priest a mental health carer?
The British Sign Language sign for “social worker” imitates a priest’s stole, originating in Victorian times when that’s exactly what they were, and they probably did a far better job than their state sanctioned versions today.
More spiritual health. With a pre-rational belief that mental health issues were caused by spiritual problems.
Though it’s not like government buggering around with religious affairs doesn’t have a long & sordid history anyway.
I find it hard to have much sympathy for anyone in the therapy part of psychology or psychiatry. Are not half the ‘disorders’ in the DSM IV list just a bunch of just-so stories whose inclusion on the list is decided by a vote? Ridiculous.
Do psychologists have any good answers to the question of why some people become ‘mentally ill’ and others don’t?
My experience with psychologists (not as a patient) is that the primary cause for them entering the field is to determine why *they* have become mentally ill.
“I am still traumatized by the fact that in 1978 I watched 17 episodes of the original Battlestar Galactica thinking something interesting might happen. ”
Now there’s a QOTD!
Yes, but did you watch Galactica: 1980?
I am guessing not, as your sanity does still appear to be with us.
“More spiritual health. With a pre-rational belief that mental health issues were caused by spiritual problems.”
I think rational stopped thinking around the time of Fermi, Bohr, Planck, Einstein, Heisenberg, then.
“Robot!”
John, I think that you may be taking too much for granted yet again:-P
Why would you expect crappy sci-fi to be any good? 😉
Sorry Alisa.
“More spiritual health. With a pre-rational belief that mental health issues were caused by spiritual problems.”
Afraid it does cause a slight frisson, the casual assumption that has been so well inculcated that the concept of spiritual is pre-rational.
If something rational is something reasoned on the basis of available information then to dismiss the spiritual as being pre-rational, ie before we started thinking about things like sensible, well-informed adults, is irrational.
I don’t think the gentlemen whose names I dropped above would have gone with it.
The “robot” reference was to that instant-gratification ad in the tradition of light-hearted intolerance of things we disagree with, in which the robot vaporises the annoying squirrel who will insist on raising “stupid” points.
One of the best easily-accessible psychos who does talk a lot of sense is (the late) Eric Berne, especially in his book: What do we say after we say hello.
His “disciple” Claude Steiner, while keeping a lot of the sense, has unfortunately tried to de-mystify a lot of Berne’s subtler points and thrown them away in the process. But he (Steiner) is also left-wing, which may explain it.
Transactional Analysis might be regarded as the market-forces version of psychoanalysis.
We do things for reasons.
At least the original BSG was what it was. I was far more traumatised by watching five years of the newer BSG only to have it fizzle out and end in the most cliched way possible.
Thanks John, clearer now. Not sure I agree, but clearer.
John, although little/nothing was known about brain chemistry at the time, I would classify assigning blame for ailments such as schizophrenia or epilepsy to demonic possession as most definitely non-rational. It is when one seeks for an explanation by examination, study and application of the scientific method that rationality begins.
Of course, this, de-facto, was occurring to a minor degree for a long time before it was formalized and even still, has not and does not always get things right but it provides the best known framework for advancement. “God did it” simply does not cut the mustard.
Mr Lock of the Charity Organization Society (a real charity – i.e. a charity from the days when they were not tax funded parts of the state, controlled by Guardian readers) created the first secular trained “Social Workers” and there may be something good in the idea (as there was with his friend Octavia Hill’s work in housing).
However, the modern statist version of such things is a mess – and is getting worse over time.
As for Battlestar Galatica.
Better than something “interesting” actually happening Natalie – the new version had a terrible ending (P.C. ism was expected from N.B.C. – but it was still terrible when it came).
Better to have no ending at all (to stop mid series with nothing resolved) than an ending like that.
Richard, I agree with your statement:
“It is when one seeks for an explanation by examination, study and application of the scientific method that rationality begins.”
I completely agree with this method and I think it should be taken to its logical conclusion, as far as possible, in all situations. It’s no good to stop at some point and just declare that the point you have got to is the absolute, when you can clearly see the road disappearing into the distance. Even if you can’t figure how to go any further.
Regarding mental health, yes, well, I wouldn’t go around saying: “God did it.”
I have seen lots of different reasons for mental conditions. Many of them going back to things we want, can’t admit we want, and can’t get because it’s all denied.
I have seen some situations where I have thought there were spiritual reasons.
But that’s a whole another subject!