sociatry822

[HV Psychodrama]

Dear Adam and Anath,
When I was in graduate school in the mid-late 70's, the books "The Politics 
of Therapy" and "Radical Therapy" were required reading. I remember a 
discussion of what would have happened to the civil rights movement if Dr. 
King has been 'treated' for  adjustment disorder. Or if the campus leaders 
of the 60's had been treated for  explosive anger disorders. I remember 
someone wearing a pin that stated "Revolution not Adjustment."

30 years later we are still labeling and treating people for disorders that 
arise from asking them to adapt and adjust to unfair situations that need to 
be changed. It is still much easier to give a person a pill then to help 
them look at how to make social changes. It is much easier to look at an 
individual's emotional/psychiatric problem as being rooted in biology or 
poor upbringing then it is to look at it being rooted in societal ills. It 
asks less of us middle class practitioners, makes us less uncomfortable...it 
demands nothing other than we give some one an hour of paid time and/or a 
prescription.

It is also much easier to think of a person's problems as theirs, rather 
than the communities...that is one of the wonderful things about psychodrama 
in that it looks outside the individual. But interest in group therapy and 
family therapy is on the wane and individual therapy is now mostly solution 
focused short term work geared to helping the individual solve the personal 
problem du jour.

   Although I do think the discovery of the SRI medications has been a real 
and true godsend for many, many people, I can attest (through my work in the 
hospital) how they are being used/misused to treat depressions caused by 
situations that you or I or most adults would not put up with, in fact we 
would run from as fast as we could . So we use meds to help young people 
tolerate living in such situations.
    Why are not we, as therapists, educators, community people agitating for 
the political and social change that would improve our 
clients/students/friends lives WITHOUT medicine.

   I get tired of going into work and being asked to use psychodrama to help 
children with their anger...which means teaching them not to explode but to 
ask/talk nicely....when talking nicely has not worked for them; when they 
are asking "nicely" of addicted parents or parents who have to work two jobs 
to pay the rent or parents who are keeping them inside the apartment all the 
time because there is too much danger on the streets...etc, etc... And we 
give the children medicine to 'calm them down." Isn't this what the Russians 
were accused of doing to dissenters?

  I am ranting. Obviously I do know that for some of the kids with whom I 
work medicine is making the difference between allowing them normal lives 
and living in  a residence among other disturbed kids. But you get the 
point...I think Anath is correct about helping people learn to tolerate some 
level of despair/depression/anger as long as it doesn't cause the level of 
inaction that won't lead to change.

Rebecca


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Adam Blatner" <adam at blatner.com>
To: <list at grouptalkweb.org>
Sent: Sunday, September 09, 2007 9:47 AM
Subject: sociatry822


> this also got blocked, so sending again:
>  Hi Anath Garber in New York,    I half agree with you, and half disagree:
>  You say,  "I think despair is "good"! If more people will  take less 
> prozac and  accept
> that their despair, depression  may have something to do with reality: 
> working hard to
> consume ever more, being defined by  "net worth",  disregarding how their 
> behaviour
> affects others,the enviornment, etc , perhaps there would be a chance for 
> each of us to
> become a therapeutic agent to another, consume more love and compassion, 
> less fuel
> (especially if the former will come with no fees attached...)"
>    Adam:
>   1. I don't think SRI's like Prozac are being used to cope with 
> environmental stresses,
> but more, a biological depression coming from demoralization at many 
> personal as well as
> cultural levels. Stopping their use will most certainly NOT help things. 
> See Peter
> Kramer's book, "Against Depression."
>    2. You are again repeating what I consider to be magical thinking: The 
> old saw (which
> is just a tiny bit true) that pain makes man think. That's as foolish as 
> "no pain no
> gain." The grain of truth is that there is a measure of discomfort in 
> thinking, and a
> measure of discomfort in motivating thinking, but it cannot be too 
> general, too vague.
>        My approach is not to use the negative reinforcement of fear and 
> guilt, but rather
> the positive reinforcement that comes when people are empowered, helped 
> not only to think,
> but to be rewarded for thinking. This involves among other things getting 
> improvisation,
> spontaneity, some of the arts (done the right way---they can be done 
> badly, too!)-- into
> education, sociodrama, critical thinking... instead of just giving back 
> "right" answers on
> tests.  Plus many other approaches.
>        Certainly I agree that consumerism and other factors are in the 
> long run
> self-defeating. Confrontation without knowing what to do differently, or 
> knowing how to do
> it or think about it more creatively, only increases the desire to 
> retreat.
>     I keep this discussion up in hope that others will also join in. It's 
> a good
> question---what tactics should we use. Warmly, Adam
>
>
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