sociatry822

Sun Sep 9 11:47:39 CDT 2007

Did anyone mention PRISONS? Looked at in one way, they are our largest mental suppression hospitals which are making a lot of money for some folks. 
It's all part of the same message. Blessings, Bud

BARNETT WEISS <budweiss at verizon.net> wrote: The "Mentally ill" rebels make us all uncomfortable. They are the members of the community who are still in touch deeply and unbearably with the inequities played out through their families and schools for the main part. If those voices were paid attention to by the larger society rather than suppressed, the over all system of oppression would shift, and we would be living in a paradise. The film Sicko misses this altogether though it certainly points to the inequities in the present medical and to some extent educational areas. 

For me some of those paradises are basically the ones that some indigenous people have continued to maintain.  There are fewer and fewer of them as they all respond to the cultures that exist around them impacting on them constantly especially in this day and age when the globe has shrunken so due to technology.

In part, I truly believe that our basic oligarchical "civilization" as it is ( I always loved the quote from Ghandi  when asked what he thought of civilization and he answered," I think it would be a good idea") cannot tolerate the continued existence of indigenous peoples in tact cultures as these threaten us as does any successful country which turns to correcting the inequities that have existed. 
We continue to live lives based on an assumption of scarcity. Outwardly this appears to be a truism, inwardly it is an impossibility. Some of the wisest persons who have ever lived on this planet said that the real dark ages would come when Iron horses flew.  Then people would be so totally outwardly occupied with the seeming magic of their hands that they would become totally blind to their inner resources and being. In that time the darkness would become totally intolerable to enough people that a critical mass would be achieved and inner vision would begin to reappear and be supported. 

Racism and sexism are tremendous support vehicles for the maintainence of a blinded  societies that depend on deep scarcities to maintain their hierarchical existence.  Dr. Joy Degruy Leary in her work Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome points out as well as anyone how the victim continues to promulgate their status while the "concerned" privileged class continues to maintain their unwillingness to do what really needs to be done to reverse the trends and is usually quite unaware of how they maintain it even when they appear caring in their response to the inequities. Tim Wise is the best at pointing out how the privileged class does this and what the cost is to them which is essential if any change is to be adopted by those who are privileged. 

The work of these two along with Sociometry and Sociatry brought through to us from J.L Moreno and the Constellation work derived from Hellinger need to be taught in the primary, through high schools and colleges and universities across this world if change is to come before an ultimate disaster. 

I  think that is in sync with what Ed has been wanting us to look at in the work he has been doing and setting up in the seminars he has sponsored recently. 

Finally, as to the use of drugs (medications) for children or adults, it is a compromise of the most difficult type since it maintains the myth that their behavior stems only from within or at most from their families usually also leading to the notion of genetic predisposition. It totally compromises their rebellion's message to the larger group and society. I am not at all clear about what to do about this, though I have stood up respectfully objecting and pointing out the research in terms of alternatives and the larger picture and done my best at various gatherings and so many grand rounds at various institutions with which I have become affiliated. I have in fact been banned from some.  Legally, if I do not recommend a very depressed individual to a psychiatrist for medication ( drug ) intervention, I am  liable. Fortunately, I do have a somewhat decent choice at times in recommending Schachter, though most will not seek him out and most cannot afford him. 

So what to do on that front seems to be a real sticking point. I have run into it with my own son and others close to me. 

My 2 cents worth.  Be well, Bud

georgia rigg <georgiaarigg at yahoo.com> wrote: Wow, Rebecca!  So very well said!  Georgia Rigg
--- HV Psychodrama  wrote:

> 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" 
> To: 

> 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
> >
> >
> > Grouptalk mailing list
> > List at grouptalkweb.org
> >
>
http://grouptalkweb.org/mailman/listinfo/list_grouptalkweb.org
> > 
> 
> 
> 
> Grouptalk mailing  list
> List at grouptalkweb.org
>
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> 

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