Quote:
Originally Posted by BudFox
Few thoughts about neuro-plasticity:
- Therapists imply in a vague way they can “use” NP to heal people. In other words they will engineer a healing relationship. The client must look the other way, when confronted with the possibility that their healing is supposed to come from the simulated emotions of the therapist.
- They also imply they can use NP in a controlled way. NP is a two way street. What can help can also harm. Psych biz avoids discussing that. At best, the therapist is experimenting in uncontrolled fashion with the client’s brain health.
- All social interactions involve power dynamics and social status that affect brain plasticity. Therapy, in my view, is heavily loaded in favor of therapist power and client powerlessness. The client faces an uphill battle, having entered into a pre-ordained hierachy. Seems more likely to recapitulate past social defeats than counter them.
- I can’t imagine any greater threat to brain health with respect to social status, than ostracization or rejection in the context of a power-driven and symbolic realtionship. And since therapy clients can easily be terminated if they don't conform, seems inordinately risky.
- Clients can experience loss of control once feelings of dependency set in. Loss of control, in relationships or in healthcare, correlates with higher stress levels, and increased stress correlates with deteriorating health and breakdown of the physical body (including the brain).
- The healthiest thing for me was to get away from an infantilizing guru-disciple, mommy-baby, superior-inferior arrangement and take back control. Taking back power and control is a reliable predictor of improved brain health.
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This thread has been about the most insightful conversation I've ever heard regarding the downside - and darkside - of therapy. I thank you for leading this discussion and for your cogent perspective. You're highlighting of the imbalance of power dynamics is edifying.
I've long been enthused about peer support among consumers of psych services, and I've wished there were more of it around. Your analysis of relative power imbalance helps me understand why peer support works differently. I was in a partial hospitalization that benefitted me more than had years of therapy. I give credit for that to my peers in the program. I've long wished that there were something like AA for persons with psych diagnoses. I guess that's what PsychCentral is, sort of, but it has the limitation of being an online venue. Someone above mentioned that there is "money to be made" by whoever could come up with an effective alternative paradigm for therapy. I suggest that might entail a bigger role for peer on peer participation. Though I think you almost have to get the so-called professionals out of the way, for a fellowship of consumers to evolve. I've been to meetings of the Depression Bipolar Support Alliance in the distant past and didn't find it quite what I was hoping for.
I realize criticism can be, and has been, made of the "12 Step" model. But it did a good job of upending the notion that possession of medical degrees somehow equipped doctors to turn around the lives of alcohol abusers. I think we need a similar paradigm shift in how we think about what persons with issues like mood and personality disorders can do to repair their damaged lives. "Getting treatment," IMHO, is grotesquely over-rated. Attendees at 12 step meetings aren't there to "get treatment." They may be getting some medical treatment of substance abuse, as an adjunct to their program of recovery, but their recovery isn't placed mainly in the hands of people with letters after their names. Maybe we with psych issues need to be thinking along the same lines.
BudFox - you appropriately lampooned, above, the notion that colleges can turn out professionals qualifed to be "life coaches." Claiming to have that expertise does indeed denote having "delusions of grandeur." Very aptly put. No doubt, you've seen the print advertisements that these folks out, wherein they list the issues they claim competence in treating. A single therapist's list may include "depression, anxiety, marital breakdown, social anxiety, parenting challenges, substance abuse, sexual concerns, career management, post trauma difficulties, gender identity dysphoria, compulsive gambling, bereavement and quest for spiritual meaning." Talk about range. We should have a few of these folks join up with Jared Kushner and get that Middle East thing straughtened out.
Yet - the preposterousness of what therapy purports to do goes barely noticed. We in the psych services consuming population have to accept part of the responsibility for this. We - just about all of us, at one time or another - have wanted to believe in this fraud. I drank my share of the Kool-Aid.
Getting back to power: the wanting to hold therapists more accountable is something I endorse. They get away with spinning wheels and getting nowhere, or worse (by harming people,) because they are just about immune from having any accountability whatsoever to anyone, or anything. You sit in that office and get handed whatever that T decides to hand you. Then what recourse do you have? Well, you can stop going there. That's about it. Something's wrong with this picture.