"Real" Community vs Therapy: How the New Human can Thrive

[Eric N. Best, Ph.D.]

The Mariposa Group  Newsletter

Evolving Enlightenment via "Real" Community

"Real" Community vs Therapy:  How the New Human can Thrive

Hello All,

        It has been some time since the last MG Newsltr was put out.  And there are some big changes a foot. Part of this is deeply personal for me - my mohter passed away on April 9th at the age of 98.  Almost 99.  She had chronic heart disease.  It was long, slow downhill process.  Increasing amounts of immobility, pain & fluctuating discomfort at times.  No being able to get out of bed by herself. And in response to my questions at times of "How are you doing?" the reply would be "I just stared at the ceiling all day long."  It hurt... very much hurt.  In particular because there was really nothing I could do about it or for it.  She wouid drift off into sleep several times during the day.  And then at night often could not sleep.  "Jumpy legs."  Twitching  nerves here & there.
First one leg's ankle, then the other leg's knee.  No sleep.
        I found myself at times filled with Rage... rage against however this had come to be a way for a human to die.  Nothing I would think  of could justify such a death process.  The entire process likely was about 2 years, with the last 4 or 5 months being am increasing living hell for her.  She wanted to die and couldn't.
        Finally the day did come.  The attendant called me and I arrived perhaps 10 minutes after my mother had passed.  Quickly doubled checked for breath and pulse.  None.  With my hands above her body very slightly (yes, I can sense 'energy'), I sought for any lingering 'vital' energy.  There was none.  So much change started to into being for me then.  A major shift point in my life yes... and more than that.  A doubling down on my personal striving to bring more contribution to the world.  To bring more "Love & Truth" into existence.  More on this in an upcoming MgNewsltr very soon and  how it can benefit you.

        But for now, the TRUTH is that our culture is failing us.  And even 'conventional' news outlets, like The New York Times Magazine piece on the  questioning of value of "Therapy" below,  are coming forth with more and more revealing pieces of the falling apart bits and pieces. You just can not hide the 'rotten' parts of an apple for so long before the rot consumes the entire fruit.

        Psychotherapy at one point in our history was shameful and to be hidden.  Indicative of "Something wrong with me."  Then it moved into being almost classy and indicative of some increasing personal worth.  People would talk almost proudly about being in therapy and at times become really excited about some "new" therapy which seemed to promise  so much more than the previous ones.  Now read the Time's piece on therapy... and see what really works.. or doesn't.   [Spoiler Alert:  Therapy never really completely works ! ]

Good morning. The New York Times Magazine’s issue this week focuses on therapy.

Mixed results Millions of Americans go to talk therapy. But does it work? It’s a surprisingly difficult question to answer. Talk therapy does produce great benefits for some people, but not for everyone, so it might not work for you, my colleague Susan Dominus wrote for The New York Times Magazine’s therapy issue, published this week. Researchers were able to reach that conclusion only relatively recently. Since the days of Sigmund Freud, the field of psychotherapy has been resistant, even hostile, to evaluating its methods through empirical studies. “At my graduation from psychoanalytic training, a supervising analyst said to me, ‘Your analysis will cure you of the need to do research,’” Andrew Gerber, the president of a psychiatric treatment center in Connecticut, told The Times. That resistance has waned in the past few decades, leading to hundreds of clinical trials. The results have been mixed. Some studies have found that therapy has a higher chance of helping than not. Other research has shown more limited results, suggesting that therapy helps some patients but not many or even most. Why? It likely comes down to individual preferences. A therapist or type of therapy that works for one person might not align with someone else’s personality or problems. So a study looking at whether one kind of therapy works will likely produce limited results, no matter how effective that therapy is for certain individuals. And for some, talk therapy might never be the right match over other kinds of help, like medication. Some experts have drawn a disappointing conclusion. “Maybe we have reached the limit of what you can do by talking to somebody,” David Tolin, the director of another treatment center in Connecticut, said. “Maybe it’s only going to get so good.” Others are now trying to harness the evidence to improve talk therapy and to find ways to connect patients to the type of therapy that would work best for them. Speaking to the researcher Timothy Anderson, Susan voiced her own frustrations about the murky evidence: I had perhaps — as a longtime consumer of therapy in search of reassurance — hit my limit with the disputes among the various clinicians and researchers, the caveats and the debates over methodology. “The research seems very … baggy,” I said, not bothering to hide my frustration. “It’s not very satisfying.” I could practically hear a smile on the other end of the phone. “Well, thank you,” Anderson said. “That’s what makes this research so interesting. That there are no simple answers, right?” Read Susan’s cover story here for more details on the evidence for different kinds of therapy and how therapists are trying to improve. Illustration by Dadu Shin

Therapy never really completely works !

        Reason?  It can't when the therapist and the client are both embedded in a corrupt, life-negative system !  Imagine the very very best psychotherapist you could find today.  Great intelligence.  Great education, training and long time practicing so skill is really present..  High personal integrity.  Tremendous empathy and skill / insight ability of knowing when and how to apply the empathy, skill, high intuition, etc. etc to and for the client.  Now transport this great therapist back in time to "treat" a 1844 slave in Alabama on some plantation.  Because of the 'client' being a slave and entirely embedded in a slave culture, the best the great therapist might be able to do, would be to teach/coach the slave some small coping skills to the major challenge of the slave's life. Namely... the person... s/he ... was a slave and there was nothing the therapist (or likely the enslaved person) could do about it.


A similar review in our culture from not so long a time ago as slavery:
        In the 1960's & 70's, psychologists and other therapists came across an interesting insight.  They would have "problem" children referred to them for therapy by the police, teachers, or parents.  The child in "acting out" some problem would be brought in to the therapist to be "fixed".  In working with the psychologist (particularly if the child was removed from his/her home environment during this time), very often there would be rapid improvement.  Now of course the ''fixed" child would be returned home with high praise and expectation, only to find that often in short order he or she would be brought back in with problems again.
        The psychologists discovered the problem most often was not with the kid, but with the kid's family and the environment the family had created.  It was part of the birth source of Family Therapy.

"In a time of drastic change it is the learners who inherit the future. The learned usually find themselves equipped to live in a world that no longer exists."

 

         Yes, we are in a time of drastic change.  Isolation.  Relationship stability going to hell in a  hand basket for so many.  Crazy politics and literally crazy politicians somehow almost thriving one the energy released chaotically from the fear and confusion.  The dropping away of old approximate standards of safety & security.  Like 'therapy' was supposed (by some) to one.  Increasing slavery in a financial system that encourages debt.

This is really 'therapy' in a time of isolation !!??


.

• U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy has published an advisory on the growing epidemic of loneliness and social isolation
• 
  
• Between 2003 and 2020, the time the average American spent with friends decreased by two-thirds, time spent in social engagements dropped by one-third, and time spent in isolation rose by 17%
• 
  
• People who feel socially disconnected experience higher rates of depression, anxiety, drug and alcohol abuse and suicide. Being socially disconnected also impacts your mortality similarly to smoking up to 15 cigarettes a day, and the mortality risk rises even higher with obesity and inactivity

Wealth Inequality   Top 1%
          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPKKQnijnsM

Where are you honestly?  Are you even close to the top 1%?
<==  And if you do a 6 minute view of the research done a top Harvard
Business University Professor, do you really think your future will
look brighter?  By yourself ... in increasing isolation as relationships fail (yet again), people divorce or die, job change or disappear ??




"In a time of drastic change it is the learners who inherit the future."
        The challenge:  Can we... can you, can I, and at least several of our loving close friends..
LEARN quickly enough and develop the skills to lovingly and successfully CHANGE
enough, such that our lives can becomes "cups" that overflow with happiness & safety?

The Mariposa Group is such a place where this can be done !!

   

A Consciously Created Community for "New Humans"
  Be part of a community of people who are moving beyond Fear, Scarcity, and Competition
into an environment based upon "TRUTH & LOVE".
Accelerate your own Personal Happiness & Joy,
while also contributing to the world.

"Real" Community

"Creating a Culture that works"

In A Very Natural / Nature Based Environment !!

True Financial Security, Deep Interpersonal Friendship & Comfort,
A Pleasing Inquiry into living Life fully, Sustainably, Psychologically Healthy & Successfully
done right now, here on earth...  with Fun & Play !
I invite you to explore this with us.

A Path to take you from an emptiness
that can’t be filled, to a
fullness that can’t be contained

The Mariposa Group

... 

Once we learn to live together, we cannot live alone.
Real community.... our natural 'social ecology' !!

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