Current readings

[James T. Hansen]

Does anyone have any thoughts about the current readings?  If you have time, I included an interesting article in the recommended readings: Szasz - "The case against suicide prevention"

James T. Hansen, Ph.D.
Professor

Coordinator, Mental Health Specialization
Oakland University
Department of Counseling
450E Pawley Hall
Rochester, MI 48309

James T. Hansen website

 

 

Phone: (248) 370-3071

Email: jtha...@oakland.edu

[Maria Mazurova]

Yes, very briefly as I have just started them earlier today (and it is convenient in this case to clarify exactly what the author may have been saying - because it's you!)

The part about "the issue of human knowing would seem to be a prerequisite to all other foundational assumptions of the counseling enterprise" and "if people, by nature, are not capable of coming to know one another, meeting for regular conversations would be a completely pointless endeavor." - do you believe this to be true?

While I do understand this in some very fundamental way as it pertains to our field, I also wonder whether that is truly accurate. As we discussed in class, maybe we CAN'T ever truly know someone, but aside from even those nuances and technicalities that delve into theoretical depths and away from practical applications, is this really true?

Can't we, and don't we, experience change when someone doesn't know us at all? The very example you mentioned in class, about a person who sees children in need in another country, decides to help, is moved in a deep and altruistic level...Well, what if I as the therapist, instead of asking anything about the client when they came in initially, told them a similar type of story about the inspirational and deeply moving work that people do in other countries for children? I don't even have to ask the client a single questions but I may have changed their life perspective forever by telling them a story (as opposed to them seeing this on television). Can't a person gain more life changing revelations from a motivational poster hanging in a therapist's practice than from the hour of therapy itself?

What if (and I'm not sure I believe this 100% - then again I don't believe anything 100%), our success in counseling has little to do with connection to the client or "knowing" the client and more to do with our sales skills, how confident and effective we can be in selling our client a new point of view, having them embrace and ingrain that point of view, and hence, reshape their lives accordingly? What if we could just be really good at convincing others in something we feel would be more beneficial for them to believe in?

This may be more in line with motivational speaking, narrative therapy, or even psychoanalysis. Though the new points of view I would likely offer may not involve inner demons that you can never get rid of that battle inside of you and you must tame, but more to do with encouraging a person to see an entirely new, at times contradictory, yet arguably more productive, perspective. Because isn't the point really to address and reshape or change an issue that a person came to see us for? And not just get to "know it" better?

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[James T. Hansen]

Hi Maria:

Excellent points!  You're right - I no longer think the same way as I did when I wrote these articles.  You raise some great points, many of which anticipate topics that we will be discussing later in the semester.  I look forward to hearing you elaborate your point of view in the class.

Anyone else have any thoughts about the readings?

James T. Hansen, Ph.D.
Professor

Coordinator, Mental Health Specialization
Oakland University
Department of Counseling
450E Pawley Hall
Rochester, MI 48309

James T. Hansen website

 

 

Phone: (248) 370-3071

Email: jtha...@oakland.edu

[Kurt Kirkpatrick]

I have yet to read this article, but one thing that came to mind reading Maria's post. I think people do not genuinely act completely altruistically, ever. There is always some amount if self fulfillment and "feel-goodness" to doing something good for someone else, perhaps often all of it, not just some amount. Let alone the ability to gloat about how big if a check one wrote to a charity or showing friends the pictures of the child they're sponsoring in Africa. Maybe the Dr Hansen presented here is more about the pointlessness being in the dynamic of the relationship, but not about the feelings of each individual on his or her own. This feel good experience is also evident when we engage with a friend. Is this due to some sort of personal fulfillment or does it really have to do with the relationship and "knowing" another? An interesting question in my opinion. 

Sent from my iPhone

[Justin Fittonneville]

Kurt, I have to agree with that people do not genuinely act completely altruistic.  The way I look at it is, if it is possible to do a selfless good deed, then it is possible for people to act that way, but I have yet to find a selfless good deed, because as Kurt said, there always comes some self-fulfillment from it.  If anyone can think of one, please post it, because I have looked and thought of this before and I truly do not think it is possible, even if the motives are pure, you still end up feeling good about what you have done.

[Jeanine Gruschow]

Interesting thread.  I just started reading.  However, I wonder, even if a person experiences self-fulfillment from doing an selfless deed, does that change the perceived value of the deed? and to whom and why? and is that negative?

Jeanine

[Justin Fittonneville]

Interesting question Jeanine, I don't think it changes the value of the perceived deed, I think that it just becomes a mutually beneficial deed then, meaning both parties then benefit from it and feel good about it.  At least that is my perception of it.

[Jeanine Gruschow]

Not a lot of chatter, I'm still reading and writing but I thought I would put out a little of my thought process.  Not particularly academic, nor really insightful.

Object Relations--life is a play with scripted roles we learned in childhood.  No drama is really new, only newly improvised.  This is my interpretation of object relations and again I think that this concept is so culturally ingrained, it is difficult to pull it apart separately in our lives.  However, I see an interesting connection between humanism’s need to help those who are marginalized and object relations goal of “restoration of impaired”....both humanism and object relations rely on the unspoken power structure of defining “impaired” and “marginalized”.  Inherently, both theories are defining a correct truth or experience and an incorrect one….

Object Relations--life is a play with scripted roles we learned in childhood.  No drama is really new, only newly improvised.  This is my interpretation of object relations and again I think that this concept is so culturally ingrained, it is difficult to pull it apart separately in our lives.  However, I see an interesting connection between humanism’s need to help those who are marginalized and object relations goal of “restoration of impaired”....both humanism and object relations rely on the unspoken power structure of defining “impaired” and “marginalized”.  Inherently, both theories are defining a correct truth or experience and an incorrect one…

Jeanine

[Jeanine Gruschow]

somehow the same paragraph sent twice, my second is as follows:

Perhaps the unbridled optimism of Humanism over decades relegated the parts of subjective humanistic identity that are incongruent; darker thoughts, drives, moods etc into a shared cultural unconscious that is reminiscent of Freudian Psychoanalysis.  This is our cultural unconscious, we talk about being dependent, anal retentive, bi-polar as if this is all a joke .  We all feel it lurking under our chipper Facebook posts….very rarely does someone post on their facebook site that they woke up and felt intense anger toward their mother, spouse, child, self….but we all do!

Perhaps there is no paper and pencil theoretical integration of psychoanalysis and humanism.  Using metaphor, psychoanalytic theory is cultural unconscious and humanism is the super ego then the counselor becomes the ego...a mediating figure between the two?

[mkauffman82]

Jeannie I agree with your last statement hole heartily......It is as if the counselor is the ego.  The counselors job imo is to listen yet at times, I know some may disagree, but the client is looking for not necessarily validation or an answer from the counselor, but for someone to help control their id and superego.  I look at it as the angel and devil on ones shoulders whispering back and forth, both have their pro's, but I need someone to help place all my information out on the table and then I can decide with the counselors help what is best for me as the client. 

On a side note, I disagree when it comes to helping or doing random acts of kindness, it was mentioned above we always do something so we get back something in return. Why do we volunteer, that is if you have?  Yes, you get a sense of self gratification, so what?  We are still providing a service that is helping others and I get the sense from the board, correctly me if I am wrong, but is that a bad thing?  Maybe you volunteer or contribute to the community because your environment says its the right thing to do?  Maybe you don't because the environment you living says its not your problem.  Either way, I do believe we do acts of kindness simply because we are good people.

I just told a co-worker that people suck! My exactly words, "people suck" and are only looking out for themselves.  Now I know I am contradicting what I just wrote, but deep down I feel we are good people and do random acts of kindness, the world is ugly, just go on yahoo and read the headlines its depressing.  Has anyone given money to the salvation army during the holidays?  If so why?  What are you getting out of it?  Yes, $1.00 or whatever it maybe may not be much to some of us, but it adds up in the long run. Is that feeling of pride, satisfaction so great that you give that money just for feeling you have that lasts maybe for two minutes???  Is there a time in anyone's life they can think of where they did do something that didn't benefit them, they just did it to be kind and received nothing in return; maybe one to five minutes of self-gratification???  If so can we really classify it under doing something that will benefit or further our career/future? Oh please feel free to rip this apart, trying to type it up before my boss sees it ha!

p.s. still finishing the readings. 

[Michelle Monforton]

Can't wait for tonight's discussion....I believe it is human nature TO be altruistic and life, people, situations and genetics distort that core. Any thoughts?

Michelle

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[Maria Mazurova]

I've rethought...or added thought to tonight's class. I still don't buy into the abnormal/normal and mental illness piece per say, I never truly have and there's no real convincing evidence for it (at least looking at a lack of consensus in diagnosis among clinicians but then that gets into medications, treatment plans, etc.) What if there "IS" such a thing as mental illness, at least as much as there are other types of illness (cancer etc.), but we just don't KNOW enough about it yet to call it anything else, to truly categorize it or define it? Perhaps it is our limited knowledge of the brain, due to current limited technologies and tools that prevent us from knowing more, that keeps us so clueless about all this. It just seems to me that with the advances made in the last several decades, and technology growing still, there is too much left undiscovered to make these rigid distinctions between "science" and mental health care. I still fantasize of mind reading and dream recording machines of the future....

For example, even looking at "true" illnesses: cancer or HIV used to be thought of as a death sentence but now many people go on to live long, fulfilling lives after such news as treatment options have greatly expanded.

Perhaps as medicine advances, so will our knowledge of the brain, and so will mental health care. Maybe it will even go further than that, perhaps towards some sort of unifying theory that looks at both on a continuum, that physical manifestations of symptoms in the body can emanate from, say, thoughts, emotions, actions, and only then physical symptoms arise. Maybe this is more in line with current wellness theories and practices, and if we look at certain "imbalances" as something that could later turn into something more debilitating, then perhaps the best kind of medicine is preventative medicine, which would then have it's implications for billing and the DSM...

Or maybe this is my mind seeking to find something optimistic and hopeful after our classes =) I'm fine with that as a conscious resolution at this time.

[Michelle Monforton]

I agree with Maria on one pint-that we don't know enough about the mind yet,however, the problem lies with using a label that is offensive and derogatory. Some may say it is oppressive and abusive to force people into label boxes because society does not take tie time,nor has the inclination to really understand a persons experience. Medicalizing something so innately human and specific to people is doing no service for those suffering on a mental level-it just lines the pockets of pharmacautical companies, lawmakers, community agencies, suppliers of machines that scan and map the brain and all those other entities that claim to want to help. I am all for neuroscience as a tool to find a faster way to help my clents find relief from their suffering, butt my stigmatizing them with a label (illness) is doing them an injustice. I would never want someone to put my feelings, emotions and experiences in a dismissive, judgmental box, no matter what the potential benefit for the greater good may be. We are not going to have a push forward as a whole for ful lintegration of mental health care if we depersonalize our fellow humans. This begs the question...if antidepressants are a chemical lobotomy, is defining a persons mind a societal lobotomy?

[mkauffman82]

I guess I am the devil's advocate, first off, I respect both your views and opinions.  You both are very bright and are able to see different sides to topics I am more a less bias too! So thank you!  I do agree that "mental illness" as a whole needs to be further looked into, too much political influence involved, just likely anything else.  I had a psychologist tell me when I was 18 years old, now 31, that doctors used to draw a person's blood and examine it for depression.  If the blood appeared weak, then the person could possibly be suffering from depression.  According to her they stopped doing this in the late 90's due to cost!  Do I believe, honestly, no, never heard another doctor confirm this (Dr. Hansen, have you heard this?)  Anyways, when I was 18, OCD was becoming more mainstream, 20/20, Dateline, 60 Minutes were covering it, but yet it was still laughed at.  

I watched a few documentaries on it, and the prof. public mostly believed it was a form of schizophrenia.  My sister who is five years older and was experiencing OCD at as early of the age of 17.  I remember her locking herself in the bathroom, crying, and the sink was always running.  As a 12 year old, I figured girl issues, bf issues, etc.  I wasn't informed until I started noticing a few books in her room, one particular book was, "The Boy who couldn't Stop Washing."  It described everything my sister was going through, washing her hands till they were bleeding!  Hiding in her room and refusing to touch anything, unless it was hers!  She wouldn't even leave her bra/underwear, panties in the bathroom because she thought my older brother or myself would get an STD and she was a virgin (wow she may kill me for spilling this, lol but she is good today and does share her story).  She told me years later that doctors said it was nothing, she would grow out of it, its was schizophrenia, or she was bipolar and depressed.  

She would go to the library and read and read and the more research she did the more the sicker she got and her symptoms increased.  Now is this normal?  Well again, what is normal?  Personally someone locking themselves in their bedroom/bathroom, senior year of high school, on home coming court, dating the varsity captain of the football team in a small h.s., 4.0 GPA, has a bright future in front of her and to me it doesn't sound normal to me.  She should have been out having fun, getting in trouble like me :)  However, make a long story a little shorter, she got on the right medication, she finally found a doctor over a year later that explained it was OCD and she was prescribed I believe Paxil, and it worked!  So my question is, is this a mental illness?  Or was my sister just overreacting?  I don't care what your def. of mental illness is, but there has to be some underlying parts to this story that one would say yes she has an illness.  I could be wrong, but this is what sorta kick started me into my own research.  If this doesn't work, I will be more than happy to share my stories with you.  It goes from self-inflecting to overdosing, but did I want to die?  Was I mentally ill or too scared to change my current lifestyle?  I believe it was both! Finally to end my rant, and again please please please don't agree with me just because its my sister!!!  I would love to hear what others think and possible explanations for her actions.  Dr. Hansen, correct me if I am wrong, but can't brain scans be done today and show areas of the brain that are affected by OCD, depression, bipolar, etc.  Again I saw these documentaries anywhere from 12 years ago to three years ago, research as mentioned keeps changing.  If we can look at an x-ray of the brain and find common similarities in those with a particular "diagnoses" then what do we call it?  Just an illness? or do we go a step further, continue the research and go "yes it is a mental illness based on the DSM or based on for example;  patient A has the symptoms those with other illnesses; depression, OCD, etc. have?"  Its a real slippery slope!  I do agree that the term "mental illness" is thrown around way too easily and too often!  But that's another subject at another time.
Thanks!! Have a great everyone!
Mark

Michelle

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[James T. Hansen]

Thank you, everyone, for your great contributions to this discussion!  The idea of "mental illness" is a very difficult issue - it is pervasive in the cultural, yet Szasz provides some compelling rationales for abandoning the concept entirely.  As I mentioned in class, the issue is far from being resolved in my own mind.

Mark - there used to be a blood test for depression in the 1980's - I forget what they were looking for, but it was supposed to be some kind of marker for depression.  This practice was abandoned because, ultimately, because it was proven not to work - it didn't reliably discriminate people with depression.  To this date, there are no biomarkers for anything in the DSM, except for the diagnoses that are outright organic.

As a reminder, I think that psychiatric drugs can help people - I know many people who are the better for taking them.  Here's the problems I have with psychiatric drugs, though: 1) they are prescribed to many people who do not need them or really benefit from them; 2) some classes don't work much better than a placebo, yet they are still highly promoted; 3) the mechanism by which they work is almost surely not the correction of chemical imbalances (there is zero evidence for this), yet this is the idea that is still promoted; 4) there is too much underhandedness and trickery on the part of the pharmaceutical companies - they deliberately make it difficult for the public to know the facts.

In the end, I think it is vitally important for mental health professionals to have this conversation about "mental illness" - I am glad we are having it, and I look forward to continued discussion.

James T. Hansen, Ph.D.
Professor

Coordinator, Mental Health Specialization
Oakland University
Department of Counseling
450E Pawley Hall
Rochester, MI 48309

James T. Hansen website

 

 

Phone: (248) 370-3071

Email: jtha...@oakland.edu

[Jeanine Gruschow]

Difficult all the way around.  Mark, your sister's history is thought provoking. As a teen I tried to commit suicide. At the time, in my mind it was a logical, practical decision. As I have gotten  older, I have been able to reflect on my mental state at that time. I can say that it was distinctly different from my usual cheerful self. At that time I was under considerable emotional stress. My thoughts were dramatically different for a period of 6-9 months. I received counseling but no medication. After having kids I had serious post partum depression. At one point I was on a SSRI ... Gained weight, slowed my brain to a crawl... Each time I have gone through this, my thoughts seem retrospectively altered. This may be what is described in literature as mental illness. I believe that there is a change in functioning. What mental health people call "spontaneous remission" can occur...however, it could just be how a healthy mind reacts to extraordinary stress.  I guess what I'm saying is that for some of us, we experience periods of altered mental functioning that are different from our normal functioning. My belief is that these periods are most likely normal reactions to emotional stress that are labeled as "mental illness", life difficulties etc. however, the longer we are in such a cycle, the more stuck our brains become. Perhaps medication helps some people become unstuck (placebo or otherwise)...

Jeanine

Sent from my iPhone

[Jeanine Gruschow]

Ok, up late reading and thinking…

My thoughts:  Nice to have another model, contextual to view counseling from.  I am probably more in tune with the contextual model.  I honestly think that had Freud not needed to prove that psychoanalysis was ‘scientific’ psychotherapy would have taken a very different track.  Again, I go back to the model of power and institutions.  The scientific model has been embraced by a power structure that purports to hold onto the real, observable truth.  Because this is the dominant cultural/societal model, other models do not get a lot of press.  It seems that the conundrum of humans as truth seekers is that we cannot agree on truth, however, we are organizationally compelled to impose a false majority of truth.  I am speaking not only of the counseling profession, but of the general structure of our culture and place in the world.  Personally, I have hold the belief that the U.S. as a country should in many international matters, mind our own business.  I understand that we do not because of physical resources such as oil.  Historically many truths have been debunked as new understandings come into vogue.  Perhaps such will happen with the medical model of psychotherapy,  the technical eclecticism model, and the contextual model.  But until then, I as a counselor will have to have a workable method of defining therapy in the medical culture in order to be paid.  I am not above allowing ‘truth’ to be defined by the DSM5 in order to be paid.  However, I will always be aware that to a large degree it is about a power structure and not about what is best for my clients and to that end I will be fiercely protective of my clients.

The effectiveness of counseling in my mind is more explainable through the contextual model of a good counselor/client rapport and the ability of the counselor to hone in on the theoretical model that jives with the client.  I do believe that science as we know it will eventually evolve either theoretically or mechanically to accept as equal ‘truth’ the effects of good therapy.

Jeanine

[James T. Hansen]

Any thoughts on the current readings?