Today in the UK, students will be collecting their A-level results. Every year this prompts a slew of media coverage as excited 18-year-olds opening their envelopes to great delight.
Of course, we never see or hear coverage of those young people who are less excited, or even disappointed. This is held from us - rightly, perhaps, to save them from embarrassing exposure, but also perhaps to shield us from the uncomfortable truth that normal people also don't get 'A-star' grades.
There is also media focus on the transition between A-levels and the University system. The effect is to create and perpetuate a myth that A-levels naturally lead to University. I have been wondering about this today. How have we created a rite of passage that narrows so much at the completion of formal schooling?
It occurs to me that the link has been artificially fortified, perhaps for political reasons, since people in higher education do not place a burden on employment statistics - and of course, higher education itself has become a growth industry with fee-paying customers.
The flip side? It creates a cultural script, and sometimes a family script, which then falls upon the young person to fulfill. What happens, then, if a young person isn't ready, academically or personally, for University?
An impasse can be created - one part of the personality says "I want (need) to go to University, as that's what is supposed to happen to me". Another part - the inner, maybe quieter voice - says "I can't," , or "I don't want to".
Experience and T.A theory tells us that when people find themselves in conflict with their cultural or familial script, they can experience a deep sense of shame, as if something is wrong with them. The inner critic - sometimes called the "Pig" Parent - is the engine of this feeling of shame.
I remember coming face-to-face with this cultural and institutional script, when I went back to my school to collect my results. I knew I hadn't done as well as I had hoped; my two years had been dogged by glandular fever and depression. I knew my results had suffered. So it wasn't a surprise when the face of my biology teacher dropped, as I walked up to collect my envelope. He conveyed a kind of collective disappointment with his expression and his words. But I was determined that he wouldn't make me feel ashamed, as I had done already many times in that two-year period.
I made a quip about John Major (the Prime Minister at the time) who had 'only' 5 O-levels, and I observed that it seemed to be enough to get him along in life. I willed a smile to my face, turned, and left... and haven't been back since.
My thoughts today are with the happy ones, yes. The ones who have their future mapped out nicely. Great!
But my thoughts are also with those whose maps aren't so clear - just as mine wasn't. They will tread a different path, but it may be better - more autonomous - for them. The road less travelled, perhaps.
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Infrequent musings and general comments on life, from the perspective of a UK psychotherapist.
Thursday, 15 August 2013
Friday, 7 June 2013
The Other Side of the Wafer-Thin Barrier
This week, SOAP (Speak Out Against Psychiatry) held a demonstration at the Institute of Psychiatry in London. It follows a long period of widespread criticism of the DSM and its political influence.
I'm with the SOAP people in spirit, because I think someone needs to hold up a mirror to psychiatry, and I hope that psychiatry will be smart enough to look earnestly at itself.
I've written a little about this (see here and here) but I am by no means the most vocal critic or the most prolific writer on the DSM5 and all its problems. A good distillation of the issues, which is kept up-to-date with current material, can be found on the Beyond Meds blog - the DSM update page is here.
The SOAP web page for this event is well worth a read. There, they explain their position that human suffering is more than a medical issue, and so we should not rely upon a medical treatment for wider problems. Normal human experiences, they say, are being medicalized which results in people being labelled.
I agree, and have agreed for some time. The DSM5 threatens to turn grief into a disorder, and child tantrums into a disorder. This is a dangerous form of 'mission creep'.
My instinctive opposition to diagnostic labelling comes, I think, from what I have learned in my training and experience as a psychotherapist. I have also had some experience of the mechanisms of psychiatry and psychopharmacology, which lead me to believe that both practices have departed significantly from what I hold to be the work of healing mental illnesses.
An article shared on Twitter recently notes that "Psychiatry was not - on Freud's watch - to be swallowed by medicine". Perhaps Freud intended that psychoanalysis be practiced by people who did not go through the sheep-dipping of medical training, and who could connect in a different way to their 'patients' as a result. Clearly, Freud knew that looking at people through a medical lens could be an inherently limited approach.
It's interesting to note the boundaries getting fuzzy here, between psychiatry (which is a branch of medicine) and psychotherapy. It's true that some psychiatrists are also trained psychotherapists who have undertaken extensive personal therapy themselves. But it's true too that many psychiatrists are just doctors. Some of these doctors are working on the assumption that their medical degree and psychiatric training entitles them to carry out psychotherapeutic enterprises under the banner of psychiatry. They also work on the assumption that their medical training (and with this I include the social, cultural, and heirarchical effects of medical and psychiatric training) will not somehow infiltrate the relationship, and the treatment that they offer. As if the person that we are, and the experiences we have, can somehow be irrelevant once we are in the room with a patient.
No.
The article also quotes Robert Spitzer, who headed the development of DSM-III. In a hugely telling remark, he is reported to have said: "..looks very scientific..... It looks like they must know something". For me, this is symbolic of the eternal struggle of medicine as a science - to name, to understand, and thus to defend against the impossible anxiety of NOT knowing.
"The medical model is a wafer-thin barrier against uncertainty" - Irvin Yalom
So, I question psychiatry as it's practiced today because of its over-emphasis on naming, and understanding stuff - much of which (like grief, tantrums, and the stress of someone's death) is actually the stuff of LIFE and not really there to be understood through a medical model.
I want to be prepared to sit on the other side of that barrier, where there is chaos, confusion, or hurt, and allow that to be the stuff. Because that's what I believe people want and need from soul-healing.
Here's the article, by the way
.
I'm with the SOAP people in spirit, because I think someone needs to hold up a mirror to psychiatry, and I hope that psychiatry will be smart enough to look earnestly at itself.
I've written a little about this (see here and here) but I am by no means the most vocal critic or the most prolific writer on the DSM5 and all its problems. A good distillation of the issues, which is kept up-to-date with current material, can be found on the Beyond Meds blog - the DSM update page is here.
The SOAP web page for this event is well worth a read. There, they explain their position that human suffering is more than a medical issue, and so we should not rely upon a medical treatment for wider problems. Normal human experiences, they say, are being medicalized which results in people being labelled.
I agree, and have agreed for some time. The DSM5 threatens to turn grief into a disorder, and child tantrums into a disorder. This is a dangerous form of 'mission creep'.
My instinctive opposition to diagnostic labelling comes, I think, from what I have learned in my training and experience as a psychotherapist. I have also had some experience of the mechanisms of psychiatry and psychopharmacology, which lead me to believe that both practices have departed significantly from what I hold to be the work of healing mental illnesses.
An article shared on Twitter recently notes that "Psychiatry was not - on Freud's watch - to be swallowed by medicine". Perhaps Freud intended that psychoanalysis be practiced by people who did not go through the sheep-dipping of medical training, and who could connect in a different way to their 'patients' as a result. Clearly, Freud knew that looking at people through a medical lens could be an inherently limited approach.
It's interesting to note the boundaries getting fuzzy here, between psychiatry (which is a branch of medicine) and psychotherapy. It's true that some psychiatrists are also trained psychotherapists who have undertaken extensive personal therapy themselves. But it's true too that many psychiatrists are just doctors. Some of these doctors are working on the assumption that their medical degree and psychiatric training entitles them to carry out psychotherapeutic enterprises under the banner of psychiatry. They also work on the assumption that their medical training (and with this I include the social, cultural, and heirarchical effects of medical and psychiatric training) will not somehow infiltrate the relationship, and the treatment that they offer. As if the person that we are, and the experiences we have, can somehow be irrelevant once we are in the room with a patient.
No.
The article also quotes Robert Spitzer, who headed the development of DSM-III. In a hugely telling remark, he is reported to have said: "..looks very scientific..... It looks like they must know something". For me, this is symbolic of the eternal struggle of medicine as a science - to name, to understand, and thus to defend against the impossible anxiety of NOT knowing.
"The medical model is a wafer-thin barrier against uncertainty" - Irvin Yalom
So, I question psychiatry as it's practiced today because of its over-emphasis on naming, and understanding stuff - much of which (like grief, tantrums, and the stress of someone's death) is actually the stuff of LIFE and not really there to be understood through a medical model.
I want to be prepared to sit on the other side of that barrier, where there is chaos, confusion, or hurt, and allow that to be the stuff. Because that's what I believe people want and need from soul-healing.
Here's the article, by the way
.
Monday, 27 May 2013
I'm featured in the Colchester Gazette
This week I was interviewed by the Colchester Gazette, for a feature on people & their work.
I explained how & why I came into psychotherapy as a job (actually a vocation), and what it's like to be a psychotherapist.
It also gives a good sense of how I view the role of ongoing therapy; during training and beyond. Not everyone in the 'trade' is with me on this one, but I am happy that my view is fairly represented.
It's not the best photograph of me, but at least it gives the right representation - I'm ready to listen!
Read the article here
.
I explained how & why I came into psychotherapy as a job (actually a vocation), and what it's like to be a psychotherapist.
It also gives a good sense of how I view the role of ongoing therapy; during training and beyond. Not everyone in the 'trade' is with me on this one, but I am happy that my view is fairly represented.
It's not the best photograph of me, but at least it gives the right representation - I'm ready to listen!
Read the article here
.
Tuesday, 7 May 2013
Guest Blog for Colchester Circle
This week I am pleased to be working in partnership with Colchester's lifestyle magazine, the Colchester Circle.
I have written a post, aimed mainly at people in a relationship who might be thinking about what's good (and what's not so good) about it.
Click here to go the site and have a read!
.
I have written a post, aimed mainly at people in a relationship who might be thinking about what's good (and what's not so good) about it.
Click here to go the site and have a read!
.
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