From: Terry W. Colvin (fortean1@mindspring.com)
Date: Sat Aug 18 2001 - 10:32:23 MDT
John Stone wrote:
>
> For Soup and anyone else who is interested ... and you all should be .. here
> is a "paper" by a Saybrook (www.saybrook.org) "researcher". This is typical
> of the "thought" of Andrew Weil, Depac Chopra, Mehl-Madrona, and legions of
> other alt-med leaders out there.
>
> < http://www.sonoma.edu/psychology/os2db/kjsbook6.html >
Well, John, you do have a talent for finding logorrheic
hooey. But no, humanistic psychology has nothing really
to do with Weil or Deepak. Sartre, one of the founders of
the disorganized movement, & the very sweet Carl Rogers,
arguably its most talked about & imitated practitioner,
were not in the least new-agey. I have no doubt that you
can go on & on finding rants & raves that smell like
supports for this thing you or your friend have about Jung
& so on, & you can find screwball doctors that call them-
selves humanists or wolfmen, but events do have real histories
& genuine connections.
Let me get back to the real world:
Paul (not his real name) was 18 when brought to my
office by his parents. He had quit talking to them
some time before, & in fact was speaking to only
one person, another young man who had recently
successfully castrated himself with a razor blade.
The family was upper middle class, & educated.
Despite his visible, constant & bone cracking
anxiety, Paul was getting excellent grades at the
school where he was a senior. He was clean &
properly dressed, but reeked a strange, metallic
odor & was drenched with sweat despite my air
conditioning. He came in the office with his parents,
sat down, & completely ignored me, preferring to
stare intensely at the floor.
I asked the parents if Paul had a car. No. I then
established that he had passed driver's training at
his high school. I asked his parents to immediately
buy the lad a mechanically sound vehicle, & told
them to go to my lobby & wait. I then stepped behind
John & for about 30 minutes spoke as though I
were him, about what I (i.e., he) was suffering,
imaging & thinking. My performance was quite
emotional, as it might have been had the lad been
able to speak for himself.
I then took Paul to the lobby, & said in front of
him to his parents that I should be pleased to see
Paul again, but if, & only if, he drove by himself
to my office at an appointed time. It is entirely
up to him, I said, handing him a card with the time
of his next appointment.
Paul continued coming for 4 years. At the end of
9 months, he began speaking to me & I added
short group & large overnight group experiences to
his treatment. His friend also became my patient.
Both were psychotic by anyone's definition.
For 2 years prior to seeing me a very famous person
who was assassinated was living, but in a coma, in
Paul's room. Paul hallucinated, fed, spoke to &
generally cared for his secret patient every day in
every way. I was the first to hear about it, because
after about a year with me Paul experienced trust for
the first time in his memory. He peed & defecated all
over himself & my carpet the very moment he realized
he trusted me. I stocked deodorants & cleaners for
these occasions.
When I last saw Paul he had graduated from college,
was married with one child, was employed as a
teacher & seemed very happy. If we were to meet
him we'd notice that he is, hmmm, eccentric. His
range of vocal intonation is larger than we are
accustomed to, & he gesticulates slightly wildly &
seems immensely involved in whatever he is going
on about. I suspect the kids he teaches like him a lot,
because he is completely forgiving & extremely
funny. I take it for granted that he, like all humans,
will undergo dark moments. But I think he will be
able to deal with any sort of hallucination. And should
he start to be overwhelmed by anxiety, any psychiatrist
should be able to help him manage it with low doses of
benign medication.
Now, my point is: the theories & notions of Freud,
Jung, Skinner...etc., etc., ad nauseum are of them-
selves of no use or benefit to the Pauls of this world.
Indeed, no theory yields benefit for them. Rather,
if they are to be helped, they need someone of
sufficient cleverness & charm to keep them coming to
treatment, which consists primarily of intense social
learning. Literally, I walked Paul through the maze
of interpersonal experiences - 'encounters' is an apt
word - that provided him with the stuff with which to
make & live a life of his own. He met perhaps 200
people at my clinic, including numerous therapists
of all 3 genders (or is it 4, or 6) who worked with
him in the groups.
I know therapists who present themselves as Freudians,
Jungians, behaviorists & so on who nonetheless are good
at their craft because they do what works, more or less
as I am describing it, & save their theories for armchair
exchanges with other professionals.
Regards,
Soup
--
Terry W. Colvin, Sierra Vista, Arizona (USA) < fortean1@mindspring.com >
Alternate: < terry_colvin@hotmail.com >
Home Page: < http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Stargate/8958/index.html >
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