Walter Logeman: Journal
I have just listened to a spectacular podcast. From 2006 – I missed it till I changed my system of managing podcasts – giving in to the iTunes default way.
Kevin Kelly – The Next 100 Years of Science: Long-term Trends in the Scientific Method.
Download: iTunes — Direct download
The textual summary is here:
http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/kelly06/kelly06_index.html
I continue to discuss the podcast and relate themes to my own writing.
I am somewhat disturbed by the Hellinger material I read. However there new clarity around the creativity inherent in dialogue (see the last Bhom quote in this post.)
Here are two snippets which I find illuminating. Especially if we hold in mind that reality includes an observer.
No two people can have the same insight about the same thing. If they both have an insight about the same thing, that of one differs slightly from that of the other.
… when awareness meets awareness both are enhanced by the encounter.
That “enhancment” is the new, something is created.
Later: Sunday, 6 December 2015
Why two way sends are useful: difference – enhancement of the relationship – creativity i.e. Newness. Spontaneity? The Visitor/Host creates Love Maps, heals, and role development in the listener.
I have just been given some info about “Systemic Constellation work”
I want to follow up, two links that might be useful.
THE CHALLENGE AND PROMISE FOR PSYCHODRAMA
OF SYSTEMIC CONSTELLATION WORK
By Ronald Anderson and Karen Carnabucci
And this one, an Alert
Systemic Constellations Wikipedia.
Family Constellations More specifically about Hellinger. Interesting discussions on Wikipedia.
Stephen White compares himself to his therapist character Alan Gregory:
First, he has the benefit of all my years of experience. And second, I get to think about his lines as long as I’d like. Real patients never offer that luxury.
That is where psychotherapy online has a bit of an edge too!
I’ve been overdoing my exploration about the “relational paradigm”. I’ve been reading, writing, integrating & putting into practice Imago & Psychodrama ideas about systems and the locus of therapy.
So I thought I’d give myself a break and read a thriller.
Blinded by Stephen White, who I have read before & enjoyed.
I am only a few minutes into it and there are passages that stimulate me right back into my work passion, no rest!
I will quote them here and share my reflections.
Three questions to ask the couple to work on before they come to the first session:
(From the supervision workshop with Maya Kollman)
While tidying up my cupboards I found a sheet of info from my Social Work training in the early 80s. I have OCRed it and it appears below. It is one of the best things I got from the Social Work training. SYSTEMS.
Systems Approach to Social Networks
The conceptualisation of the human body into systems e.g. digestive systems circulatory system, autonomic nervous system assists in the treatment of individual people. Social work is developing system concepts which can assist in the treatment of social problems.
The system concept used in the management of cases includes the following four systems:
CHANGE AGENT SYSTEM.
The initiators of planned change. Usually .kis unit, but at times other agencies – e.g. Child and Family Guidance Centre.THE CLIENT SYSTEM,
The individual, family or group-that is the expected
beneficiary of the change.ACTION’ SYSTEM
The various people that effect the change – this
can of course include the client or the chance agent but also any other avalilable.resources.TARGET SYSTEM.
The people or groups that need to be changed in order to achieve the goals.It is important to note.that in one “case” there may be a variety of goals and that for EACH goal there will be a different content in each system.
E.G.
A patient may wish to improve her relationship with her
husband – (goal 1). She may wish to have her children back
from a foster placement (goal 2). Each of these goals may
have quite different TARGET, ACTION, CLIENT systems.
Note: that each goal is contracted with the client and social worker
and must be acceptable to bothSocial Work Practice
Model & Method
Pincus & Minahan., Peacock Pub. 1975.
I am now official. In the past my credentials were confirmed by NZAP, now by the GOVT. There are some pro & cons, but one pro is that for Online Psychotherapy clients can see my credential online.
REGISTRATION
From the 1st January 2009 you must be registered or have submitted a completed application for registration with the Psychotherapists Board of Aotearoa New Zealand and hold or be eligible to hold a current Annual Practising Certificate to practise as a psychotherapist in New Zealand.The Annual Practising Certificate (APC) year will run from the 1st October to the 30th September.
Reason: You’d Have to Be Crazy: Mental illness is the new normal:
In the sketch Steve Martin plays Theodoric of York, a medieval barber with a patient whose condition has not improved despite a bloodletting, a sheep’s-urine-and-staghorn poultice, and a night buried in the marsh up to her neck. ‘Medicine is not an exact science,’ Theodoric tells the girl’s mother, ‘but we are learning all the time. Why, just fifty years ago, they thought a disease like your daughter’s was caused by demonic possession or witchcraft. But nowadays we know that Isabelle is suffering from an imbalance of bodily humors, perhaps caused by a toad or a small dwarf living in her stomach.
That funny bit makes its point well. As does this more serious bit:
Judging from the way psychiatrists respond to Szasz’s critique, most of them believe schizophrenia and perhaps a few other conditions described in the DSM are diseases of the brain in the same sense as Alzheimer’s or multiple sclerosis, albeit with etiologies that are not yet clear. But when it comes to habits and traits such as smoking, gambling, gluttony, shyness, impulsiveness, inattentiveness, dishonesty, and nastinessnot to mention diagnoses that have fallen out of psychiatric fashion, such as homosexuality and multiple personality disorder even psychiatrists recognize the arbitrariness of their taxonomy.
In my eyes psychotherapy is a way of talking about the psyche that is nothing to do with health or illness, it is a way of reclaiming a holistic account of the self that was provided by religion and superstition and in the past. The language of medicine distorts the holistic endeavour.
Later Saturday, 6 February, 2010
Metaxy.
How does the “way of talking” relate to science? I think it is something of value, even if it is full of “dormative hypothesis”.
My defense of the dormative hypothesis (ie that it is not so bad if seen in the right way) is that it is a poem, and that poems are a way of compressing and making order. Making order is a form of science.
