In response to: Re: Convince me that the saying "you are not your thoughts " isnt complete b*^$$t psychobabble
@Jynx , I know that you are merely relaying the dogma of the mental health system, so please know that the following criticisms (and frustrations) are directed at the philosophy itself, and not at you. 🙂
@Jynx wrote:
1. Giving advice or telling clients what to do is a removal of their autonomy (due to the power imbalance) and could end up making things worse.
That is rediculous, because:
1. A patient who has no idea what they are supposed to do has no autonomy. They are lost and trapped.
2. Doing nothing will also typically make things worse! Or, at least, condemn the patient to one of their worst possible outcomes.
I mean, proper doctors don't adhere to such an absurd philosophy, do they? There is similarly a power imbalance between doctors and their patients, but can you imagine if doctors refused to help or advise their patients with the problems they came to them with? Can you imagine going to your doctor with a rash and having the doctor being frustratingly evasive about what medicine you should take to make the rash go away? Can you imagine visiting your doctor every week because you have a lump in your breast that keeps getting bigger and bigger, and the doctor refuses to do anything about it?
And yes, to stick with this analogy, many medical treatments have a potential of producing unsavory side effects and/or making the patient's situation even worse. That doesn't mean that doctors should just refuse to do anything, simply because there are risks to doing something. As with many medical complaints, doing nothing tends to be the worst possible approach of all.
How come real doctors are willing to take a chance that something may go wrong in order to cure their patients' problems, but therapists aren't willing to take that same chance to cure their patients' problems?
@Jynx wrote:
Therapists only see the situation through the client-given story, which may be warped, or lacking certain details - giving advice may end up making things worse.
Again, the doctor analogy applies. Patients may often neglect to mention a key symptom, or incorrectly relay their family medical history, ect., or be the source of any number of other communication problems with adversely effect the doctor's ability to properly remedy the patient's problem.
But despite this 'messiness' to the business of trying to cure peoples' ails, we don't expect doctors to simply refuse to help their patients, because there's a risk they might make things worse.
@Jynx wrote:
One could argue that this is merely so the therapist can protect themselves from legal recourse,
Yup. That's what it's all about.
@Jynx wrote:
but it is largely due to wanting to protect the therapeutic relationship. Giving advice which a client then follows may lead to exacerbation of an issue, which creates distrust and may completely rupture the relationship.
Distrust? Rupture the relationship?
How can there be any sort of trust or 'honorable relationship', when that relationship is based entirely upon stringing the patient along with hopes that the therapist will eventually fix their problems, when in fact, the therapist has no such intention of ever doing so?
How can there be any sort of trust when you can tell that your therapist knows (or at least, has a much better idea then you do) how to solve your problem, but pointedly refuses to tell you what you need to know, or give you as much advice as they can? Could you ever trust someone who is watching you drown and has a life preserver right beside them, but refuses to throw it to you? Could you trust someone who seems to get off on other peoples' suffering - including your own - who, just sits their and watches it play out, with a smug grin on her face, and never, ever does anything to make it stop?
Nothing is gonna ruin a relationship faster then a person with the ability to help refusing to give that help to a person in desparate need of it.
@Jynx wrote:2. Even if the advice or solution is sound, and works out well for the client, this can create dependency, where the client then returns to the therapist to keep solving all their problems. Empowering clients to learn the skills they need to solve their own problems creates lasting change instead of providing a temporary fix.
Well, the fact is that we really need a presence in our lives like this, to solve the problems that we either can't or shouldn't remedy ourselves. It's a very good thing for a therapist-patient relationship to work like this.
People shouldn't be "empowered to solve their own problems", because then you just wind up with a world full of bullies who go around exploiting others to get what they want, and just generally being ugly, self-righteous human beings.
We need therapist-like authority figures to orchestrate our engagement with society, so that other people can respect us and vice-versa; and to ensure that our lives are ethical and non-malignant.
Again, we come back to the doctor analogy. Just because a doctor cures an illness I have today doesn't mean I won't keep coming back to him again, and again, and again, and again, every time I have some new type of medical problem.
Just as we always have a doctor we can go to every time we have a medical problem, we also need a professional of some sort we can always turn to to sort out the problems that determine our quality of life. My gripe is that therapists are largely marketed to the general public as being precisely this sort of professional, and for the most part, it's only those of us who have actually been through the system who know that this is not actually the case.
@Jynx wrote:
As a caveat, there is in my opinion an over-fixation in a lot Western psychology, especially historically, on problems lying within the individual. This approach precludes social barriers and is insufficient for resolving issues that revolve around things like financial privilege, racism, sexism/homophobia, and other systemic issues. One cannot 'mindfulness' their way out of homelessness, for example.
Exactly!
Apparently there are homelessness therapists who actually set homeless people up with residances. (I don't know if they set people up with proper households, i.e. roommates, though. IMHO, a residance is made out of bricks and morter, but a home is made out of people and love), but you have to know that they exist, and where to find them. I think that most naieve people would assume that this is precisely the sort of problem a traditional mental health therapist would adequately address (even if only by referring the patient on to someone who specializes in this problem), as homelessness is a known cause of depression, anxiety, and suicide. I myself only recently learned about the existance of homelessness therapists.
Which is really the core of the problem: massive confusion amongst the general public and government about what mental health therapists do and don't do, and of the glaring absence of any profession that actually does give patients the help they desparately need and are crying out for, for the real-world problems that are making us miserable, suicidal, ect.
