I just got a call from my psychologist wife. "Bob, have you ever heard of the word iatrogenic?" It sounded faintly familiar, but I couldn't recall specifically, so I went to the dictionary and read the definition to her: "Caused by medical treatment: said especially of symptoms, ailments or disorders induced by drugs or surgery." "Yes!" she said, "and add the word therapy to that list of inducers."
Then she explained that increasingly she is finding she can be of most help to her clients by undoing what they have been taught by therapists! For example, today a mom told her that the best thing that ever happened to her family was when Colleen told them to ask their school to take off one of the goals of their child's "Individualized Educational Plan." You see, their son had become a narcissistic little brat. One of the goals of the plan had been to increase his self esteem. The mother requested that be taken off the plan.
Narcissism now almost gone. No longer a "child-centered" family. Parents, not the child, now in charge.
7 comments:
I have stories about how my life was misshapen by misguided therapies...
Meilandru,
I would really like to read anything you would care to share.
Add parenting to the list. I have acquaintances with horrible children who are horrible because the parents (who learned from their parents) believed it is more important to be the child's best friend than to be a parent.
Well, at DCH, after the termination? Their insistence that I HAD to feel sad, HAD to be upset, HAD to feel remorse. And I threw it back at them, the bullshit that it was.
While it wasn't something that changed me, it did give a perspective, early on, of the therapeutic experience. That something so good and so right for me was viewed by the "Therapists" as something so wrong. Despite the 18 months I'd been there before this blessed event, they couldn't see how good it was for me.
A misguided one from them? "You'll never graduate high school without full-time special ed." What a crock. Just because they have their in-house school doesn't mean I am bound to it! Did they think I was insufficiently educated to keep up with regular classes, or did they think I was a total nutjob. In the former, they're morons. In the latter, why did they let me leave? And their education system really screwed me when I went to high school, because half of the credits did NOT transfer...What am I going to do with 10 credits of open space volunteer work? Or with 2 credits of watching old movies? It left me with having to take 4 lit classes my senior year...and never getting past geometry.
I made it through high school with Honor Society under my belt, a 3+ GPA (i mean it was 12 years ago, i don't remember), and the only time I spent in Special Ed was a study hour, more for emotional support and social interaction than anything else.
Lastly...the event that I believe caused my tremors. I was seeing a therapist, they had me see a psychiatrist. I was fighting my mother, for reason I had every right to, and they put me on some medication. I don't know what it was, but it did something else. Because I don't remember tremoring before that, but now it's constant.
Not long after that, they put me in a group for sexual abuse survivors and my step-father pulled me out likety-split, both the group and the therapy.
Of therapy as a whole, I find the clinical experience troubling. These are trained therapists. They have the college experience and the professional experience, and while some of their advice is great, a lot is lacking because they don't live this life.
I believe that a lot can be gained by having someone who has been through the underside of life, or has a mental illness, makes for better therapy. Some would argue that they are too close to the situation and are biased about it. But, to be honest, that's exactly what those of us need, someone who has been there or is there, and knows it. A psychiatrist can know the ins and outs of a drug but totally miss a side effect that someone who has taken it knows. (personal experience) A therapist can suggest ways to work through troubles and stress, but someone who deals with it has a better real-world application.
I also believe that there are two classifications of SMI (severe mental illness): functional and non-functional. Because they are so different, and because of that, the functional SMI's need different treatment applications. But we just get lumped into one group, and it is ineffective.
Bob, this is a right-on post. I also agree with mRed. Parents, teachers, friends enable in the name of self-esteem and the havoc it wreaks is exponential weakness. Thank you for pointing out that often it is reversible.
John Rosemond, no nonsense conservative child psychologist, is one of the best sources for these turn arounds anywhere. He sure got my head screwed on more right when I started reading him.
Great post!
mRed,
I agree with you completely. Thanks for adding your comment.
Meilandru,
I read your comments with big tears emerging in my eyes. Tears of sadness at what you experienced in your earliest, formative years. Tears of joy at what you accomplished with your determination and God-given intelligence.
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