Jung At Heart turns 5!
On February 2, 2007, I started Jung At Heart. I had no idea I would still be writing here 5 years later, but here we are. Thank you for coming here and thank you for your questions, your emails and your comments. I look forward to continuing this journey with you.
Here is the very first post I made here:
"The principle aim of psychotherapy is not to transport one to an impossible state of happiness, but to help (the client) acquire steadfastness and patience in the face of suffering. " -C.G. Jung
How very different this view of therapy is from the current preoccupation with happiness and positive psychology! Jung understood that suffering is a part of life, that it has meaning and that to live fully is to know that suffering will be a factor in one's life throughout life. If I look back on my own life, I know that I have learned most from those times which were difficult and often painful, not because I wanted to but because of the choices and consequences i faced at those times. The good times, the times of great happiness are wonderful and I have celebrated and cherished them and look forward to more. But it has been in those dark times when I have had to face myself and look deeply into my life and my actions that I have grown most.
Tragic Beauty
I seem to be on a run about books right now and here is another. I was asked if I would be willing to read and review a new book about the Aphrodite woman. The title alone was enough to attract me, so I agreed and I am happy to say that was a good decision.
Today I want to recommend Tragic Beauty: The Dark Side of Venus Aphrodite and the Loss and Regeneration of Soul by Arlene Landau. Landau is a Jungian analyst and self-identified Aphrodite woman.
We were assigned roommates when I started college. Though we filled out questionnaires that supposedly were used in pairing us, I never saw any evidence that mine had any bearing on who was chosen. We had exchanged letters during the summer, but not photos. She had said of herself that she was blonde and average looking. I walked into our room that first day and was amazed to see a beautiful young woman, golden and graceful. I could witness her power though I had no name for it nor any idea where it came from. In the face of her beauty, I felt plain and invisible. Certainly that golden aura and the way the young men on campus fell all over themselves to meet her and go out with her created a distance between us that we never managed to bridge.
More Books
A reader asked --
Of the books you recommend, which are suitable for someone not steeped in Jungian analysis? I enjoy reading and reading about psychoanalysis, but I am not, and nor do I intend to be, a psychotherapist.
That's a great question and one I am dealing with now as I am going to be teaching an introduction to Jung at our Senior College this spring. In the sidebar I have created another list -- books for the Jung-curious. Read away!
These books range from overviews of Jungian psychology (Stein's book and Man and His Symbols) to Jung on his own life to a basic book on working with dreams and one using fairy tales. There are many many more but these are books I myself have returned to often.
Jung's Map of the Soul: An Introduction
Murray Stein
C.G. Jung
Carl Gustav Jung
Inner Work: Using Dreams and Active Imagination for Personal Growth
Robert A. Johnson
Women Who Run With the Wolves: Myths and Stories of the Wild Woman Archetype
Clarissa Pinkola Estes
Fairy Fog
It was very cold when I got up this morning -- -15F -- and the water in the harbor is above freezing. When this happens , we get arctic sea smoke which sometimes billows in over the shore and freezes on every surface. Which is what happened yesterday. When the sun rose, the trees looked like tiny diamonds had been flung on them.
Book Suggestions
A while ago someone asked me about books related to Jung and to psychotherapy that I would recommend. So I decided to start with books I return to again and again. I listed them in the sidebar with links to Amazon. Later, I will post about why I like each of these books.
Not a disease
1 Boring Old Man again provides me with material to talk about -- thank you!
He, and I to a much less detailed degree, has been writing about the folly of the current diagnostic system, the problems it creates and where it came from. Today he picks up on something I have been been writing about for the all of the 5 years I have been writing this blog --
"There are a number of conditions in psychiatry that can be usefully classified. They include the ones enumerated by Kraepelin [Schizophrenia, Manic Depressive Illness, Melancholia, the Brain Syndromes, etc]; the seemingly neurological problems like Autism, ADHD, dyslexia, etc; the Personality Disorders; and a number of less common definable syndromes. However the majority of mentally ill people do not lend themselves to general classification."
I can agree pretty much with this statement. But I would go further and suggest that the medical model simply does not fit the personality disorders nor much of what we see as outpatient psychotherapists. One reason I stepped outside of the insurance system was because I found the process of assigning a DSM diagnosis to be a sham. I was working to find a way to fit my patients into a system that had precious little to do with them or why they came to me. At one point in the early 90s, when I still played along, I would ask my patients if they preferred to be anxious or depressed.
Patients who are in hospital, who are acutely psychotic, hallucinating, seriously disabled by their problems might indeed be suffering from a brain illness, from something having gone awry in the brain. And I have no problem ceding that they are best cared for by psychiatrists and that indeed, they should have parity in insurance coverage, as with any chronic illness.
Not Boring At All
Today I want to urge again that if you have an interest in what has happened in mental health and psychiatry, please read 1boringoldman because no one that I am aware of is digging into the research reports and critiquing them as he has and continues to do so. And he is not the least bit boring.
Most recently he wrote about the continuing protests from psychotherapist groups over the proposed DSM V. Psychologists in both the US and Britain along with the American Counseling Association have circulated petitions and sent letters of concern to the American Psychiatric Association. That diverse professional groups agree is in itself remarkable but the APA seems to be hoping to brush aside this concern by tagging them as coming from those who are "anti-psychiatry." And I suppose if being anti-psychiatry means I am opposed to excessive medication, proliferating diagnoses, and control of research by drug companies, that would describe me at least.
He ends today's post with this:
...it’s unclear to me why there’s so little psychiatric noise about the DSM-5. Are we simply settling for our lot and waiting to retire? My guess is that it’s a bit more complex than that. The everyday psychiatrist has been hammered for decades having to readjust to the role of medication manager for others – out of the role of primary care-giver. Hospital psychiatrists have only a few days to adjust medications before the "days" run out. My guess is that the general gist of attitudes might be in the range of "demoralized." Who cares about the DSM-anything? It’s just a number for the form. Office psychiatry has become more bureaucratic and administrative than medical. And the bruhaha about the DSM-5? Just some more anti-psychiatry. Create a specialty that is only allowed to medicate, then complain about medication. A specialty only reimbursed for short visits, then complain about short visits. I expect that’s how things must feel to many who have adapted to the modern world of medicine. It’s a shame…
I think one reason so few psychiatrists have chimed in is the issue of turf and professional identity. Each of the two, psychology and psychiatry, needs some claim to uniqueness, some specialness of knowledge in order to claim space in the arena. Add to that the largely unconscious issues of esteem about whether or not either is a "real" science or "real" medicine and the ground is well prepared for what has happened.
Can it really be...
I think it must be due to the fact that it is Dec. 21 and only just this week cold here that it dawned on me fairly late that Christmas is almost upon us. Because in my mind it is just after Thanksgiving and I have plenty of time to finish my gift knitting, cookie baking, and gift wrapping. Gift wrapping? I haven't gotten paper yet! The tree is up and has lights but won't get decorated until this evening. I have a couple of posts in mind but they will have to wait until after the weekend.So, I am off to listen to a book while I finish my knitting.
From my house to your house, I wish you the very best holiday.
Worst Fictional Therapists
My husband sent me the link to this fun article, When 5 cents is too high a price: 26 destructive fictional therapists, from avclub.com. Here are the ones they cite, though you should read the article to get their reasoning:
1. Lucy Van Pelt from Peanuts.
2. Dr. Leo Marvin, What About Bob?
Now I have to admit that I have a soft spot for Leo Marvin because Bob is every therapist's nightmare patient. But I have to agree that he leaves something to be desired anyway.
3. Ben Harmon, American Horror Story
4. Dr. Vinnie Donatti, Cat’s Eye
5. Dr. Malcolm Long, Watchmen
6. Deanna Troi, Star Trek: The Next Generation
7-8. Dr. Stuart Framingham and Mrs. Charlotte Wallace, Beyond Therapy
9. Dr. Robert Elliott, Dressed To Kill
10. Dr. Wayne, Mad Men
In the context of the time in which the show is set, Dr. Wayne is not so far out of line as we see him today, so I wouldn't likely include him on the list.
11. Claire, Passengers
12. Harley Quinn, Batman: The Animated Series and various Batman comics
It ain't necessarily so...
I have never bought the notion that Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) is either more "scientific" nor more effective. I talked a bit about that last week in fact. Remember that studies of CBT gained popularity because they could employ a standard treatment protocol and thus, or so it was originally believed, control for variability among therapists. Everyone who cooks knows that two people following the same recipe to the letter do not often get the exact same result, but somehow no one wanted to recognize that little truth. Any study trying to examine any method of psychotherapy is bound to be full of confounding variables -- personality of the therapist, goodness of fit between therapist and patient, and of course all the problems in diagnosis that arise from the DSM. And then there is the length of time of the therapy.
In 1995 Consumer Reports did an extensive survey on psychotherapy. You can read Martin Seligman's analysis of the report of the survey here. Among the findings he summarizes are the following:
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