I've often wondered about this, the article in today's Indie makes an interesting read. Is trauma therapy useful or does it just encourage people to wallow in self-pity?
www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/therapy-can-drive-you-mad-says-study-on-911-counselling-2328665.html
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>> I've often wondered about this, the article in today's Indie makes an interesting read. Is
>> trauma therapy useful or does it just encourage people to wallow in self-pity?
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Whilst I'm happy to accept that Cognitive behavioral therapy works for most cases of post-traumatic stress disorder, in my case it only made it worse. To be fair, I think mine was an odd case which was overlaid with other issues.
Time, and a few other things, mean that I now feel completely healed-up though, which is great! Not quite "Hello Sky! Hello Trees!" good, but pretty good! :-)
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Perhaps all one needs is someone reliable, who isn't thick and who will last the distance........................to talk to. I've had a few moments and a friend is worth a thousand degrees in whatever nvq the analysts have.
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Sometimes, someone who does not know anything about you before you talk to him or her, who has no connection with any friend or relative of yours, who has no preconceptions about you and no tendency to make judgements, but who has a skill in drawing you out and getting you to see things differently...
Sometimes that is the only person you can talk to and the only person who make any difference.
Spoken from experience.
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Sometimes, someone who does not know anything about you before you talk to him or her, who has no connection with any friend or relative of yours, who has no preconceptions about you and no tendency to make judgements, but who has a skill in drawing you out and getting you to see things differently...
Sometimes that is the only person you can talk to and the only person who can make any difference.
Spoken from experience.
[Sorry about the duplicate post. All I did was try to edit the previous one. I was told too much time had elapsed and when I tried again, this is what happened. If a mod wants to "tidy up" that's fine by me.]
Last edited by: FocalPoint on Sun 31 Jul 11 at 22:57
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Not very often I would think. Therapists who find 'hidden memories' of child abuse, satanic abuse etc. did crop up briefly, but have been broadly discredited. They certainly did send some people even further round the bend.
Memories aren't often 'hidden', but many are repressed. The problem isn't remembering them, but making sense of them. That's what Sigmund Freud's talking cure, and trained psychoanalysts or analytic therapists, can help with. But it's also true that simply describing the things you don't want to remember, to a sympathetic interlocutor who doesn't say much if anything, can do you good. If you describe something in words you are on the way to making sense of it. Of course you have to be able and willing to talk.
The problem with psychotherapy really is that it's a long, open-ended process, costly by definition. No adult would benefit from, or even tolerate for more than five minutes, what they call 'counselling'. Even after a traumatic experience, in war say. It takes longer than that, and the patient - or 'client' as they disgustingly call him nowadays - has to let it all hang out. Takes time that, ages sometimes.
This stuff has little to do with commonsense when you get into it. If commonsense was all that was needed people who had it would never get ill in that way. But they often do. In my view psychoanalysis would benefit nearly everyone, but not many really 'need' it. We are used to a measure of neurosis in ourselves and others, and regard it as normal.
Last edited by: Armel Coussine on Mon 1 Aug 11 at 04:18
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I think what is overlooked is a kind of society psychosis in which we are all floating, and which colours individual reactions to events.
In the past we had the "pull yourself out of it" culture, which doubtless worked for most people but of course lamentably failed in some cases - eg Great War shell-shock victims.
But now everyone has been conditioned to a different level of mass participation in traumatic events, the Diana Syndrome, so in a sense the expectation that lots of people will be affected by public tragedies actually ensures that they are.
The rise of the "The community is devastated by" or "The community is trying to come to terms with" some tragedy involving a hitherto unknown individual creates more would-be clients for the therapists.
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Therapy Can Drive You Nuts - Londoner
