Soul Murder

[erudito]

Here’s a bit of a paradox. I think Freudianism is largely bunk. That is, the anal, oedipal, oral etc theorising is false and distracting; the id, ego, superego structure either wrong or simplistic. But I have found material written by Freudians (such as the blogger Shrinkwrapped’s comments on therapeutic matters-as distinct from his other

Comments

[catsidhe]

Yabbut, beyond what I have said above about the problem of falsifiability, there are newer, better, scientifically testable and experimentally tested psychological paradigms which have far better and more repeatable results.

I'm thinking mainly of NLP here (in its original form of the first three or four books, as opposed to the marketroid nonsense accreted around it since), but there are other theories and models which share far more meaningful provenances than Freud's frauds.

If the rôle of a Freudian psychotherapist is to be a shamanistic sounding-board, then for all the difference it makes, he may as well be a shaman, or wave chicken bones, or channel the spirit of Uri Geller -- or The Amazing Randi for that matter. It's just a gimmick around which the real healing is strung, and the 'theory' which is given so much importance is so much props and scenery, with as much substance.

I'm not saying it doesn't help anyone, or that it doesn't have a place in mental healing. Just don't call it 'scientific'.

Take it as a useful metaphor, by all means, but remember that the menu is not the meal, nor is the map the journey.

[tcpip]

Everytime I hear of NLP the first thing I think of is "guided therapy" in hypnosis; which I rate as possibly one of the most evil things you can do to a human being.

Mainly because I agree, empirically, with the basic proposition, you can "program" a person, neurologically, through linguistic expressions.

Seems to be a bit of a war in Wikipedia over what it means as well;

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuro-linguistic_programming

All things considered psychotherapy is the art (yea, not a science) of interpreting symbolic expressions for rational and irrational content. Freud was a pioneer in this field whose basic propositions contained significant validity.

[basal_surge]

Some of the basic precepts of NLP were ok for what they were in the seventies and eighties, insofar as it was based on early neurology work, and analysis of a the methods of a number of the unusually successful therapists of the time, regardless of the therapist's scholastic allegiance.

Unfortunately, since then it's mostly done nothing useful - rather than following up and publishing what they had in peer reviewed fields, the initiators went for the semi corporate pseudoscience approach and published self help books and went on the road in a manner similar to Amway and Scientology.

Dang.

Unfortunately too, my father swallowed a lot of it hook, line and sinker.

[catsidhe]

Ayup, what you said.

I have tried not to throw the baby out with the bathwater, though, no matter how toxic the bathwater has gotten.

Thankfully, apart from a couple of difficult situations, I've only really needed to use it as a party trick.

[catsidhe]

I get my NLP from The Structure of Magic I and II, and Frogs to Princes. The idea there is to use the Structured aspects of a patient's responses to try and determine what the actual problem is, and to use the Programming part to i) train the patient in self-programming, and ii) train the patient that it is possible and desirable to change.

The problems began when people started to realise, fairly early on, how powerful the techniques are for other, less salubrious purposes. That's when the seminars started. That's when the profiteering started. That's when Bander and Grindler split and started their on-again-off-again war. It is precisely because the techniques are so powerful and generally applicable that the political, managerial and advertising fields have taken it up with such destructive gusto.

NLP is a tool. It is a powerful and useful tool. Unfortunately, any useful and sufficiently powerful tool can and probably will be used for evil.

One side-affect of my father having used NLP techniques on me during my childhood and adolescence is that I more-or-less speak NLP as a native language. Even if I haven't had the practice in its application, I know when it's being used on me, and I know how to mitigate or obviate its effects. Unfortunately, it has also taught me that pure talking cures, even ones as strong as NLP, have no effect on chronic seratonin deficiency and other organic problems. A talking cure is of no use against organic Depression or Schitzophrenia, and anyone who tells you otherwise is dangerously deluded. They can provide insights into one's self which can alieviate anxiety and provide some basis for self-discipline and self-gnosis, however.