I am deeply sceptical about counselling and "talk therapy". Partly, it dates backs to having read Jeffrey Masson's
Against Therapy years ago. Partly, it is based on observing counselling that seems to have either being extremely ineffectual, or made things worse
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One therapist, a psychiatrist, seen for almost a year for (as my wife will attest) relatively severe depression.
I was not impressed. We talked. A lot. To very little end, as far as I could tell. I have no idea what he actually thought of me or my issues, and to a large extent his feedback was all very nice and fluffy, but not very helpful.
It probably doesn't help that Asperger's Syndrome was a brand new shiny diagnosis, which still squeaked if you turned around too quickly. I had certainly not heard of it, and I wonder if he had either. I suspect I had given him enough ammunition to diagnose me with then, if he had.
In any case, there's a term: Alexithymia, meaning the inability to describe one's own emotional state. It's common to many, if not most Aspies, myself not least. What I went in there for was not warm fuzzies, it was explanation. I was fully aware of the likelihood of self-deception, which was why I wanted an independent opinion in the first place. I didn't want my own ignorant ( ... )
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Worse: I'm both.
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I get the very definite impression that counselling is much more of an art than a science, and maybe much less of a science than say water diving or astrology...
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