Date: Wed, 15 Oct 1997 12:02:58 -0700
From: Mike Staples <mstaples-AT-argusqa.com>
Subject: More for Henk


Henk,

I wanted to expand just a little on my last post. Don't think I said
enough, but then I don't usually go into psychology all that much on
this list. I'm usually more interested in working out my philosophy
problems, and trying to drain you all of information.

I would like to say that different people in psychology work different
ways. Some of the different ways are really, really different, too. I
assume that for the most part, the reason people work in different ways
has something to do with the ends they are trying to accomplish. Of
course we can all say we are trying to "help" others. But that means one
thing to one person and another to another person. For some, "helping"
others means pain relief. If a client is having emotional pain, whatever
eases or eradicates this emotional pain is what is considered "helping".
In fact for some, eradicating the pain means "cured". Others would argue
that if emotional pain releif is what we are after, then why not just
put everyone on Prozac? Or perhaps give everyone a frontal lobotomy...
that will put a smile on everyone's face, and everyone can be cured.

Of course that logic doesn't really pan out, so precisely what we mean
by "helping" begins to get a bit more complicated. First we have to say
that JUST emotional pain relief isn't enough. Then we have to ask what
other factors might be involved. And we have to ask if SOME pain is Ok,
while OTHER pain isn't. Then we have to ask how me can distinguish
between good pain and bad pain, then we have to.... and so on and so on.
But let me get back to my point

Different people work different ways. I personally work on a very
personal level. I feel that the phenomena that presence themselves in
terms of something we call "problems" or "joy" or "images" or whatever,
need to be experienced as directly as possible if they are going to be
explored phenomenally. An image of being abused is more than an
objective story-line that I can stand back, across the room, and observe
objectively as an outside, unaffected observer passing judgements and
making interpretations. I don't personally feel that this is approaching
the client, or the phenomena disclosed by the client in an adequate way.
So indeed, my attempt is to open to the story on multiple levels, and in
this way his problem becomes something I agree to share.

Of this does not necessarily mean that I have to abuse myself in the
same way the client has been abused. But I do need to alow myself to
feel the story's effect on me, to pay attention to the images that come
up for me during the story's telling, to put that which arrises for me
out into the space between us so that it can add its part to the story's
telling. And I have ways of guiding clients toward helping me to
experience more of their pain (I realize I'm setting myself up for some
jokes about clients helping me to experience more of their pain by
smacking me up side my head).

I'm not sure I understand what you were getting at with your reference
to Carl Rogers and empathy, but I do understand the kind of phoney
"empathy" therapists can conjure up, that is entirely infuriating. I
recall one therapist of my own that I worked with for a short while. She
kept asking for my "real feelings" as if "real feelings" were always
going to be pink fluffy clouds that floated by, and we could both have a
very "healing" cry together. What happened was quite different. What
happened was that I unleashed my anger at her, and I made it just as
personal as I could... so she couldn't sneak out the "this all belongs
to you, and has nothing to do with me" back door. I ripped her up one
side and down the other. And she came apart like a hastily wrapped
christmas package. Where therapy is concerned, my very firm belief is
that "If you can't take the heat...stay out of the kitchen!" But that is
just me, Henk. It's the way I work, and I venture to say that I am in a
minority here. Since this experience, I have experienced this sort of
pain and anger comming directly at me many times over. And I don't say
to myself, "This has nothing to do with me, it all belongs to him." It
may well be that it indeed has nothing to do with me and all belongs to
him, but for me this is beside the immediate point, a theory outside the
moment of the phenomenon itself. So I do experience the anger in the
room, and myself as its focus. And I do feel lousy, beaten up, run over
by a truck. And I take it, and I open to it, and I explore it as best I
can... from inside out.

Michael Staples




     --- from list heidegger-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---