Tuesday, March 15, 2016

Can Somebody Be Both Intelligent, Honest And Psychotherapist At The Same Time?

Can somebody be both intelligent, honest and psychotherapist at the same time?

The Inventor of the Primal Principle / Evolution in Reverse wrote in a blog: "Truth needs no defense except when that truth is more than the organism can integrate. That is why many therapists in the "booga booga" dominated, world live inside their defense. They no longer feel the truth of their pain.”  Therefore, I would like to know how “honesty” is defined between the 200.000 shrinks in the USA.          

My header is a paraphrase of an old joke I borrowed from a cancer scientist and author who experienced the difficult political reversals, with profound implications during 60/70ies in Hungary. Since I, as a Swede, was exposed to the same joke myself  in the United States, I will tell the “joke”:  
One can not be intelligent, honest and psychotherapist simultaneously. All two-combinations may occur, but never the three-combination. Being intelligent and psychotherapist, one was not honest. An honest psychotherapist is not regarded as intelligent and an intelligent and honest person would not be a psychotherapist.

A joke can ease a suffering but never dissolve repressed pain. The joke can make the repressed pain more bearable. Apart from the evolutionary repression of pain, explain how else we can accept each second to surround ourselves with lies so they fit into our lives. Mor or less sophisticated needs/neurosis/lies make us belong to a pattern, a culture, a faculty, a treatment etc. etc.

During many years of analysis and findings, which Alice Miller and professional colleagues conducted, there was an almost consistent pattern among those who studied psychoanalysis: They had a basically emotionally insecure mother. An unconscious, intuitive ability to feel and live with the parents' needs was a function that they, unknowingly, had internalized. This surrogate for love charged the child to fill a need valuable for its potential careers. It is no wonder that they, as adults, often chose to become psychotherapists. Without this childhood's fate, who could mobilize interest to days on end seek to explore what goes on in their patients' unconscious?


Many, especially in the US, are hesitant to accept the truth of evolution and at the end of the day, they prefer Genesis. That is their way, obeying to the fourth commandment, to forgive their parents for a loveless old-fashioned upbringing and unconsciously to go on with it. Fortunately, evolution is so rational and smart that it counteract our failures and abuses, however at a high fee = deep depression when we do not obey the law of life of love, touch, and attention. We understand when we see the official US statistics below:

Percentage of persons age 12 and over by depressive symptom severity 
and race and Hispanic origin:

Race and ethniticy          Depressive              Percent       Std.
                                        symptom severity                        error
_____________________________________________________
All persons                  
                                        No symptom             77,2            0.8
                                        Mild                          15,3             0.5
                                        Moderate                   4,7             0.3
                                        Severe                       2.9             0.2
Hispanic
                                        No symptom               73.9           1.3
                                        Mild                             16.7           0.8
                                        Moderate                      5.7           0.6
                                        Severe                          3,7           0.5

Non-Hispanic black
                                         No symptom              73,2            1.0
                                         Mild                            17.1            0.7
                                         Moderate                     5.6            0.4
                                         Severe                         4.1            0.5
Non-Hispanic white
                                          No symptom               78.5           1.0
                                          Mild                             14.6           0.7
                                          Moderate                      4.3           0.4
                                          Severe                          2.6           0.3
______________________________________________________

This statistic if from the economically richest country in the world. With a population of 322.000.000, that makes 20.000.000 people with moderate or severe depressive symptoms. Add to that 40.000.000 people with mild symptoms.

I admire Dr. Janov that he continues his dream  / obsession of a general feeling / demethylation therapy. 50 years after his breakthrough and improvements in the Primal Principle, the situation in the world, when it comes to mental suffering and repressed pain, is certainly no better. However, how can 200.000 shrinks look themselves into their eyes when they judge their professional contribution in the light of the above statistics. The shrinks no. 1 supporter, the pharmacuetical industry, of course, sees my question as an insult. And so does all those who receive their paychecks from them.
My suspicion of the honesty of these 200.000 shrinks (with few exceptions) is challenging. They no longer feel the truth of their own pain. They are evolutionary prison guards in the treadmill of pain. They have in many cases given up their original psychotherapeutic ambitions and turned into prescription writers.


Jan Johnsson