Posted by badhaircut on February 27, 2004, at 21:41:15
In reply to Re: latest from Frederick Crews » badhaircut, posted by terrics on February 27, 2004, at 18:00:32
> I liked that article and basically agree with it. terrics [What do you think]?
My friend hunts squirrels competitively. They don't actually shoot them. Each hunter has a dog that goes romping through a woods, smells a squirrel, follows it from branch to branch overhead in "full cry", and finally stands up against the tree where it's holed. The dog howls and the judges come, awarding points for proper form & so on and, of course, the presence of a squirrel. (Which is then left alone.)
A major problem for the trainer of a "squirrel dog" is the scent of deer. Deer musk is apparently a wonderful, overpowering, almost intoxicating lure to dogs. If a dog on the trail of a puny squirrel comes across a deer scent, it is likely to forget everything it has ever known and run barking like mad after the huge, glorious phantom deer.
Of course, no deer hearing a dog behind it will hang around. The big, fleet, woods-adapted creature will be half a mile away before the yapping dog gets its bearings. A dog really can't catch a deer. (And it's illegal.) But the enticing possibility! It's too much for many dogs to resist.
Trainers use various techniques for keeping dogs off deer trails, including tying a rag soaked in bottled deer musk to the dog's muzzle for a day. They get altogether sick of the scent, I guess.
My point is (and this is what I think about repression issues in therapy), it's better not to chase deer — those glorious phantom epiphanies we just get a whiff of passing through our minds. Some hidden truth we suspect must explain it all. There're hints of deep, buried treasure, the wisdom of the ages and peace everlasting. We therapy hounds think there must be *something* there, a thought, a memory, an insight, just barely beyond conscious reach, just around the next corner, just one more cathartic transference away. If I can just catch that thing it will Change Me.
But I believe such psychotherapeutic quarry are to us like deer are to squirrel dogs. It seems like there's something awesome to be treed, but the intoxicating lure turns out over & over & over again to be simply a distraction. Wildly exciting, maybe, but a waste of time otherwise.
Most therapists encourage deer-chasing and many don't know anything else to do. Many are deeply committed to finding a magic key that solves everything and dissociated memories look promising. Maybe some just like to see their clients revved up, hot on the trail of the repressed.
Squirrels in this analogy would be smaller, less sexy issues, along the lines of what Albert Ellis & Aaron Beck & so on deal with. Like Crews's "sensible help in the here and now," I suppose.
What do I think? Be a champion squirrel dog. Don't chase deer.
-bhc
poster:badhaircut
thread:318184
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20040225/msgs/318393.html