Posted by mair on January 2, 2005, at 9:20:29
In reply to Re: Idealizing » Toph, posted by alexandra_k on January 1, 2005, at 15:21:25
" Idealisation is about setting the object up so that the flaws are completely ignored or severely minimised.
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> The trouble with idealisation (or at least my experience of it) is that it tends to be followed by devaluation. Once the idealised object falls short of your expectations (as it invariably will seeing as nothing is perfect) then you devalue the object and minimise or disregard anything of value while overemphasising the negative aspects."
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Stick around here long enough and you'll see the process you describe play out with Bob over and over again. I think there are scads of ex-posters who left because their expectations of Bob were probably too high and unrealistic in the first place. In my very humble and probably misguided opinion, the ones who have stayed through some pretty awful upheavals either did so because they never idealized him or allowed themselves to care about whether he cared about them in the first place, were able to stick out the difficult process of lowering expectations without the devaluation you describe, or simply limited their participation in ways which didn't allow them to get caught up in feeling the unfairness of how he can deal with certain issues (eg: they stay off the admin board).Mair
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poster:mair
thread:436049
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20041228/msgs/436721.html