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Dr. Bob is Robert Hsiung, MD,
bob@dr-bob.orgShown: posts 1 to 18 of 18. This is the beginning of the thread.
Posted by badhaircut on March 22, 2004, at 10:09:56
Sunday's New York Times Magazine (3/21/04; link below) has an article on Lou Marinoff, a CCNY philosophy professor and one of several people espousing philosophy-based counseling for people with problems in living. Marinoff has no mental health training and seems hostile to it, but he's now trying to get insurance reimbursement for his counseling fees.
The NYT reporter summarized Marinoff's position this way: "Americans are tired of psychologists dwelling on our every painful feeling, we're sick of psychiatrists prescribing a new drug every time we feel confused and many of our most pressing problems aren't even emotional or chemical to begin with — they're philosophical. To wit: You don't have to be clinically depressed or burdened by childhood guilt to want help with the timeless questions of the human condition — the persistence of suffering and the inevitability of death, the need for a reliable ethics."
He was temporarily stopped from providing such counseling by CCNY, which was worried about its own liability if one of his counselees got really bad advice.
Marinoff presided over a split in the philosophical counseling community, creating the American Philosophical Practitioners Association (APPA) because the slightly older American Society for Philosophy Counseling and Psychotherapy (ASPCP) wasn't pushing aggressively enough for things like insurance reimbursement, certification, and expansion.
He's savagely criticized by philosophers and even some other proponents of philosophical counseling. Among their comments: "[Marinoff is] a worldwide embarrassment for the profession," and "[He] is not a scholar, he's not a guy who should be leading a [national movement]." His 3-day certification program is called "ludicrous."
The NYT Magazine article will probably be available for free this week, pay access after that, although most libraries will have back issue hard copies:
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/21/magazine/21SHRINK.html
The Socratic Shrink By DANIEL DUANE
Published March 21, 2004Marinoff wrote "The Big Questions: How Philosophy Can Change Your Life" and "Plato, Not Prozac! : Applying Eternal Wisdom to Everyday Problems" .
-bhc
Posted by 64Bowtie on March 22, 2004, at 12:05:26
In reply to Marinoff and 'philosophical counseling', posted by badhaircut on March 22, 2004, at 10:09:56
bhc, Thanks for the heads-up. In the past, pastoral counseling could be deductively linked to philosophical counseling: "Religion is an assemblage of beliefs in an absolute being bolstered by philosophical testimony".
Since religion has pastoral counselors, they will be more likely to use philosophical arguements than most mental health professionals, is my guess. So the secular world will be able to continue those good works and the naysayers and the legislators must trip over the good track record of pastoral counselors because of this link.
I am exploring ways to fold education into the fray, to wit, Life Coaching. Czek out my WEB site if you choose. emerchant-services.com/10daycoach. I have a real domain elswhere but I am squabbling with the hosting agent and will be moving soonly.
So this is very temporary. I'm learning to pick my battles; and TIMING! Paruse: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20040316/msgs/326652.htmlWhat you have brought to the table is so watershed. Thanks again. This may be toooo far reaching, but I see a possibility for a lobbyist dedicated to counselors other than Mental Health. Since the Colorado legislature is posturing to require certification for Pastoral Couselors and Life Coaches, your article indicates there may be problems elswhere, toooo.
Add Philosophical Counselors and Drug Intake Counselors, and I see a market for a lobbyist. Public mental health is in such a mess, the legislature needs to spend their time cleaning that up instead of protecting the incomes of Ts and Pdocs with misguided paranoid legislation.
The "smoke and mirrors" in Colorado is that certification can lead to qualifying for insurance reimbursement. Question:exactly how does that work for pastoral counselors? Remember that pesky constitution and "separation of church and state"? ...a lobbyists first battle in the making.
Thanks again... Rod
Posted by DaisyM on March 22, 2004, at 14:23:41
In reply to Marinoff and 'philosophical counseling', posted by badhaircut on March 22, 2004, at 10:09:56
What bothers me, is that these guys act like they invented the napkin or decided to slice bread...Yalom has written for years that mortality, a meaningful life, and fate vs. choice have always been underlying most people's mental health issues. Not that he didn't agree that there was pathology but he believed that as therapy progressed to really get to the main issue, you had to look at these questions. Essentially he wanted us to consider why we question who we are or are meant to be, why we feel guilty, why we need/don't need intimacy...and these questions are philosophical in nature and personal in application. Discontentment comes in often when there is a disconnect between you philisophical leanings and your reality.
I smiled inwardly yesterday having a conversation with my 18-year-old son. He is in his first year at UC Berkely and I picked him up for spring break. He is so optimistic, so outraged and so idealistic in his thinking right now. It is great! But remembering those intense philosophical discussion all night in the dorm hallways reminds me that therapy is about making peace with how personal situations and choices conflict with your philisophical stance and life dreams.
Posted by 64Bowtie on March 22, 2004, at 17:23:10
In reply to Re: Marinoff and 'philosophical counseling', posted by DaisyM on March 22, 2004, at 14:23:41
>Discontentment comes in often when there is a disconnect between you philisophical leanings and your reality.
>
<<<(You said this in your post...) All philosophy aside please... Discontentment is acted out much the same way as dissatisfaction, would you agree? (no trick questions here...) The neuro folks are not being sneaky-philosophers when they state that along with fear of loud noises and fear of falling, we are hard wired to avoid and overcome dissatisfaction, from birth to death. (we're born complaining, and we die complaining) Most philosophers probably don't know this fact.
You bring conflict into play. Thank you. Many folks might everyday find a conflict between what they think, and what "is". (don't you just love "isness") I'm here all the time asking people to please look at conflict!!! There in lies the aligory of our sanity (or lack of it).Its accepted that it is insane to claim that something isn't when it is there clearly for all to see. Insanity is also accepted diagnosis for someone doing something over and over again hoping for a different outcome, only to repeat the same dissastrous results. Denial gets a bad name when wacky people do this. (actually a well deserved and overdue bad name)
bhc dropped a post in over a month ago about a stanford research project implying that induced forgetting can be significantly more powerful than just forgetting by chance. We can force ourselves to forget better than we can forget by time-and-tides.
What glares out at me in this whole train of thought is, we can't forget to avoid dissatisfaction, only mediate its effects with drugs or hard work. If I am driving down the freeway and some jerk cuts me off in my lane, endangering all the lives around them, I immediately lament that, "There's never a cop around when I need one!" as if the cop is mandated to arrest my upsettness. I'm no longer a two year old, yet for that instant, I act like one. I look for a big person to set things right. "Do your job and arrest that jerk!" grumble, grumble.
Please, (((Daisy))), hang in there. I'm still learning how and when to say stuff about this. Luckily, you and bhc shared on the same thread, so I'll try it again.
The dissatisfaction urge is very powerful and can't be forgotten; it's hard wired into us at birth. The diagnosis of "poor impulse control" is rooted in this urge. Crime is directly related. "Poor conflict resolution strategy" is the mental health diagnosis when folks go from incidence to violence without thought; the dissatisfaction avoidance urge is powerful and compelling. Even coercion takes a little planning.
It sounds like I could go on and on, because I could about something so pervasive and so denied. Ultimately, when we change our habits to those that produce aesthetically pleasing results, we then can find mediation. Before that, we wallow in dysfunction that is protected by denial, and our indecision blocks our understanding.
None of this is subtle or philosophical. We have a thinking disorder that mitigates our bad behavior. Philosophy cannot guarantee a remedy for a thinking disorder just because both have something to do with thinking, especially one so hard wired. Time for CBT or DBT to step in and help if the disorder is toooo severe or chronic.
Rod
PS: I have been trained to counsel for this senario, but I'm only one of a handful so trained. The environment was working with chemical and person abusers assigned by the courts. Then David Peck died without resolution...
Posted by 64Bowtie on March 22, 2004, at 17:41:35
In reply to Re: Marinoff and 'philosophical counseling', posted by DaisyM on March 22, 2004, at 14:23:41
>therapy is about making peace with how personal situations and choices conflict with your philisophical stance and life dreams.
>
<<<Overcoming internal confictedness is only the first step. Internal conflict is like wearing leg fetters when we must escape the approaching forest fire. Life will mow-us-down if we are obliviously dealing with our inner demons.(((Daisy))), you said it differently than I did, but only slightly. You brought up conflict which is most important. I submit that we can't address our interpersonal conflicts until we deal with those demons of our own. We surely can't change anybody elses thinking or behavior until we can be taken seriously. Also, look at the practice we get, working on ourselves first. When we "get-it", then we can pass it on freely.
Rod
Posted by Dinah on March 22, 2004, at 18:48:41
In reply to Marinoff and 'philosophical counseling', posted by badhaircut on March 22, 2004, at 10:09:56
It's a little bit scary. But maybe that's just me. I'm afraid if philosophers start lobbying for insurance reimbursement, the more likely outcome is a backlash for talk therapists so that eventually only medications and possibly CBT is reimbursed.
A scary thought to me.
Posted by gardenergirl on March 22, 2004, at 18:49:40
In reply to Re: Marinoff and 'philosophical counseling', posted by DaisyM on March 22, 2004, at 14:23:41
Posted by mair on March 22, 2004, at 21:33:44
In reply to Re: Marinoff and 'philosophical counseling', posted by DaisyM on March 22, 2004, at 14:23:41
Sorry to go so far off topic but I loved your description of your son. I, too, have an 18 year old college freshman son and I find that I spend alot of time smiling inwardly. He doesn't sound so idealistic or philosophical to me, but he now loves to talk about what he's learned; he's so much more aware of how the world works, and his vocabulary has grown by leaps and bounds. His speech is filled with lots of fairly sophisticated words and phrases not always used entirely correctly.
(...of course on the other hand he called me today from a store in a mall in another state where he is visiting a friend just so he could ask me what size polo shirt he should buy, so he's definitely still a work in progress.)
Mair
Posted by DaisyM on March 23, 2004, at 10:29:13
In reply to Re: Marinoff and 'philosophical counseling'-2nd, posted by 64Bowtie on March 22, 2004, at 17:41:35
First, I have to learn to type "philosophical" -- I wonder what Freud would make of that.
I agree with most of what Rod said, we do need to recognize that life is just full of conflicting pressures and choices and our dissatisfaction with the way things are drives us to make them better. (yes,the next sound you hear will be the nonprofit soap box being dragged to center stage...)
But I think we MUST work on our interpersonal skills as we work on our selves. Humans are social creatures and most unhappiness grows from being lonely and having no purpose. I'm using the word purpose here not as "worth" but as intent. Each day a person needs to know he or she makes a difference in the world in some small way. Even if it is just making carbon dioxide for the plants or sending a few good thoughts for someone into the universal consciousness.
It is this connectedness that is recognized by talk therapy -- and why it works. The practicality of relating the bigger questions to another person and to our life causes internalization of strength and intent. And we feel better.
My Therapist recently expressed a wish that our cultural would value inter-dependency with the same vigor we hold independence. Needing each other might make us take better care of each other.
Rod, personal note, you are doing fine. Your posts are getting clearer and clearer and I am not easily offended. I WILL argue with you when I disagree and I'll tell you if I'm offended, which isn't easy to do. Consider I work with 2-year-olds who never hesitate to "tell it like it is". :)
Posted by DaisyM on March 23, 2004, at 10:34:34
In reply to Off the subject » DaisyM, posted by mair on March 22, 2004, at 21:33:44
I love this age! My son breaks in with IMs all the time to ask things like, "I spilled milk on the floor and it smells, what do I do?"
Or, "How do I wash my sheets?" (try soap...)
My favorite: "How do I know how much money I have left in my checking account?" This from my brilliant child who got into Berkeley and is majoring in Economics. LOL
However -- the size thing might be a gender thing (no offense to anyone). After 20 years of marriage, I sent my husband out to buy his OWN underwear for once. He called once to ask his size and then he came back with bikinis. I laughed so hard and he was really offended. He said, "well, how was I suppose to know there were different types too...I didn't look for that!" And he stomped off.
Posted by mair on March 23, 2004, at 12:31:24
In reply to Re: Off the subject » mair, posted by DaisyM on March 23, 2004, at 10:34:34
God that's funny - I actually laughed out loud, a rarity when I'm sitting in my office with no one around.
My son's phone call was made to my house - I don't know why since he knows I work and am typically not at home at 1 in the afternoon. He got my 16 year old daughter, who has TONS more common sense and basic survival skills. He told her he had a clothes question which he didn't want to ask her since she "wouldn't know." The deal was that he had just tried a polo shirt on which was a size L, but seemed tight to him. Should he buy an XL? She said, yes of course, to which he replied "but I'm not a size XL" After all of these years, the idea that different brands and cuts fit differently is one that has escaped him, as is the thought that maybe he could have saved himself the phone call by simply trying the larger size on.
You may be right about the gender stuff though. When my husband went to college, he destroyed a few nylon socks trying to iron them.
My son attends a very competative New England college. Like your son, he's pretty bright and a high achiever, but at times his total lack of life skills frightens me no end.
On the other hand, I wish everyone could have an 18 year old son like mine and yours - they are such a delight.
Mair
BTW - my son did figure out on his own how to wash sheets BUT he admitted to me that it would never have occurred to him to wash them at all had I not reminded him when I dropped him off at school last fall.
Posted by 64Bowtie on March 24, 2004, at 15:07:41
In reply to Re: Off the subject » mair, posted by DaisyM on March 23, 2004, at 10:34:34
Mair, guess your hubby never shopped at Sears or Wal Mart.....lol. I get lost in all the choices.
Rod
Posted by 64Bowtie on March 24, 2004, at 16:09:28
In reply to Re: Marinoff and 'philosophical counseling'-2nd, posted by DaisyM on March 23, 2004, at 10:29:13
(((Daisy))), thanks for the good words. May I tilt what you said ever so slightly?
We (I) have a problem getting past "me". I am my own worst enemy. However, I no longer am plagued with internal torment and internal conflict and internal visions of righteous torture. I now can see a conflict coming even before it gets here.
20 or so conflicts per day is about normal. Any disagreement as to what to do next or how to do it even when it seems to resolve itself, is still a conflict. So, since we do all this conflict management on a moment by moment basis, why are we so bad at the overall realm of conflict resolution?
Three arbitrary examples:
1. What we FEEL is part of someone elses feelings that we ascribe to, leaving us guessing how to use that feeling. We use it to make a decision, and it blows up!
2. We FEEL things should turn out a certain way so we move heaven and earth to get that results. It blows up in our face. We discover later that we lacked important facts that would have supported an effective deductive decision that didn't seem necessary since it felt OK.
3. Testimony (the sole basis of beliefs) provides all the information necessary to make an OK decision. Someone dies. Its discovered that someone else well known and trusted by all, lied. So much for truth in advertising. What do we say then? Oh, well....?20 of these things happen to us every day. We trust our feelings as we should; I mean that. So what is going so wrong?
We were induced with information as a child. It was a successful childhood experience. However, our parents forget to tell us to not wait around as adults for someone to induce information, since we are old enough to deduce on our own. Did I leave out the part about my parents had no idea that this was important? I'm 52 and still keep finding new puzzle pieces daily; hourly.
A shrink from Minneapolis had a tape series in the 80's where he asked some of these same questions. What he came up with is that normal parenting in America had stopped including a (healthy) rite of passage ritual several years before. The purpose in many cultures for this ritual is to identify the differences in problem solving as a young adult as opposed to that of childhood. This sends the young adult off on their own for the first time allowing them to honor their newly acquired skils and attributes (via the "geneitc God"). Shades of Jean Piaget.....
I have found that I become most effective in my 20 odd per day conflicts when and if I am balanced. What I'm saying is not heresy to either side of the human brain, left or right. If the right-brain is more for feelings and the left-brain is more for logic, I am most successful when I turn both sides of my brain loose on a problem. So, the theory is to approach each and every conflict armed with all our skills and senses and use feelings and logic to the best of their abilities, always checking with the other side to hold onto the essence of harmony and balance.
Today my right-brain might take responsibility for only three decisions, whereas the left-brain took on maybe eight challenges. That means that the left and right solved the remaining problems in concert, sharing the load of the problem solving process.
See, I knew I could be short and quick!!!
Rod
Posted by DaisyM on March 24, 2004, at 20:18:55
In reply to Re:Re: Marinoff and 'philosophical counseling' » DaisyM, posted by 64Bowtie on March 24, 2004, at 16:09:28
But do you agree or disagree that we need to work on conflicts with interpersonal skills? Or, do you think if we "fix" ourselves, these conflicts will be less likely to happen?
I'm pretty OK by myself, and actually, in a big crowd. It is with a few, close friends that I get squirrelly about protecting myself or knowing what to cling to and what to resist (ideas that conflict with mine).
As far as a right of passage, I think if parents gave praise and "rewards" for things done well, not just brave attempts (consider developmental stages, please!) then I think young people would internalize the confidence needed to make decisions based on your balance of thinking and feeling. I think they are given messages over and over to make them feel good but these messages don't resonant with their intellect. Thus, they don't trust either their intellect or their feelings. Or both (make no decisions at all). They don't learn balance.
So, philosophically speaking, this might be why more people *need* therapy today more now than ever.
Posted by 64Bowtie on March 26, 2004, at 1:55:09
In reply to Re:Re: Marinoff and 'philosophical counseling', posted by DaisyM on March 24, 2004, at 20:18:55
Thanx (((Daisy))) for being a provokatuer...
> But do you agree or disagree that we need to work on conflicts with interpersonal skills?
>
<<<if we are "one-with-ourselves", yes. Since I broadly define conflict as anything with even momentary disagreement, much of our waking time is spent at some level of conflict resolution. I contend we are bad at it because we don't use our adult attributes and advanced skills, instead choosing to wait for some "big-person" to come along and tell us how and when to act.Short of guidance, we manipulate with coercion or explode into violence. This is not "a-life"! Its a joke we play on ourselves. We dress up in "big-people" clothes and drive a car and get drunk at lunch just like "big-people" do. Pretty sad picture.
>
>Or, do you think if we "fix" ourselves, these conflicts will be less likely to happen?
>
<<<Hmmmm....; "fix"... We CAN become well; I'm living proof!
<<<Conflicts will happen and we will be "star" conflict resolvers. We'll be so smooth we won't even notice 'em.
>
> I'm pretty OK by myself, and actually, in a big crowd. It is with a few, close friends that I get squirrelly about protecting myself or knowing what to cling to and what to resist (ideas that conflict with mine).
>
<<<...but I like you most when you're squirrelly!Try not clinging to anything for 24 hours and see what you learn. (this is my first lesson for you becoming one of my Life Coaches)
>
> As far as a right of passage, I think if parents gave praise and "rewards" for things done well, not just brave attempts (consider developmental stages, please!) then I think young people would internalize the confidence needed to make decisions based on your balance of thinking and feeling.
>
<<<Not poo-pooing what you are saying. However, for 6,000 years and 180 countries, (None the USA), adolescent males have been given a knife, a robe, and a sack of food, sent off into the forest and told to come back after 12 moons. If they make it back, they become a man in the tribe they used to be a boy in. If they don't make it, they become food for forest predators and scavengers.Translate this to a barmitzva nowdays. Then, notice we don't do this. Then, get curious about why we are retarding our ability to take responsibility, have genuine respect instead of obligation, why we have feelings of approval and mistakenly call it love, and why we avoid new "nouns" (people, places, things, ideas) because we can't accept anyone, let alone ourselves.
>
>I think they are given messages over and over to make them feel good but these messages don't resonant with their intellect. Thus, they don't trust either their intellect or their feelings. Or both (make no decisions at all). They don't learn balance.
>
<<<good parenting is inducing a rules based on a moral coda onto the child that hopefully they can remember and use later when they need it. The child responds to the approval of the parent. The child's wiring isn't complete yet so the word love is only recognizable as approval. The parent can have genuine grown-up love for the child. The child can only process approval. All their lives the child may think they are talking about the same thing. However, the neuro folks have solved the puzzle. The kids just don't notice the changeover to grownup love even though it is vastly different from childhood approval electro-chemically in the lab.
>
> So, philosophically speaking, this might be why more people *need* therapy today more now than ever.
>
What I think gets me PBCs from Dr Bob. (no one needs therapy as much as they need to become mature, take resoponsibility, replace approval seeking with love, replace fear of danger with respect for the same danger, and replace avoidance of "nouns" with acceptance. The rite of passage ritual gives them a key date to remember as the day that their life changed and they could then call themselves adult!Please listen to your heart and your brain in concert with each other. Both are important! If we keep count, I bet we don't even recognize decisions made with logic. We are told to think with our heart, yet that's all most do anyway. They never learn to honor their adult talents and skills; things that no child can do, ever. They just never notice the difference and denial isnt just a river in Egypt either.
Rod
Posted by Dinah on March 27, 2004, at 9:26:52
In reply to Re:Re: Marinoff and 'philosophical counseling' » DaisyM, posted by 64Bowtie on March 26, 2004, at 1:55:09
> <<<Not poo-pooing what you are saying. However, for 6,000 years and 180 countries, (None the USA), adolescent males have been given a knife, a robe, and a sack of food, sent off into the forest and told to come back after 12 moons. If they make it back, they become a man in the tribe they used to be a boy in. If they don't make it, they become food for forest predators and scavengers.
>Are you saying this is a good thing? Not to be disrespectful to anyone's religious customs or anything. But one of my main goals in childrearing is too teach my son to have enough of a sense of who he is to resist feeling like he needs to do foolish and dangerous things that society tells him will prove he's a "man".
A man is someone with enough differentiation to say "I don't need to go out in the forest and risk becoming crow food to prove I'm a man. I can do it by living up to my responsibilities to society and to my family." I'm glad to say he's got a father who teaches that to him every day by example. So maybe when he goes to college and hears that he'll become a man by going through some fraternity drinking ritual, he'll be able to laugh. Or when he hears that a real man will have sex as often as possible, he'll say that a real man understands the obligations that are entailed in having a sexual relationship and risking pregnancy.
Posted by Dinah on March 27, 2004, at 9:27:27
In reply to Re:Re: Marinoff and 'philosophical counseling' » DaisyM, posted by 64Bowtie on March 26, 2004, at 1:55:09
Posted by 64Bowtie on March 27, 2004, at 12:42:18
In reply to Re:Re: Marinoff and 'philosophical counseling', posted by Dinah on March 27, 2004, at 9:26:52
>So maybe when he goes to college and hears that he'll become a man by going through some fraternity drinking ritual, he'll be able to laugh. Or when he hears that a real man will have sex as often as possible, he'll say that a real man understands the obligations that are entailed in having a sexual relationship and risking pregnancy.
><<<YES!!! (((Dinah))), You captured the essense...
Rod
This is the end of the thread.
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