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Psychotherapy on the Road to ... Where?
NY Times ^ | December 27, 2005 | BENEDICT CAREY

Posted on 12/28/2005 9:29:32 PM PST by neverdem

ANAHEIM, Calif. - The small car careered toward a pile of barrels labeled "Danger TNT," then turned sharply, ramming through a mock brick wall and into a dark tunnel. A light appeared ahead, coming fast and head-on. A locomotive whistled.

"Uh-oh," said one of the passengers, Dr. Martin Seligman, a psychologist and a pioneer in the study of positive emotions.

But in a moment, the car scudded safely under the light, out through the swinging doors of Mr. Toad's Wild Ride and into the warm, clear light that seemed to radiate from the Southern California pavement.

"Well," Dr. Seligman said. "I don't know that I expected to be doing that."

One of several prominent therapists who agreed to visit Disneyland at the invitation of this reporter, Dr. Seligman was here in mid-December for a conference on the state of psychotherapy, its current challenges and its future. And a wild ride it was.

Because it was clear at this landmark meeting that, although the participants agreed it was a time for bold action, psychotherapists were deeply divided over whether that action should be guided by the cool logic of science or a spirit of humanistic activism. The answer will determine not only what psychotherapy means, many experts said, but its place in the 21st century.

"In the 1960's and 1970's, we had these characters like Carl Rogers, Minuchin, Frankl; psychotherapy felt like a social movement, and you just wanted to be a part of it," said Dr. Jeffrey Zeig, a psychologist who heads the Milton H. Erickson Foundation, which every five years since 1980 has sponsored the conference in honor of Dr. Erickson, a pioneer in the use of hypnosis and brief therapy techniques.

(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Extended News; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: psychology; psychotherapy

1 posted on 12/28/2005 9:29:33 PM PST by neverdem
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To: neverdem
"Uh-oh," said one of the passengers, Dr. Martin Seligman, a psychologist and a pioneer in the study of positive emotions.

Uh-oh, slow train comin'!

Question is, WHAT ARE those "positive emotions" because to some people, being happy is doing great harm to themselves and others.

2 posted on 12/28/2005 9:32:42 PM PST by MillerCreek
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To: neverdem
One of several prominent therapists who agreed to visit Disneyland at the invitation of this reporter

What a goofy-ass idea for a story.

3 posted on 12/28/2005 9:46:44 PM PST by Darkwolf377 (Warning: Adult language, but great Christmas message: http://foamy.libertech.net/noxmas.swf)
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To: MillerCreek

Looks to me like a variance of effects of shell shock or electroshock therapy. Others call it "immediate sanction" therapy, as taught in violin classes where the minutest imperfection in the hold hurts your ears.

It's a guilt system for those of us who do not see the world with pink colored glasses. It's quite violent and invasive psychicaly in fact, given the degree of latitude the image thruster gets into his or her patient.. I'd say akin to a first sexual experience. In Aviation they call it Law of Intensity and Affect combined, where intensity and +ve or -ve emotions tend to increase learning efficiency and "behavioral change as a result of experience".

The downside is that people under such treatment become pink Nazies of their own, where they will harass and jump at anyone in "immediate sanction" manner. It makes for a little army of such people to influence society in subreptitious manner, imo, rather than make them graduate or truly emancipate from their prior problems... call it attacking and manipulating outward appearances and symptoms over the illness itself... but this is what we get for so called "scientific" research that rejects God's promise of possibilities to emancipate from nature in positive controled ways, with self-confidence and self-representation as a goals institutionalizing the individual as an equal witness or even authority to any organization out there.

But institutional or institutionalized scientists certainly do not want to see their patients healing faster than they are! So the idea of God goes out the window and "window dressing" solutions like these are kept in the system so as to control the institutionalization of people, making them meat and slaves, really, in the end.


4 posted on 12/29/2005 4:13:25 AM PST by JudgemAll (Condemn me, make me naked and kill me, or be silent for ever on my gun ownership and law enforcement)
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To: neverdem

interesting article. More evidence in general favor of 'Of two minds, the growing disorder in American psychiatry', a well written book, by forget whom, which argued that pscyhotherapy and psychoanalysis, while still useful in certain situations, was becoming overshadowed by the bio-chemical side.


5 posted on 12/29/2005 5:47:29 AM PST by traviskicks (http://www.neoperspectives.com/secondaryproblemsofsocialism.htm)
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To: traviskicks

oh and of course, the leftism has always been present in the APA and other orgs and so it is not surprising to see it here.


6 posted on 12/29/2005 5:48:44 AM PST by traviskicks (http://www.neoperspectives.com/secondaryproblemsofsocialism.htm)
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To: traviskicks

"Psychotherapy on the Road to ... Where?"

DNC Headquarters?


7 posted on 12/29/2005 6:08:10 AM PST by EQAndyBuzz ("We don't need POLITICIANS...we need STATESMEN.")
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