At 08:31 PM 2/14/99 -0800, Jim Devine wrote:
>In terms of actual psychotherapy, my experience and reading indicates that
>there are a lot of alternatives to the Woody Allen/Freudian routine of 5
>hours a week until dead or broke (and look how well it helped _him_). Among
>other things, there's co-counselling, in which two people alternate acting
>as client and therapist, paying each other with time and attention rather
>than with bucks.
--snip --
>It's true that the insurance companies and especially the HMOs are pushing
>drugs rather than any version of the talking cure. And it's my impression
Jim - psychoanalysis seems to be more antithetical to "talking cure" than
drug theraphy. It is so because smooth-talking charlatans directly compete
with other forms "talking therapy" that is, talking to you friends,
relatives, etc. It makes you more dependent on schmucks who cares only
about their $120-for-the-50 minutes-of-their-time and thus less likely to
seek contact with other people. It thus contributes to alienation. At
least drug therapy does not pretend to create a better form of human
interaction than that occurring in everyday life.
A have a profound aversion to shrinks in general, but those of the
psychoanalytic variety are particularly nasty because they are more like
priests or cult leaders. The other kinds are more like physicians -
perhaps arrogant, but at least empirical.
Regards,
Wojtek
>that the psychiatrists are pretty in the dark about the drugs they
>prescribe. For example, they don't seem to know why Ritalin works on some
>kids with ADHD but not others. (Worse, there are lots of pediatricians who
>prescribe Ritalin without thinking, under the influence of drug companies
>and school bureaucrats or parents in search of a "silver bullet" to deal
>with unruly kids.) And for my son's mild case of autism ("Asperger's
>syndrome"), the drugs treat the symptoms, not the disease. Non-medicinal
>social-skills training, a dose of behavior mod, family therapy, and play
>therapy seem to be what's helping. (Play therapy is like the talking cure
>for kids.) At best, the meds moderate some of the symptoms.
>
>Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] &
>http://clawww.lmu.edu/Faculty/JDevine/JDevine.html
>
>
