Bobby Robson’s legacy

Image from www.timesonline.co.uk

We have a habit of praising people at Memorial Services in a way which would often be better done while they are still alive.   Perhaps the personal expressions of love are the most important things that should not be left until it’s too late, but public recognition of what someone’s life has meant to us may not be possible until later.

Football is an activity which doesn’t require many words but over Sir Bobby Robson’s death, normally silent men (mostly men) were eloquent.  Men are often at risk because of their culturally induced need to limit the expression of emotion.   Many men have done such a good job of repressing their feelings that they don’t know themselves what they feel.  In addition, more men than women suffer from autism (1.8% of the male population compared with 0.2% of women)  Outbursts of violence may be one of the results of bottled up feelings.   Suicide and self damaging behaviour is another. We know that men need to do and to act and to be themselves, and not become an inferior sort of woman. Football clubs and boxing clubs give the opportunity for young men to compete, to fight, to excel in a way which wins them all sorts of rewards but does not usually harm anyone although of course there are notable exceptions.

Talking therapies may seem remote from these young people, but at WPF Therapy we have found that we can work with the staff at boxing clubs, helping them to be available as role models and as teachers that young people can admire and emulate.   Sometimes there will be young people who want someone to talk to and with our specialist project, Way Ahead, WPF Therapy can offer a safe place for young people to talk through distress, anger, hurt and also hope.    Change is easier when you are young and we can help people to make the most of their chances in every way.     Sir Bobby Robson helped innumerable young people with his example and we will help in a different way.

Scotland the brave

Image from : http://www.ngw.nl

Baroness Scotland has a bad case of ‘damned if you do and damned if you don’t’.    Did she look at her prospective employee’s passport or not?   If she did then she might have knowingly employed an illegal immigrant as far as we can tell, and if she didn’t she was transgressing her own legal requirements.   ‘Her own’ in the sense that as Attorney General, she is the senior law maker responsible for the conduct of the law in this country.

As an employer I had no idea that I was responsible for asking to see passports of any prospective employee. In the law I understand that ignorance is no defence but this is a very difficult law both to enforce and to comply with.    How am I to judge who should show me their passports?  I would be infringing my own ideas of equality if I decided to ask all the people whose accent indicated that they were not born in this country or perhaps those who look foreign?   Even worse.   So am I am left with the only fair policy which would be asking everyone to show me their passport.   But there is no reason to suppose that all native Britons have passports.  Why should they?     We don’t have to carry ‘papers’ as if we were living under a Nazi regime or in South Africa under apartheid.

So just how should this law work?   I don’t think that illegal immigrants should take jobs from those who are here legitimately.  But putting the responsibility on employers does not seem to be a reasonable way to make this happen.  Many of us have areas of behaviour that are designed to bring about reasonable results but are counter productive.    Take Anita who is uncomfortable to be with because she always seems to leave you feeling that you have failed in some way.   She is making a demand for some sort of solution or benefit of which she is probably not fully aware herself.  If she would look at her behaviour in therapy she might discover what is counter productive in her relationships.    She might take the time and put in the effort to figure out how to be honest with herself and with others in order to ask people to respond appropriately.  Such an approach might help us with many problems even to find a way to give jobs to those who have a right to them without turning us all into immigration police and informers.

What People think of therapy

Online poll on the motion “Psychotherapy has done more harm than good”.
The final result was over 90% against

The debate at the Royal Geographic Society in London on the same motion “Psychotherapy has done more harm than good” also had a decisive outcome. Of the audience before the debate, 167 were in favour, 304 against, with 195 undecided. After the debate 204 were in favour (ie against psychotherapy), and a resounding 421 were against the notion that psychotherapy has done more harm than good. 35 remained undecided. (The result was perhaps even more remarkable when you consider that around 20% of the audience has some psychological therapy role, and so were more likely to favour therapy, and perhaps less likely to be influenced by what they heard.)

Source : http://www.intelligencesquared.com/past-events.php?event=EVT0183

Suicide Prevention: how do we help?

Suicide Prevention: how do we help?
World Suicide Prevention Day September 10th, 2009

Of the people who come to WPF Therapy with any sort of emotional, relationship or work-related problem tell us that they have thought seriously of killing themselves in the recent past. Many more have thought of it at some time. We usually then try to discover what would stop these distressed people from carrying out a plan. The most reliable reasons are that it would do too much damage to family and people close. Often too people say that they don’t quite have the courage to do it. So how do you stop people from killing themselves? At WPF Therapy we know that loving relationships are the best protection. We help people to develop and improve their capacity for relating to others. Secondly we know that people need to value their own lives and that often means that they need to see who they are and what they do as potentially valuable. That does not mean encouraging narcissistic monsters. It means a reasonable valuation of ones self that is not dictated by bad experiences in the past and is open to a new, more constructive life in the future.

image by Rubens LP

Jacob came to us as a student aged 23. He was contemplating stealing a gun and shooting himself. He felt inferior to the others on his course and was sure he would fail his exams. Luckily his tutor sent him for counselling. He was able to trace his hopeless depression back to the words of his grandfather that still rang in his ears ‘ You’ll never be half the man your father was’ His father had been killed in the Iraq war and was thought of as a war hero. With the help of his counsellor, Jacob had to escape from the destructive thinking that this had set up. He returned to his course and was able to complete it with only a usual level of anxiety.

Compensation for a death

Apparently our government let go of claims for compensation for the Lockerbie victims’ families from the Lybian government, probably because of negotiations over gas and oil supplies.   Most of the Press seems to be highly indignant.    It is certainly tempting to join one of two op0posing sides:
Compensation is a sign of regret and of the value of the lives that were lost.
No-one can put a value on a human life and to put a monetary value on it is repugnant.    Gas and oil supplies to run our country, keep0ing us warm in winter for example, are more important than compensation which is only a token anyway.

I am not satisfied with either of these trains of thought.   I am interested in what the victims are seeking.    I am not so presumptuous as to think I know, but I might allow myself a guess.   I think that many of them will be wanting to find a way to keep the daughter, son, wife, husband, mother , father alive.    They will do anything to gain recognition for the loss because the loss is all they have now but the emptiness of it can be be mitigated if there is some activity and the names are known or the families recognised.

Is this a civilised version of the tribal ‘pay back’ in which a death had to be paid for in blood or tribute?    I am not saying that but I am wondering whether the same psychological imperative underlies both these old practices and the modern compensation culture.    If Freud was right,  bereavement steals something from the sense of self.    The lost person takes something of me with him or her and I have to find a way of restoring myself in order to go on living.   Compensation is a formal, socially recognised form of saying to the bereaved that they are still worth something.   The wish  to punish the perpetrators is both a necessary impulse to maintain social order and prevent repetition of crimes and also a wish to assert the value of the injury or rather its enormity to those who suffered it.    Again, it leads back in part to re-establishing the value of those who are bereaved.

I certainly do not envy the Ministers involved for the decisions that they had to make.   If it was really an issue of oil and gas, how would I put a pensioner’s heating in relation to a victim’s feelings?     Not an easy  one at all.

They are

Big Brother Shrinks

I remember the excitement in the office about Big Brother – who said what last night then, later, who did what last night. We were all fascinated by the chance to be legitimate watchers of other people’s relationships and to hear what we thought were their thoughts in the diary room. There is a sort of desire in all of us to know about the other person. Am I unique because I have all sorts of thoughts that are aggressive or salacious? Most of us censor our most primitive impulses and do not allow them much thinking time. Other peoplle are haunted by thoughts that they would prefer not to have. One thing is certain and Freud confirmed it: we all have thoughts that we would rather not have and that we would prefer not to acknowledge. The work of the psychological therapist is often to unearth these thoughts that we have buried and bring them to consciousness so that they can be assessed and dealt with.

But Big Brother is finished. The concept most certainly is not. The talent show Britain’s got talent works on very much the same principle. We watch people doing things that they normally do only in front of a few people and we get insights into their lives and thoughts. In fact come to think of it, much of television does exactly that. We have an endless appetite for answers to the questions: what do other people think? We are all alone in our own minds and we seek companionship, normality. This is best achieved by by getting to know more of what goes on in your own mind. The most dangerous stranger is the one within. Watching the others can be interesting, can be educational, even inspirational but it can never be a substitute for

Talking to terrorists

US former president Clinton has gone to talk to Kim Jong Ill of North Korea amidst a chorus of disapproval because ‘we don’t talk to terrorists’. The point perhaps should be that we don’t negotiate with terrorists. That is to say, we don’t do deals with evil and cruelty. That is different from saying that we don’t talk to people whose policies and values we deplore. We must talk to them because, as Clinton is demonstrating, talking opens the doors to a more human understanding of each other. Unless we are dealing with someone who is thoroughly and inexplicably evil, we have to find the common human substrate that will prevent us from becoming mere objects or things to each other. If that happens, war becomes possible and mass killing can happen because the enemy is not really human. Within each of us there are cruel and inhuman terrorist forces that may just lead to shoving onto the tube in front of the person who was in front, or may actually lead to verbal or physical cruelty. We might not wish to negotiate with this terrorist by letting it have some of its own way on certain conditions or limitations which is what happens if a country negotiates with hostage takers for example. The hostages may be freed in return for a plane to Afghanistan The trouble with this of course would be that next time the demands would be greater and the process would never stop. On the other hand, talking to the terrorist outside before an atrocity is committed may possibly prevent the worst from happening. This is a frail hope, but even in the case of North Korea seems to be a possibility. Talking to the terrorist within my own head may lead to a humanising improvement while ignoring it and pretending it does not exist will only give it more power. I do not find it easy to do this and that is why a therapist may be needed to help me to begin the process. Some therapists will emphasise my wishes – I really do want to push my way into the front of a crowd and get a seat on the tube. Others may help me to accept that I have a dark side which has strength that I can use in more positive ways. A third group will encourage me to see that I despise my own weakness and will try to push it aside if I can see it in the other passengers instead of in myself. All of them will teach me that talking must always remain the best option. Ignoring the worst of human nature is never going to work. Turning its strength and force into something positive is the only way forward.

Michael Jackson

My nephew loved Michael Jackson. He was young and beautiful successful and famous and everything that a boy wanted to be or even was supposed to want to be. He was apparently one of millions although I was not aware of the extent of the adoration at the time. Now the papers are all saying that the fans killed him with their expectations and demands. No, if anyone killed him, he killed himself. Fame is as Milton said, a spur to action to effort and to achievement but it seems to be, like winning the Lottery, something which very few people can manage successfully. And why not? Becoming famous answers the demand of the small child that I ought to be recognised and listened to. Someone should be there to answer all my needs and to love me no matter what I do. Freud spoke of ‘His Majesty the baby’.

Most adults have to give up that hope and come to understand that it will not happen. Just a few get the hope back when they become famous, often with disastrous results. Does that mean that we should not want to be famous? I don’t think so. What it does mean is that we can never stop questioning our own self confidence and beliefs about ourselves. A good psychotherapist will always probe behind the apparent self confidence of His or Her Majesty and check on the solidity of the person underneath who may be frightened, insecure and about to collapse. Analytic therapy will enable the adult to understand his own vulnerability and accept that some people will love you selflessly but most will be seeking something for themselves and that is all right as long as it is known and understood.

Susan Boyle in the Diary Room

Why do some people want to perform in front of an audience of millions or in front of the Queen? Perhaps the financial rewards are more important for the stars of Britain’s Got Talent or Big Brother. Yet there is an exhibitionist streak in all of us. We may be able to control it tightly under an appearance of reserve and shyness but there is a potentially wild woman or man in the quietest of us.

Susan Boyle or the little girl, Holly may have made us all anxious because they allowed us to see their wishes for fame and success and then couldn’t easily accept the consequent rejection . Both of them showed the natural reactions of tears or anger. Susan Boyle displayed a hint of the fundamental nature of the desire to perform with her little dance of pleasure when she was successful.

Talking therapy does not prevent people from performing or protect them from disappointment and rejection. What it can do is help us to understand the roots of our desire to be seen and appreciated back in our childhood as a little boy or girl who longed to be loved and noticed by parents or caregivers. Being able to think about wishes enables us to choose how to try to fulfil them and how to deal with the rejection if it comes. We can set out to find for ourselves the sort of experiences that will be valuable but not devastating whether the result is a glimpse of amazing success such as Susan Boyle had for a little while or the quieter, more long lasting achievement that she may be able to have now.

Whose fault is it really? BNP

We can hardly be surprised that people have voted for the BNP in the European elections. I don’t know a great deal about its policies but I have heard its leader speaking about ‘immigrants’ as though they were a different species and he certainly seems to be interested in skin colour to a level which I cannot tolerate. Intolerance breeds intolerance.

But why are people voting for them now? I suppose I come back to the idea of narcissism. As small infants we have to learn what is me and what is other. A little newborn doesn’t knew which bits of his world are his to control and which bits are someone thing or someone else. The BNP offers us a return to the state in which we can control everything. It offers a false but relatively simple way of deciding who is ‘us’ and who is ‘other’. In times of great uncertainty and anxiety there seems to be a tendency to go back to more basic forms of functioning. It is quite hard to bear uncertainty and even harder not to have someone to blame but just to accept that life is complex and we have to live from day to day.

Freud taught that the process of growing to maturity is a process of accepting reality as best we can and in whatever way we can come to understand it . Therapy is all about that. The responsible therapist helps each person to get to grips with her own reality and does not offer simple or easy solutions. The effort is huge but the rewards are great for just being a little bit more willing to accept that it may sometimes be me or ‘us’ who are at fault , not just some other people whether they are bankers or MP’s or people whose skin is a different shade from mine.