Moonwood the Hare wrote:I am sorry if it seemed I was insisting. I would try not to do that and I did try to frame what I said in tentative language. There are two reasons why you might reject what I said. The first is that it was simply wrong, nothing about it fit in with your self understanding. If that were the case then insisting could do no good for obvious reasons. But there is a second possibility and that is that my interpretation was right and you resisted it because it made you uncomfortable at some level.
It was simply wrong.
Moonwood the Hare wrote:To insist in that case would also be harmful and futile. Indeed I think that was one of the problems of psychoanalysis. Freud did tend to insist on his interpretations and try to overcome his patients' resistance. Rogers thinks that is the main reason Freudian analysis took so long.
Yes I think Carl Rogers was not only correct but that he had the right idea of what the psychology professional needed to accomplish which was to facilitate the persons own self-communication and self-understanding. Freud's efforts to impose his own way of thinking on other people could only add to the problem because he was just becoming another person in the patients environment, whether parent, priest or whatever that was stuffing the patient into their own preconceptions.
Moonwood the Hare wrote:But in any case the theory I was using was not a form of psychoanalysis (Freud) but a form of transactional analysis (Berne). In some ways I am surprised you didn't recognize it because a lot of Berne's thinking became very popular in the culture you grew up in thanks to a book called 'I'm okay, Your, okay' by a gut called Harris. Did you ever see a copy on yout parents bookshelf?
Yes, I have heard of that book, but I am more familiar with the earlier book, "The games people play". Thus you have the timing wrong. The earlier book was certainly an influence on my parents but later book and its "transactional analysis" was much less so. Remember that they merely got their bachelors degree in psychology. They were not psychologists.
Moonwood the Hare wrote:mitchellmckain wrote:Like EVERYONE, my childhood had both its good points and it bad points, and like everyone I am accustomed to the good things and have learned to cope with the bad things (sometimes by deciding never to subject my own children to the same thing). The result is that most would never exchange theirs for those that are different and I am certainly one of them. They wouldn't know how to cope with the problems that other people live with and would find it very difficult to live without the good things that make their life worthwhile. I believe this is a very large component of culture shock and this is not something that just happens when you go to another country. It can happen when you live or spend time in another persons house. So while my childhood circumstances might have appalled you, your childhood circumstances might very well have made me physically ill. LOL Ah yes there is a famous story about this very thing. It was called "Heidi".
It didn't appal me. I was speculating on why some of your reactions take the form they do; a subject you introduced. And while none of us can swap, all of us can learn from our encounters with these other cultures.
Yes indeed and what you quoted here is one of thing that I have learned from my encounter with other cultures.
Moonwood the Hare wrote:I felt you had internalised the dynamic of parent child relationships within that culture so that when you were rebuking Dr M. there was some kind of echo of criticisms you had received as a child.
No that is not correct. Close, but off the mark. Say rather that if you heard my father speak, it would have sounded hauntingly familiar. The same supercillious sarcasm dripping from every word. I despised it, but like happens so often with many of the things we despise in our parents, you can indeed say that these are habits of communication that have become so much a part of me, that I find it difficult to even be aware of them. I only know they are there, to my great confusion, fustration and exasperation, because of the way that other people respond to me. Its not about criticisms that I had from them as a child but rather the way they (my father in particular) spoke to everyone. We are talking about inherited habits of communication, not about psychological issues with my parents.
Moonwood the Hare wrote:
I think we do interact as people with particular backgrounds and these do colour our arguments. You tell me you often find other people's behaviour puzzling and don't seem to take account of their background.
I don't doubt it. I have never developed any skill in that area.
Arghhh... I am such a freakin head case. I tend to think in theoretical terms almost exclusively. So in practice, I don't know...
Moonwood the Hare wrote:
I feel that the whole tone used Dr M. and his whole approach has changed and that while he was making his point forcefully he was not being arrogant and I felt you went at him like a bull at a gate.
I agree about Dr Mundo, and what you say here make sense. crap! My apologies....
Moonwood the Hare wrote:
Maybe it's the norms of my cultural background that make me see that as inappropriate but this view that it is inappropriate seems to be shared by a lot of people. Now I am not insisting that you adapt to the norms of the majority but I think it would help if you became more aware of them. And remember it is you who has kept saying that you don't understand people.
Yep.
