A Therapeutic Space for Individuals, Couples, and Families
Check out this Op-Ed from The New York Times by Internal Medicine physician Danielle Ofri. She cites a recent Canadian study which shows that empathic, caring conversation from their physical therapists actually reduced the patients’ pain more than a medical procedure designed to treat their condition.
Modern Psychiatry, in league with pharmaceutical and insurance companies, promotes language which advances the idea that emotional “problems” were neurophysiological ‘disorders’.
In many professions now, so-called “quality measurement” is the dominant language, reducing, quantifying, and eventually, side-lining the importance of human interaction. This can not be good for us as living, breathing, multi-dimensional beings.
Amy: I love this little post from Alain de Botton’s The School of Life. He talks about the importance of
Jazz musicians as family therapists: Check out this case where jazz musicians were my “consultants” to a couple in therapy. It’s just as surprising as you might imagine.
Jazz Musicians As Psychotherapists: Music can healing force. Here jazz musicians are invited to “consult” to family therapy sessions. The results have been amazing.
Here are my reflections on a rather subtle, yet insidious family pattern characterized by invisible (unconscious) demands for false togetherness, the demand that all family members pretend to think the same. This enforced “togetherness” has a formidable, unyielding tone, suggesting it is not to be questioned.
Here is a second session from the family with “enforced togetherness” where one member is what I call “insane”; locked inside sanity, locked in unbending, pathological sanity.
Enforced “togetherness” in families, though largely unconscious, emerges in the way a family tells its story. It is not a unity which augments family spirit, it restricts. The restriction serves a purpose for some. The need for protection is motivated by a history of trauma or too much despair. But often a family member, usually a child, may be sacrificed to maintain this appearance of group unity.
Here’s a first session with a “misbehaving” boy that reflects the corrosive effect of “enforced unity” in families