Paulkershaw, the response to your post whirring in my mind will have to wait for another time, it would take a while.
I want to reply here to ex-l from the other thread (Another suicide) which I feel is distracted by discussing this subject there
ex-l wrote:there are two types of "qualified" individuals. That is, individuals qualified to talk. a) academics and medical/healing practitioners, and b) patients or victims ... Are you a qualified individual? ... in your studies or recovery, did you undergo long term or any psychotherapy? ...
ex-l - I am sure I have answered this, obviously not to your satisfaction (which seems difficult). here goes:No, I have not undergone any psychotherapy at all in the way we are discussing.
Yes, I see life as an ongoing process which, with a certain attitude, might be called psychotherapy. Expanding (hopefully without repeating myself from earlier posts), please bear with me:
I like to use TCM (Traditional Chinese Medicine) for maintaining health. In fact, you could say I have shifted both East and West of India as the source of my approach to life (whilst still acknowledging much of what I learnt from there). There are thousands of graduates of TCM from all kinds of universities and colleges to choose from (here it can be studied at uni - part of Health Sciences, which includes everything other than nursing, and medicine, which have their own faculties).
My choice of therapist is a 4th generation practitioner who is Cambodian Chinese. He grew up in that environment, learnt from his grandfather and Father, who learnt from theirs. It is not a new, alien subject to be "conquered", it is his world view, from the inside out and the outside in. He has no qualifications.
One main side effect of BK life was an imbalance in diet and exercise. To keep this short, i went to other trained healers, doctors etc. He was the one who finally diagnosed (using 6 point pulse diagnosis) the underlying cause. His prescriptions for adjustments to diet - I am still vego - and a course of herbs turned me around.
A person who studies to become a clinical psychologist covers a broad range, but emphasis is on the psychology of consciousness, behaviourism, medications, getting the person to function, managing the symptoms. This can be invaluable and appropriate but very little is studied on the dynamics of the unconscious. They repeat back to the professor what he has spouted to get some letters to add to their names, and a piece of paper they hang on their wall, hang their shingle and open up shop. Its "book knowledge". Some of them are fine practitioners of their craft.
Others practice by rote. This symptom equal that diagnosis - means this prescription. It is the whole person who is the therapist, not the A4 certificate on the wall. (I know some real fruit loops who have become "qualified" counsellors and therapists - they end up projecting their nonsense onto others).
In "The Undiscovered Self", Jung said that, imagine you calculated from samples what specifications describe an average river rock. But just as you could search for weeks and never find one that had those exact specifications, so too, there is no "average" patient or "average" condition. Each has its own permutations.. The therapist must struggle (along with the client) to find what makes that person who they are, and to help them be themselves, not to just enable them fit society's specifications of a useful member, or not be a drain on the budget!.
The process of becoming one's self he calls "individuation". It goes beyond helping someone overcome symptoms that disable. It carries on, to enable people who are "well" to find themselves and their inner voice, to fulfill and enjoy their potential, not someone else's idea of who they "should" be. So again, the whole person. Not splitting them up and working on one aspect, but connecting them to themselves.If you want to qualify as a Jungian therapist, you must yourself undergo therapy for 2 or 3 years as well as studying at a recognised institution - the main one is in Switzerland. I am not a "qualified" Jungian therapist. I started a 10 week course in learning Dream Analysis, from a primarily Jungian approach.
The 10 weeks turned into 3 years of study and analysis. Of myself and others. This was in a small core group of about 6 people, with others coming and going. It was not intended to become that. It was the serendipitous meeting of a particular group of individuals. Needless to say we are all firm and fast friends. The teacher was, like my Chinese herbalist, not qualified but born to it. His mother is a qualified Jungian analyst, he was breastfed this stuff. He has studied to degree level in other areas (e.g. comparative religion) but makes his real money as a top level programmer for national and multinational companies (he was the person I mentioned who "saw" the numbers of the 3 winning horses, & without knowing their names, put some money down and won thousands).
After three years, he went overseas for work (to set up the online systems for Amway Japan). He told me that if I wanted to, I was capable to run these groups. I did, initially running them weekly from my home, then working through Evening and Adult Continuing Education Colleges. In this time, more than 13 years, many kinds of people have come through the group, with all kinds of issues manifesting in their dreams, including psychology graduates and students who wanted to know more about this side of psychology. In all that time , only 2 complaints - if I can put it that way.
One woman who was upset, angry with me and verbally abusive (the dream revealed itself to be about how her mother & she dealt with her sexual abuse as a 12 year old - she resented being reminded of being a "victim" and things getting stirred up). Another woman in that same group sided with her, saying she expected the group to be more "fun". (In the face of this abuse, my Aries Rising was rising, but I held it in check, and asked others in the group what they thought about what had been said and how we should proceed. On the basis of their responses, the two women left the group).
So ex-l, what else can i say? I have read a lot of books, occasionally go to lectures, listen to podcasts etc etc. When you are open to it, people with these experiences are all around you. An old lady who's lived with depression for decades is someone I have spoken with recently. She was encouraged to try another modality, and I learnt some things from her too. I have related earlier about relatives, friends, acquaintances who have gone through mental health episodes - remember 20% of people experience it sometime in their life.
Probably the main influence and education for me was my parents. I am more and more appreciative of their pragmatism, unconditional love, charity, hard work and more, some of which I have absorbed by osmosis (or maybe it was the vibrations in the cooking?). They were intelligent people, but not well educated. They taught me it is who a person is and what they do that counts, not how they present themselves.
My purpose for being here is another question you keep asking - it's probably not too different to many others. And I noticed that despite the 'tag' of
ex-BK, many here were still "bound' by that religion (intentional tautology) and its language & concepts. The actions were merely reactions. I hope my contributions bring in fresh winds, or more prosaically, another point of view. I have learnt a lot in the process myself. I'll finish off with this
“The unconscious mind sees correctly even when conscious reason is blind and impotent” - C.G. Jung