When Sigmund Freud discovered a way to explore the dynamic unconscious and, when luck and effort came into concordance, help patients resolve serious mental disorders, a new field of endeavor was born. Psychoanalysis was the first "talking cure" that could actually help people. Since that time, a multitude of factors have led to an exponential increase in the number and types of Psychotherapy. As well, there has been an exponential increase in the types of mental disorders treated. Much of this has been extremely useful to those who once would have had to suffer without hope, yet especially in the last 15 years, it has been hard to avoid the sense that the Mental Health Industry has gone seriously awry.
Recently evidence that Therapism has gone beyond reasonable limits has come from a number of sources. Glenn Reynolds described a frightening situation in England, home of the National Health Service:
SHADES OF MINORITY REPORT: "A pregnant woman has been told that her baby will be taken from her at birth because she is deemed capable of "emotional abuse", even though psychiatrists treating her say there is no evidence to suggest that she will harm her child in any way. Social services' recommendation that the baby should be taken from Fran Lyon, a 22-year-old charity worker who has five A-levels and a degree in neuroscience, was based in part on a letter from a paediatrician she has never met. Hexham children's services, part of Northumberland County Council, said the decision had been made because Miss Lyon was likely to suffer from Munchausen's Syndrome by proxy, a condition unproven by science in which a mother will make up an illness in her child, or harm it, to draw attention to herself."
There is a certain inevitability to such stories. After all, once the government decides what is best for its subjects, all in the name of benevolence and caring, it follows rather predictably that they will begin to intervene in order to ensure the outcomes of which they approve. Further, when the government pays for health care, they will naturally want to enforce adherence to those behaviors they imagine will minimize their financial exposure.
All of this emerges from the Mental Health Morass that has developed since Freud's initial principles have been misunderstood and misapplied in the name of Mental Health.
Christina Hoff Sommers and Sally Satel, resident scholars at the American Enterprise Institute, wrote about the misuse of therapy (and coined the term Therapism) in Therapy Nation: Really, We're OK: [HT: S,C &A]
We reject the idea that psychology, however humanistic and liberationist, can be a general provider of salvation. This is not to say that psychology has not made impressive progress. We understand very well that the same half-century that incubated an unwholesome therapism also saw remarkable developments in the knowledge of the brain and in new medications for severe mental illnesses such as schizophrenia. And we appreciate that the various talk therapies have real value for many patients. But this approach can be, and has been, taken too far. The popular assumption that emotional disclosure is always valuable, and that without professional help, most people are incapable of dealing with adversity, has slipped its clinical moorings and drifted into all corners of American life.
We reject the presumption of fragility and challenge the dogma of self-revelation; it exposes the folly of replacing ethical judgment with psychological and medical diagnosis, save for instances where individuals are severely mentally ill. We believe, in other words, that human beings, including children, are best regarded as self-reliant, resilient, psychically sound moral agents responsible for their behavior. For, with few exceptions, that is what we are.
The primary misunderstanding of Freud and Psychoanalysis, a misunderstanding that continues to be propagated by the forces of Therapism, concerns the locus of responsibility for our behavior. Freud's greatest insight was that to a large extent our manifest behavior is the outcome of compromises among many impulses and inhibitions, most of them unconscious, which sum and move us to action. As such, the goal of Psychoanalysis has always been to make us more aware of our hitherto unconscious motivations so that we can take more responsibility for our behavior. Therapism does the exact opposite; it attempts to relieve us of responsibility by assigning motivation and blame to all sorts of agencies (parents, society, brain chemistry) which are by definition outside the realm of our moral agency.
It is a small step from such thinking to enabling and encouraging the government to tell people how to live, how to raise their children, and how to think. As Neuroscience enlarges our understanding of the biochemical and physiological underpinnings of behavior, those who have done so much to diminish moral responsibility will be in a powerful position to mandate proper thought. The dangers are real and growing.
And here is the dirty little secret at the heart of Therapism: Too many of those who press the Therapism agenda are unknowingly pursuing their own unconscious desires, for power, control, and a host of other hidden wishes. They imagine their motives are pure but the unconscious exists even within those who wish to help you "for your own good"
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