Horace Heffner wrote:
> I attended a lecture in the 1960's by a psychologist who was developing > his "assumpto-therapy". He developed his theraputic technique to handle > the many behavioral problems he saw which didn't have clearly prescribed > therapies and which typically resulted in extended psychoanalysis many > patients could not tolerate or afford. He based his work on the premise > that many ordinary behavioral problems are caused by the patient having > ingrained a false premise at some early age. The objective of his > therapy then was, through dialog, to identify the false assumptions > causing the problems as quickly as possible and re-condition the > patient. This technique is also adaptable to self-therapy. This was > apparently in many cases very effective and took much less time than > full conventional psychoanalysis. I don't think his approach was > accepted, but probably wouldn't know if it were. I suppose it is a > branch of transactional analysis. I can see why some therapists would > reject it in that it substantially reduces fees. Arrgh -- I'd like to defend shrinks here, just a bit. First of all a lot of them are under pressure to find "quick fixes" (all the ones who work for HMOs, in particular) and they'd be thrilled with something that worked more quickly. Second of all I just don't believe they're evil enough to reject something because it worked faster and hence raked in less money for them! Furthermore it seems to me that there's something else here: Shrinks I have known were, in a fundamental way, very non-judgmental -- and that applied to their view of "truth" as well. There is a common notion among clinical psychologists that what is objectively "true" has little to do with your state of mind, nor your mental health; what matters is what you perceive as "true". The notion that an error of fact on the part of the patient could cause them a lot of trouble would seem to be diametrically opposite to this. In other words, if there's a disconnect between what you believe and what is objectively true, then for the sake of your therapy we can safely disregard the "objectively true" facts and just stick with what you believe. Your universe of beliefs is where you live, and that's where your problems must be worked out. It's easy to believe they're wrong in this, but it's also easy to see how telling them to totally reorient their approach isn't going to get very far without a lot of work. "True" and "false" are terms that are not much used in clinical psychology. > > Best regards, > > Horace Heffner > http://www.mtaonline.net/~hheffner/ > > > >
