Guidance wanted
Is the difference between right and wrong no more than what we tell ourselves? This seems to be the premise of some modern forms of psychological help, as James Mumford reports for The New Atlantis magazine.
Having checked himself into in-patient treatment after a psychological episode, he describes the approach to therapy he finds:
I think the psychologists are up to more than suspending judgment. I think they really believe they’ve got straight on what is and is not the case in the world, that they’ve really uncovered the truth of the matter, which is that there are no moral facts, that good and evil are not part of the fabric of the world. This is not just wariness on psychology’s part. It’s radical skepticism. The idea that “we as therapists shouldn’t talk about right and wrong” has become the very different idea that there is no right and wrong in the first place.
What happens if your momentary thought is that you have no value, and a therapist tells you there are no actual invalid beliefs about the world? For the therapist, it is about affirming your point of view. If there are no right or wrong thoughts, there is nothing to fix about a patient’s approach to life or thinking about it. Some patients in the depths of depression believe themselves to have no value, to be worthless.
In contrast, the therapists and counselors say by their actions that they believe their patients have value, that their lives are worth saving. Patients are left with the confusion that results when the words of the therapist contradict the acts of the therapist. The therapist tells the patient that his/her views about her/himself are legitimate, but shows the patient that his/her life is worth saving.
The whole essay makes for an interesting read. Mumford describes the roots of this type of therapy in more critical detail, as well as the context of his own experience. As in so much of modern life, the intention of being accepting and non-judgmental runs up against people’s actual needs for some sort of guidance.
Sorry I never made it here everyone
Nightmare day back to work after the holidays and one crisis after another, just didn't have a minute
Hope you all had a great day , hopefully tomorrow I can stop by
WHOA, have to say I'm literally shocked to see David French is leaving The Dispatch for the NYT. Is he climbing up or down the career ladder?