Therapeutic Relationships - Part II

The title of my first article was just "Therapeutic Relationships", and in the plural, and I described the oxymoronic or very cold reductionism of the compound term, whilst acknowledging the constructive, creative, flexible, and fluid uses or applications of it.

The term "therapeutic relationship" also makes sense if it means "a sexual love-relationship between therapists"; if the client is worthy of being called "a therapist"; if what is being described is a "friendship-relationship" between therapist and client; or if sexual love-relationships and other relationships are indeed therapeutic.

Such relationships between real therapists, may be a genuine sexual love-relationship, or it might just mean a "work relationship" which has been coerced or forced into a sexual love-relationship; perhaps out of some professional jealousy, ignorance, prejudice, and discrimination. It's also very hard to understand any kind of relationship, if in some ways we don't look at the power-relations, or the type of language and overlapping terms and behaviours.

It seems to me that if "therapeutic relationship" is simply blurred or merged as a compound term, or split and fragmented too much in terms of ideas, terms, or categories, then it reduces and validates both the therapy as a unique or very valid therapy, and it reduces or invalidates any unique or very human kind of friendship and/or love-relationship that may be possible or feasible.

I also see no problem with calling the therapeutic-and-client relatedness a contract, and I don't see a short or long-term friendship or love-contract as a cold or rigid term. If "contract" was a cold term, then people wouldn't use it in context of a love-relationship, and in any case, marriage is a love-contract, but not a very authentic one in my opinion.

I met a therapist in a pub, and I her told was giving up alcohol. The pub therapist asked me the question "How would you describe the beer if it were a person? Would you describe it in terms of a brother?, sister?, father?, or mother?"- as if I had to describe my so-called "relationship" with beer, in one way only, in one term only, and with that cold reductionism and very orthodox Freudianism, suggesting that the beer was a father or mother to me.

The pub therapist's response may have been linked to some jealousy and ignorance about the unique way of relating I have with my friends, mental health professionals, and how I interpersonally and socially relate. On the other hand, I think that the nature of the pub therapist's questioning and way of relating on that occasion, was also due to some male-repression that was being used against her - pressurising her with that very male-dominated rational-reductionism; which is not at all typical of her way of feeling, thinking, and relating. It was also most probably also due to some dogmatic political control of her very unique methods and ideas; which I think other people don't really understand about her.

Why should anyone control, coerce, or tell us how to relate?, especially if the way we're relating is individually or socially unique, and can only really be understood by ourselves as individuals or between us? The control of relatedness can also be due to the very masculine and chauvinistic nature political dogmas, and can be part of far-right and extreme-left dogma or thinking who sometimes use very masculine or macho-language to describe human and individual things. If women are emulating this or being coerced by it, then they are not being their true selves. Liberalism is a much more feminine ideology, and which I prefer in some ways, but I think that some female-machismo or female-misogynism can also be sometimes very much a part of it.

I saw a programme on Channel 4 recently called Hitler's Women, and historians and others said that Hitler controlled the way his women related to him and other people, because he wanted to give a political and public impression of himself as having a lack of intimacy, in order to uphold his superman and assumed superior male image. He also idealised his mother, demonised some individuals and groups of women in contrast to that, and replaced this lack of intimacy in his personal life with the patriarchal domination of other men, and he forged a "love relationship" between him and collective German women who supported and supposedly idolised him as a far-right political leader.

Many men still try to control the way women relate to themselves and others, in order to create a superior image of themselves as men over and above women, and I think it is both a repulsive and fascistic character trait. I also think that it's a very conservative idea of women, that they are always vulnerable and need protecting by men, and a view that some radical men have about women as well. I like to think that most women - given the chance - are quite capable or protecting and defending themselves; whilst at the same time I try not to be too politically correct about it, and I respect the strength of a woman.

When the pub therapist asked me how I see my "relationship" with alcohol or beer, I said "as a therapist", because then that can mean many different things. Then she said that if I was giving up beer, did this mean that I was giving up the pub therapy she was giving me, and I said wasn't going to give up alcohol entirely, because that would have been extreme, and that I'll just moderate or drink non-alcoholic drinks whilst attending my weekly pub sessions.

If anything is therapeutic, then friendships are therapeutic, sexual love-relationships are therapeutic, and so on, and so on, and so on. If you use the term "therapeutic relationship", it sounds as if you're sort of broadening up the possibilities for explaining relatedness or relationships, but it can also be used to reduce or diminish the uniqueness and humanness of the therapy, and to reduce or diminish the uniqueness and humanness of other genuine and authentic relationships.

Therapeutic Relationships

Reductionism
means diminishing or restricting the use of ideas, things, or terms, to their basic pattern or parts, in order to oppose another perspective, view, or argument. This can sometimes be valid, but I here coin the term expansionism to open up the flexibility or fluidity of ideas and terms as well.

I don’t like too much reductionism or censorship of the use of terms, but I also don’t like the misuse of terms if they are being applied without understanding what they mean or where and when they come from, or if terms are being used very contradictorily to mean very opposing things, and which can itself be very cold or reductionist.

When the term "relationship" is used in this way, it can be a way of leveling everyone down, of cloning people, and a way of destroying or denying the unique ways that people might relate or express their love, desire, or emotional affection; because everyone has different ways of expressing those things, and we all experience some things differently. The cold reductionism of cloning and leveling down, also destroys or denies any possible human aspect to our unique ways of relating, feeling, and thinking.

One way of doing this cold reductionism, cloning, or leveling down of our uniqueness and humanness, is to give a person a series of very false or rigid injunctions, and usually men do this to other men, or women sometimes emulate what men do to other men in this way.

For this and other reasons, I much prefer women to give me orders or instructions, even if I am being bullied or mistreated, because when men give other men orders or instructions, it’s used to say that this is how we should behave and speak towards women, or how we should enlighten or instruct. When women give men orders or instructions, there’s a different tone of voice, a different way or relating or instructing in it, or a different kind of emotional connection.

Contexts of behaviours and ways of relating may overlap, but unless this has creative potential between individuals or groups, there seems to me little point in ignorantly speculating about over-similarities or simulations, and it’s important not to emulate anyone’s bad or ignorant perceptions of this.

What does the term "therapeutic relationship" actually mean?, and what are the flexible uses or meanings of the term? Certainly it is a term which doesn’t exist specifically in psychiatry, but a term which is applied broadly sometimes within mental health, and I’m interested in what people mean or hope to get out of the term.

I think that the term "relationship" is an American term which has entered into our language to replace terms like "wife", "husband", "girlfriend", "boyfriend", or "partner", and that it more often than not specifically means sexual or love-relationship. In any other context if you were to use the term "relationship" to people you didn’t know, anyone you worked with, or people of the same sex (as it is also used in mental health by some professionals), then they are more than likely to regard you as weird, insane, call the Police, or punch you on the nose.

The term "relationship" in society and mental health also came to mean things like "friend", "comrade", "object" or "subject matter", as academic subtext or pretext terms. A friend of mine who is an ex-psychiatric patient suggested that "therapeutic relationship" might even be a fantasy term, presuming that there is something there in the form of some kind of relationship when there is not, or that it is used when the therapist or client doesn’t really know the person long enough to have any real relationship with them at all.

Some might say that the term "therapeutic relationship" like "mental illness" is an oxymoron - a self-contradiction in terms. In some ways I think it is an oxymoron, but I also try not to be too reductionist or dogmatic about it in that way, because part of psychotherapy in particular is about exploring the flexibility of terms, and the creative ways of feeling, thinking, and relating. Relating is an emotional, intellectual, or social act, but relationship can imply an objectification or passive correlation - as ships that sail past each other in the night.

When I mentioned that the term "therapeutic relationship" may be an oxymoron, my friend pointed out that some people talk about a "love-hate" relationship, and which could also be a contradiction in terms. We then discussed the fact that one person might love, whilst the other person might hate; that one person might not know that the other person loves them, or each other; or that a person may love or hate other things about that same person at different times, and within different contexts and situations; and with all the mental and social pressures that may be influencing or controlling that.

I pointed out that people have different social and individual ideas of love-relationships, and he said that a genuine love-relationship is not over-idealised or over-cynicised, but involves sharing each others love, desires, potential, and accepting each others uniqueness as individuals, whilst also acknowledging or accepting each others scars and faults.

Some people see relationships purely in economic terms, that if you don’t economically produce, sell, or consume - equally or individually - then you are seen as not worthy or love and respect, or rejected as a useless and worthless individual. Some men say this about all women, and some women say this about all men, but this is a lot to do with misogynism related to those men’s perceptions, experiences, and political dogmas about women and materialism - that women and/or men should be owned as slaves, money, or mammon.

Whilst love and respect is of course to some extent to do with economics, most relationships based upon economic equality or economic self-worth are still very much about ownership or possessiveness; no matter how well the economic equality, shared household tasks, and interpersonal communication is between men and women.

Whilst it is possible for some patients or clients to have genuine love-relationships, friendships, creative or work relationships with their therapists or professionals, more often than not (as in the case of the chat show hostess Trisha Goddard who eventually married her psychology consultant), this may involve some form of radically changing or socially integrating a person with others, and which if not used as an excuse for bullying, is a very positive and desirable thing; but which like chat shows may also involve some voyeuristic speculation or social dogma.

I have no problem with describing a therapeutic relatedness as a relationship, in all the positive and potentially creative or flexible ways possible, but more often than not, it means a very rigid and dogmatic kind of relationship, without any real, free, or equal contract.

The Human Psychology, Sexuality, and Erotica of Disgust.

Disgust is a human emotion which has been hugely neglected in psychology, and other fields of study, in its complex meanings, human, and social functions, which to some extent, are shaped by our cultural views of other people, and how we relate and think about certain marginalised or oppressed groups in society, such as psychiatric-diagnosed people, who are often subjected to sexual stereotypes or mentalisms, which we can be both inducted into, or feel compelled to parody, copy, act out, or absurdify.

Masochism is to a some extent an induction, and sadism is internalised oppression, abuse, violence, cruelty, and bullying, although some people are obviously more genetically or naturally inclined towards these tendencies, which cannot be completely eliminated or reversed, by the counterproductive use of bullying in mental health or psychiatry, or by the obsessive hygiene, violence, and unpredictability of psychiatric aversion therapy. These terms, ‘masochism’ and ‘sadism’, are also to some extent, psychiatric labels, for more complex human, gender, or sexual needs, such as the need for love, assertiveness, or nurturing, which have perhaps been abused or deprived in a persons childhood, and as more genuine human or individual needs in adult life, have by-passed some more socially rigid, gender, desire, or behaviour categories. In this respect, men who are slightly sexually passive, nurturing, or masochistic towards women, and women who are slightly sexually assertive, dominant, or sadistic towards men, are in a sense, more naturally and completely human, unless these fairly natural human needs are repressed, denied, or exploited, making them extreme.

The lack of writing or psychology on human disgust, has left a great deal of this complex human subject and emotion, to be discovered in more obscure areas of literature and writing, such as hard-core pornography or erotic literature. On a sexual and social level, some pornographic literature, and social observation, sheds light on the complex and paradoxical nature of human disgust. The human and social meanings both projected and received about disgust, are conditioned not only by ingrained conservative or rigid attitudes towards sexuality and social conduct, which can be conditioned by political, religious, or class notions, but are also bound up with some contradictory notions of both contempt, and pity, as well as more intense contradictory human emotions, such as extreme prejudice, empathy, and love. Disgust is also a social power response, and like sexuality, is also to do with the power relations in society.

Because of some cultural, political, religious, social or class notions of disgust, disgust tends to be mostly perceived in the derogatory or pejorative, but as with disgust and sexuality, which is also very complex and paradoxical, I think that psychological disgust is both a valid, necessary, and a positive human emotion, if it’s understood for what it is and does in its entirety. I believe it is impossible to love, without feeling some disgust, unless we opt for a dangerous traditional Nietzschean, of extreme individualism with a total absence of empathy or pity, and without a complex grasp of society and human nature. This would not only be only impossible without the use of extreme cruelty and emotional indifference towards others, but is also stupid, in the sense that such total emotional vacuity, would by-pass these other complex human and social behaviours, meanings, and functions of disgust. This reminds me of the psychopathic and sexually eccentric character Otto, in the comedy film A Fish Called Wanda, who claims to be both a Buddhist and a fan of the philosopher Nietzsche, and who believes that the central concept of Buddhism is "Every man for himself".

Any kind of political or especially religious ideology or dogma, can be used to justify the supposed mystique, single cue, or banality of human disgust, which in reality, has very deliberate and complex social meanings and human responses. Likewise, sexuality can both be both hypocritically justified, and repressively condemned by religious people, if sexuality isn’t acknowledged as both a shared human, and very much an individual behaviour, with both separately very selfish, and very altruistic desires, needs, and motives. Some aspects of sexuality are inevitably very animalistic, and extremely self indulgent, which is why people have killed in order to get or revenge it, whilst other aspects of sexuality are intrinsically bound up with the need to express, share, give and receive, human sensuality, sexual desire, intensity of feeling, or love. But these are still very separate aspects of sexuality, albeit on quite a wide scale, and to give these very different ends of sexual behaviour and experience, a false holistic blurring, or a simplistic unified definition, inevitably leads to both extreme hypocrisy and distortion.

Overt examples of this, have been documented in the behaviours of religious fundamentalist, or cult leaders, who have either been exposed by dissenting disciples, as sexual hypocrites, or eventually exposed by survivors, as to the nature of their hypocrisy, sexual violence, oppression, and extreme sexual corruption, which exists in most religious groups to some extent, because of the ideological, oversimplified, and blurred-holistic model of sexuality, along with simultaneous anti-sexuality moral views, attitudes, and opinions.

Disgust itself, is also an active sexual feeling and emotion, and it both deliberately attracts and repels, which can instigate or create certain sexual reactions or responses in others, in order to distort, positively define, stigmatise, enhance, or negatively oppose, whilst contradictorily and inevitably creating some human attraction, because human attraction is a human function of disgust, just as much as empathy or love is also a part of it. This is why aversion therapy is so unpredictable and counterproductive in the long run, making peoples natural or individual sexual differences, needs, or tendencies, magnified, distorted, or extreme. It’s hard to admit to or realise this active or attractive deliberate sexual use or function of disgust, because of obsessive sexual and mental health hygiene, combined with our modern delusions, that such "sexually repressed views", are typical of a past Victorian era, which has supposedly ceased to exist in its sexual attitudes and opinions within modern society.

The Victorian era has a huge hangover effect in society, and in any case, the Victorians created these active disgust sexual-responses, through extreme sexual morality and repression, but they also failed to realise, or refused to admit, that the deliberate use of disgust, very much had a wider social and human function, which included both positive and negative meanings and responses. Only some modern sexual psychologists, such as Terrence Sellers in particular, a SM erotic writer and ex-prostitute, have realised and written about this more positive and complex social and human psychological function of disgust, and taken the subject on, within the context of Jungian ‘psychic transference’, which I have felt was extremely important to point out and widely expand upon, in this mental health article.

Conservatism, Socialism, and Coercive, Immoral, and Unethical Interference and State-control

I am a sort of Socialist, although I am also in the process of creating a brand new political ideology, which is fairly moderate, and which is completely different and separate from all the other pre-existing political ideologies, but which is not communist, fascist, nor anarchist either.

I also don’t in any way romanticise or idealise Socialism, and I won’t romanticise or idealise Conservatism either. The thing I don’t like about Socialism, is the state-control and other types of psychologically and socially harmful forms of coercion, and the fact that Socialism can very easily flip over into Fascism.

Whilst many genuine and sincere Socialists. realise this about Socialism, and want to get better types of Socialism, many Socialists - including The Labour Party - are just quite frankly very naive, about this tendency of Socialism to very easily flip over into Fascism. Many BNP/all-white-Britain-racist/Fascist political party voters, are ex-Labour voters, many of whom still consider themselves as very pro-working class Socialists, and many Socialists in the Labour Party and the Trade Unions, still hold very racist views.

On the very important matter of the class-system, since Karl Marx, which is overall outdated on this matter, and which was written many, many, years ago and which does not apply to our modern times (including the sociologist Durkheim who is also now outdated about the political, social, and psychological nature of the different so-called classes), there hasn’t been a very realistic, much better, and new political, social, and psychological knowledge and understanding of the different classes, in our modern or present times, but I will very soon write an article or two about this.

Conservatism, tends to very ostentatiously protest about, and claim that it is opposed to too much state-interference in people’s lives, and that it is opposed to state-control, and whilst this is very true in some of their ideas and thinking, this is often an excuse not to encourage, practise, and create some mutual communitarian and interpersonal sharing within society.

The Conservatives’ partial and fragmented opposition to state-power, isn’t truly ethical nor moral in the complete sense at present, because it tends to go along with self-denial of social and material love, extreme-ignorance and lies about poverty and the social and psychological nature of the modern class-system - which neither they nor any other present political parties know absolutely nothing about - and it is very much motivated by and goes along with psychological, social, and sexual coldness and cruelty, and emotional self-repression and denial

In other ways, the Conservatives are very pro state-control and state-interference in people’s lives, but where they do have at least some genuine self-authenticity, conscience and morality against these things, then they should have some courage, authenticity, and decency to themselves and others, by putting their somewhat repressed and fragmented, libertarian feelings, ideas, and thoughts, into policy and practise for everyone.

The vast amount of Conservative Party voter, parents, and The British Teachers Association, all say that they are in favour of children’s learning centres being created in society - as The Labour Party claimed to have done, lied about, and did not deliver - and which is a possible and potential complimentary system, for wider learning, along with the schools system, and which will give teachers more jobs and opportunities, to be free from the state-control of the national curriculum - and to be able to put their own teaching methods into practise, within some democratic and governmental rules, of ethical and educational codes of practise and conduct.

The Conservative Party, have consistently said that they agree with the principles of this policy of children's learning centres, and as most of their voters also agree and want this, along with freedom of information, parental rights and some participation, in both the schools and potential and possible children's learning centres system. In which case, the Conservative Party should and must at least make some kind of national statement on all this, to say where they stand on the matter; and they must say whether they will keep their promises to create these principles and policies, which they consistently tell us all they so genuinely and sincerely believe in.

Children’s Learning Centres

It seems that the so-called New Labour, government, lived in some strange psychotic parallel universe, where they claimed to have created children’s learning centres, and yet no one could see or find these places, in material reality, nor in anywhere in the country.

The Conservatives, have written and spoken about liberating teachers from state interference and control, and I very much agree with them about this too, and that is why children’s learning centres are so important, as a separate but complimentary part of the school system, and so I hope the Conservatives also stick to their principles and promises, and create these learning centres in material reality, and not just in the politicians minds and strange psychotic parallel universes.

It seems that some teachers, have some irrational and paranoiac fears about these possible and very potential children’s learning centres, because they think they will lose their authority and jobs, but this is absolutely not the case at all, as there will still be teachers at these centres, teachers won’t lose their jobs, and in fact it will give them more jobs; but these centres will be places of teaching, where teachers will be able to apply their own individual teaching methods, and where teachers will have freedom from the national curriculum.

As long as the Conservatives, and other political parties realise, that there still has to be some parental freedom of information, and democratic participation, as to what goes on in both schools, and within possible and potential children's learning centres - as most Conservative voters and parents very much want and agree to this - then that is fine, because as the Conservatives say, it’s good to have teachers liberated from state-control, but this does not mean that any teachers’ power and authority becomes absolute or arbitrary - in both an individual or collective sense - nor without some democratic and governmental agreed rules of moral, ethical, and educational conduct.

On the whole matter of children's learning centres, because whilst I more or less support The Labour Party overall, I also take a fairly non-partisan view on this vital, important, much needed modern policy, and matter, because one way or another, all three main political parties, have said they agree with the principles of these centres being created, and I want to see all three main political parties deliver their promises, and not let their voters, teachers, parents, and children down, by not delivering on them.

Voting Day

It’s voting day today, and I usually vote for The Labour Party, but this time round I will abstain again for a change, to make a statement about so-called democracy, not being socially inclusive enough towards, with, and for, very unique and gifted poor or working-class people, and that we need real democracy, to be really socially and personally participatory, and to be really progressive, with real social and institutional progress and change.

This whole local area Labour politicians and MP’s, write and say that they have created learning centres for children - and which is a more state-decentralised, open, democratic, ethical, and moral possible policy, and which is something I have been arguing, occasionally writing about, and speaking out for, for a long time, and maybe they have listened to me and others like me - but I travel around this local area on a fairly regular basis, and whilst I see many schools in my local journeys, I have never seen an actual learning centre for children, and so I’m not sure, or as yet convinced, that such places in material reality actually exist.

It is a great, long-awaited, vital, and much needed, modern idea and possible policy, to create learning centres for children, as complimentary, and in many ways, better personal and social, creative, leisurely, ethical, and emotional and intellectual learning places and free options for children, but until I am convinced, and until I have solid evidence and proof, that such places exist in material reality, as separate and somewhat different places from actual schools, then again, I won’t be voting for the Labour Party, for at least this time around.

I have heard from many people, that the local Labour MP, is a very good guy, person, and human being, who has gone out of his way to help some poor and disadvantaged people, although he has never offered to help me, but my local Conservative MP, has genuinely and sincerely offered to help me in the very recent past. This local Conservative politician and MP, was also the only local politician and MP, who spoke out in the local press against the BNP/all-white Britain racist/Fascist political party from marching in our streets, in our local area about four years ago or so, and despite our political differences, I have a fair bit of fondness and respect for this local Conservative politician and MP, person, and human being, although I won’t be voting for his government either.

The main Conservative local politician and MP for this area, seems like a lovely and caring lady, and she has some good ideas too, against the secret societies of the state, such as schools and psychiatric hospitals, against too much state interference in people’s lives, and against state-control, but again, I won’t be voting for her or any government, this time round, for all the reasons I have shared, submitted, given, and presented here in this article.

The local liberal politician and MP, also made a very good point recently, about the extreme kind of class-system in this whole local area, and which was a very relevant and good point and principle, that so-called New Labour would never make, due to their cowardice, extreme ignorance, and the irrational and paranoiac mind-control of others over them, but again, I won’t be voting for his Liberal government either.

THE SEXUAL ABUSE AND HARASSMENT BY SOME WOMEN AGAINST MEN

We must stop men from raping women, and notify women of a rapist or sex offender in any place or institution. Also, we must protect men from sexual abuse and harassment by women, and put a stop to that as well. Sexual abuse and harassment by women against and towards men, is much more common than you all may think, and because there is a big social taboo surrounding this matter, many men don't often speak out to women about it, through fear of their own embarrassment, further abuse by others, and because of possible mockery and humiliation by others, but they sometimes tell other men, such as their male friends.

I myself have been sexually abused by women two times in my life. Once by a female counsellor and which was erotic and some emotional abuse, about imposing her and other people’s sexual fantasies upon me, and I was once also physically sexually abused by an old female friend of mine, who I had a sexual relationship with for one evening, and very recently, I was sexually harassed by a female mental health worker, who approached me in my local pub.

A friend of mine, was also sexually molested and abused, by the same woman who did this to me, and who was his ex-wife. This friend retaliated against her, with physical abuse for this and other things, which was wrong.

This friend also told me that he was very seriously physically sexually molested and harassed by a female psychiatric nurse, at a local medical centre, when receiving his monthly psychiatric medication injections, and who did this to him when he was very vulnerable, somewhat sort of catatonic, and mentally unwell. This female psychiatric nurse, also did this to many other male diagnosed psychiatric patients, and she was eventually found out about this by her bosses and the mental health authorities, and permanently sacked from the profession.