Victim blaming.

Victim blaming is alive and well in the therapy room.

Not just in the defensive labels thrown about by therapists who have been accused of misconduct.

And I must admit  I'm feeling kind of washed up at the moment. I've not made any progress towards my goal of changing the world for the better (!) and meanwhile, I come across more victim blaming motifs, this time as I skim through the blurb describing courses offered for therapists.

It is depressing.

But I think there is a smattering of anger?

Enough to make me write this!

I'm trying hard to feel some moral indignation - but instead I'm just thinking of all the time I've wasted and how busy my weeks ahead are, and is my car booked in for an MOT?

I love therapy, but do we do any good?

And no, we therapists don't mean to victim blame. 

You know, I have only seen the first episode of Pluribus, but sometimes I see similarities! 

OK, it begins like this - I'm reading from a course for therapists who want to know the best way to work with clients suffering 'moral indignation.'

It has this as part of the sell:

Affective-neuroscience research (Panksepp, 1998) shows that moral indignation activates the same reward pathways as substance use. 

Except what Panksepp actually said is: 

When people are under the influence of opiates, they say that they feel soothed and comforted. This is because their PANIC/GRIEF system is less active, and it helps explain why lonely, disenfranchised people are more likely to get hooked on such drugs. Panksepp, Jaak; Biven, Lucy. The Archaeology of Mind: Neuroevolutionary Origins of Human Emotions (p. 27). 

I don't have Panksepp 1998, to refer to, but I know that his 1998 work introduced the idea of seven primary emotions focused on survival; and present in all mammalian brains regardless of species. These seven emotional systems include the SEEKING, LUST, CARE and PLAY systems (positive emotions) and FEAR, RAGE/ANGER, and PANIC/SADNESS. Basically, Panksepp is about affective neuroscience. And for sure he describes how our fantastically imaginative and creative thinking is fuelled by our SEEKING system - and how our ethical and moral decision-making is promoted by all our prosocial emotions—CARE, GRIEF, and PLAY.

So the person offering the course has misappropriated Panksepp's concept to bolster their opinion that clients are using moral indignation because - in their view - it acts as a drug. 

And the sell continues, now describing therapy's most ethically safe responses to clients who tells us the same terrible tales week after week.

• affirming pain while declining narrative allegiance.
• Staying with feeling, not fact.
• Expanding the story’s emotional field rather than disputing its content.
• Using breath, posture and pacing to regulate contagion in the room.

The words in that list are not mine...

Good old medical positivism.

Now this might sound a bit political, but honestly there is an agenda to therapy that I can't abide; the lie of individualism. For instance, if you are unhappy at work - it must be because of your mental health. If you keep going on and on about how your therapy left you feeling suicidal? Must be YOUR mental health. Feeling that you can't go to school because people are bullying you? Sure, it is your mental health problem...it must be. Or else you are saying that something is wrong with our system? Nothing is wrong with our system - Please attend your therapy or disciplinary next week...

Making capitalism visible transforms psychological distress from individual pathology into rational responses to structural dysfunction, opening possibilities for interventions that address root causes rather than merely helping individuals cope with harmful conditions. LINK.

The alternative to this nonsense is the Power, Threat, Meaning Framework, and interpersonal mediation. But, if you are a therapist like me, and you get sent people who fail to accept that the crapness of their lives is simply how they see it...I'd urge you to remember that therapy is empathy, warmth and authenticity.

So, I certainly do express my shock when people tell me how badly they have been treated. And the kids I see waiting for a diagnosis of ASC? Often they have been bullied since primary school...imagine eight or nine years and more of daily threat, emotional, psychological and physical abuse...And the victim is sent to therapy? 

Beats me why systems that enable abuse are not diagnosed as the real disorder?

Therapists too often diagnose, albeit subtly and kindly meant.

From the course blurb I read that moral indignation can be seen as:

• Identity coherence – “I know who I am; I’m the one who was wronged.”
• Moral superiority – “I am good because I have been harmed.”
• Emotional regulation – righteous anger is more bearable than despair.
• Protection from vulnerability – outrage keeps shame at bay.
• Social validation – in cultures that valorise victimhood, suffering confers status.

And back to our ethical responses, staying with the feeling is text book, but also 'cargo cult' Gestalt. Feelings are part of the whole, not the whole, not the Gestalt - so the better pathway through all this is?

• What happened to you?
• What do you think is going on?
• What do you feel about this?
• Next step, a dialogue linking thoughts with feelings.
• Next step, what is the need the thoughts and feelings are pointing too? For instance, I think they want to hurt me, I feel terrified - the need is X!
• Final step - what positive action can you take or ask to be taken, that will increase X
• How will it feel to have more X
• How have you managed  find X so far?
• What / who will help you to find more X
• Now that you know why you feel so awful, what will be the first glimmer of hope to show that you are getting things changed for the better?

So, finally - back to me. I write, this is what I do, this is my glimmer of hope, that I don't give up. I don't shut down, I don't agree that moral indignation is a cover story. In my experience - the things people have told me - they rarely point to there being something wrong with only them...Some clients really want to believe this and for me to believe it too, in which case we run with that for as long as they want. Affirming their truth for as long as it takes, but always seeking better alternatives to self blame, self attack.

And in my case? 

The problems I've experienced in therapy are not unique to me...

I will carry on.