Author: Dr Jean Pain

Categories
Power and Control

Group Power

Why do young men rush in to join up when war breaks out? As I said before, it can be a relief from a humdrum job. But they have other reasons. They want to defend their own country. We are territorial animals. Men like to get together in groups and indulge in male chat. Women, too, form groups but it is not as important for them and they have different topics. We are all of us social animals. Nevertheless, there has always been a number of outsiders in both sexes. I know what that is like because I am one of them. I have always worked for myself and avoided groups. I do not like being told what to do, nor do I ask for advice. I have confidence in my own judgement.

However, I am always open to new ideas. I am good at changing my mind, often at the last minute. If I had been a man I would have rushed to enlist when World War 2 broke out, but I was only ten years old.

People like me are usually engrossed in a special interest of their own. They include all creative people who put their greatest interest first. Nevertheless, I am and always have been looking out to find like-minded people.

When I look back at my life I realize that the few friends I have made have all been what you might call eccentrics. When I get deep into a book or writing or merely noticing what is going on around me wherever I might be, I enjoy being on my own. An old Italian friend once said to me that when we are alone we are in a numerous company. That is if we have got to the point where we understand ourselves and respect ourselves very well. Such people rarely feel lonely.

However, I would join in a group if I knew one where I could remain myself and be part of something. I am thinking of being in an orchestra, where all use their own talents and contribute to the whole effect, without having to give up their power at all, because a conductor is necessary and is respected. But I couldn’t do that because I am not a musician.

I believe that what draws people of all kinds together is when they are in great danger but have the power to do something about it. My husband was an officer in the army and he said it was one of the best things in his life. What interests me is that such men choose to be ordered about in many kinds of ways but they subdue themselves to it from choice. They know they must learn to be obedient to an order automatically. Such obedience means that the men react very quickly. Quick reactions to an order can save their lives.

Surprisingly enough, learning to be obedient in the army seems to have the effect on young men of disciplining themselves. Having read a brilliant book “Defeat into Victory” by Sir William Slim about the Burma Campaign it was heartwarming to read how men and officers worked well together and respected each other. Moreover they used their initiative if they got separated from their unit.

Categories
Power and Control

Power Mad

The meaning of words is constantly changing as the social world changes. Shakespeare for example talked about ‘a naughty world’. He meant ‘a wicked world’. ‘Wicked’ itself has been changed by adolescents into ‘great’. Great is still used as in ‘a great man’ but it is also used in ‘we had a great time’.

‘Power’ has always been associated with leaders of all kinds. It also means the power of the universe, the power of nature which has been of great value to us in so many ways. Yes. It can also be destructive as there are two sides to every benefit.

How we have come to feel ambivalent, and rightly so, about power, is when it is wielded by people who want to tell others what to do. Control and patronize are names for two kinds of power that have fallen into disrepute. For this reason. Governments in many countries tend more and more to increase their power over us. In our own country this power is unfortunately used to try to get professionals to carry out their work in one way only. This has caused great dissatisfaction when such people as teachers and doctors are interfered with by people who know nothing of their subjects. The work of government is to serve the people, not to tell them what to do. This leaves no room for new ideas to come into the professions.

I have noticed the increasing use of the words ‘controlling’, and ‘patronising’. Ask yourselves if you would like to be described by these two adjectives. There is nothing wrong with the words themselves, it is the meaning we give them.

If someone says to you “You are very good at controlling people” or “Don’t patronize me” would you say “Thank you for the nice compliment”. Of course you wouldn’t. Try to work out for yourself how you might use these two words in a way that gets a grateful response. You won’t find it easy. Yet there is nothing wrong with ‘control’ . One of the best things you can do for your children is to help them to learn how to control their actions. Of course you have to be very careful to speak in a soft gentle way and phrase it with the right words so that the children do not get the wrong message.

All adults can help their children by presenting themselves as good examples. If they use their own power wisely their own children will do the same.

Categories
Depression

Depression and Sickness, Really?

Time is a mystery. It can seem to go very quickly or very slowly. It depends on how you are feeling and thinking. Some people never think they have enough time and others believe they have too much.

If you are in hospital and too sick to do anything, it is most likely that time passes slowly. However, if you are unconscious, time may pass quickly or slowly. However these are unusual situations for nearly all of us.

Since time immemorial most human beings have had no choice in what they do to earn a living. If we enjoy our work time goes quickly and if we don’t it goes slowly. Therefore employers end up paying more to slower workers because they take more time than quicker ones who work faster and better. When we enjoy what we do we feel well, and rarely get sick. Employees who take off more time sick than the rest are the ones who don’t like their work. Employers beware!

If we all did what we do best there would be far less illness. Have you noticed a time when you were feeling tired and fed-up and you suddenly get a piece of good news and your instant response is to feel overflowing with energy? One moment you feel like going to bed, then something good happens and the next minute you jump for joy.

‘Depression’ is not an illness as many psychotherapists have been trained to think. It is a normal state of mind that we all feel from time to time. The opposite is ‘joy’ but no-one calls that an illness. But if these two emotions, depression and joy become excessively strong and happen in quick succession it is diagnosed as an illness: ‘manic depression’.

Does this mean that we should try to hold back a bit and become calmer? Not at all! Even if this is possible. Our feelings come and go in response to what is happening in our lives.

There is a proverb ‘Moderation in all things’. My father said it to me when I was studying and playing the piano for much longer than he thought was healthy. I don’t believe it. I got intense pleasure from these two activities. They helped me to get through the most difficult time in my life, my adolescence. Fortunately I had a stronger character than my father and he could not stop me. My reply to him was that Beethoven would never have composed so much beautiful music if he believed in moderation. His reply to me was “I don’t see what you like in that heavy stuff. I like a good tune.” There was no answer to that. He went away and I went on playing.

Why is it that some people get sick through working too hard and others do not? If we love what we are doing from our own skills, without trying to copy anyone else, we nourish our spirits and our bodies. Creative people often live to a great age and never retire.

Categories
Intelligence

Are you intelligent?

This word is misused as much as education. Intelligence’s real meaning is being able to think and surprisingly enough education has exactly the same meaning. The common and mistaken belief is that intelligence is measured by a test and education consists of going to school and accepting and remembering what we have been taught, whether we want to or not.

The fact is that intelligence is the ability to work things out for ourselves from the moment we are born and the same is true of education. We come into the world knowing nothing, a huge advantage. We have a survival kit that enables us to pick up a language (or two or three), suck for food, cry when we need help and walk within the first few years. All parents have to do is pay attention by talking to us and feeding us.

All children are avid to learn. They alone know what interests them most. Therefore the richer the environment into which they have been born the sooner they will find out what interests them most. The best advice anyone could give to parents is to encourage them to do what they like best, and they all have preferences. Children want to get their own way and rightly so. They are small in a world of giants. They fight for their independence. They need help but the sooner they don’t need it the better. All the time they are adjusting to their family and the world around them.

I dislike the phrase ‘bringing up children’. They bring themselves up if they are allowed to. Of necessity since they are surrounded by dangers of which they know nothing, it is imperative that parents make certain rules to keep them safe and to help them to consider other people.

Observing parents who listen to their small children are astonished at how fast they learn. Here is an example of a small boy asking his mother for a drink.

“Mum, I want a drink. Will you make it jackwarm?” His mother was puzzled for a moment, then she realised what he said “Oh; you mean lukewarm.” The small boy had two friends called Jack and Luke.

Lukewarm was a new word for him. He couldn’t quite remember but he knew the first part was a boy’s name. This is a wonderful example of a child thinking logically. Making connections between very differet things is a sign of high intellegence. We were not surprised when he sailed through school and ended up with a degree in Oxford.

All too often adults laugh at a child making a ‘mistake’ and try to correct them. Stephen Pinker opines that this is a bad strategy, and I think he is right. It could be the beginning of shaking a child’s sense of self-confidence.

Categories
Health

The Myth of Mental Illness

This is the title of a book by Thomas Szasz that was published in 1972. Anyone who is puzzled by psychology and psychotherapy must read this. It is clearly written and the best on the subject.

Do you know what oxymorons are? You might think they are a variety of dinosaur, or some kind of idiot. No. They are two words put together that don’t belong to each other because they don’t make any sense. There are many oxymorons in the field of psychiatry. Here are two examples: ‘mental illness’ and ’emotional intelligence’.

All illnesses are caused by malfunctions of a part of the human body. So what is mental illness? It used to be called ‘madness’. Everyone knows what we mean by that: someone whose behaviour is so different from everyone elses that they become a danger to themselves and others. No-one knew what to do with them. By treating it as an illness that can be healed by calling it a ‘mental illness’ psychiatry thinks it can be cured. They are wrong.

The brain is an organ that affects everything that happens in the body, but the mind is not. No-one knows what it is. It has puzzled philosophers and writers since they first thought about it and we are no closer to an answer. The idea that we have a soul that is eternal arose out of philosophical attempts to categorise the mind. Two of our greatest philosophers, Descartes and Spinoza thought on those lines.

If we do not know what a mind is and where it is, how could it be sick? Therefore we should rid ourselves of this phrase ‘mental illness’ because it is meaningless and misleads people to hope for a ‘cure’.

The second oxymoron, ’emotional intelligence’ was the title of a book by Daniel Goleman launched in 1995. It immediately became a best seller in America and England. He introduced the idea of an EQ as a companion for IQ. It is easy to see how people loved the idea. All those people who wanted to know how intelligent they were but didn’t pass the test, welcomed a different kind of test for using the emotions in a helpful way.

Remember both these tests were devised by people from the limitations of their own research and thinking. They are ideas, not facts. Why? Because we do not have enough information, and we will probably never have enough knowledge to estimate just how well we are capable of managing our emotions and thoughts.

Emotions and the intelligence that is generated by the brain are two completely different things.

However, because they are different, it is not impossible for them to work together. To do that we have to carry out the most difficult task: to get to know our conscious and unconscious selves and that is the real purpose of psychotherapy. We can get guidance from a professional, but, as in every profession, it is essential that we find the right kind of specialist we feel we can trust.

Categories
Conversation Analysis How To Use Words

Is Talking Good For You?

We take talking for granted because, most of the time, it seems to flow easily from our lips without our having to think about it. In fact there is a lot going on in conversation of which we are not aware. Thr first person to realise that the grammar of conversation is worth exploring was a genius called Harvey Sacks, the discovery of Conversation analysis.

Jean Pain, a linguist and psychotherapist in private practice, has just published a book “Not Just Talking” inspired by Sacks’ work. She wanted to know what goes on in the therapeutic dialogue. This book is not only for therapists. She wants to demonstrate to all those people who think psychotherapy is “Just Talking” that the power of the therapeutic dialogue, when it is used to full effect, has been seriously underrated. Moreover, all who want to improve their own ways of talking with others, will find this book very useful.

Well versed in the study of the best writers in English Literature and a keen observer of people and their actions, Jean realised that what she was really doing with her clients was teaching them to think for themselves by setting a good example. She went back to two universities, Manchester Metropolitan for her M.A. and Brunel for her PhD. Both taught Conversation Analysis.

Jean’s research is based on transcriptions from live therapy talks with her clients. The first step is gaining the trust of clients, an art in itself. Then clients begin to talk. When we have problems we tend to tell the same story in the same way to others. The words we use do not vary much. Little phrases like “I don’t know” can be cover-ups for “I don’t want to tell you” or “I’m scared, help me!” Jean listened carefully and whenever clients used ambivalent words and phrases, she encouraged them to express themselves in a more precise way. By changing the way they talked clients began to look at their problems from a clearer angle.

It happened that when clients were willing and able to benefit from Jean’s approach they began to work things out for themselves in a more helpful way. She realised that what clients say is less important then why and how they say it. Strong emotions, common to all of us when we are confused and unhappy, get in the way of clear thinking. Once we gain control over our powerful feelings and stop going round in circles trying to find answers, only then can we begin to think straight.

Jean’s method can be helpful for all who have difficulties getting on with themselves and other people. Much blaming occurs when people refuse to accept that most of their troubles arise from their attitudes to life.

This book is the foundation of Jean’s research discoveries. She continues to research a variety of situations such as “Talking with Children” and “Talking in close relationships”.They are all relevant for everyone who gets into difficulties in conversations and does not know why.

Categories
Hearts and Minds

Negative and Positive in Life and Business

You are very likely to have read in so many self-help books that we need to be positive in order to be happy, think again! What is so wrong with poor old negative? Think of a time when you had set your mind on something and, at the last moment, withdrew. You might have been right or you might have been wrong. None of us can look into the future. It takes courage to make an important decision.

The only two multi-millionaires I got to know well were both my clients when I was a psychotherapist. You might well ask why they needed my help. Making money is one thing. Managing relationships is another. Because they had been commercially successful I asked both of them, separately of course, if they thought they were optimists. To my surprise both gave the same response: “Oh no. I am a pessimist.” I then asked each one why and how they believed pessimism was useful. Each one gave me a similar response.

“I watch out for a possible deal, especially one that no-one else has thought of. Then I take a piece of paper. On the left side I write all the reasons why I should take up this enterprise and on the right I put down all the reasons for not doing it. One side might be longer than the other but it isn’t necessarily the best. I pick the one that carries the most weight. On the whole this works well.”

This was very helpful to me. What they were both saying, in a nutshell, was that we must not let our hearts rule our minds. I realised that all three of my major enterprises were decided largely by my feelings. I discovered that what my method had been was to jump into the deep end and swim like mad to survive. All three ventures worked but if I had thought harder before I took them on I now realise I could have avoided some bad mistakes and anxiety.

I realised that nothing exists without its opposite. Here are a few examples.

  • There is no love without hatred
  • There is no good without evil
  • There is no cold without heat
  • There is no madness without sanity
  • There is no day without night

The great philosopher Erasmus (1468-1536) said at the end of his life that we are all capable of all kinds of human behaviour.

There is a lovely word enanteodromia, coined by the great psychoanalyst C.G.Jung which means the tendency of things to turn into their opposites.

The philosopher Bertrand Russell said we are told that man is a rational animal, but he searched hard in three continents and found that this was not the case.

Wittgenstein visited a hospital for the insane and said he found a patient there who was far more intelligent than any of the doctors.

When we think we are certain about something we should beware. Most of the harm done in the world is caused by people who think they are right.

Too much of anything becomes tedious. I think this is why so many healthy male adults rush to enlist when a major war begins, as in World War 1 and World War 2. What everyone knows, especially those of us who bring up boys, is that they love to exercise their bodies and strengthen themselves in order to develop athletically. Before both these wars and on both sides, Germany and England, there was a large number of young men who were leading boring lives and longed to measure their strength against their peers. There is a time for excitement and a time for calm.

Electricity does not work without a positive and a negative force. Let us stop thinking of why we are dissatisfied and how we can make the right kind of changes in our lives. The two greatest assets we all have are inherited instincts / feelings and our human brain. Our species, homo sapiens, is the only one in the entire animal kingdom that developed the ability to communicate through words. The whole of civilisation depends on words as a way of communication and enables us to be able to think with words. Here is a short list of some of the things we know that other animals cannot:

  1. Consciousness of time, which means we know we have been born and will die.
  2. Create inventions including all the technology that make our lives much easier.

Notice what is going on around us in nature which has led us to categorise how nature works. Aristotle was the first to do this by realising that one word, science, was not good enough amd devised different names for different kinds of sciences such as mathematics and physics.

Above all we have the ability to think logically which enables us to study and make sense which includes knowing the difference between beliefs and facts.

Since we are still animals we need to remember that we are every bit affected by our instincts. The greatest cause of all our problems is that although we have the ability to think , so many of us from all walks of life do not make the best use of our greatest tool.

Categories
Self Esteem

Children and Self-Esteem

One of the most common things that people complain of is low self-esteem. Like so many other additions to the list of psychological problems it is treated as a sympton that can be ‘cured’.

When children come into the world they do not lack confidence. When they learn to walk they don’t mind how many times they fall over as they learn to move their bodies. They are not lazy about walking. They keep on trying until they succeed. The same is true of talking. They have endless curiosity and constantly look for new things to do. Their imagination and concentration is aroused with delight when they find out something new that excites their enthusiasm.

Today, when I watch children and parents in supermarkets or in the street, I am glad to see most children are given a free reign except for the few restrictions to safeguard rhem from danger. I wonder why the parents treatment of their children has vastly improved? There is no doubt advantages in technology and transport have made hopusekeeping and shopping far easier now than ever before.

Once children go to school restrictions on their lives are much greater. Things begin to change. The ugly word ‘compulsory’ creeps in. Children can no longer do what they want to do. Everyone in the class has to learn the same thing at the same time. That is alright if what is being taught is the three ‘Rs’, Reading ,Writing and Arithmetic, in a way that the children can learn and enjoy and plenty of time during lessons for the children to get up from their seats and run around, preferably outside. Good teachers are born, not made. By the same token painters and writers are the same. Techniques can be taught but the foundation of all three activities comes from the heart and genes of the fortunate people who have these potentials.

Before the Second World War, the government took little interest in state infant and primary schools. Teacher Training Colleges ran two-year courses that were more than adequate for these state schools. They included a short period of experience in real schools but teachers were trusted to teach in their own way following the basic needs. People who went to grammar schools taught academic subjects in preparation for universities, Others who wanted to train for business and secretarial work went to technical schools and the rest left at 14 to take what work they could find.

Unlike today, it was rare then for children of 7 and 8 not to read and write and learn a little rudimentary arithmetic by the time they went from infant into primary school.

People who went to university were those who wanted to study academic subjects. Money was not a problem because anyone who wanted to go to university and was good enough was paid grants that made them independent of their parents. When I was up at Liverpool University im 1957 I went to a meeting for undergraduates. The speaker was one Bessy Braddok, a fierce left-winger.

She was behind the times , having made the mistake that we all came from families who could pay the university fees. Most of us had fought in the war and received very good grants from the the central government or had won scholarships from local governments. We heckled her without mercy. Taking us for middle-class toffs whose fees were paid by their parents she shouted out:

‘You will soon have the working class in your midst!’

With one accord we roared back “Who do you think we are!” She could find no response. She had made a big mistake.

In those dim and distant days we had never heard ssuch a phrase as low self-esteem. We were mostly overflowing with confidence because we had worked hard to get what we wanted to do and did it well.

Psychology was only just being recognised as a subject for universities. People of my generation find it hard to understand why so many people think they need psychotherapy and I can understand why.

Categories
Therapeutic Dialogue

Listening to be Reminded

Lots of money is made from self-help books. The brilliant Dr O.C.Drury, who was encouraged by Wittgenstein to train as a medical doctor as well as a psychiatrist described such books as “full of harmless platitudes. A thoughtless attitude to the deeper problems of human life reflects a widespread error which extends even to educated people that for every problem some particular science and some particular expert can provide the necessary answer in a book.” I could not say better. When two people , one highly knowledgable and the other brave enough to face the depths of himself work together in a state of mutual trust and respect; there is no better way to solving a psychological problem.

I worked as a therapist in private practice. I soon realised that the traiings I had done were not very useful, except for techniques. How could we call psychotherapy a science when there are more than 400 ways of doing it? The most important factor that is essential is the ability to create the therapeutic dialogue. I needed to listen carefully to my clients and interrupt them in order to help them to analyse the meaning of what they said. But this was difficult , it made the flow of the talk slow down. Eventually I decided to encourage people to talk, making sure to maintain the rapport. This way I kept my interruptions to a minimum of what seemed to me to be the most important words. This way neither one of us dominated the other.

Harvey Sacks’ experience at The Center for the Scientistic study of Suicide in Los Angeles revealed that the clients did not feel that psychiatrists understood them. They wanted to listen to people who had had similar experiences to their own. The psychiatrist Fromm-Reichmann’s advice to her trainees was that they themselves would not be reminded. Therefore they should not listen to be reminded. Sacks thought she was wrong and that perhaps this accounted for the common complaint of clients that psychiatrists sometimes fell asleep during the consultations!

Listening to be reminded of our own lives is a strong incentive for people to listen. I followed this practice of what we therapists call ‘self-disclosure’ and found that in most cases it stimulated clients to tell valuable experiences of their own that threw light on their problems.

I worked spontaneously, confident that I had a wealth of knowledge in my unconscious mind knowing that as I listened the right words would rise to my lips. If I found myself floundering I would use my sense of humour, the right kind for that particular client. I concentrated constantly and waited for the clues given to me by the prases and words of my clients. Sometimes I recorded sessions that both of us could take home and think about. This too, was a great help.

I discovered that I was getting to the core of being useful to those clients who took our work seriously and eventually managed to solve their problems for themselves. This way both of us were satisfied: my clients improved their powers of logical thinking and I discovered skills I didn’t know I had.

Categories
How To Use Words

The Magic Three

American Indians invaded by white explorers said “White men talk with forked tongue” in order to deform the truth with the motive of forcing them to give up their freedom . We could say the same about some politicians. They openly call it ‘spin’ in the mistaken belief that most of us are fools and easily deceived. A comon device of oratory is to put together three consecutive words, either the same or closely related. Here are three good examples:

Education! Education!,Education!
 The word education comes from the Latin word educare which means leading out what is whithin. It does not mean forcing ideas on to children. The task of teachers is to give enough information to enable children to work things out for themselves. Does this happen? Not very often. Good teachers are few and far between. It has always been so.Much of what children are taught is not what they either want or need. A good teacher realises that every child learns in their own time and in their own way. There is a dangerous movement creeping in trying to regulate education, medicine, psychotherapy and everything else that curtails our freedom and is a threat to new ideas.

Where does such a thing come from? The government of course who set up organisations such as quangos for this purpose. More of this later.

The politician Gordon Brown is one of those who constantly uses the thrice repeated word education in his broadcasts. He doesn’t take anyone in. People get bored and stop listening.

Location!Location! Location! is a different kettle of fish. Everyone knows what it means and knows it is true. If you take a back street shop to set up a business we know it will probably fail. The wrong people will walk past. I set up two new businesses in the heart of Cambridge selling secondhand books, posters and prints. This was 35 years ago before rents began to rise dramatically and there were plenty of people to buy the right kind of books and prints in such a place as Cambridge.

Many people I knew were astonished that I should take such a risk. Few people take chances when they want to start something new. There is no guarantee that they will be successful. This is why so few people make fortunes. There is always the threat of bankruptsy because we cannot know what will happen in the future. Most of those who take risks in business get close to losing everything at least once. It happened to me.

Friends, Romans and Countrymen lend me your ears: one of the best known quotes from Shakespeare’s play “Julius Caesar”. Brutus and his mates had just killed Julius Caesar because they thought he was a corrupt leader. Mark Anthony thought he was wrong. Brutus was a fair-minded man who believed he had done the right thing. Everything went well for Brutus until he made the fatal mistake of letting Mark Anthony be the last to speak to the mob. These first three words flattered the people. He gave the impression that they were his equals. Moreover he went on to give a melodramatic discription of Caesar’s death. In addition he read out Caesar’s will which contained gifts for the prople. Mark Anthony with his clever oratory turned the feeling of the people against Brutus and for himself without saying a single bad thing about Brutus. Such is the power of speech. All dictators have influenced the masses of the people by using the right kind of oratory. When crowds are in a very excitable state they cannot think straight and powerful emotions take over.