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Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind
, by Shunryu Suzuki. I had read this before, and am re-reading now. Similarly to my first read, I alternate between feeling like I kind of intuitively get what he's talking about, and feeling like the book is proof that some experiences are felt but not conveyable in words.Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence--from Domestic Abuse to Political Terror
, by Judith Hermann. This is excellent, and readable by a lay person. I already own it, but apparently loaned it out or something, because it's sure not here now. Ordered another copy. Thankfully, it's a cheap paperback.Compassion in Action: Setting Out on the Path of Service
, by Ram Dass. Does anyone have any opinions on him? I know who he is, but that's it. The Trauma Treatment Handbook: Protocols Across the Spectrum (Norton Professional Books)
Seeking Safety: A Treatment Manual for PTSD and Substance Abuse
Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy for Depression: A New Approach to Preventing Relapse
Integrated Treatment for Dual Disorders: A Guide to Effective Practice
. ("Dual disorders" or "dual diagnosis" means "mental illness + addiction.")I'm not even listing all the bazillions of articles I have to read. These are just the textbooks. And it's not even all the textbooks - one professor doesn't have her book list up yet.
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My ambivalence, let me show you it.
Their research is solid, I think their theories have merit, I think this could be invaluable for lots of people, and in the end it didn't stop me crashing like the Hindenberg. Their data suggests they can halve the relapse rate in people with recurrent depression, I suspect they can, and, well, I was in the other fucking half. I still find myself using some of the techniques in an informal way (I can't have a formal practice because my brain will use it as an opportunity to eat itself). Some of the techniques got tangled up in my insanity and made me feel like shit for not being able to make myself better. I wish they had something -- or at least some acknowledgement -- for people like me.
Good book. Important stuff. I cannot read another fucking Mary Oliver poem without wanting to punch people in the face.
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PS. I had never heard of Mary Oliver before; I looked her up, and she's a poet. Is she often recommended by therapists doing mindfulness-based CBT?
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that no one system will work for everyone.
And that sometimes a system can be a good and appropriate choice for someone, and not work anyway. And under those circumstances, it's easy for the patient to feel they've "failed", which is hard to avoid when you're dealing with depressives, but it would be nice if that wasn't so.
(I got fired from my MBCT course. Well, told that it didn't seem to be helping me right now and perhaps I could break off and resume at some future date when I was feeling better. Which was, I agreed at the time and still agree, probably better than having me sob through all meetings and look like a bad example to the other clients, especially as I was the one who'd been working the MBCT stuff from books for months on my own prior to the course. But still. I got fired, for relapsing into depression. I am still bitter, yes.)
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I'd have been inclined to have just asked you if you wanted to continue or if you felt that the course wasn't helpful/was making things worse for you, and left the decision to you. It's okay to cry in meetings. It doesn't make anyone a bad example. In fact, if I understand the theory correctly, the concepts of "failure" and "bad example" are antithetical to the ideas of mindfulness.
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*throws hands in the air*
I don't know. I wish I did. But working with people with severe recurrent depression, even if you halve the relapse rate, that still leaves a significant number of people relapsing, and it'd be nice if it didn't feel like: go away, we can't handle you now.
(What could be done instead: not my problem to figure out, thankfully, what with me not being a therapist.)
And yes, there's the whole thing that there's no failing, but at the same time there's the implied promise -- which you can't avoid -- that if you do this right, it'll work and you won't get depressed again. Or at least it'll help.
And there was a sense both in my mind that I'd failed, and in what I was picking up (accurately or inaccurately) from the therapist that she didn't know how to handle me crashing conspicuously and still turning up to sessions, sobbing, and not being able to respond with the "proper" responses (yes, I know there aren't supposed to be any "proper" responses either) to any of the exercises because the inside of my head was a nuclear wasteland.
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It's hard to offer hope, which is real and necessary, without having the corollary feel like, "And if this doesn't work, it's your fault." On the flip side, too much emphasis on "not everything works for everyone," and people despair before they even begin. But the point where someone clearly feels that they've failed is probably a good time to start emphasizing that it's not their fault.
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But I guess depression doesn't work like that because every time it just seems to get worse?....wow, I am....not helpful. Ugh. But yeah, the idea that people who are severely depressed over and over and over again are "causing" it somehow or are "not being serious"....gack.
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Yeah, the data is scary on that. The more episodes of depression you have, the more likely a recurrence is. Once you've had three episodes of depression, I believe the recurrence rate is 90%.
And I do have respect for the MBCT people, because they've got some good theories (of a non-victim-blaming nature, I should add) of how those self-perpetuating brain mechanisms work and how it might be possible to interrupt them, and solid data indicating that they can seriously cut the relapse rate (by up to 50%) in the three-or-more-episodes group.
But OTOH, the nature of working with that group is that even if you halve the relapse rate -- which is fucking awesome -- you're still going to get nearly half of your patient population relapsing regardless, because the rate is so incredibly high to begin with. And IMHO you've got to be prepared for that, and (in so far as possible) avoid creating the sense that those people have "failed".
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But. It still felt like being fired.
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It was a good thing to be exposed to once, but, uh, the repetition is a bit much! I'm amused to see it wasn't just my luck in getting it repeatedly.
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The other one everyone always overuses is the Sharon Olds poem that ends "Do what you are going to do, and I will write about it." Everywhere. Every writing workshop ever.
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I do wonder why those poems in particular get used so much.
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//dies, just DIES
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....I adore you, but you know that.
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I have found that a certain aspect of new agey medicine, of which this is a subset, is really really big on a variant of blame the victim that goes something like "we draw these things towards us with the words we use" or the thoughts we think and all that rot. It's subtley different from the more Christian version, although I can't really explain it. Overall, I kind of prefer my grandmother's Catholicism, "Life is hard, suck it up, you're not dead yet." Although she would never swear. At least then it's not one's own FAULT.
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something like "we draw these things towards us with the words we use" or the thoughts we think and all that rot
That's so totally Mary Baker Eddy, yeah.
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And not that it looks like you'll have the time to read it BUT RACHE, there's a really fantastic book called Shoes Outside the Door that deals with the birth of Zen in America and this completely whack Svengali figure who sexually abused women, bought priceless art, lived like a sultan while students were scraping by on $50 a month, &c &c. Some of it's here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Franci
Bonus: the guy who replaced that roshi (well one of them) took a gun off a corpse and threatened people with it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Franci
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NOT ENOUGH EXCLAMATION POINTS IN THE WORLD.
This 1987 incident has had a damaging impact on Anderson's reputation as a teacher
I am torn between "NO SHIT" and "At least his followers had some sense, given that often NO amount of bizarreness or criminality will deter people from following their guru."
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I KNOW RIGHT
Probably the craziest thing that went down at Zen Center in the eighties, but it had stiff competition.
I am torn between "NO SHIT" and "At least his followers had some sense, given that often NO amount of bizarreness or criminality will deter people from following their guru."
Ohhh man apparently Baker would use private teaching sessions to convince female students to fuck him. Or to nag them about how they weren't fucking him. Or to convince them to split from their partners. Nasty nasty scene.
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Definitely Suzuki was, but I think Anderson was too.
BTW, did you find Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind a bit weird and problematic about race? I read it years ago, but I distinctly remember him saying something about Westerners being better at Zen than Asian people.
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Wiki: On September 25, 1999, Baker married Her Grand Ducal Highness Princess Marie Louise Elisabeth Mathilde Theodora Cecilie Sarah Charlotte of Baden, daughter of Maximilian, Margrave of Baden and wife Archduchess Valerie of Austria. They have a daughter, Sophia Baker, born on March 1, 2001, in Alamosa, Colorado. He has two daughters, Sally and Elizabeth, from a prior marriage to Virginia Baker. Well bzuh.
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B/w my mixed-success with lamictal and beta blockers I am wondering how much of a focus on psychopharmacology you have in your trauma program?
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