To: <s-acc@yahoogroups.com>
From: "Andrew Phelps" <starfish@northcoast.com>
Date: Sat, 1 Aug 2009 16:21:22 -0700
Subject: Re: [s-acc] re: classic on communication and conflict resolution
Abc:
You hit on some of the phenomenology that really has been key to my thought.
To many of us, it is much less pernicious when someone is not 'practicing a strategy' on someone's mind and personal crises, & it is, as far as I can tell, way more honest or credible without that.
I was hit by a "strategy" by the psychiatrist for
Sidwell Friends. Three years later when my sister was hospitalized for psychiatric reasons (by way of Swarthmore College), I visited him once, and he actually explained some of the hitherto-secret strategy.Later after I became a "community organizer," I was renditioned to DC and he had me committed. Eventually I learned that what I "had" was "black rage."
All of the roles or interventions center around, 'we know how to fix your kinds of scripts, which is maybe great if you are stuck and have lost the ability to solve the mystery of life and want a guru to discover your inner strengths, though the exclusiveness of the counseling regime is somewhat fraudulently 'research validated',
He has a published research paper from that period, where he interviewed black teenagers in DC (this was after the MLK Jr. riots), and studied "ego fusion" related to anger. It fell over on me because of my Berkeley organizing background, social acquaintance with the Black Panther Party, and the like.
[Oh, and BTW, his "strategic agenda" has now collapsed, I'd say, as Barack's daughters are now students at Sidwell Friends, and the story of "black rage" no longer will work for the school!]
Professionals by definition, will have difficulties normalizing or reconciling their roles, and rather than realize and take advantage of the possibilities of that adaption, the industry chooses to cut off that naturally human part of themselves with professional 'ethical rules',
..
This kind of generalizes. From my insight, they have a kind of "clinical gaze" issue because they need to be knowledgeable about how to take that kind of implied social responsibility, and they are not trained to do so. Your language converts that to a stereotype about professionals, which is maybe pragmatic but insufficient in terms of giving respect where due.
Best
Andrew