athameblade

My new counseling training practicum has been interesting so far, although I haven't seen any clients yet and am in still in preliminary training. We have required readings on which to write reaction papers about every month. Here's the beginning of my first one, in which I dipped into the political realm:

I generally enjoyed the Wheeler excerpt from “Beyond Individualism” and the mission behind its message – helping people to look more broadly at the influences on their thinking rather than seeing their view as the only correct and objective one, supposedly divorced from any cultural or other environmental contexts. But I did have a couple problems with it. I liked the phrase “ill fit between received wisdom and lived experience” because it shows that what you learn in a book or from others may not accurately reflect the reality of some people’s lives. We as therapists have to be especially careful to avoid using too much of a textbook approach instead of closely listening to our clients’ unique stories to help understand their problems or pathologies.

I don’t know about “we’re dying from rampant capitalism.” Capitalism has never even been done fully in the purest sense, since the human flaw of needing to control and over-regulate often prevents that (I’m a libertarian). What we have here, rather, is a tyranny problem involving taking advantage of the people, and this is simply unfair and unjust. And tyranny often wastes more money and resources than anything else, which hurts the people significantly at the same time as violating their integrity. I don’t blame capitalism; I blame corrupt and incompetent leaders and those who voted for them. Psychology can be used to explain why the American people have chosen such horrible leaders, however, and arrogant, unwavering opinions are probably part of it, in accordance with the points the author is making. (Too much trust in appearances and familiarity rather than using evidence and prudence as a guide to improve the well-being of the whole country.) Education on cognitive and relational styles should be part of required grade schooling, I think.

Just my 2 cents. The main person who holds the training sessions says "The Relational approach seeks to heal the divide between individualism and collectivism. It is not communism, and it still cares about the well-being of the individual." I really hope the politics behind all this stay reasonable and don't become lop-sided, if you know what I mean.

I dislike both McCain and Obama, so don't think that I buy into any of the contemporary bipartisan bullshit (being a libertarian). I wish the Republican party would stop running imbeciles for office because America's youth will probably see the Republican party as ever-Neocon, which it wasn't in previous years and which it doesn't have to be in the future. Considering that McCain would probably be more or less a continuation of W's legacy, I grudgingly opt for Obama in this election. (but eek about more government bureaucracy)

Sometimes, I wish we could have public access to all candidates' full intelligence and psychological profiles. Full disclosure of everything about how they function and think. Objective or at least relatively near-objective tests can't hide what is so easily hidden in campaign rhetoric. (I use that disclaimer of "relatively near-objective" because there are flaws to every test, so the more, the better to get a full view.) Of course, these would merely be supplements to other information received from them directly. They would just add another tool for decision-making besides the proposed policies.