In this specific sense, the very effort of counseling recognizes (it makes no argument either way) that no overarching ideology exists, that the social world must be considered as but a psychological instance and vice-versa, like every other aspect of a person’s experience. This does not thereby dismiss or colonize different ideologies, but contextualizes them as they are indeed embodied phenomena, i.e., psychology. Whether by breaking apart ideas themselves or by bringing question to their relationships with other objects, every mental health therapeutic intervention functions from this epistemological discernment, whether implemented cognitively, experientially, emotionally, or otherwise. Somatic, emotional and other types of ‘indirect’ work well to grease the joints and articulations of the knowing knowledge and the known, such that they can be pronounced by the client’s knowledge regardless of any specific linguistic definition. In therapy, avenues and pathways of helping are less being produced within ideological structures than the ideological structures are being induced by interaction and therapeutic alliance itself: there is no a priori system of ideas because the ideas arise effectively as questions, not as statements of absolute truth but as conditioned convictions. They are induced to be articulated and pronounced because the therapist is specifically encouraging a space for the client wherein the possibility of ideological spaces of production are being suspended. The client is not producing these ideas, rather, the ideas are being induced by the occasion of therapy as the event reflects life in general. This, as Victor Frankl and others might have agreed, is freedom; this is intentionality itself.
Exploring the being of knowing
ANother excerpt from Mental Health Philosophy
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Essays in mental health philosophy—less “tips,” more why things work (or don’t). I look at the first principles under therapy, psychiatry, psychology, and everyday life, and occasionally share notes from papers and books-in-progress.
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Lance Kair, LPC, blends philosophy, mindfulness, and counseling to help clients find agency, meaning, fulfillment, and healing through deep understanding, self-awareness, and compassionate therapeutic collaboration.
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6 responses to “ANother excerpt from Mental Health Philosophy”
This has ties to Moral Politics, a book published by George Lakoff in the mid-1990s, which is sadly still relevant in the United States today. In sum, it discusses two opposing worldviews, strict father vs. nurturing family, A model that is then projected on religion, society, government, and wherever where one might wish to project it.
Yeah, I could see that. Kind of like the patriarchy. And then like feminine component or something. And, that is just one paragraph. The overall push of it is that it is disciplinary more than ontological. That mental health is something distinguished from everything else that we can know by the fact that we can know it, because it has to do with knowing knowledge itself for what it exactly is. In itself . And so I’m really kind of saying, the universe contains worlds, and the patriarchy is but one world of many. 😆.
Just curious: what if I am not making an argument. What would you say ?
I feel it’s an issue of aetiology. Channelling Lakoff, he says that the gender-laden male-female energy dichotomy morphed into a family model, male energy manifesting as the strict-father model and female energy manifesting as the nurturing family.
The strict father metaphor was adopted by Conservative political and religious groups, who extend and project this hierarchical family model on government and church.
The nurturing family model is projected likewise. Keep in mind that these models are not exhaustive. Rather, they server as bookends to a spectrum. In fact, this is not even correct, as these are each mediated on opposite ends, but there are dysfunctional versions of each further right and left, as common idioms place them. Many people are a blend, and we’d need to dimensionalise further to tease out ordinary people.
Given this setup, adherents of each model believes that favoured system is the best to product adults who can operate in society. Moreover, they believe that the other model produces weak or broken adults. (Finally, I am tying this back to the topic at hand.)
Research shows that the nurturing family model does have the propensity to produce adjusted, functioning adult. Despite their beliefs, the strict-father model tends to produce damaged adults.
I may have been trigger by your reference to suspending ideological space, but I presume that this is easier said than done, and depending on the adopted worldview, even the counsellor would need to adjust their approach to play the nurturing or authoritative figure role to best connect with the client, respectively, to build trust or authority.
Or have I run off the reservation.
NB: This theory is reductionist, but I feel it still retains merit.
I think the general idea of the parenting influence is childhood emotional neglect is directly related to the development of mental issues in adults.
Oh. Lakoff. I remember that book of his. Conceptual
Metaphors