tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8547886101764404344.post673242551798551746..comments2024-03-24T20:50:06.083-04:00Comments on Lessons in Psychology: Freedom, Liberation, and Reaction: People Make Sense: Foundations for a Human ScienceWynn Schwartz, Ph.D.http://www.blogger.com/profile/03689137521075228568noreply@blogger.comBlogger10125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8547886101764404344.post-14111264182111950632016-08-16T17:23:25.575-04:002016-08-16T17:23:25.575-04:00Bruce, please let me know a bit more about what yo...Bruce, please let me know a bit more about what you're asking. What do you mean by "practice here"? What is the subject matter of "here"? Wynn Schwartz, Ph.D.https://www.blogger.com/profile/03689137521075228568noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8547886101764404344.post-33653230868086274332016-08-15T13:14:43.836-04:002016-08-15T13:14:43.836-04:00Toastmasters has a working model of practicing bas...Toastmasters has a working model of practicing basic concepts. The speeches are presented in order of importance of performing a competent speech. Practicing Courage, Being in Earnest, Organizing Your Speech (Purposefulness), etc. What would be the first skill that one would practice here? brucetragohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15667824622447886898noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8547886101764404344.post-88905796298680006062014-06-11T15:15:58.470-04:002014-06-11T15:15:58.470-04:00Wynn,
Obviously, you have organized an awesome am...Wynn,<br /><br />Obviously, you have organized an awesome amount of material on conceptual underpinnings, and done an exemplary job. <br /><br />Given my background with Ossorio and language analysis, I feel I understood why you chose the material you chose to include and how we might benefit from it. And yet so much compacted information might easily overwhelm newcomers, who would not be expected to have a sufficient background in conceptual analysis. <br /><br />Surely, we need the precise and highly informative flavor of summations such as yours. Yet I sometimes feel like a simpleton, because I can only absorb so much in any series of paragraphs and I too can be overwhelmed or simply worn out by spans of highly concentrated information. <br /><br />Ossorio holds that "A person acquires concepts and skills by practice and experience in some of the social practices that involve the use of the concepts or skills." Broadly, the point is that we learn our general ways of doing things not so much by definitions or detailed instructions, but by emmersing ourselves in the various activities. <br /><br />I would like to see some of the highly intelligent writers such as yourself take the time to flush out the DP principles, to apply, to illustrate, so that the more average readers such as myself can emmerse ourselves in the practice and feel more at home with it. <br /><br />Richard Driscoll, Ph.D. <br /> Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10989781449691812164noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8547886101764404344.post-33004683543088966852013-09-11T22:23:28.734-04:002013-09-11T22:23:28.734-04:00I am also intrigued by Maxim 5 "If a situatio...I am also intrigued by Maxim 5 "If a situation calls for a person to do something he can't do, he will do something he can do." This reminds me of a conversation I had with my host-mother while I was studying in Costa Rica. She used to work for the United Nations. She told me about the indigenous groups she used to visit and how there was often quite a gap in understanding, both linguistically and culturally. She always managed to get her point across and they always managed to communicate effectively with her. We arrived at the conclusion that people will always find a way to communicate. I believe this is important to remember in clinical work especially since people's histories, behaviors, perceptions, artwork, and pains all communicate (possibly unspeakable) truths about who that person is, who that person was, and possibly who that person wishes to be. These actions may be the only way that the person finds he CAN communicate, possibly because he is unaware, too anxious, or unwilling to go there. Our job as clinicians, therefore, is to listen to AND observe what the person is trying to communicate to us.<br />Laura Z.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8547886101764404344.post-44034164791456262842013-09-02T18:52:02.336-04:002013-09-02T18:52:02.336-04:00I actually find the concept of having a common gro...I actually find the concept of having a common ground in understanding others a very interesting one. Prior to reading your blog, I had never really conceptualized the idea that before one can disagree with someone, the complete opposite must occur: establishing a common ground. <br /><br />I was particularly enlightened by your statement of “Before disagreement and misunderstanding can be identified there has to be a shared means of negotiation based on a common appreciation of what understandable action looks like in a coherent world. We have to know how to adequately get along and communicate before we can identify its absence.” This comment clearly resonates with what was said in class that things have to make sense first before one can talk about how they don't make sense. It is true that "without shared concepts, we are clueless".<br />~ G. CruzAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8547886101764404344.post-79601492524024486842013-09-01T13:18:01.426-04:002013-09-01T13:18:01.426-04:00Hmm, so what do you make of my being too lazy at t...Hmm, so what do you make of my being too lazy at the moment to look up a word I've misspelled? Sometimes I can try harder, look more carefully, think it through again. I think it makes sense to give people the benefit of the doubt, but if I send out this response without careful revision it will not be the best I can do. To say people are doing the best they can would conceptually be no different than saying,"They did what they did. They could not have done better and they could not have done worse". <br /><br />"The Best" drops out as a meaningful distinction if people are always doing the best they can.<br /> <br />But you are making another point that I think is a useful therapeutic policy, namely "Treat people as if they are doing the best they can until or unless you have sufficient reason to treat them otherwise." Such a policy helps avoid degrading the client and is part of the rationale behind the DBT approach. Wynn Schwartz, Ph.D.https://www.blogger.com/profile/03689137521075228568noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8547886101764404344.post-90111412891931759032013-09-01T12:30:22.820-04:002013-09-01T12:30:22.820-04:00"If a situation calls for a person to do some..."If a situation calls for a person to do something he can't do, he will do something he can do. Maxim five reminds us that behavior is an expression of a person’s current values, knowledge and competencies and not what an observer believes ought to be the case. People may not always do the best they can, but their action is always based on their appraisal of themselves and their circumstances. Not ours." <br />This reminds me of the central premise of Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT), which is that in any given moment people (patients/clients/us) are doing the best they can and they can do better. Thus interventions are based on the balance of acceptance and change approaches. I think it is important to remember that if a person could “do better” in a given situation, he or she would. However, something in the circumstance could be getting in the way of their ability to act optimally. Maybe a lack of skill, or a skill they cannot access given the present moment (ie in a time of emotional dysregulation or due to appraisal of the self) or the environment they are in doesn’t promote their skillful/adaptive behavior. As therapists, part of our role, I believe is to curiously explore with clients what could be getting in the way. I agree that our appraisal and theirs in a given situation may likely not be the same.<br />Maxine K.<br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8547886101764404344.post-7025658001526380252013-08-30T17:27:59.976-04:002013-08-30T17:27:59.976-04:00I think you are recognizing that understanding req...I think you are recognizing that understanding requires shared social practices and with the stranger, especially the "strange" stranger, we may not trust that we have enough in common. Clearly understanding has a "more or less" quality to it. But all humans share basic fundamental interests, vulnerabilities and desires. This is not to suggest we don't often get it wrong. Perhaps I should say, people are inherently potentially understandable to each other and begin with enough in common to negotiate a better understanding. <br /><br />Consider, that although there is much we don't know about any given person or group of people, "meeting a stranger on the street is not like coming face to face with a little green man from Mars, nor is it like chancing upon a complex mobile artifact without having the slightest idea of what might ensue. And having lunch with my Uncle Ben is not like meeting a stranger on the street. With persons, one might say, it is I to Thou." (Ossorio, p.2, The Behavior of Persons)<br /><br />Harry Stack Sullivan put it this way:<br /><br />“I now want to present what I used to call the one-genus hypothesis, or postulate. This hypothesis I word as follows: We shall assume that everyone is much more simply human than otherwise, and that anomalous interpersonal situations, insofar as they do not arise from differences in language or custom, are a function of differences in relative maturity of the persons concerned. In other words, the differences between any two instances of human personality--from the lowest grade imbecile to the highest-grade genius--are much less striking than the differences between the least-gifted human being and a member of the nearest other biological genus...I have become occupied with the science, not of individual differences, but of human identities, or parallels...I try to study the degrees and patterns of things which I assume to be ubiquitously human” (1953, The Interpersonal Theory of Psychiatry, pp.32-33).<br />Wynn Schwartz, Ph.D.https://www.blogger.com/profile/03689137521075228568noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8547886101764404344.post-1054447424325398282013-08-30T16:27:17.741-04:002013-08-30T16:27:17.741-04:00I am not sure that I fully agree with the idea tha...I am not sure that I fully agree with the idea that we generally understand people. I agree that we know how to communicate with one another and get along in the world together, but I would not say that I understand a perfect stranger that comes into my office. Perhaps I am interpreting this concept incorrectly, but the reason I chose to psychology when I was in high school was that I did not understand people. I wanted to study them and learn why people do what they do so that I could make sense of the world. Maybe it is just that understanding "people" is different from understanding "the person"? Or is it that the "we" in the assertion that we generally understand people only applies to psychologists? Coming from a small, economically depressed farm town, the general consensus there is that the world is a messed up and difficult place, and that people do not make sense. The world itself does not make sense to people that can't make ends meet. To make the assertion that people understand one another does not seem to hold much weight for people outside of large, affluent cities. Even on the basis of language, this is usually not the case, because people in rural areas most times only speak English, and they do not understand anything about people from other cultures. I would be interested in discussing this idea more in class. -Hannah MAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8547886101764404344.post-34467269560506421172013-08-27T17:45:54.395-04:002013-08-27T17:45:54.395-04:00Succinct and clear.Succinct and clear.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com