Posted by special_k on April 10, 2006, at 23:23:48
In reply to Re: that brand of therapy ;-) » Dinah, posted by annierose on April 10, 2006, at 21:48:40
interesting... i guess i have my own theory of transference (not sure how that sits with the standard lit lol).
imo...
- transference feelings can be qualitatively indistinguishable from non-transference feelings (which is just to say that they *can* be phenomenologically identical to non-transference feelings from the subjects point of view).
- transference feelings are differentiated from non-transference feelings by their aetiology. an analogy... someone presents with a burn. the burn is very real. you can see it. you can't tell whether it is a sunburn or not until you know more about what caused the burn. it is part of the identity condition for something being a sunburn that it was caused by the sun. analogously it is part of the identity condition for transference feelings that they are caused by the past rather than the present.
- an indicator of whether feelings are due to transference (as opposed to not being due to transference) is their intensity. if feelings are experienced as being particularly intense then that probably indicates that the feelings are a response to more than the present situation. or that the present situation has become a symbol for some greater situation.
i guess i was thinking of transference feelings as feelings originating in the past... but perhaps not... the 'greater context' line is probably important too. thinking here along the lines of what dinah was saying...
hrm.
i personally think a criterion of adequacy on a theory is that it should be consistent with the findings of evolutionary cognitive neuro psychology. because IMHO those fields are the fields in which our understanding is being advanced at a rapid rate of knotts. but that is just to say... if you want to be scientific (ie if it is truth rather than pragmatic value that interests you) then IMHO that is the way to go.
regarding pragmatism... i think the truth as traditionally conceived (ie of a relation to reality) is likely to pragmatically outperform theorists fictions in the long run. and theorists fictions tend to put an end to inquirey rather than advancing it...
i had significant issues with being told about 'rational mind' 'emotional mind' 'wise mind' in skills group because i thought those were fairly comperable examples of theorists fictions that prevent real understanding. i guess it might be a useful fiction for some. but i'm rather attached to the truth myself... my t was pretty good at differentating between fiction / metaphor and the rest so that was good for me. i remember one of my lecturers saying that he had trouble with meditation because they asked him to imagine that when he inhaled the air was reaching into his toes and he became disturbed at the view of anatomy that was presupposed... i guess there must be a middle way...
;-)
poster:special_k
thread:628935
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20060406/msgs/631630.html