Posted by pseudoname on April 13, 2006, at 19:39:28
In reply to Re: alternatives to transference » pseudoname, posted by special_k on April 12, 2006, at 23:26:44
[This was a lot longer, but I'm trying to focus. LOL]
> > I keep bringing up the *acceptance* portion of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, which has some overlap with DBT, but no one seems interested.
>
> ahem. i think i've shown an interest ;-);-) Yes, you have. And I knew that. (I'm sending you a Babblemail about it.)
A nice guy named Pedrito in the UK was interested, too. He even told someone else a month or two later, “I'm just concentrating on ACT right now...” I wonder if he found it useful. I don't think he's posted since.
> so you think that 'transference' will eventually be eliminated as people come to a greater understanding of these other factors. as the science of behaviour progresses...
As far as “transference being eliminated”, I think as far as academic psychology is concermed, that's already happened. Freudian ideas are entirely absent from modern psychological research. But I doubt that transference will ever disappear from those clinical programs that currently teach it. Why would they get rid of it? Any possible reason (research failure, e.g.) has already happened, and it's still taught.
> but... couldn't transference still happen (authority issues etc).???
It could. But you could never know that that's what was going on. Maybe the patient would have authority issues no matter what had happened in her childhood. The Saddocks' definition of transference you cite could be going on, but they don't tell me how I could find that out.
I guess my main trouble with it, and why I'm speaking against it so persistently, is that as soon as transference is considered in a therapy, it takes over! It can be applied to any situation; there's really no way to disprove it; and other ideas are shut out. If I start with a theory that expects to find transference, then I WILL find it, guaranteed. Since it's an emotionally evocative, creatively appealing idea, and probably does feel quite validating, it's also very hard to get rid of or even hypothetically set aside in order to consider other possibilities.
Hmm. I never realized ’til just now that that's why I find transference so pernicious. It's like flypaper.
Why transference can't be eliminated:
Analysis attracts bright, “deep” people: quite verbally intelligent, emotionally and interpersonally aware, sensitive (in the best sense of the term), and literate, and who are able to focus tremendously on introspection (which is not as easy as snide detractors suggest). As you say, psychoanalysis is more like art, and I think that its narrative, creative, aesthetic sides are really appealing to the right people.
But when it succeeds, I would suggest that it's the analysands themselves, with their creativity & sensitivity, that are much more responsible, perhaps inadvertently or without being aware of it, for the therapeutic gains they experience than are the Freudian ideas they're trying to apply. I think their abilities & sensitivites could be put to better use if the Freudian ideas were set aside and the actual therapeutic variables were targeted more directly.
(And I've said already what I think those are.)
But as long as these really bright people are having emotionally rewarding experiences on the couch, there will be clinical schools teaching psychodynamic techniques, and the theory of transference will never be eliminated.
> i can't see how to do it [psychoanalysis] within my philosophical tradition where IMO philosophy is on a continuum with the natural sciences […]
Yeah; that's me as well. The one thing I did get out of my years of analysis is greater emotional self-awareness. (People who think I'm a stone cold annoyance are probably shocked.) ;-P
I started getting unexpectedly strong reactions to artwork while I was in analysis, and I feel a lot more warmth & connection with children now.But I think that sort of emotional encouragement can also be targeted more directly and safely and without all the pseudoscience, religiosity, and other baggage of psychoanalysis.
poster:pseudoname
thread:628935
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20060406/msgs/632822.html