One of the mailing lists I am on is hosted by a 501(c)3 in the United States. Among other things, it means that the hosting organization cannot actively support specific candidates in U.S. elections. This resulted in an email from their general counsel’s office warning about political discourse on the mailing lists. It generated a lot of interesting discussions, and I sent an email to the list about the larger issues that this has generated. I’ve modified the email to make it more generic, and present it here.
It seems like some of the posts recently get to what I find the most fascinating issue around politics, psychology, and group dynamics, which is how we understand authority.
To many people, the President of the United States is the ultimate human authority figure. The people of the United States are in the process of deciding who will wear that mantle next. As such, the campaign is about much more than just issues, personalities, or parties.
This brings us to the issue of how each one of us, individually, understands and confers authority on others, as well as how people in positions of authority attempt to maintain authority.
To what extent is authority granted from above, whether we talk about the divine right of kings, or simply the authority conferred on people as a result of playing by the rules of existing governing authorities and receiving their blessing, in the form of degrees, credentials, licenses etc? To what extent is authority granted from below, from people whose trust and respect we have earned?
I don’t want to promote black and white, or red and blue thinking on this. Indeed, it seems like authority comes from a mix of above and below, and the important question is, where do you stand on the spectrum.
From my writing, it should be fairly clear which end of the spectrum I tend towards, and if my writing doesn’t give it away, the fact that I often wore a T-shirt saying ‘Question Authority’ might be another useful clue.
So, let us take for a moment, a look at the question of authority as it relates to the ‘prohibition on political activity’ on the mailing list. The Associate General Counsel for the non-profit sent this message to List Managers. She focused on authority from above, she notes her credentials, as Associate General Counsel, which is an authority granted upon her by the organization that employs here. She sends the message to the managers of the lists, again working from the top down.
Then, the manager of the list sends the message to the list itself and there is some rebellion. The rebellion is from the bottom up.
And the sign says `long hair freaky people need not apply`
Now, let’s take this a little bit further into the realm of the political. People in power, as a general rule, do not give up power willingly or easily. They focus on the authority granted from above as a means of maintaining their power. They may even do things to discourage discourse which would threaten their power, such as promoting an overly broad interpretation of the rules concerning non-profits in the United States.
We have seen this in other areas, including the recent arrest of journalists in St. Paul, the efforts of the current U.S. Administration to centralize power in the executive branch by very broad interpretations of ‘executive power’ and by the pressing of new laws that further erode the rights of citizens.
If we look more closely, we see it in the rhetoric of the candidates, the denigration of ‘community organizers’, people who focus on empowering authority from the bottom, and the exalting of the role of ‘governor’, that is authority wielded from the top.
We have also seen it in the dismissing of people who lean towards a power structure where authority is granted from below when people who question the current power structure are labeled ‘unpatriotic’ or even ‘traitors’. We have seen it in the discourse, where critics are drowned out by people chanting ‘U S A … U S A’, which I would maintain, in the context is not about love of a country based upon democratic ideas where authority is granted from the bottom, but in a context of respecting the current authority structure. We may even see it in people equating rebelling against an overly top down authority structure with immaturity.
So, what do we do with all of this? One member of the list wrote about this saying,
Oppressive power stays in power when the citizens pass the point of no return on speaking out because they have become afraid. With no challenge to that power, the institutionalizing of oppression and the harshness and probability of the punishment increases until there is a point of no return to civic discourse.
It seems like what is most important is to encourage people to explore their own relationship with authority, and to speak out about it; to speak out against power that has become oppressive. It seems like we must create spaces where it is possible and safe for people to do such exploration and speaking.
I think the manager of this list is doing a good job in carefully navigating this for this list, but I would encourage each of you to look a little more closely about your own views about authority and power, and how it relates to this list, to your work, and to political processes worldwide.
]]>One of the mailing lists I am on is hosted by a 501(c)3 in the United States. Among other things, it means that the hosting organization cannot actively support specific candidates in U.S. elections. This resulted in an email from their general counsel’s office warning about political discourse on the mailing lists. It generated a lot of interesting discussions, and I sent an email to the list about the larger issues that this has generated. I’ve modified the email to make it more generic, and present it here.
It seems like some of the posts recently get to what I find the most fascinating issue around politics, psychology, and group dynamics, which is how we understand authority.
To many people, the President of the United States is the ultimate human authority figure. The people of the United States are in the process of deciding who will wear that mantle next. As such, the campaign is about much more than just issues, personalities, or parties.
This brings us to the issue of how each one of us, individually, understands and confers authority on others, as well as how people in positions of authority attempt to maintain authority.
To what extent is authority granted from above, whether we talk about the divine right of kings, or simply the authority conferred on people as a result of playing by the rules of existing governing authorities and receiving their blessing, in the form of degrees, credentials, licenses etc? To what extent is authority granted from below, from people whose trust and respect we have earned?
I don’t want to promote black and white, or red and blue thinking on this. Indeed, it seems like authority comes from a mix of above and below, and the important question is, where do you stand on the spectrum.
From my writing, it should be fairly clear which end of the spectrum I tend towards, and if my writing doesn’t give it away, the fact that I often wore a T-shirt saying ‘Question Authority’ might be another useful clue.
So, let us take for a moment, a look at the question of authority as it relates to the ‘prohibition on political activity’ on the mailing list. The Associate General Counsel for the non-profit sent this message to List Managers. She focused on authority from above, she notes her credentials, as Associate General Counsel, which is an authority granted upon her by the organization that employs here. She sends the message to the managers of the lists, again working from the top down.
Then, the manager of the list sends the message to the list itself and there is some rebellion. The rebellion is from the bottom up.
And the sign says `long hair freaky people need not apply`
Now, let’s take this a little bit further into the realm of the political. People in power, as a general rule, do not give up power willingly or easily. They focus on the authority granted from above as a means of maintaining their power. They may even do things to discourage discourse which would threaten their power, such as promoting an overly broad interpretation of the rules concerning non-profits in the United States.
We have seen this in other areas, including the recent arrest of journalists in St. Paul, the efforts of the current U.S. Administration to centralize power in the executive branch by very broad interpretations of ‘executive power’ and by the pressing of new laws that further erode the rights of citizens.
If we look more closely, we see it in the rhetoric of the candidates, the denigration of ‘community organizers’, people who focus on empowering authority from the bottom, and the exalting of the role of ‘governor’, that is authority wielded from the top.
We have also seen it in the dismissing of people who lean towards a power structure where authority is granted from below when people who question the current power structure are labeled ‘unpatriotic’ or even ‘traitors’. We have seen it in the discourse, where critics are drowned out by people chanting ‘U S A … U S A’, which I would maintain, in the context is not about love of a country based upon democratic ideas where authority is granted from the bottom, but in a context of respecting the current authority structure. We may even see it in people equating rebelling against an overly top down authority structure with immaturity.
So, what do we do with all of this? One member of the list wrote about this saying,
Oppressive power stays in power when the citizens pass the point of no return on speaking out because they have become afraid. With no challenge to that power, the institutionalizing of oppression and the harshness and probability of the punishment increases until there is a point of no return to civic discourse.
It seems like what is most important is to encourage people to explore their own relationship with authority, and to speak out about it; to speak out against power that has become oppressive. It seems like we must create spaces where it is possible and safe for people to do such exploration and speaking.
I think the manager of this list is doing a good job in carefully navigating this for this list, but I would encourage each of you to look a little more closely about your own views about authority and power, and how it relates to this list, to your work, and to political processes worldwide.
]]>I have spent a little time digging through the emails to the Group Psychotherapy mailing list and wanted to hit on several of the themes that have come up. In the discussion about online therapy, Charlie had a great line,
'Where are you?' which can be taken in so many ways. Either as a demand, a simple request or a plaintive cry.
My initial reaction is that ‘where are you?’ can also be a question showing caring, connectedness. I want to know where some of my friends on the list are. I think about Toby and her mother and her Aunt. I think of Ofra and her grandchildren. I think of Sheila, and too all of them I think of asking them ‘where are you?’ as more of an emotional, psychic temperature taking. A telling of the other, I care, I want to know how you are doing. I suspect this may be part of the aspect of constant partial attention that I talk a lot about.
Digital natives need to feel constantly connected with their friends. Perhaps some of it has to do with the age of many digital natives. Teenagers spend time trying to define their identity. Identity is tied to the groups we are part of, and as people work on defining their identity, they need to feel especially connected to their groups.
Carol had a wonderful comment about this saying
I wonder how many old issues of inclusion and exclusion get activated when one is "invited".
...
the facebook phenomenon feels very "junior high" to me when it comes to internet networking
Yeah, that sounds about right. It is probably amplified in cases because all we have is the generic text asking someone to be a friend, with perhaps a little added personal text. There is the ability to write it off as if the person didn’t get the request. There is less of the shuffling of the feet, looking away from the person out of embarrassment, shyness or fear. So, we send more messages to be connected. We explore new ways of using text. We put up pictures of ourselves on Facebook and join groups to define ourselves and the idea of simply leaving Facebook or not putting up personal information just isn’t realistic. This gets back to a discussion from Computers, Freedom and Privacy last week that I want to explore more.
However, I want to get back to the emails from my friends on the Group Psychotherapy list. In the discussion about whether of not therapists should add clients as friends on social networks, or accept friendship requests from clients may require another variable in the calculation. Are the clients digital natives? Are they digital immigrants? Is there a digital aborigine in the mix? Is it some sort of mixed group?
I suspect that accepting or declining friendship in a social network may have very different meanings to people who have grown up in a digital world, where everyone is on social networks and everyone is everyone else’s friend, from people who have come to online social networks later in life and experience them as a foreign way of connecting and communicating.
To push this a little further, Marv commented,
we encourage patients to choose therapists with knowledge of their qualifications, although it¹s startling to find how many new patient¹s are choosing therapists based only on internet research.
As I read this, I wondered how important is it for a therapist to understand the culture that a client is part of. I’m sure this is a topic that people can run a long way with. How much must a therapist understand digital culture when dealing with digital natives? Perhaps this goes back to some of the questions that Bob deals a lot with.
So, I post these as ideas for my friends to ponder.
]]>I have spent a little time digging through the emails to the Group Psychotherapy mailing list and wanted to hit on several of the themes that have come up. In the discussion about online therapy, Charlie had a great line,
'Where are you?' which can be taken in so many ways. Either as a demand, a simple request or a plaintive cry.
My initial reaction is that ‘where are you?’ can also be a question showing caring, connectedness. I want to know where some of my friends on the list are. I think about Toby and her mother and her Aunt. I think of Ofra and her grandchildren. I think of Sheila, and too all of them I think of asking them ‘where are you?’ as more of an emotional, psychic temperature taking. A telling of the other, I care, I want to know how you are doing. I suspect this may be part of the aspect of constant partial attention that I talk a lot about.
Digital natives need to feel constantly connected with their friends. Perhaps some of it has to do with the age of many digital natives. Teenagers spend time trying to define their identity. Identity is tied to the groups we are part of, and as people work on defining their identity, they need to feel especially connected to their groups.
Carol had a wonderful comment about this saying
I wonder how many old issues of inclusion and exclusion get activated when one is "invited".
...
the facebook phenomenon feels very "junior high" to me when it comes to internet networking
Yeah, that sounds about right. It is probably amplified in cases because all we have is the generic text asking someone to be a friend, with perhaps a little added personal text. There is the ability to write it off as if the person didn’t get the request. There is less of the shuffling of the feet, looking away from the person out of embarrassment, shyness or fear. So, we send more messages to be connected. We explore new ways of using text. We put up pictures of ourselves on Facebook and join groups to define ourselves and the idea of simply leaving Facebook or not putting up personal information just isn’t realistic. This gets back to a discussion from Computers, Freedom and Privacy last week that I want to explore more.
However, I want to get back to the emails from my friends on the Group Psychotherapy list. In the discussion about whether of not therapists should add clients as friends on social networks, or accept friendship requests from clients may require another variable in the calculation. Are the clients digital natives? Are they digital immigrants? Is there a digital aborigine in the mix? Is it some sort of mixed group?
I suspect that accepting or declining friendship in a social network may have very different meanings to people who have grown up in a digital world, where everyone is on social networks and everyone is everyone else’s friend, from people who have come to online social networks later in life and experience them as a foreign way of connecting and communicating.
To push this a little further, Marv commented,
we encourage patients to choose therapists with knowledge of their qualifications, although it¹s startling to find how many new patient¹s are choosing therapists based only on internet research.
As I read this, I wondered how important is it for a therapist to understand the culture that a client is part of. I’m sure this is a topic that people can run a long way with. How much must a therapist understand digital culture when dealing with digital natives? Perhaps this goes back to some of the questions that Bob deals a lot with.
So, I post these as ideas for my friends to ponder.
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In one email, a friend wrote about a client who spends much of her life flying. She was talking about a recently failed romance where she and her new lover flew off to some exotic destination. They had a wonderful time, yet on the flight back, her new lover jacked in to his iPod and they didn’t have a chance to talk about there relationship and what had happened to them on the sunny beaches. The therapist suggested that perhaps the lover didn’t have the skills to talk about the relationship. I presented a different interpretation. I like the way the email came out, so I’m posting it here.
]]>In one email, a friend wrote about a client who spends much of her life flying. She was talking about a recently failed romance where she and her new lover flew off to some exotic destination. They had a wonderful time, yet on the flight back, her new lover jacked in to his iPod and they didn’t have a chance to talk about there relationship and what had happened to them on the sunny beaches. The therapist suggested that perhaps the lover didn’t have the skills to talk about the relationship. I presented a different interpretation. I like the way the email came out, so I’m posting it here.
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"I have done with words, how much better the silence, the coffee cup". I remember years ago when I stumbled by some great luck into a talk by Vanessa Bell talking about her aunt, Virginia Woolf. She talked a little bit about that great phrase and how Virginia Woolf would wake up early, make coffee and sit quietly drinking her coffee and thinking.
My mind goes to Wittgenstein's Tractatus, where he tries to put everything nicely into a logical framework, tying it together with "Whereof, one cannot speak, thereof one must remain silent".
I imagine myself in the role of the man sitting in the airplane. I too, might have put on the iPod to sit quietly next to the woman I love, savoring the time. Yes, it might be a defense against her wanting, needing, trying to talk about the wonderful experience, and my need to be quite and bask in it. I might stroke her hand gently, kindly, and as she tries to talk about it whisper a simple hush. I might think of the elderly couples that I've seen walking quietly down the boulevard holding hands, and not speaking, and thinking about how wonderful it would be to arrive at such a place.
Months later, I might realize that my need to be quiet, silent, in a mindset of Virginia Woolf or Ludwig Wittgenstein, and her need to talk about things one should not apply words to was an indicator of why the relationship was doomed.
I imagine that the young man is listening to Simon and Garfunkel's Dangling Converstaion.
It's a still life water color,
Of a now late afternoon,
As the sun shines through the curtained lae
And shadows wash the room.
And we sit and drink our coffee
Couched in our indifference,
Like shells upon the shore
You can hear the ocean roar
In the dangling conversation
And the superficial sighs,
The borders of our lives.
And you read your Emily Dickinson,
And I my Robert Frost,
And we note our place with bookmarkers
That measure what we've lost.
Like a poem poorly written
We are verses out of rhythm,
Couplets out of rhyme,
In syncopated time
And the dangled conversation
And the superficial sighs,
Are the borders of our lives.Yes, we speak of things that matter,
With words that must be said,
Can analysis be worthwhile?
Is the theater really dead?
And how the room is softly faded
And I only kiss your shadow,
I cannot feel your hand,
You're a stranger now unto me
Lost in the dangling conversation.
And the superficial sighs,
In the borders of our lives.
Years later, the young man may reflect in therapy what he lost by not being able to open up and use words, about being too caught up in his own love of silence and savoring the moment to be able to meet the needs of his new lover, as he wonders if analysis really can be worthwhile.
Perhaps this relates to Lena's comment about how the posts on the list used to be shorter. We all have needs about how we communicate with others. I savor the silence, yet write long posts. Perhaps this illustrates the importance of why face to face is so important. Even when we are face to face and communicating without words, very important messages can get lost. Yet it also points to the importance of finding ones voice, finding ones words. Woolf and Wittgenstein, who savor the silences, were also masters of the written word.
I need to write a little more today before I head back to my conference, but first let me put on the iPod and stare into my cup of coffee.
Postscript: I may be bring a bit of myself into the scenario. My first marriage ended in failure, perhaps in part, because I was too much like the young man on that flight of fancy. Yet during the therapy I went through during my divorce I learned to be more attune to other people's need of speaking, as well as my need to find someone who can sit quietly with me and simply know that she is loved.
]]>The Friender service raises a bunch of interesting questions. It goes out and searches other sites and finds people that you know on those sites that are also on MyBlogLog and asks if you want to add them as a contact. In addition, MyBlogLog has taken everyone that has added me as a contact and listed them as pending contacts for me.
This raises several issues to think about. The first is what do we mean by a ‘contact’. For me, in MyBlogLog, a contact is someone that writes a blog that I’m interested in reading, or is interested in reading my blog. Since I like to read lots of different blogs and since I like lots of different people to read my blog, I am very liberal about adding people as contacts. Currently, I have 283 contacts at MyBlogLog.
A second issue is symmetry. Contacts in MyBlogLog do not need to be symmetrical. I can add someone as a contact in MyBlogLog without them adding me as a contact back. I think this is very useful and a better way of thinking about contacts online.
The third issue is data portability. The information that I provide in other sites can be brought into MyBlogLog. In addition, MyBlogLog provides a Friend of a Friend (FOAF) file listing the services that MyBlogLog knows that I have as well as the contacts I have. This data can be read and processed by computer programs to build maps of friendships, see who is in other services where you haven’t subscribed to them yet, and so on. Yet many people don’t realize how much information is available this way and the implications it has for privacy.
Lets now take this to a discussion that occurred on the Group Psychotherapy mailing list. One therapist mentioned that a client had asked about adding him as a friend on Facebook. The therapist suggested that this is a discussion that should be had in the group, including an exploration of why the person wants to add the therapist as a friend and how the rest of the group feels about it. A different person said that he believes that therapists shouldn’t be on Facebook.
Robert Hsiung, who works at University of Chicago and has done some very interesting work on how clients online activities affects groups presented his suggestions for how therapists should deal with Facebook.
Dr. Bob hopes to talk about this more at the American Medical Informatics Association 2008 Annual Symposium. in Washington DC this coming November. There is plenty to talk about in this subject and Bob’s suggestions provide a good starting point.
One of the things to note about Facebook friendships is that that are symmetrical. To add someone as a friend, the friend has to agree. As with MyBlogLog, I have a fairly loose policy about who I add as a friend on Facebook, and currently have around 570 friends on Facebook. However, Facebook requests from people that I don’t know anything about or that have pictures that don’t resonate with me don’t get added.
This takes me to John Herman’s comments about Facebook friends. John is a teacher who has been asked by students about adding him as a friend on Facebook. He speaks about only adding students as friends when those students didn't have anything on their Facebook pages that could damage their reputations his own. It has resulted in many great pedagogical opportunities and seems to be a particularly wise starting point. To the extent that adding Facebook friends comes up in the first therapists group, I hope both Bob and John’s talking points get brought into the discussion.
Relationships on Twitter are asymmetrical. Following someone on Twitter simply means, at least for me, that you think the person is writing something interesting. As a result, I’m currently following 414 people on Twitter and 723 people are following me. Major Twitter personalities like Robert Scoble and Jason Calacanis follow and are followed by twenty to thirty thousand people. I don’t know how they could read very many of the tweets from everyone they are following, let alone have much of a sense of who the people they are following really are. After all, we are talking about twenty times the number of people that Dunbar believed was the “cognitive limit to the number of individuals with whom any one person can maintain stable social relationships”
Yet there is something a little creepy sounding about ‘followers’ and people have been talking about whether Twitter and sites like Seesmic, which have picked up the ‘following’ language might want to change their nomenclature.
There are plenty of different approaches to adding friends, followers, contacts, or whatever else you want to call them. They depend on the nature of the community, how portable the data is, whether it is symmetrical or not, and plenty of other factors. For me, I’ll continue to have a fairly liberal approach to adding friends, but will constantly be re-evaluating. How about you?
]]>The Friender service raises a bunch of interesting questions. It goes out and searches other sites and finds people that you know on those sites that are also on MyBlogLog and asks if you want to add them as a contact. In addition, MyBlogLog has taken everyone that has added me as a contact and listed them as pending contacts for me.
This raises several issues to think about. The first is what do we mean by a ‘contact’. For me, in MyBlogLog, a contact is someone that writes a blog that I’m interested in reading, or is interested in reading my blog. Since I like to read lots of different blogs and since I like lots of different people to read my blog, I am very liberal about adding people as contacts. Currently, I have 283 contacts at MyBlogLog.
A second issue is symmetry. Contacts in MyBlogLog do not need to be symmetrical. I can add someone as a contact in MyBlogLog without them adding me as a contact back. I think this is very useful and a better way of thinking about contacts online.
The third issue is data portability. The information that I provide in other sites can be brought into MyBlogLog. In addition, MyBlogLog provides a Friend of a Friend (FOAF) file listing the services that MyBlogLog knows that I have as well as the contacts I have. This data can be read and processed by computer programs to build maps of friendships, see who is in other services where you haven’t subscribed to them yet, and so on. Yet many people don’t realize how much information is available this way and the implications it has for privacy.
Lets now take this to a discussion that occurred on the Group Psychotherapy mailing list. One therapist mentioned that a client had asked about adding him as a friend on Facebook. The therapist suggested that this is a discussion that should be had in the group, including an exploration of why the person wants to add the therapist as a friend and how the rest of the group feels about it. A different person said that he believes that therapists shouldn’t be on Facebook.
Robert Hsiung, who works at University of Chicago and has done some very interesting work on how clients online activities affects groups presented his suggestions for how therapists should deal with Facebook.
Dr. Bob hopes to talk about this more at the American Medical Informatics Association 2008 Annual Symposium. in Washington DC this coming November. There is plenty to talk about in this subject and Bob’s suggestions provide a good starting point.
One of the things to note about Facebook friendships is that that are symmetrical. To add someone as a friend, the friend has to agree. As with MyBlogLog, I have a fairly loose policy about who I add as a friend on Facebook, and currently have around 570 friends on Facebook. However, Facebook requests from people that I don’t know anything about or that have pictures that don’t resonate with me don’t get added.
This takes me to John Herman’s comments about Facebook friends. John is a teacher who has been asked by students about adding him as a friend on Facebook. He speaks about only adding students as friends when those students didn't have anything on their Facebook pages that could damage their reputations his own. It has resulted in many great pedagogical opportunities and seems to be a particularly wise starting point. To the extent that adding Facebook friends comes up in the first therapists group, I hope both Bob and John’s talking points get brought into the discussion.
Relationships on Twitter are asymmetrical. Following someone on Twitter simply means, at least for me, that you think the person is writing something interesting. As a result, I’m currently following 414 people on Twitter and 723 people are following me. Major Twitter personalities like Robert Scoble and Jason Calacanis follow and are followed by twenty to thirty thousand people. I don’t know how they could read very many of the tweets from everyone they are following, let alone have much of a sense of who the people they are following really are. After all, we are talking about twenty times the number of people that Dunbar believed was the “cognitive limit to the number of individuals with whom any one person can maintain stable social relationships”
Yet there is something a little creepy sounding about ‘followers’ and people have been talking about whether Twitter and sites like Seesmic, which have picked up the ‘following’ language might want to change their nomenclature.
There are plenty of different approaches to adding friends, followers, contacts, or whatever else you want to call them. They depend on the nature of the community, how portable the data is, whether it is symmetrical or not, and plenty of other factors. For me, I’ll continue to have a fairly liberal approach to adding friends, but will constantly be re-evaluating. How about you?
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Not everyone is happy about the prospects of this. Rep. Mark Kirk of Illinois is pushing for legislation that would Ban 'Second Life' in schools and libraries. Needless to say, educators that use Second Life for pedagogical purposes in schools are not particularly supportive of the proposal and there has been a lot of discussion about this on the Second Life Educators list.
Meanwhile, on the Group Psychotherapy mailing list, there has been a backlash against the discussion about the therapeutic potential of virtual worlds. Some of it seems to be motivated by discomfort with Second Life. Some of this may be motivated by concerns about possible dangers to children in Second Life, particularly related to sexual content, that is the big concern of Rep. Kirk, it seems like other concerns are more prominent, such as people spending too much time in Second Life at the expense of face to face social interaction.
This concern sounds fairly similar to concerns about kids watching too much television, and it is interesting to note that one therapist talked about how one of his patients had increased time for Second Life by decreasing time watching television. From a McLuhanesque perspective, this is perhaps a positive step, since Second Life is much more immersive and interactive.
It may also be that some of the concern comes from a fear of the unknown. For many of people, Second Life is something they haven’t experienced. They’ve read about it in various places. They’ve read about the dangers of video games. Second Life and video games remain a foreign and threatening technology to them.
There is perhaps another underlying theme on the Group Psychotherapy list, the concern about ‘alternative therapies’. The discussion about therapy in Second Life often centers around art therapy or psychodrama. People aren’t sure what to make of alternative therapies.
Yet this ties into yet another parallel process. As I was driving by daughter home from college yesterday, she talked about what she wanted to do. She is a musician, an actress and an artist. She is interested in psychology and was very interested in alternative therapies.
One of my todo items for today, as I tried to dig through emails that have piled up was to ask friends on the group psychotherapy list for good material for my daughter to read to find out more about alternative therapies.
So, I’ve read through a bunch of emails, I have many more to go. Let’s see what the folks on the Group Psychotherapy list have to say.
]]>Not everyone is happy about the prospects of this. Rep. Mark Kirk of Illinois is pushing for legislation that would Ban 'Second Life' in schools and libraries. Needless to say, educators that use Second Life for pedagogical purposes in schools are not particularly supportive of the proposal and there has been a lot of discussion about this on the Second Life Educators list.
Meanwhile, on the Group Psychotherapy mailing list, there has been a backlash against the discussion about the therapeutic potential of virtual worlds. Some of it seems to be motivated by discomfort with Second Life. Some of this may be motivated by concerns about possible dangers to children in Second Life, particularly related to sexual content, that is the big concern of Rep. Kirk, it seems like other concerns are more prominent, such as people spending too much time in Second Life at the expense of face to face social interaction.
This concern sounds fairly similar to concerns about kids watching too much television, and it is interesting to note that one therapist talked about how one of his patients had increased time for Second Life by decreasing time watching television. From a McLuhanesque perspective, this is perhaps a positive step, since Second Life is much more immersive and interactive.
It may also be that some of the concern comes from a fear of the unknown. For many of people, Second Life is something they haven’t experienced. They’ve read about it in various places. They’ve read about the dangers of video games. Second Life and video games remain a foreign and threatening technology to them.
There is perhaps another underlying theme on the Group Psychotherapy list, the concern about ‘alternative therapies’. The discussion about therapy in Second Life often centers around art therapy or psychodrama. People aren’t sure what to make of alternative therapies.
Yet this ties into yet another parallel process. As I was driving by daughter home from college yesterday, she talked about what she wanted to do. She is a musician, an actress and an artist. She is interested in psychology and was very interested in alternative therapies.
One of my todo items for today, as I tried to dig through emails that have piled up was to ask friends on the group psychotherapy list for good material for my daughter to read to find out more about alternative therapies.
So, I’ve read through a bunch of emails, I have many more to go. Let’s see what the folks on the Group Psychotherapy list have to say.
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(Hat tip: David Isen)
]]>(Hat tip: David Isen)
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When I first arrived and checked in, I was pleased that the person checking me in easily found my badge. I was surprised to see that there weren’t other press badges apparent waiting to be picked up. I asked if there was a press kit and/or a pressroom, and was disappointed to find neither. Finally, a day and a half later, someone gave me a copy of the program. Until then, I had to rely simply on data that I had printed off of the Internet. I was also disappointed that there were no Wireless Internet connections available.
Thursday morning, I attended the Large Group Open Session. Before it started, I spoke with a friend about my dilemma between being in my role as a member of the press and an observer, and my belief that you cannot talk fully about a Large Group without being a participant. She encouraged me to take the role of the participant-observer. It was some of the best advice I received.
On Thursday, I attended two other open sessions, both of which had demonstration groups. With each group, I held back initially. For the first group, the chairs filled up rapidly, and I observed the demonstration group. However, the second group had problems getting men to join the group, so I came forward. This was a very difficult group for many of the participants and there seemed to be significant parallel processes taking place. Some members of the group expressed a desire to debrief afterwards and several of us stayed around for the debriefing. During the debriefing some information was revealed that needed to stay within the group and one of the facilitators reminded everyone to respect the confidentiality of the group. When it was revealed to him that I was a member of the press, he became very concerned and we had a long discussion about media relations with the AGPA. We shared ideas about how the process could be improved and I said I would write down my experiences so that AGPA could benefit from them.
Thursday evening, I attended the Group Psychotherapy Listserv dinner. It was through the Listserv, which I’ve been a member of for many years, that I first learned about AGPA and it was members of the Listserv that encouraged me to attended the AGPA annual meeting. During the dinner, one of the workshop leaders asked if I would attend her workshop. I explained that I had been told I could only attend plenary addresses and open sessions. I went on to mention what had happened during the Wednesday afternoon Open Session. She encouraged me to reconsider.
Friday morning, I showed up early at her workshop. I spoke more about my concerns and we agreed that I would attend if the leader of the workshop and all the participants agreed that it was okay. Obviously, the leader of the workshop agreed. She was the one trying to convince me to attend. So, she started off the workshop by introducing me and asking if it would be okay with everyone if I attended. Many people knew me from the list and were glad to have me attend. Others voiced two important concerns. I could only attend provided that I joined in as a participant and that I respected the confidentiality of the group. I agreed to both of these and was glad to participate in her workshop.
I then attended the Presidential Plenary Address. Paul Cox sat down next to me and noted the Press badge. I had a brief discussion with him about my experiences. He spoke about having received training in dealing with the press, a sort of Media Relations 101. During the keynote, he provided a great deal of useful information about people mentioned, the history of the organization.
The only other information from the conference that seems particularly relevant was my continued participation in the Large Group Open Sessions. At times the Large Group dealt with boundary issues and who should be allowed in or kept out of both the Large Group as well as AGPA as a whole. I was a useful symbol of what is external and frightening. I will note that one participant who had been particularly hostile to me initially warmed up considerably as he saw that I was there as a participant-observer, and not simply as an observer.
What can we learn from my experiences? I believe that having a press kit is essential. It should contain a copy of the program, a copy of any press releases that have been sent out about the conference. Additional information, such as biographies of keynote speakers or information of how to contact them during the conference for interviews would be beneficial. To the extent that it is possible to set aside a room as a pressroom, that would be very good. Press releases and other information could be available there.
Since I am a blogger, or online journalist, I believe that open Wireless Internet connectivity should be provided, or at least hard wired connections in a pressroom. Many people AGPA members, especially those that I knew from the email list also expressed a desire for open Wireless Internet connectivity, although some expressed concern about it interfering with their attention to the conference.
I believe that the rule that plenary and open sessions should be open to the press is the right rule. However, I can see the point that some people running an open session might want the session closed to the press and some people running workshops might want to invite the press. To address this, I would recommend that leaders of Open Sessions be told that their sessions are expected to be open to the press unless the leaders specifically request that they be closed. To the extent that session leaders are made aware of the possibility of press attending their sessions, it will alleviate some of the concerns that came up during the Thursday evening session. In addition, workshop leaders should be offered the opportunity to make their sessions open to the press, provided that all the workshop participants agree to the terms of the attendance of the press.
The list of Open Sessions that are not open to the press and of workshops that are should be included in the press packet. Either way, members of the press should be encouraged to participate as much as possible as participant-observers.
After the conference, I had a great discussion with Bob Klein who lives in a neighboring town. I talked with him about the idea that has emerged during and after the conference. One idea is to have an open session in Chicago about interfacing with the media. We talked about how it might be best if a person like Paul Cox, with close ties to AGPA and training in media relations facilitated the session. Leon Hoffman has expressed interest in participating in such a session. I would be willing to help.
Rob mentioned a writer from the New York Times, whose name I forget, that might be a good addition to such as a panel. I suggested that adding a writer from a more specialized press, a science writer, for example, might help round out the panel. Bob suggested that Diane might have ideas for good participants from the press. I am not sure if Paul or Leon have time to focus on this, but I will gladly work with anyone who would like to pull together such a panel.
I believe it was Paul who suggested that another way of using new media help get the message of AGPA out would be to ask or require scholarship recipients to write about their experiences at the AGPA conference, perhaps using blogs to distribute their writings. I would be willing to help facilitate such an effort if there is interest in that area as well.
During my discussion with Bob, he mentioned other outreach efforts by AGPA. He mentioned how AGPA works with The Carter Center. In doing research on the Wellstone Act, I visited the Carter Center website, and noticed that they offer The Rosalynn Carter Fellowships For Mental Health Journalism. It would seem like AGPA might want to encourage journalists to write on the use of Group Psychotherapy, particularly in terms of dealing with disasters or helping soldiers returning from Iraq.
My blog is a small blog. I only reach between two and three thousand unique viewers each month. Yet I hope that my articles about the AGPA annual meeting has gotten more people to think about the use of Group Psychotherapy to address problems we have in our world today. More importantly, I hope my thoughts here are useful in helping AGPA expand the way they reach out to a broader population. I have copied others that I felt might be interested in my thoughts. Please feel free to forward this to anyone else that you feel would be interested. If you have questions, concerns or other areas you wish to follow up, please let me know.
]]>I've been struggling to keep up with all the emails on this list and make sense of them. So many of them call out to me to say something and I've just not had the time or energy, and if I had, others would be feeling overwhelmed with the amount of emails In generate. So, I am glad that V. has given me a chance to try and tie together all my reactions.
It seems like there is an important underlying theme, how do we respond to injustice. We see a parent bullying their child. Do we walk away and say that the parent had terminated therapy and there was nothing more the therapist could do? Or do we try to find some other way to get through?
When we see a peace process breakdown, do we walk away and say that the different sides are hardened in their positions and it is useless to talk about it, or do we seek to find empathy and help others find empathy, and perhaps even a shred of hope?
When we see callous youth, do we blame it on the education system or the media, shaking our heads as we walk away, or do we own our own roles as educators as part of the media landscape and seek for ways that we can bring a little empathy and hope into yet another situation that might appear hopeless?
Four years ago, my wife ran for State Representative in Connecticut. It was a seat that a Democrat had not run for in around ten years and a Democrat hadn't won in around a hundred years. Republicans outnumber Democrats in the district two to one. There was very little chance that she would get elected, but it was important to run. In the election she received 44% of the vote, much greater than anyone ever thought was possible.
Afterwards, people who hadn't seen the election results would ask if she had won. I would always reply, that yes, she had won. She hadn't gotten elected, but she had won. I didn't know exactly what her victory meant, and I still don't know exactly, but we saw increased dialog about the issues our little part of Connecticut faced. We saw other people become more involved and find their own voices in politics. I believe I even see a little more civility in some of the discourse.
It is with that in mind that I complement V. on her successful intervention. Would I have done things differently? Perhaps a little bit, but I'm not sure. Did the presenting case for the intervention get
resolved, the parent finding help? We don't know. We might never know. Did V.'s action send forth a little ripple of hope? Yes.
"Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of
energy and daring, those ripples build a current that can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance." Robert F. Kennedy
So, with that, I want to thank V. for her contribution to trying to find peace in the Middle East, for her contribution to trying to help students in the United States learn more about the battles for justice that we have faced in the past and face in the future, and for her contribution here.
(Note: I post this with permission of the person on the list who brought the vignette, and have changed some of the details to protect privacy and confidentiality.)
]]>I've been struggling to keep up with all the emails on this list and make sense of them. So many of them call out to me to say something and I've just not had the time or energy, and if I had, others would be feeling overwhelmed with the amount of emails In generate. So, I am glad that V. has given me a chance to try and tie together all my reactions.
It seems like there is an important underlying theme, how do we respond to injustice. We see a parent bullying their child. Do we walk away and say that the parent had terminated therapy and there was nothing more the therapist could do? Or do we try to find some other way to get through?
When we see a peace process breakdown, do we walk away and say that the different sides are hardened in their positions and it is useless to talk about it, or do we seek to find empathy and help others find empathy, and perhaps even a shred of hope?
When we see callous youth, do we blame it on the education system or the media, shaking our heads as we walk away, or do we own our own roles as educators as part of the media landscape and seek for ways that we can bring a little empathy and hope into yet another situation that might appear hopeless?
Four years ago, my wife ran for State Representative in Connecticut. It was a seat that a Democrat had not run for in around ten years and a Democrat hadn't won in around a hundred years. Republicans outnumber Democrats in the district two to one. There was very little chance that she would get elected, but it was important to run. In the election she received 44% of the vote, much greater than anyone ever thought was possible.
Afterwards, people who hadn't seen the election results would ask if she had won. I would always reply, that yes, she had won. She hadn't gotten elected, but she had won. I didn't know exactly what her victory meant, and I still don't know exactly, but we saw increased dialog about the issues our little part of Connecticut faced. We saw other people become more involved and find their own voices in politics. I believe I even see a little more civility in some of the discourse.
It is with that in mind that I complement V. on her successful intervention. Would I have done things differently? Perhaps a little bit, but I'm not sure. Did the presenting case for the intervention get
resolved, the parent finding help? We don't know. We might never know. Did V.'s action send forth a little ripple of hope? Yes.
"Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of
energy and daring, those ripples build a current that can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance." Robert F. Kennedy
So, with that, I want to thank V. for her contribution to trying to find peace in the Middle East, for her contribution to trying to help students in the United States learn more about the battles for justice that we have faced in the past and face in the future, and for her contribution here.
(Note: I post this with permission of the person on the list who brought the vignette, and have changed some of the details to protect privacy and confidentiality.)
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The announced purpose of the conference call was to discuss the contempt charges that Congress will be filing as a civil lawsuit against Joshua Bolten and Harriet Miers for their refusal to respond to subpoenas from Congress. At the center of this is the issue of executive privilege. How far does it extend? The same issue came up in the discussion about FISA. The positioning around the FISA bill seems to be all about attempts by the executive branch to usurp power from the legislative and judicial branches.
So where does mental health fit into all of this? The call started with Speaker Pelosi talking about congress passing the Wellstone Mental Health and Addiction Equity Act on Wednesday. She described it as a tremendous, historic victory and spoke about the late Sen. Wellstone’s son, David Wellstone and Former First Lady working hard to help get this bill passed.
On Wednesday, I met with a past president of the American Group Psychotherapy Association (AGPA) to discuss how AGPA could better get its message out. Group Psychotherapy has played an important role in helping people deal with issues that disasters like 9/11 or Katrina have caused. Some of the early work in Group Psychotherapy was around treating soldiers traumatized by their experiences in World War Two, and it would seem like Group Psychotherapy could be very useful in helping veterans returning from the Iraq War.
We spoke about how AGPA can better interface with the media, including bloggers, about its efforts on Capitol Hill and its work with Roslyn Carter to promote awareness of group psychotherapy.
This brings us back to the Presidential Branch. Roslyn Carter has done great work in help our country address issues of mental health. Both Sen. Hillary Clinton and Sen. Barack Obama have spoken about the importance of mental health parity in their health care platforms. Let us hope that our current President sees the importance of addressing issues of mental health.
]]>The announced purpose of the conference call was to discuss the contempt charges that Congress will be filing as a civil lawsuit against Joshua Bolten and Harriet Miers for their refusal to respond to subpoenas from Congress. At the center of this is the issue of executive privilege. How far does it extend? The same issue came up in the discussion about FISA. The positioning around the FISA bill seems to be all about attempts by the executive branch to usurp power from the legislative and judicial branches.
So where does mental health fit into all of this? The call started with Speaker Pelosi talking about congress passing the Wellstone Mental Health and Addiction Equity Act on Wednesday. She described it as a tremendous, historic victory and spoke about the late Sen. Wellstone’s son, David Wellstone and Former First Lady working hard to help get this bill passed.
On Wednesday, I met with a past president of the American Group Psychotherapy Association (AGPA) to discuss how AGPA could better get its message out. Group Psychotherapy has played an important role in helping people deal with issues that disasters like 9/11 or Katrina have caused. Some of the early work in Group Psychotherapy was around treating soldiers traumatized by their experiences in World War Two, and it would seem like Group Psychotherapy could be very useful in helping veterans returning from the Iraq War.
We spoke about how AGPA can better interface with the media, including bloggers, about its efforts on Capitol Hill and its work with Roslyn Carter to promote awareness of group psychotherapy.
This brings us back to the Presidential Branch. Roslyn Carter has done great work in help our country address issues of mental health. Both Sen. Hillary Clinton and Sen. Barack Obama have spoken about the importance of mental health parity in their health care platforms. Let us hope that our current President sees the importance of addressing issues of mental health.
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The New York Times reviews the series with an article, He Listens. He Cares. He Isn’t Real. In the article, Diane O’Rourke, a medical writer from Chicago is quoted, “There is an old saying that most men would rather have you hear their story than grant their wish.”
When asked about this I responded that as a blogger, putting my story online daily, so I might not be the best person to ask this, however, I've often felt that the deepest wish that many people have is simply to be heard.
]]>The New York Times reviews the series with an article, He Listens. He Cares. He Isn’t Real. In the article, Diane O’Rourke, a medical writer from Chicago is quoted, “There is an old saying that most men would rather have you hear their story than grant their wish.”
When asked about this I responded that as a blogger, putting my story online daily, so I might not be the best person to ask this, however, I've often felt that the deepest wish that many people have is simply to be heard.
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