615. Social Change And Psychotherapy
I have been mentioning the growing amount of harm done either carelessly or ignorantly by promiscuous jerks as the consequence of the social norm of oversexation and the subsequent desensitization and lacking empathy for the suffering of the abused women. (Entry 493: The Social Norm Of The Drooling Men)
In a world, where men have their on average greater physical strength as an advantage enabling them to gain power and control over resources including media by hook or by crook, the instinctive reaction of many, if not most men is subconsciously welcoming the social norm of oversexation. While some men would not consciously admit this, I have rarely found anybody explicitly pointing out the damage caused by it.
I have been mentioning the growing amount of harm done either carelessly or ignorantly by promiscuous jerks as the consequence of the social norm of oversexation and the subsequent desensitization and lacking empathy for the suffering of the abused women. (Entry 493: The Social Norm Of The Drooling Men)
In a world, where men have their on average greater physical strength as an advantage enabling them to gain power and control over resources including media by hook or by crook, the instinctive reaction of many, if not most men is subconsciously welcoming the social norm of oversexation. While some men would not consciously admit this, I have rarely found anybody explicitly pointing out the damage caused by it.
By considering the appropriate place for sexuality being the privacy of couples' bedrooms I am sometimes even called a prude. But I consider it as much better to be a prude than an animal blindly driven by instincts.
Therefore I was very pleased to have found George Simon's web page. He is a clinical psychologist and therapist, who has described this unfortunate social development with much better words than my limited English allows me to do. The emphasis in the following quote is mine.
Therefore I was very pleased to have found George Simon's web page. He is a clinical psychologist and therapist, who has described this unfortunate social development with much better words than my limited English allows me to do. The emphasis in the following quote is mine.
"Character Disturbance is indeed “the phenomenon of our age.” That’s because the intensely socially repressive atmosphere of earlier times has been supplanted with an atmosphere of entitlement, permissiveness, and license. It’s not as common for people’s shame and guilt to be so unreasonably intense and unyielding that they become pathologically debilitated with anxiety. Rather, it’s more common for folks to lack enough shame or guilt to inhibit them from doing harmful things to themselves as well as others. So, it would be fair to say that character disturbance is indeed more prevalent these days, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that significantly disturbed characters are everywhere."
http://counsellingresource.com/features/2011/10/10/are-they-everywhere/
But Simon not only expresses with better words than myself similar concerns about contemporary permissiveness and lacking inhibitions and constraint. Simon takes this further to a very clever observation, which had never occurred to me: The assumptions, upon which psychotherapeutic interventions are usually and implicitly based, have become obsolete and are lacking behind and failing to react to the real problems caused by the drastic social changes of the last decades.
Therapeutic interventions helpful for people being overwhelmed with unbearable negative emotions about themselves are counterproductive to people, whose problems is predominantly the harming and exploiting of others, while harming themselves is only secondary by depriving also themselves of the benefits of close and harmonious relationships.
Simon explains the example of denial:
"In classical (psychodynamic) psychology, denial is an unconscious ego defense mechanism. Basically, that means that a person unwittingly puts up a barrier to experiencing what is too painful to consciously bear."
"Sometimes, denial is truly an unconscious psychological state. Sometimes, it’s a refusal to admit a problem. Sometimes, it’s a tactic of manipulation and impression management. And the basic tactic of denial can be expressed in several other subtle variations such as feigning innocence, feigning ignorance, and acting surprised. But no matter what form in which it comes, it’s most often merely a way of lying. "
"Disturbed characters of all sorts frequently engage in denial. It’s extremely rare, however, that they do so because they are in such inner distress over their behavior that they simply can’t consciously accept what they’re doing. Most of the time, they know exactly what they’re doing, but they want you to think otherwise."
http://www.manipulative-people.com/denial-what-it-is-and-isnt/
"Disordered characters often won’t admit when they’ve done something wrong, and resist looking at any role their behavior patterns have played in creating problems in their lives. They lie to themselves and others about their malevolent acts and intentions as a tactic to get others off their back. If their denial is forceful and convincing enough, others will likely be successfully manipulated. "
"Denial is not only an effective manipulation tactic, but it’s also a sure sign someone is not about to change his or her way of behaving. A person who won’t acknowledge their wrongs in the first place isn’t likely to feel any inclination to correct them. Habitual denial is the way many disordered characters resist internalizing the values and standards of conduct that could make them more socially responsible."
http://www.manipulative-people.com/denial-manipulation-tactic-4/
