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H. Humbert
SFN Die Hard
USA
4574 Posts |
 Posted - 10/02/2004 : 16:16:31 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by beskeptigal
Hummy, your avatar is an odd choice.
<shrug> I'm not particularly attached to it. It was one of the freebies I could pick from under the options.
If I'm not mistaken, it's actually a scene from Office Space where the guys go out into a field and take out there frustrations on a particularly troublesome printer with punches and baseball bats.
So I think of it actually as rather humorous and anti-corporate, but I guess one would need to understand the context.
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"A man is his own easiest dupe, for what he wishes to be true he generally believes to be true." --Demosthenes
"The first principle is that you must not fool yourself - and you are the easiest person to fool." --Richard P. Feynman
"Face facts with dignity." --found inside a fortune cookie |
| Edited by - H. Humbert on 10/02/2004 23:44:56 |
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beskeptigal
SFN Die Hard
USA
3834 Posts |
Posted - 10/03/2004 : 00:09:23 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Kil:
Beskeptigal,
I understand that your comments in this reply are meant for H. Humbert's post, but allow me to comment anyway since you apparently didn't approve of the style of my last reply to you and have chosen to ignore me.
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Kil,
You weren't ignored, I was addressing multiple posts, not just Hummy's. I thought it was getting tedious to go another layer of point by point. Sorry it looked like a specific response, my bad.
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Kil:
If acceptance is the goal of grief counseling how can a method designed to keep people in denial be good? Humbert makes a good point here by pointing out that it is treating adults like children. Would it be acceptable for you to be lied to if it brings you comfort? If so, how can you criticize religion so? Religion, if nothing ells, brings many people comfort. I believe promoting denial and false comfort sabotage's the grief process that should lead to acceptance. And again, I call upon you to provide me with sources that show that I am wrong about this.
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There are lots of sources on grief counseling, but here's one that had a quote that expresses one of my points.quote:
In the early stages of mourning, the bereaved person is preoccupied with the memory of the dead. It is as if the psyche has to re-evaluate all the aspects of the relationship and get it into perspective, accepting and forgiving the bad, and appreciating the good, before letting go.
Only after this has happened does the emotional energy tied up in that relationship become free.
The idea one must 'hurry up' and get to acceptance or that acceptance is some how the important measure that you have been successful is saying the grief counseling is a set of tasks and you just have to do A-Z and all will be well.
There is no time line, acceptance will be there when the person is ready. Only in a few pathologic circumstances does denial interfere and specific interventions need to be tried. The counselor is not there to get you to the next step, rather the counselor can help you with the step you are in.
I'm not sure why you think religion brings folks comfort, but isn't a lie, while any comfort Edwards gives is detrimental. Both are important to persons who believe, and, both are lies. This statement, "promoting denial and false comfort sabotage's the grief process" is judgmental as well. Neither religion nor alternative beliefs in the afterlife sabotage the grief process.
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Beskeptigal:
What one must keep in mind is grief counseling has to start from where the patient is. I would be a pretty bad nurse if I tried to lay my beliefs on everyone else.
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Kil:
True. And that is not was a good grief counselor does...
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Beskeptigal:
One has to look at the situation here from a neutral point to evaluate if such a practice is really harming, helping, or having no effect on a patient.
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Kil:
Are you looking at this from a neutral point of view? You have made disparaging remarks about psychology and psychotherapists here and in other places on this site. Is your bias showing? Again, what evidence beside the anecdotal evidence of a television show edited to cast the best light on itself, can you provide to back up the assertion that there is a real benefit to what is being promoted here. Has anybody tracked the long term effects on those who were "helped" in this way? Sources?
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I think I'm being more neutral than others on this thread. Treating beliefs in the afterlife as either heaven or fakery is one example of a not so neutral position.
The bias I have against psychotherapy is multifaceted. One) There are good counselors and bad, that's true with any profession and while I may mention bad therapists, I don't believe they are in the majority. Two) I have a bias that true mental illness is as much a physical illness as any other physical illness. Psychiatry has a lot of hold-over baggage from the days when mental illness was treated as strictly 'mental'. (Prejudicial treatment by insurance companies for example) I think I have discussed this before.
But we are not talking about mental illness here.
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Beskeptigal:
You may feel Edward's techniques treat loss in a dishonest way. Well, should I tell people there is no heaven, no god, and the person is gone, you need to get over it? Of course not. But that is what I believe.
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Kil:
Again, a person in heaven is gone, for all practical purposes. They are not standing behind you telling you that everything is OK while providing you with a new last memory of them from their crossed over existence. If acceptance of the loss is the goal, this fails the test. At some point even children are allowed to figure out that there is no Santa Clause...
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And you don't see your bias here? You have divided up OK and not OK by arbitrary categories. Some people believe their loved one in heaven watches over them or hears them. Some people believe in different versions of heaven, and, in different versions of an afterlife.
Again, the achievement of acceptance is not a goal so much as it is a stage. With the exception of pathological grieving, a person will get there when they get there.
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Beskeptigal:
But what right do I have to pass judgment on others in a grieving situation. It is quite different.
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Kil:
I do not pass any judgments on others in a grieving situation. I question those who offer miracles as a cure for that grief. Would you extend your belief to include psychic surgeons or homeopathics as a reasonable treatment for cancer, because some people think that works? Because that belief gives them comfort? Or would you try to lead those people to a more reasonable approach for the treatment of their condition?
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Nope, now you are talking about an illness where there is a lost opportunity for a better treatment, a harmful treatment, &/or one where the cost is most often too high for the placebo benefit.
Buy your vitamin C that has no affect on your immune system if you think it works for an infection. But there's no way a psychic surgeon running a scam is going to be as cheap as a vitamin.
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Beskeptigal:
The first time I saw the show, it was very noticeable he was providing the components of grief counseling. You may not see it, but it is there.
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Kil:
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beskeptigal
SFN Die Hard
USA
3834 Posts |
Posted - 10/03/2004 : 00:13:18 [Permalink]
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| Humbert, perhaps if one could see the avatar guy was hitting a computer rather than a person...... |
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beskeptigal
SFN Die Hard
USA
3834 Posts |
Posted - 10/03/2004 : 01:21:28 [Permalink]
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Just to be sure I didn't miss any points here...quote:
Originally posted by Kil
quote:
Beskeptigal:
The formula I use is:
What is the benefit.
What is the cost/risk.
What is the alternative that is being missed because the person is choosing the ineffective option.
Good question. What is the benefit being missed because they see John Edward as a better choice than a legitimate option?
What would that legitimate option be? A different treatment would have to be a specific intervention a counselor could provide but Edwards could not. You mentioned lots of ways you thought he hurt where a counselor helped. Hopefully, my above posts addressed this.
quote:
We do question chiropractors for the reasons you have stated.
Sorry, I shouldn't have said, "no one". And, I 'm glad you agree with me on chiropractors. It wasn't the best analogy.
quote:
And, free or expensive, a quack cure is no cure at all.
With many quack cures there is a placebo benefit. Even if it is only psychological. So some cheap ones are OK in my book. But I tell the person they are getting a placebo effect. I see it as a step in getting that person closer to evidence based decisions. An outright suggestion to stop is often resisted, while the step approach opens a door for the patient to start thinking about evidence.
What you are missing in the Edwards case is normal grief is not an illness, and, what benefits grieving persons is quite a broad array of interventions.
quote:
...most think they are actually communicating with their dead Aunt Sally and that is not what they are getting.
They are getting what they believe in.
quote:
There is no difference between what John Edward does and what you have just described. His whole friggen show is an advertisement for his elaborate scheme to part people from their money. Would you like a list of all the ways Edward's cashes in?
This still does not address whether or not his clients benefited and was it worth it to them.
quote:
Yes, seeing a psychic instead of seeking treatment for one's emotional reasons for not being able to yet reach acceptance of the death of a loved one (which is a normal event in life) would really be missing an opportunity...
You must then deal with real grief, which is natural, instead of putting that off indefinitely in favor of a fantasy that at the very least borders on delusional thinking. If facilitated denial is a good thing, I'll eat my hat
I said "facilitated denial." My hat is safe. Denial is a defense mechanism, true. And it is a response to many things. However, I cannot find in any literature the idea that remaining in denial is a preferred state of being.
You have assumed believing in an afterlife means a person is in denial. That just isn't the case. Why do you think it important for the grieving person to believe their loved one is gone? What should be measured is how are they dealing with their life. Signs of pathological grief are not equivalent to believing your dead loved one is still there in spirit.
Can you find a source that says the visit to the psychic prolongs denial? You seem to think everyone needs to either believe Johnny is in heaven or Johnny is gone, and without such belief they are cannot move on after Johnny's death. But that isn't the case.
quote:
I found on the National Mental Health Associations web site information for people who are grieving. NMHA suggests that denial is one of many emotions someone might feel until they have accepted the loss. You say that leading the person to accepting their loss is an old therapy that has been replaced. Replaced by what? Not accepting?
There is no reason to take away hope. As I said, you help the person deal with the stage they are in. You do not need to help them move on unless they have pathological grieving.
Take the paraplegic who says he knows he walked after the accident and he will eventually heal, when that is false. Should you confront him with his denial? Well, after being well informed of his prognosis, there is no reason to push him if the denial is just his coping mechanism. As long as it doesn't interfere with his rehab progress, why take away hope? The person will move to the next stage when ready. In the past, I have seen such denial treated as if it were a problem that required changing. It requires certain interventions that help the person while they are in denial. But it doesn't require a label of a "problem", rather it is a stage.
quote:
Interestingly, in a section called "Helping Others Grieve" it suggests not to offer false comfort, which, as you have admitted, is what John Edward's is doing.
http://www.nmha.org/reassurance/coping.cfm
False comfort would be telling the paraplegic he will walk again. Giving hope would be saying there is always a chance for a cure to be discovered.
False comfort would be telling little Johnny, grandma is on a trip. In your post you are saying it's OK to tell Johnny grandma's in heaven. I presume you'd find it OK to tell little Johnny grandma will be reincarnated if they were of Hindu belief? Or would that be wrong as well?
quote:
One opportunity cost for choosing to believe a psychics claim about your dead loved one is integrity. I would prefer to have my last memory of my loved one be mine, not the vision that someone ells has conjured up, created for an audience and sold back to me.
You would literally loose your last memory of the loved one.
Another opportunity cost is giving away to a stranger what makes you uniquely individual. You are allowing a stranger, and in this case, a master of deceit, to bring you to closure in what should be a highly personal quest, with his vision, not your own.
Those are all your personal beliefs and I can't say one who believes differently should believe as you.
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beskeptigal
SFN Die Hard
USA
3834 Posts |
Posted - 10/03/2004 : 01:29:07 [Permalink]
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Pathological grief can be indicated by prolonged denial but the denial has to be interfering with life for the person.quote:
There is no set time frame within which grief is considered pathological. In North America, however, a person might be judged as being stuck if they are still actively grieving at 18 to 24 months after their loss. An unremitting 'overly intense' grief process of shorter duration might also be labeled as pathological.
from:
http://mentalhelp.net/poc/center_index.php?id=58&cn=58 |
| Edited by - beskeptigal on 10/03/2004 01:30:30 |
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Kil
Evil Skeptic
USA
13477 Posts |
Posted - 10/03/2004 : 17:54:51 [Permalink]
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quote:
Beskeptigal:
In fact, now I see a point where I think we may not be communicating. You think I'm saying the psychic content of Edwards' talk is the counseling. But I'm saying Edwards has some natural counseling skills. Not all psychics or persons supposedly communicating with the dead are providing the same counseling as Edwards.
Ignoring for the moment all the objections I have in your reply to me (and I have many) let me ask you this. Since you seem to understand that Edward's is a con man, and he probably isn't helping all that many people, even if he does have some “natural counseling skills” as you say, would you be in favor of exposing his claim that the dead speak through him as extremely unlikely to as many people as you could? Would you object to a thorough debunking of his alleged skills (which has been done) to those who have not yet sought out his “counseling” even if that was their plan? |
Uncertainty may make you uncomfortable. Certainty makes you ridiculous.
Why not question something for a change?
Genetic Literacy Project |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 10/03/2004 : 18:43:28 [Permalink]
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beskeptigal wrote:quote:
This still does not address whether or not his clients benefited and was it worth it to them.
If we, as you seem to be asking, consider John Edward as a grief counselor, and thus providing psychologic (i.e. mental) therapy for his clients, then the above question seems to imply that for any sort of "alternative medicine" - and Edward certainly is alternative - its marketing and use should be strictly regulated by popular vote.
It's pretty obvious, however, that some number of cancer patients find it "worth it" to fly to Mexico and get treated with laetrile, but it's banned in the States. For good reason, as far as I'm concerned. And, as far as I'm concerned, truth-in-advertising laws should be as applicable to TV mediums as they are to pharmaceuticals. Edward's show is basically an hour-long ad for his private services.
And if a patient benefits through a placebo effect, does that have any bearing on whether the next one will? Placebo effects are wildly variable, and may not even be consistent from one day to the next in a single patient. Did the AMA not come out recently (last few years) with a position statement that known placebo medications cannot be used ethically? And where does Edward tell his "patients" that he is a placebo? |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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