11:45 p.m. - 2003-01-28
Freud Fraud
There are a number of tools used to describe and define the structure of human personality and to interpret behaviour based on those parameters. I've already mentioned that systems of measurement are only valid, when applied in cases where the exclusions or "except fors" are also taken into account. I had the privilege, while I was volunteering for one of the family support services in the city, to meet and have dinner with one of the developers of one of the most popular "personality tests". He was appalled at some of the ways his very precisely defined measures had been applied or used by a variety of different institutions, especially in education and business. Worse was the fact that the interpreters often had no background in psychology, other than what they had read in product inserts, or been told by the less researched or reputable self-help industry that thrives nowdays as a for-profit marketing and management gimmick. Too many children and workers have been seriously harmed by spurious labels, attached to their personal records, that have no validity in fact.
In addition, even when the measurement system has been properly applied, very little scrutiny is given to the inherent flaws in some of the systems of personality analysis developed by western scientists, or in the interpreters who opt to use them. One of the psychologists I volunteered with - who I truly respect and is probably the only person I'd ever voluntarily allow to walk around inside my head - and I made a presentation at one of the annual conferences for professional development held here in the city, with respect to a unique community-based service that he had developed. As a bonus, I was allowed to attend whatever other workshops I wanted, once my part was done.
I don't think I ever heard him laugh so freely, as when I indignantly asked him for confirmation of what I had heard in one session, simply because I just could not believe it was true. Yes, he said - it was true. The session was on how to conduct good intake interviews to better set up treatments for patients. The first order of business was for each person around the table to introduce themselves. Imagine my surprise, when each therapist responded thus, "I am Joe and I am a Freudian...., my name is Mary and I am a Jungian....., etc". I said "my name is S. and I'm a MOM". No one seemed to think I was funny. Clue one: these people had subconscious complexes about their mothers and their relationships with them, or serious mental illness based on their demonstrated inablilty to laugh. .
Then the discussion turned to the topic at hand. It rapidly became apparent that intake interviews had absolutely nothing to do with determining the diagnosis or definition of the problems facing the interviewee. Clue two: the care of the patient was not the primary focus of the treatment prescribed. The whole thrust of the discussion was how to determine whether the subject "fit" the therapists' chosen belief system with respect to the structure of human personality or, if not, whether they could be forced to conform to it - for the sake of ensuring the "treatment" applied would work to validate that theoretical system. Clue three: the focus of treatment is to validate the therapists' world/academic view; oh yes and for billing purposes - can't ignore the SDM IV's hierarchy of syndromes for dollars.
I asked why that very fundamental bias was not disclosed to the subject, so that they could determine whether or not they wanted to be the vehicle of the therapists' self-stimulation. The response? "Well it doesn't really matter anyway, the outcome and success are based on our definition of what is valuable, not the subjects'." I SEE! The balance of the session degenerated into a tussle over who's system was right. Nothing like a good cult war.
I think my only other contribution was to ask how anyone could take seriously a theoretical system built around someone's obsessive-compulsive pre-occupation with his own gonads. When challenged about a paper he wrote about the effect of sexual abuse and incest on females, by the outrage expressed by the males in his society at that time, his response was to recant, rewrite the paper, and blame it all on women's obviously weaker, delusional minds caused by the debilitating presence of a womb (hyster-ical) and the sexual fantasies they had as toddlers about their own fathers. Hmmmmmm... in addition, this is the man whose own personal and professional life was a shambles because of his own inability to accept points of view not defined by him (ie: the battle with Jung), and who didn't have enough understanding of child development to know, that unless a very young child had witnessed or experienced sexual contact, they wouldn't even have those thoughts. He chose to lie about his findings, by blaming the victims of that abuse, in order to save his own practice and academic standing/funding. The sad part is, the denial of the existence of such abuse patterns therefore continued, and was used to validate the extended abuse of women perpetrated by therapists who subscribed to that world view. It has now been going on for close to a century.
After the response I heard to that, I didn't bother to ask why anyone around the table thought that their theories even remotely applied to anyone not born and raised in a Western Judeo-Christian-Muslim culture.
So, why am I talking about this at this particular point in time? Well, today I had lunch with one of the ladies I used to work with several years ago. We were discussing the real-time distortion those theories and the personality testing, now so fashionable in HR circles, cause in the workplace, especially when used by human resource management specialists or co-workers who find using those stereotypes to their advantage. They insist on using those old chestnuts to manipulate people and situations in their environment. It's a standard weapon used by bullies of all ages. We have both seen, experienced, and protested some of damage done, and, in conjunction with a few of the other women we have worked with in different companies, tried to stop the abuse. We were just comparing notes of our observations and recalling some of the outcomes today. Too bad so many people are afraid to think about their fellow human beings as true individuals or go beyond their own conditioning and prejudices.
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