12:28 AM - 17.11.04
Research
I hate being on antibiotics. They suck all the energy you have left out of you and often you feel worse than when you started - sort of a reversal of the symptoms showing up one by one. These ones leave an aftertaste too. The only good thing, I guess, is that they kill your appetite so weight gain isn't all that likely on them.
That meant I didn't get everything I had planned the past two days done. Spent a lot of time on the internet researching some links that were sent to me by the person who was the subject of the newspaper article on bullying in the work place. There were some really useful websites with a lot of information and ideas to proceed with. It also gave me some strategies for dealing with the problems I had in my office during the election. Two for one made me feel a lot better psychologically and that is a major accomplishment. I think you've noticed I have been feeling fairly stressed with the work situations, dear diary. Any positives, no matter how small, are welcome right now.
Got a call from the tech support people from Elections Canada as well and spent about an hour on the phone going through the problems I had with the e-mail. The head of security had asked them to see what they could do, you see. Some interesting suggestions there in terms of weblinks to help me with some of the issues I deal with. They said they'd get back to me once they'd done some further research. Fair enough.
At a committee meeting I attended with most of the stakeholders who provide family support services some years ago, there was extended discussion with respect to how to pressure the government to effect changes to the way children and families in crisis situations were handled. The service providers were hamstrung by both the legislation and the funding that was set aside for those purposes. Partly that was because the system had been set up in the 1940's and only minor tinkering had been done on it since. It hadn't even acknowledged the major shifts in issues like domestic violence. The consensus was that it was going to be necessary to challenge the government and ask it to account for the poor decision making and lack of action on their part. Several children had died or been seriously injured that year through the negligence of the government and there was no patience left for the slow pace of the existing bureaucracy. One of the key movers on the committee commented that "I guess that makes us all resistant". That single sentence elicited nervous grins and a shifting of bodies all along the table. One could see the chill set in.
You see as social workers and psychologists their language is all codified in the DSM IV - the mental health bible in terms of defining and dealing with mental illness. Often patients or clients seen by the counselling community don't understand that the words have very different implications than how they are used in everyday speech. Sometimes they sign that they agree with the assessment not realizing that the wording stigmatizes them in a very perjorative way. The word "resistant" in DSMese is a code that means that the counsellor has found the patient intractible with respect to their directions for future behaviour and therefore punitive measures are justified - clinically of course. Those measures can even mean a violation of charter rights or the withdrawal of resources that the client is entitled to by law.
For example, one person I used to volunteer with would occasionally withhold the money that was held in trust for their clients for their day to day living expenses if they were angry with them. It didn't matter to them that that meant the client went without food or shelter - they took pleasure in their power. I protested when I could, but had little effect on changing the way they thought about their responsibilities. Instead of steward of the client's welfare they became jailer and enforcer. There is sometimes a rare justification for that choice. For example, when a person who needs medication for uncontrollable violent tendencies refuses to take it and becomes a danger to themselves and others - but no other explanation is acceptable.
The word resistant would be placed on the client's file and that was all the justification that was required. So when this counsellor made that comment he was letting some of the power trippers feel like what it was like to be on the other side of the definition. And there was sufficient evidence to back up his subtle observation that punitive action against members of the committee by the existing government were likely.
What triggered this homily? Well there was an article today in the NY Times that spoke of delisting one of the "syndromes" that has been used as a tool to enforce bullying behaviour Passive_Aggressive. That isn't to say that failure to act isn't a problem behaviour, but it has also been used to stop anyone who disagrees with the status quo. The women who blew the whistle on Enron's little tea party for example.
Other stories about abuse of power came up in this one about water. Rmember my comments of the CBC movie H2O from about a week back? I guess some people are starting to realize how serious this issue has become. water. Then there was this bit about forcible drafting procedures occurring in the US draft. I don't think the rest of the story is told yet either. The cabinet shuffles lately don't bode well for young Americans - especially those already behind the 8 ball.
And for comic relief - of a sort - this story on Viagra. drugs. Although there's nothing funny about withholding information that the substance might work for the one condition but cause one's death for other reasons. Speaking of which I guess it's time for me to take my next dose of meds. Hope there aren't any secrets being kept there. Good night dear diary.
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