Prime Time Replay:
Dr. Margaret Singer
on "Crazy" Therapies
MsgId: *brainstorms(4)
Date: Fri Oct 4 21:52:14 EDT 1996
From: Keith_Harary_with_Margaret_Singer At: 206.80.182.195
Good evening and welcome to Brainstorms. I'm your host, Dr. Keith Harary. Our guest tonight will be clinical psychologist Dr. Margaret Singer, Adjunct Professor Emeritus at the University of California at Berkeley. Dr. Singer is an expert on post-traumatic stress, influence and psychotherapy. She is the co-author of the recently released book, "Crazy" Therapies.Dr. Singer is here in our San Francisco studio. Since we'll be speaking with you over the same computer, we'll each preface our comments with our initials -- KH for Keith Harary, and MS for Margaret Singer. (Of course!).
Good evening Dr. Singer.
MsgId: *brainstorms(6)
Date: Fri Oct 4 22:00:38 EDT 1996
From: Keith_Harary_with_Margaret_Singer At: 206.80.182.195
MS: Good evening, Keith. Glad to be here.
MsgId: *brainstorms(7)
Date: Fri Oct 4 22:01:28 EDT 1996
From: Keith_Harary_with_Margaret_Singer At: 206.80.182.195
KH: What do you mean by "crazy" therapies? Are you saying that all psychotherapy is "crazy?"
MsgId: *brainstorms(8)
Date: Fri Oct 4 22:02:36 EDT 1996
From: Keith_Harary_with_Margaret_Singer At: 206.80.182.195
MS: Not at all. I believe in and advocate good therapy and am very proud to be one of the dedicated therapists who want to make the field even more responsible and useful to the ordinary citizen.By "crazy" therapy, we're using the term "crazy" as it's used in the vernacular, to refer to something as controversial, non-standard or far out. Sometimes we mean that it's a fad or a current enthusiasm. Some of these therapies will fade from the scene, others will be modified to meet the professional community's standards. Some may be driven out by consumer complaints and legal actions.
MsgId: *brainstorms(10)
Date: Fri Oct 4 22:05:22 EDT 1996
From: Keith_Harary_with_Margaret_Singer At: 206.80.182.195
KH: How many therapists -- of all kinds -- are currently practicing? And how many different kinds of psychotherapies are there?
MsgId: *brainstorms(11)
Date: Fri Oct 4 22:05:40 EDT 1996
From: Keith_Harary_with_Margaret_Singer At: 206.80.182.195
MsgId: *brainstorms(12)
Date: Fri Oct 4 22:06:40 EDT 1996
From: Keith_Harary_with_Margaret_Singer At: 206.80.182.195
MS: There are approximately 250,000 therapists in the United States today. By this we mean licensed, trained psychologists, psychiatrists, counselors and social workers. There are at least 250 different kinds of therapies!
MsgId: *brainstorms(14)
Date: Fri Oct 4 22:08:38 EDT 1996
From: Keith_Harary_with_Margaret_Singer At: 206.80.182.195
KH: With so many different kinds of therapies, and so many therapists practicing, how can consumers distinguish between healthy approaches, and what you are calling "crazy" therapies?
MsgId: *brainstorms(15)
Date: Fri Oct 4 22:10:50 EDT 1996
From: Keith_Harary_with_Margaret_Singer At: 206.80.182.195
MS: It is best to ask friends or your general medical practitioner, for referrals to psychotherapists whose reputations are established and known in the community. Even more important, when you call and ask for an appointment, from that very first contact start making your own evaluation by asking if this person sounds like someone with whom you can work comfortably and who is treating you respectfully from the start.It has become almost a tradition among a number of therapists to turn back all requests about them and their practice to the patient. In our book, we are advocating that as a consumer you have every right to ask of a prospective therapist the questions you need to ask and have answered in order to make an informed decision. We suggest that you draw up a list of questions before calling or going in for your first appointment.
If during this information gathering process, the therapist continues to ask you "why do you ask?" or acts as though your questioning reflects some defect in you, think carefully before signing up! Those types of responses tell you a lot about the entire attitude this person will express toward you -- that is that you are one down and he or she is one up, and that furthermore you are quaint to ask the "great one" to explain himself or herself. A comfortable and fully professional therapist will answer questions fully and without putting the potential patient down. Respect should be mutual in order for psychotherapy to progress.
MsgId: *brainstorms(18)
Date: Fri Oct 4 22:16:01 EDT 1996
From: Keith_Harary_with_Margaret_Singer At: 206.80.182.195
KH: Can you give us some specific examples of "crazy" therapies?
MsgId: *brainstorms(19)
Date: Fri Oct 4 22:17:34 EDT 1996
From: Keith_Harary_with_Margaret_Singer At: 206.80.182.195
MS. Yes. If, as a patient you have to learn a mythology -- a whole new concept of how the world works -- beware! You may be being lured into a peculiar therapy, rather than a more standard, scientifically based and rational and known to help many people kind of therapy.Here are some types of faddish therapies that are currently being practiced:
Some therapists feel that they must regress you back to you birth and "bring you up right." Of course, no one has ever scientifically established that this is either possible or useful. But for at least, since post-WWII, little enclaves of therapists begin by telling their patients that they want them to bring a milk bottle, a blanket, diapers, and a waterproof pad to their next session! The therapists then begin in certain therapies by wrapping the client in a rug or blanket and having him or her struggle to "birth" themselves by struggling out of the blanket or rug. The therapist then holds the adult and has them drink milk out of a baby bottle. As time goes on, the therapist may instruct the patient to put on the adult-sized diapers and urinate on the waterproof pad to get the feeling of really being a baby again.
If going back to birth is not enough, there's another group of therapists willing to take you back even further. They practice what they call "past-life" regression therapy. When asked during an interview how far back he had taken people, one therapist replied "to the stone age." Some therapists are going "future life" therapy. The people I have interviewed who have done both "past life" and "future life" therapies, tell me the therapists have lots more knowledge of history that they took them through and were very skimpy on helping the patients see anything about their future.
MsgId: *brainstorms(24)
Date: Fri Oct 4 22:26:56 EDT 1996
From: Keith_Harary_with_Margaret_Singer At: 206.80.182.195
KH: What is your opinion of therapies involving hypnotic regression and alleged UFO or alien abductions?
MsgId: *brainstorms(25)
Date: Fri Oct 4 22:29:05 EDT 1996
From: Keith_Harary_with_Margaret_Singer At: 206.80.182.195
MS: I am thoroughly conversant with the literature by therapists who claim to have hypnotized patients and learned of UFO abductions and contacts with extraterrestrials. I have interviewed many people who have been patients of UFO therapists. Some of these former patients told me that it took them months to several years to overcome the concerns they had about 1) why had they never thought about this prior to being hypnotized by their therapists, 2) was it really true or was it created by the interaction with the therapist during hypnosis, and 3) many had been made very anxious, feeling that they had been experimented upon and either their sperm or ova taken and they were concerned about being the parents of "hybrid children" whom they would never see.These kinds of concerns, when expressed to friends and family, have caused great embarrassment to the former patient, because his or her family and friends treated them as if they were putting them on. It was only when they got to me, or other "standard brand" therapists who realized how hypnosis had been used by the prior UFO-inducing therapist, that we were able to help the patient once again put in perspective what had happened and strenghten himself or herself to be much more of a wary consumer in the future when seeking psychotherapy of any kind.
MsgId: *brainstorms(28)
Date: Fri Oct 4 22:35:29 EDT 1996
From: Keith_Harary_with_Margaret_Singer At: 206.80.182.195
KH: In your book, Crazy Therapies, you have a chapter called "Therapeutic Seductions." Is sex with the therapist ever a healthy part of psychotherapy?
MsgId: *brainstorms(29)
Date: Fri Oct 4 22:38:28 EDT 1996
From: Keith_Harary_with_Margaret_Singer At: 206.80.182.195
MS: Sex between a psychotherapist and a patient is NEVER good. Not only is it not good for the patient, in many states it is illegal and for all licensed professionals it is unethical. Since Hippocrates, who lived approximately 480-360 BC, medical professionals have been warned not to have sex with patients. Hippocrates said do no harm and do not have sex with male or female, free man or slave. Here in the United States, in the early 1970s, the mental health professions began to become very aware of the problems arising from sex between therapists and patients.
MsgId: *brainstorms(30)
Date: Fri Oct 4 22:39:01 EDT 1996
From: Keith_Harary_with_Margaret_Singer At: 206.80.182.195
KH: What are some of those problems?
MsgId: *brainstorms(31)
Date: Fri Oct 4 22:41:39 EDT 1996
From: Keith_Harary_with_Margaret_Singer At: 206.80.182.195
MS: First, the patient really is in no position to have a free choice when the therapist proposes sex. She -- and most sex between therapist and clients is between a male therapist and a female patient -- is presenting herself with genuine psychological problems that need professional training. Once the therapist has sex with her, his role is no longer that of the helpful professional but of a mere seducer. Thus, the therapy stops and in most instances the patient starts to have other psychological problems growing out of the seduction.For example, many therapy patients need assistance in establishing boundaries -- that is, being firm with people they deal with, learning how not to be intruded upon and controlled by others -- thus the seductive therapist is simply violating the psychological, moral, and ethical boundaries of his patient. Next, because of the transference phenomenon, which is that we humans tend to respond to authority figures as parent figures, when a therapist seduces a patient it is highly tinged in the woman patient's mind with incest. This produces feelings of guilt, sinfulness, dirtiness, wrong-doing. Sex between therapists and patients is not at all akin to sex between consenting adults who meet as equals in open social circumstances.
MsgId: *brainstorms(33)
Date: Fri Oct 4 22:46:02 EDT 1996
From: Keith_Harary_with_Margaret_Singer At: 206.80.182.195
KH: I notice in your book that you have a chapter entitled, "Cry, Laugh, Attack, Scream -- Cathart Your Brains Out." Can you tell us a little about the kinds of therapies you discuss in this chapter?
MsgId: *brainstorms(34)
Date: Fri Oct 4 22:47:37 EDT 1996
From: Keith_Harary_with_Margaret_Singer At: 206.80.182.195
MS: There are fight therapies, scream therapies, cry therapies, attack therapies, all of which grow out of an assumption that some therapists make that the sheer expression of negative emotions in an exaggerated form will cure the patient. Of course, it can be helpful to talk about how we feel or tell a therapist about our deepest and most troubling thoughts. Indeed, under certain circumstances with certain therapists, beneficial results ensue. However, some therapists promote the idea that venting or airing your feelings will correct almost any intrapsychic or interpersonal problem. They assure the patient that this ventilation, screaming, crying, beating pillows, will relieve whatever human miseries they brought to therapy. These therapists seem to assume that negative or bothersome emotions are like moths in old clothes: shaking the old clothes out and hanging them on the line ot air them will make the moths go away. But it is not the same for feelings!
MsgId: *brainstorms(37)
Date: Fri Oct 4 22:52:03 EDT 1996
From: Keith_Harary_with_Margaret_Singer At: 206.80.182.195
KH: Aren't there many people who claim that they have been helped by these so-called "crazy" therapies? What would you say to them?
MsgId: *brainstorms(38)
Date: Fri Oct 4 22:55:25 EDT 1996
From: Keith_Harary_with_Margaret_Singer At: 206.80.182.195
MS: Yes. I would say to them, I'm glad that you are feeling better and I would be very interested in learning more about what you and your therapist did. It is true that the sheer attention from a professional person and his or her enthusiasm over you helps to promote a feeling of acceptance and well-being. I have learned from many who claimed that one or another of the "crazy" therapies had really helped them that it was the relationship with the particular therapist and not necessarily the procedures at all that made them feel better. This is a very well known phenomenon among well-trained, and rational, scientifically based therapists. I'm not including here sex between therapist and patient -- which is always bad in one way or another.
MsgId: *brainstorms(39)
Date: Fri Oct 4 22:56:06 EDT 1996
From: Keith_Harary_with_Margaret_Singer At: 206.80.182.195
KH: What about therapies involving so-called entities and/or channeling?
MsgId: *brainstorms(40)
Date: Fri Oct 4 22:59:02 EDT 1996
From: Keith_Harary_with_Margaret_Singer At: 206.80.182.195
MS: The revival of mediumship, now called "channeling," is a process in which a person either self-trances or merely closes their eyes and speaks claiming to be speaking the thoughts of a entity -- meaning a spirit creature who lived either long ago or even up to more recent times. Most of the channelers who get into entities therapy claim that as certain people die, their spirit does not pass over to heaven or the great beyond but instead invades a nearby person. The entities therapists tell their patients under hypnosis -- that is, they hypnotize the patient, and tell the patient that the channeler can recognize various creatures, children, adult entities that are dwelling within the patient. Therapy consists of "getting rid" of the entities through some imagined processes. I have worked with some people who were devastated by imagined scenes in which they caused the entities to fall off of cliffs, to drown, to be consumed in fire. The channeling therapists seem to have no concern for the impact their methods had on these patients.
MsgId: *brainstorms(42)
Date: Fri Oct 4 23:02:46 EDT 1996
From: Keith_Harary_with_Margaret_Singer At: 206.80.182.195
KH: Thank you, Dr. Singer, for this fascinating look at "crazy" therapies. We'll be carrying your book in our on-line bookstore. We're out of time, so one last question before we go. How can we recognize a qualified and capable professional therapist?
MsgId: *brainstorms(43)
Date: Fri Oct 4 23:05:02 EDT 1996
From: Keith_Harary_with_Margaret_Singer At: 206.80.182.195
MS: Seek recommendations and references. Ask yourself if this person appears to be a competent, ethical professional. Does he or she seem to know what they are doing? Do they keep your well-being formost in the relationship? Does your therapist have more than one technique for helping you with different problems? There are good therapists, so look for recommendations and check out your own good sense when interviewing any potential psychotherapist.
MsgId: *brainstorms(44)
Date: Fri Oct 4 23:07:19 EDT 1996
From: Keith_Harary_with_Margaret_Singer At: 206.80.182.195
KH: And I can add to those great recommendations to read your wonderful book, "Crazy" Therapies, recently published by Jeossey-Bass in San Francisco. Thank you again, Dr. Singer, for joining us on Brainstorms.
MsgId: *brainstorms(45)
Date: Fri Oct 4 23:07:51 EDT 1996
From: Keith_Harary_with_Margaret_Singer At: 206.80.182.195
MS: Thank you. It's been a pleasure, Dr. Harary.
MsgId: *brainstorms(46)
Date: Fri Oct 4 23:09:22 EDT 1996
From: Keith_Harary_with_Margaret_Singer At: 206.80.182.195
For Omni Internet, this is Keith Harary. Good night.
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