next »

[prytania3]

This is so interesting.

I hadn´t necessarily (Consciously?) thought of my wanting a deeper cleaning as having to do with the degree of the chimney sweep. I´d thought of it as methodology but really, MSW is always where I seem to end up while what I want is a psychoanalyst.

I like my current MSW though really we talk about how I will get through the night and what my plans are for the next day. We talk daily on the phone.  I mention the eerily similar paths my father and I have taken that my brother seems to be following too.  This gets a nod and a "yeah, you shouldn´t do that anymore. So, can you be sure to organize your day tomorrow?...¨ and that´s about it.

I´m thinking I want to just try to get a deep cleaner and keep my MSW.  When I look up providers through my healthcare listings they seem to all be MSW. How can I get around this? or am I doing something wrong?

Hardly anyone goes into actual psychoanalysis anymore due to the ROI. There really isn't one.

[merce]

What is ROI?

Rate of Intuition?

Rate of Introspection?

It does seem that psychoanalysis is not big here in the US so I was eager to do Lacanian psychoanalysis when I lived in Europa. But it was sooo expensive. And someone talked me into flower therapy which was 15 euros a session.  Lacanian psych seems to be alive in only France and Argentina. Alas for MOI.

[lolar2]

Return on investment.

[post_functional]

One thing that is strange is that because of my experience with, and reading up on, cognitive behavioral therapy, I recognize a lot of the self-defeating thought patterns in my students that I've tried to exorcise in myself.  This is not to say that I'm playing amateur therapist.  I'm just saying that it can be helpful in order to nudge a student in a better direction.

One student came to me in office hours--- the same student I've formerly described as Grade Grubbin' Snowflake #1--- because she wanted to talk about the next paper, and why she's behaved as she has.  It turns out that even though she's a Masters student, she still has intense parental involvement in her life, and puts pressure on herself to get straight As to please her parents (this she didn't say outright, but it was obvious from the subtext of our discussion).  She said she's always been bad at my subject.  I asked if anyone has ever told her that she was bad at it.

She said yes, a prof she had as an undergrad.  She got sick, missed weeks and weeks of class, had a less-than-sympathetic prof who didn't really help matters, and has always felt that she was playing catch-up in my subject.  That's why instead of having confidence in her ability to do well in the class on the merits, she's resorted to grade grubbing as a strategy.  She also said that the last paper, in which she earned a B, was the first theory paper she ever had to write, which is why it wasn't stellar.

So I reframed the situation for her.  First, I said, "you said you were bad at theory.  Then you said you got sick, and had to play catch-up because you missed a lot of class.  Those are two different things."

A light bulb went on as if the thought had never occurred to her.

"Second, you're telling me that this was the first theory paper you ever wrote?  And you got a B?  Well, hot damn, congratulations.  That's awesome."

"What?"

"Are you that successful at everything you try the first time?  Would you have said you were a B student of [your instrument] the first time you ever played it?"

"Well... no."

"Well, there you go.  If you feel you need remediation on some aspects of theory you missed as an undergrad, keep coming to office hours.  I'm happy to help.  But don't define yourself as bad at theory just because you got sick and missed some stuff."

"Okay!"

I hope I helped this student.  I think I did.  We'll see.

[cold_feet]

If the situation you are seeking therapy for involves something that happened in academia, wouldn't you want to talk to somebody  who understood how academia worked?  I am not saying that a PhD is necessary but I have run into real ignorance.