Author: Bob

Posted on

One bad day

For all the ballyhoo about psychospiritual growth and seizing the day and whatnot that finds its way into this blog, it’s incredible — and downright discouraging — to discover that one bad day can seemingly negate months of perceived progress. I know it’s only a feeling, and “this too shall pass” and all that shit, but it took literally one crappy experience at work for me to consider changing careers. Hec, I was ready to move out of the country after my train-wreck of a discussion group yesterday evening. I gave the kids (patients on the Adolescent Chemical Dependency Unit) an assignment, asking them to write down the one person (could be living, dead, family member, celebrity, whoever) who they considered to be “the bomb” or the coolest person ever, then give me five reasons why. I was trying to get a discussion going about values and about what we can learn about ourselves by thinking deeply about who we look up to and who we despise. By the end of the group I felt as disconnected from these kids as I do from suicide bombers.

The majority of the kids espoused a core value system on par with a bad gangsta rap song, presenting the most abject vision of vacuous materialism, criminality and self-centeredness one could possibly imagine. To say I was discouraged would be putting it mildly. I felt utterly powerless to even plant the tiniest seed of positive change in these kids. “They’re too far gone,” is all I could think. And while I know that many of them will grow out of these self-limiting beliefs in time, I can’t help but recoil at the possibility that maybe, just maybe, they are too far gone. Maybe we all are.

Posted on

Studies don’t show jack

My friend Shawn raised a concern over on his blog that big-picture theorist Ken Wilber is being a wee bit disingenuous about the allegedly empirical basis of his ideas. I’m concerned too, but this kind of philosophical sleight of hand is not unique to Wilber. On the contrary, it’s positively pandemic, as the phrase “research shows” is fast becoming the secular version of “the Bible says.”

I’ve read most of Wilber’s work, and it seems to me that his theories are based on his own brilliant creative intuition and not — as he would like us to believe — on research of any kind. The theory comes first, then any relevant research is brought in to buttress his ideas. Nothing wrong with that approach, if one is honest about it. But because “empiricism” is such a fundamental aspect of the theory itself, I think Wilber feels pressure to ground his ideas in empirical data, even when the ground is pretty shaky. But just as reason itself can be twisted to fit just about any agenda, so too can so-called “research” be cited to support any number of bogus claims. In fact, the way research itself is presently conducted in our profit-driven culture –with political and economic concerns coloring the process at every stage– one would have to be naive in the extreme to accept any claim on face value. Consider this Washington Post article from earlier this year, in which we learn that: “Every psychiatric expert involved in writing the standard diagnostic criteria for disorders such as depression and schizophrenia has had financial ties to drug companies that sell medications for those illnesses…”

So, it’s no small wonder that “research shows” depression and other mood disorders to be chemical imbalances best treated with certain drugs. Gimme a freakin’ break. Every day, thousands of publications fill their pages with bogus conclusions drawn from this or that bogus study, and every day millions of ignorant people mistake these fictions for facts.

Of course, there is solid research out there, and empiricism — in the broad sense of basing our knowledge on experiment, direct experience and clear thinking — might be the best tool we have to test our intuitions. And we can all learn to separate the wheat from the chaff for ourselves, if we care to take the time.

Posted on

Fun with Stewie and Osama

It all comes down to this, huh? Well, shit – I haven’t felt very inspired to do much this week. My job has sucked me dry, and all I could do last night was watch clips of The Family Guy on YouTube. I don’t have cable TV, and I’ve only managed to see a few episodes of the show over the years. I didn’t realize how fucking hilarious it is. I found this bit particularly side-splitting:

Posted on

Pants on fire

Kids… What can you say, except that they’re a bunch of lying little shit-heads.

One of my patients left the Adolescent Chemical Dependency Unit today, moving on to a long-term treatment center and leaving behind a trail of bold-faced, stone-cold lies. This kid lied about everything, from having a child to losing his buddies in a car accident to being beaten up by gang members. Of course, I’m used to being lied to, as anyone would be who deals with drug abusers and criminals. But sometimes it can be a bit much.

My wife has been dealing with this too, teaching her first ever class at the university. Several students have forged doctors’ excuses to account for absences, and a few have blatantly plagiarized papers from the internet. I have no sympathy whatsoever for these kids. They’ve probably been getting over on their parents for years and have never developed a sense of responsibility or had to face the logical consequences of their behavior. These kids seem to expect authority figures to look the other way, or at worst proffer a slap on the wrist. As far as I’m concerned, this just robs them of an opportunity to learn the rules of the big game.

Last night I gave my now former patient a little assignment. I asked him to write me a one-page paper on “What life would be like if you always told the truth?” He was supposed to turn it in to me when I came in this morning, but when I asked him for it, he said it was “too hard.” Maybe it was, but now he has another six to twelve months to think about it. I will too.

Posted on

Achtung!

I’ve always been baffled by the differing ways people use the terms attention, consciousness and awareness. In conversations having to do with psychology or spirituality, one gets the impression that consciousness (and/or awareness) is the summum bonum. What I’m curious about right now though, is the biological/neurological basis of attending. I read somewhere that attention is an exclusionary biological function, whereby there is an active inhibition of sensory and motor neurons in all areas other than the area (let’s say, my tongue) to which I’m attending. Whatever the case, I wonder how the basic neuroscience fits with all the psychospiritual yahoo about the primacy of attention/consciousness/awareness. Here’s how I’m understanding the distinctions at the moment. Attention is a function of the central nervous system, an everything-but-this inhibitory process that leads to greater sensory awareness and motor control. Consciousness is the total functional repertoire of which we can be aware, at any given moment. Or is it the other way around… we can be conscious of that which we pay attention to… we are aware of the…

Wait a minute….E = mc2? No, hold on now…I think therefore I am? No no…I am that I am.

I am what I am and that’s all that i am! Got it.

Posted on

Still dreaming

I woke this morning as if from a drugged stupor. My wife and I have an agreement that the last one out of bed has to make it, and while I was making it I could barely keep from falling back in and into my dreamy haze. It seems I was at work much of the night, doing therapy and saving the kids on the Adolescent Chemical Dependency Unit from plunging headlong into the abyss. This evening I will sit before them in the flesh, and once again I will do my thing, flowing with the vibe in the room and using whatever they throw at me to build my house of insight. When one or two of them knock at the door, I will nod my head with smug satisfaction for a job well done. But I will still be dreaming.

Posted on

Rocks

I like Ze Frank. There are inside jokes that the “new viewer” will have trouble making sense of, but once you get past that aspect of “The Show,” it’s just plain funny. It is to me, anyway. Ze is somewhere around my age, and we’re both from Upstate New York. And we both think the word “poop” is funny.

Posted on

New eyes

Okay, so I just wrote a Christian Rock song.

Of course it’s not a Christian Rock song, but the lyrics sure do read like one. I just laid down the tracks as they came to me and, as usual, I’m not quite sure what it all means. But it’s definitely not a Christian Rock song. I fucking HATE Christian Rock music. Can’t a brother sing about Jesus without fear of such slander?

New eyes.mp3
Hours of darkness
Waiting to be set free
You were waiting there for me

It’s been so long
since I’ve looked at you
with new eyes

Jesus died for our sins
so don’t pay no mind to this trouble we’re in
Jesus died on the cross
so everything gained is meant to be lost
Punch-drunk, fist of a King
A pair of black eyes, for his praises I sing
Brighter than the sun in my eyes
Together we stand in the tide

Posted on

The Seven Challenges

I know what you’re thinking, that like, everyday is a challenge and like, we need to seize it and all, and so like, the Seven Challenges are like, the days of the week that we need to, you know, seize and stuff.

Come on now, that’s crazy talk, especially considering that “you,” i.e. the reader of this blog, is likely no one else but “me,” the writer of this blog and, of course, “I” know damned well what I mean by the Seven Challenges.

Two long days of psychological training can make one a little loopy. So, the Seven Challenges is a conceptual framework, like the Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous, that has been “empirically demonstrated” to be effective in treating teenagers for substance abuse and substance dependence. As a model and a tool to use in working with my patients, I was impressed with the Seven Challenges approach. It takes into account the developmental capacities of teens and places a great emphasis on “meeting teens where they’re at.” So, in essence, the focus is not trying to get kids to quit drugs, it is rather to help kids think deeply about their lives and to encourage them to make thoughtful, informed, and committed decisions about their lives. And I’m down with that, yo. But, of course, there’s more to the story. Yes, we must always brace ourselves for the dreaded politics.

You see, the State Department of Corrections (our biggest referral source) is not only using the Seven Challenges approach in their Drug Court program, they also have started referring more kids to our competitors because those facilities have recently been “Seven Challenge certified.” So, after two grueling days of training, our facility is now certifiable. But here’s the thing. The folks who run the SC licensing racket are marketing themselves as an “empirically validated” approach, and in order to “preserve the fidelity” of the program they insist, per the licensing agreement, that the Seven Challenges program not be used in conjunction with other treatment philosophies, such as Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous.

This is when I get crazy, because I’m an educator and a therapist, not a fucking businessman. I have no problem integrating the essence of the Twelve Step approach within the framework of the Seven Challenges program. In fact, I feel that I have a responsibility to do so, because many of my patients are sent home to rural counties where Twelve Step meetings will be their only support system option. But now I have to worry about breaking some licensing agreement that has nothing to do with therapy and everything to do with people making money.

I hate dogma and I hate when capitalism corrupts science. But there you have it. I’ve always been the sort who takes what’s useful and what makes sense to me and then flushes the rest. So, when I work with kids I don’t make claims about what is true or not true about drugs, drug use, or life. I give them information, perspectives, and the arguments and evidence used to support various claims, then I help them to think everything through and to take an honest look at themselves and their lives. My challenge now is to find the best way to continue to do this within the existing political constrains.