This kind of captures it.
What I've realized is that I can do this anyway, on the side (which is where life really happens anyway, isn't it) as it were (I'm learning this stuff better from Jim Henderson and co. than I am in school anyway), and I want to study something that will allow me to be more impactful on a larger scale.
H/T Carmen
I wrote the following in response to comments on this thread. Your thoughts/reaction?
...
Yesterday I had a really fascinating discussion with a fellow student in one of my psych classes, named John. We were doing an exercise related to motivational interviewing in which we were practicing “reflective listening”. So we each had 5 minutes to ask the other “Tell me something you like about yourself” and then develop that with reflective listening.
At first John and I thought we were kind of opposite. What he liked about himself was that he is very relational. He likes to meet and get to know people. What I liked about myself was that I’m pretty good at noticing discrepancy between projected image and actual image, especially as I begin to become part of the “us” in any group. Part of the result of this for me is that I tend to be complete shit at small talk–I hate it. All these niceties seem to me often to be part of a somewhat false projected image. So I don’t really like parties and that sort of thing. John, on the other hand, likes parties, and he likes to try to spend 10 minutes talking to each person and circulating through the room.
But upon further reflective listening, we found out we are actually really alike. John recently spent some time in Thailand and Cambodia. His experience there was that the people were just bottom-line better at being relational. They would just open up with a person right away. He found that enormously satisfying. One thing he *also* finds frustrating is that people hide themselves away and often there’s no chance in hell of getting at them in the first 10 minutes of conversation. This wasn’t the case, in his experience, to such a degree in Thailand and Cambodia.
Both John and I find it rather enormously satisfying when we can get at the underlying reality of people–at their stories, because these stories greatly enrich our own stories.
I said all that to say the following. I remember back in 1997, when I was preparing to go abroad for two years with a large, multinational NGO. One of the books I had to read was a very basic primer on cross-cultural communication. And one of the things in that book that just bugged the hell out of me, at the time, was this strange (what seemed to me to be) moral relativity about “honesty”. The authors were explaining that in some sense, in eastern and/or african cultures, Relationality, or “maintaining face”, was a very deeply held core value, whereas in the west, and perhaps especially in the U.S., “honesty” is a very deeply held core value. The authors told a story about a white American who had the extremely frustrating experience of being given “wrong directions” by a local in an African country. The point was that from an American perspective, the fact that the African person didn’t *know* the directions to the place the American was going, and yet still happily gave him directions, was massively dishonest. Whereas from the perspective of the African, it was far more important to be seen to be meeting the need for the requested information than it was to be “correct/honest”
Don’t know if I’m making any sense here. I guess what I’m getting at is that I guess I’m hoping to tweak my core values a bit, so that community/relationality are at least as core valueish for me as “honesty”. By which I mean to say that it’s seems reasonable to me that “dishonesty” in the service of kindness may be something that we americans need to take into consideration more as a good thing.
Perhaps this is a theorem, which we are attempting to prove, in the system in which the axiom is “It’s better to be kind than right.”
Okay, for those of you who have been so anxiously waiting, here it is at last (huh? whatever). I wrote a case report on Smeagol for my abnormal psych class this quarter. I had to diagnose him with something from DSM. He ended up with schizotypal personality disorder. We had to do a made up case report--it was supposed to be totally made up, where we made up the person and their history and so forth, but they said it was fine to use a fictional character from literature. It was fun. It's kind of long. Enjoy.
Sméagol: A Case Study involving Schizotypal Personality Disorder
Benjamin Ady
University of Washington, Seattle
Presenting Problems
Sméagol is a 562 year old male who comes from a large and wealthy family among the Stoor people (Tolkien, 1965b, Appendix B). He was arrested and prosecuted for stalking and was sentenced to two years probation. One of the conditions of his parole was evaluation and therapy at a private mental health clinic. During his intake appointment, Sméagol presented as an emaciated (BMI of 18.1), pale, figure who seemed to be fixated on an item which had been stolen from him, a ring which he called “my precious”. Furthermore, he appeared to have two distinct personalities, switching back and forth between them sometimes rapidly, as well as having conversations between these two identities, and referring to himself as “we” or “us”. He also exhibited a great dislike for and even fear of light of any sort, as well as some delusional thinking. Sméagol constantly expressed throughout the interview a great suspicion of the therapist and of people in general.
(Read more...)
Course and Psychosocial History
Sméagol claims to have been given a ring as a gift from his friend Déagol for his 20th birthday. He believes this ring makes the wearer invisible. Sméagol’s symptoms began soon after his acquisition of this ring. He claims to have used to it to learn people’s secrets, and became a gatherer and trader in gossip and hurtful information. He withdrew more and more from the life of his family and community, becoming something of an outcast. Finally, he was expelled from the community, which did not displease him. It was during this time as well that his dislike of light, especially the light of the sun, began.
After this Sméagol wandered alone until he finally became a solitary hermit living in the vast unexplored underground system of tunnels and caverns known to exist under the Misty Mountains. He eschewed, and continues to eschew, any and all social relationships.
Sméagol says that it was also after the acquisition of “my precious” that he began to experience himself as two personalities. “Gollum”, an unkind name which his community and family began calling him, was the dominant personality who increasingly hated and wanted to hurt other people. Gollum is also the personality that is most fixated on the ring which he says was stolen from him. “Sméagol”, on the other hand, was his original name and appears to be afraid of Gollum and under Gollum’s control.
He has been separated from his family of origin for centuries, yet it is clear that his early experiences have affected him greatly. As a bright child in a large and influential family, there were high expectations placed on Sméagol. His grandmother was the matriarch of a large extended family, and was believed to have great wisdom and spiritual power (Tolkien, 1965a, book I, chap. 2). After his acquisition of the ring, however, Sméagol found himself increasingly disliking his family and people in general, and avoiding them or taking actions to minimize or destroy relationship.
Having lived alone as a hermit for hundreds of years, Sméagol has no social support. His only relationships were those that were lost when he was expelled from his family of origin. He also seems fixated on Bilbo and Frodo Baggins, whom he claims stole and still have his ring.
Sméagol knows of no history of mental illness within his family. He has no documented medical history, and apparently has not seen a doctor in hundreds of years. There is no known record of previous mental health evaluation or treatment.
Diagnosis
Sméagol’s diagnosis is schizotypal personality disorder. His ongoing lack of any participation in, desire for, and anxiety over, any social relationships or interactions, his magical thinking about “my precious” (invisibility), his odd manner of speaking, his two distinct personalities, his paranoid ideation, his anxiety over interacting with the therapist, and his ideas of reference regarding the ring and himself all meet criteria for this disorder (Durand and Barlow, 2006, p. 442). Most of these characteristics developed during early adulthood and have persisted throughout Sméagol’s life. While both paranoid and schizoid personality disorders were considered, neither diagnosis accounted for the full range of Sméagol’s cognitive distortions and his eccentricities. Sméagol’s behavior is too clearly odd to meet criteria for delusional disorder, and his symptoms are not severe enough to warrant a diagnosis of schizophrenia. Although he does have 2 distinct personalities, he does not have the inability to remember important personal information required for a diagnosis of dissociative identity disorder. Sméagol does not appear to be depressed or have a history of depression and thus does not meet criteria for mood disorder. His emaciated state is due to lack of food availability, and not to anorexia.
Cultural Context
As a person living within the varied cultures of Middle Earth, some of Sméagol’s ideas and behaviors are bound to strike therapists in the 21st century western paradigm as odd. Nevertheless, even within his own culture, Sméagol’s ideas and behaviors are remarkably unusual and have caused him enormous social impairment over the years. The Hobbitish peoples are known to be trusting, highly social, lovers of open spaces and the sun, and generally unconcerned with the larger world. So even from his cultural paradigm within Middle Earth Sméagol clearly meets criteria for the diagnosis of schizotypal personality disorder.
Treatment
We recommend Sméagol be referred to a psychiatrist to be prescribed fluoxetine, which was found to be somewhat effective for schizotypal personality disorder by Markovitz, Calabrese, Schulz, and Meltzer (1991). We recommend continuing cognitive behavioral psychotherapy with the specific goals in mind of helping Sméagol to integrate his two personalities, and to reduce his fixation on the ring and his inappropriate stalking behavior towards Frodo Baggins.
References
Durand, D. M., & Barlow, D. H. (2006). Essentials of abnormal psychology (4th ed.). Australia: Thomson Wadsworth.
Markovitz, P. J., Calabrese, J. R., Schulz, S. C., & Meltzer, H. Y. (1991). Fluoxetine in the treatment of borderline and schizotypal personality disorders.
American Journal of Psychiatry, 148, 1064-1067.
Tolkien, J. R. R. (1965a). The fellowship of the ring. New York: Ballantine Books.
Tolkien, J. R. R. (1965b). The return of the king. New York: Ballantine Books.
I wonder if there is any correlation between the timewise rise and fall of GDP and the timewise rise and fall of ... say, number of people in the armed forces---in the U.S.--in other particular countries? In general in the world? or rather than "armed forces", what if we check for correlation with say ... number of people killed violently *within* the country, or how about *outside* the country, but by Americans, or how about just deaths of american soldiers. Just curious. How about instead of GDP, we ask it about general happiness levels? or longevity? Or suicide. So much data, so little time.
my technorati authority rose from 12 to 15 this last week. yeeehaw. Thankyou to those who linked here. You all rock.
check out this totally gnarley search which recently led someone here =)
Friday the Seattle Times ran a story on a new course with professor Mara Adelman at Seattle University, "Restorative Solitude". The 12 upper level communications students were originally asked to undertake a one week media fast. No ipod, cell phone, email, television, radio, car stereo, etc. etc. etc. The students protested and the fast was reduced to four days. As it turns out, however, even with the reduced time period, none of the students were able to completely abstain. From the story...
Adelman believes her new upper-level course "Restorative Solitude" is unique. It explores the importance of quiet time for clarity, creativity and spirituality, and touches on techniques ranging from long-distance running to meditation. It also explores the darker side of solitude: loneliness and isolation
My recentish thoughts:
I. I want to be more like Carl Rogers--I want to have these three things at the top of my list of ways of relating to people: 1. Genuineness (both being aware of my moment-by-moment thoughts and feelings in the relationship, and choosing to appropriately communicate those moment by moment) , 2. Warmth (unconditional positive regard), and 3. Empathy (being able and willing to see and interact with the world as the other sees and interacts with the world).
II. I want to do a Vispassana 10 day meditation course. The lab I am ... entering at UW is very much (and increasingly) interested in mindfulness, and mindfulness, of course, is just the westernization of a lot of really great stuff from so called "Eastern religions", including this course. Learning this seems to have almost universal positive results, and Dr. Marlatt and his fellows are using it, for instance, to significantly help alcoholics to recover.
III. The United States is set to execute three people in February, all in Texas. There are 129 nations which pretty much no longer use the death penalty, while there are 69 which still maintain it in law and practice. In this latest group are both the United States and the three countries which George named "The axis of evil" a few years ago: Iraq, North Korea, and Iran. Of course all irony regarding George and co has pretty much already been exhausted, hasn't it?
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