Having been a psychotherapist for many years, I have been an observer of many, probably more intimately than many other people have opportunity to know others. I had also supervised many trainees and workers for years, did considerable teaching and gave lectures.. Having initially been trained in individual psychotherapy, I quickly moved to the new field of family therapy in the late 50s when I was the clinical director in a residential treatment center for adolescent girls.
It did not take a long time for me to note that many people had difficulty making or accepting change and were totally resistant to seeing more than one family member at one time. Family therapy requires being able to keep each family member in view as part of a system and to watch and learn how each interacts with the other. It became apparent that many of my interns were unable to do this and I advised them to focus on their work with individuals. However, that made me sad because I do not see how one can be a good therapist if one is not able to see their patient in a context, whether it is in a family, as a spouse, offspring, sibling or parent, even as a part of a working group or team.
Clearly, if one is unable to foresee consequences, that person will live either in chaos or as though in post mortem. They will either drift into situations for which they are unprepared, or they will avoid most relationships, activities and contacts.
If one can extrapolate from this broad generalization, one can speculate that Democrats get more fun out of life than Republicans. If you believe that to be a far fetched statement, think of the people you know who are staunch Republicans vs Democrats you may know. Remember, one size does not fit all and I readily confess this is a broad generalization
It did not take a long time for me to note that many people had difficulty making or accepting change and were totally resistant to seeing more than one family member at one time. Family therapy requires being able to keep each family member in view as part of a system and to watch and learn how each interacts with the other. It became apparent that many of my interns were unable to do this and I advised them to focus on their work with individuals. However, that made me sad because I do not see how one can be a good therapist if one is not able to see their patient in a context, whether it is in a family, as a spouse, offspring, sibling or parent, even as a part of a working group or team.
Clearly, if one is unable to foresee consequences, that person will live either in chaos or as though in post mortem. They will either drift into situations for which they are unprepared, or they will avoid most relationships, activities and contacts.
If one can extrapolate from this broad generalization, one can speculate that Democrats get more fun out of life than Republicans. If you believe that to be a far fetched statement, think of the people you know who are staunch Republicans vs Democrats you may know. Remember, one size does not fit all and I readily confess this is a broad generalization
1 comment:
Your assessment of the relative happiness of Democrats and Republicans may be skewed from being in a heavily Democratic state. The Massachusetts Republican party is quite weak, and that can leave local GOP members depressed.
I looked for a national poll on this issue, and discovered that a Pew Research Center poll found that Republicans are happier than Democrats:
http://pewresearch.org/pubs/?ChartID=7
Frankly, I think that libertarians are happier than both of them.
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