A rchive Date
[ 26-02-2005 ]
Category
[ Sociology ]
sub-Categoy
[ Cultures ]
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[Transitions
by Ana Draper
In this essay I shall begin by outlining the implications of the transition from modernity to postmodernity and the effect this shift has had on Generation X1. I believe that the implications of this alleged 'paradigm shift' are many fold including the following:
- Generation X has become cynical of words believing that they are unreliable and only offer approximate versions of what they purport to signify.
- There has also been a shift in the perception of personhood, especially in terms of image and gender.
- Technological progress and the erosion of community has meant that Generation X is likely to experience relationships that are largely confined to surface in which the experience of deeper relations are limited.
- Reality has tended to become merged with fantasy creating what is referred to as simulacra2, and Generation X has become unable to differentiate between the two.
I would like to look at two models of therapy, psychotherapy and person-centred therapy, and evaluate their use with Generation X. I shall argue that historically there has been growth and development in our theoretical understanding, which has enabled therapists to develop models of working that are appropriate to the prevailing culture. I believe that if we are to be effective counsellors, we need to look at the shift from the modern to the postmodern and respond appropriately.
Change, it seems, is taking place faster than ever before. Academia is teaching that the confidence in progress of the modern era is dying and being replaced by widespread and deep-rooted uncertainty and scepticism of "postmodernity".
"There is no one accepted definition of postmodernity. But the term remains valuable exactly because it carries ambiguous freight. It claims only that we live after modernity and its unchallenged faith in secular reason. Postmodernity is a sign post letting us know that we have flown the borders of modernity, even if it does not tell us precisely what lies beyond those borders."3
A key consideration for counsellors is the transition of society from being centred around the ethos of production, to an emphasis on consumption. It has been said that the only postmodern absolute is choice - the rights of the consumer have become paramount. This is not simply an academic exercise but rather the changes brought about by postmodernity have filtered down into everyday life.
Bret Anderson from the band, 'Suede', sang, " We're moving, so moving, so we are boy, we are girl". This spoke of his own efforts to perfect the androgynous look. I wonder also if this reflects the need to explore what it would be like to be innocent and pre-pubic, in the light of an ever shortening childhood. Calvin Klein advertises his perfume as a "Fragrance for a man or a woman", with two models holding each other, their gender is not identifiable. Miriam and Philip Sampson, state that "The modern mind began to search beneath the layers of identity and it realised there was nothing there. A continuum of possibilities has replaced the need to be either male or female. Postmodern gender-bending has arrived".4
Technology has had a massive impact on contemporary society. The Internet allows people to communicate via e-mail, this medium is used to send letters and information. But it also presents the potential for an individual to become a different person dependant on whom one is communicating with. The Internet allows a fluidity of personhood within the confines of cyberspace, people can reinvent themselves or even change their gender.
There seems to be a blurring of boundaries taking place, and virtual reality is an extreme example of how we can use technology - it is now possible to have "virtual sex":
"Virtual reality could reproduce a world using three senses - sight, sound and touch. It is therefore pretty easy for anyone to believe they are in bed with Marilyn Monroe, and appear to experience the sensations."5
The Internet allows people to have many "virtual" relationships creating in effect a global village. Michael Schluter asserts that, "Ultimately, we will know less and less about more and more people until we know nothing about everybody. There seems to be developing a predominance of surface type relationships."6
These kind of relationships are very consumption orientated, as they allow us to join, leave or participate in the "community" with no obligations or constraints. Virtual community is community at zero cost.
In the Daily Mail, Sean Poulter writes about television adverts and their effects on children, he asserts that by the age of eight most children are cynical about advertisers claims.7 Douglas Coupland in his book "Polaroids from the Dead", asks who we would be without the images that we have absorbed.8 I believe the important question is who are we with those images. The volume of advertisements that Generation X has been exposed to has had a fundamentally destabilising effect. There seems to be a merging of reality and fantasy, resulting in Baudrillard's simulacra:
"The overproduction of signs and reproduction of images and simulations leads to a loss of stable meaning, and an aestheticization of reality in which the masses become fascinated by the endless flow of bizarre juxtaposition which takes the viewer beyond stable senses".9
Magazine editorials now look like adverts and the adverts like editorials. There has been a proliferation of "docu-dramas", where real life documentaries and dramatic entertainment are seamlessly blended. Television producers take "Vets in Practice" and turn them into overnight media personalities. The result of this is that the general public has a problem distinguishing between fantasy and reality, resulting in incidents of actors being verbally and physically abused because of the roles they have played. One of my clients describes her own feelings through the story line of a soap. She seems to interact with the life of a chosen character who is experiencing a parallel situation to her own. She seems to experience the very emotions expressed by that character. I was also told about a newly diagnosed HIV victim, who, when asked if they knew anyone who is HIV positive, responded that they knew Mark Fowler, a character from the soap "Eastenders".
J.G. Ballard writes in the preface to his novel Crash that although in the past we always assumed that the external world around us represented reality, and that the inner world of our minds, its dreams, hopes and ambitions represented the realm of fantasy and the imagination, it would now seem that the roles have been reversed. He also suggests that Freud's distinction between the apparent and the real, now needs to be applied to the external world of so called reality.
Post-modernity has exposed language and meaning to deconstructionism, which suggests that words and signified objects no longer have meaning in and of themselves. In contrast people bring their own subjective meaning to a text making it merely a mirror that reflects back on themselves, rather than a window through which one can discern the author's intentions. In this scenario words are no longer objective, but subjective. Some scholars have proclaimed the demise of overarching world views or "metanarratives". One of the prevailing dogmas in contemporary society is that of relativism. A leading postmodern sociologist, Zygmunt Bauman, writes:
"In a cacophony of moral voices...individuals are thrown back on their own subjectivity as the only ultimate ethical authority."10
How does one enter into making ethical and moral choices when the perameters that once guided, have been removed and not replaced? If ethics and morality are reduced to subjective personal experience and understanding, the richness of another's wisdom is lost to the individual.
Perhaps the tension between gaining from another's experience and also drawing on our own history has been lost - decision making has become lonely and isolating. In the past family or friends were available to offer advice, but there now seems to be an unwillingness to commit to the responsibility of offering an individuals world view. Steve Whitfield in his article on the BBC2 drama "This Life"11, quotes a character called Anna stating "You need a friend, not some born-again Mother Teresa". Whitfield finishes the paragraph with "advice is what you pay a therapist for". I understand the theory behind the need to allow the client to reach adulthood and develop a personal moral code, but there may be a need to hold this in tension with the need, ocassionally, to offer advice.
In an empathic counselling relationship, perhaps there is a need to learn how to hold our clients according to their individual needs. Storytelling is something that traditionally happened in the past within nursery rhymes and fables; the stories told to children that are full of historical wisdom, passed onto them to plunder and explore. "Healthy stories defeat isolation and nihilism by linking us to others and encouraging us to be characters engaged in life and not mere spectators".12 So how do we as counsellors share the stories of our lives in a way that enables a client to engage in life?
It would also be worth considering the power of stories in respect of knowing personal history to help us discover who we are in the here and now. Douglas Coupland writes in his book "Generation X": "What is you, Scout? What is the you of you? What is the link? Where do we begin and end? This you thing - is it an invisible silk woven from your memories? Is it a spirit? Is it electric? What exactly is it?"13 This is an important question for this generation, and it could be that as there is a loss of not only our personal stories, but also the corporate story, resulting in a loss of personal identity. Daniel Taylor writes,
"A wide variety of stories should not simply be tolerated but sought out and prized. This conviction is at the heart of a healthy multiculturalism that wishes to celebrate the lives and accomplishments of all the people and to give everyone an equal opportunity to participate in the common story".14
Paul Heelas in his book "The New Age Movement",15 states that the three most influential figures cited by respondents of a survey were Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, followed by Jung and then Marlow all of whom were involved in developing "prosperity teaching". Marlow's "hierarchy of needs" is sometimes used to explain why people move into the spiritual realm once their hierarchy of needs have been satisfied within consumerism.
Within psycho-dynamic history, there is a rich heritage of change. Starting with Freud, moving on to Melanie Klein, who developed psychotherapy for her work with children. This is an interesting model, as she had to use techniques without words, and developed therapy using child's play. Jung brought a mystical element to psychotherapy, maintaining a balance between two opposing forces.
Psychotherapy is built on listening to a client. We need to ask how this type of therapy can engage with a culture that is cynical of word based therapy, and has little experience of deep, long-lasting relationships or community.
"To understand something of another person's most intimate and hidden concerns it is necessary to spend long periods quietly listening to them." 16
Ben Okri in his book "Birds of Heaven"17 talks about words and their impact, he asserts that the highest things are beyond words. I noted that on the death of Diana, Princess of Wales, Radio One chose to play music that had no words, it was as if words could no longer express the feelings of the nation, and an impact was made by their absence. Most one to one counselling is set in a word orientated environment, with the client required to "talk" through issues in their lives. I wonder if due to the prevailing culture in which words are treated with cynicism, we need as a profession, to focus on and develop ways in which words are no longer the sole element in our therapeutic environment. If we are to give our clients an equal opportunity to reach self awareness, then surely there is a challenge to us to consider our practice in order to meet their needs. In the C.S.C.T. course guide it states, "The need to recognise differences is paramount whilst holding all people to be of equal value. There is no denial of either our own or other's experience but there is an acceptance of the subjective."18
Can the psychotherapist still "listen" to a client without using words to understand them? I believe this is the same challenge that faced Melanie Klein when she developed her techniques, in which toys and play are used as equivalent to dreams and free association. Perhaps this needs to play a part of the analytical process for adults too.
The basis of person centred counselling is clear communication, expressed verbally and also based on acceptance, respect and trust. It also seems to be based on things other than words; empathy, congruence, unconditional positive regard, for example.
" When true sharing of perceptions takes place between counsellor and client, there is a greater chance that the client will be encouraged to become more open with him/herself, and this openness should in turn lead to deeper insight, healing and progress."19
Yet the acting out of this therapy is still word based and exclusive to a "postmodern" client. Can a client express the need for positive regard in ways other than words?
I also wonder whether a client would be able to discover the authentic self, if their life style is schizoid, and the concept of "being" is fractured into many personalities all in the same self concept. Self actualisation is said to be reached by practising behaviours which encourage the development of confidence, openness and spontaneity. Can self actualisation be reached, with a social background of inherent mistrust, constant change, surface/image type relationships, and schizoid personality?
If Marlow is correct and self actualisation is reached by the procedure highlighted in "A practical Approach to Counselling" (page 46), this paradigm shift is causing Generation X to experience the opposite to what is required for health and wholeness.
Empathy could be the key to working with a postmodern client. In using our empathic ability to enter into another's personality and creativity, can a counsellor tap into a client's creativity and enable them to use it as a form of therapy, just as Melanie Klien used children's ability to play as a form of therapy? Surely this can lead the counsellor to be creative in the way therapy is conducted. Perhaps there is room for the mystical and spiritual, in which symbolism and icons could be used to enable the client to respond within the therapeutic environment.
I recently had a client tell me of the overwhelming anger that had surfaced for the week following a therapy session, she stated that she did not know how to express her anger and was at a loss. She is a very creative person, for example she designs and paints murals. When I asked her how she felt in her work, it transpired it was the only time she felt in control and had any self esteem. I asked her if she could use colours, and her creativity, to express her anger. This she has done, using bold colours in a frenzy of activity. This has been the first time she has created something for herself, and has connected the fact that her work had always been an expression of who she is, using it to gain self actualisation in an environment in which she felt safe. This environment had never been available to her as a child or in her adult life, so she had made it for herself by expressing but not owning. Now by using the same medium, she was able to start the long process of owning who she is.
I also wonder if it is likely that our clients would require us to enact and be for them who they require us to be, beyond the normal therapeutic setting? A client of mine required me to be available to him on demand. He was unable to cope with a rigid contract of time and place. The only way this client seemed able to reach a state of stability, was by acting out and testing what he discovered about himself through our therapeutic relationship. I do not believe this client would of entered into self actualisation, if he had not been allowed to "feed on demand". Perhaps the constraints of limited availability and appointment based work, may in some cases, disadvantage our clients in their striving to reach self actualisation.
Recently a case presented in my group spoke of a lady who had been abused by her father, and her need to experience a positive "father" like relationship. Her therapist became whom she required him to be, engaging in her care and becoming the "good father" beyond the therapeutic environment. This raises issues in respect of ethics and boundaries between therapist and client. But I wonder if within this culture, a way to enable self actualisation to occur is by acting out the positive role model our client may need to experience. Therefore I believe there may be a place within our profession for therapists who are willing to become "an other" for their client, beyond the constraints of a therapeutic environment?
In this essay I have highlighted some issues that need to be addressed by counsellors seeking to work with people who are most at home in a postmodern context. We will as a profession need to continue to work out the most effective ways of enabling such clients to realise self actualisation. Whilst the accepted practices have proved good practice in a modernist context, postmodernity highlights a whole host of new challenges. Counselling has evolved over the years and we must not shirk from continuing to interact with contemporary thinking and its out-working in contemporary culture.
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