Thesis, Antithesis, Synthesis
I am counselling a couple of couples right now, no I am not going to give any details. Essentially I am pulling some old skill sets out of cold storage and putting them to use. I was at one point trained in Rogerian psychotherapy, lots of observed counselling hours and everything. Then I decided not to make a career out of it. Mostly because I found its methods to be ineffective.
Somewhere in there was also my time with the Russians and cognitive behavioral therapy, which I learned in principle but not in practice. Then a few other various techniques all of which ultimately conflicted, strongly, with my initial “total unconditional acceptance” indoctrination under the Rogerian crowd.
Then I also became a Rabbi with a whole series of responsibilities that came with that. Primarily to keep the treatment, and the hoped for solutions within the bounds of Torah. Which adds a whole list of new ingredients to the stew.
End result… Rogerian method lasted approximately two sessions, with either couple. What came after was a synthesis of a whole bunch of other stuff that I learned more or less built upon a Rogerian foundation. What can I say, first principles are hard to break entirely free of.
Then I thought of my evolution in Torah. No, not the Mattisyahu sort of evolution, but the evolution that happens within the four Amot of Torah. That which is shaped by life experience, Rabbis, and simply what seems logical to the individual, and I realized that it was not all that different. I did Teshuva through Chabad, which as part of Chassidus, is more or less a mystical movement, though it does value, highly value, textual study.
Though I’ve been through litvish and Sephardi Yeshivot, and thus had my Torah outlook fundamentally changed so that I no longer fit into a purely Chabad model, once again first principles are hard to break away from. Meaning that ultimately my view of the world around me, at least the Torah world, is shaped largely by Chabad, whether I like it or not.
Take my stance on the Agunah issue. The Lubavitcher Rebbeim, at least since the Tzemach Tzedek have been very… well… pro-agunah I guess is the term. They were cool with forcing a divorce to free the hapless female. In that entire issue, those were first principles. I can still remember watching a maamar by the Late Lubavitch Rebbe in which he described how we hired thugs to go and beat the living day lights out of a guy until he said he would give a divorce, then we instruct the thugs to double their efforts so that not only is he wiling but he really wants to give the divorce. I wasn’t even married the first time yet, so that was the first I was hearing about Gittin issues. First principles.
Though I understand now that his approach isn’t widely accepted, I still read the various texts more from that light than any other, while having made a synthesis with other things I have since learned.
Interesting post! The Rambam writes about forcing a person to give a get, to the point that he says “I want to.” It’s not the Lubavitcher Rebbe’s idea, as I know you know. I don’t really like the image conjured up by the words “thugs,” and then “doubling their efforts.” The Rambam doesn’t describe the process in two stages like this, and I think people might just chalk this whole violent image up to the Rebbe, ch’v.
I wonder if you’ve considered the views of therapist Zev Ballen (see his blog and columns for example), who used to use conventional methods and now uses an emuna-based approach based in large part on the teachings of Rav Shalom Arush. While I’m sympathetic to his approach, I’ve sometimes thought about whether there’s a middle ground (a synthesis in your terms) between his views and some of the evidence-based secular methods that have had some success. Perhaps you should sit down and talk with R’ Daniel Eidensohn one day to learn more about his philosophy of therapy (he describes it as eclectic and results-oriented but who knows what that means in practice).
BS”D
what are the goals of Torah based therapy?
Below is an abstract of a paper i’ve studied, analyzed and written about from both a contemporary psychotherapeutic viewpoint and Yeshiva/Kollel viewpoint.
I cite this paper, bc it is an early paper upon which many fundamentals of Torah Judaism may be linked with modern therapeutic methods. i couldn’t locate where i found it online when i did my study. Any subsequent serious discussions have also cited this article and other works of Spero — not all agreeing or disagreeing on the same issues, but he suggests many paradigmatic models and approaches…. food and fodder for thought!
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Modern Psychotherapy and Halakhic Values: An Approach Toward Consensus in Values and Practice
Moshe Halevi Spero, M.S.S.W., M.A., Chairman
Dept. of Psychology, Psychological Associate, The Diagnostic Clinic, Notre Dame College of Ohio and Associate Editor, Journal of Psychology and Judaism.
Abstract
In this paper, I have examined in some detail a number of examples of actual and potential consensus between Jewish ethics and the practice of modern psychotherapy, psychology, and psychiatry. Moreover, I have posited specific halakhic models which represent analogies to modern psychotherapeutic principles and practices, which through analogy lend specific halakhic guidelines to modern practice. The unitary halakhic approach presented here is thus both heuristic – in that it seeks to demonstrate the ways in which psychotherapeutic processes are essentially halakhic ones – as well as practical. Through this approach, psychological theory and practice have been brought into intimate contact with the ethical requirements of the halakhically committed mental health practitioner and his or her patient, filling an inexcusable void in halakhic application to modern technology, and setting a direction for future work in this area.
Honestly that would depend. Is someone coming to be because I am Rav who is capable of doing psycho-therapy, or is someone coming to be as a psycho-therapist is who frum? My legal obligations and constraints are quite different with each.
If it is because I am a Rav and they are seeking spiritual guidance and so forth, then I can legally take a much different tack. I can do Shalom Arush self-help sort of stuff, so long as I don’t mind the potential for lawsuits and I truly believe I am acting in the best interests of the person. For instance if I perceive a person to be in an unhealthy relationship, albeit one that they currently wish to sustain despite it’s self-destructive nature, as a Rav I can tell them to leave the relationship.
As as psycho-therapist however, unless I believe that they are in imminent personal danger or they are an imminent danger to others, I cannot be so directive and I am legally required to help them toward which ever goals they desire(such as adjusting to unhealthy relationship). They would then becoming to me as a co-religionist for any number of reasons, and I would be mandated to either fit within their paradigm or refer them elsewhere.
BS”D
just a sample of most basic structural concerns… pashut, no?
http://daattorah.blogspot.co.il/2012/02/rav-zilberstein-cautions-restrictions.html
col tuv leculam, bs”d.
ps eating less during the 3 weeks/ 9 days provokes daily tiredness, but is accompanied by much lucid dream activity at night — with the special kavanot/nusach during birkat kohanim (reminder that in HuL one must go to a Sephardi shul).
I read that… whatever you want to call it, when it first came out. It demonstrates such a complete misunderstanding of what happens in the therapist-client relationship. If a therapist were to actually “build a relationship” or “develop a dependency” in their client they would lose their license and be subject to civil and possibly criminal action.
In some states it is a felony for therapist to cross certain boundaries their patients.
Another issue to consider is that just a hundred years ago it was standard medical procedure for a gynecologist or even a GP to set a course of treatment for a variety of presentations that included regular sessions of the Dr(medical instead of psychological in this case) manually pleasuring a female, or using a… um… “stimulation device” upon her. Despite the overtly obvious sexual acts going on there the Gedolim of those generations never rose an outcry about a need for same gender treatment. However, now that we are dealing with issues of the mind suddenly there is? That simply makes no sense.