Think of this as a short reality show all about talk therapy. Families frequently ask me if I have had a conversation with their child about what is acceptable and what is not to earn their rewards. “Maybe they just don’t understand!” I have had parents ask me this about children from 7 years to 37 years. “Are you sure they understand what they have to do to earn?” These parents still want to believe that a conversation can build bridges. This is the story of “Talk Therapy.” It is a real story parents pretend about innocence but it is really about ignorance masquerading.
Talk therapy presumes that the human animal has learned that fulfillment of their needs requires a work ethic. I have had people from all caliber of the social structure comment, “Well, what does a child really need?” These people must have come from the planet “Need.” Earth does not fulfill because of need. If you doubt this equation, please strip naked and sit in the middle of the Amazon rain forest. The animals and insects that will feed upon you have learned to earn. All animals on Earth learn to earn. Not only does that equation grow the food we eat but it builds the mettle that makes the human whole. That is the definition of self-esteem. Self-esteem certainly is not derived from talk therapy or an undeserved hug. I have had children come to me and say, “Give me a bottle of water. I need it. I’m thirsty!” Where did this work ethic of “Need” come from? I reply, “What have you done to deserve this water?” The child will usually look at me with quizzical eyes and repeat, ”Don’t you understand Dr. B? I said I was thirsty.” The animal must learn this behavior through some kind of pain experience. (more…)
Any time delayed gratification is removed from the social structure of learned or taught behaviors, we have a decline in the social fabric. Without delayed gratification, an individual cannot take the necessary time to learn necessary behaviors for survival. Until three generations ago, this was not an issue because mother nature was the flawless teacher. 90% of human beings lived an agrarian life of farming. Small family farms that dictated, “Those who did not plant did not reap. And those who do not reap do not eat.” This required the concept of “delayed gratification.” But now all pain oriented learning required of our children is outlawed by the state. Our young children have been taught by our institutions, that on a whim, they can call the authorities and have their elders imprisoned with a “story of anxiety,” natures teachings are inverted. (more…)
Ahh the quick and dirty. As the title indicates something sinister and nasty. I have always contended that the human being is motivated primarily by Lust and Fear. Fear keeps us alive long enough to procreate the specie, lust. Lust and fear each deal with immediate gratification. But immediate gratification is a child’s game that one must grow out of. It is the crib we are born with to survive on this planet as naked and defenseless suckling mammals. Unless the human being learns delayed gratification they will never be joining the harvest season of life. It is the bridges we learn how to build across the rivers of life and not the walking across the bridge that builds the self esteem of living. Ah backstairs and love affairs. (more…)
The Backlash
In human culture, when a wrong has been righted, we usually have a group that retaliates even greater. In psychology, we call it ‘the backlash’. I had some high schoolers come into the clinic and the mother was very upset and had wrote on the back of their weekly contract that she wanted the child charged for telling her to shut up. The male teenager, who was 17, couldn’t understand why his mother was so upset. I told him that it indicates an incredible amount of disrespect. His was reply was the when i’m talking to my father and say “ah, come on pops, shut up” he doesn’t seem to mind as much and he seems to banter with me.
I asked an older American to please explain this phenomenon; is it merely a difference in the sexes or a difference in the culture. The older man replied “no, the female has been abused within the social structures of our societies for so many centuries, that finally when equity has arrived within our civilization, that they seem to have a great retaliation for hearing that word that seems to have kept them in their place for so many centuries.” The backlash is a cultural phenomenon that is not to be explained but just to be understood and accepted and to be aware. (more…)