#everyone say thank you Carl rogers and humanist theory

[emeraldcreeper]

I hate having to job hunt for shit I hate to eventually repeat myself for the 1000th time that no I hate the apartments you think are good they charge more for a first floor unit where do they think they are clearly not the middle of assfuck nowhere fucking beside a busy ass road next to the one actual grocery store (fuck that fuck those guys! I live next to a field house and football field now and will blow my brains out to live anywhere noisy again) and actually I probably shouldn’t apply for that hospital job I’d prefer to run reception for that social worker the preacher knows (Christ alive I just realized it may be religious junk of an association, except the pastor is a lawyer so maybe not but to be honest I’d rather work in a hotel lobby than that, I look so butch dude I can’t) I need wild things from a job and hours from 9am-9pm? That’s so bad! I’m gonna get into grad school or scream at my college to fucking let me leave in the fall (I had a mental breakdown during this semester and couldn’t go to class my mother can corroborate you dicks, I’m honestly lucky I made it I couldn’t work) I cannot work random ass hours that don’t flex around my schedule! That hospital? Full of shit if they don’t let me! I also refuse to check my schedule every week because it changes! I want a 9-5 that will work with grad school shit that I gotta do in person! Hospital doesn’t seem super flexible! Not every job opening is a Hail Mary you STUPID FUCKIN IDIOTS I’d have a better damn shot not trying to get a job at all out there because clearly the hours are total dogshit

[thelocalrebel]

set in the local context!

Whenever someone mentions IMH, a common reaction is to bring up the "famed" electric shock therapy - i.e. electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) - or how the institution mistreats its patients. However, that's a gross misunderstanding. While the mental health sector in general isn't free from ableism and general assholery against those with mental illnesses, there are some deeply damaging misconceptions that discourage undecided people from seeking help. This short writeup hopes to dispel such myths.

Misconception 1: IMH is the only place to get help.

Wrong. To get help for mental health concerns, you can go to any mental health service provider - and that includes general hospitals (e.g. IMH, NUH), community health providers (think CHAT or SAMH), as well as Family Service Centres (FSCs). This is because the medical model isn't the only way to seek help.

While only psychiatrists are allowed to prescribe medicines or diagnose people due to their medical training, counsellors and social workers are also trained in therapeutic techniques used in psychotherapy. Think therapies like Cognitive-Behavioural Therapy (CBT) - a global favourite - to more humanistic ones like Person-Centred Therapy, coined by Carl Rogers. The techniques used will depend on the severity of your concerns, the suitability of the technique in resolving them, as well as the proficiency of the professional involved. As a general rule, all techniques aim to help you cope better with your needs, such that you can live as best as you can.

Still, think of counsellors (or any other social service professional) as a stopgap measure especially if medical procedures are required - while they will help you to the best of their abilities, once they feel out of their depth, they will refer you to someone who can serve you better. Trust in the ethical standards of the profession, at least.

Misconception 2: Pills are the only way to "cure" mental illnesses.

Wrong. Sometimes, you can get by only with psychotherapy (or in layman terms, talk therapy) with no substances involved! To understand this further, we need to dissect how mental illness is managed by the mental health sector.

Generally, three solutions are used - talk therapy, pharmacology, and other procedures. Such procedures include the infamous Electro-Convulsive Therapy (ECT), Repetitive Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (rTMS), and Eye-Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing (EMDR). Don't mind the mouthful - sounds painful, but thanks to modern medicine and strict ethical standards, anaesthesia ensures that procedures done are painless, or at least, pain is minimised - if they are physical. (Since EMDR doesn't involve applying things to the client, it's not "invasive" like ECT or rTMS, where electric pulses and magnetic waves respectively are administered). However, such usually procedures are done only as a last resort AND with consent of the client. Meaning, only if the person wants to, and if their illness is so severe that everything else doesn’t work. Plus, they work.

Moving to the more common methods of help. Pills are self-explanatory: you take them to help your brain and body secrete or stop producing hormones to make one feel better. That's what they mean by "if you can't produce serotonin (the chemical that regulates mood), store-bought is fine". But again, pills come with side-effects, costs, and a whole bunch of problems (e.g. uncontrollable weight gain for bipolar meds) such that they're mostly given together with talk therapy, if they even are, to manage resultant problems and ensure adherence to medication. Plus, pills can be expensive.

So for more sustainable change, talk therapy is utilised - be it in the form of one-on-one therapy, or group therapy. This is because talk therapy often involves teaching skills, changing thought patterns, identifying developmental experiences that still affect you today, and/or developing suitable coping mechanisms that you can use even after stopping therapy - because the aim of therapy is to teach you how to live again, using and in the safe environment of the therapeutic relationship with the therapist, or other group members. However, the exact method of helping depends on what approaches the therapist uses, as well as your needs. For example, CBT involves cognitive restructuring - a fancy name for a technique that helps one reframe negative thinking patterns into less distressing ones. A worksheet used to facilitate this is a thoughts record, pictured below.

Fig. 1: A filled-In one. Templates are rife on the net (src)

Logs like this help with identifying and modifying automatic thoughts that lead to emotional and behavioural distress, since the premise of CBT lies in the interrelatedness of thoughts-behaviours-emotions. Change one, and change the rest. Sounds fake, but from personal experience, it helps. (But if it doesn’t, it's normal. That’s why therapists mix-n-match approaches if needed).

What we love about talk therapy is that you can DIY it! just search up the relevant theories and you'll find resources online, if you don’t want to use physical (work)books. But as usual, it will help if you went through it with a mental health professional - they can explain it to you, and encourage you every step of the way. (See the end for some common helping approaches)

However, we raise issue with the idea of "curing" MI. Because if to cure means to reinstate one's original state before the illness, then that's simply impossible. Therapy can't cure MI, but it can help you recover - by being able to live in spite and despite your MI, in a way that you're happy with. In other words, MI irrevocably changes you and stays with you, but that doesn't stop you from dealing with it in a better way.

Misconception 3: The whole system is ableist and inherently harmful

It’s one thing to be cynical towards recovery because you don’t want to get better, and it’s another to be cynical because nothing’s working despite one’s best efforts and the most you can do is to just...cope. Yes, medication and techniques don’t always work, nor is it accessible to all. Plus, what constitutes “recovery” differs from person to person. So! It’s one thing to vent about your struggles, and another to actively undermine someone else’s efforts at recovery. Derailing with “we can’t all be neurotypical, karen” is not the way to do that.

While being self-deprecatory is a coping mechanism in itself, there comes a point when we have to ask ourselves - do we want to recover? It’s understandable how sometimes, we resist recovery because if we don’t, how do we know our suffering was valid? It’s understandable because since we’ve lived with it so long, it has seemingly become part of our personality - like neurodivergent people, those with personality disorders, or complex PTSD. Where does our illness stop, and ourselves begin? Yet, as before, we have to ask ourselves: does it always have to be like this?

(Again, this wades into the “good/bad survivor” discourse which we won’t touch, but really. Some things to think about.)

Plus, contrary to popular opinion, most in the helping professions do want to help you, just that their human failings and structural causes can hamper their efforts. Thus, there are bad eggs and there are botched systemic practices and values, but don’t let that discredit the entire therapeutic enterprise and the methods used.

So there are justified criticisms of the MH sector, like the DSM not recognising Complex PTSD despite calls by mental health professionals to do so, as well as the over-medication of people with MI due to the industry's close ties with the pharmaceutical industry. Or for professionals themselves, with personal experience and anecdotes from friends who’ve faced unsupportive psychiatrists, counsellors, nurses, and other staff who’ve only heightened their distress in the midst of seeking help; dismissing their struggles, or undermining their motivation and self-worth with hurtful words. Maybe even the discourses on mental health, such as oversimplifying ideas in the name of marketing and perhaps convenience (see our thoughts on IMH’s campaign posters). Yes, they’re all valid points.

But they’re representative of the greater societal stigma towards mental health and illnesses. It doesn’t absolve such professionals who should know better, yeah, but at the same time, perhaps it’s better to understand that not all professionals are like this. And if they are, shame on them for not being what their ethical codes and values expect them to be.  

To end, we reiterate: this article was written not to diss on coping mechanisms or undermine bad experiences with the MH sector, but to encourage people to seek help, if possible, where needed. Yes, the internet can be a big help if you DIY therapy, like by inhaling copious amounts of self-help books from the library (ask us if you want book recs), but maybe a professional’s help might help you cope better with your struggles. It obviously won’t be easy, but it’s a shot.

We just want everyone who’s struggling right now to be alright. You deserve better than just suffering in silence.  

Any more misconceptions you want answered? DM or send us an ask and we’ll add on to this write-up.

A/N: This was written as a result of conversations with mental health and social work professionals, the author's first-hand experience in a social service agency during their field placement, and their social work education. However, if there are errors, do let us know. Misinformation is the last thing we want.

Additional Notes:

Psychotherapy and Counselling greatly overlap, but a key difference in how/where they view the origin on the problem. For one, psychotherapists see pathology as originating from the person, while counselling doesn't. Here's a page that says more.  

Counsellors and social workers are similar but not the same - social workers engage in counselling sometimes if they have training, but counsellors (who are strictly trained in counselling) cannot do what social workers do, like case management and community work. However, what counsellors and social workers share is the collaborative nature of their relationship with their clients which eschews power inequalities, while the medical background of psychotherapists/psychiatrists allow them to maintain an “expert position” over their clients.

Some Counselling/Psychotherapy Approaches:

Psychodynamic Therapy

Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT)

Rational Emotive Behavioural Therapy (REBT)

Dialectical Behavioural Therapy (DBT)

Person-Centred Therapy

Motivational Interviewing (MI)

[bastardtravel]

November 25, 2017. Vienna, Austria.

There’s really no missing the Pestsäule. The 60-foot baroque monstrosity juts up out of the center of the Graben like an ornate middle finger to God. It’s actually emperor Leopold I delivering on his side of one of those pleading prayer bargains we’ve all done. Leo’s was “Please, let the plague stop. I swear I’ll build you a really dope art phallus right in the middle of the city, just stop killing everyone.”

The Plague Column is also called the Trinity Column due to its three sides, each one presumably representing some aspect of the tripartite God.

About a block away is the Stock im Eisen, or staff in iron. That’s misleading, it’s not a staff, it’s a tree trunk full of nails, kept in a tube that makes it totally immune to photography.

I did what I could. Now, you might be asking, “Why is there a protected chunk of tree, full of nails, on a street corner in Vienna?” Good question. I’d love to answer it, but it doesn’t seem like anyone can. Every website has a different interpretation of the Stock im Eisen‘s history, and the locals who were attempting to explain its significance to their visiting friends were telling conflicting stories.

Here’s what I’ve pieced together. In the Middle Ages, nail trees (Nagelbäume) were used by craftsmen, or anyone else with nails, for good luck. This particular nail tree had something to do with the Devil. There’s a ballet about it by Pasquale Borri, so if anyone more sophisticated than me can check that out and report back, I’d appreciate it.

There was a locksmith who wanted to marry his master’s daughter, or maybe he just wanted to be the greatest locksmith who ever lived. Dude shot for the stars. So he calls Mephistopheles out of Prague, who shows up on a FlixBus a few hours later. The locksmith sells his soul in exchange for just a really, fuckin’, top-notch padlock. It’s amazing. He puts that on the tree and issues challenges to either his master in exchange for his daughter’s hand in marriage, or to all the locksmiths of the world in exchange for World Locksmithing Supremacy. Since the Devil made the lock, nobody could crack it, and he lived happily ever after until he burnt in Hell. The tree remains with a lock on it to this day, and also full of nails, for some reason.

This is confirmed bullshit. They looked into the padlock and it’s empty, there’s no tumblers or anything in there. It would pop right open. Maybe that’s why the whole thing’s behind the bulletproof glass.

Well, that was most of center city, barring museums and palaces. I sidled all the way across town to the Freud Museum.

  I thought it was interesting, but Freud was what got me through college. I’d read the bulk of his debunked wackadoo theories long before I got “higher educated”, and since every class in undergrad wanted to beat both Freudian and Pavlovian dead horses as much as possible, I got to recycle the same paper, with subtle stylistic changes, something like ten times.

My favorite, bar none, was a History and Systems project where we were required to adopt the persona of our chosen theorist and have an open debate with the rest of the class. We got extra credit for accents, props, and convincing portrayal. I shaved my scruff into an approximation of his beard and showed up to class with a grape White Owl in my mouth and a baggie full of flour smeared around my nose. The only Austrian accent I’d ever heard at that point was the Terminator’s, so that was how Freud talked. I sat next to B.F. Skinner, as portrayed by a gorgeous little ghoul with dichromatic eyes, and we became a vitriolic tempest of condescending reductionism, laying waste to anyone fool enough to have chosen a humanistic or positive psychologist. The Carl Rogers surrogate got the worst flaying. I think he might still be institutionalized.

speaking of my college

hoo i heard that

Siggy’s personal necromancy cabinet. easily puts mine to shame, but the museum did keep repeating that his three great passions were “traveling, smoking, and collecting”

I laughed so hard and so inappropriately at that adorable picture of Carl Jung. Look at him go! With his little hat, and his little disapproving frown!

I love Jung, I think his work is interesting, if convoluted, arcanist rambling, but I wasn’t prepared for this. From here on out, I’m never gonna be able to think of Freud and Jung as anything but Germanic Rick and Morty.

On my way back to the hostel, I located the only grocery store in Vienna (I’d been looking) and picked up a box of juice brand named “Munter und Aktiv”. Well, I got half of that. I asked Google Translate and it said Munter means “blithely”. I recognized this as impossible. I activated my German field agent and she told me it’s a mixture between happy and awake and active. Well, we already have active. I asked the lady at the hostel desk, planning on averaging all these translations into one definitive Munter.

“It is like waking up with coffee in the morning,” she said. “Like chipper.”

“All right, thank you.”

She asked me if I still had my key card. I said I did.

“Good work,” she told me. She seemed serious, but she may have just been possessed of the Wiener Grant.

“Do people lose them a lot? Is that a big problem here?” I asked, blithely. Munterly.

“No, no problem. We don’t have problems here,” she said, then she honest to God slapped the table and shouted in the thickest, most Germanic accent I’ve ever heard, “VE HAVE ZOLUTIONS!”

She laughed after and clarified that she was just kidding, but I was deer-in-the-headlights frozen. One of those disbelieving grins, you know? When what’s going on… can’t be what’s actually going on.

I know we have a sad little Nazi party movement in America, but realistically that’s like 40 lonely dudes with bad haircuts who get way too much media coverage. In much of Europe, they seem mighty sorry for World War II. The Mahnmal in the heart of Vienna is a good indicator, but there’s more going on than monuments, culturally. The aforementioned German girl is currently crossing eastern Europe and self-inflicting a sort of guilt tour (or Schuldtour). Warsaw and Auschwitz, that I’m aware of. Die Madchen ist haunted.

(As a quick aside, I looked up the German word for ‘haunted’, and, unbelievably, it is spukt. Go ahead. Say it out loud. Spukt. This fuckin’ language, man.)

In the Athens flea market, after divulging her nationality to an antique dealer for reasons I will never understand, he rolled out a bunch of old Nazi medals.

“You want?”

She literally backpedaled, shielding her face like a tall, rigid vampire from an iron cross. But she went on to tell me that there are people back in Germany — in America, we’d call them hicks — that love that kind of thing.

The modern nationalism necessary to breed either sentiment is lost on me, but I don’t think that’s because I’m an American. I’m just not much of a joiner.

A final, weird note, and the last Hitler point I plan on making: the Indian guy told me that Hitler is sort of fondly remembered in India and China. In the course of the war, Germany did a lot of damage to Great Britain, and India is still carrying a pretty understandable grudge against their former imperial taskmasters.

I sat down and collected myself until my chronic and intractable antsiness returned, then I figured I’d go check out the craft beer bar half a mile away. I hadn’t eaten in six or seven hours, so that seemed like the ideal time. They had a Bier dem Wochen flight for the cost of a regular half-pint, so I got that. They brought me 4 beers, all from Anchor Brewing, which I learned from a hipster’s t-shirt is in San Francisco.

welp

The Steam beer must be called that because that’s what it tasted like. The stout was palatable, in a cream soda kind of way. I downed it and ordered a local imperial stout called Der Schnittenfahrt from a company called Brauwork. Hilarious though that may sound, it means “cut drive”, and washing down a flight with it on an empty stomach was perhaps ill advised.

“schnittenfahrt” tho

The bar was very excited about rugby. Ireland vs Argentina. I didn’t know who they were rooting for, but they were rooting for them with all their heart. I went to the bathroom and laughed so hard I scared a dude.

now that’s opulence

That was enough for one night. I had a bus to catch the next morning. I stumbled back to my hostel and passed out. I slept like a rock, except for at around 3 AM when I was awake just long enough to see the dude in the opposing bunk sit up like a mummy, slam his face into the wood support of the bunk over him, and release a long, low-pitched, closed-mouthed moan. It was sort of like a cow mooing, but in slow motion. Absolutely fantastic.

The next morning I threw all my stuff into my bag and wrote in the kitchen until my Brazilian DJ friend rejoined me, looking much worse for wear.

“Bunch of bastards,” he told me out of nowhere.

“Huh?”

“The club I played at,” he spat. “Didn’t pay me a DIME. Bastards. Didn’t even give me free drinks. I had four beers, and they charged me.”

I shook my head. “Animals. Well, chalk it up to experience, I guess.”

He made a vague allusion to being all about peace and love. I shook his hand, wished him well, and headed for the door.

Oh, right. The bus was to Bratislava, and hoo boy, do I got some stories for tomorrow.

    heard yo mama in the movies

Love,

The Bastard

Vienna: Phallic Fixations November 25, 2017. Vienna, Austria. There's really no missing the Pestsäule. The 60-foot baroque monstrosity juts up out of the center of the Graben like an ornate middle finger to God.