Support and Vacations

• Reintegrative shaming praised by Rich Kuyper, 1/30/97
  • (...)
    
    • Potential of the Shame-Affect Forum to Support *Systems Interventions* by c.h., 2/9/97
      
      

Chauncey,

All of the Tomkins Institute members who read here what you are doing will be in your corner. Good luck with the media. May the god of shame be kind to you.

We, too, are fighting a very large system that has for years used archaic and not very informative models of emotion. A term such as depression is a prime example. It seems to say a lot and has a great deal of research to back it up as a "valid" term. And yet we say the term depression tells you very little about what a person might be experiencing. They may have any one or more of the negative affects proposed by Tomkins. They could be chronically experiencing distress, anger, shame, disgust, dissmell, or fear. And the treatment is different depending on which negative affect dominates the clinical picture.

We are, therefore, trying to nudge the entire mental health profession and make it aware that it has missed the boat with a great deal of its research to date. These very large systems do resist change quite well. However, everywhere we teach, we encounter quite a few professionals who say to us something like: "what you have just taught me about affect and emotion has rejuvenated my thinking about my clients!"

So keep on plugging, I think you too will find there are plenty out there who are still more than willing to learn.

(I would have gotten this message to you sooner, but I have just now begun to recover from a week long bout with the flu and now I too follow Don on a brief vacation)

No Replies