Different Ways to Think About It?

• A Favor-----Please by Doug W., 12/5/98
  • Epilogue by Vic Comello, 2/5/99
    
    

Vic- I must apologize for my untimely response to you- I have been overwhelmed with the volume and detailed analysis you have provided us with. I didn't know where to begin to respond. So I thank you for providing me with an easy access point to respond. I think we agree much more than not and I know you appreciate our theory. I am going to pick up on a few of your recent thoughts and share my views on them. I will try to respond quicker in the future and welcome comments and questions from all of you out there reading this (we know that ~500 read these last entrees!)

Your 1st point: "Agreement to an extent: I believe that pathogenic beliefs can arise from traumatic childhood experiences and from mistaken impressions that a child is led to, but I also believe that innocent beliefs can become pathogenic on a situation basis. For example, Kathy’s belief that she was untalented, uncreative, and unworthy of special interest arose directly from the traumatic parental indifference and neglect she received as a child. "

Vic- this is in fact a pathogenic belief that a CM therapist would mention in a case history, we refer to theses as strain traumas which occur on a ongoing basis across a person's life to differentiate them from a specific trauma from an event.

2nd-"Kathy wasn’t inhibited by guilt. She felt guilty precisely because she had the freedom to undertake growth initiatives, despite the guilt they would generate. Just because guilt can be found doesn’t necessarily make it an operative factor in a person’s behavior. What was operative with Kathy was her anger with her parents’ treatment of her."

Vic this is a place where we might disagree- we think that if Kathy was simply motivated by her anger and comfortable having and expressing it she would have been able to move forward on her own. It is her guilt over having these feelings and her fears about the potential consequences of her anger that inhibits her pursuit of normal developmental goals. That is not to say that one's anger could not also be problematic.

3rd- "What stopped Kathy in her tracks were conflicting motives brought upon, in part, by two situational pathogenic beliefs, probably derived from her mother. One was that it’s not possible to be a career woman and a good mother at the same time, that there’s an irreconcilable conflict between the two. I call this situational because it would not have caused Kathy problems if she had no career aspirations aside from being a mother. Another situational pathogenic belief arose from her identification with her parents, particularly her mother, which led her to believe that the kind of life her parents had was the only life that was open to her--her kind of person did not write books or short stories or have artistic ambitions. Again, this would not have caused a problem if her only goal in life was being a better mother than hers was."

Here I would agree with these ideas but add that it is her quilt over lessening her identification with her mother that is interfering, it is situational in that in a different family where a parent offered a different role model or made room for the child to lead a different life from the parent, a child would not have developed theses particular set of beliefs.

4th-"Disagreement to an extent: Pathogenic beliefs are only one factor in a person’s psychopathology, yet they are apparently all CMT talks about."

We focus on them because they are the culmination of how one understands one's experiences and theses beliefs are the road maps the one uses to interpret the world. They have within them so many different fears and anxieties that are collapsed into theses complicated beliefs. 5th-"Kathy’s therapist took the time to show Kathy how to teach her son to get on with his life despite his father’s refusal to recover from his depression. I must think that she did this in part because she recognized that Kathy suffered from the same syndrome. By showing her how to help her son, her therapist showed Kathy how to free herself from a debilitating behavioral tendency she picked up from her family. Although this was portrayed as arising from guilt related to her brother’s death, I believe the tendency arose much earlier as a matter of pure imitation.'

Here we would agree that Polly was helping Kathy to feel free to loosen her identifications with her depressed family, but we would believe that they were held in place by both need and guilt.

6th-"Another thing missing in CMT is a concept of dynamics."

Here I do not understand your point. We agree that Kathy's father's interest was an important contribution to her having some idea that she could achieve success. When a child has no encouragement inside or outside the home the consequences are very dire but what does the word dynamics mean here? I think we have a strong concept of dynamics which is incorporated into pathogenic beliefs. It is in combination with one's dynamics that beliefs are formed.

Again thanks for all of your careful analysis. I wish you would join us ( all others are welcome too) in the first week of March when we take a week off to simply interact, talk and teach people interested in our theories!

• Words by Vic Comello, 2/9/99
• Give up! by Vic Comello, 2/9/99