Otto
08-09-2003, 11:50 AM
In article <vh8Za.2933$Ih1.1214944@newssrv26.news.prodigy.com>, Markus
<markusx14u@sbcglobal.net> wrote:
> Hint for the mentally challenged: Will power is used to first recognize the
> danger in injecting the heroin, and then to not do it. Once learned, it is
> very simple.
>
> Some more leaps of [ill] logic:
"You shouldn't believe me, you should believe the doctors
and other experts . . . They are the scientists and researchers
and doctors who are doing the research"
- 'Agent Orange'
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Chair's Address to Psychological Society Psychotherapy Section
³What I would like to do is enquire a little more closely than I think
we are often happy to do into the nature of this contradictory relation
between investigation of cause on the one hand and technique of cure on
the other.²
³A broad strategy of change for those in distress is to learn to be
different. This is not so closely identified with *any particular
approach or profession*, and probably plays a part in most. The idea
that to make differences to one's life one has to learn new strategies
and tactics of dealing, no doubt has a lot to recommend it, but the
*real problem* comes in stipulating *how* this is to be done.²
³There is the idea that people can act on insight. Various attempts
have been made to get round the fact that they *obviously can't*, the
most familiar perhaps being the idea that the important thing is not
'intellectual insight', but 'emotional insight'. However, as I've
suggested in the past, there is *no obvious reason to suppose* that
changes of heart are any more potent than changes of mind, and it is
far from clear why feeling that something needs to be done should be
any more effective than thinking that it should.²
³What is happening, is that in much psychotherapeutic thinking,
'insight' has a silent conceptual partner which is *assumed* but never
directly referred to: Œwill power¹. At the back of our minds, I
believe, we are fully paid up subscribers to what one might call the
popular philosophy of action, which goes something along the lines
that: to do something, first the alternatives are considered (the pros
and cons weighed), then a decision is made, and finally the appropriate
course of action is willed. We tend to regard the important part of
this process as the weighing of pros and cons, somehow expecting that
the rest follows on more or less automatically.²
³According to this philosophy, 'will' is regarded as a kind of
internal, semi-moral property, an in-built component of human nature.
Some people, certainly, we see as having more 'will power' than others,
but we tend to be reluctant to contemplate the idea that anybody could
have none. In this way 'will power' could be thought of as rather like
petrol, stored in a kind of moral fuel tank somewhere inside us. Even
if the tank is nearly empty (i.e. if we see somebody as having 'almost
no will of their own'), we seem to be able quite readily to entertain
the idea that it can become filled up again through an appropriate
therapeutic-type experience (for example we talk quite a bit these days
about the 'empowerment' which can be brought about through therapeutic
intervention). ³
³Although this notion seems to provide the motive power for turning
insight into action, as far as therapeutic theory is concerned it is,
as I say, silent, and this because *therapists know perfectly well*
that appealing directly to the application of 'will' is absolutely
fruitless. ... Therapy, on this kind of view, would be aimed at
clearing the path to the person's unencumbered application of will.²
"For example, I have certainly come across therapeutic talk of
'internal reserves' and patients' being able or unable to call upon
them in a way which is very strongly suggestive of fuel tanks.
Humanistic approaches in particular frequently make 'responsibility' an
absolutely central plank of their theoretical structure, and it would
be very hard to explain how someone could 'take responsibility' for
their lives or their actions without the exercise of will.²
³The problem with the concept of will is indicated in the *difficulty*
which therapists have in talking about it. But difficult though this
position may be, it is not fatally inconsistent. It could indeed be the
case that therapy is precisely about releasing or making available the
faculty of will - unblocking the line from the fuel tank if you like.
It could be that therapists don't talk much about will power only
because there isn't much point in doing so as far as clients are
concerned.²
³But there is a much more serious objection to what I suggest is our
silent subscription to the notion of will, and that is an empirical
one: there really *does not seem to be any such thing* as Œwill
power¹.²
³In our own lives we are likely to observe this only at times of acute
conflict or crisis, and most of the time - possibly all of it if we are
extraordinarily lucky - our own experience may work to convince us of
the reality of will. But clinical experience, if no other, is likely to
cast a great deal of doubt on this. Over and over again one is
confronted with people who, perhaps after a period of therapeutic
clarification, have *total insight* into the reasons for their
predicament, have weighed all the pros and cons for the desirability of
change, absolutely desperately want to do things differently, 'decide'
to take the appropriate action... and find that they are *completely
unable to*.²
³This is very frustrating for therapists, not least because they
*haven't developed the theoretical equipment to deal with it and so
cannot really understand* why people should find it apparently so
impossible to make what seem to the outsider to be relatively simple
changes to their lives. As we all know, the likely outcome of
frustration is aggression, and it is *not uncommon* for therapists
faced with patients who cannot change to resort to imputations of
'resistance', derogatory diagnostic formulations about 'inadequate
personalities' etc., and even to get quite ratty with them - insisting
on punitive clauses in 'contracts', etc., etc.²
³All in all, I think it's difficult to escape recognition of the fact
that 'will' is *not* really a viable psychological concept. However
indispensable it may be for the daily conduct of our relations with
each other from a moral point of view, it does not really serve to give
a coherent account of the way people effect changes in their lives,
even when they have full insight into their motives and are truly
desirous of making the necessary changes. To say that there is no such
thing as 'will power', which I would be inclined to do in an
unashamedly positivist manner, is not, however, to say that the concept
is meaningless. Obviously, we all know very well what we mean by it,
and it has perfectly proper uses in our everyday parlance. But it
cannot be used as a Œscientific concept¹: for a psychologist to refer
to 'will' as the reason for someone's doing or not doing something has
no explanatory value whatsoever.²
--
"There are types entirely normal in every respect except in the effect alcohol
has upon them. They are often able, intelligent, friendly people." Dr.
Silkworth
<markusx14u@sbcglobal.net> wrote:
> Hint for the mentally challenged: Will power is used to first recognize the
> danger in injecting the heroin, and then to not do it. Once learned, it is
> very simple.
>
> Some more leaps of [ill] logic:
"You shouldn't believe me, you should believe the doctors
and other experts . . . They are the scientists and researchers
and doctors who are doing the research"
- 'Agent Orange'
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Chair's Address to Psychological Society Psychotherapy Section
³What I would like to do is enquire a little more closely than I think
we are often happy to do into the nature of this contradictory relation
between investigation of cause on the one hand and technique of cure on
the other.²
³A broad strategy of change for those in distress is to learn to be
different. This is not so closely identified with *any particular
approach or profession*, and probably plays a part in most. The idea
that to make differences to one's life one has to learn new strategies
and tactics of dealing, no doubt has a lot to recommend it, but the
*real problem* comes in stipulating *how* this is to be done.²
³There is the idea that people can act on insight. Various attempts
have been made to get round the fact that they *obviously can't*, the
most familiar perhaps being the idea that the important thing is not
'intellectual insight', but 'emotional insight'. However, as I've
suggested in the past, there is *no obvious reason to suppose* that
changes of heart are any more potent than changes of mind, and it is
far from clear why feeling that something needs to be done should be
any more effective than thinking that it should.²
³What is happening, is that in much psychotherapeutic thinking,
'insight' has a silent conceptual partner which is *assumed* but never
directly referred to: Œwill power¹. At the back of our minds, I
believe, we are fully paid up subscribers to what one might call the
popular philosophy of action, which goes something along the lines
that: to do something, first the alternatives are considered (the pros
and cons weighed), then a decision is made, and finally the appropriate
course of action is willed. We tend to regard the important part of
this process as the weighing of pros and cons, somehow expecting that
the rest follows on more or less automatically.²
³According to this philosophy, 'will' is regarded as a kind of
internal, semi-moral property, an in-built component of human nature.
Some people, certainly, we see as having more 'will power' than others,
but we tend to be reluctant to contemplate the idea that anybody could
have none. In this way 'will power' could be thought of as rather like
petrol, stored in a kind of moral fuel tank somewhere inside us. Even
if the tank is nearly empty (i.e. if we see somebody as having 'almost
no will of their own'), we seem to be able quite readily to entertain
the idea that it can become filled up again through an appropriate
therapeutic-type experience (for example we talk quite a bit these days
about the 'empowerment' which can be brought about through therapeutic
intervention). ³
³Although this notion seems to provide the motive power for turning
insight into action, as far as therapeutic theory is concerned it is,
as I say, silent, and this because *therapists know perfectly well*
that appealing directly to the application of 'will' is absolutely
fruitless. ... Therapy, on this kind of view, would be aimed at
clearing the path to the person's unencumbered application of will.²
"For example, I have certainly come across therapeutic talk of
'internal reserves' and patients' being able or unable to call upon
them in a way which is very strongly suggestive of fuel tanks.
Humanistic approaches in particular frequently make 'responsibility' an
absolutely central plank of their theoretical structure, and it would
be very hard to explain how someone could 'take responsibility' for
their lives or their actions without the exercise of will.²
³The problem with the concept of will is indicated in the *difficulty*
which therapists have in talking about it. But difficult though this
position may be, it is not fatally inconsistent. It could indeed be the
case that therapy is precisely about releasing or making available the
faculty of will - unblocking the line from the fuel tank if you like.
It could be that therapists don't talk much about will power only
because there isn't much point in doing so as far as clients are
concerned.²
³But there is a much more serious objection to what I suggest is our
silent subscription to the notion of will, and that is an empirical
one: there really *does not seem to be any such thing* as Œwill
power¹.²
³In our own lives we are likely to observe this only at times of acute
conflict or crisis, and most of the time - possibly all of it if we are
extraordinarily lucky - our own experience may work to convince us of
the reality of will. But clinical experience, if no other, is likely to
cast a great deal of doubt on this. Over and over again one is
confronted with people who, perhaps after a period of therapeutic
clarification, have *total insight* into the reasons for their
predicament, have weighed all the pros and cons for the desirability of
change, absolutely desperately want to do things differently, 'decide'
to take the appropriate action... and find that they are *completely
unable to*.²
³This is very frustrating for therapists, not least because they
*haven't developed the theoretical equipment to deal with it and so
cannot really understand* why people should find it apparently so
impossible to make what seem to the outsider to be relatively simple
changes to their lives. As we all know, the likely outcome of
frustration is aggression, and it is *not uncommon* for therapists
faced with patients who cannot change to resort to imputations of
'resistance', derogatory diagnostic formulations about 'inadequate
personalities' etc., and even to get quite ratty with them - insisting
on punitive clauses in 'contracts', etc., etc.²
³All in all, I think it's difficult to escape recognition of the fact
that 'will' is *not* really a viable psychological concept. However
indispensable it may be for the daily conduct of our relations with
each other from a moral point of view, it does not really serve to give
a coherent account of the way people effect changes in their lives,
even when they have full insight into their motives and are truly
desirous of making the necessary changes. To say that there is no such
thing as 'will power', which I would be inclined to do in an
unashamedly positivist manner, is not, however, to say that the concept
is meaningless. Obviously, we all know very well what we mean by it,
and it has perfectly proper uses in our everyday parlance. But it
cannot be used as a Œscientific concept¹: for a psychologist to refer
to 'will' as the reason for someone's doing or not doing something has
no explanatory value whatsoever.²
--
"There are types entirely normal in every respect except in the effect alcohol
has upon them. They are often able, intelligent, friendly people." Dr.
Silkworth