The essay’s strongest move is identifying the cost of removing character from psychotherapy. Once therapy becomes organized almost entirely around distress reduction, symptom management, and subjective well-being, it loses some of its vocabulary for asking whether a person is becoming more capable of living well with other people.
I’d push one part further: the problem is not merely that modern psychotherapy abandoned virtue language. It is that description gradually displaced development. We became increasingly sophisticated at naming what is happening to a person while becoming more hesitant to ask what that person is becoming.
Wonderful article. It speaks well to the fact that the art of therapy seems it must always answer to the science of therapy. A fair point since we need to verify that what therapy does is effective, but the need to prove seems ravenous and the need to operationalize is incessant. Character has been sheared off to make a sleeker, more aerodynamic version of care, but I'm not sure if it's actually addressing the issues it needs to.
The DSM-V is not a Bible. It is a manual that provides shorthand descriptions of conditions so that providers can communicate with each other and insurance companies can be appeased. (Add in an ICD-10 code for good measure.)
There is no talk of character in psychotherapy because character is no longer in vogue. Yet we keep hearing more and more about 'moral injury.' How about that.
Evolutionary psychology has really done a number. I think reflecting on why it is favourable to be moral or not Machiavellian is something to encourage in people. You can't have a society when everyone is trying to cheat everyone.
It always rubbed me the wrong way, especially in therapy groups, when something that is exploitative and harmful is being glossed over because the client doesn't want to look at that. Of course it doesn't. It also creates this false expectation, that somehow the therapeutical space is a safe space, with no boundaries around what's harmful, and if someone doesn't agree with you or worse, *gasps, confronts you, they are a bad mental health provider. It doesn't benefit anyone involved.
Wednesday greetings Fox 🤗 you are making so much sense, you have passed along vital information and insights that are important for me to know and share with a family member who struggles with all the above.
He can’t handle the term or the truth that he has a “mental illness” I have a starting point now for helping him understand what he has always struggled with. He tried therapy and says that it doesn’t help, I think he hasn’t found the right therapist and he has given up on therapy. He was diagnosed with dyslexia back in the early 80’s and on the autistic spectrum and never gotten help.
The couple of therapist he talked with were female and I really don’t believe they understand male dynamics, unfortunately we have a lack of male therapists in our area. Bless you dear Jeremy have a beautiful afternoon ✌️&💛Geraldine
My article explains that diagnostic categories and nosology alone cannot dictate human morality nor can it confer human dignity. I go to on to make recommendations within the article about therapies which offer some advantage in developing a rich interior life.
Yes, but “behavioral health” does not always attribute causality or offer prescriptive aid for character development. “Just validate yourself” does not help someone with vulnerable/fragile narcissism, for example. That person needs to actually encounter empathy for others and find a mission in life that directs his/her attention outward, and that sort of interior work is lacking in much of today’s psychotherapist training and treatment conceptualization.
The essay’s strongest move is identifying the cost of removing character from psychotherapy. Once therapy becomes organized almost entirely around distress reduction, symptom management, and subjective well-being, it loses some of its vocabulary for asking whether a person is becoming more capable of living well with other people.
I’d push one part further: the problem is not merely that modern psychotherapy abandoned virtue language. It is that description gradually displaced development. We became increasingly sophisticated at naming what is happening to a person while becoming more hesitant to ask what that person is becoming.
Yes, we’ve created treatment in a passive voice, removing the active voice of development
Wonderful article. It speaks well to the fact that the art of therapy seems it must always answer to the science of therapy. A fair point since we need to verify that what therapy does is effective, but the need to prove seems ravenous and the need to operationalize is incessant. Character has been sheared off to make a sleeker, more aerodynamic version of care, but I'm not sure if it's actually addressing the issues it needs to.
So well-said.
Thank you so much, that means a lot
The DSM-V is not a Bible. It is a manual that provides shorthand descriptions of conditions so that providers can communicate with each other and insurance companies can be appeased. (Add in an ICD-10 code for good measure.)
There is no talk of character in psychotherapy because character is no longer in vogue. Yet we keep hearing more and more about 'moral injury.' How about that.
"validation vendors" is a good term.
Evolutionary psychology has really done a number. I think reflecting on why it is favourable to be moral or not Machiavellian is something to encourage in people. You can't have a society when everyone is trying to cheat everyone.
It always rubbed me the wrong way, especially in therapy groups, when something that is exploitative and harmful is being glossed over because the client doesn't want to look at that. Of course it doesn't. It also creates this false expectation, that somehow the therapeutical space is a safe space, with no boundaries around what's harmful, and if someone doesn't agree with you or worse, *gasps, confronts you, they are a bad mental health provider. It doesn't benefit anyone involved.
Wednesday greetings Fox 🤗 you are making so much sense, you have passed along vital information and insights that are important for me to know and share with a family member who struggles with all the above.
He can’t handle the term or the truth that he has a “mental illness” I have a starting point now for helping him understand what he has always struggled with. He tried therapy and says that it doesn’t help, I think he hasn’t found the right therapist and he has given up on therapy. He was diagnosed with dyslexia back in the early 80’s and on the autistic spectrum and never gotten help.
The couple of therapist he talked with were female and I really don’t believe they understand male dynamics, unfortunately we have a lack of male therapists in our area. Bless you dear Jeremy have a beautiful afternoon ✌️&💛Geraldine
please say more ..very confusing statement. I am a therapist of 40 years and not sure if you emant what i am thinking.
My article explains that diagnostic categories and nosology alone cannot dictate human morality nor can it confer human dignity. I go to on to make recommendations within the article about therapies which offer some advantage in developing a rich interior life.
The therapy world has always accounted for the interior life.
Yes, but “behavioral health” does not always attribute causality or offer prescriptive aid for character development. “Just validate yourself” does not help someone with vulnerable/fragile narcissism, for example. That person needs to actually encounter empathy for others and find a mission in life that directs his/her attention outward, and that sort of interior work is lacking in much of today’s psychotherapist training and treatment conceptualization.