Hi Gregg,
I'll provide a fuller response later, but just to clarify:
- A genealogical critique is not limited to developmental antecedents.
- The primary concern is with justifications as cultural systems, with
their own complex history (that may stretch back centuries).
- Admittedly, a lesson in history may not be especially helpful to
persons in states of extreme distress.
- However, justifications can be reconsidered as relational constructs,
emerging from dynamic interplay of person and culture.
- As justifications are revealed as historically contingent, they are
effectively disarmed.
- To employ an example from your article: I might say “*It doesn’t
matter what I do, the end result is always a failure*.”
- This statement, considered as a thought, can certainly be
analyzed. Moreover, it is possible to demonstrate that it is patently
false, i.e., there *is* a relationship between behavior and
consequence. As such, we are tempted to believe that our primary
challenge is to help people *choose better thoughts. * e.g., "It
seems I consistently don’t get the results I want. I wonder
if I should
learn a new approach.”
- This approach meshes well with (and effectively reinforces)
cultural justification systems that establish an
autonomous, self-contained
individual (cf. Sampson, 1988
<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__psycnet.apa.org_record_1988-2D16899-2D001&d=DwIFaQ&c=eLbWYnpnzycBCgmb7vCI4uqNEB9RSjOdn_5nBEmmeq0&r=HPo1IXYDhKClogP-UOpybo6Cfxxz-jIYBgjO2gOz4-A&m=QSa0RgPY3vXmOZIE9-AnZLnoXaJYkNgpCAcFCu8A1xA&s=wXMKjnCCfyXuUcDPitnVVq95jm6O9mGilNVwXAdrDyo&e= >) free to pass
judgment on *this* or *that* belief system.
- As I mentioned in a previous message, I understand that it
may be appropriate to perpetuate this myth on occasion.
- But we should recognize that justification systems *choose us* even
as we subject a few token systems to critical scrutiny. So,
in addition to
analyzing *this* or *that* justification, we should be asking: *How
did this justification system come to be in the first place*, and *why
did it choose me*?
- To return to the example, I might ask: *whose interests does
it serve* for me to believe that there is no relationship
between behavior and its consequences?
- For some reason, I'm reminded of recent listserv
discussions of the law of attraction, which seems to reflect the
opposite belief: "I can have whatever I want if I put
my mind to it." But
this too should be subjected to a genealogical
critique. It's not enough
to demonstrate that it's false (and to encourage such
magical thinkers to *choose
better beliefs*). Rather, it needs to be shown for what it
is: a "just world" ideology that serves certain interests.
- My point here is not that we shouldn't subject justification
systems to critical scrutiny. Rather, we need to view them holistically,
as embedded in a constellation of other beliefs that themselves have a long
history. Moreover, there is no archimedean perch from which we can view
all the choices available to us, as if we were in a Justification grocery
store. And, to continue with this shopping metaphor: We are as
much the *product
*of our justification systems as are the buyers. CBT, it seems to me,
is a psychology of the (self-contained) consumer. And it promotes this
mythology even as it helps people adopt less "rigid" justifications.
~ Steve Q.
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