Steve,

  Great points. Indeed, as I read this I saw in it much of the reason I am seriously considering giving up my license to practice as a clinical psychologist. The reason is that we do not need to cloister techniques into some professional language and context, but rather yoke them to commonsense and update our shared understanding.

  Indeed, the real issue, at the macro-cultural values-ontology level is that we need to engage in a great reset regarding how we think about matter and mind and science and society. I am here to tell folks that, although it has much glory and fascinating things to say, American Psychology is intellectually corrupt. It is based on a bad/confused metaphysics, faulty ontology/ontic reality, questionable epistemology, and absent ethics. It produces a hodgepodge of findings and insights but no coherent philosophy of life that is grounded in both natural science and the wisdom traditions. And yet the profession has been launched into the role of “secular priests” to declare what is mentally healthy and what is not. But it completely lacks the philosophical “chops” to really deal with this question.

  Thus we need a new metapsychology that shines the light on a shallow, bankrupt empiricism that is good at producing sandcastles out of analyses of variance, but not at producing a clear coherent philosophy of living that is up to the task of guiding people toward wise living and a shared wisdom commons in the 21st Century.

G

From: tree of knowledge system discussion <[log in to unmask]> On Behalf Of Steven Quackenbush
Sent: Tuesday, February 16, 2021 8:52 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: TOK Three C Method for Healthier Justifications

CAUTION: This email originated from outside of JMU. Do not click links or open attachments unless you recognize the sender and know the content is safe.
________________________________
Hi Gregg,

A few additional thoughts:

  *   There is a rationality reflected in many of your statements that simply can't be disputed.

     *   e.g., How can I deny that "getting super upset with a B+ seems to be a rigid, maladaptive belief system"?

  *   But rationality of this sort hardly needs psychology to come to its defense (whether CBT or anything else).  I can learn such lessons by reading The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin.
  *   The significance of CBT (and every other treatment) lies in its methods. i.e., How do we foster change?  It is here that CBT is ideologically loaded.  This is why I said that "I've always found CBT to be an odd mix of truth (e.g., the identification of logical fallacies) and mythology (e.g., a consideration of the human mind as a constellation of discrete, individually manageable "cognitions")".
  *   So, the question for me is: "What happens when psychologists (e.g., CBT therapists) speak in the name of Reason?"
  *   As I think we agree, the field of psychology is infected by bad ontology.  This is the reason we need to rethink everything from the ground up (e.g., the ToK and the Garden).
  *   But a bad ontology is not simply an academic problem.  It may well infect everyone it comes into contact with.  So clients in CBT therapy are at risk of being infected by the ontological commitments of their therapists (e.g., the self-contained individualism described by Edward Sampson), and this is especially true if the treatment works!
Steve Q.


On Tue, Feb 16, 2021 at 6:20 PM Steven Quackenbush <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>> wrote:
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=DwMFaQ&c=eLbWYnpnzycBCgmb7vCI4uqNEB9RSjOdn_5nBEmmeq0&r=HPo1IXYDhKClogP-UOpybo6Cfxxz-jIYBgjO2gOz4-A&m=LPc-OW15p_sA99S-IrIZq_2xwhgMekyhLY_BdaV2dfE&s=2LtBd7jJQ-RpqwWgwaidhSByOWXwShfWZHeOrI_9X2c&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.

############################

To unsubscribe from the TOK-SOCIETY-L list: write to: mailto:[log in to unmask]<mailto:mailto:[log in to unmask]> or click the following link: http://listserv.jmu.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=TOK-SOCIETY-L&A=1

############################

To unsubscribe from the TOK-SOCIETY-L list:
write to: mailto:[log in to unmask]
or click the following link:
http://listserv.jmu.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=TOK-SOCIETY-L&A=1