"... Carl Rogers, Frederick Perls, and Albert Ellis. The film was produced and narrated by the psychologist Everett L. Shostrum, who was Szymanski’s personal therapist and who recruited her for this starring role.... 'He told Gloria that the films would only be used in schools and colleges to teach psychology students so imagine her surprise then when making her breakfast pancakes a year or so later to see her interview with Dr. Perls on TV and then she found out that the films were going to be shown in full in movie theatres all over the country.'... She talks, with frankness and charm, about her daddy issues and her pinings for smart, authoritative men. If not for the clinical setting and the disapproving gaze of the therapists, her desires would seem normal—which, of course, they are...."
From "Gender Critique Meets Lewd Spectacle in 'The Patient Gloria'/Gina Moxley’s play examines the sexual and behavioral strictures on women through the lens of psychotherapy circa 1964" (The New Yorker).
Even as disease could be perceived as health — see the first post of today — health could be perceived as disease.
ADDED: I believe it is a terrible invasion of privacy, but nevertheless, I found the original film on YouTube, so I present it here:
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15 comments:
health could be perceived as disease
Don't we see a lot of that in pro-choice propaganda?
Pregnancy bad, pregnancy dangerous, pregnancy abnormal, pregnancy risky, etc. etc.
The whole idea of "elective" surgery is a violation of the Hippocratic Oath. You might as well charge money to give people Spock ears, if you're just doing surgeries for money without regard to the practice of healing, you're not a doctor.
Choice rhetoric is libertarian rhetoric, but it's also deeply corrupting for doctors who aren't healing anybody. Yes?
Note that psychotherapy in the 1960s was the domain of urban, bored, and anxious upscale women. Think of the NYC "Karens" of that era, and those who today would be sucked into social media. These old forms of therapy were sometimes scientifically...dubious...as many of the guru doctors put out complex and arcane ideas...not focused on data, behavior, or broad populations... It made sense at the time to nervous, lonely, wealthy, highly-educated people who wanted to chat.
The more you learn about psychotherapy the more issues arise.
Freudian analysis is one of the greatest hoaxes ever perpetrated on the public by the elites of Weimar America, which is saying something. Countless families were damaged by it, particularly the blame it laid on good mothers for the faults of their children. All of society was weakened by the way its unscientific just-so stories were picked up as weapons in the cultural war to remake American civilization into something our ancestors would have regarded as the greatest horror on the planet.
There's a fair amount of subjectivity in mental illness/mental health. It's basically whatever society says it is. Which is why it changes so much generation to generation.
I'm curious to know what Gloria did/could do about the betrayal. I half expected this tale to end in her suicide from the humiliation.
From what I have seen, therapy cures nothing but does supply a continuous stream of funds into the therapist’s pockets. Once one enters the psychological-industrial complex, one never leaves.
Of course my sample size is small, 4 people ( 2 family and 2 acquaintances) but in all, the therapy has lasted for decades. Plus, each new therapist offers a different treatment name and ray of hope that quickly gets extinguished and leads to a different therapist.
It seems similar to anti depression drugs. Once you start you can’t stop.
Sometimes a person is depressed for good reason and the solution lies in working through the cause and not just masking the effect.
The truth is that we are all mentally in some manner. Most of us work through it and become functional and productive anyway.
Michael Walsh calls psychiatry Viennese Voodoo. This is just another example of why he does.
She is seeking to be freed from the straight jacket and chastity belt ingrained in her psyche via that evil Middle Eastern Christian guilt cult. I like how the therapist is forcing her to figure it out herself rather than to dictate and coerce.
It's very easy to understand why you primitive people find this type of talk therapy evil. That's okay just stuff a few more happy meals down your face have a couple of safe and sane legal cocktails and Chase it down with the Xanax. When you find your turning get bacteria protesting within the colon, just pop an Ambien because that's what Jesus would do.
I read the article, but have not yet seen the movie. Those were some big names in psychotherapy. There were lots of people who thought that Rogers and Perls really had a handle on what was wrong with us. Their books sold well. I forget what Gestalt Therapy was, but I remember that hip people were really into it....I wonder if any possible lesson can be learned from her example with these therapists and the counselling that trans teens receive?
Howard- your second paragraph is easily the stupidest, most pompous thing you have ever written and you have set a very high bar for that statement. You know nothing about the personal lives of anyone on this site other than what they have decided to reveal here. My guess, no my certainty, is that many of them have a much higher level of sophistication, intelligence and societal responsibility than you yet you call them primitive.
What the hell is Middle Eastern Christian guilt?
You are like one of those ex-radical retired Penn professors I run into in my social circle who start the conversation by telling me about their anti-war bravery in the 60's and then slink away when I tell them that is great, now let me tell you about my two combat tours of duty in 'Nam.
Your comment comes across like it was made by a small many who wants to appear large.
Freud has turned out to be a false prophet. Most of his theories are more plausible than actually true. From what I've read he and his followers in Vienna were more like a cult than a scientific movement....That said, as false prophets go, he wasn't particularly pernicious and he may even have benefited humanity to some extent. Sexuality wasn't quite such a taboo subject due to his efforts. I don't think Freudian analysis ever actually cured anyone, but the belief that it might gave some people hope.
All's fair in lust, abortion, and secular cults.
Ouch! That really flays me to the bone. Goodness, they're going to cut off my leather elbow patches. I see my snowflake detector is tuned up, Jeff. People reveal themselves plenty in Dr. Ann's little shop of triggers.
Freud wasn't necessarily wrong about everything but the cult he created was disastrous. He loved laying down dogmas and his followers loved following them.
What's striking here is that Perls, the Gestalt therapist, Rogers, the humanist psychologist, and Ellis, the Rational Emotive therapist, were supposed to have broken with Freud and improved on his thinking, and they turned out not to be any more decent or ethical or honorable than older psychoanalysts and behaviorists or newer pharmaceutical professionals have been.
In some cases, therapy just gives reasons to do what one wants to do anyway.
I do my thing and you do your thing.
I am not in this world to live up to your expectations,
and you are not in this world to live up to mine.
You are you, and I am I,
and if by chance we find each other, it's beautiful.
If not, it can't be helped.
— Fritz Perls, Gestalt Therapy Verbatim, 1969
Professional ethics are widely abused in the psychotherapy world. And I say that as Dr. CFADA, 30 years experience.
I watched the "Gloria" tape as an undergrad in the early 70's.
It convinced me that Albert Ellis was the way to go as a Psych major.
I still have a great deal of respect for Ellis' work, not so much for Rogers and Perls.
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