It was interesting to re-read this article 2 years later. It reminds me that I am generally working with a unique subset of the population, which is not fully representative of human psychology. That being said, I believe this article is misleading in important ways, which should be clarified. The article focused too much on class, and it is hard to see it as anything but classist. While I wrote an addendum at the end, this really should have been incorporated into the entire article and not tacked on, as the conclusions one would reach without it are quite different. I believe I didn’t incorporate it largely because I am not a strong writer and didn’t know how to do this in an elegant way without losing my other points.
This article needed some discussion of internal vs external locus of control. My current clients have a strong sense that they have control over their lives. This leads to attempting more actions to change their situations but also internalizing their failures. The population at the Medicaid clinic feel that they and in fact do have less control over their lives. This is an important thing to point out. I had one older minority client who basically described a lifetime of being buffeted about by various government policy changes and oppressive interference in her life for the last several decades. She suffered many tragedies that were not within her control.
I believe I also over-simplified the psychology of both my current and former patients for clarity. The majority of clients who come to me do want medication. I do see people struggling with past traumas and current situations which are out of their control. I definitely saw people at the Medicaid clinic suffering from identity crises. Money was not absent from the concerns of people on government assistance. I still think the spirit of my comparisons is accurate, but the oversimplifications are dangerous, and I’m not certain that the greater point was worth the confusion.
I still believe the conclusion that struggling to hold onto identity leads to great human suffering. It is not a simple problem to solve, nor necessarily one that should be fully solved. I will leave that to others to debate. I do spend a lot of time working with people on examining their expectations of themselves, where they come from, and whether holding themselves to these standards leads to anything positive in anyone’s life.
It was interesting to re-read this article 2 years later. It reminds me that I am generally working with a unique subset of the population, which is not fully representative of human psychology. That being said, I believe this article is misleading in important ways, which should be clarified. The article focused too much on class, and it is hard to see it as anything but classist. While I wrote an addendum at the end, this really should have been incorporated into the entire article and not tacked on, as the conclusions one would reach without it are quite different. I believe I didn’t incorporate it largely because I am not a strong writer and didn’t know how to do this in an elegant way without losing my other points.
This article needed some discussion of internal vs external locus of control. My current clients have a strong sense that they have control over their lives. This leads to attempting more actions to change their situations but also internalizing their failures. The population at the Medicaid clinic feel that they and in fact do have less control over their lives. This is an important thing to point out. I had one older minority client who basically described a lifetime of being buffeted about by various government policy changes and oppressive interference in her life for the last several decades. She suffered many tragedies that were not within her control.
I believe I also over-simplified the psychology of both my current and former patients for clarity. The majority of clients who come to me do want medication. I do see people struggling with past traumas and current situations which are out of their control. I definitely saw people at the Medicaid clinic suffering from identity crises. Money was not absent from the concerns of people on government assistance. I still think the spirit of my comparisons is accurate, but the oversimplifications are dangerous, and I’m not certain that the greater point was worth the confusion.
I still believe the conclusion that struggling to hold onto identity leads to great human suffering. It is not a simple problem to solve, nor necessarily one that should be fully solved. I will leave that to others to debate. I do spend a lot of time working with people on examining their expectations of themselves, where they come from, and whether holding themselves to these standards leads to anything positive in anyone’s life.