Psychological Suffering - Week 6

 

          The other day in my Psychological Suffering class we discussed what some people refer to as the cliff-hospital model of therapy.  In this model, everybody is standing on a cliff, some closer to the edge than others.  Sometimes something causes them to step too close to the edge, or they break; they fall or they jump from the ledge of the cliff.  At the bottom of the cliff there is a hospital, a resource for healing.  The solution or outcome based therapeutic model (referenced here) suggests that we should focus our attention on building more hospitals and graveyards at the bottom of the hill because people will inevitably fall / jump from the cliff.  The solution-based model of therapy critiques past-oriented models (such as psychoanalysis) for its lengthy process.  However, here are a few ideas to chew on.

In support of past-oriented therapy - Life's events do not occur inside a vacuum.  They take place in context.  Everything is subject to its context, particularly when such things are conveyed second-hand from one person to another (i.e. client to therapist).  The context of certain events is paramount to understanding and developing future "solutions" or at least plans of action.

In critique of past-oriented therapy - Focusing on why people are falling / jumping (keep in mind that there is a vast difference between the two) is all well and good.  It may help prevent future persons from jumping or falling off the cliff.  There is one problem.  While our attention is focused on a "sampling" other people are still falling and jumping.  Past-orientation is time consuming and while that time is being consumed catastrophic consequences are developing.

          Now, back to the class discussion.  The point of the discussion in class was not to bicker about philosophical ideologies of therapeutic practice.  It was, however, to present some different ideas and cast a view of the landscape that we, as future professionals in the field, will be working with.  When class was over, I was the last person to leave the room as I had nowhere in particular to be immediately afterwards.  As I walked past the chalkboard with illustrations of this theory draw on on it I had to stop and think for a moment.  Something was missing from it.  Someone had drawn a cliff on the far left with people standing on top of it, a person falling off the cliff, and a hospital pictured to the right of the cliff.  Coincidentally the picture(s) only took up about a 2/3 of the board.  I picked up a piece of chalk and sketched a hill to the right of the hospital.  On the hill I drew a person, and in front of the person, a large circle.  As I was leaving the classroom, our professor poked his head out of his office (having heard my footsteps I suspect).  I said to him; "I felt the need to add something to our drawing", and continued down the hall. He said; "Oh?!", and trotted back to the classroom with an excited curiosity   He looked at the board, then back down the hall, ( I was taking my time to observe his response), and he said, "Nice!"
          So, I'd like to add something to the pictures at the top of this post and to the "cliff-hospital" model.

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