Opraholicism*

I picked up this 2007 book in the bargain bin and liked it.

I'd like the people of this country to get out of the Age of Oprah.  The feely-wheely, victimized,  avoidance of responsibility is killing us.  There is whole industry of excuse making ready to explain why you can't deal with life, not to mention the government and legal renumeration to help you continue in your trauma.  All under the guise of bottomless empathy, always understanding your bad behavior, never listening to your lies.  Absolutely, never holding you accountable for your words, action or deeds.

Before the Age of Oprah, there was a decade of Assertiveness Training. 'Ass' being the same root as Asshole.  While presented to pull shy people out of their shell or being comfortable with body image, it was hijacked by Corporate America in order to pump up the bottom line, people be damned, it is money that counts.  It worked, the workplace became a bunch of assholes, all assertive, and all soul crushing.

The human wreckage that this caused were welcomed into the arms of Oprah.  All the New Age HooHa, Secret fairy dust, delving deeply into your emotions and reliving your pain, again and again, sharing always sharing, everyday she was there for the wronged.  Except she didn't provide any real solutions, only short term comfort and entertainment.  All fluff, no real stuff.

 

This book doesn't really cover anything about Oprah, the previous paragraphs are my rant.  It does cover well the PTSD diagnosis first applied to the Vietnam vets and later to any old memory contrived or not.  Disability payments are an incentive to someone that can't hold a job and has alcohol or drug issues.  There was only a small percentage of soldiers that saw actual combat experiencing fatigue, yet thousands collecting PTSD disability.  Not politically correct to say, but no one wants to deal with facts, only emotions, in this country.

The grief counselors industry was analysed coming to a conclusion, as I read it, as a complete fraud.  Ravenous do-gooders, at best, or cynical oppurtunists at worst.  Or, as I see most people in these staged bad made-for-tv production of social crisis, enablers and players in the script.  People turn out to be very resiliant in the long run.  We are not as weak as modern psychology wants us to be.  And stay off their mind bending drugs.

There will always be people that need help.  I don't want to, nor do the authors want to,  dismiss real problems.  It is time to throw off Therapism and Man Up or Woman Up, Find your backbone, Quit blaming, shaming and complaining.  Take responsibility for the words coming out of your mouth, your emotional abuse delivered and help someone who truly needs help.

https://www.amazon.com/One-Nation-Under-Therapy-Self-Reliance-ebook/dp/B003J48BO6/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=one+nation+under+therapy&qid=1551745324&s=books&sr=1-1-catcorr

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2019/10/psychotherapism_the_mother_of_wokedom.html

Stress Advice*

This is what I have learned:

Therapy Begins:

1) You are stressed out because you are spiritually dead. Read books

about larger questions, get out of the details of modern life. Be

amazed at living, express it often, and like gratitude, tell those

around you how much you appreciate them as much as possible.

2) Learn to use your vocal chords to set boundaries. Say NO to

authority figures, co-workers or anyone else that needs to hear it.

It's your life and do nothing for anyone else unless your heart's into

it. Then don't expect any rewards.

3) Don't spend a minute with jerks. See #2, ex., "Get away from me, you jerk."

4) There are no external solutions. See #1

End Therapy.

No charge for the advice.

Dismally Hard At Times

And what is CBT?

It is a form of talking therapy that encourages depressed patients to exchange their self-destructive thoughts for healthier ways of believing and acting.

It is the modern equivalent of telling people (gently) to shape up, smarten up and take responsibility for their own lives.

Except that you could not possibly convey that time-honored message with such stark clarity these days. Apparently, we are all too fragile to hear such sage advice: the shock might send us rushing to the medicine cabinet.

That is a terrible shame. All the antidepressant drugs and therapy-speak in the world cannot take away the simple, honest fact that life for all of us can be dismally hard at times.

For most of us, though, the healthiest option is to face our problems vigorously, rather than disappear down a black hole of antidepressant dependency.

That is an especially important message to spread during this economic downturn. Times are getting harder.

But instead of grasping for tablets, we would be far better off being encouraged to rely on our own resources — positivity and self-reliance.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1338340/Will-wake-deadly-risks-happy-pills.html#ixzz18C2lS3vm

You Like?

Therapies All Kinds:

http://people.stu.ca/~nicholson/Ian_Nicholson/Research_files/Baring%20the%20Soul.pdf

Nude therapy was based on the idea of the naked body as a metaphor of the "psychological soul." Uninhibited exhibition of the nude body revealed that which was most fundamental, truthful, and real. In the marathon, Bindrim interrogated this metaphor with a singular determination. Bodies were exposed and scrutinized with a science-like rigor. Particular attention was paid to revealing the most private areas of the body and mind-all with a view to freeing the self from its socially imposed constraints. "This," Bindrim asserted gesturing to a participant's genitalia and anus, "is where it's at. This is where we are so damned negatively conditioned" [...] Determined to squelch the "exaggerated sense of guilt" in the body, Bindrim devised an exercise called "crotch eyeballing" in which participants were instructed to look at each others genitals and disclose the sexual experiences they felt most guilty about while lying naked in a circle with their legs in the air [...] In this position, Bindrim insisted "you soon realize that the head end and the tail end are indispensable parts of the same person, and that one end is about as good as the other.:"

Help Is Out There

You Are Not Alone:

http://www.chicagotribune.com/health/ct-met-trice-therapy-0830-20100830,0,2854732.column

He said no one should feel ashamed about needing help or a support system.

"In these times, especially, people are feeling so overburdened," he said. "It's important for them to know they have a place to go and some of us have been there."

For more information, contact Metropolitan Family Services at 773-371-2900.