Psychology For Celiacs?

[gfp]

gfp----you've GOT to tell us more of this story------you've only teased us! (but on another thread so as not to hijack this one) i think alot of people might be helped by how you were able to figure the woman out.

I'm afraid its only a short answer..(not worth a thread)...I guess its a knack. On second thoughts...I might try and explain...

... OK...but I'm going to make it fun.. (least wise it will be for me...I hope for you too )

1st thing is I'm not normal in what would be described asOpen Original Shared Link.

That isn't to say I'm diagnosed with any physchological label... not view myself competent to judge....

Anyway.... 1st thing is I tend to study people very deeply all the time. I can't really help it but I don't know if you could just force yourself to do it...I just do it...

However what I noticed was if you really listen and watch when someone is making a case against you, especially any physcholist they seem unable to not bring in personal experience

So back in the situation of having a child psychologist suddenly spend several weeks trying to get me to say my father "touched me"... you have to wonder... what is her obscession.... ?

Well the first thing is to assume she must have been abused as a child... she is trying to save children the same thing... but somehow the body language is different. When they ask a question alluring to an over sexual act she seemed keen to hear about it... in the wrong way.

If she had been abused she wouldn't want to hear other stories of it...., perhaps in one way but not in a gleeful way. and then when she asked innocuous questions like "Does he touch you when he gives you spending money? (allowance)" she was eager in a different way.... eager in a longing way...

So I guess I had to have decided it was the latter....

... so I just kept listening and kept watching and noting her response to her questions.

When someone is giving a personal example they act differently to a theoretical one or one from a text book.

I don't really know how much of these things most people actually consciously recognise.... but you know it. Its what you see in a truly excellent actor(ess) over a just excellent one. I think people must see it and perhaps some just don't recognose it conciously....but the fact actors can be taught this must mean people do!

For example imagine asking about a crime scene in CSI....(i take it some people watch the TV shows )

Now if you had been to a really gory crime scene it would be different to hearing, reading and seeing video reports about it later.

Lets say it was really horrible.... and you saw video and then saw reports and photo's... your response would be YUCK... UGGGH.........EEEEWWW as opposed to actually seeing the crime scene and being there.

So imagine Grisham (my fav character) is questioning a suspect and he related to this crime scene in the interview in real life when he described the scene to the person being questioned the investigator would describe the scene differently if he actually saw the scene... there would be disgust, revulsion in both but non of this would show the gut wrenching feeling of actually being there and flashing back through retelling what you saw..... in that case the person would also be showing fear ... the fear they had of having to be at the scene and do a job... the fear of not being able to leave until that job was done...

So when someone has it in for you like this psychologist had for me they can't stop themselves asking questions from personal experience... so you just have to spot all of these and see the patterns.... when they are asking questions from the text book and when they are using personal experience....

while you do this you lead the questions ..by asking them to be more specific... so

"Does he touch you when he gives you money?" you answer

"How do you mean touch"

then they have to answer... the text book one has a text book reason... so that comes easily and in a flat voice.

but if they are asking this from a personal experience they have to think to the real example.... there will be a pause and the voice will change as they start to speak... they may even uhum and start again...

whatever emotion it touched will be in the answer to the question...

"Oh when they put money out for you do they touch your hand or do they put it down on a table"

see... too specific.... why a table.... so you ask the question

"You mean a table or a kitchen counter ...? "

Obviously at this point they inform you that they are the ones asking the questions .. or do they?

Even this is telling....

In my case she did.... so you haveto ask why? What memory is it dragging up. So you play along and ask

"well I just wanted to be specific because you said touched... and if daddy is working on the car or covered in oil he tells me to take it from his wallet or this drawer we have. Daddy often works on the car or in his workshop.... I wish he would spend more time with me and mum"

Now you dangle the bait....

In my case she flustered and started back on Daddy touching me...(thought bubble )

DUH... your a child psychologist sweety pie...I just told you my father was neglecting the family and implied mommies upset .. while completely missing the fact you know my parents are divorced and I just impiied they live together and I cried out help ... help and you are back on Daddy touching me ..hmmmm

but you don't say at this point.... you wait for several more 2 hour sessions and gather more and more info in the same way and you remember each personal experience they bring up and reintroduce it from an oblique angle.....You make a list of that persons psychoses..... what scares them, what revolts them and mostly what they wished.... yes, especially what they wished that never came true.

This little girl had a pony... Daddy bought her the pony to show her he loved her because daddy couldn't show his love by hugs or playing... indeed I found out that daddy had a different bed room from mommy... (and I still remember this 25 yrs later) and what this girl wished for more than anything was for Daddy to pick her up and play with her..

Anyway.... it still doesn't stop.... now we know she had a wish .. and it concerned unfulfillled hugs from her father... It would seem he hasn't got older and started so time to find out a killer factiod...just need to pick the moment... so I see Dad at weekends.... so next session she has to ask "Did you see your father this weekend"

To which the answer is "I see my father every weekend .. Did you see your father?"

"He died, my father died I don't see him"

"Oh I'm sorry, I just didn't understand the question... you know I see my father at the weekend?"

Now you have your "switch".... from this point on you can illicit more personal experience by mentioning 'Seeing fathers at weekend.'.. She will remember this and the connection.... you can use fathers and wekend visits to shape the questions....and at this point finding out of her father died without ever embrassing her is important....

So a question regarding a historic "Did father touch you when you were younger" you can now

"How do you mean ... I mean adults touch us differently according to how old we are... like when your a baby they pick you up all the time and when you get bigger you still get hugs but they don't pick you up and twirl you round... and when your grown up.... well, I dunno... Did your father still hug you when you were grown up? "

See now you got it.... its starting to come together.... ?

Next and this like the last thing worked cos I was a kid.... (no not acting the goat )

So as a kid you can ask ... that you heard that when people die you have to kiss them at a funeral and its really scary because your friends Dad died and he's really scared to kiss his dead dad at the funeral and .... (poor ficititus friend) ...{I rarely tell lies or untruths... although isn't that an oxymoron? but this is not a conversation its an act... to extract info ... it is as true as the textbook cases she was telling you...}

.. anyway... as I was saying...

Now you need to put up with her giving you comfort.... and then you say "your mum might make you go and then you would have to kiss him ....too.... and ....."

And finally you find out if she kissed her dead father....

She did in my case.... so this is the one to throw in later when you are ready to dismantle her...layer by layer.

so basically gather the facts and put them into a story (funny I feel like Im doing that now?) in order of happening and importance instead of the order you found them out...

Start with the earliest strong event "The pony" tell her her own story back up to the coup de grace "Didn't you wish your father could have hugged you one last time before he died and you had to do it when he was dead"

Its important to reserve some big hitters for the final quarter... as you drive it home.

Well, I probably said half of I meant and less than half I should ...

I was just a 12-13 yr old kid who was in psychology because my parents were just divorced and forced to attend a school I hated...

I had of course tried explaining this in the first session, just as I'm telling you now!

I hope its been fun and I hope after quite a few drinks I haven't said something I'll regret

If this makes any sense tomorrow, Ill be ???

[CarlaB]

You are right. Sometimes it's easy to get more information out of someone by reaction, facial expressions, timing of comments, etc. than by what is actually said.

Some of it made less sense than you normally do, so I was glad to get to the end I read that you'd had a couple drinks I thought maybe I was just a little foggier than I am!!

[jerseyangel]

So...you figured all this out by the time you were 13? Amazing--it was all I could do to follow the story

[jkmunchkin]

What post is this from?

Funny, there must be something about kids who are forced by courts or parents to go to psychologists at a young age for a problem that THEY THINK exists, or want to exist- becoming perceptive at a very young and carrying that through in life. I'm the same way. I'm not going to go into my story but I can really relate to this.

[gfp]

So...you figured all this out by the time you were 13? Amazing--it was all I could do to follow the story

I tried my best but its really hard to remember what you deduced as a child and what you later deduced after...

I remember the facts but not the actual questions.... apart from a few so the others are examples of what I think I must have asked to get the facts....

Its a bit like having a memory of the house you lived in when you were 2-3 .... I remember my brother coming "home" at 2 1/2 and i remember the living room (that was later knocked (when I was 7-8) though because I remember having to go through a (later blocked) door to go and meet mum and the new baby... (this was 1970...)

.. and I think I remember the wallpaper... but do I or did I see it on a photo... ???

Hard to be really sure...

[eKatherine]

That´s an interesting point you made about not being sure if you did actually see something or if you got your information from a secondary source. Can´t recall any examples right now but I have often felt like that.

That's the problem with what the psychologist was doing. Memory is malleable. It has been shown that enough suggestion will cause a person, even an adult, to remember things that didn't happen. Children are even more suggestible. It's called "false memory syndrome". They have shown that repressed memories are rare, not common, and if a person does forget something, it is usually gone, not working in the back of their minds to cause them future issues. The problem is with the memories that can't be forgotten.

But memories that are implanted this way are as real to the rememberer as those that actually happened.

There were a lot of well-meaning therapists in the eighties and nineties who created an epidemic of recovered memories of child abuse where none actually existed, breaking up families, and finally being censured for what they did (and sued!).

I see this as the same as the MSBP issue. If someone believes that something exists, then they will ignore all evidence to the contrary and take whatever they can twist to support their beliefs as proof. So obviously she had issues, but she also believed that abuse like this happens all the time, that she can see in a child that it had happened, even though the child might be in denial or naively unaware, and that with enough prodding, the child will admit that it truly happened. She had probably had cases before you where the child finally gave up and started to believe what she was saying, and she took this as evidence that she was correct.

[gfp]

That's the problem with what the psychologist was doing. Memory is malleable. It has been shown that enough suggestion will cause a person, even an adult, to remember things that didn't happen. Children are even more suggestible. It's called "false memory syndrome". They have shown that repressed memories are rare, not common, and if a person does forget something, it is usually gone, not working in the back of their minds to cause them future issues. The problem is with the memories that can't be forgotten.

But memories that are implanted this way are as real to the rememberer as those that actually happened.

There were a lot of well-meaning therapists in the eighties and nineties who created an epidemic of recovered memories of child abuse where none actually existed, breaking up families, and finally being censured for what they did (and sued!).

I see this as the same as the MSBP issue. If someone believes that something exists, then they will ignore all evidence to the contrary and take whatever they can twist to support their beliefs as proof. So obviously she had issues, but she also believed that abuse like this happens all the time, that she can see in a child that it had happened, even though the child might be in denial or naively unaware, and that with enough prodding, the child will admit that it truly happened. She had probably had cases before you where the child finally gave up and started to believe what she was saying, and she took this as evidence that she was correct.

Absolutely spot on!

I have another story....

When I was 15 my mum was ill with compkucations from a hyterectomy and (well what we found out 18 years later was celiac disease - but that's a whole new thread)

Anyway my mom got disability for a while and one day a cheque went missing.

The detective decided I had done it and spent several hours illegally (no adult present) planting false memories and suggestions.... I view myself as pretty strong willed but even with this I started to wonder if I hadn't done it.

All this continued for a long time until i asked to see the actual cheque... what I hadn't been told was the date.

As it happened I had proof in my passport I wasn't even in the country at that time. So i went to get the passport and meanwhile (Yeah Im not so organised) he worked on my mom and got her to confess in order to save me...(since she didn't know why I was looking frantically upstairs)

My cousin is a lawyer so my mom asked him and his advice was not to even think of messing about or we would be victimised so bad we couldn't even get in the car without being pulled over before we even set off but he managed to barter a signed confession in exchange for them dropping criminal charges.

So he thought he got away with it... he didn't!