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Naive Realism and Psychotherapy.

Naïve realism is the view that the way the world appears to us is the way the world actually is.  So we see trees, cars, hateful people and scary situations, and we assume that the way they appear is the way they actually are in reality.  So trees and cars look like trees and cars, even when no one is looking.  The person we perceive as hateful really is hateful.  The situation that makes us scared really is scary.

We could call naïve realism the default setting of our mind, the settings, if you like, that comes out of the box.  It is our mundane common sense view of the world, and we assume that other people see the world the same way.

For practical purposes, most of the time, this is fine, but it doesn’t take a very careful reading of science to see that naïve realism breaks down.  If we look into the quantum world, for example, we see that things that appear solid to our sense perceptions are more accurately described as mainly empty space.  Indeed it has been argued that in order for something to appear solid in the first place, it needs a conscious observer to notice it.

Looking at the science of mind, we also discover that the way we perceive an object or situation is just as much down to our frame of mind, as anything demonstrably to do with the object itself.  This is most clearly evidenced in optical illusions.  ‘Priming’, will depend whether you see the above object in the picture as a vase or a face.

So science shows that naïve realism breaks down.  But this has profound psychological implications.  Indeed, if naïve realism didn’t break down, there would be little scope for psychotherapy.  Psychotherapy could be described as an inquiry into the world as perceived with a view to perceiving a more accurate and/or a less threatening world.

Some people though, particularly people who are dominated by ‘rational mind’, that is to say, people who think more than feel, can find a challenge to naïve realism a great threat.  For them, if the world cannot be trusted to deliver reality pre formed, then nothing is certain.  Without certainty, they feel unable to function.  For such people, if their world is frightening, seriously committing to psychotherapy may be even more frightening.  It seems to threaten the very ground of being itself.  I think this is the fear behind those who call the pronouncements of psychotherapist’s psychobabble.

What is nearer the truth is that we have almost complete power to view the world however we choose.  Far from psychotherapy offering a threat to our existence, it can liberate us from it. All it requires is that first step into uncertainty.  And that takes courage.

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Dr Phil Tyson is a Men's Psychotherapist based in Manchester in the UK.  He offers:

• Cognitive behavioural therapy (cbt) for men in Manchester
• Counselling for men in Manchester
• Psychotherapy for men in Manchester
• Telephone and Skype counselling for men wherever you live
• Supervision and consultative support for therapists in Manchester
• Mediation for employment disputes in Manchester and the UK

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Options if you are Depressed.

For most of us, our mood varies.  Sometimes we are happy, sometimes we are sad.  If we are consistently sad we can find ourselves demoralised.  Eventually we feel disengaged from life, and can no longer be bothered doing things.  We become withdrawn and lethargic.  We have become depressed.

Being depressed is not pleasant, and if you ask most depressed people, they do not want to be depressed and want to feel better.  The question is, how best to achieve that?

There are two relatively quick strategies’ that are heavily promoted these days.  Antidepressants and cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT).

Antidepressants are a form of medication prescribed by your GP.  Despite the name, they do not treat the depression; rather, they treat the symptoms.  As a quick fix in treating depression, they are as quick as you are going to get.  If you will react well to the drug, you can expect the full benefit after 8 weeks or so.  I say ‘if’ advisedly.  Antidepressants are powerful drugs, but their effectiveness is, on average, barely higher than the placebo effect.  Some people do respond well to the medication.  However some people, whatever they are prescribed, fail to respond to medication.

Antidepressants also run a long list of unhelpful side effects, including increasing your risk of suicide dramatically.

CBT is a little slower in getting results.  Expect treatment for depression to take a little longer, say 16 to 20 weeks.  CBT for depression usually combines two strategies.  The first is to gently increase your activity levels.  Depressed people often stop doing fun and rewarding things.  Reintroducing such activities is one of the quickest ways of lifting people’s mood.  The second is to monitor and change the automatic negative thinking about self, future or the world that often accompanies depression.

There is some evidence that antidepressants combined with CBT gets the best results.  In theory the antidepressant treats the symptoms, and the CBT treats the underlying cause. 

In my experience as a Manchester therapist who treats depressed clients regularly with CBT and other strategies, sometimes CBT is not enough.  There are a small but significant proportion of people whose depression does not respond to the quick approaches.  We need to reflect a little to understand why.

Depression, for many people, is not so much an isolated event, but something they have experienced, on and off, all their lives.  Some people are so chronically depressed they simply cannot recall a time in life when they were happy.  ‘Treatment failure’ with CBT and antidepressants can often add to their despair, and confirms their belief that ‘nothing seems to work’.  Depression, for these people, is a way of life. 

Sometimes such people need to engage with several therapists over many years to gain the insight to transform their worlds into something more positive.  Therapy for such people needs to be patient, creative and long term. 

Unfortunately the needs chronically depressed people are not served by the ‘fix me quick’ culture engendered by CBT and antidepressants.  It does them a disservice to suggest their lifetime of suffering is somehow equivalent to someone who has enjoyed a lifetime of good mental health and only started having problems recently.  Both people, of course, deserve to be treated appropriately.  It is a shame in the NHS to see a reduction in the number of therapists working long term with clients.  Not everybody needs long term work, but for those that do, it should be made available for them.

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Dr Phil Tyson is a Men's Psychotherapist based in Manchester in the UK.  He offers:

• Cognitive behavioural therapy (cbt) for men in Manchester
• Counselling for men in Manchester
• Psychotherapy for men in Manchester
• Telephone and Skype counselling for men wherever you live
• Supervision and consultative support for therapists in Manchester
• Mediation for employment disputes in Manchester and the UK

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The Straw Man 0f Masculinity.

Men, in short, reflect the full range of human potential.  They are fully human in their vices, and in their virtues.

As men, we all face one thing in common.  Maintaining our dignity, as men, in the face of the straw man of masculinity. Let me explain.

Men, we are told, are cruel, warmongering, insensitive, disrespectful towards women and children.  Men cannot be trusted, are sex man, and finally, all men are rapists.

This version of masculinity, of course, is a straw man.  Yes some men, some of the time, can be like this.  The assumption though, is that all men are like this, all of the time.

From a psychological point of view, what is going on here is a core belief.  A core belief about men.  It is a view of the world, which may or may not touch base with reality. 

We all have core beliefs.  Some of us feel we are ugly, or that we are bad in social situations, or that life is a struggle.  They shape the flavor of the world we experience through are senses.

Indeed, a core belief acts as a signpost for sense perception.  If we expect people to treat us as ugly, we look for their revulsion.  If we believe we are bad in social situations, we look for evidence of our ineptness.  If we believe life is a struggle, we disproportionately pay attention to the times when things are hard.

By directing our enquiry of the world, core beliefs work to reinforce themselves as ongoing fact.

In the case of the straw man of masculinity, we are caught in something more profound than an idiosyncratic unhelpful core belief.  We are faced with a society wide held belief.  A social delusion.  An institutionalized misperception and misunderstanding of reality.

This view is particularly unhelpful for men in caring roles.  Men as nurses, child care providers, social workers and therapists often rub up against the straw man most acutely. 

In the face of our caring, our trustworthiness and our kindness we are treated as if we are uncaring, untrustworthy and unkind.  It is as if we are invisible.  And in a sense we are.  The other person’s attention bias means our good qualities are simply unseen.

I sometimes see this in my ongoing training in my therapeutic work.  Often I am the only man in the group, and I am subtly, left holding the straw man of masculinity.  Whatever I do to demonstrate my own qualities and failings, I am treated as if I were the straw man. Hopelessly entangled in other peoples projections.

What choices do I have in this situation?  One solution is to become a male apologist to feminism.  Go native, and be even more feminist than the feminists.  The other is to be myself, especially when I look “straw man-ish”.

The former trades authenticity for approval, the latter courts rejection for authenticity.

What we cannot do, at least on our own, is take on the straw man.  In life, the only thing we can effectively change is ourselves.  Other people’s delusions are for them to sort out.  But we should not fail to recognize them for what they are, delusions, and we need not get too entangled within them.

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Dr Phil Tyson is a Men's Psychotherapist based in Manchester in the UK.  He offers:

• Cognitive behavioural therapy (cbt) for men in Manchester
• Counselling for men in Manchester
• Psychotherapy for men in Manchester
• Telephone and Skype counselling for men wherever you live
• Supervision and consultative support for therapists in Manchester
• Mediation for employment disputes in Manchester and the UK

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Dead Men Don’t Count in War.

We live in troubled times.  The US is fighting an asymmetric war against the world to maintain its perceived right of exploitation and enrichment in the face of its inevitable decline.  With the Patriot Act and the infiltration by the FBI of the ‘terrorists’ of the Occupy movement, it has even taken the war to its own people.

Wars of course, are messy, not least because ‘innocent’ women and children get caught up in them.  Men, on mass, are guilty, so their deaths don’t count.  This, at any rate, is the relentless narrative of the mainstream media.

“The bomb killed thirty people, some of them women and children”.

How many times have we heard this on our television screens?  It’s as if we expect men to die in war zones, but it is unreasonable to expect women and children to die also. 

War is undeniably deeply gendered.  Generally societies expect men to do the fighting, and they are expected to do it away from women and children.  If women and children die, men are not only culpable for being the aggressors, but also culpable of letting down the women and children.  As men are doubly culpable, why should we care how many get killed?

Well I care about everybody who gets killed in war zones.  Yes I care about the needless death of women and children.  But I also care about the needless death of the men who fight them.

I care about the young recruit from the US Deep South who sees a military life as the only economic option, and is put on the front line to face dangers the generals and their political masters observe from the comfort of being out of range.

I care about the millions of indigenous men who are forced into defending themselves and their families as the largest war machine ever assembled rolls into town to occupy their country, exploit their natural resources, dismantle their society, and torture their fellow citizens.

I care about the men whose economic circumstances mean they cannot provide for their family and see the people they love, their women and children, die through lack of food, shelter and medicine, and see armed resistance as the only way to gain a better life for them and their families.

I care about the men who are shamed, through intense social pressure of other men, and yes, women, to fight a war they don’t understand or believe in.

I care about the men who are brutalised by initiation and training regimens which aim to divorce them from their humanity and innate compassion for others.

I care about the men I have worked with who have to make sense of the horrific images they saw in battle, and the guilt they feel at pulling the trigger, and being responsible for the death of other human beings.

Yes it is men who fight wars.  Or more accurately, men fight other people’s wars; and in so doing are just as much victims as anyone else.  But the narrative doesn’t allow for that.  So, as men, we are forced to hold our pain in silence, accept the blame, and bear the collective guilt, so our women and children don’t have to.

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Dr Phil Tyson is a Men's Psychotherapist based in Manchester in the UK.  He offers:

• Cognitive behavioural therapy (cbt) for men in Manchester
• Counselling for men in Manchester
• Psychotherapy for men in Manchester
• Telephone and Skype counselling for men wherever you live
• Supervision and consultative support for therapists in Manchester
• Mediation for employment disputes in Manchester and the UK

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