Date: Fri, 27 Jul 2001 21:00:47 -0700
From: Sissy <sissy-AT-ix.netcom.com>
Subject: Re: Paralogy in psychology


> There are forms of "postmodern" therapy that look at with the use of

Foucault's work the hierarchical relationship.  Those on this list that
value paralogy
state this is not an important issue and too political.


>
> In a cynical sense, one could argue that all therapy tends towards the
> performative.  In a broader sense, however, I think of the therapeutic
> relationship as being hierarchical in structure and tending towards
> either a metanarrative or communication model.  In the first there is a
> model of emancipation - the doctor through his erudite insight and
> intervention heals the patient of her problems and hysteria and returns
> her whole to life. In the second model, favored by Sullivan and other
> humanistic psychologists, this hierarchy, while more understated, still
> exists, but the norm is now one of consensus.  By acknowledging her
> thoughts and feelings, the good doctor allows the patient to be heard
> and, perhaps, as in Wittgenstein, the solution to the problem is seen in
> its vanishing.  The fly is shown the way out of its imaginary bottle.
>
> My concern is that if paralogy enters into this relationship, it can
> only do so as a kind of technique.  As a technique, it may contribute to
> a dramatic breakthrough, but it could also lead to a kind of terror,
> which is precisely what "my ambivalence" seems to fear.
>
> So the question remains - How is the concept of paralogy being used
> within this therapeutic context.  You have brought us closer, but so far
> you still have only given us a quote from Lyotard and another person's
> apprehension.  I think I have some idea of what Lyotard means by
> paralogy.  What do these psychologists mean?  Is it merely shop jargon
> or does it have implications for the rest of us psychotic bastards who
> are beyond all therapeutic hope. (I am jesting here, of course, but I
> think psychology today must answer for its complacency towards
> capitalism and the status quo.  As Jim Hillman once put it: "A hundred
> years of psychotherapy and the world keeps getting worse.")
>
> eric

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