In my private practice, I don't work with terrorists but I do work with violent people. I used to believe (as many of my colleagues still do) that empathizing with my patients and increasing their self-esteem would help them on the path to self-actualization. Of course, for some anxiety-ridden patients who need faith in themselves, the technique of empathy and support works. However, for those patients with serious violent tendencies, just the opposite is true. With those patients, I've found that setting clear boundaries and making judgments about their immoral behavior works like a charm.
Those patients who threatened me backed down only when I got up in their face and told them forcefully to stop -- the slightest hint of fear or intimidation (or sympathy!) on my part was met with increased threats. In the real world of private practice, confronting real murderers, I learned to act in ways that were different from what I had been taught in graduate school.Unfortunately, there are still those in the ivory tower who have not learned this valuable lesson. They continue to believe that to humanize and to empathize with violent students, professors, and terrorists is the only way to treat those who wish to do them harm. In fact, however, the old saw "give them an inch and they'll take a mile" applies. Without clear boundaries, and a sense of consequences, their behavior will spiral out of control until they injure themselves and others.
Read the whole thing. It's very informative.
Sunday, November 13, 2005
Don't Humanize the Inhuman
This article is related to the post below about Bush Derangement Syndrome. It is written by Dr. Helen Smith, a forensic psychologist, who argues that the liberal stance of trying too hard to "humanize" our enemies is a mistake that will make the problem worse, and produce more violence rather than less. She writes,
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1 comment:
Could it not be just fear on our part that causes us to cater to these people. People like thoses refered to in the article (murders and terrorists) can be very beligerent, and through threats and intimidation they cause us to fear them.
I think that because of the fear these people put in us that we tend to try to placate them. It is this that causes us to humanize them and try to cater to what we feel are their short comings. We feel that if we don't do anything that things will become worse (self defense).
I guess that we feel that if we humanize them, that when they come into control we can point to our actions and say "look at what we did for you, we are on your side". We do this in the hope that things won't go so bad for us then.
I believe that the murders and terrorists will then view us with contempt, which will make the situation even worse.
What we need to do is to take our courage in hand and stand up to these people as the author of this article suggests. In other words we have to make these people respect us and only then will they back down. Often when fear is faced head on either we find that there was no basis for the fear or that those causing the fear will back down.
Catering to them will only cause them to escalate their demands. Much as a bully does in school.
I'm glad that George Bush had the courage to stand up to these terrorists (bullies).
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