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Friday, April 2, 2010

Where Angels Fear to Tread!

April 1, 2010

The Day of the Fool: Fools step in where angels fear to tread!

What is this about the fool? And, we relegate one day a year to honoring foolishness, which when one thinks about it is hardly enough!

In the indigenous world the “contrary” plays the part of the fool. The role is to make fun of others that they not take themselves too seriously. The persons usually portrayed are the leaders (chief, medicine man, etc.).

To be foolish is, simply put to do things differently than others.

This provides a meaningful contrast to our “seriousness” and “proprieties”. It gives us the opportunity to compare by and move in the direction of compromise or balance.

Only a fool would “re-invent the wheel.” Good thing there are lots of fools throughout history or we would be driving around on stone wheels, or wheels made of sticks.

Being a person blessed/cursed with ADHD many of my actions have appeared to others as “foolish”. Indeed many have been. And yet much of who I am and how it comes about that I am "re-inventing" psychotherapy is because "standard" psychotherapy just doesn't make much sense to me.

Take the DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual)! Who devised that way of sense making out of human behavior? Appears to me to have been designed by people who felt more comfortable judging others and finding a simplistic way of dealing with them. Drug companies love the DSM and so do people who prescribe medications. The DSM provides a crutch for practitioners to label and "fix". It does not help us to figure out how to give people tools and self-concepts for change. Once labeled one tends to be stigmatized. The placebo effect then generates more dysfunctional behavior!

Another approach is more along the lines of "symptom management"!

That helps but it is not enough.

The quasi-spiritual approach considering that our souls are not fully integrated and that our lifestyles tend to disintegrate who we are seems to me to explain more and to allow us to create models of Soul Integration.

And, that is what this blog is about!

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