Psychotherapy & Culture

I have received quite a few comments and queries about my two posts on addiction. These were sent to me directly. Because there are several important points which people have made, I would like to address them here.

1. What is the relationship between drug addiction and depression? I answered this by indicating that I will have a series of posts later on depression, but that substance abuse is regularly a way of self-medicating for depression, bipolar illness or other mental illnesses.
2. Could I elaborate on and clarify my thinking about the meaning of schizmogenesis? I will do so below.
3. Why did I refer to the 6 principles about AA and not indicate the 12 steps? My response to this is indicated below.
4. Why did I not discuss the “Higher Power” issue in AA? I answered this in conjunction with my answer to the 12 steps. Indicated below.
5. How can we change an entire cultic group – not just individuals within a cult? My response to this is indicated below.
6. What are the best ways to transform an individual who is addicted within a cult? My response is below.
7. What are some examples of predispositional vulnerabilities? My suggestions are below.
8. How does my theoretical framework account for non-drug, non-cultic addictions such as addictions to media screens – TV., Computers, smart phones? Lots of discussion about this among readers. My responses are indicated below.

I have used Gregory Bateson’s definition of schizmogenesis, because I have been building my theory based on his use of the term in his “Cybernetics of Self” article. I don’t believe anyone is certain about Bateson’s idea beyond his use in this article and a few other sources. I have referred to schizmogenesis in my own publications and I still find it useful in explaining an addiction process. Bateson said it meant ” progressive directional change”. Symmetrical schizmogenesis would be two parties, say alcoholics, matching each other drink for drink in a competitive progressive manner. It is symmetrical because they are matching each other with the same behavior. He also suggested that a drinker could be in a contest with a “symbolic other”, such as a bottle of alcohol. The alcoholic doing battle with the bottle. This is also symmetrical. And the bottle typically wins the contest. The drinker commits an epistemological error in assuming they can beat the bottle (or the other drinker). As the contest escalates (progressive directional split) the addictive process gets out of control. I take some license with Bateson’s notion of complementary schzmogenesis by applying it to the relationship between a cult leader (messiah, guru) and his followers, which he did not do. My thinking about this is that each “complements” the other in a progressive manner. The more the cult leader needs his followers and the more he acts like a messiah, the more they require him to be a messiah and the more they become part of the fantasy or delusion. They are each addicted to the other in a progressive split fashion. As I mentioned in my earlier posts, as Jim Jones, Shoko Asahara, and Donald Trump became more delusional, their followers also became more delusional.

I did not list the 12 steps, and instead referred to the 6 principles that Nan Robertson lists in her book, “Getting Better”, because I am developing a theory of addiction which goes beyond alcoholism or other drug addiction. The 12 Step programs are extremely effective for AA, NA, AlAnon, but may not appeal to those recovering from other addictions, such as former cult followers. Also, since God is mentioned six times in the 12 Steps, some recovering alcoholics/ drug addicts may not subscribe to a belief in God. Hence, the reference to “higher power” or “power greater than ourselves”, which opens the 12 steps to anyone , including non-religious people. The psychological potency of admitting that one does not have control of their addiction, is a willingness to break the cycle of schizmogenic dependency and epistemological error of pride or assumed ego control.

Can we somehow change an entire cultic group? Not likely, though the catastrophe of Jim Jones taking more than 100 people with him to death did end the People’s Temple as an organization. And there have been a number of other apocalyptic or millenarian cults which have dissolved once leaders have been deposed, imprisoned, or killed. In order to interrupt the symmetrical schizmogenesis, some sort of intervention needs to break the cycle of addiction between the leader and followers. It is also possible for the cult followers to continue to follow the symbol of a cult leader/ messiah/guru even after he or she is gone. The current hard-corps followers of former president Trump are still in an addictive pattern, as he is with them. The addictive process has been interrupted but not yet dissolved. Meanwhile, the best way to bring about a serious interruption with any cultic group is to work with individuals who are already questioning their attachment the the leader and group or those already disaffected. Particularly if the administrative leaders in an organization become disaffected and begin to leave, there is more likelihood of many others leaving.

This relates to the next item: what are the best ways to transform an individual who is addicted within a cult? I suggest that the individual must first be able to become aware of the epistemological error of believing that salvation or a new millennium is forthcoming if they maintain their attachment to the cult leader and the doctrines of the cult. If they are able to correct this error and retain their independent will and decision making, they will likely need to have some alternative and healthy replacement of a belief system and identity social group to the cult system and group. One of the hallmarks of AA groups is that they replace unhealthy attachments with attachments to AA members who can identify with and support those who are addicted and help them avoid relapsing. The same might be operable with the equivalent of reprogramming groups for former cultic followers. There have been some recent reports that people who had become swept up in the QAnon conspiracy cult have become disenchanted with the group because the prophesy of Trump winning his presidential bid and bringing about the changes promised by the delusional ideology, did not happen. This has also been an outcome of a number of other messianic or apocalyptic movements of the past, when prophesies have proven false.

In a recent National Public Radio interview, Audie Cornish interviewed Dannagal Young, a professor of communications at the University of Delaware, who said: ” If you think about somebody who is either addicted to heroin or you think about someone who has fallen into a cult, or you think about someone who has fallen into QAnon, they are all creating boundaries that divide them from their families. They’re all engaging in dysfunctional behaviors and holding dysfunctional attitudes that make their participation in regular life more difficult. And they all tend to need a similar kind of psychological pipeline and outreach to bring them back.” (January 15, 2021). My thinking about this is that the boundaries that Young refers to must be crossed by family members, friends, other helpers, and hands must be offered to pull the addicted members out of the addicted trap. This is easier said than done , as anyone who has been tasked with this effort can testify. Also, regarding the QAnon phenomenon, the social media platforms which likely exacerbated the growth of the conspiracies, were not interrupted soon enough to quell the addictive process. Earlier intervention – deplatforming – may have broken the cycle before the outcome of an insurrection on the Capitol.

The topic which received the most reaction was one being experienced by a number of parents with young children: possible addiction to various screens – phones, computers, television. This issue includes both time spent and types of content. The ramifications of this topic are beyond what I am covering in the post, but the potential for current and future addictions to our collective communication devices does follow the pattern of what I have suggested for addictions to various drugs, as well as the type of complementary schizmogenesis which occurs between a cult leader and cultic followers. Screen time alone for children can affect not just their mental and emotional life, but even their eye health. Some current studies are indicating that children need to be spending more time outside and away from media platforms indoors to protect their eyes from later weaknesses. The monitoring issue for parents is not just managing time spent, but types of content. This can also be a challenge for adults. During the current Covid 19 pandemic, more people are spending more time indoors and on various electronic devices, which contain content varying from relatively healthy educational material to levels of entertainment to downright harmful material. As I mentioned earlier, the QAnon conspiracy, with it’s essentially false and delusional material, gained a large following among people who were spending all their waking hours engaging with various online sties addicted to the conspiracy theory. Addiction to stimulation from electronic devices, may be somewhat similar to a gambling addiction. There is a need for stimulation, sometimes out of boredom, though not always. There is an expected reward. The reward can be positive enough to warrant seeking further reward, or it can be negative enough to want to seek a more positive reward. Either way, the addiction process may have begun. If there are any predispositional vulnerabilities, such as serious dependency needs or biopsychosocial weaknesses, the reward provided by the involved activity may become schizmogenic and interventions may become necessary. And , again, the earlier the interventions the better.

I welcome any comments or questions you might have about my responses.

Building on the ideas explored in my previous post about the addicition process, schizmogenesis, and epistemological errors, I am proposing a possible way to think about recovery from the addiction process from a systems perspective. If we can acknowledge that there are different types of addiction, yet a similar dynamic pattern in the process, we might be able to identify a similar pattern in a recovery process. I suggest a possible framework which helps us think about breaking a schizmogenic process. The first step for interrupting the process is some type of intervention, followed by some type of deprogramming or detoxification, then proceeding to the beginning of a recovery journey. Using the three examples of types of addiction mentioned in my previous post, alcohol and other drug addiction, cultic addiction, and the arms race, each will require some type of intervention to interrupt the progressive addicting split before beginning the correction of an epistemological error. An intervention can take the form of a group of family and friends confronting a drug addict with the reality of their destructive path, a family , friends or even other authorities intervening to remove a cult follower from a cult setting, or a diplomatic settlement which creates a mechanism for de-escalating a competitive arms race. The next step would be some form of detoxifying (from drug addiction), deprogramming (from cultic addiction), de-escalation (diplomatic intervention). If an intervention has succeeded, and the process of detoxifying/deprogramming has begun, the beginning of recovery will include some type of re-programming or changed epistemology or mind set – possibly a reshaped or transformed self. Recovery is not a static point of achievement. The recovery journey or process is one of ongoing maintenance. Whatever the conditions of predispositional vulnerability and epistemological errors in thinking set up the initial addiction process may continue to present an ongoing threat for relapse or re-addiction.

The obvious critical first step in breaking the addiction process is some type of intervention. The earlier the process can be interrupted the more likely there will be a successful intervention. Detoxifying or de-programming cannot occur until there is a successful intervention. There are plenty of examples of failures to intervene with alcoholic addiction or other drug addiction and the person addicted dies. Likewise with cult leaders and followers. There were plenty of warnings about the deadly path Jim Jones was on when he rallied some of his most devoted followers in the People’s Temple to sell everything, cut off all family ties in the U. S. and follow him to Guyana. He eventually became so delusional that he believed, and convinced his followers, that by killing themselves they would gain heavenly graces in an afterlife. The complementary schizmogenesis combined with the epistemological error led to the death of 913 in Jonestown, plus 4 in nearby Georgetown, and 5 in congressman Leo Ryan’s group which had travelled to Jonestown to intervene (obviously too late). So the timing of the intervention is critical.

We are currently (during this recent week) in a serious crisis in the U.S. as a result of a U.S. president who has cultivated a cultic following during his four years in office and though there have been various attempts at interventions to interrupt the complementary schizmogenesis between him and his followers, none of them were robust enough to stop the eventual riot which he incited on January 6th, 2021. The riot was both destructive and deadly to others and property and deadly for some followers. The apocalyptic characterization from several strands the Trumpian cultists resembles that of Jim Jones and the Peoples Temple followers, and other apocalyptic movements, such as Aum Shinrikyo in Japan. Robert Jay Lifton recounts the events of March 20, 1995 when sarin gas was released in a Tokyo subway, in his book, “Destroying the World To Save It” (2000): “On March 20,1995, Aum Shinrikyo, a fanatical Japanese religious cult, released sarin, a deadly nerve gas on five subway trains during Tokyo’s early morning rush hour. Eleven were killed and up to five thousand injured.”(p.3). Lifton compares the psychological makeup of Jim Jones and Shoko Asahara, the guru of Aum Shinrikyo:

“Like Asahara (and many others who show paranoid tendencies), he [Jones] became more grandiose the greater his anxiety and inner conflict. He also resembled Asahara in his increasing tendency toward megalomania and in episodes that were close to or actually psychotic. As with gurus in general, a pattern of decompensation and breakdown was greatly accentuated by faltering control over his disciples. Jones and Asahara, to fend off threats to their guruism, escalated their demand on their disciples, ultimately insisting that they be ready to die for their guru – in Jones’ case, through acceptance of a doctrine of revolutionary suicide as an ultimate expression of loyalty.” (p.284-285). This scenario played out in Washington, D.C. last week, with president Trump inciting his disciples to insurrection by storming the Capitol building. This has resulted in immediate repercussions with an unprecedented second impeachment of a U.S. president and immediate arrests of many of Trump’s disciples. In all three cases – Jones, Asahara, Trump – the significant intervention was too late to save lives, but the complementary schizmogenesis was interrupted. Asahara and his top disciples went to prison, Jones and most followers went to their death, and Trump and his followers are facing legal ramifications. A state institution intervened in all three cases.

The way in which an intervention may occur with someone who is addicted to drugs will differ according to variables such as age, class, gender, psychosocial context, relationship patterns, and timing. As mentioned above, the earlier the intervention the better. With regard to alcoholic addiction, we are perhaps most familiar with family and friends who confront an alcoholic in the form of a group support system, yet the founders of A.A. did not have such a support group intervention. Bill Willson (Bill W.) and Bob Smith (Dr. Bob) had each other. Each of them had multiple fits and starts with alcohol, but found that no external or personal attempts to break the addictive cycle worked. Bill W. was staying in a hotel in Akron, Ohio, in 1935. He called a friend, Henrietta Seiberling, to ask if she could put him in touch with another drunk to preserve his own shaky sobriety. She happened to be a close friend with Dr. Bob Smith, who she had wanted to help with his alcohol addiction. She arranged for them to meet at her house and they spent six hours sharing their life stories and struggles with alcohol addiction. This founders’ story is told in multiple A.A. and other publications. Nan Robertson’s account in “Getting Better: Inside Alcoholic Anonymous” (1988) is particularly engaging, since she was a pulitzer winning writer with the New York Times and she recounts her own alcoholism story as well. She makes an insightful and critical comment about why A.A. is particularly effective: “There could not have been just one founder of A.A. There had to be two, because the process is one person telling his story to another, as honestly as he knows how.”(p.34). Robertson quotes a comment Dr. Bob made in a letter, in which he explains why none of his previous reading, or encounters with professionals or others were as effective as possible interventions as his exchange with Bill Wilson: “‘Of far more importance was the fact that he was the first living human with whom I had ever talked , who knew what he was talking about in regard to alcoholism from actual experience. In other words he talked my language.'” (p.35). So the intervention for Bill W. and Dr. Bob was each other. Robertson says, “The essence of A.A. is conversation, dialogue, one alcoholic talking with another in a meeting or or over a cup of coffee elsewhere. The problem with the active alcoholic is that his life is a monologue- he connects with his addicted self, and that is all. Ninety percent of the recovery process is through peers talking with one another.”(p.126).

The recovery process from any addiction will move from an intervention to some type of detoxifying or deprogramming or reframing. For A.A., once an alcoholic had ceased drinking and his or her body is detoxified, the typical 12 Step Program provides a framework and support system for the ongoing process of recovery. I am not going to discuss the various interpretations and arguments around the 12 steps, such as what the meaning of “higher power” might be. Robertson says, “an A.A. pamphlet points out ‘ Newcomers are rarely helped by ponderous sermonizing about the Twelve Steps, or by complicated interpretations. The Twelve Steps speak plainly for themselves, and all newcomers are, of course , free to use them as they choose’. Members refer to the Twelve Steps not as musts or rules but a kind of road map to an enjoyable sober life.”(p.132) Robertson has boiled down the Twelve Steps to six principles, which I find address a fundamental approach to a recovery process:

1. We admit we are licked and cannot get well on our own.
2. We get honest with ourselves.
3. We talk it out with somebody else.
4. We try to make amends to people we have harmed.
5. We pray to whatever greater power we think there is, even as an experiment, or to think of our A.A. group as our “Higher Power’.
6. We try to give of ourselves for our own sake and without stint to other alcoholics, with no thought of reward. (p. 132).

The first three principles can break the symmetrical schizmogenesis of the alcoholic’s pride believing he can win the battle over the bottle (epistemological error). These three as well as the next three help ensure an ongoing scaffolding for recovery.

Recovery from drug addiction, cult addiction and the arms race, requires consistent maintenance, once an intervention and detoxifying/deprograming/reprograming process occurs. Commitments to reform need to be reiterated and reinforced by both internal (personal) and external (social, relational, economic, political, legal) mechanisms.

This and my previous post on the addiction process are frameworks for further theory development. I encourage readers to comment in this site or to contact me with any questions you might have. I intend to continue developing the theory and my thinking will be informed by your feedback.

I am revisiting Gregory Bateson’s article, “The Cybernetics of Self: A Theory of Alcoholism” in “Steps to an Ecology of Mind”(1972) now because I am thinking about the meaning of addictions. I have studied various aspects of addiction, to include approaches to healing and recovery. For this post, however, I am interested in the dynamics of an addiction process – from alcoholism to the arms race to cultism. This is what Bateson explores in his cybernetics of self essay.

I will not discuss all of Bateson’s propositions in this post as they encompass a vast theoretical terrain. But there are at least two central ideas which help us understand the dynamics of the addiction process: epistemological errors and schizmogenesis. Let’s take schizmogenesis first. While this term can be somewhat off-putting, we can think of it as progressive directional change in a system. Bateson suggests two types of schizmogenesis or directional change: complementary and symmetrical. Complementary would be when one party, say a man in a Latin American culture, behaves in a ‘machismo’ manner – or an exaggerated masculinity. This may then trigger a women to behave in an exaggerated feminine manner. Each party may exaggerate their different roles in reaction to the other. The addiction is to the split or directional dynamics of difference. Each party (male and female) are addicted to the exaggerated behavior of the other. Another example might be the relationship between a cult leader and his/her followers. They rely on each other to provide identity needs. The more needy the followers of a particular cult or religion, the more paternalistic the messiah or cult leader may behave. They are addicted in a complementary way to each other.There are plenty of examples from Melanesian Cargo Cults to Jim Jones and his followers while in San Francisco then to Guyana and mass suicide, and to include the current occupant of the U.S. White House and his cultic followers who have over-identified with him. He must have them and they must have him.

Symmetrical schizmogenesis would be a competition between two parties in a boasting or chest beating manner and might even include the international arms race, as Bateson suggests. As one escalates, so must the other. The addiction is in the systemic progressive split – a possible runaway system. The prime example, however, the one Bateson studies in depth, is the competition between the alcoholic and the “bottle”. The “bottle” is a symbolic “other” that the alcoholic is geared to challenge with “self-control”. The pride of the alcoholic sets him/her up for believing they can use self control over the addicting power of the “bottle” or alcohol. The addiction is not in the bottle or alcohol (the agent) or in the alcoholic person: it is in the relationship between them. Likewise with other symmetrical relationships and complementary relationships. Addiction is a dynamic process.

The epistemological error is in the pride of the alcoholic and the assumption of self control and in the case of cult followers, the over-identification with the cult leader and the relinquishing of one’s autonomy. With regard to the arms race the error is in assuming that more arms than one’s competitive nation will provide more safety or security. These epistemological errors can lead to systemic runaways and in each case may result in death (alcoholic death, cultic death, nuclear death).

While I have followed Bateson’s lead in exploring addiction as a dynamic systemic process, I am aware that there are likely different types of addiction and not all addictive behavior is necessarily negative. William Glasser wrote “Positive Addiction” in 1976 and focused on two particular positive addictions: long distance running and Transcendental Meditation. The suggestion from Glasser is that one may be able to replace a negative addiction, such as to alcohol or other drugs, with a positive one, which might be generative rather than degenerative. While this may be possible, too much of anything could be dangerous, including running or TM. So addiction as a process will likely need ongoing management and avoidance of a systemic runaway, which epistemological errors may ignite.

In consideration of different types of addiction, we might think alcohol and other drug addiction to be distinct from that of the one cultic followers and leaders have. The process is the same, though the agents are distinct. I propose that both types include a type of schizmogenesis and an epistemological error. And both may also include a predispositional vulnerability, which I proposed in my systems analysis of schizophrenia. In the case of an alcoholic there is likely a genetic predispositional vulnerability (biochemical?), which combined with psychosocial context and epistemological errors, sets up the addictive process. In the case of cult leaders and followers, the predispositional vulnerability may be strictly in the psychosocial realm. The followers of Jim Jones were mostly poor and socially deprived and in need of perceived salvation. Jim Jones progressively believed himself to be their savior. Each had their vulnerability.

Bateson investigates what has made the A.A. twelve steps program and the A.A. philosophy and group support the most effective antidote to alcoholism and other drug addictions. I will discuss in my next post the way that the A.A. approach interacts with the dynamic processes of addiction, schizmogenesis and epistemology.

Lori Gottlieb is a psychotherapist in Los Angeles and writes a “Dear Therapist” column for the Atlantic. Her new book (2019), which has been reviewed in a number of recent publications, is a classic “insider” series of reflections on her therapy stories working with clients and her sessions with her own psychotherapist.

Alex Kuczynski, in the May 12, 2019 New York times Book Review, summarizes Gottlieb’s book as “an irresistibly candid and addicting memoir about psychotherapeutic practice as experienced by both the clinician and the patient”. “Gottlieb explores her patients’ inner demons – a young newlywed diagnosed with terminal cancer, an older women who finds life meaningless and intends to commit suicide on her next birthday, a self- absorbed Hollywood producer, a woman stuck in a cycle of alcoholism and damaging relationships – and simultaneously peers into her own psyche with Wendell, a middle-aged, cardigan sporting psychotherapist.” This is a fine summary, yet the book is also about much more. As a psychotherapist and someone who reads the history of and current trends in psychotherapy, I am familiar with Gottlieb’s many insights and references. But she is such a terrific story-teller and explainer, that I was hooked by her style and presentation and at times, read as if I was a beginner to determine how the book might be understood outside the field of psychotherapy. For example, she explains a number of very insider terms, such as transference and countertransference, within a case story context that most anyone could grasp. She also sprinkles in various insider facts while staying with the story flow and without becoming didactic. On page 19, “(Fun fact: the countries with the most therapists per capita are, in descending order, Argentina, Austria, Australia, France, Canada, Switzerland, Iceland, and the United States.)” I have explanations for a number of these country stats and will discuss them later. Gottlieb also says, on page 37, “About three-fourths of clinicians who do therapy (as opposed to research , psychological testing, or medication management) are women.” This is a fun fact that I intend to look into later.

On page 47, she explains the notion of a “presenting problem”: Referring to her therapist, Wendell, she says, “He knows what all therapists know: That the presenting problem, the issue somebody comes in with, is often just one aspect of a larger problem, if not a red herring entirely. He knows that most people are brilliant at finding ways to filter out the things they don’t want to look at, at using distractions or defenses to keep threatening feelings at bay. He knows that pushing aside emotions only makes them stronger, but before he goes in and destroys somebody’s defense- whether that defense is obsessing about another person or pretending not to see what is in plain sight – he needs to help the patient replace the defense with something else so that he doesn’t leave the person raw and exposed with no protection whatsoever. As the term implies, defenses serve a useful purpose. they shield people from injury … until they no longer need them. It’s in this ellipsis that therapists work.” This is one of the best explanations available.

Another well-known fact among psychotherapists, but not necessarily well-known to people who have not been in therapy, Gottlieb mentions on page 36, “Study after study shows that the most important factor in the success of your treatment is your relationship with the therapist, your experience of ‘feeling felt’. This matters more than the therapist’s training, the kind of training they do, or what type of problem you have. “

Here is an example of how Gottlieb teaches us without seeming didactic:

“Carl Jung coined the term “collective unconscious” to refer to the part of the mind that holds collective memory, or experience that is common to all humankind. Whereas Freud interpreted dreams on the “object level”, meaning how the content of the dream related to the dreamer in real life (the cast of characters, the specific situations), in Jungian psychology, dreams are interpreted on the “subject level”, meaning how they relate to common themes in our collective unconscious.” (p.128)

Gottlieb sought out Wendel, her own therapist, essentially because of her being abandoned by a long-time boyfriend. She describes a session and the potency of Wendell’s intervention:

” ‘Are you ready to start talking about the fight you’re in?’ Wendell asks. “‘ You mean the fight with boyfriend?’ I begin.” ” ‘ Or with myself – ‘ ” “‘No , your fight with death.’ Wendell says.”

“For a second I’m confused, but then I flash to my dream about running into Boyfriend at the mall. Him: ‘Did you ever write your book?’ Me: What book? Him: ‘ the book about your death’. Oh.My.God.

“I have a feeling that Wendell has been storing up this question, waiting for just the right moment to float it out there. Therapists are always weighing the balance between forming a trusting alliance and getting to the real work so the patient doesn’t have to continue suffering. From the outset, we move both slowly and quickly, slowing the content down, speeding up the relationship, planting seeds strategically along the way. As in nature, if you plant the seeds too early, they won’t sprout. If you plant too late, they might make progress, but you’ve missed the most fertile ground. If you plant at just the right time, though, they’ll soak up the nutrients and grow. Our work is an intricate dance between support and confrontation.” (p.154)

This inside reflection on the therapy process is one of the very best descriptions I have read. Whether one is a therapist, a patient in therapy or someone intrigued with how therapy might work, this description puts the reader into the room and in the relationship.

Later in the book Gottlieb comments on our current variety of distractions in the U.S.: “The second people felt alone, I noticed, usually in the space between things – leaving a therapy session, at a red light, standing in a checkout line, riding the elevator – they picked up devices and ran away from that feeling.” She then mentions another well-known point about psychotherapy, but one which can bear repeating, particularly in our over- technologised and over stimulating social environments wherein loneliness and aloneness are exacerbated by avoiding authentic encounters and relationships with others. She writes, “The therapy room seemed to be one of the only places left where two people sit in a room together for an uninterrupted fifty minutes. Despite its veil of professionalism, this weekly I-thou ritual is often one of the most human encounters that people experience.” (p.260)

This quote acts as an appropriate lead-in for my next few posts, which will review and interrogate some of Irv Yalom’s works as well as his recent autobiography, “Becoming Myself: a Psychiatrist’s Memoir”. (2019)

A number of years ago, I had planned to complete a book about what I termed, “The culture of Psychotherapy”. This was to be a book by an anthropologist doing research among psychotherapists. While I have not completed that particular book, I have incorporated much of the research into the current blog about psychotherapy and culture. I have attached a draft of the Introduction to the planned book so that the reader can know where I was heading and where some of that direction can be found in my posts for this blog.