done by parents. They may no longer be quite sure why or how, but they’re
as enthusiastic as ever, and perhaps a bit more destructive.
Struggles with parents used to be internal. Now some therapists
encourage clients to make them into external confrontations. The old
name for this was “acting out adolescent fantasies,” and even uninspired
psychoanalysts would tell you that it made internal conflicts worse. With
the demise of analysis, therapy became considerably less internal than it
used to be.
We didn’t lose the idea that parents cause mental illness, but we did
lose 75 years of experience in getting people to pay attention to the impli-
cations of everything they say, do, and think. Insight may not cure mental
disorders, but it surely helps. It’s not a bad thing for therapists to have either.
Psychoanalysis was overthrown because knowing where problems
come from is not enough to fix them. Today, therapists teach useful prob-
lem-solving skills like assertion, relaxation, communication, anxiety man-
agement, rational thinking, and positive self-talk. There is no question that
this helps many people, but the approach does have some real limitations.
Consider Brandon’s extremely unfavorable opinion of his anger man-
agement class.
Fran, the bartender at Cassidy’s, sets a pitcher down in front of
Brandon as he tells her about his stressful day of being chewed
out, called a deadbeat, and chasing an inconsiderate driver on
the freeway.
Fran shakes her head. “I guess that anger control class
they sent you to didn’t do much good.”
“Are you kidding?” Brandon says. “That class was the
biggest joke I’ve ever heard. This shrink wanted me to write down
my ‘anger producing cognitions’ in this little notebook every
time some idiot got in my face.” Brandon rolls his eyes. “Like
that’s really going to happen.”
They both laugh, and Brandon takes a big swallow of his
beer.If you don’t think anger control classes are a joke, you haven’t been
watching late night TV. Cognitive therapists know that it’s your own
What’s Wrong with These People? ❧ 39