Interview with a detransitioner

For me, it's down to horses for courses, @KatieAlcock

Some will benefit from CBT, and it seems well suited to treating certain disorders in particular, e.g. OCD, simple (as opposed to complex) PTSD, and addictive patterns. On the other hand, there are long-term, in-depth studies that show that the relapse rate for CBT is high. (A 10-year Swedish study found no long-term effectiveness at all for those with depression, for example.)

Some will benefit from psychotherapy (esp. complex/multiple psychological disorders), and that psychotherapy will necessarily need a longer-term intervention - and studies have found that this approach works (De Smet), though it is notoriously difficult to measure.

In other words, there is a place for both of them, depending on preference and presenting issues.

Hey thanks! Sorry for the wall(s) of text

No I don't, and I apologise.

Frankly, even if every other Jungian in the world was absolutely lovely, evidence-based, compassionate, non-manipulative, non-woo and absolutely non-abusive, it would still be entirely reasonable for me to avoid them purely in case something about the way they do things reminds me of the Jungian who abused me. Jungian is not a protected characteristic and I'm not remotely bothered about being called a Jungophobe

I haven't over-generalised. You've made an over-generalising inference.

I was damaged by one and I now don't want to have anything to do with any of them. I didn't say why, and I don't have to.

You have no idea what it is that that person did that damaged me, or whether it's something that's more common with Jungian practitioners than others. You also have no idea whether the person who damaged me is a respected and influential practitioner in the Jungian field or not.

But many therapies are effective when carried out in brief courses; and if you say "but you have to stick with it for months or years" then that means you can never be sure if improvement would have happened anyway or if it's due to the placebo effect. These therapies are rarely subjected to RCTs and if they are, they are generally not effective. This applies even if you stick to the "you have to keep going till you have done at least six months" ideal.

Again, I'm really sorry you had a shit experience. My own Jungian therapist is entirely non-woo and comes from a particular training that emphasises object-relations, which is based on developmental psychology and attachment theory. In other words, there are shit ones and there are good ones. Unfortunately, Jungian thought lends itself to being widely misinterpreted and misrepresented because of the emphasis on dreamwork and symbolism, which has been co-opted by the New Age.

The problem with measuring "non-evidence based therapies" is that what goes on in each session is entirely confidential; it's an art form as well as a science; ... and current studies into the effectiveness of psychotherapy are based on NHS models where the average number of sessions is 7.5, which is a ridiculous number of sessions, and honestly will do more harm than good. So I'm not surprised outcomes are sketchy at best or shitty at worst because there is nothing worse than curtailing therapy that is designed to be effective over the medium-term.

I'm with you, Katie Alcock. I had four years with a 'feminist' therapist who I was referred to by a household name female therapist here in the UK. Turned out my therapist was a Jungian. In retrospect it was four years of highfalutin woo. A house deposit spent over those years. Her disappointment and anger when I decided to call it a day just underlined what a waste of time it had been for me.

After six sessions of CBT I left my therapist with a cheerful handshake on both sides, thinking a bit differently and armed with a toolkit I could call on at any time.

I'm a research psychologist and I am looking at cognitive development and sex based stereotypes. I don't have much time for non-evidence-based therapies I'm afraid!

Yes, Jung was very much influenced by other philosophers, but came into his own with the idea of complexes and the psychoid (the latter explained differently in Freud's Totem and Taboo), which are fascinating to study.

I'm sorry you were damaged by your analyst. There are a lot of people out there who shouldn't be practising. But you over-generalise.

This! Jung has a lot for us to learn from. I’ve never seen the problem either.

Oh God, Jungians. I was severely mentally damaged by a Jungian analyst and have never cared to listen to a word any of them says ever since.

Hence it is that whenever
this demand is fulfilled, political and social conditions arise
which bring the same ills back again in altered form. What
then happens is a simple reversal: the underside comes to the
top and the shadow takes the place of the light, and since the
former is always anarchic and turbulent, the freedom of
the “liberated” underdog must suffer Draconian curtailment.

This is Hegel, Freud, and Derrida, all rolled together in the supplement, the return of the repressed & Hegel's dialectic!

Thanks so much for posting that @LaingsAcidTab It's not only beautifully written, it really pinpoints the problem of the Western mind/body split at a deep level.

This is where philosophy can help us - it seems to me that a lot of these sorts of illnesses - anorexia, gender dysphoria, bodily dysmorphia - come in part from a cultural framework which encourages us/educates us/conditions us/enculturates us (pick your word!) to separates our minds from our bodies.

As a materialist feminist, I might suggest that this separation is experienced as a harmful problem for girls & women far more than for boys & men, because the world is organised around male minds & bodies. Part of the work a lot of women end up doing is to keep bringing our bodies & minds together - to not see our bodies as our enemies. I think that was the grace of the original Our Bodies, Ourselves (they've gone all gender woo now).

Social contagion is so much easier to get your head around.

I totally agree. In fact, I have a feeling (of course I don't know for sure, but it's not an uninformed feeling) that Jung would have viewed what is going on with the trans rights movement as a collective complex, much like he described in his last book, The Undiscovered Self:

Separation from his instinctual nature inevitably plunges
civilized man into the conflict between conscious and
unconscious, spirit and nature, knowledge and faith, a split
that becomes pathological the moment his consciousness is
no longer able to neglect or suppress his instinctual side. The
accumulation of individuals who have got into this critical
state starts off a mass movement purporting to be the champion of the suppressed. In accordance with the prevailing
tendency of consciousness to seek the source of all ills in the
outside world, the cry goes up for political and social changes
which, it is supposed, would automatically solve the much
deeper problem of split personality. Hence it is that whenever
this demand is fulfilled, political and social conditions arise
which bring the same ills back again in altered form. What
then happens is a simple reversal: the underside comes to the
top and the shadow takes the place of the light, and since the
former is always anarchic and turbulent, the freedom of
the “liberated” underdog must suffer Draconian curtailment.
All this is unavoidable, because the root of the evil is
untouched and merely the counterposition has come to light

Have you googled James Esses? Az Hakim? Lots of therapists have been quietly working behind the scenes to challenge training organisations/ the BACP regarding the affirmation-only model.

Interesting. I’m both gender critical and very influenced by Jung. I’ve never found the two in any way contradictory. Very few people understand Jung though.

However, it's important to add that Jung did not conflate gender and biological sex.

An interesting quote from Jung:

“What about masculinity? Do you know how much femininity man lacks for completeness? Do you know how much masculinity woman lacks for completeness? You seek the feminine in women and the masculine in men. And thus there are always only men and women. But where are people? You, man, should not seek the feminine in women, but seek and recognize it in yourself, as you possess it from the beginning.”

And I don't think that was a concept widely discussed when Jung was alive, which is why I mentioned the post-Jungians.

My point is that feminists DON'T see gender as an "internal concept." It's a political system.

Yes, noted. I don't think Jungian thought has much to say about this (i.e. specifically whether it is divorced from sex or not) - though I'm sure the post-Jungians do.