And Win and X both, while I'm making enemies by being outrageous, oh dear, Win recommended the Dibs book to you today, X. Win, I read that book years ago on the recommendation of the same woman who recommended Depak Chopra to me later, and I simply didn't believe the Dibs "play therapy" script as presented was accurate. Just plain didn't believe it. I've worked with a lot of disturbed children, and one of my best friends was an art therapist who knew a lot of art and play therapists at the time I read the book, and she laughed when I asked what she thought of it. Sorry to disagree, Win. I suspect that people are inspired by that book, and adore it, because it has a happy ending and everyone would like such stories to be true and mainly because there is a whole profession for which such a story is a great big promotion, and so that profession, with self-serving credulity, promotes the book as an actual case study. It shows up on every child psych reading list and every Rogerian analysis list. And I wonder if there has been any followup. A 1990 reissue is the one selling on the net, but it was written 18 or 20 years ago. More, actually, I think, that's just when I read it. Has anyone heard what happened to Dibs? He may be pushing toward middle age by now; he is certainly an adult and old enough to interview. And his family? Has anyone tried to talk to them? And has Axline had some more miraculous cures? If not, why not? And isn't that significant? If she had other such virtual purported transcripts, wouldn't she make best sellers out of them, too? My suspicion is that writing a phoney case study once was a temptation and doable, but one every couple of years was too much.
But that's another subject, one i thought i'd throw in while I was being negative! I wasn't going to say anything, but it just flowed out. I'll be interested to see what you think. I mean, if you believe the case was presented accurately or is a romantic myth.
I saw a story on one of those TV magazine shows about a psychologist or psychiatrist who got world famous writing about the amazing, successful work he did with a little boy whose penis was cut off by a botched circumcision, and who, on his advice, was then, when a young toddler, converted by surgery and other means to girldom.
This guy wrote books and papers about his marvelously successful "treatment" of this boy and his sister. No problem, he said! He had successfully guided the gender-change! I'm thinking maybe the sister was a twin sister, not sure about that. But I'm wondering why she was in the therapy sessions with the shrink, too, if not.
What I remember is that it was all bull shit. The boy's life as a girl was a hideous nightmare. He was chronically depressed and wanted to die. He tried to commit suicide. He didn't feel like a girl at all. His parents were wretched from the beginning, and knew their child was suffering. Their lives were ruined, too. The reports made of the "therapy" sessions were, the boy said later, falsified. He found no peace until, as an adult, he started taking testosterone and had some sort of surgery, and began life as the male he was, however damaged.
With a very few exceptions, individuals here and there who couldn't get heard for a long time, everyone bought the untrue story.
The famous psychiatrist, last time I heard, was refusing to be interviewed but denying he did anything wrong.
I think there are phonies in all fields, and that that shrink and the woman who wrote Dibs are among them.
Just my intuitive feeling based on a reading and talking to a friend. |
