Hello Tina,

> on the other hand by
> claiming authority in the research
> processes/methodologies the scientist is
> claiming to have knowledge of the
> knowledge-generating process itself.
> 
> This is what I was getting at (I think).  That
> scientists need to have some
> humility in their practice as scientists because
> they are not simply
> uncovering knowledge/truth but also generating and
> sustaining it. 

Thanks for explaining your thoughts on this, and I
don't know the work of Ken Gergen, but this makes
sense. I'd add though to this issue of scientists and
authority that often research is conducted in areas in
which there are already pre-established facts, or ways
in which authority is already claimed. It often takes
a certain arrogance for a young scientist to even
undertake research, a continual proving of oneself, or
arguing for the validity of his or research, given the
already established authorities and areas of
authority--how to properly conduct research, classify
results, etc. Someone who started out with that kind
of humility would probably never make it through, for
instance, just the round of  courses that faculty will
describe as trying 'to burn you out' or 'see if you
break.' So, perhaps part of the issue with authority
is the process which basically tends, if
inadvertently,  to crush or break anyone with
humility. 

> hoping that they will go
> away.  Are therapists always privately paid for in
> the US?  I guess if they
> are then this means that large chunks of American
> society don't have access
> to therapy as an option at all.
> 
Yes, therapy, like most medical care is privately paid
for in the U.S., a health care crisis in every sense.
And it's true as you note that the poor and the lower
middle class only have access to emergency care, most
public health assistance has become emergency room or
24 hour care centers access in actual practice, and
under those circumstances, medication is the usual
resort. This was where my brother was first taken
since he was unemployed and had no health insurance.
And part of my parents' fear of doctors was of any
kind, since they could not afford it. And then some of
the, I think, better therapies, like the Narrative
therapy you mentioned previously, would not be covered
by insurance. So, yes, and it's undoubtedly true that
many of the people on the streets are mentally ill.
The mental health hospitals were emptied out in the
70's because of the abuses that occurred in the days
of enforced commitments and also government, local and
federal concerns, over the cost of maintaining them.
So unless someone is a danger to others or himself, he
or she can left to wander the streets indefinitely.
There are about nine people, mostly middle-aged or
older men, who do just that in the few blocks around
here.

> - I used to spend a lot of time with my
> great-grandmother when I was very
> young (6 or 7 maybe).  She had dementia but no-one
> in my family discussed
> it
And thanks for sharing the story of your
great-grandmother, it was  vivid, I'd forgotten how my
own great-grandmother used to rely on talcum powder
and handkerchiefs!, though sort of sad that her remark
made you dismissive and a little scared. But it must
have connected with a number of already received
assumptions of what it meant when she said that, even
if your family didn't discuss her dementia, there must
have been some idea of what it meant to be 'not right
in the head.'

 I don't know, but I've been thinking lately that
there is like this acculturated brain, a sort of
'mind' of received notices, assumptions, 'educated' in
various ways of looking, and that there are these
signal moments where one can almost remember or catch
oneself switching out of one's own fluid sense of
reality into the acculturated brain. This sort of
moment like you describe, where your greatgreatnan
suddenly looks at herself as 'anyone' would and
comments that 'she's not right', including the switch
to the third person, and then you, as a child, being
caught on the hinge and switching to 'anyone's'
response which is dismissive and a little scared. But
what was really lost in that moment was both of you
and those moments of sharing as well as the stories
shared within them. Though I hope you don't mind my
expressing this idea in the terms of this moment you
described. For I don't wish to intrude my reading into
it, I was thinking too of this moment when I was about
6 when a group of kids I was with suddenly clicked, I
don't know, perhaps they heard their parents talking,
on the perception that this woman who lived in the
house on the corner was a 'witch' and ever after that
became scared to go by her house, especially if she
was out in her garden. It was a rather poor house, a
great garden, lots of herbs, and when we went by,
she'd often be puttering with some of the plants and
visible through the kitchen window. Just basically an
older woman, living alone, which was probably enough
to make  her  'weird' in and of itself in that
neighborhood of families. But it was odd, how in a
moment she went from being sort of mysterious and
fascinating to terrifying, and it was just that sort
of external perception suddenly clicking on in
everyone's head. We didn't see her in that mysterious,
fluid way anymore in that moment, but just as 'anyone'
would see her, i.e. what our parents, etc, said, not
just the word but the way it clicked into all these
assumptions, and, yes, always the connection to fear.
Anyway I think it is very difficult to think from
one's own sense of reality, that thinking itself is so
much this acculturated mind, that it's not unlike the
issue of the sciences, but I'm probably rambling
again, so back to work, 

best,

Rebecca




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