benjybars
village elder.
I read a great interview with Mike Brierley in this months Prospect today. It's probably common knowledge but I had no idea, turns out that after standing down as England captain after the 1981 ashes he became a qualified psychoanalyst, and is now president of the British Psychoanalytical Society.
He talks about the distinction between psychoanalysis and CBT, and draws an analogy between the rise of CBT and the relative decline in NHS-prescibed, public funded long term psychotherapy with the rise of twenty20 and the apparently dwindling support of test cricket.
Might sound a bit gimmicky but it was good. An interesting point of comparison that the article brings up is the fact that CBT doesn't require practitioners to undergo therapy themselves before they qualify.
He basically argues that whilst CBT and short term therapy may be helpful in dealing with specific problems, it doesn't have the range of long term therapy. "Psychoanalysts are trying to free the person over a large range of his mind, his emotional being, his activities, his behaviours, his feelings, his creativity... to expand his mind. Which is why the term 'shrink' is so objectionable." He places "an emphasis on the intuitive, the unconscious, on what you can learn slowly, and that takes a great deal of time to get to." The article claims also that CBT and short term therary rest on fixed, inflexible ideas about happiness.
"Twenty20 is exciting, and good things can happen in it, but it's important to keep test cricket too. The skills derived from test cricket can underpin the twenty20 skills, and a greater range of cricketing ability and personality is revealed through five-day cricket than it is through twenty20. There are parallels to each of these points in the comparison between psychoanalysis and things like CBT."
Sorry for derailment and possible vapidity, I thought it was worth sharing!
big boy post.