Psychologist Nancy Shaffer, Ph.D. -- D.C. Dept. Mental Health -- Clinical Notes August 2000

session August 16. 2000:

Reviewed "Statement" re job harassment.

http://dailstrug.blogspot.com/2010/04/americans-with-disabilities-act-my.html
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You need to accommodate yourself to others: cf. situation in library. I shun patron who ate in library -- she questions why I did that. Yet therapist will approve of coworkers shunning me because I do not conform. Also: note again she seems to support the enforcement of social norms; while as for rules set down by a government agency (here the D.C. Library System)--well, basically, the hell with that. Implication: you have no standing to remedy someone else's injury; if someone is breaking the library's rules, you have no right to speak for the library, let the library employees handle that. But compare: In a tight-knit group, as in a labor union situation, the morality dictates: "All for one, one for all" -- in a sympathy strike, where's the standing? There is none.

Were there other employees who were homosexual: ignores extent to which persons who harassed me did not necessarily harass others but did have specific disturbances in relation to third parties.

-- If you look at a collection of possible interactions, you begin to see the therapist's bias:

1. An employee reports that he is being harassed with homosexual innuendo. There are other homosexuals in the organization, and they get on well with coworkers. The question arises as to whether the supposed victim is being harassed at all (perhaps he is hypersensitive and working in a benign environment). In this construction, the image of the social system is preserved as benign and the victim is depicted as hypersensitive. The social system is rational, but the victim shows ego vulnerability.

2. An employee reports that he is being harassed with homosexual innuendo. In fact, the environment is hostile to homosexuals and tends to tease or ridicule anyone who has certain traits.. (In this environment, the presumption arises that the victim has intrinsic qualities that suggest he is homosexual; here there is a parallel with the "popular response" on a Rorschach: certainly, the inkblot is not a bat, but to many people, the image resembles a bat.) This construction preserves the social system as rational; and preserves the image of the victim as a person who "resembles a homosexual."

3. An employee reports that he is being harassed with homosexual innuendo and the environment is friendly to homosexuals. The victim is in fact being harassed, but the content of the harassment does not go to the core reasons for the harassment, that really reside in coworkers jealousy, and the victim's status as an outsider. The construction asserts that the social system, otherwise benign. has projected a negative imago onto the victim, which suggests that there are irrational forces at work in the social system. It preserves the imago of the victim as a victim of capricious aggression. The therapist will avoid this interpretation, which suggests that her value system prohibits this depiction. This is so since the social system is acting irrationally with respect to the victim, and the reaction by the social system cannot be rationalized as a reaction to negative qualities in the victim. In effect, this construction violates the therapist's superego sanction: "There are no innocent victims."

Rorschach testing: need to show conventional responding -- bat. The literature does not support this. Myden: creative responders may have very few conventional responses; Ganellen: non-creative control group gave conventional responses only about 30% of time.

Interesting footnote suggestive of therapist's majoritarian bias: Paradox that although each Rorschach card has its most popular response (or set of most popular responses), even normal test subjects' total responses include only about 30% popular responses. Popular responses are called "popular" and not "majority" responses for a reason: even popular Rorschach responses may represent only a plurality of responses. For example, even though "bat" may be the most "popular" response to a certain card, it may be cited by, say, only 30% of test subjects. Therapist confuses these statistical issues and relies on the idea that "popular" means "majority" -- it most surely does not. Also, therapist seems to infer that a normal person will cite "popular" responses most of the time: suggests her identification with overly conventional persons. Presumably, person who has a high level of popular responses would be disturbed in a specific way: -- he may be overly conventional, engage in massive denial, or suffer from severe repression (alexithymia).

High reality testing potential -- never heard of that -- some people make up own terms. Therapist reverses need for clich‚d view of reality. (Unusual concept is bad because its unconventional--she belittles that)

Therapist's response was similar when I mentioned that attributions of homosexuality can be an anti-Semitic stereotype. "I didn't know that."

Either/or -- cf. need to look at both sides of issue. Avoids the issue: There is such a thing as hypersensitivity, there is such a thing as subtle job harassment -- how do you distinguish them or -- even if they coexist, how do you assess the importance or role of the hypersensitivity in the complainant versus the subtle job harrassment emanating from the environment

inconsistent and unintegrated superego values that may have their origins in fragments of anality:

Superego sanction 1: it is important to actualize capacities (cf. it's important to use your capacity for anal sphincter control. If you have anal sphincter control, then you must use it and not poop in your pants);

Superego sanction 2: Do not criticize your peers. If you do, you will be rejected by them. Your (anal) source of narcissistic integrity -- fitting into a social system -- will be impaired thereby, and you will impair an important source of narcissistic integrity (merger with the social system).

When a therapist with these anal superego values projects them outward as a therapeutic recommendation, it may pose a problem-- an intolerable strain for the patient. Let us say that the patient has valid complaints against his social system -- the therapist will try to invalidate the patient's complaints. Yet what about Superego sanction #1: you must actualize your capacities. Let us say that difficulties with peers impair the actualization of capacities -- therapist will not go so far as to say the patient is psychotic because that would invalidate his capacities alltogether. Therapist's superego values place patient in an untenable position: Keep your mouth shut and don't criticize your peers, and your accusations, however crazy, do not render you sick enough for me to say you are psychotic. The therapist must avoid the depction of the patient as having valid complaints against peers (that would violate therapist's own sanction #2; but therapist must also avoid saying that patient is psychotic--that would violate her own sanction #1, which requires that patient's capacities be recognized and that he not use impairments in his capacities to excuse his failure to actualize those capacities. OUTCOME as to the "Statement" -- Your allegations against your peers are a product of hypersensitivity (see sanction #2); Your allegations do not rise to a level that would cause me to say you are psychotic because that might discourage you from seeking employment (see sanction #1). Therapist's anality poses strain for patient who would like therapist to say either that Statement is evidence of severe mental disturbance that excuses him from seeking work; or agree that Statement presents valid issues and that therapist will seek D.C. Government action based on the statement. It's here that therapist comes up with the "either/or" crap. "You want me to say you are psychotic or go to bat for you with the Rehabilitation Services Administration -- I can't do that." (She doesn't recognize that it's her own anality that determines her actions).

Piaget -- arguing against fact. Impaired ability to look at a nonexistant situation and assess what would need to be true to support the actual occurrence of that situation. (May tend to show that therapist'c cognitive functioning in some areas is impaired--doesn't go beyond that of a three-year-old).

would have to observe harassment -- ignores extent to which the problem is purely intrapsychic in me -- inability to look at the situation from the perspective of modeling. Therapist may be showing additional cognitive impairment -- can only deal with ideas if they have a concrete form. Also, what means does she have to rule out possibility that she is being manipulated by the harassers even if she were to observe personal interactions on site. Also, what about group therapy situation -- how would she go about assessing equivalent disturbed dynamics in group therapy situation.

attribution that I am hypersensitive -- extent to which she is putting problem on level of my "feelings" -- problem: extent to which I am not complaining about the incidents themselves, but how they serve as markers of a disturbed environment. Suggests lack of ego differentiation in therapist, the ability to make meaningful deductions. Again, need to see concrete things. Seems to need to see any observations by the "observing ego" as an expression of, or as having been driven by, the distress of the experiencing ego. In talking about relations with brother-in-law, said: "It sounds as if you got on each others' nerves" -- puts issues on level of feelins ("nerves")--but aggression in narcissitsically regressed group does not rely on "feelings", that is, on the victim "feeling" anything.

connections: attribution that I put things together in an inappropriate way which leads to incorrect interpretations of reality -- note therapist's act of putting together mt writing of the statemnet together with fear of disability cutoff (no evidence for that--that's her creation --her act of putting things together). What about extent to which my statement expresses a desire to get off disability and get back to work with the understanding that I may tend to be subjected to subtle job harassment. Also extent to which I made statement precisely while my disability is under review, so that SSA will put pressure on Corp Counsel to sign the statement, and ultimately let me get back to work. Seems to link up everything I do as related to fear of benefits cut off -- a projection of her own fear of abandonment (and jealousy).

explains my thinking in terms of a psychiatric symptom (hypersensitivity) without looking at the content of my thinking; did same thing with obsessiveness -- put that on level of psych symptom without regard to the content of what I am obsessed with --(but cf. Rorschach testing -- inappropriately put the issue on a level of content (you must see a bat, if most people say they see a bat), without regard to the fact that there the issue was one of quantity (sheer quantity of responses can be indicator of creative ego functioning). Uses quantitative assessments and qualitative assessments in self-serving way that don't correspond to valid models. What about dreaming? In that case thoughts or images that arise in the regressed state of sleep offer a window into the personality. One could simply deny dreams as "crazy thoughts that reflect a regressed state -- a state of ego vulnerability." In similar way, obsessiveness can provide a window into the personality (cf. The Rat Man) -- issues about which a person is hypersensitive can also provide a window into the content of the person's personality. (For example, in the "Statement" -- the allegations there can be dismissed as a product of hypersensitivity -- yet analytically can be seen to reflect a deep-seated view of the self as a victim of chronic manipulation, a puppet like figure, struggling with jealous peers; parental figures (supervisors) who act like sibling figures (suggesting role reversal); and naive parental figures (senior management) who are easily manipulated and fail to protect the employee; persistent implied threats of annihilation (job termination) that are overcome by my intellectual mastery and ability to outwit my persecutors, etc. Like Indiana Jones battling with the forces of evil. What does all that mean? -- you won't find an answer to that question from this therapist, whose only appraisal is that I am hypersensitive.)

Predicate thinking:

Conventional responding on Rorschach = normality = conventional projections = stereotypes of individuals (that's good even if wrong, because it's what most people think.)

At moments of regression this therapist will probably be unable to distinguish between an unconventional response and a response that is wrong (or bad). In her mind anything that is inconsistent with conventional thinking will be bad. In her mind unconventional = wrongness = badness.

Tends to confuse conventional response with goodness and rightness.

Conversely, interpersonally, at moments of regression, therapist will have the following predicate thinking:

Unconventional response on Rorschach = Unconventional person = badness = wrongness

Relation to workplace harassment:

In effect, if coworkers look at a homosexual and do not react negatively, then how can you say you are being harassed because of gender issues? (Precisely, because the gender issues are a red herring.)

If most Rorschach test subjects look at an inkblot and see a bat, then how can you say that it's something other than a bat?

Note the symmetry of the following incontrovertibly wrong statements by therapist:

1. I would expect that if most people see a bat when they look at a Rorschach card, then there's something wrong with a person who does not see a bat (FALSE). (note that a conventional response on a Rorschach is a no less projective than an unconventional response --a conventional response is the equivalent of a stereotype, which is a shared projection by members of a dominant group -- suggests that therapist's narcissistic ideal is the morality of a narcissistically-regressed group in which a conformist ideology prevails.)
2. If a person is working in a law firm where homosexuals are welcome (they see a "good") person, then how can you say that you are being harassed because of gender issues?:

Again, fails to see the issue in terms of projections, stereotypes, -- the fact that a person is subjected to a stereotype of a "bad" person has as much to do with who he is as an inkblot has to do with a bat. What does that have to do with their feelings about bats? Variation: A woman works at a dog pound; she is dislliked by coworkers. Sometimes she is called a "bitch" (a female dog). Dr. Shaffer would ask, "weren't there other bitches at the dog pound?" The question is bitches or "bitches?" Again a confusion about concrete object and metaphor; this is overdetermined for the therapist--she has a problem with abstract thinking generally. The fundamental issue is -- regardless of the external object's intrinsic qualities and whether other persons also share those qualities -- when a group of people look at the object do they use image reality testing or object reality testing? The issue is that people who harass me are using, or have regressed to a state of, image reality testing. Another variation: When Chistians look at Jesus Christ, they do not see a middle-aged man, with a strange relationship with his mother, who never got married, appears to have no sexual interest in women, who abandoned the profession in which he trained, in order to become a trouble maker, who defied the government, and engaged in rabble- rousing--probably a worthless homosexual. NO! They see a godlike figure. Why? Because Christians see Jesus through the lens of image reality testing, not object reality testing.

Confusion in therapist's mind between a projection shared by a group (a stereotype or conventional answer on Rorschach test) and the intrinsic nature of the external object.