Conscientizao As a Means of Treating Abuses

[pandora]

A look at Psychology For Victims aka Survivors of Childhood Sexual Abuse and Paulo Freire:
Do not know if any of you are a readers of Paulo Freire?
Anyhoo, I was interested in your thoughts on something I just finished a starter document on critical theory in working with youth recovering from trauma from sexual abuse and childhood sexual abuse in particular.

I am particularly interested in the analyzing the role of conscientizao and it's connection with resiliency theory as espoused by K.M. Andersen. Andersen did a great deal of research on the child's strengths towards healing in , "Uncovering the Survival Abilities in Children Who Have Been Sexually Abused" under Families in Society in 1997.

This goes against some of the work of H.P. Blum "Seduction Trauma: Representation, Deferred Actions and Pathogenic Development" in that it speaks of empowerment of the oppressed. I see many correlations.

For instance, Freire says in Pedagogy of the Oppressed, "As long as their ambiguity persists, the oppressed are reluctant to resist, and totally lack confidence in themselves. They have a diffuse, magical belief in the invulnearbility and power of the oppressor . .."

This corresponds to the victims in childhood sexual abuse continuing fear of their oppressor, which eventually is overcome, but due to the limits of society often not until adulthood due to the state of foster homes and the court system, and it's inability to create safety around abused youth.

Society out of inablitity to deal with the horror of childhood sexual abuse dwells in blame the victim mentalities not just against the victime but against the mother. Traditionally it was thought in the early part of the last century and the one before that women caused men to abuse children by working outside the home, in addition to being poor and therefore unfit.

There are amazing links between the treatment of abused youth and social theory in the begining of the last century they were only unlinked more recently.

Furthermore, Paulo Freire in Pedagogy of the Oppressed speaks of critical reflection as a means whereby the individual is freed to action. In working with sexually abused youth, it is only after the cloak of shame and blame which is further impounded by society is lifted through self reflection that the individual and have power over their situation. I also do not think it is a coincidence that many of those who fight for social justice and social change have overcome their own personal traumas and in a sense kept going against deeper and deeper levels of oppression.

Anyways, I don't have anyone with whom to speak with these thoughts. If you are uninterested or not a Freire fan please disregard or read him.

[redstar2000]

Andersen did a great deal of research on the child's strengths towards healing in , "Uncovering the Survival Abilities in Children Who Have Been Sexually Abused" under Families in Society in 1997.

This goes against some of the work of H.P. Blum "Seduction Trauma: Representation, Deferred Actions and Pathogenic Development" in that it speaks of empowerment of the oppressed.

It would be interesting to know in more detail just what the disagreements between Andersen and Blum were.



The Redstar2000 Papers
A site about communist ideas

[pandora]

The idea I'm directing against is fatalism as described by Paulo Freire in Pedagogy of the Oppressed as the "fruit of an historical and sociological situation, not an essential characteristic of people's behavior", he used it to describe the proleterian peasant recognizing his dependence on an oppressor and taking the courage to overcome his dependence.

Victims theories in psychology towards victims of various forms of abuse and post-traumatic stress disorder also suffer from fatalism. This effects the way "problem youth" are dealt with, as well as Veterens [currently facing budget cuts of post traumatic therapy], the criminal justice system and the way it treats rehabilitation, and the ability to be insured by medical companies for those who suffer traumas. In short and this argument effects a lot of ground, and comes back to the rights assertion on two points:
a.) victims of violence or ptsd should pull themselves up by their bootstraps, they don't need therapy or social welfare.
or b.) They are permenantly disturbed and should be seperated from mainstream society, tracking for kids, seperate schools, institution, prisons.

H.P. Blum wrote "Seduction Trauma: Representation, Deferred Actions and Pathogenic Development" for the Journal of American Psychoanalytic Association in 1996 which spoke to something people have been aware of for a very long time. Victims of abuse often subconsciously re-introduce traumatic experiences into their lives as a way of further processing that information. They don't objectively search, quite the opposite they are responding to "psychic trauma" as Blum described it leading to low self esteem issues and "unconscious conflict" alteration and alienation of self. My argument is society's mores towards victims, blame and shame, have a lot to do with instilling the person's self identity.

K.M. Anderson wrote "Uncovering Survival Abilities in Children Who Have Been Sexually Abused, " in Families in Society in 1997. He studied children who had gasp recovered from seduction trauma supposedly inevitable by Blum's assertion by what Anderson called "resiliency theory."
But Anderson noted that inevitably those that had recovered tended to be those who had a strong support network around the individual. Resiliency theory focuses on the person's strength towards healing. And of course those who can be healed need not be isolated from society. In fact it is the act of alienation that prevents healing, imagine that, the double tailspin on Vets, homeless, criminals etc.

[Snark]

I generally find Freire to be incredibly perceptive, and his theories are good...but he's also so incredibly dense and jargon-obsessed (as are, not to be a dick or anything, most of the people in his field and others like it), and he forsakes simplicity and elegance in favor of self-important obtuseness and verbosity. Freire, and the people who discuss his theories, seem to take academiaese to a whole different level. I'm an academic myself- but a scientist, and I highly value clear communication. Using vocabulary critical to discussion of one's field is one thing- I wouldn't get far if I had to entirely use layman's language- but buzzwords, jargon, and unwarranted complexity are detriments, not strengths.

This is a failure that many of the social sciences and humanities tend to fall into- trying to emulate the preciseness of the sciences, I imagine.

[pandora]

[QUOTE]You seem to have a bias towards science and against the language of humanities, in that you find the jargon, latin names for flowers, chemical periodic table for elements to be "clear" but the names for relationships between people to be "jargon" that's interesting in that social sciences are so important as our development on this world, and that politics runs environmental science in reality.

Perhaps being open to the need for some terms so people can understand each other quickly will reduce your feelings towards humanities, as these sciences are "underdeveloped" right now where the 'hard" sciences that allow say atomic weapons to be developed are "overdeveloped"

It is the more feminine and flexible nature of humanities that defies masculine logic, but is not high level physics not equally incomprehensible?

I find Freire to be poetic and clear, in speaking with people who witnessed him in Mexico from native families they found him to be, "one of the people" for his ability to speak with "humility" So your opinion is not universal.