Mystery Murders, String Theory and Psychotherapy

May 23rd, 2012 by Geoff Boutle MBACP (Accred) UKRC Reg

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The search for a single answer to complex issues is a recurrent feature within the western world. From religion to physics and to popular culture there is a sense that there must always be an answer and that once found, that solution should provide a consistent and universal explanation.
That approach is present wherever we look. Two millennia ago a rather sombre monotheism replaced the squabbling family of classical Greek and Roman gods. Darwinism and evolution provided an explanation as to the process of development of life on earth and the discovery of penicillin hailed the emergence of the first wonder drug to cure all. Marx predicted the victor in the coming class war and even the more recent decision to introduce penalty kicks at the end of a drawn final, has now ensured that there is a definitive resolution to any football competition. Wherever we look there always has to be an answer.

This relentless drive for certainty is all pervasive. Within the scientific world, physicists have long sought the single unifying force. From Greek thinkers to Newton and Einstein, the quest for that which will explain all has been relentless. String theory now tries to pull together ideas surrounding cosmic forces even if some physicists may privately struggle to understand how such a complex idea can be represented in the real world.
And from science to popular culture, our need for resolution continues to be ever present. For those who are gripped by the latest episode in the popular killing fields of middle England, whether in Midsomer, Morse’s Oxford or even Whitechapel, there has to be a denouement at the end of the programme. The murderer must be revealed and motivation explained. The questions posed within crime dramas need to answered with a solution which reveals the perpetrator in all his or her infamy. For the producers of these shows any other outcome would appear to be inconceivable.
This need for an answer is present wherever we look. A disaster requires a scapegoat and a tragedy a reason. We always need to know why.
Given the force of that drive for certainty it is perhaps not surprising that this pattern has been reflected in the therapy room. The trend may have started with Freud and Anna O but the search for a single source for emotional dysfunction has continued through the work of many other therapists. Writings from distinguished psychotherapists through to student case studies, reveal the same preferred pattern. The emotional challenges faced by the client are ideally traced back to a single event which has retained the power to impact on the client's current emotional world. Once the detective work is completed, the event is catalogued. The ramifications are laid bare and the main part of the analysis is completed. All is well – and how convenient.
Except of course that real life and therapy rarely follows this rather neat scenario. Clients are complex individuals who have been exposed to a myriad of different influences throughout life. That brings challenges into the counselling room which need to be acknowledged.
Even the most ardent advocate of psychodynamic work will agree that on some occasions memories will be so far back as to be unreachable with the event and the impact of that incident or relationship remaining forever unknown. The cognitive behavioural therapist (CBT) may also in a moment of perhaps rare candour, accept that some aspects of the emotional world of the client will remain hidden and yet continue to exert a powerful influence which can sabotage the most rational and logical of approaches.
Universality crumbles before the complexity of the individual. Each client has a story which is comprised of so many chapters each of which can influence future behaviour.
There will of course always be some individual situations where a cataclysmic event has created a tidal wave of emotion which continues to impact on the personality. Incidents of post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) are now well documented and should be regarded with the utmost seriousness. There has been good progress made in terms of helpful treatments and much attention has recently be given to techniques showing favourable outcomes such as eye movement desensitisation and reprocessing (EMDR). Nevertheless a single reliable remedy for all cases of PTSD remains out of reach and perhaps that is not surprising. The reality is that within psychopathology, individual challenges require individual solutions.
We cannot generalise solutions from the individual to the group with any certainty. We should acknowledge that there may be ways of working which research suggest are particularly helpful and those should be explored. Given however that these can often be new approaches, those explorations give weight to the argument that therapists should have a plurality of techniques within their competency framework rather than just fall back on one specific way of working with the client.
To try to insist upon a single approach as the way of resolving individual emotional challenges is to again be seduced by the lure of the universal. Within the current world of emotional health issues, there may be resource factors to be considered which can make a specific approach seem particularly attractive for some. If a certain counselling technique demands fewer resources in terms of time, training and cost that may prove attractive to those who are primarily concerned with achieving a quick and cost effective resolution. That can apply equally to individuals or organisations and to both the public and private sectors.
Yet a far more persuasive argument is that individuals are complex emotional beings who irrespective of age have encountered through life, a panoply of forces which have shaped their way of interacting with the world. As counsellors we should work in the way which will best support the client rather than by adopting the quick fix to just please the business manager.
For therapists and counsellors the consistent response must surely be that there are no guaranteed constants or universals. We should respect each client by viewing her or him as a unique individual. That means in turn that the easing of the emotional distress or the strengthening of the individual will must come from a path which best fits with the overall needs of that client alone rather than from work which is squeezed into a designated clinical model.
The leading contemporary psychotherapist Patrick Casement gave the title ‘On Learning from the Patient (1)’, to a powerful work regarding analytic technique. That title continues to provide an important signpost for therapists.
We start and end counselling work by listening to and learning from the individual client. Her or his needs are paramount. Any resolution of those therapeutic needs should fit with the requirements of each unique client. That must always take priority over the adoption of the latest universal theory which despite the claims and hyperbole, will inevitably one day sink, forgotten and discredited, deep into the Midsomer mire.
And that assumes of course that there is a mire in Midsomer. There does seem to be everything else there in that rather dangerous part of middle England...!

Source: http://www.counselling-directory.org.uk/counsellor-articles/mystery-murders-stringtheory-and-psychotherapy