Their argument is roughly this, that at a certain point, in the late 1950s or early 1960s, a whole series of institutions and moral codes began to dissolve. Marriage was devalued. Families began to fracture. More and more children grew up without stable association with their biological parents. New forms of child poverty began to appear, as well as social dysfunctions such as drug and alcohol abuse, teenage pregnancies and crime and unemployment in low-income areas. Over time, an upper class pulled back from the brink, and is now intensively preparing its children for high achievement, while on the other side of the tracks children are growing up with little hope for educational, social, and occupational success. The American Dream of opportunity for all is wearing thin.
Just A Little Too Thin: How To Pull Your Child Back From The Brink Of An Eating Disorder Free Downlo
First, may I say that I loved your essay. I was touched by what obviously has been a long road of integration, a journey of integration of what at first seems a static, ancient self-image from adolescence (?) into a voraciously attained wider world of cultural, literary and historical culture. I'm not certain that the obsession and self-pity in which you struggle is trite. I certainly don't see it that way. That said, I'd like to offer spme brief objective response to some of the issues you raise. I am a male neurologist. the neuropsychiatric behaviors (I don't use that term to imply a biological cause, just a clinical classification) the cutting behavior and-- yes, I'm afraid-- somatization of psychic pain -- is considerably more common among females. Trite? Well, I wouldn't say so. Just true; maybe it has been such a common literary theme because it has been a common phenomenon. It should of course be conceded that these perceptions have long, culturally and historically, been through male eyes; witness, famously, the history of the 19th century phenomenon of Charcot's 'hysteria' and 'catalepsy.' Yet in neurologic practice in the 20th and 21st century we see a huge amount of patients with what we call conversion disorder (psychologically-induced symptoms such as paraplegia, blindess etc and psychogenic nonepileptic pseudoseizures (seizure like events which are psychiatrically and not neurologically mediated). These are bizarre though interesting, phenomena, when one thinks about it. It is not "faked," and usually, though not always, the patient is very resistant to any implication that the problem is 'in their head." The lion's share of these patients have a history of childhood trauma, usually sexual abuse. It isn't a part of your esssay, and, hopefully, your history, but it is an exceedingly common problem for countless women with prominent pschologically mediated or exacerbated neuropsychiatric symptoms (whatever this nosological term means means ontologically-- I'm not going there) , symptoms. And, well, it is much, much more usual to see women with this problem. I guess my major point is that, at least for many of the women in cultures past and present, these types of problems are related to childhood sexual abuse. I would hope that this isn't a problem intrinsic to womanhood. 2ff7e9595c
Comments