I hardly ever get posts from this list.  Suddenly I receive one out of the
blue from Dr. Eisman who makes a puzzling remark about social workers.
Several other listmembers ask him to explain this remark and he replies with
contemptuous remarks, as comfortably as though we all exchanged posts
regularly.  For me it has been jarring.  Happily, numerous other posts have
eloquently defended the value of post-Newtonian thinking (science not being
what it used to be these days!) and the art of therapy.

I am glad that some good has come out of this thread, which had such a
bizarre beginning from where I sit.  But I must say that I don't think that
it is a lack of research or a lack of intellect that plagues psychoanalysis.
I think that a passion for healing, rather than for being "right" or
"brilliant," has been lost in many quarters.  (Some analysts I know even
consider it a narcissistic need on the therapist's part!)  Round where I
live (yes, I confess, with my husband, and -- gasp! -- a home office, but,
whew!, I am not a social worker!) this is the reason it is a very bad idea
to identify oneself as an analyst; clients identify analysis with cold
intellectualizing and distancing and much silence in exchange for large sums
of money.

This passion for healing, and genuine feeling for the client, was something
Stephen Mitchell wrote about, and it is worth remembering at his passing.

Jean Fitzpatrick
-------------------------------------------------------
Jean G. Fitzpatrick, N.C.Psy.A.
email:  [log in to unmask]
website:  http://www.pastoralcounseling.net
a columnist for Beliefnet, http://www.beliefnet.com