Visar inlägg med etikett A. Perski. Visa alla inlägg
Visar inlägg med etikett A. Perski. Visa alla inlägg

torsdag 3 september 2009

Om perfektionism, duktighetsmani och ett normlöst samhälle…


Hos frissan nu på morgonen, Alexander Perski i en tidskrift:

”Vårt samhälle har tappat normerna. Är man ambitiös, driven och perfektionistisk är det ingen som stoppar en.”

Se böckerna ”Duktighetsfällan – en överlevnadsbok för prestationsprinsessor” av Joanna Rose och Alexander Perski, som nu kommer i pocket, samt ”Lycka till! Om balans i livet och andra floskler.”

Män klarar sig i regel bättre, sa någon i artikeln (Perski, som är man? Han skulle mycket väl ha kunnat sagt det!)...

En fundering jag haft länge är att jag misstänker starkt att om sjukskrivningsstatistiken toppats av män, istället för av kvinnor, så hade man vidtagit åtgärder mot orsakerna till detta - och inte försämrat sjukförsäkringen! Men nu handlar det bara om kvinnor... Och då har protesterna varit mycket mindre och svagare, än om män drabbats.

Se chatt om Roses och Perskis bok med författarna. Bloggen "Duktighetsfällan - en överlevnadshanbok för prestationsprinsessor."

måndag 5 november 2007

Working like beavers...

Politicians here are talking about that we should work like beavers... And people who do work like beavers, what about them?

What is this about on a deeper level? These politicians did they have parents/caretakers who were accessible to them when they grew up? Now they don’t begrudge others the time with each others, neither as children, parents or friends? Because this was what they lacked, which preach beaver-working, when they grew up? Things they haven't admitted and refuse to admit!? (because these things are so extremely painful??) Leading to a more or less thick skin and in the worse cases severe empathy deficits??

By the way, I wonder how it is with beavers work actually!! If they don’t have to take breaks to survive and not get totally exhausted? Very ironically!! If they don’t, how effective is their work and can it be??? It's true that it seems as they are working all year round (according to Wikipedia!), they don't go into hibernation, don't lie dormant during winter!!! But can and do they work without any breaks? (does this politician above only show how little she knows??? Not only about beavers, but how living individuals functions and what their needs are, needs of many different kinds!? Not only of breaks from work to relax, but also in form of time for social life, for rehabilitation, for contemplation!!! *) God forbid if people stop to think and reflect over things, get any opportunity to do that - and question any state of affairs??).

I am thinking of the small dog Eskil who hears if it is a person he knows that is up at night and who doesn’t belong to the family!! Something in his whole “system” that tells him!? Something we human beings have lost? A sort of sensitivity for things? A natural sensitivity? And thus a protection!?

I don’t know… Just some thoughts and quite ironical reflections...

I am certainly the one working hard... Can't everyone see that if nowhere else so in this blog? With a sigh...

Because i AM working full time... And have worked full time my whole grown up life almost (at least from I was 23!!)... Studied and worked at the same time, and worked more than full time... And have seen possible consequences of that... So I don't say hurray to this stupid woman!! At all!! She is another one of the politicians I temperamentally and with all strong emotions don't like!! Of our politicians, and not least ministers in our current government.

*) The Swedish stress-researcher Alexander Perski talks about that the ideal life contains (or should contain) three elements/components, which are (or should be) "vita contemplativa" (a life in reflection/meditation, Oh no, God forbid if the populace should start doing that!!), "vita activa", and sleep (but not in this order in his book "Ur balans", a book whose title translated to English would be "Out of Balance"!!). He writes a lot of other good things in this book!

Addition after a bike ride before lunch and work: and neither over nor under stimulation is good either. At least not in long term.

Have also started reading this article: "Overcoming Social Amnesia: The Role For a Social Perspective in Research and Practice" by a Carl I. Cohen.

Came to think when I had only read the first page of this article about Kirkengen's work, in which she means that childhood abuse expresses itself in somatic diseases too... Not only in psychological/psychiatric or social...

So why shouldn't it express itself in mental things too, and influence not only the body but also the brain and all activities there?

I also came to think about a woman I met, which suddenly got a panic attack when she was driving on a motor (high) way near Stockholm with her family; husband and two kids, and she said:

"I have to stop! I can't drive further!!!"

"Of course you can't do that!! You can't stop here at the motor high way!!!"

her husband replied. She didn't stop, managed to drive further, till they had left the motor way.

These panic attacks didn't disappear of course. She thought they were an expression of too much work (she was economist educated from university, what we call civil economist), and one of her reflections were, comparing her reaction to a man in middle-age who had got an heart-attack, that she reacted with panic (a psychic reaction) while he reacted with a "somatic" disease...

Now also strikes me about Ingmar Bergman which has written in one of his books about his meeting and marriage with the (Swedish) pianist Käbi Laretei (of Estonian origin) and what for instance meant!! He admired her enormously, her intelligence, to that degree that he (their whole life together) played a role... He felt under her in a way, or felt he had to live up to something??

lördag 23 juni 2007

Narratives/berättelser...

When I searched for other things in Anna Luise Kirkengen's books I read the beginning of the chapter "Narratives" at page 55 in her book "Inscribed Bodies - Health Impact of Childhood Sexual Abuse" ISBN 0-7923-7019-8 (only in English).

She wrote:
"Dialogues about the impact of life world experiences on individuals include personal memories and reflections. To these, statements or judgments are related, shaped as narrative accounts. In the human sciences, there exists a multidisciplinary agreement that a central part of human communication is embedded in the telling of stories. This is mirrored in the universality of story-telling, and in the grammar structures constituting a linguistic linguistic matrix for stories found in all human languages. The story itself resembles a natural psychological unit in emotional life. Such stories present as internally consistent interpretations or reconstructions of presently understood past, experienced present and anticipated future. Merleau-Point, reflecting upon how telling relates to living, points to interacting layers of reality which make up the human existence. These reach from the objective level to the physical realm to the linguistic level of expression."
But Kirkengen also writes that from her experience as doctor people need to be asked explicitly sometimes (probably almost always), they don't mention things of themselves. But they don't take it amiss (tar inte illa upp) if they are asked. On the contrary is her experience.

And in addition as I found in a book the other day when I was writing about the Swedish stress-researcher Alexander Perski, in the blog post "För ditt eget bästa/For Your Own Good..." where I wrote:
"And Perski also underline the importance of having forums in which you can express yourself!! Where you can canalize tensions, fears or experiences of threat. This apparently functions as lightning-conductors! Gives one perspective on ones situation and better proportions on things; when we are allowed to resonate ourselves forward and use our intellectual resources to solve problems. Others can also contribute with their views... This is not only about contact with others, but also about contact with oneself/yourself! If the talking partner is a good talking partner!!??"
And Pennebaker is another on this theme. There are probably more people that believes in talking, narrating, writing, telling...

I think I will try to translate this to Swedish too later.

Addition June 25: but all telling isn't healing, it depends on the receiver... Kirkengen has written about this too, but I will comeback to that in a later blogpost.
---

Jo, nu vill jag försöka översätta texten ovan till svenska:

När jag sökte efter annat i Anna Luise Kirkengen's böcker läste jag början på kapitlet "Narratives" på sidan 55 i hennes bok "Inscribed Bodies - Health Impact of Childhood Sexual Abuse" ISBN 0-7923-7019-8 (finns bara på engelska?).

Hon skriver:

”Dialog om inflytandet av livserfarenheter på individer inkluderar personliga minnen och reflektioner. Till dessa är påståenden och bedömningar relaterade gestaltade som redovisande berättelser [??]. I den mänskliga vetenskapen finns det multidisciplinära överenskommelser att en central del i mänsklig kommunikation är innesluten i berättandet av historier. Detta speglas i det universella historieberättande och i grammatikaliska strukturer bestående av en lingvistiskt/språkligt ursprung för historier som kan hittas i alla mänskliga språk. Historien själv liknar en naturlig psykologisk enhet i känslomässigt liv. Sådana historier visas som inre överensstämmande tolkningar eller rekonstruktioner av hur individen förstår det förflutna här och nu, nu upplevt och förväntningar om framtiden[??]. När Merleau-Point reflekterar över hur historieberättande relaterar levande/livet, pekar han ut de interagerande nivåerna av vekligheten som utgör mänsklig existens [??]. Dessa sträcker sig från den objektiva nivån till det fysiska riket till språklig nivå i uttrycket [??].”

Dvs. mänskligt språk över hela världen är konstruerat för att just berätta historier!? Som speglar vårt liv, yttre och inre, nu och då och relationen mellan dessa utifrån där vi är här och nu, just i den stund vi berättar vår historia!? Dvs. senare kanske vi berättar en annan histoira, t.o.m. en radikalt annan, beroende på saker som hänt vad vi bearbetat etc. etc. Att uttrycka oss och artikulera oss är nnaturligt och ligger nedlagt i oss!? Och om vi undertrycker det...?

Kirkengen skriver också att människor måste bli uttryckligen frågade om saker, men att de inte tar illa upp om de blir tillfrågade utifrån sin erfarenhet som allmänläkare i över 30 år. Tvärtom tror jag att hon menar.

Alexander Perski har också skrivit om vikten av att ha forum där man kan uttrycka vad som trycker en!! Se tidigare blogginlägg "För ditt eget bästa/For Your Own Good..."

Och Pennebaker är ju också inne på samma tema.

Men allt berättande blir inte helande och det beror på mottagaren. Detta har Kirkengen också skrivit om och det vill jag återkomma till i ett annat blogginlägg.

måndag 18 juni 2007

För ditt eget bästa/For your own good...

Jag brast i skratt i totalförvåning och överraskning igår över en minister som berättade om en åtgärd de vidtagit (tyckte att det var så absurt?). Kommer inte ihåg vad den handlade om (det händer så mycket nu!). Men den handlade om någon förändring eller försämring – igen! Och det var en redan svag grupp som drabbades – igen.

Budskapet är – igen:

”Vi gör det för deras (ert) eget bästa!”
Av omsorg om dem (er), ja! Och folk borde vara extremt tacksamma!!??

Och Helle Klein har skrivit en jättebra och tänkvärd krönika som jag vill tipsa om, nämligen "24-timmarssamhället hotar vår mentala hälsa".

Och jag kommer att tänka på ett bud som inte alls är hedrat idag, nämligen ”Tänk på vilodagen så att du helgar den”. Det budet kanske vi borde återupprätta.

Tillägg om fler artiklar: "Lättare få hjälp med psykisk ohälsa" ut Borås tidning och "Frisk personal ger högre lönsamhet" ur LO-tidningen.

Och ledare av Sofie Wiklund i DD om kulturfestivalen "Slaggsten, Slaveri och Brännvin" om att kunna göra något, ha kul, utan alkohol. Det fanns en artikel inne i tidningen som handlade om värdldsarvets baksida, anordnad till minne av dem som jobbade i Falu gruva och deras anhöriga. Man söp helt enkelt för att orka med. Arbetet i gruvan var otroligt hårt och farligt.

"När det handlar om kulturen kring gruvan visas ofta bara en positiv och ljus sida"
som någon sa i artikeln om hur det var då. Och vidare om hur det är idag:
"Kapitalet vill göra oss till enfaldiga konsumenter som gärna bara konsumerar samma sak, för då blir det lättare att sälja."

Det är ju också något som har ändrats i kulturlivet, inte minst musiklivet: på konserter idag ska man kunna ta ett glas vin i pausen. Så var det inte för 30 eller ens 20 år sen...

Använder vi alkohol på liknande sätt som dessa gruvarbetare för länge sen för att kunna hantera våra (hårda, omänskliga) liv? fick det mig att undra.

Jag har utvecklat detta ovan ännu mer nedan på Eneglska!!!

-//-

I couldn’t help laughing in total surprise and astonishment yesterday, thought the statement was so absurd, when one of our ministers in the news told about a new measure the government has taken. There happens a lot now. They are working hard to change everything, and change it so completely so it will be difficult to change things back after their four years in power.

It was about deterioration, one in a long row – again! For an already weak group – again!

The message is – again:

“We are doing this for their´(your) own good!”
Of care for them (you)! And people shall be extremely grateful and thank them!!?? Because this is really for their/our best! A best they/we don't know ourselves!???

And I also tipped about a female journalist who has written a great chronicle wort considering; "The 24-hour society is threatening our mental health".

About being "connected" all the time, being in access always. The borders between work and free time, between work and home, are long ago canceled or neutralized. The whole pattern is changed. 30 years ago everything was structured. One knew when a TV-program started and ended, one knew when everything started and ended. Our whole life-rhythm is disturbed.

All changes in work life, slimmed organizations and higher demands has changed the life puzzle. many have difficulties finding relaxation and recovery. Today more than 2 million people over 18 years have sleeping disturbances in a population of 9 million in total (including children). And the consumption of sleeping pills is enormous.

"When teenagers are remitted (referred) from school health care for sleeping problems then it is really creepy"
a female chief physician, neurologist, here says. She has seen the sleeping problems increase during the last 30 years.

And burn out is connected to lack of sleep which in turn has its roots in stress.

The art is probably about being present, being here and now... Many of us should need and benefit from a mental on-and-off-button.

In the religious world they have used meditation, the retreat and the prayer... But meditation as tradition was lost for some decades, but has now, since a decade I think, come back in the Swedish church!!

And I came to think about the command about remembering the Sabbath-day - to hold it holy. Maybe we should restore this command...

See earlier blog posts: here and here. These are things I have to remind myself about I think...

I also came to think what a Swedish psychotherapist Lena Nevander Friström writes in her book "Fångad av arbete, svårt att säga nej, hög sjuknärvaro, inbillningsfrisk - om arbetsnarkomani och behovet av balans" ISBN 91-27-07229-0 about people caught by work, with what she calls work-addiction, difficulties to say no, high sick presence as she calls it, suffering from imagined healthiness (not imagined sickness!!!) the need for balance.

She means we can react in two main ways when we are exhausted or even burn out (for simplicity!?). One is to turn totally insensitive to the surrounding, almost in psychopathic way, with a very contemptuous view on man (and in the bottom probably on yourself). These are often what we would "label" as A-people and they suffer from the illness that everything shall go so fast, they are extremely aggressive and hostile and thus not so fun to have to do with when they get stressed or tired or exhausted.

An extreme A-type behavior is though not so common, but this sort of people are increasing in the world (why do we have to be so clever and why do more and more people have to be so clever? What are we living on this earth for? But I am also the sort of person which is very interested in what I do) . It has shown that this sort of people had a "difficult" childhood the researcher Alexander Perski, mentioned below, in fact writes!!! Parents seriously betraying their children, who drinks, or disappears or get sick Or these adults experienced an extreme form of conditional love and very high demands from their parents when they were small and grew up!!!

The stress-researcher mentioned above, Alexander Perski writes in his book"Out of Balance" ("Ur balans" ISBN 9185015008 in Swedish) about another type of behavior they have found on top of the A- and B- type. Namely one they call the D-type. These people don't react with aggressiveness but with depression. And not with hostility against the environment either? They try and try and try to make a good job, the best possible without getting really angry??

But he writes that neither a negative view on life nor social inhibition in itself doesn't increase the risk for stress diseases!

And Perski also underline the importance of having forums in which you can express yourself!! Where you can canalize tensions, fears or experiences of threat. This apparently functions as lightning-conductors! Gives one perspective on ones situation and better proportions on things; when we are allowed to resonate ourselves forward and use our intellectual resources to solve problems. Others can also contribute with their views... This is not only about contact with others, but also about contact with oneself/yourself! If the talking partner is a good talking partner!!??

Tips about two more articles: about that it is easier to get help with psychic un-health (I don't know the proper English word, ohälsa in Swedish), more and more people don't feel well psychologically, more feel anguish, and more suffer from social phobias, but people today tend to seek help more than before, one talk more openly about these things in society today. And the other was about that a staff which is healthy gives higher profitability to the company or work place, people make a better job and more productive (in a healthy way?).

And there was a leader and article in the local newspaper today about a culture festival, about the dark sides of the World Heritage round the copper mine in Falun. This life is often painted fairly rosy, but the truth is that this life was extremely hard and dangerous for the workers and their families for many, many hundred years (this mine has existed for 1,000 years I think). To cope with it the miners drank a lot of Scandinavian vodka (brännvin in Swedish), and they were also paid with brännvin I think on top.

A man says:

"When one talk about the culture around the mine one often show a positive and bright side of it!"
The leader writer, only 26 years I think, reflected on the customs among Swedish people, that they (we!??) can't have fun without alcohol... And people say things they would never have said without alcohol in the body...

The man interviewed says further:

"The capital wants to make ("transform"? :-)) us to silly consumers, who readily consumes just one thing [alcohol??] , because then it [this stuff?] gets easier to sell"!! [??]
And this festival wanted to prove that it is actually possible to have fun without alcohol. :-)

20-30 years ago it wasn't customary with wine in the pauses at concerts as it is today struck me when I read this...

Do "we" use alcohol in a similar manner as these miners did long ago, to be able to cope with our lives, I suddenly came to wonder??? These miners was that time's "slaves". They had no options to earn their living!? Are we this time's slaves???

And, yes, what has happened on ourchildhood, to come back to that, was it for people's own good??? :-) Quite ironically! Almost as the politician which this blog post started with!??? I didn't think of this connection when I wrote this blog post!!