A Sense of Doubt blog post #3951 - Mimetic Theory - SoD Reprint of #525

Death of Seneca by JL David

A Sense of Doubt blog post #3951 - Mimetic Theory - SoD Reprint of #525 

I am not sure why this painting by David came up when I searched for a new image for Mimetic Theory but there it is.

I did track the picture to the Facebook post below that I added to this reprint.

Just this today. BUSY.

Thanks for tuning in.

Stoicism as Mimetic Theory

"Nothing, therefore, is more important than that we should not, like sheep, follow the flock that has gone before us and thus proceed not whither we ought but whither the rest are going. Now nothing gets us into greater troubles than our subservience to common rumor and our habit of thinking that those things are best which are most generally received as such, of taking many counterfeits for truly good things, and of living not by reason but by imitation of others.

"This is the cause of those great heaps into which men rush till they are piled one upon another. In a great crush of people, when the crowd presses upon itself, no one can fall without drawing someone else down upon him and those who go before cause the destruction of those who follow them. You may observe the same thing in human life: no one can merely go wrong by himself, but he must become both the cause and adviser of another's wrong doing.

"It is harmful to follow the march of those who go before us and, since everyone had rather believe another than form his own opinion, we never pass a deliberate judgment upon life, but some traditional error always entangles us and brings us to ruin, and we perish because we follow other men's examples: we should be cured of this if we were to disengage ourselves from the herd; but, as it is, the mob is ready to fight against reason in defense of its own mistake."

~ Seneca, “On the Happy Life”

Image: "The Death of Seneca" by Jacques-Louis David

LOW POWER MODE: I sometimes put the blog in what I call LOW POWER MODE. If you see this note, the blog is operating like a sleeping computer, maintaining static memory, but making no new computations. If I am in low power mode, it's because I do not have time to do much that's inventive, original, or even substantive on the blog. This means I am posting straight shares, limited content posts, reprints, often something qualifying for the THAT ONE THING category and other easy to make posts to keep me daily. That's the deal. Thanks for reading.

Link to the original post I am reprinting below:

Tuesday, December 13, 2016

Hey, Mom! Talking to My Mother #525 - Mimetic Theory

Hey, Mom! Talking to My Mother #525 - Mimetic Theory

Hey Mom,

Sometimes my plans for this blog change.

I was going to post a "studying for the final exam" post with a picture of my study area, but sometimes, new content presents itself, and I just act on it.

When I posted yesterday's entry, I saw that a comic book artist I follow (Phil Jimenez) had posted this link about mimetic theory.

And it took me to a very cool blog about Plato -- Shared Ignorance, toward a defective reading of Plato.

Since I am always interested in learning I place this here for me to read later and hoping it may catch the eye of other readers. I would explain it to you if you were here, Mom, because you liked hearing me explain things.

Also, the blog itself is worth exploring more, which I will do when I am not studying for an exam.

https://woodybelangia.com/what-is-mimetic-theory/

What is Mimetic Theory?

Mimetic Theory originated with Rene Girard, a French polymath whose seminal insights into the nature of human desire bridges diverse fields such as anthropology, literary criticism, religious studies, psychology, ethnology, sociology, philosophy, and others. One of the marks of genius is to notice something vitally important and seemingly obvious but which never before had been recognized as important. Rene Girard’s great discovery is a potential Rosetta Stone for the human sciences. The theory is based on the observable tendency of human beings to subconsciously imitate others and the extension of this mimesis to the realm of desire. The consequences are staggeringly profound. (My Plato interpretation draws heavily on Girard’s insight into the mimetic origins of desire.) The following is my attempt to summarize the basics of Mimetic Theory:

1. MIMETIC DESIRE
Human beings naturally imitate the desires of other human beings. (Have you noticed that? Obvious, yes?) Human desire is, by and large, mediated desire. Girard calls this “mimetic desire” after the Greek word “mimesis.” Someone signals a desire for a particular thing, and now you discover that you want that thing. Most advertising works through this mechanism with demonstrated success. You and I are mimetic creatures.

2. TRIANGULAR DESIRE
Desire as analyzed thus has three participants: a desirer, an object of desire and a model/mediator — *not* just two, a desirer and object. So why does it usually seem as if desire is just between you and the object? Because mimetic desire operates on a pre-rational level. Neurological studies have shown that this reflexive imitation is present even in newborns. The phenomenon is “preconscious,” grasped only after a later act of reflection if at all. We are otherwise blind to the influence of our models in supplying us with desires and thus blind to the “second-hand” character of our desires. Girard calls this blindness to the role of mediators in the origin of desire (i.e. the belief that “I” am the originator of “my” desire) the “romantic” delusion. Mimetic desire seems obvious when self-consciously reflected upon, but such reflection is not at all common and is certainly not automatic.

3. ACQUISITIVE MIMESIS
Among the species of desire is acquisitive desire, which is similarly mimetic: an acquisitive gesture in one person begets a corresponding acquisitive desire in an another for the same object. (Defensive gestures similarly give rise to acquisitive desires in others, the well-known “forbidden fruit” phenomenon.) Acquisitive desires, subject to mimetic mirroring, will inevitably attach themselves to a single object within the same field of play and generate hostility and violence. In such cases, the model/mediator of desire first appears to his/her imitator as an obstacle/rival. (If the mimetic model doesn’t occupy the same “playing field” then there is no common object and thus no conflictual rivalry. Girard calls a model “distant” enough to avoid rivalry an external mediator, as opposed to the potentially rivalrous internal mediator.) The important thing to notice is that my mediator will first appear to the desirer as a rival, an obstacle, an opponent. Again, the mimetic phenomenon is preconscious, whereas the rival as rival stands all too noticeably in our way. Reaction against the rival’s potential (or actual) attempt to grab what I want *always* precedes the reflection that could uncover the truth source of my desire: that I only want it because she wants it. Put two kids together with a surplus of toys and their desire(s) will inevitably latch onto the same toy, beginning a tug-of-war and mutual cries that “I wanted it (or had it) first!”

4. SCANDAL
Pursuit and defense of an acquisitive desire mimetically reinforces the desire of the rival/model/obstacle and vice-versa, leading to an escalation of conflict unless something external to the conflict (like a taboo or a legal authority) intercedes or unless one of the rivals submits or dies. Girard calls this mimetic escalation scandal, after the Greek word skandalon,  suggesting a “trap” or “snare.” A chief characteristic of scandal is that attempts to escape a problem only makes the problem worse (analogous to pulling against a snare). An example is the behavior of a nation-state perceived to be threatened by another nation-state. (A familiar situation?) Its defensive preparations look to its rival like aggressive provocations, which only increase the perceived threat. The rival then arms itself defensively, which is interpreted as aggression by the other side, and so on and so on. Therefore, the actions that were undertaken to secure each nation from threat have actually increased the threat and have fed a dynamic that is dangerously self-reinforcing (e.g. Europe, circa 1914.) Here is a link to a story nicely illustrative of the phenomenon of scandal.

5. METAPHYSICAL DESIRE
Since mutual interest in the object of desire is generated by human interaction, objects of rivalry can be manufactured out of thin air by mimetic conflict. Examples might include prestige, fame or success. (T.S. Eliot calls such things “shadow fruit”. They may also be called “vanities.”) I like to call these objects, born of mimetic entanglement, “metaphysical objects,” objects whose objectivity is located solely in the resistance provided by rivals. Metaphysical desire, Girard’s term, is the desire to possess the quality of “being” attributed to the possessor of the object in dispute. We attribute to the glamorous, e.g. the successful or famous, a quality of being that we lack, unaware that they also feel inadequately lacking in comparison to their models and so on.

6. INHERENT SCARCITY
The scandal of metaphysical objects is that desire for such objects leads to an a priori frustration. In eliminating my obstacle, I also eliminate the originator and sustainer of my desire and therefore the substance of the object in question. This leads to the paradox of success aptly expressed in Groucho Marx’s quip, “I wouldn’t belong to any club that would have me as a member.” Metaphysical objects are essentially scarce and diminished when shared. Such scarcity extends even to material objects. Contrary to the assumptions of classical economics, which posits that competitive struggles emerge from the scarcity of goods, perhaps it is competitive struggle that creates the scarcity. And predictably when the rival falls away, the cherished thing no longer has its luster. A lyric by Terry Talbot in a song called “Stuff” is apt: “It’s treasure ‘till it’s mine then it ain’t worth a dime.”

7. THE SACRIFICIAL CRISIS
It is clear that mimetic rivalry is an incubator and accelerator of human violence. Mimetic forces left unchecked by external societal checks would result in contagious spasms of violence. Remember that the strong mimetic tendency in humanity is biological and preconscious rather than a product of human deliberation. Therefore the origin of any general disorder caused by the propagation of mimetic rivalry would be generally mysterious, while its effects are obvious and dangerous. The societal checks that we take for granted (police forces, manners, etc.) have a history and every history must have a prehistory. Given the tendency of mimetic rivalry to generate, sustain and even amplify violence, the question arises as to how human culture during this prehistory was able to survive the Hobbesian “war of all against all” that springs from natural mimetic escalation in the first place.

8. THE SCAPEGOAT
Just as the crisis begins with mimetic contagion, so too must it end mimetically. The new contagion is catalyzed not by an acquisitivegesture, but by an accusatory one. Someone is blamed arbitrarily for the violence — the scapegoat. Questions of who or why matter less than that the accusation is imitated. As an accusation is transmitted by mimetic contagion across the social field, there is a natural tendency for it to converge on a single victim. (This can be demonstrated in computer models with a collection of mimetic agents biased to imitate the most duplicated meme.) The violence of “all against all” is replaced by the more economical violence of “all against one” (or in Virgil’s formulation, unum pro multis, “one on behalf of many”). The social vectors all become aligned, commonly focused on a single victim, who is eliminated. Unanimous violence “cures” the crisis not because of the violence as such, but on account of the unanimity born of accusatory violence.

9. POST HOC RATIONALIZATION
The peace that results from scapegoating violence will occur at blinding speed since, unlike the antagonistic tugs on the mimetic object, the accusation encounters no resistance (other than the increasingly outnumbered and feeble objections of the single victim). The social solidarity survives the death of the victim, and the experience of mass antagonism giving way so suddenly to an apparent peace has a powerful effect on everyone involved. The accusation has been pragmatically justified by its predicted effect — the pollution having been purged, the society is now restored to health. Post hoc, ergo propter hoc.

10. THE ARBITRARY VICTIM
The victim is chosen by arbitrary markers. The victim must have been peculiar in order to be singled out and must lack defenders in order for the mob verdict to be unanimous. The scapegoat, being the first to stand out from the crowd, is the first “individual” both psychologically and socially. The scapegoat is also the only one in the culture who grasps the lie at the heart of the founding accusation — the only one who knows the “truth” of the culture — making him/her doubly threatening. Andrew McKenna has coined the term “the epistemological privilege of the victim” to name this phenomenon.

11. THE DIVINIZATION OF THE VICTIM
According to Girard, the seeds of primitive religion are here, in the seemingly miraculous effects that attend the death of the victim of unanimous violence. Far from being the projected fantasies of savage minds, the peace achieved is very real indeed, as was the danger of unchecked mass violence that preceded it. Because the danger was so precarious and because the deliverance so sudden, the corpse left behind becomes an object of intense fascination to those simultaneously threatened and saved by it. (This accounts for the two conditions of the holy in Rudolph Otto’s famous formulation of sacred ambivalence: mysterium tremendum et fascinans) Since the mimetic forces are invisible, diffuse and so far-reaching in generating social madness, and since the sudden curative effect of the scapegoating murder provides a post hoc justification (in the minds of the accusers) for the accusation, the murdered victim is credited with occult powers. The post mortem divinization of the victim by the society is the natural culmination of the story. .

12. THE SACRED ORDER
Girard theorizes that scapegoating effects are at the origin of all human cultural forms by marking the emergence of the category of The Sacred. The unity that follows the collective murder obviously is of life or death importance to the community founded by it. Maintenance of this unity and the prevention of the mimetic forces that continually threaten to undermine it *is* culture, at least in its archaic form. There are three signature components of sacred cultural order: ritual, prohibition and myth.

13. RITUAL
Since scapegoating murder cured the original disease, ritual repetition of this generative event will be used either to reactively cure further outbreaks of mimetic violence or prophylactically prevent them. This gives rise to sacrificial ritual. (Girard is the first to adequately explain the widespread existence of sacrificial rites in human cultures.) Girard also believes that the institution of sacred kingship arises out of the deferral of these rites: the king is a sacrificial victim with a suspended sentence — kept alive and treated as divine as long as order prevails.

14. PROHIBITION
Since mimetic desire gives rise to violence, prohibitions, taboos and enforced distinctions arise (through a kind of natural selection perhaps) that act as firewalls against the spread of mimetic rivalry. For instance, the incest taboo prevents destructive rivalries over the closest available sexual partners from developing within families. Girard points out that it is similarity, rather than difference, that encourages one human to imitate another. (This accounts for the primitive fear of twins in many early cultures.) Sacred distinctions such as caste systems help prevent mimetic amplification of the use of royal power for instance. Loss or weakening of such taboos/distinctions (what Girard calls the crisis of distinctions) can lead to new spasms of mimetic violence. One such distinction is king/subject. The singularity of the victim and the singularity of the monarch may not be a coincidence — Girard theorizes that the origin of the king is as “a victim with a suspended sentence.” The hypothesis is that the scapegoat is able, prior to his murder, to leverage his sacred status before dying, to agree to use his “powers” for the community in exchange for his life and confirmation of his sacred role.

15. MYTH
Myths are narratives that makes sense of the founding event and the subsequent rituals that recreate the founding scene. Myths serve to overcome the arbitrary nature of the choice of victim, replacing it with a veneer of necessity and justification. Girard believes that traces of the original violence can be discerned at the heart of mythic narratives. Girard also believes that mythic stories, when viewed though the light of mimetic theory, reveal, across cultures, the originary act of scapegoating violence. The success of the sacrificial system rests on a general belief in the validity of the original accusation and justifying myth.

16. INTERDIVIDUALITY
Girard’s anthropology implies that human subjectivity is essentially de-centered. The Mimetic Theory replaces the notion of the individual as the first principle of social analysis with the radical notion of interdividuality, which transcends the self/society dichotomy. Desires have their locus between mimetic partners; they are not placed precisely within one or the other.

17. OCCULT EFFECTS
Since desire is mutable and contagious rather than fixed or self-determined, there can appear within human society agencies that transcend particular agents, often appearing as occult phenomena (e.g. demonic possession, mesmerism) or psychological maladies (e.g. hysteria). (See Jean-Michel Oughourlian’s work, The Puppet of Desire, for a good study of such phenomena.) The contagious germ passed between mimetic subjects can also be called a “meme.”

18. PRINCIPALITIES AND POWERS
Since institutions and social forms are largely the outgrowth of an order that has its foundation in mimetic dynamics, they represent the objectification of the interdividual situation, expressions of something like a mimetic field with gradations of attraction and repulsion. These “Powers” are not directed or controlled by any particular human agent, but are themselves quasi-agencies. Humans act out of their desires, but these desires are created, shaped and molded by the Powers that contain and confront them. Recognized human authority such as a ruler results from the Power and not the Power from the ruler.

19. THE SATAN
The central Power, that which founds the existing social arrangements, is that of accusation itself. “Satan” means the accuser, the prosecutor. The foundation of order has throughout most of history been through scapegoating violence and the mimetically attractive power of accusation. One could say of accusation what Heraclitus said of war — that it is “the father and king of all, and has made some as gods and others as men, and has made some slaves and others free.” Jesus calls Satan “the ruler of this world” in John 12:31. Satan, although very much a reality, is not a person in the strict sense but what Robert Hammerton-Kelly called the “Generative Mimetic Scapegoating Mechanism,” a feature of all human societies.

20. UNMASKING THE POWERS
The success of the sacrificial system rests on a general belief in the validity of the original accusation and justifying myth. Since the guilt of the original victim is a lie at heart, any narrative that unmasks the lie will weaken/destroy the Power and unmake the culture founded on it. Again, Girard distinguishes between (1) a narrative that masks and propagates the founding lie and (2) one that unmasks and deconstructs it. The former he calls myth and the latter gospel. Whereas myths are written from the perspective of the persecutors, gospel accounts privilege the innocent victim’s witness. A gospel gets its light from the “epistemological privilege of the victim” described earlier.

21. STRUCTURAL INNOCENCE
One of the species of innocence is structural innocence — the idea that even a forensically guilty person can be an “innocent” victim of scapegoating violence — especially if the purpose of the violence has more to do with maintaining social distinctions than with punishing crime. In this sense, a black man lynched in the Old South for horse thievery should be viewed in the light of “structural innocence,” independent of whether he stole the horse. Likewise, the victim of judgment is structurally innocent if the point of the accusation is to preserve an appearance of relative righteousness in the accuser at the expense of the accused. (Camus: “To justify himself, each relies on the other’s crimes.”)

22. WEAKENING OF THE SACRIFICIAL MECHANISMS
The concern for the victim qua victim that has arisen in human culture makes sacrificial solutions to social disorder less and less efficacious, since vindication of the victim destroys the myth that justifies the violence. Each discovery that unveils a victimage mechanism utterly destroys/transforms the society founded on it — modernity exposes the victimization implicit in the hegemony of ecclesial power; postmodernity discloses the sacrificial nature of modernity’s foundational meta-narratives, etc.

23. THE APOCALYPTIC SITUATION
The concern for victims of scapegoating violence has the perverse effect of increasing the threat and magnitude of further outbreaks of violence, since the sacrificial mechanisms that would otherwise keep them contained can’t survive being made transparent. The Greek word apocalypse (etymologically: “unveiling”) gestures both to this revealing and to the terminal violence that is produced by such revelation. Given our legitimate moral qualms over scapegoating mechanisms, and given the specter of apocalyptic violence made possible by the weakening or loss of those mechanisms, it seems more necessary than ever for our survival as a species to discover and model non-rivalrous, non-sacrificial ways of living. Auden: “We must love one another or die.”

24. THE SOLUTION FOR MIMESIS WILL BE MIMESIS
Girard holds that human beings cannot escape their mimetic nature and that (romantic) attempts to outflank mimetic influences (e.g. Rousseau, Heidegger) are ultimately scandalous — we just end up playing the same mimetic games at a higher level. The cure for mimetically produced violence will be a mimetically transmitted desire for peace. The model/cure will have to be someone who has transcended the lure of scapegoating violence, but who?

Books to read to explore further the subject of mimetic desire:

Deceit, Desire and the Novel by Rene Girard — the first book to lay bare the phenomenon using examples from great European literature.

A Theater of Envy by Rene Girard — a collection of essays on Shakespeare, whom Girard credits as the first author to really understand the dynamics of mimetic desire.

The Scapegoat by Rene Girard — explores the mimetic origins of scapegoating on its importance for the foundation of culture.

The Girard Reader by Rene Girard, edited by James Willimas — gathers together a variety of articles, interviews and excepts by and with Girard.

Beneath the Veil of the Strange Verses: Reading Scandalous Texts by Jeremiah Alberg — explores the implications of the phenomenon of scandal through the lens of seminal Western thinkers and texts. Scandal is an under-appreciated topic, too important not to understand in all its guises. Alberg’s book helps to grasp both this importance and these guises. Link here.

Violence Unveiled: Humanity at the Crossroads by Gil Bailie — a readable application of Girard’s thought to human culture and psychology — pregnant with useful illustrations and examples.

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Reflect and connect.
Have someone give you a kiss, and tell you that I love you.
I miss you so very much, Mom.
Talk to you tomorrow, Mom.
- Days ago = 527 days ago
- Bloggery committed by chris tower - 1612.13 - 10:10
NOTE on time: When I post late, I had been posting at 7:10 a.m. because Google is on Pacific Time, and so this is really 10:10 EDT. However, it still shows up on the blog in Pacific time. So, I am going to start posting at 10:10 a.m. Pacific time, intending this to be 10:10 Eastern time. I know this only matters to me, and to you, Mom. But I am not going back and changing all the 7:10 a.m. times. But I will run this note for a while. Mom, you know that I am posting at 10:10 a.m. often because this is the time of your death.
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- Bloggery committed by chris tower - 2512.12 - 10:10

- Days ago: MOM = 3815 days ago & DAD = 470 days ago

- New note - On 1807.06, I ceased daily transmission of my Hey Mom feature after three years of daily conversations. I post Hey Mom blog entries on special occasions. I post the days since ("Days Ago") count on my blog each day, and now I have a second count for Days since my Dad died on August 28, 2024. I am now in the same time zone as Google! So, when I post at 10:10 a.m. PDT to coincide with the time of Mom's death, I am now actually posting late, so it's really 1:10 p.m. EDT. But I will continue to use the time stamp of 10:10 a.m. to remember the time of her death and sometimes 13:40 EDT for the time of Dad's death. The blog entry numbering in the title has changed to reflect total Sense of Doubt posts since I began the blog on 0705.04, which include Hey Mom posts, Daily Bowie posts, and Sense of Doubt posts. Hey Mom posts will still be numbered sequentially. New Hey Mom posts will use the same format as all the other Hey Mom posts; all other posts will feature this format seen here.

A Sense of Doubt blog post #3818 - THEORIES CLASS - Counseling - Feminist Therapy

A Sense of Doubt blog post #3818 - THEORIES CLASS - Counseling - Feminist Therapy


The next post in this series and the last one, for now.

Thanks for tuning in.

Week Seven - Main Discussion - COUN6722

Feminist Theory

 

Case Conceptualization

 

Theory: - Feminist - Case of Olivia

 

Presenting Problem: Olivia has been referred to counseling for failing grades in school and attendance issues. She is a 15-year-old Honduran-Irish American living with her father (Honduran) and three younger siblings. Olivia has not seen her mother in six years since she (the mother, Sinéad) left the family to work as a travel nurse and pursue a relationship with another man. Olivia’s father Luis works two jobs, filling his time seven days a week, and still struggles to make ends meet; though Sinéad makes a good income, she sends neither child nor spousal support to Luis (the father) or their family. Luis depends on Olivia to maintain the household and care for the family as he is at work most of the time; he has praised her for filling the her “future” role of a wife and mother. Olivia takes the responsibility of her family very seriously and as such has sacrificed school to help out at home. Olivia would like to be a veterinarian, but without the grades, she has little hope of fulfilling this dream. Olivia confesses to being very sad about disappointing her teachers with her repeated failures.

 

Hypothesis: Olivia’s sadness and failures at school are rooted in how her father has reinforced the patriarchal hegemony’s gender role for women as home-makers and mothers. Olivia lacks empowerment to pursue her dreams of being a veterinarian and find a way to reframe her role in caring for her siblings, her father, and her household. Further complicating Olivia’s powerlessness is the lack of a female role model, given that her mother left her father years ago. Olivia faces a difficult problem; however, the counselor can use Feminist Theory to best address it. According to Herlihy and Cruz (2022), “the client is an equal participant” in choosing goals for change (pg. 327). Feminist theory can help Olivia to be empowered to change her circumstances.

 

Goals: Through the lens of Feminist theory, the primary goal for Olivia is empowerment to reframe traditional gender roles and discover that she can be a home-maker, a mother, and a veterinarian. Herlihy and Cruz (2022) define empowerment as a way for clients to have “control over themselves” and recognize that “powerlessness is a learned behavior” (pg. 318). Olivia can be aided to see how her powerlessness is learned behavior because of cultural hegemony and not a fixed role or a biological destiny. Integral to Olivia’s discovery of empowerment will be finding strong female role models. Despite the family abandonment, her mother’s independence and breaking of cultural gender roles could be reframed in a positive light. Through empowerment and role models, feminist counseling can help Olivia find motivation and success at school, alleviate her feelings of failure, and yet affirm her choice to continue to shoulder the necessary responsibility of caring for her family.

 

 

Interventions:

 

Reframing: The counselor will guide Olivia to reframe her perceived failures at school and her gender role in her family unit. Herlihy and Cruz (2022) illustrate this intervention as changing the “frame of reference” in regards to the cultural and sociopolitical constructs of Olivia’s situation (pg. 320) about the expected future gender role as a “wife and mother” asher father Luis described it. In seeing the ways in which the hegemonic patriarchal culture prescribes confining gender roles for women as a biological destiny of motherhood and housework, Olivia can be helped to dispense with negative labeling causing her to feel like a “disappointment” to her teachers and relabeling her chosen responsibility to help her father and family as “a positive coping strategy” in her current situation (Herlihy & Cruz, 2022, pg.320). This intervention should help Olivia to pursue her dreams of having a career as a veterinarian and continue to fill a vital role in caring for her family.

 

Bibliotherapy and Self-Disclosure: The counselor’s self-disclosure about using bibliotherapy as an intervention for change can influence Olivia to invest in the same process for her own change. Given that Olivia has explained that she likes to read (though mostly about animals and veterinary science), the counselor could use carefully chosen literature to further empower Olivia to reframe her situation and find a new way of living that will allow her to succeed at school and at home. The counselor’s own self-disclosure of following a similar path and of the readings that had the most influence may inspire Olivia to pursue a similar path. As Herlihy and Cruz (2022) describe in sidebar 14.4 a counselor’s self-disclosure can “illuminate the commonalities among women and decrease the client’s feelings of isolation” (pg. 320), which given Olivia’s situation is a much needed benefit to help her through a process of change.

 

Though the counselor may make connections through self-disclosure, given Olivia’s multi-cultural heritage (Honduran father and Irish-American mother), feminist scholars of color with similar cultural backgrounds could provide role models that Olivia lacks in her life. Many Feminist writers could be influential to Olivia, such as bell hooks (lower case intentional as was her way of writing her name and oddly missing from the Herlihy & Cruz chapter), Excilia Saldaña, and Gloria E. Anzaldúa as well as primarily fiction writers such as Julia Alvarez and Carmen Maria Machado: Machado’s memoir – In the Dream House – could prove particularly influential for Olivia as it focuses on how culture may affect psychological abuse (Machado, 2019).

 

Expected Outcome: Because of the difficulties of gender norms and patriarchal hegemony towards all women – women of color in particular – Feminist therapists work to change those inequities and roles with individual clients (Lopez, 2017, 0:52) as well as inspiring women to work for social justice and advocacy for social change as well as their own personal change (Herlihy & Cruz, 2022, pg.309). Through an emphasis on the “central place of relationship and connections ... in women’s lives” (Meniru, 2024) and through reframing and bibliotherapy/counselor-disclosure, Olivia will find empowerment and strong role models to achieve her career dreams while still caring for her family, which will provide her with focus and motivation in school and alleviate her sadness and feelings of exhaustion and failure.

 

References

 

Herlihy, D., & Cruz, T. (2022). Feminist theory. In D. Capuzzi & M. D. Stauffer (Eds.), Counseling and psychotherapy: Theories and interventions (7th ed., pp. 309-334). American Counseling Association.

 

Lopez, Nastassia. (2017). An Overview of Feminist Therapy. YouTube. https://youtu.be/H3Bx6cWXZBY?si=Ttea7ta4ur0C_qsJ

 

Machado, Carmen Maria (2019). In the Dream House. Greywolf Press.

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- Bloggery committed by chris tower - 2508.01 - 10:10

- Days ago: MOM = 3683 days ago & DAD = 337 days ago

- New note - On 1807.06, I ceased daily transmission of my Hey Mom feature after three years of daily conversations. I post Hey Mom blog entries on special occasions. I post the days since ("Days Ago") count on my blog each day, and now I have a second count for Days since my Dad died on August 28, 2024. I am now in the same time zone as Google! So, when I post at 10:10 a.m. PDT to coincide with the time of Mom's death, I am now actually posting late, so it's really 1:10 p.m. EDT. But I will continue to use the time stamp of 10:10 a.m. to remember the time of her death and sometimes 13:40 EDT for the time of Dad's death. The blog entry numbering in the title has changed to reflect total Sense of Doubt posts since I began the blog on 0705.04, which include Hey Mom posts, Daily Bowie posts, and Sense of Doubt posts. Hey Mom posts will still be numbered sequentially. New Hey Mom posts will use the same format as all the other Hey Mom posts; all other posts will feature this format seen here.

A Sense of Doubt blog post ##3817 - THEORIES CLASS - Counseling - Cognitive Behavioral Therapy

A Sense of Doubt blog post ##3817 - THEORIES CLASS - Counseling - Cognitive Behavioral Therapy

Another of my assignments and that's all.

I am buried in work.

Thanks for tuning in.

Week Six - Main Discussion - COUN6722 -

Cognitive Behavioral or Rational Emotive Behavioral

Case Conceptualization

 

Theory: - Cognitive Behavioral - Case of Mike

 

Presenting Problem: A fourteen-year-old Asian American male, Mike has been referred for counseling by his math teacher due to low grades. Mike is withdrawn and shows signs of anxiety and depression. Mike reports that his father verbally abuses him for his grades and a “lazy American teenage attitude.” Mike has agreed to counseling to help his family and find a way to live up to his father’s expectations. Mike is also bullied at school and has no close friendships at school. Mike enjoys working on cars with his one friend, a seventeen-year-old high-school dropout, with whom he might like to open an auto shop, something of which his father disapproves. Mike feels inadequate and isolated because he does not want to be an engineer like his father, and he feels responsible for the tension in his household.

 

Hypothesis: Mike has internalized his father’s harsh criticism for his low math grades causing his feelings of isolation and inadequacy. He sees his interest in auto work as a failure of his father’s expectations for him to be an engineer further perpetuating his feelings of inadequacy. The cycle of verbal abuse from his father and Mike’s isolation has become a “conditioned response” resulting in “cognitive distortions” and negative core beliefs (Shaw & Green, 2022, pg.195-199).

 

Goals: The primary goals for Mike are to learn to cope with or even eliminate negative core beliefs internalized from his father’s verbal abuse. Through Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), Mike will be able to identify and challenge his negative thoughts and learn coping skills that will reduce his anxiety and self-perception of inadequacy. If successful, Mike will have greater social interest and better self-image. These dysfunctional behaviors or irrational beliefs could be changed or disrupted by changing Mike’s cognition. Through “functional behavioral assessment,” Mike can be taught to track the ABCs of his situation – “antecedents, behaviors, and consequences” – to understand what is “sustaining the behavior” and change these “maladaptive patterns” (Shaw & Green, 2022, pg.201).

 

Interventions:

 

Cognitive Defusion: To address Mike’s negative thoughts about himself, the counselor will guide Mike through the “leaves on a stream” technique, a third-wave technique in acceptance and commitment therapy, that falls within the broad category of CBT (Shaw & Green, 2022, pg.204). The counselor will encourage Mike to practice the activity outside of the session. The counselor will debrief with Mike after each use of the technique in session to emphasize how he will train his mind to “not get caught up in negative thinking” but to observe negative thoughts and continue to live with the positive values of the present moment (Shaw & Green, 2022, pg.204). Through use of debriefing with Socratic questioning, the counselor will help Mike to feel more comfortable experiencing negative thoughts and yet decrease their believability and frequency. For instance, by asking Mike “What is the worst thing that could happen,” Mike may feel that this is his father following through in his threat to kick him out of the house. With continued questioning, the counselor can lead Mike to identify the underlying negative core belief – perhaps “I will have nowhere to go and be homeless” (unlikely as Mike is a minor) – and then helping Mike to adapt and focus on positive outcomes (Rosenthal, 2017, pg. 655) to cope with fears about this worst case scenario.

 

Self-Monitoring Thought Record: The counselor will teach Mike to increase his awareness of how his automatic thoughts have emotional/behavioral consequences. This activity will be another homework assignment for Mike to focus on adaptive responses when experiencing triggers by increasing his awareness of his negative thoughts and helping him intervene before they perpetuate his feelings of isolation, inadequacy, and anxiety. As Shaw & Green (2022) explained citing J.S. Beck (2021) client’s language, such as “I feel that I am a failure” – something Mike may say – reflect thoughts and not feelings. By “detailed use of the thought record” (pg. 203), Mike can identify these thoughts to develop adaptive responses for positive outcomes. For instance, if “feeling like a failure” results in the emotion of insecurity (feeling inadequate), the adaptive response can be focusing Mike on parts of his life that are not failures, such as working on cars with his one friend.

 

Expected Outcome: If Mike is successful with the interventions in coping with his negative thoughts, his anxiety and isolation should diminish, he will feel better about himself, and he will be able to resist internalizing his father’s negativity. Mike should feel less isolated and better able to navigate abusive situations both with his father and the bullies at school. As John Krumboltz explained in the “Cognitive Behavioral Therapy” video from Psychotherapy.net, he said “we [CBT counselors] are results-oriented. We want to help people improve, and we want to do it as quickly and easily as possible. And we want to keep learning to do it better and better (1:30:45-59). These interventions should help Mike achieve the therapeutic goals as quickly and easily as Kromboltz suggests.

 

 

References

Psychotherapy.net. (Producer). (1997a). Cognitive behavioral therapy with John Krumboltz. [Video file]. Mill Valley, CA: Author.

Rosenthal, H. (2017). Encyclopedia of counseling: Master review and tutorial for the National Counselor Examination, state counseling exams, and the Counselor Preparation Comprehensive Examination (4th ed.). Routledge.

Shaw, S. & Green, J. (2022). Cognitive-Behavioral theories. In D. Capuzzi & M. D. Stauffer (Eds.), Counseling and psychotherapy: Theories and interventions (7th ed., pp. 193-216). American Counseling Association.

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- Bloggery committed by chris tower - 2507.31 - 10:10

- Days ago: MOM = 3682 days ago & DAD = 336 days ago

- New note - On 1807.06, I ceased daily transmission of my Hey Mom feature after three years of daily conversations. I post Hey Mom blog entries on special occasions. I post the days since ("Days Ago") count on my blog each day, and now I have a second count for Days since my Dad died on August 28, 2024. I am now in the same time zone as Google! So, when I post at 10:10 a.m. PDT to coincide with the time of Mom's death, I am now actually posting late, so it's really 1:10 p.m. EDT. But I will continue to use the time stamp of 10:10 a.m. to remember the time of her death and sometimes 13:40 EDT for the time of Dad's death. The blog entry numbering in the title has changed to reflect total Sense of Doubt posts since I began the blog on 0705.04, which include Hey Mom posts, Daily Bowie posts, and Sense of Doubt posts. Hey Mom posts will still be numbered sequentially. New Hey Mom posts will use the same format as all the other Hey Mom posts; all other posts will feature this format seen here.

A Sense of Doubt blog post #3811 - THEORIES CLASS - Counseling - Gestalt Therapy

A Sense of Doubt blog post #3811 - THEORIES CLASS - Counseling - Gestalt Therapy

I was writing a huge research project on this day, Friday, but now it's Monday the 28th, and I am done.

Catching up.

Last, for now, in this series from my theories class.

Thanks for tuning in.

Week Four - Main Discussion - COUN6722

Humanistic Theories: Existential or Gestalt

Chris Tower

 

Case Conceptualization

 

Theory: Gestalt - Case of Deidre

 

Presenting Problem: Deidre’s medical doctor referred her due to symptoms of anxiety and with no physical cause discernible for her chronic headaches. Deidre is a 21-year-old college sophomore of African American and Latinx heritage. She has no siblings. She works part-time as a barista and lives in a dormitory in upstate New York. Deidre’s parents divorced when she was 11; she has described her mother as “emotionally unpredictable,” which is a source of ongoing conflict between them. Deidre feels that her mother drove away her father with her [the mother’s] negativity and moods. Her father died suddenly six years ago. Deidre remembers ways in which her father coped with her mother’s moods, and she misses the calm household she visited in the summers between the divorce and his death. Known for being quiet and reserved in high school, Deidre maintained a few close friendships, but now, in college, she reports not having many friends, missing her father, and confused about what career path to choose. Three years ago, she became pregnant during a party at a friend’s house, and not knowing who the father was, she chose to have an abortion. She often has dreams about this decision and wonders how different her life might have been if she had become a mother. Deidre feels lost and alone and worries that she has no hope for having a good life.

 

Hypothesis: Deidre has withdrawn from her community and culture due to unhealthy confluence, having introjected and internalized her mother’s negativity, the emotional unpredictability that she believes drove her father away; she fears becoming like her mother, which has her closing off from healthy confluence (deep connections with loved ones) because of fear of how others see her due to how she sees her mother and herself – guilt over the abortion (Haley et al., 2022, pp. 171). In examining Frederick Fritz Perls’ six factors that lead to psychological distress in Gestalt Theory, Deidre’s situation fits all six: a lack of contact (no social support), unhealthy confluence, inability to gain closure due to unfinished business, fragmented and/or denial of self, conflict between values and expectations (winner/loser), and inability to see gray areas (polarity) (Haley et al., 2022, pp. 166). Without relationships in which she can place her trust, regrets about the abortion, continued grief over losing her father, Deidre has a negative view of her self and the world around her and limited self-awareness that may be manifesting in her symptoms of anxiety and chronic headaches.

 

Goals: Because the only goal of Gestalt therapy is awareness (Taylor, 2020), the primary goal for Deidre as described by Haley et al. (2022) “is autonomy and growth... through increased awareness” (pp. 184). Through Gestalt theory’s methods, the counselor will form a “genuine, trusting relationship” with Deidre. Feeling “safe and supported,” Deidre can explore her emotions and the pain she carries within; thus, she will be able to “grow in a positive direction” and develop a positive sense of self, which may reduce her anxiety, sense of feeling lost, and chronic headaches (Haley et al., 2022, pp. 185). Through this greater awareness, Deidre can form new relationships with classmates or co-workers, cope better with the relationship with her mother and loss of her father, and find career direction in her studies.

 

Interventions: Gestalt therapy is often used to help people cope with the grief following death of a loved one. It can help people to enhance self-awareness in regards to thoughts and feelings about death and help people learn to express themselves in more positive ways while coping with trauma (Alexander & Harman, 1988, pp.283).

 

Empty-Chair Technique: With Deidre’s approval, the counselor will have Deidre sit across from an empty chair and speak both parts (herself and the imagined other) to “express repressed and avoided feelings” (Haley et al., 2022, pp. 186). Deidre can choose who sits in the other chair, but likely candidates are her mother, her father, whomever got her pregnant, the mother she would be if she had the baby, or even the baby that she aborted. Several of these choices will move Deidre out of her “safety zone” as she imagines what any of these candidates for the other chair would say in response to her, “referring to her feelings in the past and bring her emotions into the present” (Haley et al., 2022, pp. 186). Continuing to maintain a safe and supported environment, the counselor can help Deidre to grow in a positive direction. Because “Gestalt is inherently creative” (Taylor, 2020), the counselor and Deidre will dynamically and imaginatively explore and unpack this two-chair experience.

 

Unfinished Business: The empty chair intervention will also allow Deidre to complete her unfinished business with as many people or feelings as she wants to confront. Like Haley et al. (2022) explain about this intervention: “it’s a powerful experiment and should prove useful in alleviating [Deidre’s] symptoms of depression, [anxiety], and diminishing her bad dreams” (pp. 186). Deidre needs to establish closure with her “incomplete gestalts” and help her to move past “stuck points.” Much like the Clarita case that Haley et al. describe, Deidre needs to live in the present rather than being stuck in the past. In so doing, she can create a “more positive future for herself” (Haley et al., 2022, pp. 186). In the exploration of unfinished business through the two-chair technique and other verbal games, the therapist will pay attention to the non-verbal level of the client’s expression

for the “relevant gestalt to emerge” as the non-verbal is less subject to “self-deception than [the] verbal, pseudo self-expression” (Creative Caption & Video, n.d., 3:41-4:02). In Gestalt, “personality may, in one sense, be defined as a structure of speech habits” and personal growth and self-awareness to cope and adjust to situations will emerge through speech habits, largely in HOW a story is told as opposed to WHAT is told (Alban & Groman, 1976, pp. 393).

 

Expected Outcome: A central tenet of Gestalt theory is that “individuals can cope with their life problems” (Haley et al., 2022, pp. 169) because when people are born they inherently possess all that they need to thrive and have fulfilling relationships, but sometimes that natural process becomes blocked (Taylor, 2020). As such, through the counseling sessions and interventions, Deidre can be re-directed for increased self-awareness and oriented in a positive direction. The goals will be achieved holisitically according to Stevenson (2016) “through the confluence of mind, body, past, present, inner and outer worlds, and the co-constructed understanding of being in those worlds” (as cited in Haley et al., 2022, pp. 169). Gestalt theory mandates that an individual be understood in a social and historical context and not in isolation. Exploring Deidre’s current issues through cultural and familial context offers the best opportunity for self-awareness and positive growth and is most likely to alleviate her headaches, nightmares, withdrawal, and anxiety.

 

References

 

Alban, L.S. & Groman W.D. (1976). Neurotic Anxiety, Pronoun Usage, and Stress. Journal of Clinical Psychology. 32(1). 393-399. https://doi.org/10.1002/1097-4679(197604)32:2<393::AID-JCLP2270320240>3.0.CO;2-W.

 

Alexander, J. A. C., & Harman, R. L. (1988). One Counselor’s Intervention in the Aftermath of a Middle School Student’s Suicide: A Case Study. Journal of Counseling & Development, 66(6), 283. https://doi.org/10.1002/j.1556-6676.1988.tb00869.

 

Creative Caption & Video (n.d.) Fritz Perls and Gloria-counseling 1965 full session-Gestalt therapy-captioned [Video].

 

Haley, M., Riley, P. G., & Greenan, G. (2022). Gestalt theory. In D. Capuzzi & M. D. Stauffer (Eds.), Counseling and psychotherapy: Theories and interventions (7th ed., pp. 165-192). American Counseling Association. 

 

Taylor, Tanis. (2020). What is Gestalt Therapy? Welldoing Psychotherapy & Counseling. YouTube. https://youtu.be/i4AZYpLe9GU?si=3_pnQ0f6XwLSrfnq.

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- Bloggery committed by chris tower - 2507.25 - 10:10

- Days ago: MOM = 3676 days ago & DAD = 330 days ago

- New note - On 1807.06, I ceased daily transmission of my Hey Mom feature after three years of daily conversations. I post Hey Mom blog entries on special occasions. I post the days since ("Days Ago") count on my blog each day, and now I have a second count for Days since my Dad died on August 28, 2024. I am now in the same time zone as Google! So, when I post at 10:10 a.m. PDT to coincide with the time of Mom's death, I am now actually posting late, so it's really 1:10 p.m. EDT. But I will continue to use the time stamp of 10:10 a.m. to remember the time of her death and sometimes 13:40 EDT for the time of Dad's death. The blog entry numbering in the title has changed to reflect total Sense of Doubt posts since I began the blog on 0705.04, which include Hey Mom posts, Daily Bowie posts, and Sense of Doubt posts. Hey Mom posts will still be numbered sequentially. New Hey Mom posts will use the same format as all the other Hey Mom posts; all other posts will feature this format seen here.

A Sense of Doubt blog post #3810 - THEORIES CLASS - Counseling - Rogerian - Person-Centered Therapy

A Sense of Doubt blog post #3810 - THEORIES CLASS - Counseling - Rogerian - Person-Centered Therapy

Next theory in this series, and possibly my favorite, though I am not sure if I will practice it without modification.

I doubt that there are any counselors who do not adhere to the idea of "unconditional positive regard."

I happen to really love that idea. We're all human beings with vulnerabilities and flaws.  Treating other people as people may seem like a no brainer, but it is amazing how often people DO NOT treat other human beings as human beings. Or rather, back again to the Golden Rule, they do not treat others as they themselves would like to be treated with love, compassion, and respect.

Here's my essay on applying Rogerian, Person-Centered Therapy to the same case as I detailed yesterday.

Thanks for tuning in/.

Week Three - Main Discussion - COUN6722

Rogerian Person-Centered Case

Chris Tower

 

Case Conceptualization

 

Theory: Person-Centered Counseling - Case of Jason

Presenting Problem: Jason is a 38-year-old Jewish Caucasian male; his family lives on the east coast where he grew up. He works 60-80 hours a week in his law practice; he considers these long hours as his main coping mechanism. Jason finds social support in the Jewish community, attending weekly services. Jason has sought counseling for severe depression and feels like he has lost meaning and purpose in his life. Jason exhibits pale complexion, sweatiness, and agitated muscle movements. He is engaged in a romantic relationship with Kevin, a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and keeps their relationship secret. Jason fears the "devastating effect" the truth of his relationship with Kevin would have on his support system and even his profession. Jason has described what he sees as a betrayal from Kevin's "online affairs," involving pornography consumption and explicit sex chats. Jason views his relationship with Kevin as giving his life meaning, and he asked his counselor to "take the pain away."

 

Hypothesis: Jason’s anxiety and depression originate from his fears about his secret relationship with Kevin being disclosed and his incongruence between his family, religious, and professional communities – his perceived world – and his romantic relationships, his natural world. Jason perceives that there are “strings attached” to the respect, fellowship, and love that he receives from others. These “conditions of worth” have Jason distrusting his own confidence in running his own life and making the best choices for himself (Hazler, 2022), which has forced him into being secretive about his romantic partner. But Jason falls even deeper into incongruence, when his partner’s actions feel like a “betrayal.”

 

Goals: The primary goal for Jason is a move from his current state of incongruence to congruence to perceive his own positive nature for himself and the world around him. According to Hazler (2022, p.148) by accepting his strengths and weaknesses, Jason will reduce “distortions in [his] view of the world” finding the congruence between how he sees himself and his interactions with the people in his communities and relationships. By providing the “essential growth conditions,” Jason can realize his unfulfilled potential for “self-acceptance, self-growth, self-satisfaction, and self-actualization” (Hazler, 2022, p.148).

 

Interventions: All interventions with Jason will be conducted through the Rogerian lens of unconditional positive regard that is central to person-centered therapy.

 

Reflection of Content and Feeling: To help him move to congruence with his two separate worlds and onward to self-actualization, Jason’s words and feelings will be mirrored by the counselor via empathy exploration. The goal of this interaction will be seeing the underlying feelings the client may be unaware of expressing. Given that Jason’s worldview is one of pain over a secret relationship and a betrayal within that relationship, the reflection process will unify the complex elements of the client’s world as a whole as opposed to distinctly separate relationships and secrecies. In so doing, Jason may see a way to “revise and expand perceptions of [himself] based on counselor reflections” (Hazler, 2022, p.151). In demonstrating unconditional positive regard, the counselor will show real caring, love, and deep respect for the client affirming that he has a “capacity for self-direction” (Psychotherapy.net, 2008, 16:23). The need for positive regard is universal in all human beings and develops as the awareness of self emerges (Rogers, 1959, Chapter 17, p. 245). The reflection process and unconditional positive regard can only be achieved through “active listening,” a demonstration of empathy integral to person-centered counseling and all its interventions.

 

Immediacy: In addition to reflection, the counselor will look to address directly the “immediate situation” with Jason, another use of the mirror in empathy exploration. Though reflection provides a larger view of the client’s worldview in sum total from days or weeks all together, employing immediacy enables a “here-and-now approach to the relationship in general and to feelings in particular” (Hazler, 2022, p.151) by addressing what comes out in the therapy session as it happens. The counselor may question the contradiction between Jason’s words and his pale complexion, sweatiness, and agitated muscle movements. The counselor may also share direct observation of the statements Jason makes in the moment to better explore them immediately, such as the justifications and reasoning he may make for the secret he is keeping from everyone in his life (the relationship), including Kevin (the feeling of betrayal). In so doing, the counselor becomes “a vibrant part of the client’s experience” (Hazler, 2022, p.151). This intervention will rely on the counselor’s capacity for intuition, especially as Natalie Rogers (daughter of Carl Rogers) claimed “we're all much more intuitive than we dare admit” (Psychotherapy.net, 2008, 147:40).

This intuition can be seen in action in a YouTube video as Carl Rogers draws conclusions in counseling a client about his anger: “people don’t realize how much you hurt me” (Hill, 2017, 31:30), he says, reflecting the client’s feeling immediately, in the moment. In my own therapeutic experiences with someone using the Rogerian method, the immediate reflections provided by my counselor have allowed me to think of a situation in a new way, such as when he questioned my fears about returning to graduate school.

 

Expected Outcome: The interventions of reflection and immediacy engaged with unconditional positive regard and active listening will convey confidence that Jason is competent and reinforce trust in himself. Jason will be encouraged to believe that he “can accomplish great things on the journey to improve” (Hazler, 2022, p.143) because he has the inner resources to grow in a positive direction, regardless of how he may define that direction. Whether Jason continues to live with secrets and lies are his choices, but through person-centered counseling he may begin to see “creative ideas and actions” (Hazler, 2022, p.143) allowing him to grow in whatever new directions he sets for himself.

 

References

 

Hazler, R. (2022). Person-centered theory. In D. Capuzzi & M. D. Stauffer (Eds.), Counseling and psychotherapy: Theories and interventions (7th ed., pp. 139-164). American Counseling Association.

 

Hill, A. (2017). Carl Rogers counsels an individual on anger. You Tube. https://youtu.be/uRCD3anKsa0?si=P4cuF9ffue0f8iNh.

 

Psychotherapy.net (Producer). (2008). Person-centered expressive arts therapy [Video file]. Author. https://www.kanopy.com/en/product/person-centered-expressive-arts-therapy.

 

Rogers, Carl. (1959). A theory of therapy, personality, and interpersonal relationships, as developed in the client-centered framework. In H. Kirshenbaum & V.L. Henderson (Eds.) The Carl Rogers Reader. (pp. 236-257). Houghton Mifflin Company.

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- Bloggery committed by chris tower - 2407.24 - 10:10

- Days ago: MOM = 3675 days ago & DAD = 329 days ago

- New note - On 1807.06, I ceased daily transmission of my Hey Mom feature after three years of daily conversations. I post Hey Mom blog entries on special occasions. I post the days since ("Days Ago") count on my blog each day, and now I have a second count for Days since my Dad died on August 28, 2024. I am now in the same time zone as Google! So, when I post at 10:10 a.m. PDT to coincide with the time of Mom's death, I am now actually posting late, so it's really 1:10 p.m. EDT. But I will continue to use the time stamp of 10:10 a.m. to remember the time of her death and sometimes 13:40 EDT for the time of Dad's death. The blog entry numbering in the title has changed to reflect total Sense of Doubt posts since I began the blog on 0705.04, which include Hey Mom posts, Daily Bowie posts, and Sense of Doubt posts. Hey Mom posts will still be numbered sequentially. New Hey Mom posts will use the same format as all the other Hey Mom posts; all other posts will feature this format seen here.