Web of Affluenza

Oliver James symbolised affluenza as a "virus" with its symptoms being the "placing of a high value on money, possessions, appearances (physical and social) and fame" (http://www.mercatornet.com/articles/affluenza/).

However, I'm not sure I accept the idea of a virus because a virus implies the sufferer had little control over getting the disorder; contrariwise, I believe affluenza is more like a web that we get caught in because we imagine we can see something good there for us. Yet, what it finally gives us is overwork, stress, self-imposed pressures, high blood pressure, financial problems and fixations, marital and family pressures, many of which are self-induced.

Affluenza does not only have individual implications but has global ecological implications too for the inordinate desire for more and more has had, and continues to have, a disastrous effect on the planet.

In the face of the environment catastrophe we seem to have engendered, "we recycle our garbage. We vote greener. We buy sleek, new hybrid cars and fill our houses with energy-efficient light bulbs. And we put our money and faith in the brave and ingenious technologies that will rescue us from the whirlwind.

But it won't be enough" (http://www.affluenza.org/).

A fairly shocking conclusion reached given that even doing all these things won't be enough to save our planet! The author goes on to say that, it won't be enough because the problems we face are not ultimately technological or political. He says they are to do with "appetites, . . . narcissism, and . . . self-deceit" and advocates individual reform.

One wonders what might be the motivation for such 'reform'. Will our fear of extinction force us to change our selfish desires of more? Probably, governments will gradually force citizens to be more 'green' conscious, to be more conserving of fuel, to scale back our inflated wishes for more at the expense of everyone and everything else.

However, although the problems we face are not ultimately technological or political, they are more than "personal moral" issues. They lodge in the root of man, in the heart, out of which come all the issues of life. Hence, they are primarily "religious" because the questions lie with to do with the 'god(s)' we are committed to and the direction that what we take to be divine is urging us towards.

Many people entering therapy today, are caught within the affluenza web. Many of the symptoms seen by counsellors, psychologists, psychiatrists, and psychotherapists are directly related to affluenza. People may be orthodox Christians and still be in the web. Being extricated from the web requires repentance working with divine grace in the heart so that greater conversion to the image of Christ takes place.

Back in 1936

In Lewis Carrol's famous book, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865), a race is suggested by the Dodo bird after various characters get wet from Alice's tears. The race is conducted in an irrational way with no fixed starting point or finishing line but the Dodo is called upon to judge who had won and who would get the winner's prize. His adjudication was that 'everyone has won and all must have prizes'.

This famous Dodo bird verdict was applied to the field of psychotherapy in 1936 by Saul Rosenzweig who believed that all psychotherapies worked about the same because of shared common factors. Rosenzweig died in 2004 at 97 still committed to teaching even though he had formally retired at 1975.

His conclusions have been supported by a number of researchers (Frank; Luborsky et al.; Weinberger) but strongly affirmed by Duncan (2002) who interviewed Rosenzweig at 93 having believed him to have died! Duncan sorted the common factors into the categories of client, relationship, placebo and technique believing that the contribution that each of these makes to psychotherapy's effectiveness is 40%, 30%, 15% and 15% respectively. Duncan opined that psychotherapy ought to take much more notice of the qualities and potential of clients to play a large role in their healing rather than be fixated on client techniques.

However, the common factor tradition has been strongly opposed by those who believe that research should continue to identify specific therapies for specific disorders under specific conditions. Such endeavour is the hallmark of so-called empirically-supported therapies (EST).

It seems to me that these two traditions will never quite meet because the latter is wedded to the idea that scientific research is the only pathway to truth; the earlier, common factors movement, while it esteems science also believes that the scientific study of technique alone cannot sum up all that psychotherapy is.

My sympathies lie with the common factors approach while allowing that certain, specific conditions (eg phobias) may be better helped by a specific therapy (eg behaviour therapy).