A worldwide RIRB campaign was some years ago launched by Christine Buckley and Carmel Mc Donald The reason for this was children who suffered abuse whilst in institutions were/are entitled under the Irish Residential Institutions Redress Board to monetary awards and education grants.
The search for victims/survivors took place in the United Kingdom, the United States of America, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Approximately 150,000-plus children and teenagers went through industrial institutions in Ireland between the 1920s and the 1980s.
Many of them would consistently have experienced abuse at the hands of the religious/others while in the orphanages, industrial schools and centres for young offenders.
It is estimated that as many as 100,000 of those, who went through 100 such institutions, fled Ireland and went abroad.
I too was a part of the Industrial School Diaspora, but returned to Ireland in 1986.
I lived at one stage in a rural village in Co Cavan, and was perpetually terrified of coming to Dublin because of the nightmares it stirred up. I know others who grew up in Goldenbridge who share the same characteristic fears. Even getting off the boat at Dun Laoghaire was enough to send one into a spin. It took me years to face the fear of Dublin, and I aint going nowhere, not even to Italia. Thank you though for the thoughtful recommendation. I am posting this comment from an Internet Cafe on the Liffey quays, as I look out the condensated, window I see throngs of Dublin people and also foreign faces, the latter along with “myself” suffice it to add, gloatingly, are now shaping the new Ireland. I have “arrived” albeit late in the day and I can guarantee you that I would not dream of swapping the Irish Catholic ‘mafia’ way of life to that of the Italian Catholic ‘mafia’ way of life. The devil you know is better than the devil you do not know!
I am going to send via e-mail/letter the Rosary Beads Factory article to every Irish politician/Senator that includes Taoiseach Bertie Ahern. I am determined, for what it is worth, to get my little spoke in before the final Report of “The Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse” comes out in 2007. US experts will be hired to fight the dirtiest May 2007 Irish election ever. Fianna Fail/Fine Gael will specifically employ the spin doctors with vast experience of negative merge victorious from the bruising campaign. You will undoubtedly find that
the “REPORT” will also be strategically published, so as not to cause a commotion amongst the Irish Electorate. When The Ferns Report it had a devastating effect on the Irish nation, so as a consequence I am surmising that it will be a case of once bitten twice shy. Slan agus beannacht.
Correction in last posting, it should have read: >Fianna Fail/Fine Gael will specifically employ the most feared top-flight strategist spin doctors with vast experience of ‘negative advertising, with either {FF/FG} having the intention of emerging victorious from what is expected, in decades to be the most bruising election campaign . >When the Ferns Report came out<
Slan!
Sorry for all the errors, my eyes are intermittently transfixed on the populace walking across the Halfpenny Bridge, Dublin. Judging from the amount of shopping bags I can see that January retail therapy is a must! Oh, what would life be like not to be a slave to fashion?
I was made a ward of the Marion County Juvenile Court in Indianapolis, Indiana, in 1985.
Because of my age and behavioral problems, I was held in a group facility for troubled children. The name “orphanage” has not been in favor here for a very long time.
At my first facility, we were supervised by staff who were cruel and capricious. We were supervised by a man named Dr. Pierce. Occasionally — for no discernable reason — we were ordered to sit on hard wood chairs against the wall. We were told this was not punishment, but to help us “get better”. We would be given a question written on paper. It would relate to some painful experience in our life. One of mine was “why do you hate your mother?”; I have made amends with her and will not detail the reasons why; however, that is not what Pierce was looking for and any reasonable answer was rejected.
“Quiet Time” could last for days up to a month, from wake-up (6 am) to bed-time (10 pm). Each child spent about half their time sitting on a chair, and if they refused they were thrown into an empty room and the door locked for days, weeks — until they agreed to sit on the chair and finish their sentence.
Many of us spent months on those chairs, with only a few day break in between month-long stretches.
I was sexually assaulted by a female caseworker employed by the Indiana Department of Child Services. These people (caseworkers) are fundamentally evil human beings who enjoy torturing and harming children.
I was struck by this line in the article:
“We constantly rocked backwards and forwards in our desks as we worked. This had a dual purpose: self-soothing, and hurrying to get the work finished.”
>”Why do you hate your mother?”<
This sentence sounds very familiar to me as similar words were used during counselling sessions, I did not have a clue what the trauma expert was saying, as I never had any cognisant reminiscence of a mother
Nevertheless, it is true to say that parental/caregiver attachment loss early on in life can have a profound philosophical effect on a young persons life.
Incidentally, I am left wondering what the credentials were of this Dr. Pierce?
He strikes me as if he was doing some ghastly therapy? It is good that you have made amends with your mother. I always say to people, who take their mothers for granted cherish them always irrespective of whatever, because one only ever has one mother. I can post this sentiment with unutterable conviction having, unfortunately, lost a mother at a very young age. Not through death I should add.
Did you report the “alleged sexual abuse? It is imperative, if not, I would surmise, though that trying to convince the authorities would be a gruelling task. Sexual abuse wasc rampant in a lot of institutions. Deviants, naturally as the day is long, seek to work in child institutions so as to give expression to their unnatural desires
Sexual abuse also occurred in my respective institution. however; the perpetrator did not get away too lightly. The sister in charge reported it to the Gardai, subsequently; the culprit was charged and convicted.
Rocking, rocking, rocking was a hobby with children in Goldenbridge,especially
with those who had no family visitors.Children would rock their young lives away,as they violently banged their heads/backs against the “rec” walls {commonly known as the “wreck”} whilst sucking on three fingers and thumb at the same time, also animalistic sounds were utterred, by “the rockers” during the whole process. It was very cathartic as one could virtually block out every thing.
I can identify with you in relation to “sitting on the hard benches” and with “having to remain silent”. We had to put our index fingers on our lips and were not allowed to move during parts of our II:AM so-called school break.
Children were stripped of their clothing, WHILST BEING BEATEN TO A PULP by SADISTIC staff if they dared to disobey. This humiliating behaviour occured in front of countless children, it was a warning to one and all that woe betide ye if ye dare at all to step out of line. Nobody did!
I note that your posting is from the United States of America! Thanks!
I;m a gay muslim, and can I jus they this person is wrong, jus come to Victoria and you will see how we are teated – kids follow me home every day and call me a paki, what would you do?
About Freud’s works, it’s yet to be proven that applies to the whole of human species, which I personally doubt. People coming from Far East cannot be treated by Freudian psychoanalysis, I reckon.
My experience did not compare in severity to yours, or likely in as deep of wounds to heal for me. The facility I was at never hit me; I had good teachers in the on-site school (small, just us kids); some of the staff were kind and decent, especially as the years went on.
We were a collection of mis-fits who for various reasons were ineligible for the State group-home, which was called Knightstown. Some were anorexic, some were suicidal, etc. We all wished to be in Knightstown; an irony of my life is that I learned later in life that the children in Knightstown suffered severe abuse at that time.
The caseworker who assaulted me did not do so out of prurient sexual interest in me. It was to “teach me a lesson”. I was restrained to a bed and a pair of scissors placed on my genitalia, with a long threat about dismemberment. I was about fifteen years old when that occurred.
The caseworker is an old woman now, likely in her sixties. I have forgiven her. I do not agree with your comment about parents. I have not spoken to my mother in a long time. I cannot comment at all about the circumstance out of respect for her privacy.
I was really struck by the rocking description. I have never related about that to anyone in my life. I have done a lot of healing over the years; various groups etc. I would rock methodically sixteen hours a day; my variation was ceasing to rock for some time period. It was very comforting after days stretched into weeks, and I had spoken to no one. We all did it.
I wonder often about how those kids ended up that I was with. I think about them probably every week, I would guess. I’ve never said their names — so anna, tj, dusty, jenny, all of you. God bless you and keep you safe.
There is a link off of wikipedia’s “the family” page with stories from people who grew up in the Children of God organization and left. Although nothing in my life was that bad, I could relate to bits here and there in the stories they tell.
I am posting this from the same Internet cafe as before. The surroundings outside are pretty, with the Halfpenny Bridge all lit up and throngs of people to-ing and fro-ing making their way to the various pubs. The landscape though, despite its beauty pales into insignificance in comparison to the view right next to me. It consists of this foreign chap, his language is indecipherable, he is in deep conversation on the Internet no, not with his girlfriend, but with that of his dear “mother”, whom he frequently calls by name….. MAMA. I am totally mesmerised with the vibes and affection that is flowing between them. The relationship between them is so unreservedly beautiful. Every day it is the same. I become so sad because of the overwhelming effect. It recalls to mind a lovely Irish popular ballad.”A mother’s love is a blessing no matter where you roam, keep her while she is with you because you will miss her when she is gone, love her as in childhood, though feeble old and grey, sure, you will never miss your mother until she is buried beneath the grave. I personally do not know what a mother’s love is but I can only guess that if it is anything like what I am right now witnessing – well, I am thinking what have I missed out on in life! The foreign chap is now so close up to the screen, lovingly talking to her, and do you know what, Mama is soothingly and contentedly ROCKING BACKWARDS AND FORWARDS. So happy to be in contact with a son she so tenderly loves. I am the last person to be giving advice about mothers as I have no personal experience. You were lucky to have gone though therapy. I never had any success with any Counsellor. I find it hard to trust people. I spent six months with a trauma expert, and did not open my mouth, I was more interssted in the Egyptian regalia that adorned her beautiful house, it endeed distastously. Victims/survivors of the institutions are ordinarily very wary of Counsellors.
>The caseworker who assaulted me did not do so out of prurient sexual interest in me. It was to “teach me a lesson”.,<
Have you ever encountered your caseworker to tell her how you have felt? as SHE TOO NEEDS TO BE TAUGHT A LESSON! It can be very therapeutic. Have you also ever found yourself, without realisation, transferring anger onto other older people, because of the mercenary threat made on you a vulnerable age – as the propensity for suchlike is very common indeed. Anyway, am sure you would have learned all about these things in counselling.
I found it very hard to shake hands with the ex Superior of Goldenbridge Industrial School, as the the hand that was offered was a bionic one, not a real one. The lies that were told by people who are supposed to be “holy” is what I find – unfathomable. There is a group here in Dublin called – “one in four” it deals particularly with people who were, as children – sexually abused. The Co Founder, Colm O’ Gorman was himself a victim of Clerical abuse. To round off
I personally do not think that a collection of children with behavioural problems should be lumped together.
We were always threatened with being sent to other institutions, one of which was MOATE, in Co Westmeath, from what I have gathered, from Kathleen O’ Malley’s account “Childhood Interrupted” it was a brutal!
Crews, Esterson et. al dablers in psychoanalysis are for Freud what the “intelligent designers” are for Darwin.
But now Esterson (in his last article at B&W) is proudly remembering us that the late “expert” in Islam, Ernest Gellner, was sharing their opinions on Freud and psychoanalysis.
I rhetorically wonder if Esterson too shares Gellner’s opionios on Mohamed and islam.
Gellner found writing easy and thus he found obliged to type an opinion on pretty much everything from analytical philosophy and liquistics to “the dictatorship of the free market”, psychoanalysis and his, most beloved, “high” Islam.
Gellner did not see a contradiction between Islam and modernity (Islam is rational, universalist etc.)
For years he wrote, for who was idiot enough to believe him, that Islam and Modernization were absolutely compatible. But he meant urban, sharia disciplined Islam, not the relaxed, generous Islam of the countryside that still quite cheerfully accommodates other traditions and learns to adapt dogma to the practical needs of getting in the harvest, or simply getting along with one’s neighbors.
“High Islam stresses the severely monotheistic and nomocratic nature of Islam, it is mindful of the prohibition of claims to mediation between God and man, and it is generally oriented towards puritanism and scripturalism.”
(E.Gellner)
Gellner was worse, way more toxic, than feeble minded “thinkers” as Karen Armstrong who write newspaper-level thus who are easy to dimiss even by the average educated.
He was in the class of people as Noam Chomsky. People who have done in the last 30 years immense harm to the western civilization in their bizzare drive to intellectually disarm and confuse it, and undo its achievements.
Ovidiu Stoica is right that one can say anything that one likes, but since he started this “A is to B as ID is to Darwin” business perhaps he now thinks better of it.
I note that he has not offered any reason to support his particular analogy.
Here’s why my version is correct.
– Freudianism and ID are not scientific.
– While scientists go about the work of understanding the mind and biology, Freudianism and ID are mired in their own parallel universes where stupidity and falsehoods reign.
– While scientists are willing to change their minds, Freudians and IDers are so convinced of the correctness of theories that they will never change theirs.
– Freudians and IDers behave like members of a cult and do not tolerate dissent.
By your standards biologists would be unscientific because– “mired in their parallel own universe of falshood and stupidiy” as you said– they behave cult like and eject those who come with ID theories since scientific biologists never change their mind on the correctness of Darwin’s theory.
[a theory which, it happens, is also circular and unfasifiable just as Freud psychoanalysis, so much of Popper-criterion]
I have heard this before. I studied Freud in college, and it made me think and it really seemed he was pretty accurate. I am not ready to abandon Freud. His protoge Jung makes a lot of sense also. I guess modern psychology has to find a way to intergrate the old ideas of Freud and Jung with new discoveries.
Freud helped start the ball rolling when psychoanalysis was in its infancy. As most beginnings, a foundation was laid for others to stand and build on. Help has always been around, whether just talking to family and friends or classics such as Shakespeare with revelations of human nature. People go to psychologist and psychiatrist for years. Most people change when they want to change. As Abraham Lincon once said, “People are only as happy as they make up their minds to be.”
The human mind is infinitely complex. That’s what i think. As for the suggestion – mimetism, mixing facts with interpretations – therein lies your problem with psychology… every single person is different. How can anyone exact a science around an infinite number of possibilites? Sometimes opinion holds truth.
The falsehoods of the ID movement are documented monthly and sometimes weekly by sites such as The Panda’s Thumb (http://www.pandasthumb.org/). As I type, the second item on the site is called “More DI Distortions About Axe’s Research”, DI being the Discovery Institute . Indeed the very name “Intelligent Design” was invented as an untruth to cover the fact that it was the same old creationism that US courts had ruled could not be taught in public school science classrooms.
Can you supply anything similar about biology, or is this just your latest outpouring of empty thetoric?
“… I have in the past described the theory [of Natural Selection] as ‘almost tautological’, and I have tried to explain how the theory of natural selection could be untestable (as is a tautology) and yet of great scientific interest….I have changed my mind about the testability and the logical status of the theory of natural selection; and I am glad to have an opportunity to make a recantation. My recantation may, I hope, contribute a little to the understanding of the status of natural selection. “
Paul: Ovidiu’s lengthy response to you just below illustrates that there is no way one can have fruitful intellectual exchanges with someone who has embraced a closed system of ideas that can not only ‘explain’ virtually any relevant state of affairs, but also ‘explain’ why anyone who disagrees with them is wrong.
Thanks Allen. I noted that the last time Ovidiu posted here you gave up in exasperation. There is indeed something nightmarish about trying to debate him. I am reminded of the tv series “The Prisoner”.
Can you now kindly address the substance of my posts?
Can you provide some equivalent untruths from biologists about evolution? Or in some other manner justify your claim that I must think them unscientific ?
‘By your standards biologists would be unscientific because– “mired in their parallel own universe of falshood and stupidiy” as you said– they behave cult like and eject those who come with ID theories since scientific biologists never change their mind on the correctness of Darwin’s theory. ‘
I have indicated how far apart truth and ID are. Now I want you to back up your claim above, which is not about biologists but about what I said about them. What is it about my standards that means that biologists are liars or stupid or both?
>But reading your quote I was surprised to discover that Popper eventually changed (in his old age I assume) his mind on Darwin and I was asking if he revised too his views on Freud.<
Paul: I warned you you’re wasting your time on a never-ending spiral of point-counter point! Re Ovidiu’s sentence above, the (apparent) implication is false: namely that Popper rejected Darwinian evolution and then accepted it. Popper was only writing in relation to what he regarded (on the basis of his own definition of science) as the *scientific status* of the theory of Natural Selection. He didn’t change his mind about “Darwin” (in the sense of the theory itself, which he accepted), only about its status. Of course he never changed his mind about the [very little] value of Freudian theory for numerous reasons, and there is absolutely no point in Ovidiu’s attempting to link in some way Popper’s attitude to Darwinian evolution and his attitude to classical psychoanalysis.
Your point is well made. That’s why I want Ovidiu to tell us what it is about *my* standards that damn biologists, not *his* standards.
As the quotes from Popper in the link I quoted show, he was a little confused about the notion that Natural Selection is tautologous, until late in life he realised his mistake.
However I made no mention of Popper anywhere in my list of commonalities between ID and Freudianism so this whole Popper business is not pertinent to the exchange between Ovidiu and me.
So, to repeat:
I want Ovidiu to tell us what it is about *my* standards that leave biologists “mired in their own parallel universes where stupidity and falsehoods reign”, not *his* standards.
Problem is that the Koran is a manual of war. Read it. It has entire chapters titled “The Spoils [of War]” and “The Ranks [of War]”. The Koran is one long rationalization for invading ones neighbors killing their men and turning their women into baby factories to generate new Muslims. That’s exactly how it reads.
She makes herself beautiful for her husband by means of make-up, clothing, etc., so that she will appear more beautiful and attractive, and thus make her husband happy. This was the practice of the righteous women of the salaf, who used to devote their time to worshipping Allah and reading Qur’an. Foremost among them were `A’ishah (May Allah be pleased with her) and others; they used to wear fine clothes and jewellery at home and when they were travelling, in order to make themselves look beautiful for their husbands.
Bakrah bint `Uqbah came to `A’ishah (May Allah be pleased with her) and asked her about henna. `A’ishah said, “It comes from a good tree and pure water.” She asked her about removing body hair, and she said, “If you have a husband, and you could remove your eyes and replace them with something better, then do it.”66
Let those careless women who neglect their appearance in front of their husbands listen to the advice of `A’ishah, and realize that their beauty should be primarily for their husbands, not for their friends and peers. Those women who are failing to make themselves beautiful for their husbands are sinners, because they are falling short in one of the greatest duties of marriage. Their negligence may be the cause of their husbands staying away from them and looking at other women.
The wife whose husband only ever sees her with unkempt hair, looking pale and wan and wearing shabby old clothes, is a foolish and disobedient wife. It will be of no help to her if she rushes to beautify herself only when receiving guests, or going to a women’s party, but remains looking shabby most of the time in front of her husband. I think that the Muslim woman who is truly guided by the teachings of Islam will be safe from such shortcomings, because she treats her husband properly, and a woman who treats her husband properly is most unlikely to fail in fulfilling her duty towards him.
It is one of the teachings of Islam that a woman should make herself look beautiful for her husband, so that her husband should only ever see of her that which he likes. So it is forbidden for a woman to dress in mourning for more than three days, except in the case of her husband’s death, when she is permitted to mourn for four months and ten days. We find proof of this in the hadith narrated by Bukhari from Zaynab the daughter of Umm Salamah, who said, “I came to Zaynab bint Jahsh, the wife of the Prophet (PBUH) when her brother died. She called for perfume and applied it to herself, then said, “I am not wearing perfume because I need to, but because I heard the Messenger of Allah (PBUH) say from the minbar:
“It is not permitted for a woman who believes in Allah (SWT) and the Last Day to grieve for more than three days, except for her husband, (for whom she may grieve) four months and ten days.”67
Muslim women wear Hijab because they want to submit to God. Muslim women are pious industrious and WHY THE HELL should we apologize for what we do with our own bodies…
So I am oppressed because I am not hanging around in a mini-skirt showing my body???? or showing my hair???? …..
HOW CAN PEOPLE JUGE 1.6 BILLION PEOPLE AND CLASSIFY THEM?????
if anyone oppresses me are the stupid people that walk up to me and assume I am not even an American or that I should go back to my country LOL!!!! WELL I AM IN MY COUNTRY AND I HAVE FREEDOM OF RELIGION AND FREEDOM OF SPEECH and so do all AMERICAN MUSLIMS!!! I WOULD PROTECT MY RIGHT AS WELL AS THE RIGHT OF MY NON-MUSLIM FRIENDS Who also believe we are free to worship when we want, as we want wheere we want and IF WE WANT!!!
I find the idea of wearing an item of clothing as a sign of submission to god, laughable. In addition, I also feel a slight sense of revulsion at the idea of women (or men) being ‘pious’. Piety makes my skin crawl.
Obviously, it is your prerogative to believe whichever superstitious nonsense your want (islam, christianity, buddhism; take your pick) and adjust your dress code accordingly. That is fine, as long as I don’t hear about women (like me) being called names (or worse) for daring to show their hair, or a couple of inches of flesh above their feet (gasp!).
I have had the dubious fortune to be involved with a psychoanalytic institute for a while, as an external consultant.
Leaving psychoanalytic theory aside, it seems to me that the practice of psychoanalysis is noting more than a racket. I can assure you that the needs of ‘patients’ comes a very poor second behind the squabbles over titles, status, rival organisations and schools of psychotherapy. Not to mention the gossip, the financial need for both trainees and qualified members to retain their ‘patients’ for as long as possible, the cover up of unethical behaviour especially when the perpetrator is a senior member of an organisation. The endless hand-wringing over the dwindling number of patients who can pay for four or even five weekly section.
Freud was brilliant! Yet, he did not have “all” the answers. But, he had the vision to see it’s start. I imagine that the Wright Brothers would appear much the same way. Their “Flying Machine” has been greatly improved upon, but they too had the brilliance to have vision and initiate a hard sought concept.
A better way to view Freud and all those mentioned is this… Their concepts are like broken pieces of mirror. Each reflect a small bit of truth, but none are truth itself. It is the sum of all the pieces that make up truth. However, at this time the sum is still incomplete. There is so much more to be learned in regards to the human mind. Each great visionary will continue to add another piece to the mirror until someday the mirror will become whole.
Take from each piece thier truths and let go of thier fallacies. And develop your understanding from the things they have taught us.
> Freud was brilliant! Yet, he did not have “all” the answers. But, he had the vision to see it’s start.<
I don’t know quite what you mean by “it’s start” (to find all the answers?), but it is part of the Freud legend that he was the originator of methodical investigations into the human psyche. If you read Ellenberger’s *The Discovery of the Unconscious* (1970), or more specifically for the United States context *Mind Games: American Culture and the Birth of Psychotherapy* (E. Caplin, 2001), you’ll see that was not the case.
> Each great visionary will continue to add another piece to the mirror until someday the mirror will become whole.<
This presumes that Freud provided us with “visions” that are worth retaining. In other words you are assuming what is being disputed. To take just one example: The psychiatric profession in the United States has only in recent decades largely recovered from its misplaced belief in Freudian notions. See:
R. M. Dawes, *House of Cards: Psychology and Psychotherapy Built on Myth* (1994).
E. Dolnick, *Madness on the Couch: Blaming the Victim in the Heyday of Psychoanalysis* (1998)
J. Paris, *The Fall of an Icon: Psychoanalysis and Academic Psychiatry* (2005).
Science is based upon a realm of discernable and testable cause and effect relationships. As such, properly applied, psychoanalysis has proven that there are indeed certain established causes and effects upon a person’s behavior when subjected to different social, emotional and psychological stimuli. Because these affects have been numerously documented, explored, and proven, the realm of psychoanalysis falls under the realm of science.
Thank you for confirming what I thought: you come along making all sorts of sweeping statements that you cannot back up. You said that by *my* standards biology is not science. I asked you to justify that. No amount of smoke from you can obscure the fact that you can’t.
And another thing: if you ” really don’t feel like debating IDs vs. Darwin” then *you* should not have introduced the topic. Your bluff has been called.
>…properly applied, psychoanalysis has proven that there are indeed certain established causes and effects upon a person’s behavior when subjected to different social, emotional and psychological stimuli. Because these affects have been numerously documented, explored, and proven, the realm of psychoanalysis falls under the realm of science.<
I really have no idea what “causes and effects” to which you can be referring that psychoanalysis has “documented and proven”. For the most part, psychoanalytic ‘proofs’ consist of the analyst’s interpretation in the light of preconceived theory. And, of course, different schools of psychoanalysis (talk about a “broad church”!) come up with different ‘findings’, all shown to be the case by their own brand of analytic interpretation.
Marie Therese, a chara, What you have described leaves me speechless. Thank you for your courage and conciseness in giving words to the terror inflicted on you and too many other innocents.I wish you a speedy solution in your quest for justice. Máire.
The reason why you are so hostile to the truth of psychoanalysis is possibly due to the resistance!
If you agree with the psychoanalyst, then psychoanalysis work. If you disagree with the psychoanalyst, that is a sign that repression and resistance are at work in your psyche. But psychoanalysis still works.
You can’t win with Freudian theory!
Freud was a charlatan, and his disciples are no better.
>“At the same time, however, there is clear evidence that large numbers of incidents have been fabricated, imagined or retrieved as ‘memories’ as a result of counselling or other forms of suggestion.”<
>“It would indeed be remarkable if the creation of the Redress Board, which has extended extraordinarily generous terms both to complainants and to their lawyers, did not lead to a very high level of false allegations”<
Richard Webster, will you please generate the “clear evidence” that you appear to have as I so much so would “clearly” love to know how you so “clearly know” that large numbers of victims/survivors of institutional abuse are imagining, or are under the influence of counsellors, with regards to fabricating past abuse. Faoiseamh, an Irish counselling support system, that was exclusively set by the Religious prior to CICA and RIRB for those who were in institutions {and of which is currently also for those who come under the remit of clerical abuse} would also earnestly be interested in knowing
Counsellors, CICA and the RIRB all have confidentiality clauses ingrained in their practices, so how does someone like you, who does not even live in the Irish jurisdiction seem to know so much in this respect that victims/survivors do not, the mind boggles on this one. Unless perhaps – you can tell me this for nothing , are you perhaps getting information from a certain ex Irish Seminarian, who was recently doing London rounds trying to find the dirt on Peter Tyrrell, who burned himself alive because he could not get the demons of his past Letterfrack institutional life out of his mortal system. Perhaps we shall have to wait for your next publication to read all about it. I wonder will you get another glowing review from none other than our very own Professor Anthony Clare.
Richard Webster, we were accused of creating another “Salem Witch hunt” by people who have an agenda. What is yours might I ask politely?
I am a genuine victim/survivor of institutional abuse. I worked as a child all my young life in a Rosary bead factory instead of being educated. I will not consequently stand by and consent to you to deride those of us – who grew up – in these loathsome mini type concentration camps that were religiously strategically dotted all over the Irish landscape. The clergy/parents ad infinitum threatened children with these hideous brutal gulags. I was, by the judicial system, unlawfully incarcerated, {along with thousands of others} at the ripe “old age” of four years and a half – having come from a feeder institution were I was from the age of nought. I will as a consequence – be damned if I will remain silent after reading your despicable drivel. Margaret Jarvis from the FMS got more than a taster some years ago when she tried the same jape on Irish soil. Richard Webster, try analysing yourself and your motives for a change. You may have taken Britain by storm when you released Why Freud was Wrong, but you are just another storm in a teacup to me at this very moment. A good title for your next book should definitely be – Why Richard Was Wrong.!
>Another country, which has developed a particularly intense and dangerous crusade against child abuse, is the Republic of Ireland. <
Raven – first published the God Squad, written by Paddy Doyle in 1989.
I wrote to the Regina Coeli Institution in 1984 having learned about my deleterious neglect. I am a natural hoarder and as a result- have retained correspondences relating to it to this day.
Peter Tyrrell, who burned himself alive on Hampstead Heath in the eighties never stopped going on about the brutal regime of Letterfrack. Christine Buckley wrote a letter to Goldenbridge’s Sr. X in the early eighties. She also, in the sixties, asked a milkman to deliver a letter of complaint, hence the alleged beating when she was found out. A group of Artane boys during the sixties complained to a political visitor {Lenihan} about the brutality of the place. The TD who was just about to leave cried to his chauffeur; let me get the f**ck out of here, as quickly as possibly. Again during the sixties inmates, of the industrial schools through the medium of someone who had clout made other complaints to Charlie Haughey. The Irish political Machiavellian of his day when asked what was he going to do about the institutional abuse situation., the answer was; “you know, this is simply not a vote catcher.”
Another Artane child in the sixties {Flanagan} had his arm broken by a Christian Brother and a complaint was made by his parent’s to the Dept of Education. NOTHING, NOTHING, NOTHING was done in all of these extraordinarily staid situations. I could be here till the cows come home telling analogous stories.
Oh yeah, to round off with a sour note – Goldenbridge was a hell hole.
Милева Марич была сверхновой звездой, которая вращалась вокруг черной дыры. ТОлько женщина, очарованная и околдованная наукой способна была сделать открытия на кончике пера, которые потрясли мир. Только она и она только была способна на самопожертвование, только ее гениальность и математический склад ума позволили ей увидеть то, что еще не ясно даже сейчас.
Пора понять в 21 веке, что невозможное невозможно, и тот кто не имеет слуха не может услышать музыку поющих математических сфер. Пора поднять именно эту женщину на ту высоту, на которой она должна находится по праву.
Ms. Majedi struck asympathetic chord within me. Covering women in face and body hiding veils manipulates them as much as western culture does in glorifying big breasts and pornography. Is there a balance somewhere?
Below is an electronic translation of the letter in Russian from LDN. If anyone has sufficient knowledge of Russian to provide a better translation, please do so!
Mileva Maric was a supernova who rotated around a black hole. ONLY the woman fascinated and bewitched was capable to make a science opening on a tip of a feather which have shaken the world. Only she and she only was capable of self-sacrifice, only her genius and mathematical mentality have allowed her to see that is yet clear even now. It is time to understand in 21 century, that impossible it is impossible, and that who has hearing can hear music of singing mathematical spheres. It is time to lift this woman on that height on which she should be by right.
Oh…I am glad that Freud is dead and cannot sue me .Because he was very stupid . He thought God is created by our imaginations , and demons a created by our imagination. In fact is vice-versa.God provided us with imagination and demons are tempting us …at least in our imagination when they cannot do it for real ”..And lead us not into temptation…”That is my opinion…and I am very sure , nothing can change it , because nothing can make God disapear.
You have given a simplified description of Freudianism and stated your belief that is it correct.
Nothing you have written constitutes a defence of Freudianism. You have neither offered any evidence in its support nor have you shown why we should not accept the critiques made of it.
Welcome back. You will have to forgive me for not being content with relying on your opinion for anything as you showed when you were last here that you are happy to write any sort of nonsense; and then when you are asked to back it up you lapse into silence. This makes it impossible to distinguish your claims from empty rhetoric.
Allen Esterson does indeed operate on a different level to me on this issue, but then we both operate in a different intellectual universe to you. We concern ourselves with logical consitency and evidence while you just produce a mess of unsubstantiated claims and illogic.
Ovidiu wrote ‘…but by itself it does not prove false or true a given statement or body of knowledge. Such things stand or fall by their own…’
The problem with your statement, Ovidiu, is that psychoanalysis does not exists entirely as an academic theory. It is applied to real ‘patients’ who sit on real couches for years on end paying a lot of money for a lot of bulls. Sadly, psychoanalysis keeps a foothold in the NHS and in education for which we all pay tax.
I resent paying tax to subsidise the activity of a bunch of charlatans. Actually, a number of psychoanalysists that I have met are not just charlatans; they are crooks.
Ms. O’Loughin-
Get out of Ireland. These people do not value you. Save yourself. Try Italy. Better than Ireland. Guaranteed.
A worldwide RIRB campaign was some years ago launched by Christine Buckley and Carmel Mc Donald The reason for this was children who suffered abuse whilst in institutions were/are entitled under the Irish Residential Institutions Redress Board to monetary awards and education grants.
The search for victims/survivors took place in the United Kingdom, the United States of America, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Approximately 150,000-plus children and teenagers went through industrial institutions in Ireland between the 1920s and the 1980s.
Many of them would consistently have experienced abuse at the hands of the religious/others while in the orphanages, industrial schools and centres for young offenders.
It is estimated that as many as 100,000 of those, who went through 100 such institutions, fled Ireland and went abroad.
I too was a part of the Industrial School Diaspora, but returned to Ireland in 1986.
I lived at one stage in a rural village in Co Cavan, and was perpetually terrified of coming to Dublin because of the nightmares it stirred up. I know others who grew up in Goldenbridge who share the same characteristic fears. Even getting off the boat at Dun Laoghaire was enough to send one into a spin. It took me years to face the fear of Dublin, and I aint going nowhere, not even to Italia. Thank you though for the thoughtful recommendation. I am posting this comment from an Internet Cafe on the Liffey quays, as I look out the condensated, window I see throngs of Dublin people and also foreign faces, the latter along with “myself” suffice it to add, gloatingly, are now shaping the new Ireland. I have “arrived” albeit late in the day and I can guarantee you that I would not dream of swapping the Irish Catholic ‘mafia’ way of life to that of the Italian Catholic ‘mafia’ way of life. The devil you know is better than the devil you do not know!
Arriverdici, or rather, Slan agus beannacht.
I am going to send via e-mail/letter the Rosary Beads Factory article to every Irish politician/Senator that includes Taoiseach Bertie Ahern. I am determined, for what it is worth, to get my little spoke in before the final Report of “The Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse” comes out in 2007. US experts will be hired to fight the dirtiest May 2007 Irish election ever. Fianna Fail/Fine Gael will specifically employ the spin doctors with vast experience of negative merge victorious from the bruising campaign. You will undoubtedly find that
the “REPORT” will also be strategically published, so as not to cause a commotion amongst the Irish Electorate. When The Ferns Report it had a devastating effect on the Irish nation, so as a consequence I am surmising that it will be a case of once bitten twice shy. Slan agus beannacht.
Correction in last posting, it should have read: >Fianna Fail/Fine Gael will specifically employ the most feared top-flight strategist spin doctors with vast experience of ‘negative advertising, with either {FF/FG} having the intention of emerging victorious from what is expected, in decades to be the most bruising election campaign . >When the Ferns Report came out<
Slan!
Sorry for all the errors, my eyes are intermittently transfixed on the populace walking across the Halfpenny Bridge, Dublin. Judging from the amount of shopping bags I can see that January retail therapy is a must! Oh, what would life be like not to be a slave to fashion?
I was made a ward of the Marion County Juvenile Court in Indianapolis, Indiana, in 1985.
Because of my age and behavioral problems, I was held in a group facility for troubled children. The name “orphanage” has not been in favor here for a very long time.
At my first facility, we were supervised by staff who were cruel and capricious. We were supervised by a man named Dr. Pierce. Occasionally — for no discernable reason — we were ordered to sit on hard wood chairs against the wall. We were told this was not punishment, but to help us “get better”. We would be given a question written on paper. It would relate to some painful experience in our life. One of mine was “why do you hate your mother?”; I have made amends with her and will not detail the reasons why; however, that is not what Pierce was looking for and any reasonable answer was rejected.
“Quiet Time” could last for days up to a month, from wake-up (6 am) to bed-time (10 pm). Each child spent about half their time sitting on a chair, and if they refused they were thrown into an empty room and the door locked for days, weeks — until they agreed to sit on the chair and finish their sentence.
Many of us spent months on those chairs, with only a few day break in between month-long stretches.
I was sexually assaulted by a female caseworker employed by the Indiana Department of Child Services. These people (caseworkers) are fundamentally evil human beings who enjoy torturing and harming children.
I was struck by this line in the article:
“We constantly rocked backwards and forwards in our desks as we worked. This had a dual purpose: self-soothing, and hurrying to get the work finished.”
We rocked constantly too.
love,
kevin brown
indianapolis, indiana
>”Why do you hate your mother?”< This sentence sounds very familiar to me as similar words were used during counselling sessions, I did not have a clue what the trauma expert was saying, as I never had any cognisant reminiscence of a mother
Nevertheless, it is true to say that parental/caregiver attachment loss early on in life can have a profound philosophical effect on a young persons life.
Incidentally, I am left wondering what the credentials were of this Dr. Pierce?
He strikes me as if he was doing some ghastly therapy? It is good that you have made amends with your mother. I always say to people, who take their mothers for granted cherish them always irrespective of whatever, because one only ever has one mother. I can post this sentiment with unutterable conviction having, unfortunately, lost a mother at a very young age. Not through death I should add.
Did you report the “alleged sexual abuse? It is imperative, if not, I would surmise, though that trying to convince the authorities would be a gruelling task. Sexual abuse wasc rampant in a lot of institutions. Deviants, naturally as the day is long, seek to work in child institutions so as to give expression to their unnatural desires
Sexual abuse also occurred in my respective institution. however; the perpetrator did not get away too lightly. The sister in charge reported it to the Gardai, subsequently; the culprit was charged and convicted.
Rocking, rocking, rocking was a hobby with children in Goldenbridge,especially
with those who had no family visitors.Children would rock their young lives away,as they violently banged their heads/backs against the “rec” walls {commonly known as the “wreck”} whilst sucking on three fingers and thumb at the same time, also animalistic sounds were utterred, by “the rockers” during the whole process. It was very cathartic as one could virtually block out every thing.
I can identify with you in relation to “sitting on the hard benches” and with “having to remain silent”. We had to put our index fingers on our lips and were not allowed to move during parts of our II:AM so-called school break.
Children were stripped of their clothing, WHILST BEING BEATEN TO A PULP by SADISTIC staff if they dared to disobey. This humiliating behaviour occured in front of countless children, it was a warning to one and all that woe betide ye if ye dare at all to step out of line. Nobody did!
I note that your posting is from the United States of America! Thanks!
Slan!
I;m a gay muslim, and can I jus they this person is wrong, jus come to Victoria and you will see how we are teated – kids follow me home every day and call me a paki, what would you do?
Ahhh
About Freud’s works, it’s yet to be proven that applies to the whole of human species, which I personally doubt. People coming from Far East cannot be treated by Freudian psychoanalysis, I reckon.
Dear Ms. O’ Loughlin,
My experience did not compare in severity to yours, or likely in as deep of wounds to heal for me. The facility I was at never hit me; I had good teachers in the on-site school (small, just us kids); some of the staff were kind and decent, especially as the years went on.
We were a collection of mis-fits who for various reasons were ineligible for the State group-home, which was called Knightstown. Some were anorexic, some were suicidal, etc. We all wished to be in Knightstown; an irony of my life is that I learned later in life that the children in Knightstown suffered severe abuse at that time.
The caseworker who assaulted me did not do so out of prurient sexual interest in me. It was to “teach me a lesson”. I was restrained to a bed and a pair of scissors placed on my genitalia, with a long threat about dismemberment. I was about fifteen years old when that occurred.
The caseworker is an old woman now, likely in her sixties. I have forgiven her. I do not agree with your comment about parents. I have not spoken to my mother in a long time. I cannot comment at all about the circumstance out of respect for her privacy.
I was really struck by the rocking description. I have never related about that to anyone in my life. I have done a lot of healing over the years; various groups etc. I would rock methodically sixteen hours a day; my variation was ceasing to rock for some time period. It was very comforting after days stretched into weeks, and I had spoken to no one. We all did it.
I wonder often about how those kids ended up that I was with. I think about them probably every week, I would guess. I’ve never said their names — so anna, tj, dusty, jenny, all of you. God bless you and keep you safe.
There is a link off of wikipedia’s “the family” page with stories from people who grew up in the Children of God organization and left. Although nothing in my life was that bad, I could relate to bits here and there in the stories they tell.
love,
kevin
I am posting this from the same Internet cafe as before. The surroundings outside are pretty, with the Halfpenny Bridge all lit up and throngs of people to-ing and fro-ing making their way to the various pubs. The landscape though, despite its beauty pales into insignificance in comparison to the view right next to me. It consists of this foreign chap, his language is indecipherable, he is in deep conversation on the Internet no, not with his girlfriend, but with that of his dear “mother”, whom he frequently calls by name….. MAMA. I am totally mesmerised with the vibes and affection that is flowing between them. The relationship between them is so unreservedly beautiful. Every day it is the same. I become so sad because of the overwhelming effect. It recalls to mind a lovely Irish popular ballad.”A mother’s love is a blessing no matter where you roam, keep her while she is with you because you will miss her when she is gone, love her as in childhood, though feeble old and grey, sure, you will never miss your mother until she is buried beneath the grave. I personally do not know what a mother’s love is but I can only guess that if it is anything like what I am right now witnessing – well, I am thinking what have I missed out on in life! The foreign chap is now so close up to the screen, lovingly talking to her, and do you know what, Mama is soothingly and contentedly ROCKING BACKWARDS AND FORWARDS. So happy to be in contact with a son she so tenderly loves. I am the last person to be giving advice about mothers as I have no personal experience. You were lucky to have gone though therapy. I never had any success with any Counsellor. I find it hard to trust people. I spent six months with a trauma expert, and did not open my mouth, I was more interssted in the Egyptian regalia that adorned her beautiful house, it endeed distastously. Victims/survivors of the institutions are ordinarily very wary of Counsellors.
Thanks, and slan!
Disastrously, interested, = correct spellings = last posting, my eyes were not in the right place.
>The caseworker who assaulted me did not do so out of prurient sexual interest in me. It was to “teach me a lesson”.,<
Have you ever encountered your caseworker to tell her how you have felt? as SHE TOO NEEDS TO BE TAUGHT A LESSON! It can be very therapeutic. Have you also ever found yourself, without realisation, transferring anger onto other older people, because of the mercenary threat made on you a vulnerable age – as the propensity for suchlike is very common indeed. Anyway, am sure you would have learned all about these things in counselling.
I found it very hard to shake hands with the ex Superior of Goldenbridge Industrial School, as the the hand that was offered was a bionic one, not a real one. The lies that were told by people who are supposed to be “holy” is what I find – unfathomable. There is a group here in Dublin called – “one in four” it deals particularly with people who were, as children – sexually abused. The Co Founder, Colm O’ Gorman was himself a victim of Clerical abuse. To round off
I personally do not think that a collection of children with behavioural problems should be lumped together.
We were always threatened with being sent to other institutions, one of which was MOATE, in Co Westmeath, from what I have gathered, from Kathleen O’ Malley’s account “Childhood Interrupted” it was a brutal!
Slan!
Crews, Esterson et. al dablers in psychoanalysis are for Freud what the “intelligent designers” are for Darwin.
But now Esterson (in his last article at B&W) is proudly remembering us that the late “expert” in Islam, Ernest Gellner, was sharing their opinions on Freud and psychoanalysis.
I rhetorically wonder if Esterson too shares Gellner’s opionios on Mohamed and islam.
Gellner found writing easy and thus he found obliged to type an opinion on pretty much everything from analytical philosophy and liquistics to “the dictatorship of the free market”, psychoanalysis and his, most beloved, “high” Islam.
Gellner did not see a contradiction between Islam and modernity (Islam is rational, universalist etc.)
For years he wrote, for who was idiot enough to believe him, that Islam and Modernization were absolutely compatible. But he meant urban, sharia disciplined Islam, not the relaxed, generous Islam of the countryside that still quite cheerfully accommodates other traditions and learns to adapt dogma to the practical needs of getting in the harvest, or simply getting along with one’s neighbors.
“High Islam stresses the severely monotheistic and nomocratic nature of Islam, it is mindful of the prohibition of claims to mediation between God and man, and it is generally oriented towards puritanism and scripturalism.”
(E.Gellner)
Gellner was worse, way more toxic, than feeble minded “thinkers” as Karen Armstrong who write newspaper-level thus who are easy to dimiss even by the average educated.
He was in the class of people as Noam Chomsky. People who have done in the last 30 years immense harm to the western civilization in their bizzare drive to intellectually disarm and confuse it, and undo its achievements.
Freud got on his list.
Ovidiu Stoica writes ‘Crews, Esterson et. al dablers in psychoanalysis are for Freud what the “intelligent designers” are for Darwin’.
One can only say that Freud is to the mind what “Intelligent Dsigners” are to biology.
One can say anything he wants, for instance that “Newton is to physics what the intelligent designers are to biology”, and so on.
This “postmodern” thrust to deconstruct everything IS the “fashionable nonsense” of our times.
Ovidiu Stoica is right that one can say anything that one likes, but since he started this “A is to B as ID is to Darwin” business perhaps he now thinks better of it.
I note that he has not offered any reason to support his particular analogy.
Here’s why my version is correct.
– Freudianism and ID are not scientific.
– While scientists go about the work of understanding the mind and biology, Freudianism and ID are mired in their own parallel universes where stupidity and falsehoods reign.
– While scientists are willing to change their minds, Freudians and IDers are so convinced of the correctness of theories that they will never change theirs.
– Freudians and IDers behave like members of a cult and do not tolerate dissent.
Paul.
By your standards biologists would be unscientific because– “mired in their parallel own universe of falshood and stupidiy” as you said– they behave cult like and eject those who come with ID theories since scientific biologists never change their mind on the correctness of Darwin’s theory.
[a theory which, it happens, is also circular and unfasifiable just as Freud psychoanalysis, so much of Popper-criterion]
I have heard this before. I studied Freud in college, and it made me think and it really seemed he was pretty accurate. I am not ready to abandon Freud. His protoge Jung makes a lot of sense also. I guess modern psychology has to find a way to intergrate the old ideas of Freud and Jung with new discoveries.
Controversies in Contemporary Psychoanalysis
http://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/cgi/content/full/155/6/849a?maxtoshow=&HITS=10&hits=10&RESULTFORMAT=&fulltext=contemporary+psychoanalysis&searchid=1&FIRSTINDEX=0&sortspec=relevance&resourcetype=HWCIT
Freud helped start the ball rolling when psychoanalysis was in its infancy. As most beginnings, a foundation was laid for others to stand and build on. Help has always been around, whether just talking to family and friends or classics such as Shakespeare with revelations of human nature. People go to psychologist and psychiatrist for years. Most people change when they want to change. As Abraham Lincon once said, “People are only as happy as they make up their minds to be.”
The human mind is infinitely complex. That’s what i think. As for the suggestion – mimetism, mixing facts with interpretations – therein lies your problem with psychology… every single person is different. How can anyone exact a science around an infinite number of possibilites? Sometimes opinion holds truth.
The falsehoods of the ID movement are documented monthly and sometimes weekly by sites such as The Panda’s Thumb (http://www.pandasthumb.org/). As I type, the second item on the site is called “More DI Distortions About Axe’s Research”, DI being the Discovery Institute . Indeed the very name “Intelligent Design” was invented as an untruth to cover the fact that it was the same old creationism that US courts had ruled could not be taught in public school science classrooms.
Can you supply anything similar about biology, or is this just your latest outpouring of empty thetoric?
Regarding Popper and the falsifiability of the theory of evolution, see http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CA/CA211_1.html.
Popper’s final position was
“… I have in the past described the theory [of Natural Selection] as ‘almost tautological’, and I have tried to explain how the theory of natural selection could be untestable (as is a tautology) and yet of great scientific interest….I have changed my mind about the testability and the logical status of the theory of natural selection; and I am glad to have an opportunity to make a recantation. My recantation may, I hope, contribute a little to the understanding of the status of natural selection. “
Paul: Ovidiu’s lengthy response to you just below illustrates that there is no way one can have fruitful intellectual exchanges with someone who has embraced a closed system of ideas that can not only ‘explain’ virtually any relevant state of affairs, but also ‘explain’ why anyone who disagrees with them is wrong.
Thanks Allen. I noted that the last time Ovidiu posted here you gave up in exasperation. There is indeed something nightmarish about trying to debate him. I am reminded of the tv series “The Prisoner”.
Ovidiu:
Can you now kindly address the substance of my posts?
Can you provide some equivalent untruths from biologists about evolution? Or in some other manner justify your claim that I must think them unscientific ?
Ovidiu:
You earlier wrote:
‘By your standards biologists would be unscientific because– “mired in their parallel own universe of falshood and stupidiy” as you said– they behave cult like and eject those who come with ID theories since scientific biologists never change their mind on the correctness of Darwin’s theory. ‘
I have indicated how far apart truth and ID are. Now I want you to back up your claim above, which is not about biologists but about what I said about them. What is it about my standards that means that biologists are liars or stupid or both?
>But reading your quote I was surprised to discover that Popper eventually changed (in his old age I assume) his mind on Darwin and I was asking if he revised too his views on Freud.< Paul: I warned you you’re wasting your time on a never-ending spiral of point-counter point! Re Ovidiu’s sentence above, the (apparent) implication is false: namely that Popper rejected Darwinian evolution and then accepted it. Popper was only writing in relation to what he regarded (on the basis of his own definition of science) as the *scientific status* of the theory of Natural Selection. He didn’t change his mind about “Darwin” (in the sense of the theory itself, which he accepted), only about its status. Of course he never changed his mind about the [very little] value of Freudian theory for numerous reasons, and there is absolutely no point in Ovidiu’s attempting to link in some way Popper’s attitude to Darwinian evolution and his attitude to classical psychoanalysis.
Allen:
Your point is well made. That’s why I want Ovidiu to tell us what it is about *my* standards that damn biologists, not *his* standards.
As the quotes from Popper in the link I quoted show, he was a little confused about the notion that Natural Selection is tautologous, until late in life he realised his mistake.
However I made no mention of Popper anywhere in my list of commonalities between ID and Freudianism so this whole Popper business is not pertinent to the exchange between Ovidiu and me.
So, to repeat:
I want Ovidiu to tell us what it is about *my* standards that leave biologists “mired in their own parallel universes where stupidity and falsehoods reign”, not *his* standards.
Problem is that the Koran is a manual of war. Read it. It has entire chapters titled “The Spoils [of War]” and “The Ranks [of War]”. The Koran is one long rationalization for invading ones neighbors killing their men and turning their women into baby factories to generate new Muslims. That’s exactly how it reads.
I am going to lower the tone of the debate by a couple of notches.
What a puffed up bore you are!
John
Make-up in Islam…
why she needs to make up…
She makes herself beautiful for him
She makes herself beautiful for her husband by means of make-up, clothing, etc., so that she will appear more beautiful and attractive, and thus make her husband happy. This was the practice of the righteous women of the salaf, who used to devote their time to worshipping Allah and reading Qur’an. Foremost among them were `A’ishah (May Allah be pleased with her) and others; they used to wear fine clothes and jewellery at home and when they were travelling, in order to make themselves look beautiful for their husbands.
Bakrah bint `Uqbah came to `A’ishah (May Allah be pleased with her) and asked her about henna. `A’ishah said, “It comes from a good tree and pure water.” She asked her about removing body hair, and she said, “If you have a husband, and you could remove your eyes and replace them with something better, then do it.”66
Let those careless women who neglect their appearance in front of their husbands listen to the advice of `A’ishah, and realize that their beauty should be primarily for their husbands, not for their friends and peers. Those women who are failing to make themselves beautiful for their husbands are sinners, because they are falling short in one of the greatest duties of marriage. Their negligence may be the cause of their husbands staying away from them and looking at other women.
The wife whose husband only ever sees her with unkempt hair, looking pale and wan and wearing shabby old clothes, is a foolish and disobedient wife. It will be of no help to her if she rushes to beautify herself only when receiving guests, or going to a women’s party, but remains looking shabby most of the time in front of her husband. I think that the Muslim woman who is truly guided by the teachings of Islam will be safe from such shortcomings, because she treats her husband properly, and a woman who treats her husband properly is most unlikely to fail in fulfilling her duty towards him.
It is one of the teachings of Islam that a woman should make herself look beautiful for her husband, so that her husband should only ever see of her that which he likes. So it is forbidden for a woman to dress in mourning for more than three days, except in the case of her husband’s death, when she is permitted to mourn for four months and ten days. We find proof of this in the hadith narrated by Bukhari from Zaynab the daughter of Umm Salamah, who said, “I came to Zaynab bint Jahsh, the wife of the Prophet (PBUH) when her brother died. She called for perfume and applied it to herself, then said, “I am not wearing perfume because I need to, but because I heard the Messenger of Allah (PBUH) say from the minbar:
“It is not permitted for a woman who believes in Allah (SWT) and the Last Day to grieve for more than three days, except for her husband, (for whom she may grieve) four months and ten days.”67
Muslim women wear Hijab because they want to submit to God. Muslim women are pious industrious and WHY THE HELL should we apologize for what we do with our own bodies…
So I am oppressed because I am not hanging around in a mini-skirt showing my body???? or showing my hair???? …..
HOW CAN PEOPLE JUGE 1.6 BILLION PEOPLE AND CLASSIFY THEM?????
if anyone oppresses me are the stupid people that walk up to me and assume I am not even an American or that I should go back to my country LOL!!!! WELL I AM IN MY COUNTRY AND I HAVE FREEDOM OF RELIGION AND FREEDOM OF SPEECH and so do all AMERICAN MUSLIMS!!! I WOULD PROTECT MY RIGHT AS WELL AS THE RIGHT OF MY NON-MUSLIM FRIENDS Who also believe we are free to worship when we want, as we want wheere we want and IF WE WANT!!!
Hayat,
I find the idea of wearing an item of clothing as a sign of submission to god, laughable. In addition, I also feel a slight sense of revulsion at the idea of women (or men) being ‘pious’. Piety makes my skin crawl.
Obviously, it is your prerogative to believe whichever superstitious nonsense your want (islam, christianity, buddhism; take your pick) and adjust your dress code accordingly. That is fine, as long as I don’t hear about women (like me) being called names (or worse) for daring to show their hair, or a couple of inches of flesh above their feet (gasp!).
JL
Ovidiu,
I have had the dubious fortune to be involved with a psychoanalytic institute for a while, as an external consultant.
Leaving psychoanalytic theory aside, it seems to me that the practice of psychoanalysis is noting more than a racket. I can assure you that the needs of ‘patients’ comes a very poor second behind the squabbles over titles, status, rival organisations and schools of psychotherapy. Not to mention the gossip, the financial need for both trainees and qualified members to retain their ‘patients’ for as long as possible, the cover up of unethical behaviour especially when the perpetrator is a senior member of an organisation. The endless hand-wringing over the dwindling number of patients who can pay for four or even five weekly section.
It’s truly stomach churning.
Katie
Trust me Ovidiu,
Freud was brilliant! Yet, he did not have “all” the answers. But, he had the vision to see it’s start. I imagine that the Wright Brothers would appear much the same way. Their “Flying Machine” has been greatly improved upon, but they too had the brilliance to have vision and initiate a hard sought concept.
A better way to view Freud and all those mentioned is this… Their concepts are like broken pieces of mirror. Each reflect a small bit of truth, but none are truth itself. It is the sum of all the pieces that make up truth. However, at this time the sum is still incomplete. There is so much more to be learned in regards to the human mind. Each great visionary will continue to add another piece to the mirror until someday the mirror will become whole.
Take from each piece thier truths and let go of thier fallacies. And develop your understanding from the things they have taught us.
Hilde writes:
> Freud was brilliant! Yet, he did not have “all” the answers. But, he had the vision to see it’s start.< I don’t know quite what you mean by “it’s start” (to find all the answers?), but it is part of the Freud legend that he was the originator of methodical investigations into the human psyche. If you read Ellenberger’s *The Discovery of the Unconscious* (1970), or more specifically for the United States context *Mind Games: American Culture and the Birth of Psychotherapy* (E. Caplin, 2001), you’ll see that was not the case. > Each great visionary will continue to add another piece to the mirror until someday the mirror will become whole.< This presumes that Freud provided us with “visions” that are worth retaining. In other words you are assuming what is being disputed. To take just one example: The psychiatric profession in the United States has only in recent decades largely recovered from its misplaced belief in Freudian notions. See: R. M. Dawes, *House of Cards: Psychology and Psychotherapy Built on Myth* (1994). E. Dolnick, *Madness on the Couch: Blaming the Victim in the Heyday of Psychoanalysis* (1998) J. Paris, *The Fall of an Icon: Psychoanalysis and Academic Psychiatry* (2005).
Spelling correction to a reference:
E. Dolnick, *Madness on the Couch: Blaming the Victim in the Heyday of Psychoanalysis* (1998)
Science is based upon a realm of discernable and testable cause and effect relationships. As such, properly applied, psychoanalysis has proven that there are indeed certain established causes and effects upon a person’s behavior when subjected to different social, emotional and psychological stimuli. Because these affects have been numerously documented, explored, and proven, the realm of psychoanalysis falls under the realm of science.
Ovidiu:
Thank you for confirming what I thought: you come along making all sorts of sweeping statements that you cannot back up. You said that by *my* standards biology is not science. I asked you to justify that. No amount of smoke from you can obscure the fact that you can’t.
And another thing: if you ” really don’t feel like debating IDs vs. Darwin” then *you* should not have introduced the topic. Your bluff has been called.
Ikillfish: You wrote:
>…properly applied, psychoanalysis has proven that there are indeed certain established causes and effects upon a person’s behavior when subjected to different social, emotional and psychological stimuli. Because these affects have been numerously documented, explored, and proven, the realm of psychoanalysis falls under the realm of science.< I really have no idea what “causes and effects” to which you can be referring that psychoanalysis has “documented and proven”. For the most part, psychoanalytic ‘proofs’ consist of the analyst’s interpretation in the light of preconceived theory. And, of course, different schools of psychoanalysis (talk about a “broad church”!) come up with different ‘findings’, all shown to be the case by their own brand of analytic interpretation.
Marie Therese, a chara, What you have described leaves me speechless. Thank you for your courage and conciseness in giving words to the terror inflicted on you and too many other innocents.I wish you a speedy solution in your quest for justice. Máire.
Allen,
The reason why you are so hostile to the truth of psychoanalysis is possibly due to the resistance!
If you agree with the psychoanalyst, then psychoanalysis work. If you disagree with the psychoanalyst, that is a sign that repression and resistance are at work in your psyche. But psychoanalysis still works.
You can’t win with Freudian theory!
Freud was a charlatan, and his disciples are no better.
Joe
>“At the same time, however, there is clear evidence that large numbers of incidents have been fabricated, imagined or retrieved as ‘memories’ as a result of counselling or other forms of suggestion.”< >“It would indeed be remarkable if the creation of the Redress Board, which has extended extraordinarily generous terms both to complainants and to their lawyers, did not lead to a very high level of false allegations”< Richard Webster, will you please generate the “clear evidence” that you appear to have as I so much so would “clearly” love to know how you so “clearly know” that large numbers of victims/survivors of institutional abuse are imagining, or are under the influence of counsellors, with regards to fabricating past abuse. Faoiseamh, an Irish counselling support system, that was exclusively set by the Religious prior to CICA and RIRB for those who were in institutions {and of which is currently also for those who come under the remit of clerical abuse} would also earnestly be interested in knowing
Counsellors, CICA and the RIRB all have confidentiality clauses ingrained in their practices, so how does someone like you, who does not even live in the Irish jurisdiction seem to know so much in this respect that victims/survivors do not, the mind boggles on this one. Unless perhaps – you can tell me this for nothing , are you perhaps getting information from a certain ex Irish Seminarian, who was recently doing London rounds trying to find the dirt on Peter Tyrrell, who burned himself alive because he could not get the demons of his past Letterfrack institutional life out of his mortal system. Perhaps we shall have to wait for your next publication to read all about it. I wonder will you get another glowing review from none other than our very own Professor Anthony Clare.
Richard Webster, we were accused of creating another “Salem Witch hunt” by people who have an agenda. What is yours might I ask politely?
I am a genuine victim/survivor of institutional abuse. I worked as a child all my young life in a Rosary bead factory instead of being educated. I will not consequently stand by and consent to you to deride those of us – who grew up – in these loathsome mini type concentration camps that were religiously strategically dotted all over the Irish landscape. The clergy/parents ad infinitum threatened children with these hideous brutal gulags. I was, by the judicial system, unlawfully incarcerated, {along with thousands of others} at the ripe “old age” of four years and a half – having come from a feeder institution were I was from the age of nought. I will as a consequence – be damned if I will remain silent after reading your despicable drivel. Margaret Jarvis from the FMS got more than a taster some years ago when she tried the same jape on Irish soil. Richard Webster, try analysing yourself and your motives for a change. You may have taken Britain by storm when you released Why Freud was Wrong, but you are just another storm in a teacup to me at this very moment. A good title for your next book should definitely be – Why Richard Was Wrong.!
Maire
Go raibh mile maith agaibh go leir Slán go fóill!
>Another country, which has developed a particularly intense and dangerous crusade against child abuse, is the Republic of Ireland. < Raven – first published the God Squad, written by Paddy Doyle in 1989.
I wrote to the Regina Coeli Institution in 1984 having learned about my deleterious neglect. I am a natural hoarder and as a result- have retained correspondences relating to it to this day.
Peter Tyrrell, who burned himself alive on Hampstead Heath in the eighties never stopped going on about the brutal regime of Letterfrack. Christine Buckley wrote a letter to Goldenbridge’s Sr. X in the early eighties. She also, in the sixties, asked a milkman to deliver a letter of complaint, hence the alleged beating when she was found out. A group of Artane boys during the sixties complained to a political visitor {Lenihan} about the brutality of the place. The TD who was just about to leave cried to his chauffeur; let me get the f**ck out of here, as quickly as possibly. Again during the sixties inmates, of the industrial schools through the medium of someone who had clout made other complaints to Charlie Haughey. The Irish political Machiavellian of his day when asked what was he going to do about the institutional abuse situation., the answer was; “you know, this is simply not a vote catcher.”
Another Artane child in the sixties {Flanagan} had his arm broken by a Christian Brother and a complaint was made by his parent’s to the Dept of Education. NOTHING, NOTHING, NOTHING was done in all of these extraordinarily staid situations. I could be here till the cows come home telling analogous stories.
Oh yeah, to round off with a sour note – Goldenbridge was a hell hole.
Милева Марич была сверхновой звездой, которая вращалась вокруг черной дыры. ТОлько женщина, очарованная и околдованная наукой способна была сделать открытия на кончике пера, которые потрясли мир. Только она и она только была способна на самопожертвование, только ее гениальность и математический склад ума позволили ей увидеть то, что еще не ясно даже сейчас.
Пора понять в 21 веке, что невозможное невозможно, и тот кто не имеет слуха не может услышать музыку поющих математических сфер. Пора поднять именно эту женщину на ту высоту, на которой она должна находится по праву.
Ms. Majedi struck asympathetic chord within me. Covering women in face and body hiding veils manipulates them as much as western culture does in glorifying big breasts and pornography. Is there a balance somewhere?
Below is an electronic translation of the letter in Russian from LDN. If anyone has sufficient knowledge of Russian to provide a better translation, please do so!
Mileva Maric was a supernova who rotated around a black hole. ONLY the woman fascinated and bewitched was capable to make a science opening on a tip of a feather which have shaken the world. Only she and she only was capable of self-sacrifice, only her genius and mathematical mentality have allowed her to see that is yet clear even now. It is time to understand in 21 century, that impossible it is impossible, and that who has hearing can hear music of singing mathematical spheres. It is time to lift this woman on that height on which she should be by right.
Oh…I am glad that Freud is dead and cannot sue me .Because he was very stupid . He thought God is created by our imaginations , and demons a created by our imagination. In fact is vice-versa.God provided us with imagination and demons are tempting us …at least in our imagination when they cannot do it for real ”..And lead us not into temptation…”That is my opinion…and I am very sure , nothing can change it , because nothing can make God disapear.
to “Ana Freud”:
You have given a simplified description of Freudianism and stated your belief that is it correct.
Nothing you have written constitutes a defence of Freudianism. You have neither offered any evidence in its support nor have you shown why we should not accept the critiques made of it.
Ovidiu:
Welcome back. You will have to forgive me for not being content with relying on your opinion for anything as you showed when you were last here that you are happy to write any sort of nonsense; and then when you are asked to back it up you lapse into silence. This makes it impossible to distinguish your claims from empty rhetoric.
Allen Esterson does indeed operate on a different level to me on this issue, but then we both operate in a different intellectual universe to you. We concern ourselves with logical consitency and evidence while you just produce a mess of unsubstantiated claims and illogic.
Ovidiu wrote ‘…but by itself it does not prove false or true a given statement or body of knowledge. Such things stand or fall by their own…’
The problem with your statement, Ovidiu, is that psychoanalysis does not exists entirely as an academic theory. It is applied to real ‘patients’ who sit on real couches for years on end paying a lot of money for a lot of bulls. Sadly, psychoanalysis keeps a foothold in the NHS and in education for which we all pay tax.
I resent paying tax to subsidise the activity of a bunch of charlatans. Actually, a number of psychoanalysists that I have met are not just charlatans; they are crooks.
Katie