On "The Effort To Drive The Other Person Crazy"
In an article of 1959, 'The Effort to Drive the Other Person Crazy', Searles examined six modes of interpersonal communication, arguing that “each of these techniques tends to undermine the other person's confidence in his own emotional reactions and his own perception of reality”. Among these techniques were switching emotional wavelengths while discussing the same topic; and dealing with different topics (life and death/trivial) while remaining on the same wavelength.
Such attempts at crazy-making were often applied by patients to therapists, who had the task of enduring them without retaliation. Searles added moreover that it was important for the therapist to survive their own wish to kill the patient.
Read more about this topic: Harold Searles
Famous quotes containing the words effort, drive, person and/or crazy:
“The peace loving nations must make a concerted effort in opposition to those violations of treaties and those ignorings of humane instincts which today are creating a state of international anarchy and instability from which there is no escape through mere isolation or neutrality.... When an epidemic of physical disease starts to spread, the community approves and joins in a quarantine of the patients in order to protect the health of the community against the spread of the disease.”
—Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945)
“You may drive out nature with a pitchfork, yet she’ll be constantly running back.”
—Horace [Quintus Horatius Flaccus] (65–8 B.C.)
“The product of the artist has become less important than the fact of the artist. We wish to absorb this person. We wish to devour someone who has experienced the tragic. In our society this person is much more important than anything he might create.”
—David Mamet (b. 1947)
“Stupid or smart, there wasn’t much choice about what was going to happen to me ... Growing up was like falling into a hole.... I might not quit school, not while Mama had any say in the matter, but what difference would that make? What was I going to do in five years? Work in the textile mill? Join Mama at the diner? It all looked bleak to me. No wonder people got crazy as they grew up.”
—Dorothy Allison (b. 1953)