tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7704425219270767105.post1099081546306533729..comments2024-02-27T10:23:30.029+01:00Comments on Conductor: The Conductive SoulSusie Malletthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05134263396254528737noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7704425219270767105.post-71733915516581321652008-03-18T22:12:00.000+01:002008-03-18T22:12:00.000+01:00I felt the absence of 'die seele'when I held my fi...I felt the absence of 'die seele'when I held my first grandchild, stillborn at full term. Just a 'breath' it seemed would open her eyes.<BR/><BR/>Thank you for this extraordinary piece. Good luck to you and your blog. Thanks to Andrew for pointing it out.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7704425219270767105.post-29926869180991193592008-03-18T12:02:00.000+01:002008-03-18T12:02:00.000+01:00SusieI am not surprising knowing that Peto said so...Susie<BR/>I am not surprising knowing that Peto said some about Yoga. But it is first time i have read it!<BR/>I am practicing yoga since a long time and i always can see CE and Yoga connected. Everytime I mention examples using yoga to describe CE. We have a yoga teacher in our group as well.<BR/>I would like to know more if you have some clues.<BR/>Nice work.<BR/>LeticiaLeticiaBTKhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14218446798045527584noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7704425219270767105.post-68451311581765946502008-03-16T17:42:00.000+01:002008-03-16T17:42:00.000+01:00WARMTH, EMPATHY AND GENUINENESSIt is quite extraor...WARMTH, EMPATHY AND GENUINENESS<BR/><BR/>It is quite extraordinary how narrowly Conductive Education has been viewed over the years. It’s a real problem for something that introduces a new paradigm that even its advocated might at times take positions and describe it very much accordingly to their own existing background, experience and ideology. Over the years many, many people have examined and even claimed to adopt Conductive Education from out of the background, experience and ideology of prevalent services and mind-sets concerned with disabled children and adults – resulting in sometimes major distortions and omissions.<BR/><BR/>One extraordinary omission – and I know that this is particularly apparent in German-speaking lands from where you write – is Conductive Education’s assertion that treatment, intervention etc for motor disorders (it matters not from this argument the specific word used) has to be before all things a psychological process. This omission is particularly poignant for the conductive movement amongst German-speakers because<BR/><BR/>(a) they could easily read at least some of András Pető’s original thinking first-hand in their own language (though, remarkably, precious few seem to have done so) and <BR/><BR/>(b) so much of the enthusiasm amongst German-speaking people has been diverted into thinking that seems so ‘medical’ as to be the very antithesis of what Pető was advocating.<BR/><BR/>Using concepts available to him from his own personal ‘background, experience and ideology’ Pető to articulated his insight in terms of die Seele (‘the soul’). Thank you so much for drawing this to wider attention. As you make very clear, in English the word is its own worst enemy, especially amongst those deal with motor disorders at a technical level (though I do wonder whether lay people would have the same problem with it). Putting the specific meaning of the word aside, however, and going for the underlying sense that Pető may have been trying to convey, outside the ‘conductive goldfish bowl failure to incorporate this factor has been a long-standing question in other kinds of intervention and for a long time. As such it has attracted its own technical formulation and study, with the convenient formulation of ‘warmth, empathy and genuineness’ perhaps standing as a modern-day synonym in more acceptable technical jargon for what you speak of in your posting.<BR/><BR/>Twenty-odd years ago now, I wrote (Sutton 1986):<BR/><BR/>‘It has long been widely known that, regardless of the specific methods used, a certain personality, a certain kind of relationship with the client, can have major effects upon the outcome of an intervention.’ (p. 173)<BR/><BR/>I cited in support of this the magisterial review of research into the effects of psychotherapy by Truax and Carkhuff (1967)<BR/><BR/>‘The findings suggest that a person (whether a counsellor, therapist or teacher) who is better able to communicate warmth, genuineness and accurate empathy is more effective in interpersonal relationships, no matter what the goal of the interaction (better grades for college students, better interpersonal relations for the counseling center, adequate personality functioning for the seriously disturbed mental patient, socially acceptable behaviour for the juvenile delinquent or greater reading ability for third grade teaching instruction students).’ (pp. 116-117)<BR/><BR/>I do not advance this as evidence, as one often hears or reads, that ‘András Pető was ahead of his time’. In this respect anyway, he was not. He merely expressed things in a peculiar way, a way that many even then might have reasonably considered to be well behind the times. But to assert it in the field of physical illness and disability was novel, revolutionary, and to judge from the present way that things are done, it still is. Thank you again for making this message explicit. <BR/><BR/>Philippa Cottam and Andrew Sutton (eds), Conductive Education: a system for overcoming motor disorder, London: Croom Helm<BR/><BR/>C. B. Truax and R.R. Carkhuff, Towards Effective Counselling and Psychotherapy, Chicago, Aldine, 1967Andrew Suttonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00006943867339136665noreply@blogger.com