Message
From [David Goldstein (2003.12.07.0653)]
Dear Bill Williams, Bill Powers and others interested in this thread:
The following very short post received a few comments. I wish to clarify where I was coming from.
"Hello Bill,
It is lonely to be pioneer.
I guess this is why it is necessary to have a regular job and do PCT work as a hobby for now. I imagine that most pioneers had to do something like this. But hobbies are things we love, aren’t they? And that is why we do them. David David M. Goldstein, Ph.D. "
I was proposing a certain attitude that I though might help you not be so frustrated. It has helped me.
I know that you are a Ph.D. Economist and are in an academic setting. You have a pressure to publish. You would like to work on PCT and HPCT topics in your role as an Economist. However, the administrators come from a different view. The students who are just trying to jump through hoops, become frustrated because you are doing something so different than their other teachers.
I am a Ph.D. Psychologist and am in a clinical setting, a residential treatment center for adolescents. I have a pressure to provide clinical services.
Sometimes practical considerations encourage me to back off from applying PCT ideas at the adolescent residential children’s center. For example, I instituted a Post Critical Incident Counseling with residents. They could correct some of the penalty they received by talking about the incident with a therapist. Residential Living Staff perceived this an undermining their authority.
I modified the approach and tried to get the residents to talk to the Residential Living Staff; I created a special form that staff could use to discuss an incident. What happened is that the Resident Living Staff never wanted to use it. So I stopped pushing them to use it. I also dropped the Post Critical Incident Counseling. It was creating a conflict between the Clinical Staff and Residential Living Staff.
Then there was a Medicaid driven mandate to discuss incidents with residents in which the residents were personally restrained by staff because the residents were being a danger to self or others. There was a Debriefing Form that followed the questions of the Post Critical Incident Counseling. I find that the staff will check the yes/no boxes but not write in any description of what the resident acually says. I have come to the conclusion that the staff need in-service training in listening to residents when the residents do the debriefing. The staff idea of debriefing is to engage in monologues in which they preach to the residents.
Perhaps I should rephrase, the above. I have found that I have to be a lot more subtle, indirect and clearly show that the PCT approach has practical value. Most staff are not interested in neuroscience or theory driven approaches. At treatment team, I try to model the kind of questioning and listening that is based on PCT. When new information or insights happen, then the staff seem more interested in finding out about PCT.
In addition to a regular job at the treatment center, I have a part-time practice in psychology. Within my private practice, I am more my own boss. I clearly express the PCT view to peole when I work with them. I have published a website, www.dmghelpcenter.com, where the PCT view is directly and explicitly expressed. Even here, because most of my clients are paid by managed care, I have to conform when I write up my reports. In my day-to-day interactions I am free to apply PCT in any way that I want to. Of course, it has to make sense to the clients and they have to think it is worthwhile and valuable.
Maybe the moral of the story is that one has to become his/her own boss. The problem is that we all have to earn a living. Is PCT a marketable quantity yet?
The Economic Test Bed idea seems to have the potential of being an application software to test out economic ideas. Could this be useful to a business in order to improve the bottom line? In order to help make business decisions? If so, then I could see you being a consultant and having something unique to offer to businesses. You could be your own boss. However, in the meantime, you are earning a living doing what you have to do.
David
David M. Goldstein, Ph.D.