It's All About Love

In the September 2004 issue of the Jewish Observer, there was a letter by Dr. Bentzion Sorotzkin in response to a previous article about the dangers of the Internet.  What follows are some excerpts from his letter:

Some of you may erroneously conclude that exposure to the Internet, by itself, will cause someone to go off the derech or become involved in promiscuity.  If this was true, then one would expect that such tragic events would be significantly more prevalent in modern Orthodox communities than in more insular ones, since the people in the latter communities are much more shielded from outside "cultural" influences.

Judging from my professional experience, the sad fact is that the percentage of rebellious teens and promiscuous spouses are very similar in both types of communities.

Some may feel that the ends justify the means and therefore, it is worth using (inaccurate) scare tactics to encourage parents to protect their families from the spiritual dangers of the Internet.  However, there is a distinct danger to this approach.  It gives a totally inaccurate picture of the reasons for youngsters going off the derech or for couples to stray.  As a clinical psychologist, with many years experience working with rebellious teenagers in the frum community,  I can state categorically that the Internet has never been the prime factor in causing a child to rebel against his family's way of life. Rather, it is family conflict, often caused by parental mishandling of common childhood behaviors, that cause a child to rebel. 
   
When I meet parents of rebellious teens they often express shock that their children went off the derech when they worked so hard to shield them from outside influences. They are much less sensitive to the negative impact of their own harsh and critical parenting style on their children's future ruchnius level.     In a book of lectures by rosh yeshiva Rabbi Chaim Pinchas Scheinberg he states: "Show me the juvenile delinquent and in almost every case I will show you a person resorting to desperate means to attract the emotional warmth and attention he failed to get but so much wants and needs ... Aggressive behavior, when fully understood, is in fact nothing but love frustrated. It is a technique for compelling love, as well as a means for taking revenge on a society that has let the person down, leaving him disillusioned, deserted and dehumanized .. If you find rebels in society today, it is because they were never given the proper love."     A recent sefer on chinuch (Chinuch Malchuti) makes the following points: "Parents who treat their children with flexibility and do not overreact to minor infractions will have children who remain loyal to them and to their way of life.... "Educators who deal with dropouts relate that every single one only dropped out because he or she received insufficient love at home. None of them claimed that they left due to complaints against Hashem or the Torah. Lack of love at home is the reason for dropping out of yeshiva and for going off the derech. A child who receives sufficient love at home will never drop out or go off the derech."

Unlicensed Therapists

There was an interesting article in "Ami Living" (issue #62) about unlicensed advice-givers, whether they call themselves counselors, therapists, marital counselors, etc.  The author interviewed three men who have no degrees and yet offer advice.  To sum up:

pro licensing/anti unregulated counselors:
1) public protection - people have been hurt by self-declared practioners
2) the material studied for a degree plus the supervised training is invaluable
3) formal schooling plus a natural aptitude are a winning combination
4) the shtetl rav knew his limits

pro unregulated counselors:

1) there are awful licensed therapists, a degree is no guarantee of competence
2) a chush (instinct, talent) for advice giving cannot be learned in school; those who are professionally trained often lack common sense and a listening and sensitive heart and go "by the book".  Being able to give good eitzos (advice) is not something you learn in school.
3) formal schooling in which you must study ideas that are contrary to Torah is not an asset but a liability
4) they can be fine for most human relationship and personal problems
5) good for those who don't want to get involved in anything medical because of the stigma (even though psychologists and social workers are not in the medical profession)

What did people do before the field of mental health developed and became regulated? Of course there were always rabbis, rebbetzins, mashgichim, pastors, chaplains, and friends to turn to for advice.

The frum psychologist Dr Sorotzkin's answer to the question of what people did before psychology is the same as for antibiotics, "Some lived and some died."  I think that is true now too, though not in the way he means it, with many people "dying" with the lack of help or outright harm perpetrated by some professionals.

He believes that all things being equal, the chances are higher that a trained and licensed therapist will be better than one who isn't.  He thinks that licensed people are more likely to be effective and quicker to know what they can and cannot do.  Sounds reasonable but until it's proven (and how can it be proven?) it's an opinion.

A frum psychologist quoted in the article said that the rav and rebbe of yesteryear "were guided by a strong sense of morality, spirituality and plain old common sense."  He thinks that many of those trying to give advice today are lacking in all three.  He also thinks that the advisors of yesteryear were focused on the person who needed help as opposed to today where many are as interested in being advice-givers as they in helping.  "There is much less listening, much more advice-giving."

The professionals feel threatened by those who get referrals even though they did not  put in years and money into a degree.  When a social worker is quoted as saying, "A person should never do anything he is not qualified to do.  A dermatologist would not promote himself as a brain surgeon," I am not impressed.  What's the comparison? How is an counselor who gives advice comparable to one type of doctor who promotes himself as having another specialty?

This same individual is annoyed by congregational rabbis who counsel.  What bothers him is the case, for example, of a couple going to their rabbi for marriage counseling and not getting the desired result and concluding that counseling doesn't work without realizing it was the unqualified rabbi who was the problem.  This social worker apparently believes that anyone with a degree or license will give only excellent advice, which is wishful thinking. 

If only a study could be done in the frum world about the efficacy of frum unprofessional counseling versus professional counseling, but that seems impossible

As for money, it didn't come up in the interviews in the article.  A sidebar said that the mental health advisor (i.e. non-professional) rarely charges, volunteering the bulk of his work for the mitzva.