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Culture of blame: Pathologising the male or The 'morally diminished male' syndrome. : Comments
By Patrick Murray, published 13/9/2004Patrick Murray argues against a culture of blaming men in family breakdowns
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Posted by richardg, Thursday, 4 May 2006 10:18:05 AM
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The main advantage that most family therapies have over the old Freud-type individual psychology models is that the problem is not to be found inside the individual male or otherwise but in the relationships inside the family, the patterns of interaction and communication. Essential to understand this is the concept of Systems in which a change in one part is going to affect all other parts.
One instance of the absurdity of the use of individual psychology is the current programs to "treat" male perpetrators of domestic violence is to put all the blame in the male and expect that with heavy indoctrination on all the bad things that men have inflicted on women over centuries then he is going to be "cured". The fact is that if nothing is done to change the verbal attacks and put-downs coming from the woman that act as triggers for the man's reaction then nothing has been achieved!
In my view a very important factor in relationships breakdowns is the acceptance that males are different from females in many areas apart from the obvious physical ones i.e. problem solving, expression of emotions, competition versus cooperation, goal versus process, etc. All of these things have been ignored or denied by feminists. This is one area in which both males and females need a lot of learning.
Coming back to your article, I myself have experienced the "wall" that surrounds most organisations like Relationships Australia and Centacare let alone the Community Mediation services in Adelaide. I completed the post grad in family therapy in 2000 and the master in conflict management (mediation) in 2004. I have constantly tried to find employment in this area without any success.
As it is, the people who are making the selection for the new positions are the same people who have selected the existing staff in the big organisations - so we can not expect something different when these places are staffed and influenced by raging anti-male feminists.