Kim Olver, psychotherapist and William Glaser Institute director, talks with us again and in more depth about psychotherapy—the basic principles, how to relate to people we are helping, and how to train people to help others. Both of us believe that mental health services can be delivered better and much less expensively by training good people to be therapists without requiring extensive prior schooling and professional degrees. By making training and certificates more easily available, many people could become fine therapists, providing services at much lower costs as trainers or coaches. You can meet Kim Oliver, Bob Whitaker and myself at a Kim’s conference next week, July 26-July 28, 2017 in Raleigh, North Carolina. Our Center for the Study of Empathic Therapy is cosponsoring. For more information, go to www.breggin.com and click on Upcoming Events on the drop-down menu.
Terry Lynch is an Irish GP who became a psychotherapist and now devotes himself to helping people through his practice, his books, and his courses for professionals and the public. On the air on my radio show today, I listened to him amazed at how similarly we see the human struggle and how to help people with it. He puts important ideas into words that mirror my own thoughts, only said more clearly, and with a lovely Irish accent. If you care about people and about understanding their struggles, this show will inspire, entertain and educate you. Thank you, Terry!
My guest Dr. Michael Guy Thompson is creating a radically innovative home for people with serious emotional suffering in San Francisco. Called Gnosis Retreat, it breaks completely with the medical model and views distress as a part of being human. Michael and I talk about friendship and love in recovery and in life. We examine the necessity of helping people “off the grid” to avoid government and psychiatric interference. The problem is not the “high cost” of good approaches because some of the best like Michael’s are the least expensive. The best help often requires relatively little professional involvement and no expensive options like doctors, drugs and hospitals. The supposedly high costs of mental health care are not about the services needed by struggling people. The high costs are about feeding the bloated Pharmaceutical and Medical Empires.