A Friendly Reply to Geraldine Jackson

by

D. B. Vest

It is a hopeful sign that (in the article "As For Me") in ONE's Jan. issue the idea of a Homosexual Anonymous is again advocated. It has been advanced several times earlier. Blanche Baker was in favor of it and indeed it is the inevitable advice of every psychiatrist who knows the unique place which group therapy plays in all therapy-as it were as the third act of therapy:-the first being cure (the patient being dependent on his psychophysician), the second being psychological 'resistance' (the acquisition of the power to ride compulsive drives, the subject being in a consultative capacity with his advisor: cf. Carl Roger's 'non-directive therapy"-'non-directive' because the therapist does not control) and the third being development (a group finds its bearings, defines it objectives, sets it objectives and works out its procedures).

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Before however it can be decided what form could be taken by a group therapy, which has the above threefold aim, we should glance at the 'Anonymoi' that have arisen within the last 30 years. The AA was the first, founded in the early thirties. It has been followed by many others. At the first inquiry it appeared there are probably now nearer 30 than 20 such. They range from the standard addications, drink, dope, nicotine, through gambling (a demi-addiction)

on

to overeating ('obesity anonymous'), epilepsy, a specific anonymous for women (and founded by one of them) who have had an idiot child, one for divorcees, some four for heart-diseased, about the same for cancer patients, one for colostomy and another for coecostomy. That there should be two different supporting groups for these two types of abdominal patients sounds odd but is instructive. For it points up one of the basic characteristics of an Anonymous. An Anonymous needs for its functioning two successive states. The first is an accident, the second is an intentional reply to that accident. The first drives the subject into a corner; the second is the thought-out series of steps out of that corner. But to extricate anyone from a psychological trap, the extricator must know that particular trap from inside and have gotten himself out. The two ordeals of colostomy and coecostomy look psychologically much the same to an outsider but not the same to the patient or, for that matter, to the nurse. Similarly alcoholism and narcotism seem the same-addiction to a drug. But it has been proved that while an Alcoholic-anonymous is the one to help an alcoholic, he can't help a narcotic. Only a narcotic-anonymous can do that.

So the launching charge to get the subject to get out of the average cas-

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