D.B.T. INACCURICIES WITH RADICAL ACCEPTANCE ("Rape Victims")

There are a number of areas of concern within Dialectic Behaviour Therapy (DBT) which I find problematic. Much of Dialectic Behavior Therapy relies in its underlying philosophy on Buddhism and particularly Zen. “This is well acknowledged”, even amongst professionals who work in branches of psychotherapy. Zen practice has been around for thousands of years and derives directly from specific branches of Indian Yoga even before that. It has a long and well celebrated recorded history. However; (“Radical Acceptance”) is not directly an associated part of Buddhism. And in particular Radical Acceptance is at odds with particular branches of Buddhism, Zen in particular. I was puzzled about this and had to give this quite a lot of thought, mainly because it just felt to me to be fundamentally wrong.
So what exactly is wrong with Radical Acceptance?
Before scrutinizing the concepts of Radical Acceptance in all fairness. I should first try to understand what it is and what is being defined by Radical Acceptance. However; as soon as I try to do this I am confronted by deliberating pragmatic principles. The concept of Radical Acceptance is vague, non-specific. It is over-generalised to the point where it is meaningless. (“No useful meaningful examples are given”), At least not any that I have been able to ascertain by logical inference. I have not yet got my hands on a copy of several books by American Psychologist Doctor Marsha M. Linehan (“Author of Dialectic Behaviour Therapy”). But I have researched and read numerous exerts from Doctor Linehan’s various works on D.B.T. therapy on the internet and Chapters Bookstore. D.B.T. often fails describing what Radical Acceptance means to any person suffering an affliction. Deriving from this contrast is what I believe to be an erroneous flaw, and a further indication that actually no one (“really”) does know what Radical Acceptance means.
I did however; review a number of points that explained what Radical Acceptance is. Here are some quotes from the material.
(“1”) Freedom from suffering requires ACCEPTANCE from deep within of what is. Let yourself go completely with what is. Let go of fighting reality.
(“2”) ACCEPTANCE is the only way out of hell.
(“3”) Pain creates suffering only when you refuse to accept the pain.
(“4”) Deciding to tolerate the moment is ACCEPTANCE.
(“5”) ACCEPTANCE is acknowledging what is.
(“6”) To accept something is not the same as judging it good.


I would like to review these quotes. From (“1”) it states that Freedom from suffering requires Acceptance from (("deep within")). It is not at all clear what (“deep within”) is meant to mean. The same goes for ("what is"). ("Let yourself go completely with what is") appears to be an injunction to ignore any internal sense of morality. In other words to be amoral. While this appears to be a bad thing, it is actually not such a bad thing. The truth is our personal moral sense is often too rigid and too puritanical to mesh with the events of a multicultural world with many different codes of morality. Buddhism itself takes this stance. It is fundamentally amoral. This is the aspect that causes Christians the most difficulty. Christians expect to be told what to think, and to be told what is right and wrong. Buddhism refutes this role. Buddhism says that each individual has to learn to work this stuff out for themselves. Unfortunately this is not what happens in practice even in Buddhist societies. Humanity's impulse to join with a peer group and in so doing adopt the injunctions of the peer group continually frustrate this aspect of Buddhism even in totally Buddhist countries such as Sri Lanka, Thailand and Cambodia. Even with Zen in the West everyone goes to the Zen Master expecting to be told what is right and what to do. The Zen Masters correct response to all this is "Just sit and meditate." This is not an acceptable answer to many Christians who reject Buddhist teachings as a direct result of this reaction. Of course it is possible to be both Christian and Buddhist simply by doing what the Zen Master says. ("Let go of fighting reality.") is again a meaningless slogan by itself? Without a full elaboration it is just a marketing sound bite, the sort of thing you hear on TV advertisements every hour.
From (“2”) “we have "hell". Now I have to ask what does “hell” have to do with anything. We are discussing people’s emotions and reactions in the real day to day world, not someone else's judgemental assessment of what they perceive someone else's reality to be. The word "hell" has no place in this discussion. It is a direct connection to a puritanical train of thought. The implication of using the word "hell" is – ("do what I say or be damned.") Whoever wrote this assertion obviously has difficulty with their own sense of power and control over their own life and surroundings including their own moral certitudes and relevant spiritual upbringing.
From (“3”) we have ("Pain creates suffering only when you refuse to accept pain.") Now the distinction here completely eludes me. For me pain is suffering. There is no split between describing the two. Try and convince me or virtually any person in this world that pain is not suffering. The profound inanity of this statement raises a serious question. Why has no one picked up on this and challenged it? Are all the people being taught D.B.T. like dumb sponges that will accept anything that is disclosed to them without question? If that is the case there is a serious problem. Any psychotherapist who thinks within themselves as their clients being a dumb sponge is a serious impediment to their being a principled genuine therapist.



(“4”) “Deciding to tolerate the moment as a way of learning acceptance is actually a worthwhile statement”. When a Buddhist sits in meditative Zazen practice, they practice precisely this kind of acceptance every fraction of a second, particularly if kneeling on your knees hurt so much it feels like they are about to crack apart. But Zen Practice demands that you sit with that pain and accept it. On a more mundane level of pain, if a bee comes into the room and alights on your nose while you are sitting in a meditative Zazen practice, again you simply accept that the bee is sitting on your nose. One who is meditating does not move to brush it off. Nor do they move in any way. Nor do they even disturb their awareness to think "I wish that bee would bugger off!" It would appear that American Doctor Marsha M. Linehan (“Psychiatric Author of Dialectic Behaviour Therapy”) has latched onto this fundamental idea and has tried to take it in the direction of her own self-righteous thinking. Notwithstanding; she has taken her personal ideological thinking to the wrong modes of rational.
(“5”) ((("ACCEPTANCE is acknowledging what is."))) Here again we have this vague term ("what is") which by lack of definition makes any discussion or common interpretation impossible. This statement looks very much like (“4.”) But it is actually very different. (“4”) is about tolerating the moment, which advocates making a choice whether to take some affirmative action or not in each instant of time as an event unfolds. This part of learning is about right (skilful) action. ("Acknowledging what is") is something quite different. ("What is") is a vacuous statement that includes too much. How can you possibly acknowledge something that is more than you can know or understand? That is just dumb acquiescence. Acknowledging something is a dumb agreement to something else particularly when one doesn’t even know quite what it is you are agreeing to. This is acquiescence in ignorance, the most dangerous form of ignorance. This is the way many people in society function most of the time.
(“6”) "To accept something is not the same as judging it good" So far the word "Radical" has not come into this discussion. So far this discussion has not distinguished between ordinary acceptance of typical life events like birth and death and sickness and aging, and more morally laden events such as rape, incest, torture and murder. This is the one sentence that defines the difference. (“With Radical Acceptance as opposed to ordinary acceptance”), we are being asked to accept an event which we personally judge to being immoral or unsound. If I do not judge the event of rape to be abominable in some sense then the event is not different to ordinary acceptance and there is no need to qualify this form of acceptance as "Radical Acceptance" rather than just acceptance.




What is it that is special about Radical Acceptance? Radical Acceptance requires any afflicted person to ("accept") any event that, that person genuinely feels to be morally wrong in some way. Now it suddenly becomes unclear just what the word ("accept") means in this context. How far is this word ("accept") supposed to reach? What is it intended to include. Should a person with an affliction simply accept the harsh reality and affliction of murder, rape, or incest simply because it is a reality of life or do such victims do something to mitigate the situation? Do you complain afterwards? Do you complain at the time? ((“Hypothetically”)) What if I was very young child growing up in my childhood and adolescence and didn’t realize at the time that the love of my mother and father gave me was in fact brutal torture with a life engaged in sexual incest relations all throughout my childhood and well into my teen years. Maybe by the time I had reached the age of 20 before I suddenly realised that those acts of love were not really true acts of love at all but profound abuse. Do I simply accept the fact that these incestual sexual relations happened and move on with my life? And again hypothetically; how would I simply relate to my parents the same way I did as a child before I understood the hideous enormity of their actions? ((“What is this word "accept" supposed to mean in this context?”)) It quickly becomes clear that the use of the idea to (“Radically Accept") in this context becomes so vague as to be meaningless.





Maybe something good or bad will happen when I should consider relinquishing all my sensibilities and set-out on the practice of Radical Acceptance. Will I sell a part of myself, the part that knows what is right, relinquishing my own pain for the cause of expediency, the easy way out, or often to satisfy those around me? In that process do I devalue myself? Do I sever a wound in my psyche that may never heal by telling myself to forget the unspeakable pain, long held in my soul for three decades?

Before I set my heart on the practice of Radical Acceptance, should I not think about the costs? What part of my own moral fibre am I betraying when I acquiesce to a situation I find morally reprehensible which in my case is the excruciating painful stigma and torture of Gang Rape at Gunpoint. . Should it be necessary for me to be prepared to live with that personal sense of self-betrayal while endeavoring to forget my past for the rest of my life when all I am really searching for is peace in my soul?

If I decide not to accept a situation and not take any overt action even though I can definitively see that there is stigma and pain to relinquish within myself even if it should be called into question; while considering ulterior motives of living with my past. Whom am I protecting, passively engaging in the cover-up of an immorally repulsive act that brought affliction on my being? Am I simply avoiding taking the difficult path of action? Do I feel too insecure to risk immersing myself in the hell storm of personal traumatic emotions that invoke profound psychological pain? Can there be such a (“guarantee”) that such actions of incorporating Radical Acceptance will not further provoke continuing painful emotions from my Gang Rape past and all the heartbreak that it stirs my soul?

When I consider the practice of Radical Acceptance coupled with my own problematic coping skills in situations whereas I being a victim of a torturous gang-rape at gunpoint and the incessant horrid memories that besiege me. I have to consider if psychotherapist who are advocating Radical Acceptance is resemblance of psychiatrists and psychologists colluding with health professionals and colleagues to cover up a reprehensible situation as rape trauma that actually needs to be exposed and addressed at a more consciousnable concrete level with respect to any mental health patient suffering with any affliction and who are not always mindfully ready to endeavor and embrace the hidden rigors of Radical Acceptance?
As for being a traumatized victim of a torturous gang-rape this is definitely the perception I mentally perceive on discovering the concept of Radical Acceptance embedded in Dialectic Behavior Therapy. If I were asked by someone else who confesses they don’t even understand what psycho-therapeutic colleagues are telling you to accept and practice something without explanation of the hidden costs to a person who is already in a very vulnerable state. It appears on the surface that the idea of Radical Acceptance is grossly manipulative from a psycho-therapeutic avenue as suggested by psychiatrists and psychologists who can only fathom superficially how my gang-rape torture at gunpoint affected me.


And what of the application of Radical Acceptance to those victimized by rape (“women, children and men”)?
People who go through rape affliction still have to develop a strong personal sense of right and wrong. Radical Acceptance is able to totally undercut the process of maturity, of a person developing their own sense of what is right and wrong for the rest of their lives.
In a nut shell Radical Acceptance is ultimately corrosive. This cost of that corrosion needs to be assessed and made completely clear at the time. Radical Acceptance is something that a person traumatized by rape affliction has to live with forever.

Sometimes Radical Acceptance may be the only way forward in the (“short term”) not unlike a quick temporary bandage fix. Whose responsibility is it to see that a victimized person of rape sense of what is right is honored in the long term.
Maybe Radical Acceptance requires that some form of contractual agreement that needs to be written out describing what immediate action is being deferred and at what cost to the victimized client in the long term. In a case of medical malpractice from a psycho-therapist’s stand-point there can be no trade off with their mental health patients, there can be no Radical Acceptance. To do so would heap abuse upon abuse.

It is now clear that for a therapist to play a part in advocating Radical Acceptance, the therapist must have a profound understanding of the nature of moral integrity, and the possible costs to the client who is pursuing it, or abandoning it. Show me a therapist who is prepared to traverse this territory. This might explain why Radical Acceptance is delivered within a Skills Group setting where the personal implications are conveniently invisible to both psychiatrists and psychologists. Is the manner in which this material is delivered within a group setting a way of avoiding responsibility for any possible fallout which implicates the health provider in covering up medical abuse or malpractice? No psychotherapist’s could possibly know what the long term consequences would be for the clients excuse to embrace or denial of Radical Acceptance.
If the client did wish to pursue what was right and engage with reality and fight with it, could the client rely on the therapists support? The inclusion of the Radical Acceptance material in the skills group as a given, indicates to the client that the client cannot expect this kind of support from the therapist: that the therapist will always advocate selling out on moral issues.
There is a lot of stuff to ponder on here. Particularly for those who direct the future of Dialectic Behavior Therapy itself. The same too for clients who come across this issue and find it problematic. And I definitively do find it problematic. However; be it as it may that I am not in a position to offer solutions. Being a mental health client myself I can only sincerely ask that Dialectic Behavior therapists give serious consideration to the issues presented here.

This is very informative and deserves a closer look by other victims such as yourself. Thank for taking your time to make others aware. With love.

Nanashi wrote:This is very informative and deserves a closer look by other victims such as yourself. Thank for taking your time to make others aware. With love.

Hello Nanashi;

I believe you can apply what I tried to express here through years of reading studying psychiatric/psychoanalytical therapy applications towards mentally ill patients. Particularly those who struggle through traumatic affliction in their lives.
However; Dialectic Behavioral Therapy is fairly new to psychotherapy, directed more towards people who suffer ("Borderline Personality Disorder") and in many areas in both United States and Canada is used on mental health clients to replace ("Cognitive Therapy Skills") in a Group setting. I haven't read much about D.B.T. being used extensively in the U.K. or Australia; both countries which rely primarily on Cognitive Therapy Skills for mental health clients.

Nevertheless; I find it rather bias and assuming of psychiatrist and psychologists to pigeonhole every victim of rape, incest or spousal abuse as being diagnosed with ("Borderline Personality Disorder")

Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) is a serious and often life-threatening disorder that is characterized by severe emotional pain and difficulties managing emotions. The problems associated with BPD include impulsivity (including suicidality and self-harm), severe negative emotion such as anger and/or shame, chaotic relationships, an extreme fear of abandonment, and accompanying difficulties maintaining a stable and accepting sense of self. Thus, BPD is characterized by pervasive instability of mood, interpersonal relationships, self-image, and actions, often negatively affecting loved ones, family and work life, long-term planning, and the individuals sense of self-identity.

Though there are similarities with victims of Rape ans Incest suffering from Rape Trauma Syndrome, D.B.T. is still not accurately attuned to the needs of those whom suffer exclusively from rape and incest.

D.B.T. accompanied by Radical Acceptance asking victims of rape and incest to simply accept their traumatic suffering simply because it is an ordinary fact of life that occurs to millions of children, women and men.
Personally; I see Radical Acceptance as a Euphemism akin to telling Victims of Rape, Incest, and Spousal Abuse to ("Suck It Up").

No Psychiatrist or Psychologist who has ("never experienced rape or incest torture themselves personally") could convince me otherwise. A psychiatrist/psychologist needs to justify what they believe Radical Acceptance can do for a victim of rape or incest, even though they themselves have no idea except to imagine in their own text-book intellect what it is to experience the traumatic soul wrenching loss that happens to rape or incest victim. Human Pain of itself often defies articulating in human language because there are no words to describe a victimized, traumatized, soul that feels great loss.

Peace
Chris

I absolutely agree with every word you have said. Nothing more needs to be said on that.

I think it's more a matter of what it is you are accepting rather than what it means to accept it.

Perhaps they would be better off saying what it isn't rather than what it is.

Or I'd look at it this way (not that I know anything about it...) to accept something is to fully acknowledge that it happened and that it had consequences. I honestly don't see more to it than that.

The fact is, that you can't roll back time. No amount of justice or morality will undo what already has happened.

Example: locking a perpetrator in prison does not undo whatever they have already done. That isn't to say you shouldn't lock them away. It just doesn't necessarily solve the pain that was caused by them. For some it does, maybe, but it isn't an absolute. So what is the option for those who are still in pain, even though every moral correction might have already been made?

If law doesn't erase it, and talking doesn't erase it, ignoring it or rejecting doesn't erase it, fighting against it when it can't be undone doesn't erase it... among a host of other things which may be ineffectual, what else is there to do, other than accept that you will feel pain, and go on living? What do you do with a result that can't be undone or gotten rid of?

gwilly wrote:I think it's more a matter of what it is you are accepting rather than what it means to accept it.

Perhaps they would be better off saying what it isn't rather than what it is.

Or I'd look at it this way (not that I know anything about it...) to accept something is to fully acknowledge that it happened and that it had consequences. I honestly don't see more to it than that.

The fact is, that you can't roll back time. No amount of justice or morality will undo what already has happened.

Example: locking a perpetrator in prison does not undo whatever they have already done. That isn't to say you shouldn't lock them away. It just doesn't necessarily solve the pain that was caused by them. For some it does, maybe, but it isn't an absolute. So what is the option for those who are still in pain, even though every moral correction might have already been made?

If law doesn't erase it, and talking doesn't erase it, ignoring it or rejecting doesn't erase it, fighting against it when it can't be undone doesn't erase it... among a host of other things which may be ineffectual, what else is there to do, other than accept that you will feel pain, and go on living? What do you do with a result that can't be undone or gotten rid of?

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Hi Gwilly;

For me myself if accepting my painful past its best for my happiness, peace, and success in this world then my accepting my painful past is for the wrong reason. True Happiness, Peace, or Success in this World we live in brings too much false hope and illusion to waste my energy on. However; if your a person who walks by Faith, Hope, and Love of God.
Only then do I personally have a reason to accept my painful past in this ugly existence. ("Note: By ugly existence I'm not talking about people in general.") I'm speaking about the EVIL things people do to others.

Everything in this world is temporal, finite and brings with it so much illusion.
What is far more REAL is what lies beyond human life. Of course people have the freedom and choice to believe as they desire.
My beliefs of Hope and Faith are not of this finite temporal world.
Of course this requires Spiritual Faith in God. Faith lies beyond the limitations of human sight.

Interesting thought.

Look at it this way though. What is acceptance, if not the opposite of rejection? What is rejection, if not the opposite of acceptance?

You can be ambivalent, but what is that, really? Is that not being torn between the two? Both acceptance and rejection being present?

Or you can be apathetic, but what is that really? Couldn't it be said that is acceptance via non-rejection?

Or a different perspective.

Acceptance might be somewhere in the space between wishing something didn't happen and not wishing something did happen. A very real difference.

A wish cannot change the past. Not wishing doesn't attempt to change anything.

In the case of things which are actively happening, wishing also does nothing. Action can possibly change something, though. So take action if you must - wishing for things to be different changes nothing.

Reality does not go away just by closing your eyes and willing it away. It is still there, and it will still hurt you.

gwilly wrote:Interesting thought.

Look at it this way though. What is acceptance, if not the opposite of rejection? What is rejection, if not the opposite of acceptance?

You can be ambivalent, but what is that, really? Is that not being torn between the two? Both acceptance and rejection being present?

Or you can be apathetic, but what is that really? Couldn't it be said that is acceptance via non-rejection?

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Hi Gwilly;

Interesting thoughts. I would say that in compromising this whole idea around ("Radical Acceptance") is determining between what is ("Ordinary Acceptance") and what is meant by ("Radical"). I don't believe ("all") victims of rape and incest wrap themselves in a complete state of "denial" in the life-long aftermath of being victimized.

For twenty-three years I ("Hide") my horrifying Gang-Rape torture at Gunpoint from everyone, friends, family and medical officials. Considering the physical damage alone I should have sought medical care given the fact of being sodomized by two men and then a woman who sodomized me with a hot curling iron and later having one of my testicles removed.

Was my hiding those horrors for 23 years, mean I was in a state of denial. Hell No! The utter Shame and Guilt alone was a big part of my keeping silent. Back in the late summer of 1979 male rape victims were virtually non-existent. And those stories that did break the media were automatically classified as being victimized gay men or prisoners doing jail time. ("Today 2010; those bias mainstream sentiments prevail in society") Very rarely was a heterosexual man being raped ever heard of. Prior to my Gang-Rape I had read or heard about this stuff.

("Denial") of the fact I was gang-raped by two men and a woman was never on my mind considering how it effected my being, whether at a conscious or subconscious state of being. How in bloody hell could anyone ever forget a similar rape I went through and consciously make the decision to forget it happened? Not so surprising to me that my first shrink in early January 2003 didn't believe my story after a major psychological breakdown.

Gwilly wrote;

You can be ambivalent, but what is that, really? Is that not being torn between the two? Both acceptance and rejection being present? Or you can be apathetic, but what is that really? Couldn't it be said that is acceptance via non-rejection?

Couldn't it be said that is acceptance via non-rejection?

Yes! but it still doesn't differentiate between this acceptance being Ordinary or Radical. I certainly fail to see how Radical comes into personal acknowledgement that You, Me or anyone else has in reality acknowledged that they are indeed a victim of Rape, Incest or Spousal Abuse. Why would any victim present here claim other-wise?

gwilly wrote:Or a different perspective.

Acceptance might be somewhere in the space between wishing something didn't happen and not wishing something did happen. A very real difference.

A wish cannot change the past. Not wishing doesn't attempt to change anything.

In the case of things which are actively happening, wishing also does nothing. Action can possibly change something, though. So take action if you must - wishing for things to be different changes nothing.

Reality does not go away just by closing your eyes and willing it away. It is still there, and it will still hurt you.

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Hello Gwilly;

Acceptance might be somewhere in the space between wishing something didn't happen and not wishing something did happen. A very real difference. A wish cannot change the past. Not wishing doesn't attempt to change anything.

A very big difference indeed. I have a difficult time wrapping my rational around this concept,; because one would be lying to oneself. But at the same time I suppose there are different levels of shock that are unique to individuals that effect mental faculty wanting to blank out and forget the painful stigma. Perhaps worse in the ("immediate") aftermath of a rape or incest encounter. I know that what I have a unwanted flashback I can desire to strongly feel this way.

Perhaps this ("space in between") is being overwhelmed by emotional "numbness" that victims sometimes feel.

A wish cannot change the past. Not wishing doesn't attempt to change anything.

Wishing for something that cannot be becomes a waste of energy. Strange; before I was gang-raped I used to be an idealist.
Not today. I'm very pragmatic, sometimes too much.

Reality does not go away just by closing your eyes and willing it away. It is still there, and it will still hurt you.

I know the sentiments. But there is always HOPE in greater things than in this mundane world.

Peace
Chris