Monitoring
Daily journal … detailed record of food and calorie intake … diary of negative thoughts and feelings … evening review … sleep record
Are these tools of domination or the tools of psychological research? Part of the discipline imposed on a submissive by her master, or the "homework" agreed between therapist and client?
Well, both actually. Now isn't that interesting?
As I extend the range of so-called "disorders" I treat, I accumulate an ever increasing portfolio of monitoring forms and questionnaires. There's the Beck Depression Inventory, the Work and Social Adjustment Scale, the Fear of Negative Evaluations Scale, the Worry Diary and the Automatic Thoughts Diary, to name only a few. They are all designed to be filled in by the client, so that I can more precisely target my interventions as a therapist. That's the theory, anyway…
And as I read the writings of doms and subs on their web pages and blogs, I find exactly the same techniques being used. The Journal, the Punishment Book, keeping a record of sexual activity, of clothing worn, of food eaten.
A coincidence?
Did the D/s community consciously copy psychology, or vice versa? My guess is neither - but that something deeper is going on here. I know that psychology uses the questionnaires to try to get inside the minds of the people questioned. And perhaps dominants want more than control over the bodies of their subs, and that the monitoring is about attempting to control their minds.
Does it work? I'm not convinced.
What I do know is that powerful psychological dynamics are invoked by writing something and having it scrutinised and assessed by another. Ever had the experience of writing an assignment only to have it failed and criticised? Doesn't that evoke feelings of anger, rage, helplessness and depression? Perhaps it is this psychological impact that is the real purpose of this enforced writing - if so then those setting the task, whether psychologists, therapists or dominants need to be able to recognise and manage the feelings it can evoke in the writer.
Are these tools of domination or the tools of psychological research? Part of the discipline imposed on a submissive by her master, or the "homework" agreed between therapist and client?
Well, both actually. Now isn't that interesting?
As I extend the range of so-called "disorders" I treat, I accumulate an ever increasing portfolio of monitoring forms and questionnaires. There's the Beck Depression Inventory, the Work and Social Adjustment Scale, the Fear of Negative Evaluations Scale, the Worry Diary and the Automatic Thoughts Diary, to name only a few. They are all designed to be filled in by the client, so that I can more precisely target my interventions as a therapist. That's the theory, anyway…
And as I read the writings of doms and subs on their web pages and blogs, I find exactly the same techniques being used. The Journal, the Punishment Book, keeping a record of sexual activity, of clothing worn, of food eaten.
A coincidence?
Did the D/s community consciously copy psychology, or vice versa? My guess is neither - but that something deeper is going on here. I know that psychology uses the questionnaires to try to get inside the minds of the people questioned. And perhaps dominants want more than control over the bodies of their subs, and that the monitoring is about attempting to control their minds.
Does it work? I'm not convinced.
What I do know is that powerful psychological dynamics are invoked by writing something and having it scrutinised and assessed by another. Ever had the experience of writing an assignment only to have it failed and criticised? Doesn't that evoke feelings of anger, rage, helplessness and depression? Perhaps it is this psychological impact that is the real purpose of this enforced writing - if so then those setting the task, whether psychologists, therapists or dominants need to be able to recognise and manage the feelings it can evoke in the writer.
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