Fwd.: BARAK ON THE COUCH

[Mark David Tristan Brenchley]

On Wed, 24 Jan 2001 KXX4493553 at aol.com wrote:

> A friend forwarded this to me...
>  kwp
> 
> BARAK ON THE COUCH
> 
> By Gary Quinn, M.D.
> Director, Jerusalem Stress and Trauma Institute
> Member, American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology
> 
> 
> Recently, the Israeli media was filled with talk about the secret IDF
> psychiatric profile of Saddaam Hussein which was written on the eve of the
> Gulf War in order to aid Israeli decision makers in formulating a reaction
> to Iraqi threats. Among those interviewed, Moshe Arens suggested that a
> similar psychiatric work-up be written on Yasser Arafat. This has surely
> been done. The use of psychiatric profiles by governments and their
> military intelligence services is not a new thing.
> 
> In light of the seemingly incomprehensible policy of the current government
> in Israel, which, for the first time in history,  has expressed a
> willingness to divide Jerusalem, surrender the Temple Mount, and negotiate
> with an enemy while its citizens are under constant fire, I feel compelled
> to offer a psychiatric understanding of another political leader, the
> Israeli Prime Minister, Ehud Barak.
> 
> I am a psychiatrist with 24 years of experience, and direct the Jerusalem
> Stress and Trauma Institute. I worked for Hadassah Hospital and directed a
> Crisis Intervention Team at Hebrew University.  I specialize in the
> treatment of post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) utilizing Hypnosis and
> EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing).   Following the
> earthquakes in Turkey, I co-led an international team in teaching Turkish
> psychologists the treatment of PTSD. My work in this field has led me to
> treat numerous survivors of terrorist bombings and shootings.
> 
> Many times this year, I have heard victims say, in one form or another,
> "Why doesn't Barak do something? How can he let this continue?"
> 
>  >From a psychiatric point of view, Prime Minister Barak's  behavior very
> much resembles a syndrome known as the Adult Child of Alcoholic Parent
> (ACOAP.) The syndrome develops when a child grows up in a household where a
> parent is alcoholic and abusive. When the child is home playing one day,
> the father comes in and beats him. The child concludes his father beat him
> because he was not a good enough son. So he strives to be a better child.
> One day, the father returns home drunk and beats the child again, blaming
> the child for being at fault. Again, the child concludes that he is not
> good enough and tries even harder to be better. This pattern continues, but
> the beatings never stop. As the child matures, his instincts of
> self-preservation grow stronger and he finally moves out of the house. But
> later in life, he replays the tragic script that he's learned, finding a
> boss, or a spouse, or a life situation where he can never be good enough.
> Programmed by his past, he always believes that he is at fault and he
> justifies the beatings rained down upon him.
> 
> I am not suggesting that Ehud Barak had parents who beat him. First, we
> must understand that in the ACOAP Syndrome, the parent need not be an
> actual alcoholic, nor inflict physical beatings. Any over-authoritative
> behavior can trigger this tragic script.  And because these people have
> powerful drives to excel, they very often reach the top echelons of their
> chosen fields of endeavor.
> 
> In the psychiatric profile before us, Ehud Barak, the Adult Child of an
> Alcoholic Parent, keeps giving his abusing parent, Yasser Arafat, another
> chance. He keeps accepting the argument of the abuser that Israel is at
> fault. Despite having the adult power to stop Arafat's violence, Barak does
> not stop it. Like the ACOAP, he accepts that he (Israel) is the cause of
> the violence and therefore does not fight back. This in turn encourages
> Arafat to continue his abusive behavior. To attain the "good child" image
> he so desperately needs, Barak must keep giving in to Arafat's terrorism,
> surrendering more and more to the abuser's demands in hope that the child,
> Barak, will one day win the approval he craves.
> 
> Interestingly, a person with ACOAP Syndrome can have several parent figures
> at once. Studying Barak's relationship with America's former President
> Clinton, one can see the same pattern. To win Clinton's approval, the
> Israeli Prime Minister is willing to jeopardize his country's most
> strategic and cherished possessions.
> 
> Barak's insistence in compulsively pursuing his policy of weakness and
> surrender in opposition to the will of the Israeli people, the Knesset, the
> President of Israel, the Attorney General, and top military and
> intelligence chiefs, forces us to explain his behavior as stemming from a
> pathological source.
> 
>   As a psychiatrist, I can hospitalize a suicidal patient. But what can I do
> when my country's Prime Minister adopts a suicidal course for the nation?
> Of course, to be fair, the root of the blame lies not with the Prime
> Minister alone. After all, at least in theory, the Prime Minister
> represents the whole nation. In a very real way, the Jewish people as a
> collective suffers from the Adult Child of Alcoholic Parent Syndrome. In
> the Holocaust, and in all of our exiles, we were cast in the role of the
> abused child who eternally strove to win the love of his oppressor. It is a
> self-image which large segments of the Jewish nation have internalized and
> made into a creed. Politically, this abused child has grown into the
> Israeli Left, including Shimon Peres. Thus, Prime Minister Barak is only a
> symptom of a broader malaise.
> 
> In psychiatric terms, the first step in curing the problem is the
> recognition that the  abuser is to blame, not the child. We have to stop
> blaming ourselves. Arafat is at fault for the violence, not us. We have to
> stop justifying the Palestinian cause, and recognize that our own cause is
> righteous and just. The violence will stop only when Israel's leaders will
> discard the pathological view that Israel is to blame. As long as we see
> ourselves as an undeserving child, negotiations will always fail. For the
> Jewish people, the time has come to grow up.
> 
> 
> Gary Quinn, M.D.
> Jerusalem Stress and Trauma Institute
> 9 Harav Berlin Street, Jerusalem, 92501
> 02-5633928

	I trust this is a joke. It is without a doubt the silliest thing I
have read in seconds (sorry, I'm 2/3rds of the way through the complete
Hitchhiker's Guide To the Galaxy). Never trust an Isreali's opinion of the
situation, and never trust a Palestinian's either. Depending on which
aritcles you read the "bad guy" is never the same.

Mark