Chapter 2 cont.

The vengeance of psychology

The popularity of dealing with psychology in the past decades, has resulted in an increased awareness of the different processes which occur within the individual. The general knowledge about these processes - already accumulated through systematic research and "field work" - is huge. That part of it which is accessible to all, is still too small, but it is also on the increase. There are also more people who are no longer content - and thus do not consent to leave their feelings and "emotional problems" to the professionals who specialize in this field.

This trend is similar to the spreading tendency to take part in sports and other physical activities for health and body maintenance outside of any formal framework or organization. This tendency expresses - among other things - the wish to eliminate the monopoly of orthopedics and other specialists on the maintenance of the well-being of the skeleton and muscles.

Similar tendencies can be found in the wide stream of movements for the liberation of the individual from the reign of "Professionals and authorities in their field". This stream expresses the growing tendency of people to take responsibility for their own functioning and place in the world. ("Eliminating School" and "Medicine's revenge" of Ivan Ilitch are among the outstanding books aimed at achieving this end through "destructive" means. They try to do it through their contribution of "Exposing the conspiracy of the experts of the establishment".)

There are also "constructive" means to meet this end. Many people take the trouble to make organized knowledge - based on applied sciences - available (accessible) to the layman. They take the pain to "translate" scientific findings and professional publications into texts written in everyday language, and invent new techniques of the "do it yourself" type. And so, the previously mysterious knowledge of the chosen few becomes intelligible to the ordinary person, who with this help can becomes independent of professional assistance.

The knowledge accumulated by me and my trainees and brought to this book - and especially that which is brought to the chapter "Do it yourself" is of the "constructionist" kind. It contributes our share to the growing body of knowledge that enables the liberation of the individual from total dependency on professionals.

This growing body of knowledge contributes more than any other modern factor to the growing feeling of the freedom of people in modern times. One is no longer forced to choose, again and again, between self-neglect or fearfully submitting to the experts - to whom one has to apply for every little malfunction of one of the systems.

How lucky we are that the strength of the resistance of the professionals and their ability to take revenge for their lost exclusiveness is not like that of the gods... who according to the Greek mythology punished Prometheus for divulging the secret of fire to mankind

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