The Vaccine Against Violence
Posted: June 3, 2011 | Project: Sanatorium | Tags: Brooklyn, Guggenheim, NYC, Sanatorium, Sociatry, Therapy | Leave a comment »
To our minds a symbolic act has the equivalent power of a real act. Consequently, destroying symbolically may free us from the need of having to do a real aggression. Based on this premise, the patient faces a headless dummy. The participant is given a balloon and he has to blow it and draw on it the face of the person who has hurt him the most in his life. Then he is encouraged by the therapist to tell the dummy why he hates him so much and how much he was hurt by him and he is encouraged to get even by hitting the dummy until the balloon bursts. After this, he is given a placebo labeled as “Vaccine against violence”. In this way, the catharsis this therapy achieves makes redundant real acts of violence, freeing the subject from long-standing hatred.
For this therapy I consulted with Antanas Mockus (Colombian Mathematician and formar mayor of Bogota) a transcript of out conversations will be available in this blog soon.
