Tuesday, February 27, 2007

Battle of the Blogs...

Someone called Leesa is being very public spirited, and has organised a Battle for people who Blog. Its a rather complex voting system, based on something called baseball or basketball (not sure which) which is apparently an American sporting thingy. All you need to know is that you get to vote loads of times. So you can vote here for Ms Pants and Mr Ducky and the Lovely Caroline. You can vote here for Ms Baroque and Mr Zeddie. You can vote here for lots of people that I have never heard of. You can vote here for Signs and The Periodic Englishman. And this is where it gets really difficult because then you have to choose between me or the Lovely Nmj at Velo-Gubbed Legs. One option is that we scrap the contest altogether, and have a naked mud wrestle to decide the winner. Or alternatively, we could all just have a naked mud wrestle. Anwyay, if you decide to vote in the Western Bracket, just keep it under your hat, OK. Nmj and I don't need to know

xxx

26 comments:

Caroline said...

I am voting naked mud wrestling ... but you knew that already!
x

Ms Melancholy said...

This is going to be fun...so many of us. But please let's not have any baseball rules - it's all too confusing. Let's do feminist mud wrestling, where there is no competition, no winners and we all have a big group hug at the end?

The Moon Topples said...

I wish I was wrestling someone. (sigh).

I think it unfair to have pitted you against NMJ so early in the competition.

So many of my friends are in this thing, and unless all of them can somehow win, I don't see how this is going to end well.

Worse still is the possibility that none of them will win.

It's too much.

Caroline said...

Mr Moon is right. Let's all withdraw and wrestle instead ;-) Mr Moon must be able to join in too.

I do so enjoy our group hugs. I don't get baseball. Isn't it a bit like rounders?

Right off to be mysterious.
x

The Periodic Englishman said...

I hate it that you and NMJ are up against each other. Hate it. I vote mud wrestling, too. Can I keep my t-shirt on though, please? Bit embarrassed about my tummy. Apart from that, no worries. Well, not many.

Ms Melancholy said...

Nmj is only playing if you get naked, Pony Boy....now we'll see what kind of a man you are! (Oops. I have a quiet rule that I only get rude on other people's blogs, and I think I just broke it. It's your fault, Mr Period. You and your sexy ways. I heard about your posse of female fans, by the way. I am delirious with excitement.)

Mr Moon, please come and join us. We don't want to battle with blogs - we just want to dance naked in the mud. You are very welcome to dance with us, in fact I absolutely bloody insist that you join us. And is it baseball or basketball that this voting thing is based on? I think it is perhaps like our quaint 'Carling Cup', which is a tired old football competition in which clubs only enter their reserve team. (I am not meaning to be disrespectful to Leesa, by the way. It's just my way of not being ultra-competitive.)

On group hugs, Caroline - I was on a course the other day that ended with a big group hug and everyone chanting 'aaah' to the sun god. Would you have liked that? I felt a bit embarrassed, I have to say. I am just so British when it comes down to it. And I'm really not sure that there actually is a sun god. But anyway, I digress....

nmj said...

Ms M, you are so lovely & clever to have linked to all the categories so eloquently - honestly, all those brackets & eastern/western conferences, I was spinning. Mud wrestling sounds much less stressful even if it will use all of my week's energy, but if Pony Boy is naked, I am willing to pay the price . . .Jesus, I could maybe manage a group hug, but, please, no sun gods, I'm blushing just at the thought!

Ms Melancholy said...

Nmj, - yeah, I blushed too. I once went on a women's massage course run by a witch, in which everybody stripped off and started chanting to mother goddess. I couldn't stop laughing. (It was way before I had had any therapy, and a friend bought it for me for my birthday. She is still my friend, but it was 20 years ago and I still remind her of it when I am feeling bitter...) My post therapy self would've just said thank you very much and left, politely. So naked wrestling is fine, but definitely no pseudo-pagan rituals, OK?

And Pony Boy is worried about his tummy....

Reading the Signs said...

ms m - I think you are what is called an all-round good guy. I would like to hang out here for a bit, all the good company you keep, though I won't be joining in the mud-wrestling (perhaps you will understand why if you come over to mine). I am wearing purple for the voting.

Unknown said...

Oh goodness, blog competitions? We are the competitive Americans, aren't we? No wonder y'all are talking about naked mud wrestling as an alternative!

swimmer6foot4 said...

... sun gods ... naked ... group hugs ... mud wrestling ... non-competitive ... Americans ...

Sorry, this is not just a stream of consciousness but a blast of deja vue again, I think. Reason I've not been on the net much recently is because I'm taking respite care (which, yes, IS different to taking a holiday). I'm in hot and sunny Florida, staying with a naturist group which numbers among them quite a few with a perchant for mud wrestling. From past experience it tends not to be competitive but full of laughter; ending with group hugs and, once in the showers, helping each other to remove the mud in a most nurturing fashion.

Compare that wonderful activity with what I've just seen - the wonderful Ms Pants knocked out in the 1st round of the blog battle! ("So I'm not playing!" shouts non-swimmer3foot2 as he stamps his feet in defiance.)

Sorry you can't be here to wrestle, Mr (snowy?) Moon, and to you NMJ, I send forth the most gentle of Floridian sun gods (there are more than enough to share). To Ms M of course, waves of gratitude for being.

[Oops! think I'm "high" on sunshine.]

Ms Melancholy said...

Hi Ms Signs, you are most welcome to hang out here...I shall pop over and see just why you won't be wrestling, though. I was really amused that you are inadvertently running the Periodic fan club over at yours. In fact, it made me laugh out loud in quite a hearty way. (We all secretly adore him, don't we? Don't tell him though...)

Hi again Liz, your picture has disappeared?? I'm sure Leesa is really having fun and not trying to make it too competitive. It's just a bit weird inadvertently finding yourself in competition with most of your bloggy friends. good to have a bit of transatlantic sharing, though.

Mr Swimmer - respite in Florida sounds lovely and, indeed, you do sound high on something. You will no doubt be delighted to know that Ms Pants went straight through the first round without anyone having to vote, so rather than falling at the first fence she has gracefully circumvented it whilst the rest of us scramble over. Good to see you. have a lovely rest, any more wrestling tips greatly appreciated.

Jude said...

Glad to see that the naked mud wrestling (when did it become naked? I must have missed that. But no matter) is still on. And that it has morphed into dancing is even better. I was a bit worried about my hair.

x

Anonymous said...

Ms. M,

Just wanted you to know I sent you a comment of thanks in response to your Feb 25th post.

Okay enough of that. Sorry for the interruption. Back to talk of mud dancing.

Ms Melancholy said...

Hi, Mr GoodThomas - I am touched by this. Looking forward to your comments box filling up x

Caroline said...

oooooh she's catching me up. Her campaign is working.
x

Ms Melancholy said...

Yes, I fear you will have to hide in other people's blogs to make these comments - I have no doubt she has you blog-tapped. I hope you don't mind that I am finding all this very funny! You, the least competitive of any blogger around, get drawn against the Mrs Thatcher of the blog world. Just lay down now, Caroline - it is so much easier in the long run.

x

Anonymous said...

Ms M, +1 from me. May the best naked mud wrestler win. '...that's entertainment...'

Laters, Dan.

Ms Melancholy said...

Hi Dan, did I respond to your last comment on whatever thread it was? I am tickled at the thought that the finance officer in a cmht is more well-versed in psychoanalytic theory than the clinical staff. Freud is much out of favour these days - he did talk a load of guff along with the genius bits - but we seem to have thrown the baby out too and lost all that wonderful object relations stuff that the British psychoanalytic school brought to the fore. I may make it my mission to bring it into popular consiousness. Anyway, this was a propos your previous comment, which I can't find!

Anonymous said...

Hey Ms M.

I think it was the "...inner voices..." thread, but not to worry.

As someone with no medical/psycholgical/psychotherapy training, I actually find some of the things I hear at work from 'the professionals' quite frightening. You'd be surprised, or perhaps you wouldn't. The usual guff about borderlines being "manipulative" and schizophrenics with "split personalities"; but then they are a rather burnt-out lot the CPN's and Social Workers, so I have some(italics) sympathy. They don't help it each other with the constant battles between medical and psycho-social models either. And then there's the Consultant Psychs, 'nuff said! From my own observations I'd also say there are a number of very damaged people who project there own need to be 'taken care of' into the clients - and that can't help.

Thankfully, I'm casting off the shackles of the CMHT in September to do what I should have done when I was 18 - study Psychology at Uni in sunny Hull - it was the clinical doctorate wot swung it. I did Chemistry the first time, never used it, except for looking very practical on occasion about bee stings and nettles and wasps.

I'm rather taken with Winnicott et al, though I suspect some of that may be about my being the parent as a child, rather than being, er, the child. Enough already!

Happy flushing, Dan

The Moon Topples said...

Ms. M: It is college basketball that the format is based upon. I see these charts all the time around this time of year, which they refer to as "March Madness" for reasons that have never been made clear to me.

I have just posted a mud wrestling tip, should any one want some strategy advice...

Ms Melancholy said...

Hi Dan, I remain tickled that the finance officer appears to have more insight than the clinicians. Your observations seem spot on, based on my own experience of working in a cmht many moons ago. However, I also hear therapy colleagues refer to the borderline personality as 'manipulative' and indulge in the 'us and them' framework. I guess it helps keep us safe when we are faced with such despair in our clients.

You are doing a wonderful thing, going to uni as a mature student, and I wish you all the best with it. Be aware that psychoanalytic models are still not popular in places, especially amongst psychologists. Can I be so bold as to give you some advice? Read Fairbairn, Winnnicot, Klein and the British Object Relations school and everything else is pedestrian once you have mastered that. Stick to your guns. You will leave with a doctorate and a wealth of knowledge, and then you can do what you really want to do. I quite envy you, actually....(envy being another integral part of the human condition!)

Lovely Mr Moon - ah, college basketball. That's why it all looks so alien. At college the only sport I indulged in was lifting pints. I am popping over to yours right now for your wrestling tips!

Anonymous said...

Hi Ms M

Thanks for the advice, I find the Object-Relations school fascinating, insightful and actually rather moving. Both Winnicott and Klein slightly freak me out, but that's identification I suspect. I'll be on the couch before I'm in the chair so-to-speak. As for the 'us and them' framework, I thought Phillips' 'Terrors and Experts' ellucidated the traumas experienced by both parties quite magnificiently. I ought to give it out at work gratis.

The more I think about it, the more I feel that the therapeutic experience is nothing if not an experience of language - right or wrong it seems to me the dynamic needs to be flexible and containing for both and able to evolve as the relationship does.

I'm glad you blog and I'm glad we started this conversation.

Kindest Regards, Dan

Ms Melancholy said...

...the dynamic needs to be flexible and containing for both and able to evolve as the relationship does.

Couldn't agree more, but this view is even less popular in the world of psychology (as opposed to psychotherapy) than is Freud. Psychoanalysts call this the intersubjective approach, but I think you know that already, don't you?! Other psychotherapy calls it the relational approach. Its really fascinating. You have given me a prompt to post on this. I like you, Dan!

Anonymous said...

Ms M

I have a lot to learn! I wasn't at all aware there were, let's say, tensions, between the disciplines, though I know there is disagreement about 'models' etc. I suppose reading stuff in isolation doesn't give you the bigger picture. I just read and try to absorb some of it and see what sticks. I'm doing psychology as a route into psychological therapies as a whole - not sure (and how could I be yet, I suppose) where that will take me. I might not even be suited to it at all for all sorts of reasons. Right now there would be far too much of 'me' in there to do anyone anygood anyway, I alluded before to 'the couch' - not flippantly I trust you understand, but I'm gearing myself up for it. Perhaps consciously or not, that's how I ended up here. Something went 'ding' Hopefully my advantage is I'm aware of it. I like you too.

Ms Melancholy said...

Dan, your self awareness suggests you will become a very good practitioner, whichever route you choose. There is quite a conflict between psychology and psychotherapy, by the way! Psychotherapy accuses psychology of indulging in the 'expert/patient' dichotomy, and avoiding our own frailty by projecting onto clients (as you describe in your cmht); psychology accuses psychotherapy of self-indgulgence and keeping clients locked in to the past by focusing too heavily on the transferential relationship. It's all good fun. I like your style, though. Going to uni with a good dose of curiosity will do you just fine.