Just thought I'd share a bit of my reading on how problems are formed and maintained. I see some application not only on a personal and family level but in regard to problems caused and maintained by the Mormonism. There are three basic ways to evolve a problem:

1. Action is needed but not taken. You see this in the church's failure to address the problem of child abuse, youth suicide, and depression in the church. Instead it allows more of the same. Many board members have written of bishops not taking action when it is clearly needed. The church hasn't made effective changes to address these problems at the upper level, either.

2. Action taken when none is needed. The church excels as this. It takes normal behaviors, defines them as problems, and then applies its "solutions," creating real problems for the people so entangled. Masturbation and pornography are prime examples. The church has created a whole addition industry in Utah where none is needed. It's treatment of gays is another sad example. The Word of Wisdom is still another. As I said, the church excels at creating a problem where none existed. Seems to me much of religious teaching generally falls in this area.

3. Action is taken at the wrong level. Anyone who has had inept "counsel" from their bishop knows this one. One ex-Mormon woman I was close to told me that when she disclosed to the bishop her husband was abusing her, he suggested she bake him a cherry pie. Depression, often cause by #2 above, is greeted with exhortations to do more of the same that caused the depression in the first place. The failure to address the problems at the right level is probably why so many on the board have had bad experiences with LDS therapists.

Anyway, my random thoughts for tonight . . ..

An apt observation.

Thanks robertb. They'd first have to admit that there's a problem (your number 1). Child abuse, suicide, depression, addiction - none of those things happen in the church. So they don't exist. They can't possibly be influenced by church culture.

The problem can never be the church. It always has to be the members. It's incredibly unhealthy when you think about it. The "it takes two people to have a problem" applies here.

Good point