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Noesis
The Journal of the Mega Society
Issue #194 June 2013
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Contents
About the Mega Society
The Mega Society was founded by Dr. Ronald K. Hoeflin in 1982. The 606 Society
(6 in 106), founded by Christopher Harding, was incorporated into
the new society and those with IQ scores on the Langdon Adult Intelligence Test
(LAIT) of 173 or more were also invited to join. (The LAIT qualifying score was
subsequently raised to 175; official scoring of the LAIT terminated at the end
of 1993, after the test was compromised). A number of different tests were
accepted by 606 and during the first few years of Mega’s existence. Later, the
LAIT and Dr. Hoeflin’s Mega Test became the sole official entrance tests, by
vote of the membership. Later, Dr. Hoeflin’s Titan Test was added. (The Mega
was also compromised, so scores after 1994 are currently not accepted; the Mega
and Titan cutoff is now 43—but either the LAIT cutoff or the cutoff on Dr.
Hoeflin’s tests will need to be changed, as they are not equivalent.)
Mega publishes this
irregularly-timed journal. The society also has a (low-traffic) members-only
e-mail list. Mega members, please contact the Editor to be added to the list.
For more background on
Mega, please refer to Darryl Miyaguchi’s “A Short (and Bloody) History of the
High-IQ Societies”—
http://www.eskimo.com/~miyaguch/history.html
—the Editor’s High-IQ Societies page—
http://www.polymath-systems.com/intel/hiqsocs/index.html
—and the official Mega
Society page,
https://www.megasociety.org/
Noesis is the journal of the Mega Society, an organization
whose members are selected by means of high-range intelligence tests. Jeff
Ward, 13155 Wimberly Square #284, San Diego, CA 92128, is Administrator of the
Mega Society. Inquiries regarding membership should be directed to him at the
address above or:
ward-jeff@san.rr.com
Opinions expressed in
these pages are those of individuals, not of Noesis or the Mega Society.
Copyright © 2013 by the Mega Society.
Copyright for each
individual contribution is retained by the author unless otherwise indicated.
Editorial
Kevin Langdon
Here's another issue of Noesis.
This issue contains:
·
A very interesting account of a visit to the Seychelles by Jeff Ward,
·
An article by Mega Society founder Ronald K. Hoeflin on the
application of his theory of categories based on Stephen Pepper's ideas to
musical notation,
·
An account by Jay Wiseman of dealing with an attacker on the
street in San Francisco,
·
An article on the psychotherapy of automotive repair by Howard
Schwartz,
·
And two short pieces by May-Tzu (Richard May).
As no one else expressed an
interest in running for office our present officers are reconfirmed in office.
The next election will be held at the end of this year.
We continue to have a strong need
for publishable material for Noesis, from Mega members and others.
Submissions are welcome but our editorial standards are high. The deadline for Noesis
#195 is September 15.
Cover:
On September 21, 2012, I sent the
following message to some e-mail lists and
a few friends:
Today I saw the Space Shuttle Endeavour on the back of
a 747 on its final journey before its installation at the California Science Center in Los Angeles.
My wife and I climbed Indian Rock, the main attraction
in the park of the same name in north Berkeley, and saw it flying low overhead.
There were only about 20 people on top of the rock so we didn't have to deal
with crowds. We didn't get any pictures but seeing it with our own eyes created
a very strong impression and there'll be plenty of photos available soon.
I didn't expect that it would be such an emotional
experience to see the shuttle so close at hand.
One of my friends, David Gallo,
sent this issue's cover image, taken from the Marina Green in San Francisco.
The State House in Victoria, Seychelles—seat of the President of
Seychelles. In the colonial period it
was known as the Government House and served as a seat of the colonial
administration. The building
was erected in 1911. This picture was taken in early 1970s by Dino Sassi -
Marcel Fayon, Photo Eden
LTD. Public domain according to the law of the Seychelles.
Seychelles
Jeff Ward
The Seychelles is a far flung archipelago in the
Indian Ocean east of Tanzania. It is composed of 115 islands, many of which
are small and uninhabited. Actually all of the islands were uninhabited until
a small group of French settlers and their slaves arrived in Mahé and other
islands of the central group in 1770. They were successful in raising several
tropical crops and more settlers and slaves continued to arrive over the next
several decades. In 1814, the British seized the islands, and they remained
under British rule until independence in 1976. Although English is the
official language and is widely spoken, a majority of the inhabitants speak of
version of French Creole as their first language. Total population of the
country is approximately 87,000. About 90% of the inhabitants live on Mahé,
home of Victoria, the country’s capitol. Most of the rest live on Praslin, La
Digne, and other islands of the central group. The climate is tropical rain
forest. On the edges there are many beautiful beaches while the interiors are
primarily granitic hills, some with steep cliffs. Jungle vegetation prevails.
We visited Mahé for four days in November, 2012, arriving and leaving on
a round trip flight from Addis Ababa on Ethiopian Airlines. We stayed in the
Albizia Lodge (now called Albizia Lodge Green Estate) in the southern part of
the island. This accommodation proved unsatisfactory for several reasons (see
my review in www.tripadvisor.com under Mahé, B&Bs), but we were unable to
change because it was high season and every other place was full.
We chose to visit by Victoria by taxi. Taxis are rather expensive in the
Seychelles, but the alternative, renting a car, is also expensive and rather
dangerous. The problem is that the roads are narrow, winding, full of
pedestrians, and generally without curbs or shoulders with steep, dangerous
drop-offs next to the pavement.
Victoria is a small town, and most places are within easy walking
distance. There are some good restaurants; we especially liked the Pirate Arms.
We also tried Le Rendez Vous, but the food was so-so and way overpriced. The
Natural History Museum is worth a look, but our favorite place was the
Botanical Garden at the edge of town. The Botanical Garden features numerous
trees and other vegetation, some native and some not. Various palm tree
species grow there, including all six indigenous to the Seychelles. Numerous fruit bats flutter though the forest canopy in one corner of the
park. There are some steep sections, but the entire footpath network can be
walked at a leisurely pace in a couple of hours.
One of the iconic features of the Seychelles is the giant tortoise, today
found in only one other place in the world, the Galapagos Islands of the
Pacific. However, the original population of tortoises on Mahé, Praslin, and
the other centrally located Seychelles islands was wiped out long ago. The
tortoises there today are entirely in captivity and were brought from Aldabra,
a remote Seychelles island where about 150,000 giant tortoises live today but
almost no humans. Biologically, there is almost no difference between the
Aldabra tortoises and the extinct ones from the central islands. Sadly,
Aldabra, a UNESCO world heritage site, is currently off limits to visitation
because of the Somali pirate threat. We saw about two dozen tortoises in the Botanical Garden of Victoria. The group included tortoises of various sizes, the younger
ones being large but noticeably smaller than the older giants. To my untrained
eye, they looked the same as the Galapagos giants that I saw a few years ago.
However, the shells of the Seychelles giants are all dome shaped, while in the
Galapagos some species have saddle shaped shells.
One day was spent on Praslin, an island accessible by a half hour ferry
from Mahé. The Mahé ferry terminal is within walking distance of Victoria. On Praslin, we were greeted by several taxis offering a tour of the island.
After negotiating a price with one of them, we were driven to Vallée de Mai, a
UNESCO World Heritage Site. We spent several hours exploring the primeval
forest on foot. It is home to several endemic birds and the giant Coco de Mer
tree, a type of fan palm with huge leaves and the world’s largest coconuts.
This tree grows in only one other place in the world, nearby Curieuse Island. It rained briefly a few times, but the forest canopy is so thick that very
little water reached the ground. We finished the day with a visit to Anse
Lazio, considered one of the world’s most beautiful beaches. It is picture
post card quality with pale sand flanked by turquoise water, a fringe of palm
trees, and a jumble of granite boulders at each end.
Pepper's Ideas Applied to Music Notation
Ronald K. Hoeflin
See
Dr. Hoeflin's "The Life and Thought
of Stephen C. Pepper, American Philosopher" in Noesis #193.
In his well-known paper titled "The Elimination of Metaphysics
Through Logical Analysis of Language" (originally published in
German in 1932, translated in A. J. Ayer's collection of papers titled Logical
Positivism published in 1959) Rudolf Carnap remarks near his conclu-sion that
"Metaphysicians are musicians without musical ability," meaning that
their verbiage "achieves nothing for knowledge and something inadequate
for the expression of attitude."
If
we take metaphysics to consist in some significant measure of a
theory of categories, then the gap between knowledge and expression can become
somewhat less awesome. We can see this in the domain of music by
analyzing music notation in terms of our theory of categories based on the
ideas of Stephen Pepper.
Wikipedia has an article titled "List of musical
symbols," where the list given is as follows (numbering added):
1. Lines: e.g., the horizontal lines for
different pitches and the vertical lines for separating measures.
2. Clefs: e.g., the bass and
treble clefs.
3. Notes & rests: whole notes, half notes,
quarter notes, etc. (rests we might group under the next
heading).
4. Breaks: e.g., breath pauses
for vocalists.
5. Accidentals and key signatures: e.g.,
sharps and flats, and the key signature for C major.
6. Quarter tones.
7. Timer signatures: e.g., three-quarter time.
8. Note relations: e.g., glides and
glissandos.
9. Dynamics: e.g., pianissimo, fortissimo;
crescendo, diminuendo.
10. Articulation: e.g., staccato.
11. Ornamentals: e.g., trills.
12. Repetition and codas.
13. Octave signs.
14. Instrumental
specifics.
We can classify these
types of notation in terms of our symbols for a cybernetic theory of categories
as follows:
D: 2.
Clefs
DA: 5A and 6. Accidentals and quarter tones
A: 5B. Key signatures
AG: 9. Dynamics
G: 3A. Notes
GQ: 10 and 11: Articulation
and Ornamentals
Q: 8. Note relations
QD: 12. Repetition and codas
DG: 13. Octaves
AQ: 7. Time signatures
DAGQD: 1. Lines
Not-DAGQD: 3B and 4: Rests and breaks
D': 14. Instrumental specifics
2. Clefs can be classed in D since, like 0 in Peano's axioms, they
trigger or initiate each line of music, telling the musician where to center
his performance of that line, such as the F note for the bass clef.
5A and 6.
Accidentals and quarter tones can be classed in DA since they trigger a drive,
D, to modify the note that the key signature would normally
lead one to anticipate, A, for that particular note on the
page.
5B. A key
signature provides one with an anticipation, A, as to what scale is meant to
dominate the music, a scale that can be modified by the preceding
accidental or quarter-tone notations, as when one sharpens or dulls a
knife blade that one anticipates will thereby better serve the cutting job
it is to be used for
9. Dynamics
might be classed in AG if we think of the loudness with which notes are played
as involving how forcefully they must be produced, as by the hands striking the
keys on a piano, where the anticipation, A, of how much loudness is required
leads to the striking of the keys as goal objects, G, with
sufficient force to produce the desired effect.
3A. Notes are the basic goal objects for the musician just as numbers are
the basic goal object for number theorists.
10 and 11.
Articulation and ornamentals such as staccatos and trills might be classed in
GQ since they modify the sound of a note, where the note is
a musical goal object, G, and the modification is like a spice
that is added to a food to alter its quiescent taste, Q.
8. Note
relations might be classed in GQ since they indicate which notes as goal
objects are to be played successively in such a way as to produce a
flowing quiescent sound, Q, analogous to combining ingredients in a recipe as
culinary goal objects, G, in a certain manner in order to produce the desired
quiescent taste and texture, Q.
12. Repetition and coda might be classed in QD since the completion of
some line of music is the quiescence of that line or melody, Q,
while a repetition or a coda notation triggers the drive, D, to play
the melody again or to complete it with some final phrase or
flourish.
13. Octave notation
tells one to play the ensuing notes an octave (or possibly two or three
octaves) higher or lower, and hence is a trigger or drive, D, to perform
notes at a different octave level than the written notes would otherwise
normally indicate. There is no reference here to repetition or dramatic
completion of a former melody or line of music, Q, so that the D stands alone.
7. Time signature might be classed in AQ since there is always a temporal
gap between an anticipation, A, and its quiescent fulfillment or
non-fulfillment, Q, as in reaching for a glass of water, A, and feeling the
water's thirst-quenching properties, Q. Time signatures tells
the musician how much time is to be alotted for each measure so
that the quiescent completion, Q, of each measure can be properly
anticipated, A.
1. Lines might be
classed in DAGQD since they lay out the grid on which the entire set of notes
is to be performed, just as a football field lays out the grid on which a
football game is to be played, such that all the legitimate notes
are encompassed by the musical lines, just as all the legitimate
actions in a football game are encompassed by the lines of the football field,
where DAGQD symbolizes every aspect of a musical action or an athletic action
or any other action.
3B and 4. Rests
and breaks might be classed in not-DAGQD since they indicate that a musical,
football, or other action, DAGQD, is to be interrupted, the
"not" aspect. When a ball goes out of bounds in football, for
example, the action of that phase of the game comes to an end temporarily, just
as a rest or break in music indicates a temporary cessation of musical
note-performing activity.
14. Instrumental
specifics, such as notations specific to the playing of a guitar, can be
classed in D', where the prime symbol after the D indicates a particular genre
of musical instrument that one has a drive, D, to perform with.
On Being Physically
Attacked in the Street
Jay Wiseman
(written 05/04/13)
Last night a man physically attacked me on a San Francisco street. He lost.
A woman and I had agreed to meet for a dinner date. Her
plan was to go on to a popular club located in San Francisco's Tenderloin
district afterwards but, aging boomer that I am (I'm 63), I felt that just
meeting her for dinner was enough of an evening for me. There is a steak house
on Powell street, just a few blocks from the club, that I have eaten at many
times. We agreed to meet at the club's entrance, on the south side of Eddy street just a bit east of Taylor street, at 7:30 pm and walk to the steak house.
Afterward, I would walk her back to the club and then head home. All good,
right?
I left my place a bit early because I had some shopping to
do beforehand. There is a new law in San Francisco that requires most retail
stores to charge ten cents for a bag unless patrons bring their own, so I
brought along my own brown paper bag from home. (Hey, ecology and all that good
stuff, right?) I had enough time to make two of my three planned purchases,
arriving at the club's entrance at 7:28 with my Bag-o-stuff. (I am something of
a punctual sort. A habit burned into me by my days in a military academy during
my early teens.)
The club's security guard, a rather large fellow, arrived a
few minutes after I did. (The club's doors open at 8:00.) He and I talked for a
bit. My date arrived about ten minutes later.
A man was walking closely behind her, intensely trying to
engage her in a conversation. She obviously did not want that to happen.
Apparently she is not good at parallel parking on the left side of the street
(Eddy is one-way in that area) and asked for his help in parking her car. After
he did so (reportedly going up onto the curb and bumping another vehicle in the
process), he apparently concluded that she was inadequately generous in
rewarding him for his assistance and decided to press the matter.
After she, I, and the security guard all made it clear to
him that she wanted nothing further to do with him, he walked about 30 feet
east on Eddy street and stood there. Just to mention it, he was about five
feet, eight inches tall, medium build, had a beard with some gray in the front
of it, and was wearing (get this) a black hat. Me? I'm six feet and weigh 225.
She and I talked for a few minutes, then headed east on Eddy street towards the steak house. As we passed him, Black Hat again accosted her and once
again began trying to engage her in conversation. We both told him to back off.
He didn't.
At the corner of Eddy and Mason, she and I crossed to the
north side of Eddy street. He followed closely behind. After she and I crossed,
we continued north on Mason street. He continued to pester us despite both of
us telling him repeatedly to go away. Finally I said, “I'm calling 911,” took
out my cell phone and dialed the number. As I did, it occurred to me that doing
that with him standing just a few feet away from me might not have been the
tactically shrewdest thing to do, but there you have it. Upon seeing me making
the call, he swore a few obscenities and retreated back around the corner onto Eddy street. I hung up before 911 answered and she and I continued up Mason street. Problem
solved, or so I thought.
Maybe 10 to 15 seconds later, Black Hat comes back around
the corner with a paunchy male companion. (I suppose it could be fairly said
that I have at least a bit of a paunch myself.) I start to get a Very Bad
Feeling About This in the pit of my stomach. Black Hat again accosts my date, now
loudly accusing her of being drunk (???) while Paunchy walks up to me and asks
me what's up. I calmly ask Paunchy how he's doing (I am quite pointedly not
showing that I'm feeling any fear or anxiousness), and while I'm talking with
him Black Hat suddenly throws a punch at me.
I see it coming out of the corner of my eye and jerk away a
bit. The punch glances off the right side of my neck. My glasses fly off my
face and I see them fracture into numerous pieces when they hit the sidewalk. I
stagger away a bit, off-balance, and Black Hat comes after me yelling, “I'm
going to kill you!”
I've carried pepper spray for years. I carry it in a
particular place—in my left-front pants pocket, just in front of my wallet,
where I can draw and fire it within seconds if needed. Dork that I am, I've
even practiced my “pepper spray quick draw” on occasion.
At this point, he's about six to eight feet from me and
closing aggressively. Feeling eerily calm, and almost as if things are
happening in slow motion, I draw my pepper spray, aim it right at Black Hat's
face, and fire. I made a point of choosing a canister that uses a “cone”
pattern of spray rather than a “stream” pattern like what comes out of a squirt
gun because it's easier to hit one's target with a cone-type spray pattern. I
have the satisfaction of seeing his head become enveloped in a dark orange
cloud of pepper spray from about his collarbones on up. A solid hit. I remember
thinking, “Well, I guess now I'll find out if this stuff works or not.”
It occurs to me that if the spray doesn't work I'll likely
have to fight him. I certainly can't run off and leave my date alone. Given
that I'm substantially bigger than Black Hat, and a black belt, and have
definitely been in (possibly more than) my fair share of fights before, and the
fact that he just got sprayed, I'm concerned but not actually afraid of
fighting him. Still, you never know how these things will turn out—plus the whereabouts, intentions, and actions of Paunchy
are at this point completely unknown to me, so that's not good.
I luck out. Black Hat staggers for a second, puts his head
down, and runs away. Paunchy is nowhere to be seen. My date is seriously shaken
up but uninjured. It's over.
A male passer-by points to my cell phone lying on the
sidewalk which I'm dangerously close to stepping on. (How it got there I have
no clue. It must have fallen out of my belt holster during the fracas.) My
Bag-o-stuff is also on the sidewalk, now ripped in several places. (How did
that happen?) I pick up my phone and Bag-o-stuff. A nice lady helps me pick up
the pieces of my glasses that we can find.
My date and I walk a few steps up Mason street and enter a
nightclub. I note with approval the large security guard at its entrance.
My date orders a drink. I decide to pass. The club is too
noisy to speak on the phone so I step just outside of it and again call 911. I
speak with the operator, tell her what happened, and answer her questions.
Then, the modern age being what it is, I make a Tweet about what happened. (My
Tweets also go to my Facebook page.) A patrol car arrives about five minutes
later. I flag it down.
My date and I tell the officers what happened. I also
mention to the officers that the spray I used contains a dye that will glow
brightly under ultra-violet light. They carefully note that. Then, given that
Black Hat knows where her car is parked and our concern that he might take
revenge by vandalizing it, the four of us walk back to it. It seems unharmed.
The officers ask for our ID (including, the times being what they are, our
email addresses), take a picture of me and another of my broken glasses frame,
ask if I need an ambulance (Naw, I'm OK), and give me some paperwork.
I'm now featured in SFPD Case # 130-363-180. I also receive
some paperwork informing me that I can be reimbursed for medical expenses and
lost income resulting from the attack from the state's Victim/Witness
Assistance Program. (Note: I believe that all states have a similar program.)
Let me add that the officers seemed very concerned and were quite courteous.
My date and I drive to a nearby paid, monitored parking lot
and go on to our steak dinner. (Hey, priorities are priorities. Am I right?)
During the meal, I notice that my neck is starting to ache. Apparently the blow
aggravated some old neck injuries I have. Fortunately, I pretty much always
have some naproxyn in a small pill bottle that I carry, so I take some. The
steak house nicely gives me, at no charge, a plastic bag to put my ripped
Bag-o-stuff into.
Afterwards, I walk my date back to the club, carefully
avoiding most of Eddy street. She goes inside and I talk with the security
guard for a bit about what happened. He's very concerned and will remember what
Black Hat looks like. I then return home, again avoiding Eddy street, without
further incident. Upon arriving home I avail myself of “liquid pain medicine”
until I feel OK again. Then I watch some TV and go to bed. Life goes on.
I've had a few woudda/shoudda/coudda thoughts about the
incident since it occurred, about what I might have done differently—but, candidly, not a
lot. I'm also not feeling especially emotionally shaken up. I guess that
emotion got burned out of me during my EMS days. It occurred to me after a bit
of reflection that Black Hat may have been trying to punch me in the throat
rather than in the face like I first thought. If so, and if he had landed that
punch as intended, I might have been in very bad shape. Hey, nothing like being
lucky, right? I'm feeling a little sore today, but only a little. Am going to a
party tonight. My date has thanked me and invited me to dinner at her place.
Thanks to some superglue and rubber bands, I've jury-rigged
my glasses back together so that they're wearable but I look even dorkier than
usual. (I wasn't sure that was possible.)
In response to my Tweet, dozens of people have responded on
my Facebook page, and via other means, with sympathies, prayers, offers of
support, and virtual hugs (oh, and tips as to where inexpensive glasses can
also be obtained). Bless 'em all. End of report.
A Tae Kwon Do exhibition by Jay Wiseman
and his student, Kevin
Langdon, at the First IQmenical Conference in Berkeley, August 1984
Supplemental Pepper Spray Geekage
A few years ago, I devoted some time to the serious study
of pepper spray. Pepper sprays (there are a very wide variety of them on the
market) are rated level one, level two, and level three, with level three being
the hottest and strongest. One noted brand of level three spray is named Sabre
Red. A company named Galls that mainly sells police supplies sells a 2.0 ounce
can of Sabre Red that sprays in a cone pattern. Because the cone pattern
requires less precision to use under stress, it's the recommended spray pattern
for civilian self-defense. (Tell me about it!) While most sprays of this size
only contain about ten seconds of spray, the Sabre Red contains about 30 to 40
seconds worth of spray. Also, it will fire whether it's held upright, sideways,
or even upside down.
Here is the URL for that particular item:
http://www.galls.com/cgi/CGBCSTYL?PMSTYL=SD121
This is the model I recommend, carry, and give to people I
care about. The cops asked to see it so I showed it to them. One remarked,
“That Sabre Red is no joke. It's what we carry.”
Newer models are using a gel form of pepper spray that
reduces how long the spray lingers in the air, making it more suitable for use
in a confined space such as a crowded subway car. The gel also apparently fires
farther and is less affected by wind. The Sabre company is now also coming out
with “blue face” versions of their spray that dye an assailant's face bright
blue. When Sabre Red comes out with a gel-based, “blue face” version that fires
a cone pattern and weighs no more than 2.5 ounces, I'll probably start carrying
that.
Here's a FAQ about pepper spray, including how its strength
is calculated:
http://www.sabrered.com/servlet/the-template/faq/Page
Interestingly enough, because its propellant is inert,
pepper spray can even have an off-label use as a small fire extinguisher,
although I'd think twice before using it as such in a confined space.
Pepper spray canisters weighing 2.5 ounces or less are
legal for civilians to carry in California:
http://codes.lp.findlaw.com/cacode/PEN/3/4/2/4/1/s12403.7
My understanding is that pepper spray is legal to carry in
all 50 states, but some states do have laws in place about them.
Something to consider, eh?
The Psychotherapy of Automobile
Repair
Dialogues
on Overextended Ideas1
Howard Schwartz
Part One
The Professionalization of
Human Problems
In small towns and villages, people
lived life together and helped each other out almost every day. In cities and
suburbs people’s daily lives became much more separate.2 In particular, many of the normal
troubles of life were no longer handled by friends, neighbours, and relatives.
Increasingly, help came in the form of services offered by various agencies and
professionals. The professionalization of normal troubles created a market for
"studying" all kinds of problems3,
as well as a need for credentialed experts who could solve them.
The Expansion of Psychotherapy
Psychology was hit particularly
hard, in this regard: Clinically, psychology had its beginnings in the
treatment of pseudo-physical illnesses like hysteria, or auditory/visual
hallucinations.4 Initially,
physicians won a political victory over the clergy in a battle for custody of
the English Mad-houses and those within them. And Psychiatry became a new
medical specialty. A new kind of doctor treated illnesses that were `mental’.
As urban development continued,
various kinds of psychotherapists found themselves called upon to ‘treat’ such
things as violence, loneliness, problems in marriage, juvenile delinquency,
crime, sexual dissatisfaction, over/under eating, child rearing, low self
esteem, addiction.5
Their original medical model of
illness and treatment was stretched to its limits.5 More and more, what they needed were ideas and skills
that could deal with almost any conceivable human problem.6
What follows is a demonstration of
the versatility that has been achieved. Using well-known concepts, and tricks
of the trade—an average therapist with moderate skill will probably never
encounter a human problem (s)he cannot “treat.”
Witness then—the power of language
to mask ignorance with apparent competence and certainty—without automatically
signaling a sense of humility or constraint. Listen in on a session of
psychotherapy to help a man whose car won’t start.
Part Two: The Psychotherapy of Automobile Repair
Therapist:THERAPIST:THERAPIST:THERAPIST:THERAPIST: How
do you do, could you tell me a little about what brought you here—a little
background about yourself and your life up until this point?
Client: Well, my car won’t start; this happens a lot. I want it to
start. I mean I can’t get to work, I’ve gone to mechanics to repair it for
years; but sooner or later it breaks again. I need to get it running and stay
running.
Therapist:THERAPIST: Is
that all you want to relate?
Client: Yeah, that’s the beginning and
end of it. If you just let me know how to keep it running I’ll be very happy
with the outcome, and that will about do it.
Therapist: Well I wonder if you can notice
something. You came in with a problem and immediately wanted me to solve it for
you—some expert, somebody other than yourself, as if you somehow had nothing to
do with the matter, as if you were powerless to affect the remedy yourself. You
were totally at the mercy of some problem bigger than you were, that was
creating pain and suffering in your life, troubles, and problems, all of which
you had to endure. So you came to me to complain about these problems and to
have me make them go away—you see what I’m getting at?
Client: Well—I mean, look, I don’t know
about cars. I mean, I’d be glad to fix it myself if I knew how but I don’t. And
besides I’ve got some money and I’d rather have an expert do it right than fool
around and waste time and energy monkeying with it myself, you know what I
mean?
Therapist: Wait a minute—let’s back up here
a little. It’s your car, isn’t it? I mean it’s the car you drive in, the one
you bought, and the one you’ve been living in for years now. And you think you
don’t know about it and I do? Who could better know about your car than its one
and only owner?
Client: Well In particular, many of the
normal troubles of life were no longer handled by friends, neighbours, and
relatives. Increasingly, help came in the form of services offered by various
agencies and professionals. The professionalization of normal troubles created
a market for "studying" all kinds of problems, as well as a need for
credentialed experts that could solve them—uh—I can change a light or something
but I don’t really know why the damn thing isn’t starting.
Therapist: You see often when people come to
us and say they ‘can’t do something’ what they really mean is they ‘won’t.’ You
betrayed your feeling a bit already when you referred to your car as ‘that damn
thing.’ You even talked about not wanting to waste time and energy trying to
fix it even if you could. Now with an attitude like that about your car, no
wonder you don’t have it running—it’s a wonder it ever ran at all. You
apparently don’t like your car; you’re in fact quite angry at your car for not
starting and causing you all these problems. You don’t even think it’s worth
‘wasting time and energy on.’ But what more important things could there be to
do in this world than getting to know your very own car? So you make a few
mistakes that some expert might not make. What’s wrong with that? I mean that’s
the way you learn. Then you would know about your car and how to start it—not
some mysterious guru out there whose advice you have to take on faith. Would
you like me to help you get to know your very own car?
Client: Well I guess I see what you mean.
If I learned how to fix it then I wouldn’t have to depend on somebody else—I
guess that would be a better approach in the long run all right. But I mean
wouldn’t I have to buy hundreds of dollars’ worth of tools and have a garage
and spend all kinds of time on weekends doing this stuff—I mean wouldn’t it be
better even in the long run to just let somebody else mess with it?
Therapist: You see how you avoid
responsibility for your car—looking for all kinds of ‘good’ reasons not to
learn about it? We have a saying in psychology. When somebody gives ‘reasons’
why they don’t know about their car it’s always a lie. The only true reason why
they don’t know about their car is that they don’t want to know.
Client: Okay, so why don’t I want to
know?
Therapist: Now we are starting to get
somewhere. Consider that you have been using words like ‘bother with,’ ‘damn,’
‘mess around with’—in connection with your car. There’s two things we can
notice from this. First, people, by and large, don’t want to really know about
their cars when they come to us. They just want their troubles to go away so
they can live a carefree life. They don’t really want to learn.
Client: You mean I’m like a lot of
people—most people don’t want to learn?
Therapist: That’s right, and like most
people you probably are afraid to find out why your car won’t start. That’s why
you would rather have me fix it—so it will run and you will never know why it
wouldn’t take you places. But let me tell you: if you don’t know why it
wouldn’t take you places, it might start for a while but the problem will come
back again and again until you dare to understand it.
Client: Why in the world would I be
afraid to learn about distributors or batteries?
Therapist: Because you are afraid your car
is a bad car—a lemon, a clunker. You really don’t like your car; you’re
clearly angry at it, mad—you want to push it away, get on with other things—not
look at it. The last thing you ever dreamed you could do was really enjoy
it—enjoy exploring it and being with it. You believe your car is a bad car. And
as long as you believe that, you will be afraid to look under the hood. If you
are afraid, you will make up reasons why you can’t—you will get whiplash of the
neck so you can’t bend down. Other things will be more important. You probably
won’t even notice that, at bottom, there is fear.
Client: But I don’t understand. So I
found out that my car was a mess and the radiator was bad and the engine needed
a valve job and so on. At worst I would have to get a new car. I mean that’s no
picnic—but it’s better than spending a lot of money for nothing on repairs only
to junk it later.
Therapist: Exactly—but that’s your intellect
talking. Of course it is rational to want to know the car for better or worse.
But your emotions aren’t rational. When your emotional self is confronted with
‘let’s look under the hood,’ it’s like a little child or a pet: all it knows,
all it can respond with, is ‘I don’t want to; I’m afraid; I hate that old car.’
Your emotional self doesn’t know about reasons; it can’t think about long-term
results—it just knows how it feels about doing something in the moment.
Client: So how did I get to be afraid of
my car and why do I secretly believe my car is bad?
Therapist: Well before we tackle those good
questions let’s back up a bit. The reason you are afraid to find out, the
reason you don’t want to find out that your car is bad is that you, like most
of us, identify with your car. You see you live with it, you sit in it, it
takes you everywhere, it’s your constant companion. So quite naturally you come
to feel that you are your car—that it is part of WHAT YOU ARE. So if your car
is bad that means you are bad—there’s something wrong with you—it is you
that won’t start—you see?
Client: Yeah I get it—the car sort of
reflects on me, so I don’t want it to be a lemon ’cause that makes me look bad,
right?
Therapist: Exactly, so the first step in
daring to examine your own car is to see very clearly that you are not your
car. Your car is just a car—something that you ride in, a box of steel and
plastic. Without you, your car does not run, however without your car YOU still
run. Cars may come and go—they aren’t permanent, but their owner remains. Just
because a car doesn’t start—you’re still basically a beautiful, loveable,
owner. If you see that—I mean, really see it—then you’ve taken a giant step
towards being able to accept your car not running—instead of condemning it.
Client: Okay, I think I’ve got that.
It’s not running. I’m okay, you’re okay, but the car’s not running—that’s just
the way it is.
Therapist: Fine, now we can go further. Now
you’re at the point where you can accept your experience of the car, without
condemnation, without denying it, and you’re willing to learn—you’re not
running to external authority figures.
Client: Right—so why doesn’t it run?
Therapist: Uh, not so fast—there’s that
defensiveness again. Let me assure you that the answer to your question is in
you, yourself. You came to me, seemingly unable to discover why your car didn’t
start. But the truth is that you already know why your car doesn’t start. The
answer to all questions is always within ourselves, not somewhere outside of
us. If we are only willing to give up our resistance and look—the answer will
be found to be in us all along.
Client: All right already, so I know how
to fix it—how do I find out what I already know but I don’t know I know it
’cause I don’t want to look at myself or my car?
Therapist: Well, once you are prepared to
look, then the way in—astonishingly enough—is to make a complete about face,
and take the exact opposite attitude to your former self. You think you are
trying to find out how to fix something. So you think you should look for
something that’s wrong. The first step is to give up that attitude entirely.
How can you learn or be open when all your looking and listening is controlled
by a rigid preconception of what the problem is?
Client: I shouldn’t try to find out how
to fix it—if anything’s wrong?
Therapist: Did it ever occur to you that
there’s nothing to fix, that nothing is in fact wrong with your car? If you
examined a car in perfect shape looking for something wrong, you wouldn’t find
out much about how it works would you?
Client: What in the hell are you talking
about? Do you expect me to believe it really does start? I’m not hallucinating,
doc—I’m telling you it doesn’t go!
Therapist: I know this is a hard thing for
you to accept. And it’s true in terms of your own experience; the car won’t
start and that means, to you, that something must be wrong with it. And of course
since that’s your experience, it is real to you.
Client: You mean if you tried to start
the damn thing it would go?
Therapist: No, no you don’t understand. I’m
sure that if I started it, as far as you were concerned, it wouldn’t go—nobody
could make it go now, as far as you can see. That’s not the point.
Client: Well then, damn it, what is the
point?
Therapist: Perhaps it is best to look at it
this way—we want you to look at your car with fresh eyes—not with motives,
categories and goals that were conditioned in you from the past. We want this
because we want you to learn things that are genuinely new, not just extensions
of the past. Perhaps when you look without goals, and motives, and problems to
solve, you will find out something that will let you start your car—perhaps
not. Maybe you will find out your car is better off not starting—who knows.
There’s no anticipating the results when you really look with an open mind. As
long as you are controlled by results you can’t really look.
Client: Are you crazy, or am I crazy?
You mean you’re going to show me how to learn about my car but I might not
learn anything that will make it go?
Therapist: Well, I see that possibility
upsets you. You might take that as a clue about your hidden agenda. Perhaps I
can make this journey seem a little more reasonable to your intellect: you
start with a problem and the solution is unknown. It could be, paradoxically,
that to arrive at the solution you need to abandon your definition of the
problem, i.e., car won’t start. The solution can never be found by looking for
things that are wrong. It might be you need to notice something that can only
come into view if you freely, without motive, examine what is going on.
Client: Okay—that’s a little better—I
mean you had me worried for a minute. So I shouldn’t be so goal-orientated at
first or I might not notice something important—okay?
Therapist: Yes—so we solve the problem by,
first, forgetting the problem and just examining ourselves and our car. One of
the tricks we use in psychology is to follow the threads of the original
problem—not as a problem—but just as something that happened—and see where they
lead.
Client: What do you mean by ‘threads?’
Therapist: Well, for example—you come in
here with a car that is not working, that you experience as causing you
troubles, that you apparently are incapable of fixing. This situation makes you
very mad, you are angry, frustrated, you want to change it—you go to an expert
to alter the whole thing. Let’s just take these as a set of your experiences
and try to find out what is behind them.
Client: Okay.
Therapist: Let me throw something out to you
and you can try it on and see if it fits.
Client: Okay.
Therapist: Did your parents own a car when
you were little?
Client: Well—yeah.
Therapist: Did their car stall sometimes?
Client: Yeah—it was a real lemon—Cal
Worthington sold it to them and did they get taken.
Therapist: I see, and at what times did the
car not go—I mean—did it not take you places you wanted to go, for instance?
Client: My God, it didn’t take anybody
anywhere they wanted to go—sure. I was late for a baseball game once ’cause the
neighbours had to drive me, and I was late for class a few times.
Therapist: And how did that make you feel?
Client: Well I felt shitty; you know I
mean why did this have to happen for me. I ended up getting a tardy slip for
being late and it wasn’t even my fault.
Therapist: Would you say that made you mad?
Client: Sure it made me mad.
Therapist: At the car?
Client: Well, not exactly at the
car—more at the asshole teacher for not being fair.
Therapist: Did the car ever cause trouble in
the family?
Client: Sure. I mean, dad was bitching
about how much money he had to put into it, and how it never worked anyway.
Therapist: I suppose you didn’t like all
that bitching and bad atmosphere, huh?
Client: It was a drag all right.
Therapist: The car was almost a bit like you
to them maybe—put lots of time and money into it but didn’t work well?
Client: What?
Therapist: Never mind—in other words there
was a car very much like this one that caused a lot of trouble in your family
when you were little, right?
Client: Right—except that it was a Ford
and mine is a Plymouth, and Fords are a lot worse than Plymouths let me tell
you.
Therapist: Fine, we have a concept in psychology
called transference. It means that sometimes we react to people and things in
the present as if they were people and things that existed in the past.
Client: Yeah I know about
that—projection or something, right?
Therapist: Right—in essence. So it seems to
me that your dislike for your car, your anger at it—may not really be because
it won’t start—although that might have triggered it.
Client: Yeah, you implied that before as
if—if I could face it, I was really upset for some other reason. So what reason?
Therapist: You see you really weren’t mad at
your car, you were mad at your parents’ car. You were treating your own
vehicle as if it were an object from the past, and expressing all the things
you never were able to express in the past about this object, to the object in
the present.
Client: Come again?
Therapist: You, sir, had an object in your
family—a car—that caused all kinds of pain and troubles for your parents and
you at a tender age. Your parents treated it as intrinsically ‘bad,’ so you, as
children tend to do, adopted the attitude of your parents: you blamed IT for
all the troubles, and disliked it as they disliked it. For so young a child you
probably didn’t even understand the concept of ‘a lemon’ or ‘having been
taken,’ or what was so bad about dad missing work. But you felt their emotions
and understood that this object was blamed and disliked.
Client: Okay, maybe so—maybe I really
didn’t know if the car was really fucked up—I just took their word for it.
Therapist: To you, cars were always your
parents’ car. Every car or most cars probably reminded you of your parents’
car. Irrationally, emotionally, you made the connection `car’— ‘something bad,’
‘something that causes troubles.’ You see you never really disliked your car at
all—it was your parents’ car—a car you saw in innumerable cars in the present
that was the real object of your hatred. This hatred probably never got
expressed at the time because to hate a lemon that your father bought was to
openly show disgust for your father and his buying such a thing. After all if
dad’s lemon was bad, dad was bad for buying it—yes? So this hatred was
repressed.
Client: You mean that’s why I secretly
was afraid that if I looked under the hood my car would be a lemon—because my
dad’s was a lemon and I thought this one was like dad’s?
Therapist: Exactly.
Client: So this one may very well not be
a lemon, right?
Therapist: Precisely. You need not be afraid
of finding out the terrible truth any more—that secret belief of yours was
always a lie—even your dad’s might have been all right—but you didn’t know that
at the time—all you heard was him saying angrily, ‘lemon,’ ‘lemon.’ Once you
are free of the lie, then it becomes possible for you to really see and
appreciate your car—not some phantom from the past.
Client: That’s a relief—and here I
thought all along I’d have to buy a new one after you showed me how to examine
the thing.
Therapist: It’s always freeing when you
disburden yourself of something that is false.
Client: But one thing still bothers me.
Therapist: What’s that?
Client: It still doesn’t start! I mean
it’s not a lemon or anything but how come I have one that doesn’t start?
Therapist: Ah, you’re starting to get some
insight into yourself. That’s a very important question. There’s another idea
we use in family therapy called ‘negative love.’ It refers to the fact that we
want very much to love and be close to our parents. We have an essential need
for this closeness. Now there are many negative situations in our family that
occur. Paradoxically, to recreate this closeness we often recreate these very
negative situations. That may have been the only situation you knew: but when
you reproduce one of these negative family scenes, at least on an emotional
level, you feel close to mom and dad again.
Client: So I might buy a car or arrange
for it not to run and give me trouble, so it will be familiar, like a family
situation, and I would feel part of the family again?
Therapist: Tremendously, right—you are
really starting to open up now.
Client: But why troubles—why didn’t I
reproduce some positive scenes?
Therapist: Tragically there is a greater
tendency to indulge in the negativity. It’s like this: If dad bought a bad car
and you bought a good one then you would be outdoing him—you would be better than
him. As a child you couldn’t do that or you would risk losing his love. It’s
almost as if you were saying, ‘See dad, I have a lemon just like you, I didn’t
outdo you. NOW WILL YOU LOVE ME?’
Client: I see.
Therapist: It’s worse than that. We tend to
take on the traits, and reproduce the situations, that we actually hated as a
child because we had to repress that hate. One way to conceal that you hate
something is to become it yourself—you see? If you hate people that are sloppy
but you want desperately to love them, then you might become sloppy too. Then,
you see, you don’t feel that bad about sloppy people any more, ’cause you know
how it is to be that way yourself.
Client: Well this is a lot to take in
but I think I get the drift of it. There’s just one thing about it though. I
didn’t ruin the thing, or purposely buy a bad one. How did I arrange for a car
that would act just like dad’s?
Therapist: Interesting metaphysical
question. I don’t know how the details work but you actually create your own
external reality from within. A man who thinks he is accident-prone will have
accidents: a person who believes he is lucky will win often in poker. Someone
with a desire to be murdered, sooner or later will attract somebody who wants
to kill him. But let me guarantee you one thing—if you change your inner
programming the outer world will change automatically.
Client: So how do I get it to start?
Therapist: Once you really don’t need to
have a bad car around to feel close to the family, the car will start, or you will
get another. I don’t know how the details will work out—but things will change.
And if the situation doesn’t change—then you know that on some level you really
haven’t given up the desire to have a lemon.
Client: So I couldn’t have fixed it at
first, ’cause I really didn’t want it fixed?
Therapist: Precisely—you were secretly
delighted it didn’t run. While you said you couldn’t fix it—in fact you
wouldn’t. You might have even in some way used your knowledge of cars—the
knowledge you claimed only I had—to have broken it to begin with. These things
are insidious you know! Quick starting for a week, delaying tune-ups—who knows
how you did it?
Client: So now what do I do?
Therapist: Well the way to let go of an
attachment is to experience it from a different perspective.
Client: How do I do that?
Therapist: Remember I said that when we
learned about you, your car, and the relationship you and it had together—we
might not arrive at the idea that it should run?
Client: I remember; it seemed goofy at
the time.
Therapist: Now wanting it to run and getting
angry when it doesn’t—you see—is all part of the programme—the script of
feeling and acting just like dad and you did in that family scene—the scene
that makes you feel so much a part of the family.
Client: Got you.
Therapist: So you might try enjoying not
starting the car—this is your car not your dad’s. Get in and unsuccessfully
turn the starter a few times. Don’t treat it as a problem—just experience it as
something to do—like playing tennis.
Client: I don’t think I’m going to like
that.
Therapist: Well then perhaps you’ll like the
sound—just turn the starter and enjoy the sheer energy—the sheer music of that
‘whee, whee’ sound it makes when the engine doesn’t turn over. It’s not as if
turning that key always has to be looked on from two, limited, bleak
alternatives—start or not start. Turning the key can be an isometric exercise
for your fingers; it can make musical rhymes with the starter motor—who knows
what other alternatives there are?
Client: I don’t want isometrics, I don’t
want car music—I want the damn thing to turn over.
Therapist: Well this sometimes happens—you
are very attached to a certain self-destructive way of working with your
experience. Sometimes this can be overcome with humour. You might notice as you
get mad and frustrated when it doesn’t start, ‘Well there I go again getting
frustrated like always over this little key turning in this tiny, tiny
slot—it’s kind of funny how dramatic I get about it.’
Client: Funny?
Therapist: Yes, humour can often give us
just enough distance from ourselves and our reactions that we can see our way
to treating a solution in a more creative and loving way.
Client: I don’t think it’s funny that my
car hasn’t started all week.
Therapist: Well then treat it as tragic. You
find it disappointing—okay blow it up—make it bigger—just how bad can you feel
about it? You may never fix it—nobody may know what’s wrong. Perhaps you will
starve to death for want of transportation to the market. Perhaps you are
furious at the car—so furious that you want to kick it—swear at it—pound
it—show it how a beautiful human being responds to a trusted car that won’t
start.
Client: Well that sounds more like how I
feel all right.
Therapist: You must be careful here not to
condemn yourself for hating your car. Accept your feelings, get them out and
then go through them to understanding.
Client: Understanding what, for
Christ’s sake?
Therapist: I think if you try what I am
suggesting, you will discover, not just intellectually but on an emotional
level, that it’s not your car but your father’s car, that is making you angry,
goal-orientated and consequently ‘stuck’. Once you see that, your reaction
should subside.
Client: You mean it will start?
Therapist: No, but you will start to feel
less angry and frustrated if it doesn’t—you will gain some measure of
objectivity about the situation.
Client: What good will that do?
Therapist: Well, once you have vented your
repressed anger and obtained some objectivity, then you will be ready to
attempt to forgive your car.
Client: Forgive my CAR?!
Therapist: Exactly—remember I told you that
inside and outside are not different but the same—that external events reflect
inner programming?
Client: How could I forget?
Therapist: Well, many, many of my patients find
that the moment they give up caring whether their car starts—the moment they
forget their ego attachment—that moment and only that moment is the moment when
their car will start.
Client: Really?
Therapist: Really—I could give you story
after story—be they Chevrolet owner, or the owner of a Dodge Dart. What I am
teaching you is one device that facilitates your letting go. First you vent
your anger, then you understand the transference, and then you must forgive.
Client: So how do I forgive my car?
Therapist: Well it’s not really your car you
will forgive. Remember your car is but an endless replay of the drama of your
dad’s car. So you have to really come to understand why your dad’s car didn’t
start. Once you understand, you will have tears and compassion for that poor
old lemon. It was just programmed like you and your father. It didn’t want to
make you trouble, to get you mad, to make you late for school—but it had to—it
was following its programming.
Client: You mean that car didn’t do it
on purpose?
Therapist: Of course not—it was just a—
Client: You mean cars have inner
programming too?
Therapist: My dear sir, the whole universe
is nothing more than different manifestations of consciousness. Everything from
inert gases to the most intelligent forms of life are merely different mediums
and forms of consciousness.
Client: So my dad’s car didn’t stall all
the time on purpose?
Therapist: That’s right, it was following
its programming. Cars are rather like children in a way. Just as children, out
of trust and love, tend to follow the unspoken admonishments of their parents,
so cars tend to act like their owners really want them to act. This might not
always be the same as what the owner says he wants in a car. Cars are psychic
you know—just like small children. They know what an owner really wants; they
can feel it.
Client: Well, doc, I got to tell you
you’ve handed me some stuff that was hard to swallow. But frankly this stuff
about psychic cars sounds completely wacko to me. I mean do you really expect
me to believe all this shit? The fact is the damn thing wouldn’t start. It cost
dad a lot of money and a lot of heartache. I don’t care how ‘psychic’ it was,
it was a shitty car.
Therapist: I can see you are going to have a
tough time with this phase of your treatment. Let me just say this generally.
We psychologists have a little maxim about this situation: Every car is guilty
but no car is to blame.
Client: Come again?
Therapist: It is true that each car must
take responsibility for its functioning, but it is no more to blame for this
than the law of gravity is to blame when you fall down and hurt yourself.
Client: Well, I’d have to admit that you
showed me that I am mad at cars ’cause of what dad’s car did to him, and that
dad’s car sure fucked him over. Now if you can get me to where I think dad’s
car was a good car, I guess you could get me to believe anything.
Therapist: Really? Well that’s encouraging;
let me try. Let’s forget the metaphysics about cars then, since that seems like
a belief system that you have trouble with. Can you accept the idea that a car
of a certain type can somehow get attracted to an owner that wants that type of
car?
Client: Well sure—like dad unconsciously
picks a certain kind of product, right?
Therapist: Right—fine. Now let’s just assume
that dad wanted a car that was good at not starting. Now he said the opposite,
he said how much trouble it was, how much money it costs him, what a terrible
lemon the car was. But let’s just assume that on some level he really wanted
that, and so he somehow arranged to have a car that would be a lemon.
Client: Well why would he want a lemon?
I mean why would anybody want a lemon?
Therapist: To answer a question like that,
we must look at what we call the ‘secondary gain’. I mean what did the car’s
not working do for your dad?
Client: Well, let me see . . . he really
didn’t like his job and he didn’t have to go to work—at least he could get
there late. Wait a minute; he didn’t like shopping with mom much either. In
fact, he didn’t like going out much at all. He was kind of a homebody. Wait a
minute, wait a MINUTE—the best thing in the whole world he loved was to putter
around his wood shop and that’s what he used to do when the car was at the
garage getting fixed. He used to say that he might as well keep busy while he
waited for the car—cause there wasn’t anything else to do. Why that asshole!
Therapist: You’re beginning to see the
pattern. Your car wasn’t a bad car at all—it was a very good car. It loved its
owner very much and did just what he wanted it to do. You might say,
paradoxically, it was a good car to him by being a bad car.
Client: God damn it, you’re right. That
car wasn’t to blame at all for all the stuff that happened to the family and
me. It was that lousy, hypocritical, lying father of mine! He was just lazy
that’s all. Hell, for all I know he might have busted the car himself. Why that
lying creep.
Therapist: So you and your father really
didn’t have a bad car, right?
Client: Right, I don’t have a bad car, I
had a lousy father—why that sneaky, lazy, hypocritical bastard.
Therapist: You know I think you’ve come a
long way towards getting over your emotional attachments to this so-called car
trouble.
Client: I think you’re right, doc. It’s
really amazing how I see my problems with my car from a whole new perspective.
I think I really understand the problem now. Wait ’til I get my hands on that
no-good father of mine—wait ’til I tell mom. I mean all these years that creep
has been making picture frames in that shop. “I can’t help it, the car won’t
start. I have to do something ’til it gets fixed”—that snake in the grass.
Therapist: Well, yes you have a great deal
of insight about the car, but I really think you should come and see me again,
to deal with your feelings about your father.
Client: I’m going to kill that creep;
I’m going to break every one of those damn chairs of his.
Epilogue
Therapist: Could you come back next week for
another appointment?
Client: Well, that’s going to be hard. I
live pretty far away. Since my car won’t start, I’d have to take the bus.
Therapist: Well, with all the progress we
made today, I think you can take it to a mechanic now and expect better
results.
Client: Good idea doc, I’ll do that
right away.
Therapist: Great. See you next week.
Notes
See Howard Schwartz, “On the Overextension of Ideas” Noesis
#191 (January 2011).
2 Among the contributing factors: the separation of work and home,
geographical and occupational mobility, the decline in importance of the
neighbourhood and extended family, electronic communication devices –
especially the new phenomenon of `strangers’. Urban citizens lived, travelled,
and worked, daily, in the company of those they knew nothing or little about.
3 One of the main tools used by social "science" to study
anything whatsoever is a certain prevalent kind of statistics: Almost anything
can be described as some kind of `variable’. Then see which variables are
associated with which, and create a theory (story?) about why these variables
are connected.
4 Szasz discusses some of this history in parts I and II of Szasz,
Thomas. The Myth of Mental Illness. New York: Harper and Row. 1974 See
also, Joseph Melling and Bill Forsythe (eds.) Insanity, Institutions and
Society 1800 – 1914. London and New York: Routledge, 1999. Andrew Scull, The
Most Solitary of Afflictions: Madness and Society in Britain 1700 – 1900, Yale University Press, 1993.
5 Op. cit., Szasz, pp. 262 – 263. This conclusion is a crisp summary
of Szasz’s famous characterisation of psychiatry as dealing with personal, ethical,
and social problems in living. As Emerson et al. point out, the problems may be
those of the client and/or those of other people that have been dealing with
the client. Emerson, R.M., and Messinger, S.L. “The micro-politics of trouble”.
Social Problems, 25, 1977, 121 – 134.
6 However, the medical model (e.g., disease, doctor, patient,
symptoms, diagnosis, prognosis) was by no means abandoned. Psychiatry’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of
Mental Disorders (DSM) names almost 1000 diseases and syndromes,
with prescribed medications for almost any form of human suffering or odd
behaviour.
Event Horizon
Now
is too far in the future.
Our only hope is whatever hope we have for the past.
—May-Tzu
Know Thy . . .
I
don't know anything until I see myself announcing
it
on television.
—May-Tzu
