Confessions from a Reparative Therapist

I admit it. I am a reparative therapist (also called conversation therapy)--just not the kind you think. As a psychologist I have worked with people who have sought to be relieved of unwanted same sex attractions since the dawn of my practice in 1997. Shocked? Expecting some sort of twist here? Of course there is a twist. Before we get to the twist, let's take a look at what the pseudo-scientific organisation called the National Association for Research and Therapy on Homosexuality, commonly called NARTH, has to say. This organization, by the way, has been called a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

NARTH writes:

Reorientation therapy is simply psychological care aimed at helping clients achieve their goals regarding their sexual attractions, sexual orientations and/or sexual identities. Reorientation is not decidedly different from other therapies. There are many psychological approaches to helping clients with unwanted homosexual attractions. All approaches supported by NARTH are mainstream approaches to psychotherapy. The term "Reparative Therapy" refers to one specific approach which is psychodynamic in nature, but not all who offer therapy aimed at orientation change practice Reparative Therapy.  

The Irreverent Psychologist (that's me!) wonders just what mainstream approaches to psychotherapy NARTH is speaking about. As you may have noted in another blog post of mine, not a single mainstream professional association endorses "reorientation" therapy.

Let's look at one more bit of what NARTH says before I get to my practice of reorientation therapy:

We respect the right of all individuals to choose their own destiny. NARTH is a professional, scientific organization that offers hope to those who struggle with unwanted homosexuality. As an organization, we disseminate educational information, conduct and collect scientific research, promote effective therapeutic treatment, and provide referrals to those who seek our assistance. NARTH upholds the rights of individuals with unwanted homosexual attraction to receive effective psychological care and the right of professionals to offer that care. We welcome the participation of all individuals who will join us in the pursuit of these goals.

It all sounds good, doesn't it? This business about achieving one's goals pertaining to their sexual orientation makes for a lovely thought, right? Remember the part about choosing their own destiny. This will be important.

Let's talk about the work I do, shall we?

I'd like to introduce you to four patients. They are all representative of real people. I've changed biographical details to protect their identities and privacy. I've asked for their permission to include them in this way: they have all agreed. I am thankful for the people who are behind these stories for allowing me to share a small portion of their experience. 

• A sixteen year old male teenager coming to therapy because he's worried he might be gay.
• A Mexican-American woman with elderly parents, struggling between staying with her same-sex partner or caring for her aging parents who believe homosexuality is a sin.
• A businessman in his 50s who stayed closeted out of fear of his business would suffer. Facing the second half of his life, he struggles between satisfying his desire for companionship with men and maintaining strong business relationships in his conservative line of business.
• A hipster 20 something woman, raised by a father who was a Baptist minister who sexually abused her. "I'm not even sure I'm gay, I think it might just be something that happened because of my father."

In each of these clinical situations, a person grapples with important concerns. A teen grapples with schoolyard bullies, his Catholic upbringing, parental expectations, and the confusing desires of an adolescent.  A Mexican American woman struggles with a conflict between her heart and a cultural expectation to, as the youngest daughter, stay close to home and care for her parents. A businessman struggles with strong feelings that same-sex attraction is negative, a strong attraction to men, and making a choice to risk loosing life-long friends who might reject him for his sexual orientation. A hipster struggles with separating out desire, love, and attraction from trauma and abuse.

Four very different people, with very different life situations, clinical presentations, and developmental issues. Each of them, however, questioned their same-sex attraction at one point or another in their treatment with me. Among the things they wanted to explore and work on was furthering their understanding of their same-sex attraction.

Each of these four patients, at one point or another, had the goal to remove unwanted same sex attraction. Here's where it gets complicated. Who gets too decide what the goal is? Who is deciding whom's destiny?

I have a quiz for you. Don't worry, it's painless and will be over before you know it. Who decides whom's destiny in a psychotherapist-patient relationship? Circle one: (and grammar people, is it who, whom, whose, or whom's -- I'm sure someone will tell me.)

1. The patient
2. The psychologist
3. The intersubjective self

Many of you might circle number one. I like that choice. Almost without exception, I accept my patients exactly where they are at. It is not for me to decide what makes for a life worth living. Rather, it is for me to ask really good questions that help open and explore new ways of looking at their life and provide tools for my patients to be more effective agents in their life (thus making for a life that they make happen, rather than a life that happens to them). 

Choice number one, however, doesn't always make sense. Sometimes it is choice number two. For a large portion of my career, I've worked with patients who self-injure and are highly suicidal. Patients have starved themselves to near death, injected themselves with poisons, broken their own bones, and have tried to (or actually did) kill themselves. It would be disingenuous of me to say that I don't have a say in what the goals of therapy are.

There are, based on laws, ethics, and my own sense of decency, places where I need to exert power over a patient's decision making. I must intercede and protect children, senior citizens, and disabled people from abuse. I must intercede and protect my patients from killing themselves or killing another person (though from what I have gathered, if a patient kills someone and then tells me I cannot violate their confidentiality). Lastly, if I believe someone's decision making is impaired because of a mental illness I can have them involuntarily hospitalized. Those are the four ways in which the law and my ethical code dictate me to intercede and take over the life of my patient. I loathe to do this, and try to take every step I can so that my patients remain active agents in their life--not me.  

Members of SPLC Hate Groups Need Party Hats

Beyond ethics, there are myriad ways my personal beliefs directly and indirectly exert power over the the decisions I make in my consultation room. My job, as a seasoned and reflective psychologist, is to constantly work to become more and more aware of the ways in which I am using power to influence patients--and to use that power wisely, thoughtfully and transparently as possible.

Now what about therapy to rid oneself of unwanted same sex attraction? That's when we get to circle number three, the intersubjective self. What's that? That's where psychologist and patient get to have fun exploring an idea together. The patient and psychologist join together and explore many different ways of thinking. Our selves merge in a way, become one for a moment, and can see much further and deeper into any given issue. 

Choice number three isn't for the novice therapist or the weak at heart. It's painful, difficult, and challenging to be open enough to connect with another in this way. It's also dangerous if a psychologist isn't self aware enough to recognize their power and all the different ways they can use it to demand rather than guide.

What issues might one contemplate in regards to sexual orientation? Religion, morals, culture, spirituality, oppression desire, wishes, family, needs, homonegativity, heteronormativity, relevant scientific literature, scripture, and, well, it's endless really.

Do I have an opinion about people who are gay, lesbian, bisexual, queer, transgender, or questioning? Yes. I think they are people to be loved and people who are to be cared very deeply about. It's not really for me to decide whether people should or should not be LGBTQ--it is for them to decide. It's for me to help them explore, to separate fact from fiction, and to hold a picture bigger than they can hold on their own.

Some of the patients I've worked with over the years have decided (a) they are indeed an LGBTQ person. Other's have decided that (b) while they are likely an LGBTQ person, they would prefer to contain that part of their self because of a variety of reasons (family, culture, religion, etc.). Others have decided that (c) they aren't actually and LGBTQ person at all.

Options (a) and (c) are easy. I've yet to have a patient select option (b) as a way to lead their life. They have explored the notion for a long time, and in the end, opted for for either being LGBTQ and having loving fulfilling relationships with same sex partners, or choosing to LBGTQ and be celibate for religious reasons, family reasons, etc. A small handful have selected option (c)--they aren't gay, or not yet ready to decide if they are gay.

This is how therapy is done. Thoughtful. Reflective. Taking into account multiple perspectives, multiple ideas, and multiple positions. Let's return again to the so-called reorientation therapists. 

Julie Hamilton at NARTH--she had a lot to say in response to my questioning of her ethics. In reviewing her official statement on the NARTH website (this link will actually get you there, have fun with the others)

• Dr. Hamilton demonstrates both an unsophisticated understanding of ethics in her reliance of choosing option one (remember my little quiz!) 
• Dr. Hamilton appears to be falsely pretending that she isn't exerting any influence on her patients (a likely failure of even knowing there is a choice 3, and it's unclear if she is is able to admit to choice number two). 
• Dr. Hamilton demonstrates an egregious misuse of science and a total failure of scientific thought. Some day I'll have to review her failings--which in her capacity of president of NARTH become NARTH's failings--in a later blog post.

NARTH states on their website they believe in open scientific dialogue. Strangely they don't invite this dialogue. Note the comments on their blog are closed. Let's be serious here: they aren't interested in dialogue. NARTH is interested in foisting their agenda of propaganda and pseudo-science on a vulnerable population.

It seems likely that Julie really isn't in the market of helping patients. It seems that she is in the market of peddling her agenda of propaganda and personal beliefs under a thinly veiled guise of pseudo-science.

Julie writes:

Ethical therapists do not solicit clients or coerce clients into seeking change. The clients served by NARTH therapists are clients requesting change.  

Ultimately it is the client who must choose with proper informed consent and without therapist-coercion, the most satisfactory life for himself or herself.

Sounds good on paper, doesn't it? It's not good. It's dangerous. Julie's unsophisticated understanding of ethics and clinical practice is dangerous. What her words reveal is a situation in which a therapist, unaware of her own agenda, dangerously foists her world view on another. Therapists who do this are, in my opinion, are engaging in the worst kind of malpractice.

So I say this: I know you are out there--survivors of damaging reparative therapy--lost, forgotten, hurting, and silenced by alienation. Come find me and let's use this place to tell your stories, to find connection, and come back into community. Come take a critical look at ex-gay propaganda with me. Come tell your story (anonymously if you're scared).

I am standing up for you. Come find me.

Could you turn your child out onto the streets?

This short video clip made me particularly sad. Hearing parents turn their children out of the house because of their sexuality or saying they wished their children were dead is just so painful. I don't know how anyone can turn their back on a child. To turn one's family out into the cold world, to repudiate them, to shun them, seems to be such an utter failure of compassion and humanity.

The biggest failure here, I think, is a cultural failure. We are loosing our ability to express disappointment and anger in a connected relational way. Our either/or mentality (aka George W. Bush saying you are with us or you are against us) has narrowed the possibility of dialogue.

What do you think? Is there a time you could imagine turning your child out? Do you think there is a way you can stay connected in dialogue with someone who are angry with?

The Human Face of Same Sex Marriage

I recently became involved in a discussion on Facebook about same sex marriage. I generally avoid these sorts of situations. Discussions such as the one I got myself involved in generally become banal and rather frustrating. They usually don't end up very well. Sure, the back and forth is interesting, for a while. In the end the narrative is always the same: one side blames the other for being (circle one: ignorant, uneducated, defensive, stupid) while the other side generally resorts to accusing the other as (circle one: ignorant, uneducated, defensive, stupid). Facts are provided. Facts are disputed. Both parties, in the end, become something akin to a dog, tied to a stake, running around in circles tearing up all the grass.

The end of the conversation went something like this:

How to Stand Up for American Values

One year while I was in graduate school I happened to spend the New Year holiday in Washington D.C. I visited several different museums--most notably I got to see the Deceleration of Independence, the United States Constitution, and the Bill of Rights.

I spent a lot of time that afternoon squinting and reading the very faint handwriting. They are in cases made of titanium and filled with argon gas to protect the delicate fibers and pigments on which our society is built. It wasn't the first time I read these documents. It hasn't been the last. It was, however, the most important of my encounters with these documents. I found it deeply moving to be so close to these documents. These fragile pieces of paper hold a contract that we all have with each other--the basis for our society and our civilization.

I don't know about you, but a lot of what I see parading around during this political season has absolutely nothing to do with what I think of as American values. The hate spewed around the country has absolutly nothing to do with the ideals held in these documents. Check them out for yourself. Maybe you'll agree that there is no reason for extremists to claim ownership to these documents for their perverted views of freedom.

This really is just a preamble for a video I came across this morning. As regular readers know, I live in an undisclosed location in the Merrimack Valley Region of Massachusetts. An Iraqi restaurant near my home recently was vandalized: a yet to be identified individual threw a brick and broke out the establishments windows.

Robert Mills of the Lowell Sun writes:

LOWELL -- An area veterans group pledged to fill every seat in Babylon, a downtown Iraqi restaurant where owners feared hatred drove a man to throw a 20-pound rock through a window last Wednesday.

Instead, those veterans filled every seat twice.

Lowell police said they identified the man who threw the stone, and that he confessed. He will be charged in Lowell District Court, though police say his motive was not hatred.

"Unless this gentleman is lying to us -- and I don't believe that he is -- he didn't even know this restaurant was affiliated with people from Iraq," said Lowell police Superintendent Kenneth Lavallee. [People engaged in criminal acts never lie, right Superintendent Lavalee? --JEM]

The suspect, a New Hampshire man who will not be identified until he is arraigned, will be summonsed to court to face a charge of breaking glass in a building, a misdemeanor.

Patrick Scanlon, a Vietnam veteran and coordinator of Veterans for Peace who organized the show of support, voiced skepticism that hate wasn't involved, but said it was nonetheless important to show support for the family that had been hit hard by fear.

Scanlon was joined at 25 Merrimack St. by veterans of the Iraq war, such as former Army Sgt. Rachel McNeill, of Allston, who served from 2002 to 2010 and spent a year in Iraq serving on a gun truck that escorted convoys, and Chris Borden, of Chelmsford, who continues to serve in the Army Reserves after deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan.

Scanlon was also joined by veterans like Paul Brailsford, 96, of Ipswich, a former captain in the Merchant Marines who served in the Pacific hauling weapons and supplies to Gen. Douglas MacArthur's troops during the Battle of Leyte Gulf.

The veterans, joined by the likes of Lowell Mayor Patrick Murphy, held flags and signs in front of the restaurant as they took turns sitting down inside to eat meals.

Owner Leyla Al-Zubaydi and her father Ahmed Al-Zubaidi said their family was terrified the vandalism was fueled by hate. Ahmed Al-Zubaidi said the incident drove his wife to tears, and prompted her to question whether the family should close the restaurant. The show of support from veterans and the community drove her to tears of joy last night, he said. "This solidarity gives us the courage to stand," said Al-Zubaidi. "There is no more fear in my heart because there are such nice people behind us."

Scanlon had pledged to fill every seat of the restaurant, but by 8 p.m., Leyla Al-Zubaydi said more than 100 people had eaten in the restaurant, which seats about 50.

Lavallee said the man who threw the stone will be arraigned at a date to be determined.

I think the people from Veterans for Peace that filled the restaurant with support are a symbol of what true American values are. Don't you? I'm so very proud of them.

When a spade is not a shovel

from the 11th Hour

My first dissertation chair, Glenda Russell, had a thing about words. She loved them. That was for sure. She also was very interested in the imagery and meanings that were embedded deep within the words. A casual mention once about "black ice" brought us into a long conversation about how many things in our culture that are considered negative or bad utilize dark or black as descriptive words--and how deeply that is often intertwined with overt (or covert) racism. Another time, when I suggested we don't skirt around an issue, a conversation was launched about my un-examined sexism.

Sometimes, it was a bit much. Most of the time, however, it helped me think very deeply about how my choice of language can sometimes reinforce imagery, ideas, and ideologies that I'm not interested in reinforcing.

I found myself channeling Glenda this week. A friend of mine tweeted that we have more serious problems in this world when we can't call a spade a spade. I said we have more serious problems in this world when we forget that a spade isn't always a shovel. Unless of course you actually are referring to a shovel.

It Gets Better: Scott Brown's Response

So as many of my more regular readers know, I've been patiently waiting for a response from Senator Scott Brown to a letter that I sent him. Every other elected member of congress from Massachusetts participated in making a video to support gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender teens. Find my letter here.

And watch the video:



And here is Senator Brown's response. I will be reflecting on it over the next several days. Expect a response from your favorite irreverent psychologist at some point over the coming holiday weekend.

Dear Jason,

Thank you for contacting me about the "It Gets Better" Project. As always, I value your input on all issues and appreciate hearing from you.

Like you, I believe in the right of ever citizen to live in a manner he or she choose and that all people have a right to be treated with dignity and respect. As Americans, we are all entitled to basic civil rights, protection from violence and the freedom to pursue happiness. As a father of two daughters, I am deeply saddened by the stories I hear about young men and women who are harassed or bullied by their peers for any reason. To that end, I believe that schools must provide a safe environment for all students and teachers so our children have the best possible opportunities to succeed. That's why during my time as a Massachusetts State Senator, I took a leadership role in efforts to prevent bullying and discrimination, including legislation intended to stop harassment and bullying in cyberspace.

Though i was unable to participate in a recent video for the "It Gets Better" Project, I remain fully committed to preventing bullying and discrimination and will work with my Senate colleagues to ensure that every child is provided a safe an health learning environment in Massachusetts and the nation.

Again, thank you for sharing your thoughts with me. if you have any additional questions or comments, please feel free to contact me or visit my website at www.scottbrown.senate.gov.

Sincerely,      Scott P. Brown      United States Senator

The Great Hurricane of 1938

So I recently acquired the Complete National Geographic Collection on DVD. That's right, at my finger tips I have access to over 1,400 issues, 200,000 photographs, and 8,000 articles. Everything the magazine has published since 1888. For those of you who know me, you might imagine that I've been squirreled away learning all sorts of interesting facts.

With the sounds of Hurricane Irene outside my window right now, I could think of nothing better to do (while I still have power) but to explore another storm that passed overhead 73 years ago. The New England Hurricane of 1938 made landfall as a category 3 hurricane on September 21 on Long Island and made its way through New England. It was estimated that some 682-800 people lost their lives, 57,000 homes were destroyed, and $41.1 billion dollars (2011 value) of damage was caused.

The April 1939 edition of National Geographic details the beginning of the storm. "Hordes of salps, strange soft-bodied creatures from far out to sea, swarmed into the harbor of Halifax, Nova Scotia, one September day, and brought an early "forecast" of New England's hurricane of September 21, 1938. When the brewing storm was still down near the Equator, some force associated with it already was pushing surface waters of the open ocean quietly in toward the North Atlantic coast, 3,000 miles away. Vast numbers of the salps, carried shorward by the influx of the waters, thus gave scientists in Canada an advance hint of what was going on."

Imagine that--the first hint of the storm to come came from fish observed in Canada. In this new world of supercomputer-powered forecasts, satellite tracking, and 24 hour news coverage I knew about the potential of Hurricane Irene last week. I've been preparing for the reality of Hurricane Irene since Friday. Today I can click on a helpful graphic provided  my my local newspaper and get predictions of hourly windspeeds. With all this advanced notice I knew to lash down everything outside that might go airborne, I knew to purchase enough food and supplies should the power go out, and I knew to charge my lap top, my wireless 4G card, and various battery backups around the house so I can do what whatever is required of me.

What it would have been like in 1938. No supercomputers. No satellites. No advanced warnings--except for the fish. Fish and our five senses. "There were ominous signs. People noticed that the air was unseasonably hot and muggy. Their ears felt queer, because the atmospheric pressure was decreasing.... A man who had seen hurricanes before warned his neighbors, but they only laughed at him. Far up in Vermont people noticed a smell of the seashore in the air."

The photo of the four women working at the phone company makes for an interesting view of what technology was. Despite the advent of computer telephone switching, mobile phones, and battery backups our links to the outside world remain just as tenuous as they were in 1938.


The 1939 edition of National Geographic went on noting that  "no one suspected then that this hurricane, forming so far away, would strike northward at New England, turn time backward a generation or more for seven million people overnight, and bring changes ranging from recasting shore lines to altering the courses of men's lives.... The hurricane was to demonstrate how a great, close-packed, highly industrialized modern civilization can be crippled almost in an hour when struck on its "Achilles hell" of electric light and power--and how human energy, Yankee ingenuity, and the New England conscience can rise to defeat disaster"

Like in 1938, we are still likely to be thrown back into another era of life should the power go out. My battery backups will eventually fail and I shall resort to candles for light and fire to cook (that propane fired camping stove has so many uses!). Similarly, like in 1938, we still will rely on Yankee ingenuity. Should Irene cut out our power, or blow apart pieces of our house, I wonder how I'll put my Yankee ingenuity to the test with the miles of duct tape I bought?

Again, technology has brought a new level of security, yet that security is just as frail as it was in 1938.

My last thought before I end comes from this part of the article. In discussing the hurricane, the author of the National Geographic article wrote "It was to destroy valued relics of New England's proud history, but it made that same history live with new vividness as people actually went back to candles for light, fireplaces for cooking, and even community barn-raising to replace storm flattened structures.

The barn-raising made me think of some articles I've read in the news over the last couple of days. It made me think of where our community and values are today, and where they were 73 years ago. Some of the republicans in Congress, led by house majority leader Eric Cantor, are attempting to pin disaster relief funds to their political goals. Cantor believes that disaster relief should only happen if it is accompanied by budget cuts elsewhere.

This sounds great on paper--especially if you are reading that paper somewhere where your roof hasn't been blown off. Tell that to the family in Virginia that had a tree crash through their roof and kill their 11 year old child. It wouldn't sound so great to them. Cutting the budget somewhere to pay for disaster relief sounds great if you have electricity to cook your food, or power to run your business. It doesn't sound all that great when you are eating cold canned beans, or unable to work because your business has been washed away by your ocean.

Community barn-raising. Yankee values. American values. Helping your neighbor out in times of need. Opening your heart, your home, and your wallet for those who are suffering and for those who are devastated. We've done this for generations in the United States. It is part of who we are.

Shame on Cantor for wanting us to become someone else--a people who lets our own neighbors suffer through disaster. A people who let our neighbors go hungry while we squabble of political ideologies.

A Tree's a Tree--Until It's Not

Presidential candidate Rick Santorum was recently asked why he thought marriages between people of the same sex would affect marriages between people of other sexes. Here is what he said:

Because it changes the definition of an intrinsic element of society in a way that minimizes what that bond means to society. Marriage is what marriage is. Marriage was around before government said what it was.

It’s like going out and saying, ‘That tree is a car.’ Well, the tree’s not a car. A tree’s a tree. Marriage is marriage. You can say that tree is something other than it is. It can redefine it. But it doesn’t change the essential nature of what marriage is. Marriage is a union between a man and a woman for the purposes of the benefit of both the man and the woman, a natural unitive according to nature, unitive, that is for the purposes of having and rearing children and for the benefit of both the man and the woman involved in that relationship.

What is Rick actually saying here when he says a tree is a tree and a marriage is a marriage? He is suggesting that there is a single definition of marriage that has been consistently used in the history of humanity. Any student of history (or psychology, or science, or a student of any other subject, really) would easily reject this statement. There are no absolute meanings, and there are no static social institutions that have kept the same purpose for all of recorded (and unrecorded) civilization.

Santorum makes a stupid argument. He makes an argument that is intellectually and morally bankrupt.

Interested in the history of marriage? You might want to check out this link, or this one, or even this one.  You might also be interested in E.J. Graff's book "What is Marriage for: The Strange Social History of Our Most Intimate Institution."

A few highlights:

While in many (but not all) parts of the modern world marriage is a personal decision between two people, for much of recorded history marriage has been an arranged affair. We married not for love, not for companionship, but for family bonds. We married because our families arranged for us to do so, and we did so to build businesses, alliances, and economic security. There was little--if any--room for love or affection.

Did you know that during the Protestant revolution Martin Luther totally rejected the religious underpinnings of marriage? He declared that marriage is "a worldly thing... that belongs to the realm of government. The Puritans, who found there way here to the coast of New England, felt similarly. They asserted (and passed an Act of parliament) that "marriage [is] to be no sacrament." That was the beginning of our modern day secular marriages.

Check out the links above to learn more.

My point here is that a tree isn't always a tree. They evolve, change, and adapt to the environment in which they are living. What Santorum is really saying is that he values one particular understanding of marriage. It is an understand that is adapted to his values, his morals, and his way of seeing the world. The meaning of the word, and the institution, reflects the values of the meaning maker and the zeitgeist of the times.

It's just silly to engage in meaningless banter about a tree always being a tree, and a marriage always being a marriage, when the recorded history of humanity shows that what we consider a marriage has changed over time.

So here is my question: what are your morals and values? Why do you value one sort of marriage over another? Why is that important to you? How does it reflect the world you want to be in? How does it reflect the world that you want to create?

Riotous community

What is society? What is the common thing that binds us all together. When I'm feeling in an idealistic mood, I think the common bond we all share is a mutual self interest--and deep desire to care for others and be cared for by others. Help the neighbor out across the street when his car is stuck in snow. Be helped by the other neighbor when you are trying to open your door with just one too many bags of groceries.

Isn't that part of what makes us human? We cooperate. We care for others. We are cared for by others. We are united by our community, by our shared needs for food, shelter, protection, and companionship.

Others, of course, don't see this as the common bond that we share. I was reminded of that when I became acquainted with the FM dial in my car. I had forgotten to bring my MP3 player this morning and was left to my own devices for amusement during my morning commute.

On this particular morning, the conservative program that I tuned into was discussing the riots in the UK. They played this audio of this clip several times:

The host took particular offense to this young women's comments. I took offense to her comments. Not for the same reason as the host. I thought she was just ignorant. However, I'm not willing to accept political analysis from an intoxicated person on the street. There are clearly more astute observers who could shed more light on this subject.

I should also remind myself not to take political observations from radio hosts. This host compared our current situation in the US with the riots going on in the UK. Saying we are just days away from such riots, he stoked up his listening audience saying that the unemployed and various other "lazy" Americans are sitting on the couch expecting to be taken care of by hard working people's tax dollars. The host criticized the idea of taxing companies and millionaires to "redistribute" wealth and take care of those "lazy" Americans. Why should someone who works hard to create a business give away their money to take care of lazy people on a couch?

Why should we? That's an honest question. Why should we tax those with a lot to pay for services that those without resources need? Why should we tax those with a lot of resources at a higher rate to build roads, airports, seaports, and schools?

As I wrote at the beginning of this post, I think that caring for each other--and being cared for--is an essential part of our humanity. Why wouldn't it be in our best interests for each of us to pitch in our fair share--to offer the best health care, the best schools, the best infrastructure---the best opportunity--so that all of us have the opportunity to succeed. That's my vision of my country. My vision is a place where we are all working together to build something greater than any one of us can do on our own. My vision is a place where those who are fortunate are willing and able to help those who are not.

I got to thinking about what values the host might have underlying his statements. I don't know for sure, but I'm guessing they are much different than mine. I'm guessing those host, along with many of his callers, believes that we get what we earn. We earn our money through the work we do--and those wages are ours. We can spent them as we wish. On ourselves. On our families. On our needs.

I do agree with that. I don't begrudge anyone enjoying the fruits of their labor. I do, however, thing that many forget the importance of making the choice to help another--the importance of making the choice to help out our common good.

I wish that we as a country--as a society--would hold onto the very old idea of noblesse oblige. Where is it that we began to lose the notion that with nobility, wealth, and power come responsibilities and obligations? When is it that we began to lose our moral economy in which privilege was balanced out with a duty and responsibility to those without that privilege?

I see the value of noblesse oblige disappearing all over the place. It was missing in the dialogue on this talk show. It's missing when I hear political candidates talk on both the right and the left. On the right we have the mindless droning of the GOP chanting mine mine mine mine mine. On the left we have an equally mindless droning of give give give give give. Both sides fail at discussing anything resembling a value. What is the value behind the Tea Party? Why do they find their ideas important? Can they hear the values that the Democrats have under their policies? Can the democrats identify and speak to those values? Can the Democrats hear and speak to the values of the GOP?

It doesn't appear so. I don't really blame the politicians. They are only giving us what we want. I blame us--all of us. I blame us for forgetting that it's important to talk about ideas. It's important to talk about values. It's important to listen to the other, and it's important for the other to listen to you.

What do you think? More importantly, what do you value?
_____
The community chest, by the way, dates back to at least 1913. I'm sure the roots of it go back much further. The first known community fund was founded in my hometown of Cleveland Ohio in 1913. Money was collected from businesses and workers and distributed to community projects--people who were in need were taken care of by people who had means. These community chest organizations quickly multiplied through the great depression. By 1948 there were more than 1,000 community chests in the country. Several name changes later, the community chest because "The United Way."

Freedom's Just Another Word for Nothing Left to Do?

I'm watching the CBS Sunday Morning Show. I'm finding that I can't look away from the segment called "Don't Try This at Home." The segment started with roller derby girls running across a track while they  are on fire. They are chronicling a dare devil spectacular in Omaha Nebraska.

The star of the show is  Spanky Spangler. One of the last scenes in the segment involved a car drop. Spanky was suspended by a crane 190 feet in the air. He is dangled for a moment in a car and then dropped, head first, into a pile of vans.

After his drop Spanky said, "When you are an American dare devil it is a sign of of freedom. We are lucky to live in a country like this where you have freedom. Being a daredevil doing what you want to do, no matter how dangerous it is is freedom, it's freedom."

I'm all for a little thrill seeking. I've been known to do a little of it myself (though never have I intentionally set myself on fire nor have I been dropped from a crane in a car). That's not what I take issue with this morning.

Being a dare devil is a sign of freedom? Yes. Sure. In a superficial way having the freedom to run around whilst on fire or being dropped into a pile of cars is a sign of freedom. But is that the kind of freedom we want to celebrate. Is that how we want to spend our freedom?

Over the last couple of days I've been reading some of the major speeches that Martin Luther King, Jr. gave during his lifetime. In his Letter from Birmingham Jail, written on April 16, 1963, he wrote:

But though I was initially disappointed at being categorized as an extremist, as I continued to think about the matter, I gradually gained a measure of satisfaction from the label. Was not Jesus an extremist for love: "Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you." Was not Amos an extremist for justice: "Let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like an ever-flow stream." Was not Paul an extremist for the Christian gospel: "I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus." Was not Martin Luther an extremist: "Here I stand; I cannot do otherwise, so help me God," And John Bunyan: "I will stay in jail to the end of my days before I make a butchery of my conscience." And Abraham Lincoln: "This nation cannot survive half slave and half free," And Thomas Jefferson: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal..." so the question is not whether we will be extremists, but what kind of extremists we will be. Will we be extremists for hate or for love? will we be extremists for the preservation of injustice or for the extension of justice? ...perhaps the South, the nation and the world are in dire need of creative extremists.

Here MLK was talking about extremism, not freedom. The underlying concept is the same. What kind of freedom do we want to have? It's nice (I suppose) to do any number of different dangerous acts. We have a choices that many in this world do not have. How do we want to use that choice? Do we want to use that choice for sensation seeking? Personal gain? How about the betterment of humanity? Making something better for those who come after us?

You have the freedom to choose.

John Is Not Really Dull: WPA Posters from the 1930s

Sometimes the Internet allows one to get a little carried away. Take this evening for example. I discovered website of the Library of Congress. Who knew they had a rather sizable collection of digitized images of our shared American history. I've spent the wee-hours of the morning looking at their images of old WPA posters. 

For those of you who don't know, the WPA was (prior to 1939) the Words Progress Administration and (after to 1939) later called the Work Projects Administration. It was one of the most ambitions parts of the New Deal--designed to employ millions of out-of-work Americans during the depression. Among other things, the WPA built public buildings and roadways, lead various art and educational projects, and helped feed, shelter, and clothe children.

Look carefully around your town. There are likely still structures near you that were built by the WPA. The program spent over a billion dollars a year on these projects--providing jobs for unemployment men and women. In the process, the face of the country was changed.

My favorite remnants of these projects are the posters. The images provide such a great glimpse what was important and talked about in this era. Here we have a poster encouraging parents to get eye examinations for their children. The poster was sponsored by the town of Hempstead in 1937. For more information about it, check out the reference at the Library of Congress.

John here might really be struggling in school because he can't see--not because he is dull. It's interesting to think for a moment about what message the past is giving to us in this graphic image. How many people were labeled as "dull" because they needed corrective lenses? How many people failed to live up to their full potential?

How did we care for children, anyway? If this public awareness poster produced by a WPA artist is any suggestion, we needed a little attention to child care. As the poster points out, babies can't go on strike. What does this image tell you about how babies were thought about. This somewhat alien looking creature with a very unhappy expression is called an "it" on the poster. It depends on your care. When this poster was created in 1939 were babies its? Were they seen as creatures that needed to be tamed (or ignored) and left to grow on their own? Check out the reference if you want more information about this particular image.

Moving from dull children and alien looking babies, some of the messages delivered to American's sound rather modern and familiar. This poster, published in 1938, appeared somewhere in Ohio. I know Yellow Stone was created in 1872. I never really thing of a conservation movement as having happened until the 60s. I'm wrong about that. Here we have an image asking Ohio residents to save trees--and in particular the Buckeye tree with is the state tree. There reference for this image is here.

I'll leave you all with a few more images to think about. What do they tell you about this era of history. How is the government communicating with us now? Is it? Should it?

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The Myth of the Elite College: Ideas or Things?

I read an article linked in a tweet from NPR. The "Tiger Mom" announced that her daughter was accepted into Harvard and Yale as an undergraduate student. Some have said this is vindication for her parenting techniques. The assumption, it seems, is that since Harvard only accepted 6.3% of its applicants, Chua's daughter must be successful. The less students that are accepted into an institution the better it is, the better the institution the better the applicant is. Right?


I remembering applying for doctoral programs and internships where I had a 1 in 100 percent chance of being accepted. Having been selected by some of those programs, I must be pretty smart. Not really. For the most part, I was in a group of 50 serious applicants applying to the same 50 highly competitive programs. We were all going to get into a selective (thus good, right?) program. The other half that didn't get in weren't viable applicants to begin with (applying to programs on a whim, wrong fit, underprepared, etc.).

Suddenly being the one picked out of a hundred is not all that exciting to me. It's important to read these numbers and know what they mean. The same pool of people are applying to lots of different elite schools. The low rate of acceptance doesn't really mean anything special. What these statistics  mean is that more popular or well known universities have bigger pools of applicants from which they can pick (and reject). Consider the following quotes:

"It's like needing a new stereo and buying the whole Radio Shack", says Mark Speyer, director of college counseling at the Columbia Grammar and Preparatory School in New York. "With these bigger pools, colleges are getting a lot of students who have no chance." (from the NYT)

Fred Hargadon, former dean of admission at Princeton and Standford, doubts that more and more applicants make for a stronger class. "I couldn't pick a better class out of 30,000 applicants than out of 14,000," he says. "I'd just end up rejecting multiples of the same kid." (from the NYT)

Karl M. Furstenberg, dean of admission and financial aid at Dartmouth from 1992 to 2007 commented "It's a classic arms race--escalation for not a whole lot of gain," he says. "I don't think these larger applicant pools are materially improving the quality of their classes. Now what's driving it is the institutional self-interest factor, where bigger pools  mean you're  more popular, you're better." (from the NYT)

What really got my goat (what does that phrase mean, anyways?) is Chua's conflation of sucess and admission to an Ivy league school. Is the more popular choice the better choice?

Having worked at some top-tier elite schools, I can say that the enormous wealth and resources of the school provides the student to access to things that students can't get at other institutions.  The wealth and resources do not, however, make students any more or less likely to come into contact with ideas. Being at an elite institution, at times, actually isolates students from access to ideas. Think large impersonal classes taught by doctoral teaching fellows.  Think faculty in labs doing solitary research rather than in the classroom inspiring students.

Things or ideas? Which is more important in a college education? Ideas are where it is at for me. Things seem less important.

To understand why, you have to understand my context. Different people might have different ideas because of different contexts.

I was not a student at an elite ivy league institution. I selected (and was selected by) smaller institutions. I wasn't the kind of high school student that people thought would be successful in any college (let alone an Ivy League). I had horrible study skills in high school and had no idea how to learn. I had few teachers who knew how to help me. I was a student in a reasonably affluant suburb. I had access to plenty of things but no real access to ideas. I had no access to ideas that would help me understand myself and how I fit into the world. The things were nice, mind you, but I was starving for ideas. This is my context--it's the position from which I understand this issue. You might like to consider your own context and how it might lead you to different thoughts on this same issue.


A found a way to escape my high school that was rich in things and poor in ideas. In my Junior year I enrolled in classes at a local community college. Cuyahoga Community College wasn't rich in things. The building was old and dated. Pipes leaked. Holes regularly appeared in the parking lot that threatened to swallow my car. Science labs had old equipment and technology wasn't particularly up to date.


Ideas--now that was a different situation. What this two year college lacked in things it made up in ideas. I had professors who loved to teach. I discovered that learning was only partially about memorizing facts--it was also about learning to think, have opinions, and have reasons to support those opinions. I went from an idea poor high school that was rich in things to a community college that was poor in things and rich with ideas. In a second my world got bigger. It hasn't stopped growing since then.


I later went to a small liberal arts college in the mid-west called Baldwin-Wallace college. It did happen to have a lot of things (nothing in comparison to the elite schools, but it was comfortable). It again was a place with more ideas. I found more of myself and had more access to the ability to be more than I thought I could be. It was there that I finally figured out how I learned, what I needed to learn, and how to find situations that made it more likely that I learned. When it came time to find graduate programs I knew exactly what I was looking for: a progressive institutional where I would be exposed to big ideas, be mentored, and be pushed to learn from the inside out rather than the outside in.


Education for me isn't about the accumulation of things--or that ability to consume ideas, things, or products. Education isn't about being opened up and having knowledge poured into my head. Education is certainly not about doing the popular thing or going to the popular school. Education, rather, is about digging deep down inside and transforming from the inside out. I found that in my second Masters program at Goddard College and four years later found it again in my doctoral program at Antioch University: New England.


Ideas, not things, is how I learn. I did not need or want to be a vessel that a professors filled up with knowledge from the outside in. I'm a being that needed a professor to create a space where I could learn learn to be more.


So what about Amy Chua? She most definitely presents herself as someone who believes that learning is something that comes from the outside and is poured into a child. She seems to see children as things that are molded rather than beings that are encouraged to blossom. I wonder what her context is--and how these ideas might work in her context?


What do you think?

A Long Way From Home: Refugees and Asylum Seekers

Some of you might find this post disturbing. If you are feeling a little vulnerable when you come across this or would rather not think about darker parts of our world, move on to another post. You might check out Maggie's blog to check out the latest in her adventures.

After months of waiting, I finally got to sit down this past Friday and take a training for forensic psychological evaluations for victims of torture. The training was held at Community Legal Services and Counseling Center where I volunteer supervising pre-licensed psychologists-in-training. Now that I've completed this training I'll be picking up a new role as a forensic evaluator for persons seeking asylum in the United States who may have been victims of torture.

A large part of my work as a psychologist involves going to places most people don't know about. On a daily basis I hear about people's deepest fears, darkest fantasies, and most damaging traumas. This training brought me into a few more of those places. What surprises me every time I enter into another experiences is how unsettling it is to realize what has been happening around me all the time without even being aware.

Here is some of what I learned in the training. According to the UNHRC, at the end of 2008 there were 12,599,900 refugees and asylum seekers.  There were 8,177,800 individuals who were warehoused in refugee camps waiting for ten or more years to be resettled into a new home.

In 2008 the United States resettled nearly 60,200 refugees. In the same year, the US granted asylum to 20,500. In 2007 there were more than 93,400 asylum seekers who had claims pending at the end of the year in the United States.

Who is a refugee? A refugee is a person who enters into the United States with legal status. They have already been processed by a UN agency and come to this country with legal status. A refugee doesn't get to pick where they are resettled: that is decided for them. What is an asylum seeker? Asylum seekers are people who somehow entered the United States and seek protection based on a well-founded fear of persecution if they were to return to their country of origin.

What's a refugee camp like? They aren't comfortable and they aren't safe. Here are a few images to give you an idea of what a refugee camp is like. As bleak as these places are, they are in many ways, an improvement from the areas refugees and asylum seekers fled.

Why flee their home countries? Some flee because of war, genocide, human rights abuses, famine, or various environmental catastrophes. The official definition is that a refugee is someone with a well-founded fear of persecution on the basis of his or her race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group or political opinion, who is outside of his or her country of nationality and unable or unwilling to return.

Prior to arrival in their resettled countries, children and adults faced physical injury, assault, illness, and malnutrition; were subjected to chaos, instability, and unpredictability; witnessed death, dead bodies, and injury to others; separated from parents and other family members; were are of parents' fears, anxiety, and inability to protect and provide for them; forced prematurely into adult roles; deprived of school, health care, and social services; faced adults silence on what's happening and why; and faced multiple losses.

Many people who are refugees or are seeking asylum are victims of torture. Despite the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights more than sixty years ago, torture is still a frequent or even standard practice in many nations. In 2003, for example, torture was reported in over 150 countries. In over 70 countries it was widespread or persistent.

Torture is designed to destroy the victim psychologically, create an atmosphere of fear and horror, disempower the individual and community; take away control form the individual and community; and damage relationships of victims and communities. Torture might be physical (beating, falanga, hanging, sexual torture, electrocution, being forced into uncomfortable positions for long period of times; burns with acid, burns, or forced ingestion of feces or urine) or psychological (mock execution/threatened execution; threats to self and family members; forced to witness family members or others tortured or killed; being forced to participate in torture of others; food, water, sleep and bathroom facilities deprivation; solitary confinement; and constant interrogation).

So why go here? Why enter into these dark places with people seeking asylum? On reason is that I'm awfully curious. I like learning about people and their experiences: this is one way to learn about some powerful experiences that people have had that is about as far away from my own experience as possible. The other reason is something that I touched upon awhile back in a blog post about the bookmark that was given to me in my welcome packet in my doctoral program at Antioch. The quote was:

Be ashamed to die until you have won some victory for humanity--Horace Mann

What's the measure of the life of a woman or a man?

Those who work with me know that among other things, I am prone to having some rather zany loose associations. I've talked with people about what the Broadway version of their life would be; ask why they think particular songs, movies, or television shows are stuck in my mind; and otherwise find ways to let our creative minds roam free to find ways to connect powerful metaphors with the very real and serious process of therapeutic growth and change.

With that said I've spent the last several weeks distracted by a particular song from a Broadway musical. I've randomly been humming along to Seasons of Love from the musical Rent. It's led me to spend an awful lot of time thinking about how we go about valuing (or not valuing) ourselves. I've also gotten more than a few strange looks from people when I randomly start humming on the street or in the gym.



I'm no stranger to thinking about this. In various contexts, I've thought about how we value ourselves for more than a quarter century. Years ago I learned something about value from a band director. This one time at summer band camp we were playing a John Phillip Sousa march. The director of the band just happened to have been in John Philip Sousa's band. The director stopped rehearsal one day when I had played a wrong note. "You, Horn," he bellowed. "When you play that note incorrectly it as if you have walked up to the Mona Lisa and poked your finger through her eye."

Whoops.

I was no stranger to being pointed at by directors when I played a wrong note. My high school orchestra directly repeatedly made me play a note over and over again when we were playing Bedrich Smenta's overture from The Bartered Bride. In a fit, the director threw his baton at me and came storming through the orchestra knocking over stands. This time I wasn't poking my finger through the eye's of the Mona Lisa on purpose. The score I was playing off of had the wrong note. Another director, with exceedingly long fingers, tapped his baton on his music stand and pointed at me (I was sure that his finger was going to make it all the way into the back of the orchestra and poke me). "You," he said. "You have no passion. You young people today know no passion." This one concerned me to no end. A note I could figure out how to play correctly (even on a horn that is notorious for being impossibly difficult to play in tune). But passion? How on Earth am I supposed to figure that one out?

Had Dwight only explained himself I might have learned something very important--the goal here wasn't spending hours in a practice room learning to perfect every note and phrase. The goal was to bring the music alive and create an experience. Music as a process, not a goal.

Anyway, I found innumerable ways to scurry about trying to be perfect. Years later in my second masters program I had a complete melt down at the copy shop. I was having my thesis printed out and it was printed out incorrectly. You see, the paper I used had a watermark on it. I was very specific with the copy shop people that I wanted the watermark positioned so it was forward on the paper, not backward. I got my thesis back with the watermark backward. No holes through Mona Lisa for me. I made them reprint the whole thing. Twice.

After telling my advisor this he asked me if I knew much about the quilts that Amish women make. Among the things they are known for is their quality. Yet, as my advisor said, the last stitch that is made is always made incorrectly because only God can make things perfect. He then pointed out a typo in my bound thesis.

Of course I'd have none of this and later snuck into the library to correct my error.

Once I finally got over that bout of crazy perfectionism I thought it was a good time to go for a doctorate. When I was first accepted into my program at Antioch University New England I was provided with a bookmark (this was a step up from the pencil they sent me home with when I interviewed at the program). The bookmark haunted me for a long time. Written on it was one motto the school frequently used:

Be afraid to die until you have won some small victory for humanity -- Horace Mann

"Oh great," I thought. I was already neurotic enough about trying to do things perfectly. Now not only did I have to make sure I didn't poke my fingers through the eyes of Mona Lisa: I needed to make sure I won a victory for humanity. Was one enough? Would two or three be better? How about four?

No sleep for Jason. I'll spare you the tales of being taught the finer points of the use of dashes (did you know there are three different kinds, the hyphen, the em dash, and the en dash?). This was a particularly crazed chapter of crazy dissertation writing.

My error here has been in interpretation. I spent a long time (and at times, still do) conflating the process achieving with the end result of achievement. I measured the value of my live (sorry about the eye Mona, that should have been life) by a result rather than a process. It's ironic, because had I paid attention to a different motto from my education (Goddard College often talks about learning being about the journey, not the destination) I might have saved myself from some needless stress.

Focusing on the end result of achievement rather than the process of achievement creates a rather horrific hall of mirrors. It's not very pretty. The end goal is never achieved, thus value can never really be attained. There is always another paper to write, task to do, or goal to achieve. Life can quickly pass by, unvalued, unappreciated, and filled with long days of neurotic achievement (think about the watermark and dashes, people).

It is easy (and it many ways natural) to value our children and our friends for their achievement. We marvel in a child's first steps and are proud. We hang report cards on the refrigerator and give rewards when our children get all As. We celebrate graduations form grade school, high school, and beyond with parties, gifts and accolades.

These are all valuable accomplishments. They deserve recognition and accolades. However, is this how we measure the value of a woman or a man? We do measure value in accomplishments? That makes value something conditional. We have to accomplish something in order to be valuable--and if we don't accumulate accomplishments we have less value.

In-and-of-itself, valuing achievement is a good thing. As a society we value movement toward something. An investment in education represents movement toward a better life. Investment in a job represents movement toward increased wealth (and hopefully the idea of shared wealth, too), productivity, and the betterment of humanity. I don't really take issue with any of this at a very basic level. Yet, I also take great issue with it.

When we transform valuing achievement into valuing people for their achievement, we start to lose little bits of our souls. When we base the total value of a person on the end result of what they have achieved rather than the process of achievement we poison a person and begin a life long process of killing off their essential intrinsic value of the process of being alive.

What do you think?