It will be so good to see you

For more about Harry Shum, Jr. follow him on Twitter or his Tumblr 

Slip of the Tongue | Girl, What is your Makeup?

Occidental College professor Mary Christianakis asked her students to make mash ups to inspire the viewer to take a critical perspective on a topic. One of her students, Samantha Figueroa, created the following clip. 

The complete text of the words of Adriel Luis that were spoken in the clip are after the page break.

Dear Young Therapist: Are You Ready to Jump?

Hieronymus Bosch / The Stone Cutting / Prado

The anti-psychiatry movement has garnered increasing popularity within the last few years. Criticisms have been lodged against the medicalization of the human experience. In particular, many observers have noted the increasing movement toward pathologizing human suffering and categorizing that pain as a psychiatric disorder requiring medical intervention.

This phenomena isn't particularly new. As long as we've had emotions, we've sought ways to control experiences that are viewed as unpleasant, unwanted, or otherwise out of the norm. Starting in at least neolithic times, we attempted to drive out unwanted behavior through trepanning--drilling burr holes into the heads of those suffering. In fact, it is still occurring, assuming this website isn't some sort of strange parody. In our quest to help alleviate suffering we've also tried hydrotherapy, cold wet sheet packs, continuous baths, hot boxes, metrazol therapy, insulin induced shock, electroconvulsive shock, magnets, and lobotomies. 

Ouch.

I've worked with clients who have undergone all of these treatments with the exception of trepanning. I'm not that old. The video below offers glimpses of many of the various treatments. 

And then there is psychotherapy. So many kinds of psychotherapy.

The director of training of my postdoctoral fellowship, Joseph Shay, once handed us a list of every type of therapeutic intervention for mental illness that he could find. It ranged from some of the ones mentioned in this YouTube clip, to primal scream therapy, to dialectal behavioral therapy. We laughed at some and mostly we felt superior because we were being trained in the modern best practices.

As I've written before, Joe reminded us that in 10, 20, or 30 years we'd look back on our careers as psychologists and be horrified at what we thought constituted good therapy. Times change. We move forward. Joe taught us to remember that we have always tried our best to help, we can only help in the ways we know, and we can only know what we know when we know it.

We get better.

Titicut Follies: An Asylum for the Criminally Insane

"They was gonna take my balls out of me... I told the doctor before I come here that I didn't want my balls taken out of me, so they took the cords out instead."

Titicut Follies, a 1967 documentary film by Frederick Weismann, depicts the miserable and inhumane existence of inmates living in Bridgewater State Hospital for the Criminally Insane.

 It's not easy to watch. It hasn't always been easy to find a copy of the movie to watch, either.

Shortly before screening at the 1967 New York Film Festival, Massachusetts sought a legal injunction banning the release of the documentary. These actions come at a time when there was significant negative press about the institution and the state's handling of people with mental illness.

Despite the filmmaker getting permission from all the people shown in the film as well as the superintendent of the facility (who appears to have used the documentary as a tool to try to get more funding), Massachusetts claimed that the permission was not valid. In the end, the film was screened at the New York Film Festival. However, a year later Massachusetts Superior Court judge Harry Klaus ordered the filmed removed from distribution because of claims that the film violated the patients' privacy and dignity.

Wiseman appealed the superior court decision to the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court. The court allowed for a limited distribution of the film allowing it to be shown only to doctors, lawyers, judges, health-care professionals, social workers, and students in these and similar fields. Further appeals to the US Supreme Court were refused.

For years hardly anyone saw this film. For years, the men at Bridgewater languished, often naked and in solitary confinement. This institution was one of the myriad examples of  people with mental illness being treated like unwanted animals.

Who were the men at this institution? How about the man who painted a horse? One inmate was sent to Bridgewater in 1938 because he painted a horse with stripes to make it look like a zebra. He was a fresh fruit vendor and in order to increase sales and get more attention, he though it might be a good idea paint his horse. He was arrested for public drunkenness at age 29 and died at Bridgewater from old age. He was supposed to serve two years.

Three Men on a Horse

What are these three men doing hanging out on a fake horse?

Visiting San Francisco, obviously.

Why these three men got up on this horse is lost to history. The where is a little bit easier to find.

The Cliff House (look up  in the right corner) was a popular tourist destination. The original burnt in 1907.

For the curious reader, you can read all you ever wanted to know about Sutro's Cliff House here, here, here, here, here, and here.

For curious reader's who would rather watch a video you might be interested in this one by Thomas Edison that depicts the Sutro Baths.

As for the three men. They were probably friends--or brothers--stopping off in town. Perhaps they were heading off to war? Their image, as many other's that depict vintage men in relationships, often are seen to represent gay relationships. They aren't. These images are largely a reminder of earlier times when men had more freedom to express intimacy as part of a friendship.

For more images of vintage men and their relationships (some gay, some straight) visit: Two Men and Their Dog; Adam and Steve in the Garden of Eden: On Intimacy Between Men; A Man and His Dog; The Beasts of West Point; Vintage Men: Innocence Lost | The Photography of William Gedney; It's Only a Paper Moon;Vintage Gay America: Crawford Barton; These Men Are Not Gay | This Is Not A Farmer | Disfarmer; Desire and Difference: Hidden in Plain Sight, Come Make Eyes With Me Under the Anheuser Bush, Hugh Mangum: Itinerant Photographer, Two men, Two Poses; Photos are Not Always What They Seem,Vintage Sailors: An Awkward Realization, Three Men on a Horse, Welkom Bar: Vintage Same Sex Marriage, Pretty in Pink: Two Vintage Chinese Men, Memorial Day Surprise: Vintage Sailor Love, Memorial Day: Vintage Dancing Sailors, The Curious Case of Two Men Embracing, They'll Never Know How Close We Were, Vintage Love: Roger Miller Pegram,Manly Affections: Robert Gant, Homo Bride and Groom Restored to Dignity, The Men in the Trees, The Girl in the Outhouse, Tommy and Buzz: All My Love,Men in Photo Booths, and Invisible: Philadelphia Gay Wedding c. 1957. You can also follow me on Tumblr.

Empirically Supported Protocol Based Psychotherapy

Necessary, but not sufficient.

It's Coffee Time

Perspectives: See the Earth, See Yourself

To be able to look back at yourself and see yourself, you are able to change your perspective on everything. Psychotherapy is but just one small way to take this perspective. There are many others.

My friend Tess Morgan for spotting this clip that shows one powerful way to see yourself.

"Once a photograph of the Earth, taken from the outside, is avaliable... a new idea as powerful as any in history will be let loose." -- Fred Hoyle, 1948 (see here for additional information about Hoyle)

OVERVIEW from Planetary Collective on Vimeo.

For another opportunity to explore perspective, check out this previous post about Carl Sagan and the Pale Blue Dot.

Go ahead and Yawn

Yawns from Everynone on Vimeo.
Directed by: Daniel Mercadante
(danielmercadante.com)

Voyagers: A Valentine Across Time and Space

The Voyagers from Penny Lane.

A short film about two small spacecraft, an epic journey, taking risks and falling in love. Also Carl Sagan.

You can read an interview with Penny Lane about this film on The Atlantic's website:

ABOUT THE FILM

In the summer of 1977, NASA sent Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 on an epic journey into interstellar space. Each spacecraft carries a golden record album, a massive compilation of images and sounds embodying the best of Planet Earth. According to Carl Sagan, “[t]he spacecraft will be encountered and the record played only if there are advanced space-faring civilizations in interstellar space. But the launching of this bottle into the cosmic ocean says something very hopeful about life on this planet.” While working on the golden record, Sagan met and fell madly in love with his future wife Annie Druyan. The golden record became their love letter to humankind and to each other. In the summer of 2010, I began my own hopeful voyage into the unknown. This film is a love letter to my fellow traveler.

Nemo: Time Lapse

Who knew my video recorder had a time lapse feature? I certainly didn't. This may have something to do with my aversion for reading instruction manual. Reading the instruction manual might have also clued me in on why this video recorded in black and white.

More experimentation is necessary.

Keep your eye out for cameo appearances by my aloof black cat named Iggy. He enjoys the fourth floor look-out up atop my house. It's the only area that he can be reasonably sure not to be interrupted by his arch-enemy, Magnolia Wigglesworth.

The Unseen Sea

The Unseen Sea from Simon Christen on Vimeo.

Ocean Sky

This is so amazing and inspiring. Worth the couple of minutes to sit back, relax, and enjoy the experience.

Ocean Sky from Alex Cherney on Vimeo.

Sign, Click, and Feel Good

When is the last time you watched a documentary and were inspired to make a meaningful lasting change? After watching Bowling for Columbine did you sell your guns, call your senators demanding for gun control measures, and write a check to support a local agency that serves at-risk teens? After watching Food Inc. did you start your own garden, shop from local farmers, and eschew any form of pre-packaged food made by an agri-business? 

If you made changes, were any of them changes that you sustained?

Probably not.

I recently watched and fell in love with the luscious and beautiful film Tsunami and the Cherry Blossom. It didn't make me write a check to support Tsunami victims. It didn't make me board a plane for Japan to help survivors heal and rebuild their lives. It didn't inspire me to take any meaningful action that an outsider can observe, measure, and document.

Documentaries are an art form that stimulate us to have an emotional response about the human experience. They document history and teach us about it. They don't stimulate us--at least very many of us--to do anything. They stimulate us to feel something. When done well, the art form of a documentary exposes us to a new part of the human experience. In revealing something new about the world, we reveal something new within ourselves. 

I love documentaries as an art form. I love exposing myself to new parts of the human experience. I love discovering new parts of my own experience that were opened and exposed by my interaction with the documentary. 

I don't, however, confuse this with action, behavior change, or social change.

This Little Piggy Went to the Market

Started as an open air marketplace in 1840, Cleveland's West Side Market houses over 100 vendors representing a panoply of ethnic foods. The yellow brick markethouse, shown here on the left, was designed by Benjamin Hubble and W. Dominick Benes, was built in 1912.

Growing up in Cleveland, the market was a place that we would occasionally venture to as a family and later, when I was a young adult, the place that I went for my weekly groceries. When I was in town over the holidays I stopped in at the market for New Year's Eve dinner.

Of course, there are some things that I'm just simply not going to eat. Take the pig head, for example. That was one particularly delicacy that I wasn't going to have wrapped to go. I couldn't help but to take a picture of him. Despite the somewhat grotesque nature of the image, it brings a smile to my face. As a young child (and teen, and young adult) my mother would frequently chase me around the grocery store with all manner of animal parts. Not paying attention? A pig foot would scratch my the back of my neck. In a good mood? Perhaps a floppy cow tongue might start telling jokes.

The least I could do is take a picture of porky the pig and smile a bit remembering my mom's antics in the grocery store. Clearly, this little piggy that went to the market is not going to be going wee wee wee all the way home.

Rumor has it that the animals are butchered right under the market. My high school horn teacher, Sandy Baxter, had a variety of interesting jobs that helped supplement her musical career. She once worked in the basement of the market butchering pigs.

Thankfully she never chased me around with pig parts when I played wrong notes. Here are a few more pictures I took at the Westside Market when I was their this New Year's Eve. After the page break you'll find some links to newspaper articles that collect shopper's memories as well as a couple of YouTube clips.

 

Sex Education

In this video we have a frank discussion of changes that take place in boys during puberty. Sex is also talked about as something that is pleasurable. A shame sex education has not continued to develop from this 1957 film so teen boys and girls can understand their bodies and the possibilities (and complications) of sharing closeness and pleasure with another person.

Unlike the previous video, Molly grows up doesn't address that sex and sexuality can involve pleasure.

...and in the 60s... perversion!

...though sex in marriage isn't necessarily filthy...

Sexuality intercourse outside of marriage is irresponsible and possible disastrous. Also, watch out for that animal appetite.



Talking about sex can be a bugaboo....

Holiday Greetings: What if Jesus was Gay?

"What if Jesus was gay? Would you still be afraid? Would you torture and tease? Would you open your mind? Would you make him cry? Would you beat him the alley? Would you tell him to burn and rot?"

This little gem of a song, by Bryan McPherson, was recorded at Club Passim in Cambridge around the time same-sex marriage became legal in the Commonwealth on May 17, 2004. It's worth a listen this holiday season.

In listening to Bryan's song, I can't help but to think about how so many people make the conscious effort to bring hate and sorrow into the world. The choice of how are you are in this world is totally up to you.

Everything can be taken from a man or a woman but one thing: the last of human freedoms to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way. 

-- Viktor Frankl

Choose wisely.

Happy Holidays.

Autumn Updates: Magnolia Wigglesworth Edition

It's been awhile since I've connected my camera to my computer. I know this because I tried to shoot a few images yesterday and discovered the memory card was completely full.

Maggie, of course, got a significant amount of outdoor time. She finds the crunchy autumn leaves particularly wonderful. I think they hold the scent of whatever passed through them particularly well. She's been known to sniff each and every leaf in a pile--and of course leave a message of her own.

Of course there also was myriad opportunities for investigating wildlife in Cambridge. We attempted to visit out the urban chickens at least once a week and scout out a turkey daily.

The turkeys became very enticing. We caught this video outside in the grounds of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. What didn't get filmed was the turkey sneaking up on Maggie while she wasn't looking. As soon as she noticed the results were rather predictable.

Maggie found the remnants of hurricane Sandy rather distressing. She elected to stay inside until conditions improved.



And of course there were the car rides. While it is terribly unsafe for a puppy to hang her head out the window, occasionally Maggie can't resist taking in the scents. We were coming back from a hike at an undisclosed location in the Merrimack River Valley in this shot.

Maggie also had ample opportunity to frolic around her favorite fields near our home in an undisclosed location in the Merrimack River Valley. Here she is engaged in the quintessential hound activity: sniffing.

...and her Maggie is nearly looking at the camera.

..and finally we get a look at the camera. Of course she is in motion so it's blurry. I call this area we are at "tick city" because, well, it's infested with ticks. It's off limits to me and Maggie from spring until the first frost because neither of us get out without at least a few ticks on us. All year long she looks longingly at the path that leads up to tick city. This was her first visit to the area since last spring.

What does one do while at tick city? Wiggle, of course. There is a reason why she is called Magnolia Wigglesworth. This image to the right suggestions one reason for her name.

Everything Goes Black: Then Comes Hope

The New Asylums

Some time ago I wrote a blog post about my first trip to an asylum. A regular reader of my blog posted a comment. In part, she wrote:

This is tragically unfortunate because instead of creating a healing environment hospitals create a feeling within patients that they are merely being housed until released. At least this has been my experience with crisis stabilization units. I was literally dumped out into a side parking lot after one release because the tech didn't have time to walk me up to the front of the building!

Many of us would like to think we've come a long way from the abuses of the past. I remain unconvinced. There are myriad experiences like my blog reader shared. Mental health care can be excellent with those with significant financial resources. It can be horrific and neglectful for the middle class and the poor.

Some might think the most horrific images of neglect and abuse may mostly be a thing of the past in psychiatric institutions. They really aren't in the past. We have, as society, just managed to find another way to neglect those who are most vulnerable. Several years back the PBS program Frontline did an excellent documentary on prisoners with mental illness. They suggested--both in images and words--that prisons have become the new asylums.

There are nearly 500,000 mentally ill being held in jails and prisons throughout America. That's ten times the 50,000 that remain in psychiatric hospitals. 

If you don't have time to watch all these clips, just make sure you fast forward to the group therapy scene that starts at 6:25 in clip one. The horrors for those of our neighbors with mental illness have just moved to a new venue: prisons.

For more about asylums click here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, or here.