Diving Deeper 1

Minting Metaphors

Surf at Dún Chaoin, November 2005

As regards the task of coming to grips with one's own identity, one needs to mint some metaphors.  "Diving down" is a metaphor I will use for this series of posts where the image refers to the struggle for identity and self-actualization.                                                                                        

I came  across an interesting differentiation between Self and Identity recently. It goes somewhat along the following lines:  We can have multiple identities, e.g., for me, my identities would be: (i) a middle-aged greying male of the species homo sapiens, (ii) a graduate of a certain intellectual standing, (iii) a teacher of general subjects, (iv) a special education teacher, (v) was once a theologian, (vi) now a philosopher - possibly of very low standing, but no matter, (vii) a friend, (viii) a brother, (ix) a son, and (x) an explorer of the self, or a diver into my own depths.  Now, there are other multiple identities I can have and I'm sure I could list them if I took the time and made the effort.  Now, any one of these identities alone is not the real existential me.  The real Self is a deeper reality, a sort of potentiality at the very heart of my being.  It is a more ontological reality which is far deeper and far more fundamental than a mere identity.

Where does Meaning lie - Within or Without?

Roscrea, National School, September, 2007

From time immemorial, or at least from the time we human beings became self-conscious we have essentially been "meaning-making" creatures.  Everything we do is linked in with making our lives meaningful.  Let's call this our basic axiom here.  When I set out on life I wanted to be successful, to become something or do something with my life of which my family could be proud.  As a young boy I was enthralled by an old teacher who was so good at his job of educating poor working-class boys like myself that I desired to be a teacher like him so that I, too, could also very clearly teach this wonderful liberating knowledge to others.  It seems to me that I could understand all he taught me.  His name was Mr. Murray and he retired about four years later. And so began my enthralldom with learning and with knowledge, an enchantment that has never left me. The struggle with knowledge has been just that - a brilliant and wonderful struggle.  Brilliant and wonderful because like the athlete or the diver or the potholer (more metaphors) - diving down into murky waters and then to re-emerge exhilarated by deeper knowledge of things or of events or of humankind.  And so began my journey to become a teacher.  In short, that journey was a external journey in search of meaning, that is finding meaning through achieving this or that specific goal, this or that specific degree, this or that specific profession.

A Little Learning is a Dangerous Thing

The version 'a little learning' rather than 'a little knowledge'  is widely attributed to Alexander Pope (1688 - 1744). It is found in An Essay on Criticism, (1709) in verse form, and I can find no earlier example of the expression in print:

A little learning is a dangerous thing;
drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring:
there shallow draughts intoxicate the brain,
and drinking largely sobers us again.

To explain what we mean here, take the following example: If a doctor has not got a proper degree through hard and dedicated work, he can prove a nuisance to society. He can kill more people than he can save. The bridges, buildings and dams built by an engineer with imperfect knowledge of his subject will collapse sooner rather than later. A teacher who is not a master of his subject will only misguide his students.  Indeed, from the off I was an intense student who liked to pour over his books and to achieve high grades.  In all of this, I do believe that I put myself  under considerable pressure.  Nevertheless, I did enjoy the world of study and the world of books.  From the outset, I was never happy with a little learning.  Like John Henry Newman, I could not desist from studying this or that topic without giving in to the desire "to bring out the whole of it."

From 1976 until 1980 I studied for a degree in Theology and English Literature.  Then I went teaching and at night I studied for a B.A. in Mathematics, Irish and History.  All the while I felt I was amassing, as it were, a store of knowledge.  During this time, I believe that all the knowledge I learnt was of an external rather than of an internal variety.  I was not long in learning that very few of the students in front of me were interested in knowledge for its own sake.  Indeed, I very soon learnt that I really was not a very good teacher at all, or at least that's what I thought then.  Some of my classes were unruly and I certainly had not yet mastered the skill of good classroom management.  Looking back from the perspective of some thirty years I was really "very green about the gills" as the saying goes.  I was, also, of course, doing too much studying at night to allow me any real time to do adequate preparation for class, or to follow up on unruly cases and so on.  However, I did go on to learn from my mistakes and to eventually become what I consider to be a tolerably good teacher with reasonable control of my charges. 

However, I did feel that I had a good presence in my classes and that I had managed to form good  relations with a number of my classes.  Anyway, it was somewhere around my third year teaching that the inward journey into knowledge began. Looking back on things I see now that knowledge as an organized body of information out there in an objective and dispassionate universe could neither satisfy me or the students whom I taught.  My job was becoming meaningless and dry for me.  Something more was needed.  I needed to find my passion for real knowledge again.  And so began another journey or a new diving down into Self, which I will attempt to describe in the next post.

Losing My Religion 3

Let there be no Negativity

I am conscious - all too conscious, indeed - that the title of this series of posts is negative.  Yet as any half discerning reader of these pages will note, I am not negative about religion at all.  In the last two posts I outlined both the positive and negative strengths of the Church and the positive and negative things I had learnt from my involvement in the Roman Catholic Church at many levels - including three years as a member of a Religious Order - over the course of my life time.  Indeed, to lose something implies that one has to replace it with something.  Therefore, in a sense, losing one's religion actually implies in a certain sense a deepening of "religion", or at least a change of what the word "religion" can or could be defined as. 

Indeed, I have been involved in many wonderful groups associated with the Roman Catholic Church over the years: the Society of St Vincent de Paul, helping out in Homeless Shelters, annual retreats, theological and spiritual conferences, meditation sessions and even many wonderfully inspiring liturgies.  All of these things I still experience as personally gratifying, rewarding and even uplifting.  Even if they are not now my main source of spiritual nourishment, I have no problem participating in them.  In short, I can see much good in religions, not the least of which is their potential role in the moral guidance of the general populace .  However, there is no need to be a sociologist to note their significant decline in influence in these postmodern times.

It is also helpful to clarify what one means by religion and what one means by Church.  There are many definitions and many perspectives even within various religions and churches.  They are not all monolithic nor authoritarian.  Indeed, I also readily admit, and indeed I have often outlined the obvious flaws and major failings of various religious denominations in these pages over the years.

That much evil has been perpetrated in the name of the Roman Catholic Church over the centuries from the Crusades right through the centuries needs little adumbration here.  As some theologian once said, and I tend to agree: "There is nothing as good as a good religion, and nothing as bad as a bad one!"  Once again, indeed, it's not so much that Religion is bad or good per se, but rather that humans who go to make it up are bad or good.  What happens over the years in very orthodox and/or authoritarian structures is that a certain type of elite cling to power, and see that they have control over the faithful believers through the exercise of that power, and it has been the corruption of power that has led to the downfall of the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland and indeed worldwide.

Religionless Christianity

During my years studying theology I was quite taken with the great German theologian and martyr Dietrich Bonhoeffer's (1906 – 1945) concept of "religionless Christianity." There is a lot of depth to what Bonhoeffer was about in this seemingly contradictory concept.  This most learned and most spiritual of theologians wrestled with both the superficiality, blatant cowardice and indeed sheer capitulation of mainstream churches to the whims and dictates of an obviously deranged and evil dictator called Adolf Hitler.  Such a capitulation of central values which literally ripped the heart out of what religion should be must surely have inspired this great theologian to mint his wonderful, if paradoxical, concept.  Bonhoeffer invented "religionless Christianity" in prison shortly before his execution for his part in the Abwehr plots to assassinate the deranged dictator Adolf Hitler.  I have read several books on this leading German neo-liberal theologian and could not but be inspired by both his life and thoughts.  Bonhoeffer was a most congruent person, to use Carl Roger's great descriptor of the counsellor, or in more down-to-earth phraseology - this Lutheran pastor talked the talk and walked the walk at one and the same time.  An interesting account of "religionless Christianity" is given by Professor Richard Beck in his blog Experimental Theology and it can be read here.

Also an interesting take on following Jesus in a "Religionless Christianity" a la Bonhoeffer can be accessed here at the Mustard Seed School of Theology -  see Mustard Seed, founded by Kurt Struckmeyer.  Among other things about "religionless Christianity" Stuckmeyer makes the following insightful and relevant comment:

What bothered Bonhoeffer was that a person could confess doctrinally correct beliefs, observe its moral codes, and follow the accepted behaviors and practices of the Church, while simultaneously committing unspeakable horrors. We have witnessed the same thing in the American South—the "Bible Belt"—where harassment, persecution and lynchings of African-Americans was a norm for “white Christians,” the forerunners of today's conservative Evangelicals.  (See here )

Conclusion

All of this corruption, hatred, suffering, pain and evil caused in the name of religion has undoubtedly got religion a bad name.  That, in short is what I mean by LOSING MY RELIGION.  There has been too much of a capitulation to other "values" than those espoused by Jesus Christ in his Gospels by many mainstream Churches and/or Religions.  In a sense, that is the road I have travelled in my own life, from being a member of a Church or Religion to being a person of deeper values located within my own search for personal authenticity.  To call this, then, my own spiritual search is no mere navel-gazing, no mis-guided egocentrism; nor is it a solipsistic escapism from a shared world with other humans.  In short, what I am getting at here is that I can only define myself by relating to others, by connecting with them in an authentic way.  This is essentially what I mean by spirituality - that journey to Selfhood in community with others who are similarly on a journey, or as the early Chjristians put it, those of us who are "in via" or "on the way."  This will conclude the present series of posts under the title of Losing My Religion as I feel it is a tad too negative as a title.  However, I will continue talking about Spiritual themes in the next many posts.  Thanks for your patience and for reading!

Losing My Religion 2

Too Much of a Good Thing

St Peter's Basilica, May, 2008

If one over-indulges in any of one's desires, one can become somewhat sickened by excess.  We can indeed literally get too much of a good thing.  As the philosophers, and a goodly number of religionists of all hues, tell us, moderation or temperance is to be desired in all things.  The same, I believe, can be said about religion in general.  In Ireland we certainly did get too much religion over the years.  In fact, it was literally pushed down our throats from the beginning and the Roman Catholic Church called the shots on morality in general and sexual ethics in particular.  Indeed, there was an openly prized close link between Church and State since the foundation of the latter in 1922.  Then there was the privileged position of the Roman Catholic Church in the State, a fact that was acknowledged in the Constitution of Ireland 1937 until that particular reference was removed by the Fifth Amendment.  That amendment also removed the official recognition of certain other named religious denominations as well.  It is right that no religion or denomination of any sort should be offered any special position outside the freedom of all citizens to practise publicly their professed beliefs. The change was effected by the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution Act, 1972 which was approved by referendum on 7 December 1972 and signed into law on 5 January 1973.  That certain clerics in a highly centralised, autocratic and hierarchical Church would become so accustomed to the use and abuse of power and its trappings would be inevitable.  Indeed, the Archbishop of Dublin, Dr. John Charles McQuaid behaved like a Medieval Prince requiring even high politicians in the land to bow the knee to his personage and indeed follow slavishly his every wish/whim.

However, we must acknowledge the one of the traditional strengths of the Church (any mainline Church indeed) is that it promotes high standards of moral conduct in any society by appealing to the human virtues.  In this regard I refer here to a remark by Professor John Joseph Lee in his book Ireland 1912–1985 : "The Church is a bulwark, perhaps now the main bulwark of the civic culture. It is the very opportunism of the traditional value system that leaves religion as the main bulwark between a reasonably civilised civil society and the untrammelled predatory instincts of individual and pressure group selfishness, curbed only by the power of rival predators .... If religion were no longer to fulfil its historic civilising mission as a substitute for internalised values of civic responsibility, the consequences for the country, no less than for the church, could be lethal" (page 675).

Neither For nor Against

St Peter's Square from the Duomo, May 2008

Now this sequence of posts is neither explicitly for nor explicitly against the Church or any church per se.  Rather they reflect my personal engagement with the Roman Catholic Church for 40 years and my disengagement from it over the last 14 years of my life.  Up until 40 years of age I was a practising Roman Catholic and I did get spiritual nourishment in that community of believers. (I shall explain in due course how the Church ceased to be important for me.) There is much good in all churches.  Now, here again, once one defines precisely what one means by church the reader will understand why.  There are, to my mind, two classic books written on the nature of the Church and they are Hans Kung's (1928-    ) famous tome The Church (1967 - still a renowned and scholarly work) and Avery Dulles, S.J. (1918-2008) equally famous little classic called Models of Church (1974).  Now, there are many models, but the one emphasised by the Second Vatican Council is the model of church as People of God.  Now, if that is our working definition, our attitudes will be way more positive than if we were working from a hierarchical model of Church.  In this latter case, our criticisms are indeed legion especially since the revelations of the systematic cover up of cases of child abuse by ordained members of that "official" or hierarchical Church.

Positive points about the Catholic Church as I experienced it: (i) good liturgies, especially in the earlier years - Latin hymns, good Church Music - in short, good aesthetic/spiritual experience (ii) a good moral formation, even if the sexual ethics side of things was somewhat warped, i.e., ridiculous ban on contraception, (iii) high standard of education in all subjects and (iv) some really inspiring spiritual teachers here and there throughout the network.  I am also in agreement with our great Irish Times columnist John Waters that the major liturgies or rites of passage like Baptisms, Weddings and Funerals are done well and very movingly, too, what Waters succinctly and humorously calls the Church's "hatching, matching and dispatching" functions. (v) an excellent social teaching - well researched, humane and practical and (vi) great charitable organisations like the wonderful Society of St Vincent de Paul which literally provides the poor or those below the breadline with necessary food items, furniture and indeed money.

Negative points as I experienced it would be: (i) too much emphasis on doctrines and dogma (ii) an obsession with control on the intellectual as well as the moral side, (iii) too clerical, (iv) need to allow priests to marry and (v) women should be allowed become priests.

The Study of Theology

Many years ago I remember Dr Michael Paul Gallagher, who has written much on unbelief, opining that it was quite likely that a significant, if small,  number of people who study theology would become agnostics or atheists.  True for him.   Good theology, like good philosophy, makes the student question things.  The questioning spirit can and does lead to agnosticism and atheism.  Having studies both theology and philosophy, along with other general subjects, I can readily understand the import of Fr Michael-Paul's comments.  One learns a mass of interesting information like Jesus was actually born 6 years B.C.; that the Bible was written by numerous authors whom the Church looks upon as being inspired to write the truth; that the 25th December is quite an arbitrary date for the birth of Jesus; that the Scriptures are a complex mix of history and faith spin as it were; that unthreading the intricate strands of archaeology, mythology, history, literary genre, faith, one from another is a scholarly task to say the least.  Then there is the whole area of the development of doctrine to be teased out and studied as doctrines did not suddenly appear out of thin air as it were, but rather were elucidated over the course of time right up to their formal definitions.  Then, of course there is the study of what faith is and how it is a response to the revelation of God, not to mention the whole nature of God question.  All of these and more have been discussed by the learned and creative minds of theologians.

Another area of abiding interest is that of the interplay of philosophy and theology, call that philosophical theology if you wish - the area of specialism which I pursued for my degree in Theology called the Licentiatus Sacrae Theologiae (STL).

Living the Vision rather than Preaching the Message

If the older Church was about preaching the message - and oftentimes a forceful if not authoritarian proclamation of the same - the more modern incarnation of the Church is that of Living the Vision.  If we were to put this in modern language we might say that the modern Church is and must be more about Walking the Walk rather than Talking the Talk.  The problem with talkers is precisely that they talk too much and do too little.  Also, what has made things worse for the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland is that it talked the talk and kept right on doing so while all the time covering up its own crimes and sins.  This is what mainly brought about the downfall of the Roman Catholic Church in its incarnation as Hierarchical or Clerical Church.  That the clerical or hierarchical or authoritarian Church has fallen from grace and must continue to fall is a good thing.  If that model of church has anything to learn it must be humility, and a willingness to ask for forgiveness and be more open to allowing the laity, especially women a greater role within its institution.

Losing Religion and Gaining Spirituality

One of my favourite quotations in the theological world is the following, which I believe comes from the Alcoholics Anonymous network: "Religion is for those who fear Hell.  Spirituality is for those who have been there!"  This sums up succinctly my own stance with respect to my personal faith today.  I have little or no interest in formal religion but much interest in spiritual questions and concerns.  I have long believed that if there is a God or an Energy or a Life Force keeping this wonderful, if at times sad and wounded, world in existence then it is my duty, and in the interests of my well being and that of all whom I love, to align myself with that Force.  At this stage in my spiritual development I believe that there is such a Force or Energy, but that that Force or Energy is impersonal.  However, I will write more about those ideas in later posts here.  I am merely now setting out the trajectory of my faith development as it were.

To be continued

Losing My Religion 1

Introduction

I have always liked the song by R.E.M. called Losing my Religion, which strangely enough is not about religion at all.  In fact, it would seem that the title is a metaphor for the songwwriter's (Michael Stipe) coming to terms with his homosexuality, just as the murder image in Bohemian Rhapsody is metaphoric for the same acceptance by Freddie Mercury. However, the first two lines of the song fit in with my theme here, which is literally about losing my religion, or at least a certain form of it.  It runs simply and succinctly: "life is bigger//It's bigger than you."  Indeed, it is - it is bigger than all of us.  The sentiments in these lines is tantamount to Socrates' great exhortation to us to firstly declare our ignorance before engaging on any intellectual task.



The Mystery that faded

I was born in 1958 and I made my First Holy Communion in 1965 at the age of seven.  I can still remember the wonder and the mystery that the Roman Catholic Church of that era held for me as it did for most others at that time in pre-European Ireland, innocent Ireland, so-called uncorrupted Ireland.  Then also my Confirmation at the age of 10 in 1968 was also very much a mystery-suffused experience.  There were the Latin hymns such as the wonderful O Salutaris Hostia which went "O salutáris Hóstia,//Quæ cæli pandis óstium,//Bella premunt hostília,//Da robur, fer auxílium.//O Saving Victim//Who opens the doors of Heaven,//The enemy are warring against us//Give us strength and aid!//"

Then there was the equally wonderful Tantum Ergo, the first verse of which goes: "Tántum ergo Sacraméntum//Venerémur cérnui.//Et antíquum documéntum// Nóvo cédat rítui://Præstet fídes suppleméntum//Sénsuum deféctui.//So great a Sacrament, therefore,// let us worship, bowed down;// And let the ancient example// give way to a new rite;// Let faith bestow a support// to the defect of the senses.//" 

These hymns were sung in the beautiful Gregorian chant.  Then add to that all the incense rising with our Latin prayers to heaven.  As well as that the liturgies were splendid with beautiful ornate vestments and a solemnity which is sorely lacking today.  Back then the Mystery of Religion was literally overwhelming for a young innocent child, if not for the more experienced adults. In the black and white and so very poor working class 1960s Ireland the sheer experience of colourfulness of the Roman Catholic liturgies could not fail to be enthralling.  I still remember the profound sense of wonder and mystery which the Church had for my innocent young self. 

However, as I have grown up, obviously the world has moved on very much in Ireland which has come into both twentieth and twenty-first centuries in quick succession with a bang since then.  I learned in my late teens and early twenties that such experiences of wonder and mysstery could be communicated through the Arts, in Literature, Art, Theatre, Sculpture, Music and Film.  In short, the early experience of Mystery as communicated through the Church faded.  Back then "God was in His Heaven,// All was right with the world." as the poet Robert Browning put it. That feeling was for me, back then, my first encounter with Transcendence (of the Divine variety).  However, that trancendence has been replaced by a more psychological or transpersonal one since then. (I will discuss Transcendence and Immanence later in these posts when I get the chance!)

Spring Cleaning

Spring Cleaning

It's Saturday 25th of February and the Spring has been well and truly with us for some time now here in Hibernia, the land of Winter as the old Romans called our Emerald Isle.  We were left outside the "Orbis Romanus" as the ancient Romans looked west from the British coastline and saw nothing but winter beyond the Irish Sea.  Coming from a Mediterranean climate one can understand their not going further West, because after all who could survive such winters as there were obviously in Ireland.  Be that as it may, this last month has been excellent weather wise here, with temperatures up to 15 and 16 degrees Centigrade almost daily, together with lovely sunshine.  The first crocuses, snowdrops and daffodils have already peaked their heads above the ground in my front garden.  The last two winters and early spring have been disastrously cold here in Ireland with temperatures dipping down to minus 15 - 19  degrees Centigrade below freezing.  There were never winters any colder than last winter in my life time which now spans some 54 years.  The last time Ireland reached such low temperatures was during the winter of 1947 apparently.  I can remember my late father Thomas Quinlan speaking about those freezing days.

Also I have been engaged upon some spring cleaning of my house and home.  For the last week I have had the painter and decorator in.  The place is beginning to look fresh and new again as it wears the hues of magnolia and brilliant white.  Today, I have spent some two hours going through old books in the attic in search of some books by Martin Buber and Paul Tillich which I need for some current work I have been doing at college.  I found the ones by the Tillich but not the ones by Buber.  However, I discovered many more books of interest, short classics from the pen John A. T. Robinson called Honest to God and But That I Can't Believe.  Robinson was a major force in shaping liberal Christian theology, and along with Harvard theologian Harvey Cox, he spearheaded the field of secular theology.   The first of these books named, Honest to God caused controversy, as it called on Christians to view of God as the "Ground of Being" rather than as a supernatural being "out there". In his later books, he championed early dates and apostolic authorship for the gospels, largely without success.  The great Irish theologian Dr Dermot Lane introduced us to this author and happily I still have both books.  I will definitely re-read them when I get a chance.

Other books that I had to sift through in my above mentioned quest were books from the pens of such theologians as Karl Barth, Hans Kung, Edward Schillebeeckx New York Times Obituary (a theologian whose writings I have loved and found  both intellectually stimulating and existentially rewarding), John Henry Newman, Wilfred Harrington, Hans Kung, Bernard Lonergan, Karl Rahner and so on.  These books brought back memories of studying theology back in the 1980s.  I had consigned them to the attic as I had determined they had become somewhat useless to me and somewhat obsolete, given that I had moved on in life and had, somehow, gone beyond theology in my own life, preferring psychology and philosophy as being at once more existentially and cognitively challenging and  gripping.  And, yet still, I realise at once that none of us can deny any period in our lives, and especially any spiritual and intellectual nourishing that that and any other given period may have given us, without doing considerable damage to our identity.

Spring Cleaning as Metaphor

And so, I return to my opening paragraph which recounts a physical and real day-to-day act of cleaning and renewing.  Indeed external acts are always at another and deeper level metaphorical.  We cannot engage in outer cleaning and renewal without, indeed, doing so on an innermost level.  One of the things I am looking forward to is getting my lounge or sitting room refurbished, complete with some in-built bookshelves to house the better books in my collection of some forty or so years.  This will be another journey for me, to select what books from almost forty years of study and reflection to keep and what ones to pass on, or even perhaps to recycle in the green bin.  I remember some thirty or more years ago when I lived at home with my mother that once she remarked that I had far too many books and her fear was that should there be a fire we'd all be burnt up in the flames with those books.  I suppose I must now have several thousand books from courses in Theology, Philosophy, English Literature, Irish Language and Literature, Italian Language and Literature, Scripture, Theology, Mathematics, History, Education, Sociology, Psychology, General Science, Special Education, Psychology of Education and so on and so forth.  Anyway, being an inveterate reader has kept me out of trouble and out of harm's way over all those intervening years.  However, books do have a habit of clogging up the place.  Maybe, as my older brother Gerard always remarks, I should make more use of libraries.  However, I do make use of libraries to some extent.  Unfortunately also, Amazon has become one of my most favourite websites from which I can buy books at my ease.  Long live my pleasant addiction to books.

In short, any physical spring cleaning I have done today has been spiritually and personally enriching, reminding me of the paths I have trodden, the ways I have come and has encouraged me to keep right on being true to myself and to the search for deeper authenticity.  Happy Spring Cleaning to all my readers, and thanks for accompanying me along some the way!  Salve!

A Dangerous Method: Review

Way back in September 2008 I wrote the following in this blog:


"I have long been a reader of the works of Carl Gustave Jung (1875 – 1961) who was a famous Swiss psychiatrist, a personal friend and disciple of the founder of psychoanalysis Dr Sigmund Freud, an influential thinker and the founder of analytical psychology in opposition to psychoanalysis. Jung himself owed much to his erstwhile friend and mentor, though they grew apart as the younger man began to establish himself as an independent thinker. I had heard all the following Jungian terms when I was at college in the 1970s as his thought had infiltrated the study not alone of psychology but also of philosophy, theology and English literature which I was then studying: Shadow, Collective Unconscious, Archetypes, Individuation and Synchronicity. These words have been rattling around in my head for the last thirty years and I have often alluded to them in these posts. I have just finished reading the excellent biography of Carl Gustave Jung - the one written by Ronald Hayman.   Dr. Anthony Storr, also a favourite psychiatrist and Jungian therapist, had this to say of Hayman's book: "The best biography of Jung." When I saw this judgement quoted on the dust jacket I immediately purchased my copy of A Life of Jung (W.W. Norton & Co., 2001)"  See here.

I have also discussed Freud many times in these pages also. In April 2009, I wrote the following about the founder of psychoanalysis:

"Freud spent his whole life attempting to fathom what was at the heart of the human psyche – if it’s not somewhat contradictory to use the metaphor ‘heart’ with respect to the mind. In doing so he constructed his famous archaeological or topographical or layer model of the psyche namely – conscious, preconscious and unconscious strata(depths or layers) of the mind. Needless to say, Freud had been obsessed with archaeology. Then, we are all possibly as well, if not more, acquainted with his structural model of the psyche – that is, the model with which practically everyone who knows even a little about Freud is acquainted with, at least with the terminology which has entered common parlance, namely Id, Ego and Superego. These according to Freud are the major components of the self or mind or personality, call it what you will for the moment. It is very important to note that this structural model puts these three major components in the unconscious. These Ego, Id and Superego are not topographical regions or layers as it were as we saw in his archaeological model. Rather they are distinct agencies at war or in conflict with one another. Indeed, for Freud human beings were not yet fully evolved. Hence there was a split or a rift in their very nature. In other words human beings were torn between their dark bestial motives (Id) and civilized conduct and demeanour (mores and manners and morals of society). On the one hand then there was humankind's animal nature (Id) and its cultural aspirations.(promoted by the Superego) Hence, humans are literally driven to seek pleasure, but society and civilization reign this rapaciousness in because control of passions is necessary - otherwise there would be murder, rape and strife of all kinds." (See here )

A Dangerous Method Poster

When I saw the trailer of A Dangerous Method in the cinema recently, I could not resist going to this film with a certain expectation. This is a good, but not brilliant film.  I enjoyed it much and would go back and view it several times again.  However, I feel that anyone unacquainted with the birth and development of psychoanalysis will be at a loss with this film.  It would be a good introduction to whet the appetites of would-be counsellors and psychotherapists of all hues, though I wonder how appealing it will be to the mass audience of cinema-goers.  Indeed, anyone who has read either Freud or Jung, even books about them, will be familiar with some lines of dialogue which come straight from their own writings, like the following:


“We are bringing them the plague,” Freud purportedly said when he and Jung and Ferenczi disembarked in New York in 1909. “We’re bringing them the plague, and they don’t even know it.” (Quotation from The Death of Sigmund Freud by by Mark Edmundson, p. 32)


Jung and Freud remained very close friends for some seven years from March 1907 till 1914. As Hayman succinctly remarks about this friendship: "Both benefited professionally: the alliance helped to propagate Freud's ideas, while the ideas helped both of them to international fame. (Carl Jung: Biography, Ronald Hayman).  The film is essentially an account of their relationship and of the development of psychoanalysis as a therapy over those years.  Freud saw himself as the architect and founder of psychoanalysis and he demanded nothing short of complete allegiance to his ideas and his ideas alone.  That Freud was arrogant and egotistical about his beloved theories and practices which he saw essentially as firmly scientific is beyond doubt.  That he became angry, even neurotic, when saw his favoured "son" and "heir" beginning to go his own way, come up with wider and more "mystical" and unscientific ideas about psychoanalysis is also undoubted.  That inevitably a split would come where two large "egos" meet is also always beyond doubt.  When the split did come it was final and irreversible.  This film follows their relationship to this bitter end.


Always an Eve

Sabina Spielrein

I suppose there always has to be a temptress somewhere in the background, even foreground to tempt our would-be hero.  The temptress comes in the person of Sabina Spielrein.  The film opens with the hysterical Sabina being forcibly brought to the Burghölzli Mental Hospital  which is portrayed as a very humane institution indeed, given that we are in the early years of the twentieth century before the First World War.  Jung is presented as a kind and sympathetic person which indeed he was.  As a reader of Jung for many years it was only in the last ten years that I learnt that he had at least two mistresses, both of whom were his patients.  That this great man had feet of clay came as a surprise initially, but unfortunately we are all too human, all too much heir to our own weaknesses, so to demand superhuman qualities from our heroes is probably asking too much.  However, after the initial shock, or more correctly initial disappointment, I quickly realised that I was being silly and that we all have our weaknesses.  This certainly does not detract from the validity of Jung's theories which are extremely holistic to say the least.


His relationship with his patient Sabina gathers momentum. At first it is purely platonic or romantic. Eventually after long deliberations it becomes sexual. He became her 'Siegfried', the romantic hero of her dreams, and Jung admits all this to Freud. Being acutely aware as psychiatrists of transference, it is remarkable indeed that these two great men often got lost under the strength of its allure. Sabina referred to their lovemaking as 'poetry.' This was also a very fraught relationship - one which, when Jung decided to end it, caused Sabina to stab him at his consultancy room. Luckily for him, she only managed to stab him in the hand, though in the film we see that she stabs him in the face.  That the film portrays Jung as beating the semi-clad Spielrein on the buttocks during love-making is more than likely the director's imagination rather than historic fact, though I could be wrong here.  Knowing films, and what films must do for dramatic purposes, I instinctively feel that some licence is taken here.


A Dangerous Method is a 2011 Canadian historical film directed by David Cronenberg and starring Viggo Mortensen (as Freud), Michael Fassbender (as Jung) , Keira Knightley (as Sabina) and Vincent Cassel (as Otto Gross). The screenplay was adapted by Academy Award-winning writer Christopher Hampton from his 2002 stage play The Talking Cure, which in turn was based on the 1993 non-fiction book by John Kerr, A Most Dangerous Method: the story of Jung, Freud, and Sabina Spielrein.


A Dangerous Method is a German/Canadian co-production. The film premiered at The 68th Venice Film Festival and was also featured at the 2011 Toronto International Film Festival.  As I said above it is a good film which I'd give a 6 or 7 out of 10 to.  The cinematography (by Peter Suschitzky) is wonderful as are the period costumes and the studies of Jung and Freud as well as the latter's famous couch are all lovingly and carefully rendered to give an overall feeling of authenticity.


If you are going to go to this film a little light reading, if it is possible to do light reading about psychoanalysis, is a must to get you into the frame of mind.  Incidentally, the music is wonderful and is by the inimitable Howard Shore.

Dialogue not Monologue: A Sort of a Response to Dr. Tony Humphreys

Introduction

Oftentimes we have to call in the experts because we have no other way out.  Serious, and indeed not so serious, medical problems come to mind as do problems with plumbing, sewage, drainage, electricity and so on.  Then in the education field, in which I work, we need the advice of experts with troublesome, even no so troublesome ADHD, ADD, ODD or ASD children.  We certainly do need our experts to improve our practice, add to our skills base or even to encourage and confirm us in our own good practice.  Indeed, that's what the inspectorate should be and do ideally.

The Wisdom of the Non-Expert

However, there is place for the wise lay person who is far from being an expert.  What comes to mind here is the recent controversy over an article written in The Examiner by the clinical psychologist Dr Tony Humphreys which questioned whether ASD is a good label or not for those who have been diagnosed as so being.  Indeed he went further still and questioned whether ASD existed at all as a neurological disorder.  Now the article caused consternation among parents of ASD children for two reasons: (i) the author implied, according to those who angrily rang Joe Duffy's Live Line programme on RTE Radio One, that their cold uncaring treatment of their children initially caused the ASD and (ii) because a diagnosis given by the mainstream experts (not mavericks like Dr. Tony Humphreys) brings a certain amount of emotional relief, not to mention financial relief as it allows access to professional care and facilities, which are not too thick on the ground anyway.

Having read Dr Humphreys article a few times, I don't think that he actually said what these sensitive parents understood him as having said.  Admittedly, a sensitive reader (i.e., parent or teacher) could make that inference.  However, he did appear on Marian Finucane's Saturday morning programme to answer his critics.  He stated that people were putting words in his mouth and that he had absolutely never said that parents were at fault.  Indeed, he had not.  He also re-affirmed and reiterated the fact that he always insists in every seminar he gives and in every book he has ever written that parents are not at fault at all; that if ever they are at fault, it is only done unconsciously.  Dr. Humphreys is a sincere man and one could not deny that.  However, the good Doctor has made a very basic mistake in philosophy, that is, he has been living so long in the world of the expert (a well-paid expert at that as I have attended many of his seminars over the years and have forked out hard earned money to hear him) that he has begun to believe in his own expertese, hook, line and sinker.  Now a philosopher does not do that.  In fact a good philosopher is always questioning his own suppositions and pre-suppositions, and indeed his motivations.  He would ask questions like, What if I'm wrong?  Why do others hold differing opinions?  What's the evidence on the opposing side of the argument?  What if I'm right?  If I am right what are the implications of what I'm saying?   Or even more to the point, What will be the feelings of parents and teachers if I write X,Y or Z?   Or, again, Maybe there is a more approriate forum than a weekly column to express these views?

The Arrogant Expert

Now, I am not going to throw the accusation of arrogance at Dr. Humphreys because I have never found him so over the years I have attended his seminars and read his popular books.  What I do find objectionable is his sheer conviction that he is fully correct, that is, "I'm the expert and I have the answers" stance.  This is not what a good philosopher in the tradition of the great Socrates would allow.  On the contrary a good philosopher starts with questioning throroughly his own assumptions.  Now, I have met a few arrogant experts in my life and they have come from all walks of life.  I remember one psychologist taking a whole staff to task, and outrageously so, over a certain method of discipline they were using in a school (and it had nothing to do with corporal punishment in any shape or form as that has been outlawed since 1981 here in Ireland.)  On several occasions I have met inspectors, who have never done very much teaching in the careers at all, being severely critical of classroom practices of X or Y teacher.  Save us from these experts, these so-called experts!

We do need Debate and Dialogue

Now, let us not stifle debate.  That there are many positions and arguments about X theory or Y theory in any field you may care to mention is without doubt.  We need to hear all sides of a particular argument and the majority of experts in any given field must be the ones who give the near-as-possible-to-consensus answer.  Now that answer must remain until it is disproved.  That seems to be good solid common sense.

As a sufferer from clinical depression for the last fifteen or so years I am quite content with my diagnosis and I am not in a hurry to throw away my antidepressant medication even though I have read much of the publications of the anti-medication lobby in mental health.  Now, this does not mean either that I have never gone to counselling or psychotherapy or engaged in other non-medical complementary practices like meditation and yoga.  In other words, it is never an either/or answer but rather a both/and in most cases.  I readily admit that in some cases medication has been given rather too readily making problems worse but in the balance of things our medical profession call most cases correctly from my experience.  Again, this is not to deny the serious failures in the system which we can read all too frequently about in our media.

Yes we need a well-informed debate.  More than that we need Dialogue.  I have been reading of late that wonderful master of the dialogic way of approaching life itself, viz., the wonderful Martin Buber.  In the terms invented and used by this great Jewish philosopher, we can say that Dr Humphreys has given us a monolgue, whereas what we teachers (and parents) need is real dialogue where the I of the expert meets the Thou of the non-expert and vice-versa and the wisdom and humanity of both are affirmed.

Some Good Films

They say that we Dubliners attend the cinema more often and in greater numbers per head of population than most other cities in the world.  That's what's said here, at any rate.  However, even if this contention is not true, the cinemas always seem to be packed whenever I go.  Anyway, I've viewed many wonderful films of late, so I'll give a very brief commentary on four recent ones I've seen, starting in the reverse order of viewing.

(1) Carnage:

Despite its provocative title, this film isn't a thriller.  In fact, the title is deliberately provocative.  What drew me to this film in the first place was its controversial but brilliant director Roman Polanski, not to mention its equally talented cast - Jodie Foster, Kate Winslet, John C. Reilly and Christoph Waltz.   The whole action takes place in an apartment and at times in the corridor outside it.  Given its tiny setting - in fact almost a theatre space - would immediately remind one of being at the theatre.  Indeed, one would not be too far wide of the mark in that conclusion as this film is based on a play called God of Carnage (originally Lay Waste To England For Me) by the playwright Yasmina Reza. (Reza's parents were both of Jewish origin, her father Iranian, her mother Hungarian and she was born in Paris in 1960)   The play and film concern two pairs of parents, one of whose child has hurt the other at a public park, who meet to discuss the matter in a civilized manner. However, as the evening goes on, the parents become increasingly childish, resulting in the evening devolving into chaos. The play was a success in its original language, French, and has been equally acclaimed in its other English-translated productions in both London and New York. 

The film is by turns moving and profound, funny and lighthearted - just like life.  One feels that the cast are plumbing their own depths in trying to make sense of what life is about anyway.  I remember one of our great national poets, Patrick Kavanagh, saying that life is neither tragedy not comedy, but rather tragi-comedy.  How true he was and this wee film (it lasts a little more than an hour) concurs with the poet's conclusions about life.

Adapted, then, from Yasmina Reza’s Tony Award-winning play, Roman Polanski’s new film is the year’s most scathing, shocking, unsettlingly honest and surprisingly hilarious comedy.  It does not surprise me that Polanski has been called "the director of small spaces," because he makes every little movement and facial expression significant.   As I've outlined above both sets of parents try to solve their sons' fighting in a civilized manner.  At least that's their initial intention, but like all good drama we cannot help suspecting that there is more at stake here and that things are not quite as they seem.   What begins cordially soon descends into chaos as tempers flare, secrets are revealed and the Scotch starts to flow.   Then one lady vomits over the coffee table, drenching in the process the art books of the hostess.  Life is certainly not mere superficial convention as the masks of each character is gradually peeled off.

With the stunning quartet of stars delivering no-holds-barred performances under Polanski’s ruthlessly tight direction, Carnage, according to its publicity at any rate, is destined to be a prime contender this award season.   This is an excellent short film, tight and spare in its dialogue.  I'd go to it again and again for its insights into life and for its sheer fun.  Then, despite their parents' involvement, the youngsters make up of their own accord anyway.  We're left with many questions as all good drama and all good films should so do.  Why do parents have to fight their children's battles for them?  Are they living their own lives out vicariously through them?  These are questions only.  I don't have any answers.  The truth is never simple and very seldom if at all pure!

(2) J.Edgar

This movie is worth seeing for the performance of the wonderful Leonardo diCaprio alone - one of my favourite actors, and for the fact that the inimitable Clint Eastwood directed it.  Again I'm biased because he is one of my favourite actors and my most favourite director.  Now that I have nailed my prejudices firmly to the mast, let me say that the subject of the film is one of the most enigmatic, powerful and conflicted Americans of the twentieth century, viz., John Edgar Hoover (1895-1972) was the first Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) of the United States.  Eastwood and the screenwriter Dustin Lance Black have re-created wonderfully that period in the nineteen-twenties and thirties in the USA when a righteous, conservative young man, influenced by an overpowering mother who believed that her son was born for position in society, could win over all he came in contact with by his persuasiveness.  Indeed, the New York Times puts it succinctly when it says that this young man "with a stentorian style could electrify a nation."

Having just put down a marvellous book called Between Man and Man by Martin Buber , I am left with the overpowering conviction that we humans are creatures who long for security in a very insecure world.  This existential feeling of insecurity fits in nicely with the career of J.Edgar Hoover who all his life preyed on the insecurities of others, even presidents, an account of whose "sins" and misdemeanours he kept on secret files so that he could "persuade" them to keep him at the helm of his baby, the FBI.  The New York Times review of this film is superb and it can be accessed here: ReviewNYT.  DiCaprio is wonderful as he captures brilliantly this conflicted, repressed (he kept his homosexuality a secret) and tortured soul who believed in his own propaganda, literally constructed a fictitious profile of himself as hero, while all the time he had feet of clay. Returning to a line from David Denby's review in the above named paper, I concur with a Buberlike intensity, that "Hoover, we realize, is obsessed with keeping America safe because he feels unsafe himself. Internal subversion is a personal, not just a political, threat to him. "

(3) The Iron Lady

The film begins circa 2008 with an elderly Lady Thatcher buying milk unrecognized by other customers and walking back from the shop alone. Over the course of three days we see her struggle with dementia and with the lack of power that comes with old age, whilst looking back on defining moments of her personal and professional life, on which she reminisces with her (dead) husband, Denis. She is shown as having difficulty distinguishing between the past and present. A theme throughout the film is the personal price which Thatcher has paid for power.  This writer's own mother has had dementia for the last eleven years and her brain is practically wiped clean of all memories now.  In a sense, this is more a film about dementia and what power does to a person rather than a straight bio-pic.  We really don't get to know Thatcher at all or what really motivates her as we see everything through the eyes of an ailing woman.  So what we get are fragments of history in flashback.  Picking dementia as the focus through which the film is created is perhaps its central flaw.  Being invited into the mind of a demented heroine is not a very secure vantage point from which to view the history of the longest serving British Prime Minister of the twentieth century, the only woman ever to have held that prestigious post.  However, the film is worth seeing for the wonderful acting of the brilliant and inimitable Meryl Streep.

(4) War Horse

This is a "good feeling" type of film reminiscent at stages of The Quiet Man (1952) which was directed by John Ford, especially in its opening scenes - rural England, the peasant life, fairs and especially the music which reminded this viewer of traditional Irish music.   However, the current film under review here is set in Devon, England, where a boy called Albert Narracott watches the birth of a thoroughbred foal and follows its growth with studied admiration. Much to the dismay of his mother, Rose, Albert's father, Ted, buys the colt at auction, despite a friend pointing out a more suitable plough horse for his farm.  Thus begins the young Albert's close relationship with this beautiful animal whom he affectionately calls Joey.  The film recounts Joey's journey from the farm in Devon to becoming a war horse and to his experiences on the Western Front in the First World War.  If you are an animal lover you will love this film.  As an animal lover, I have to admit that I was moved to tears at points in this film because I have long believed that the unconditional love offered humans by animals - especially dogs, dolphins and horses - is second to none.  Stephen Spielberg works his magic on his audience by drawing us into the "personal life" of Joey, and he does this subtly almost without our knowing it.  Indeed, I hasten to add that no animals were hurt during the making of this film in these days of wonderful computer-generated special effects.  Philosophically, though, it leads me to question again and again our treatment of animals (brutal at times) and to wonder whether we humans are really specist when we credit ourselves with being the most intelligent and possibly the most ethical of animals (at times).  Personally, this film raises the big question of humanity's evil nature, its estrangement from its own animal or bodily nature which leads it inexorably to cut the world to pieces including both humans and animals.  The WIKI tells us that War Horse

is a 2011 war epic motion picture directed by Steven Spielberg. It is based on both War Horse, a children's novel set before and during World War I, by British author Michael Morpurgo, first published in the United Kingdom in 1982, and the 2007 stage adaptation of the same name^.  The cast includes David Thewlis, Benedict Cumberbatch, Jeremy Irvine, Emily Watson, Tom Hiddleston, Eddie Marsan, Toby Kebbell and Peter Mullan. The film is produced by Spielberg and Kathleen Kennedy, and executive produced by Frank Marshall and Revel Guest.  Long-term Spielberg collaborators Janusz Kamiński, Michael Kahn, and John Williams all worked on the film.The film is currently in contention for six Academy Awards and five BAFTAs. It was also nominated for two Golden Globe Awards. (See War Horse )

All in all, I loved this picture and would view it on a big screen again and again.  In short, it appealed to the romantic in me.

Where Narratives Reign

The Power of the Narrator

Narrators have a power to draw us into a story.  Years ago when I studied English literature at college we studied the various types of narrator in novels and short stories. A narrator is, within any story (literary work, movie, play, verbal account, etc.), the fictional or non-fictional, personal or impersonal entity who tells the story to the audience. There are basically three types of narrator (i) first-person, (ii) third-person limited and (iii) third-person omniscient.  When told in the first person, we are as it were, addressed in person by an "I" or a "me" who wishes to engage us in a rather one-sided conversation, but engage us this narrator does.  One of the most classic of narrators is surely Ishmael of the 1851 novel Moby-Dick by U.S. author Herman Melville.  This novel opens famously with the three words "Call me Ishmael."  From these three words, we are lured into a wonderfully engaging and powerful novel which will engage our attention from the "off" or "get go" as it were.  The other narrator whose words haunt my literary mind are those of the "Ancient Mariner" of that famous poem by S.T. Coleridge called The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.  That old hoary rugged mariner addresses the wedding guest, having caught him first by the lapels of his coat, with the gripping words " 'There was a ship,' quoth he."  Once again, we are going to hear a story recounted or narrated.

I once wrote a novel - some twelve years ago now - based on my experiences with the mental health system here in Ireland.  Choosing whether to write it in the first or third persons, or even in a mix of the two, was a choice I had to make when I set about writing it.  The whole experience was a cathartic one for me, and I really never had any intention of getting it published, nor did I try to, indeed.  We all have stories to tell, and we can choose different ways to tell them.  In other words we are not mere puppets on a string: we have many choices from which to pick in any situation in life; many ways to choose from in tackling a problem; many courses of action from which to pick in any decision; a variety of paths to pick our life course from and so on and so forth.  We can choose, to a greater or lesser extent, the story we are going to tell about our lives - within limits, of course.

Looking Back

I have attempted to tell the story of my own life in recent posts, and in looking back from this distance on my life and in perusing what I have written, there definitely were choices which interwove with more chance or fatalistic elements.  Indeed, we are all free, but free within limits.  For a start I cannot choose to disobey the laws of nature: I simply cannot walk off the roof and hope not to fall, or walk on water or walk through the wall.  The universe which obeys certain  natural laws, like those of gravity and so on, restricts the freedom of the beings and objects which inhabit it.  Likewise our genes, even accidents which befall us, and indeed the particular culture into which we are born all determine certain substantial areas in our lives.  However, once these limits have been set, it is then that we are enabled and empowered to be free agents.  We can choose which subjects to study at school, what type of school to attend, what area to live in, which type of car to buy, what means of transport to take to our places of work, what hobbies to pursue, what stance to take with respect to the meaning of life and so on (quite obviously, I'm assuming a lot here - reasonable income, mobility, availability of job etc.)

Looking back on my life, I saw education as the key to success - a philosophy of life advocated by both my parents and my teachers.  Having had wonderful teachers, especially one, of whom I spoke in a recent post, I had early decided to become a teacher.  Also I was academically inclined and was a very hard worker at school.  That I was free to become a teacher was true, but only true insofar as both the preceding qualities were given.  And, yes, indeed, I then had the freedom of choices between courses.  However, there were many serendipitous and synchronicitous occurrences interwoven with these choices - people I met, lecturers who inspired, several wonderful people with a deep insight into and vision for their lives.  All of these things conspired with the choices I made to fashion the story that is my life.  That it can be told in different ways, in different voices is beyond doubt.  I'm sure the telling of my story in twenty years will be somewhat different to the story I have told heretofore in these pages.

Tell us a Story

Perhaps one of the most enduring interests of the human species is that of story.  If I had a euro for every time a student or class asked me to tell a story, I'd be a very rich man indeed.  Stories draw us into topics and into subjects.  Bryan MacMahon (1909–1998), one of Ireland's greatest short story writers from Listowel, County Kerry, used always say that he used stories as one of his principal methods of keeping his pupils' attention. He wrote an interesting autobiography, The Master, in which, among other things, he spoke about his philosophy of education, his teaching methods, his interest in the Irish Travellers as a small native ethnic group as well as his interest in writing.  Therein he tells us also of his love of story-telling.  So, if you should ever become a teacher, don't be surprised if you hear them say simply, "tell us a story."  Indeed, I see now that I have left out the most obvious story-tellers of the lot, that is, you who are parents.  That we send our children to sleep with stories only emphasises their sheer power in our culture.  Indeed, I remember reading an old folktale - in one of Kevin Danaher's books, I think - about how sad it is if, when going to a neighbour's house, one was bereft of a story to tell.

To tell a story, to listen to a story, to share a story is such a profoundly human thing. To listen to the real life story of another human being is a privilege. To tell your story to another human being is to reach out to the other, to say this is me, this is what I am about, this is where I came from, these are the ways I got here and there is where I am going. Another marvellous book I read on holidays some four years back was On Stories by Richard Kearney (Routledge, 2002) who is Professor of Philosophy at Boston College and U.C.D. As Kearney puts it therein, when you tell your story: “you interpret where you are now in terms of where you have come from and where you are going to. And so doing you give a sense of yourself as a narrative identity that perdures and coheres over a lifetime. That is what the German philosopher Dilthey called the coming-together-of-life …meaning the act of coordinating an existence which would otherwise be scattered over time. In this way storytelling may be said to humanise time by transforming it from an impersonal passing of fragmented moments into a pattern, a plot, a mythos.” (p. 4)

Our first woman president Mary Robinson pledged herself to listening to the stories of others in her inauguration speech way back in 1990 on December 3rd:

I want this Presidency to promote the telling of stories — stories of celebration through the arts and stories of conscience and of social justice. As a woman, I want women who have felt themselves outside history to be written back into history, in the words of Eavan Boland, “finding a voice where they found a vision.” (See this link here: MR: Inaugural Speech )

Narrative Therapy

These few thoughts were inspired by an introductory course to Narrative Therapy on my M.A. course in Human Development.  Narrative Therapy was invented by the Australian psychotherapist Michael White.  Following an initial attraction to the cybernetic thinking of Gregory Bateson, White became more interested in the ways people construct meaning in their lives than just with the ways they behaved.  In developing the notion that people's lives are organized by their life narratives, he came to believe that stories don't mirror life, they shape it. That's why people have the interesting habit of becoming the stories they tell about their experience.

Narrative therapists attempt break the grip of unhelpful stories by externalizing problems. By challenging fixed and pessimistic versions of events, narrative therapists make room for flexibility and those new and more optimistic stories can be envisioned. Finally, clients are encouraged to create audiences of support to witness and promote their progress in restoring their lives along preferred lines.

I realise that there is much more substantial reading waiting for me to do in this interesting therapeutic area which is very new to me. Also I have much reading to do in the wellbeing area which incorporates a potted history of the approaches to wellbeing or happiness in Western philosophy as well as in the traditions of the World Religions. I don't think, with all the work that I have to do over the next several months, that I will be able to post much here. Maybe, you're saying to yourself - "Thank goodness, we need a break, and the author needs to do some fresh thinking as he is rehashing too many old ideas!"  Until the next post, may happy reading and deep philosophising accompany you on your journey!

Getting it Together

Falling Apart:

If there is one outstanding negative thing we humans experience at various stages during our lives it has to be the feeling of fragmentation, the feeling that our world is falling apart.  This is indeed a terrible place to be, and indeed many of us have been in that place and have got the T-shirt as the cliché has it.  At school I run two self-help groups, one under the auspices of that wonderful self-help registered charity called Rainbows and the other a social/encounter group that discusses issues around anger and self-esteem with a group of six sixteen year olds.  Rainbows is a registered charity and it offers a peer-support programme to assist children, young men and women and adults who are grieving a death, a separatation or any other painful transition in life.  Rainbows Ireland can be accessed here.  As regards falling apart, I'm reminded always of W.B. Yeats' (1865-1939) wonderful lines from his poem The Second Coming, which can be read in full here.

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world...

All in a Day's Work

I work in an ASD unit or class in a Secondary School here in Ireland.  I spend about half my time there and the other half teaching Mathematics and Irish to weaker students in the mainstream school.  All these students vary in their degrees of functioning.  Some function very well despite their disabilities, while others function less well.  Today was one of those days when three of the ASD boys had what we term "melt downs," that is when they literally cannot function at all in any type of acceptable way behaviour-wise.  At these times they have to be taken out of the mainstream class, where they have been included with the assistance of an SNA or what we term here in Ireland a Special Needs Assistant.  They are then brought back to our ASD unit where they can chill out or calm down assisted by either myself or one of the other three SEN teachers and/or SNAs.  Sometimes - on the very rare occasion - they have to be taken home because they have become so disruptive that they are impeding the learning of the other boys, or even making them uneasy, anxious or upset.  As I've said, such action is a very rare occurrence indeed.  However, we are functioning at the moment in cramped facilities and are awaiting the building of a new purpose-built unit which comprises three classrooms, kitchen facilities, shower and sensory room next year.  With this in place, "melt-downs" can be both prevented, or at least diminished in a more pupil-friendly and sensory-kind environment.  Hopefully cut-backs will not prevent our fully approved extension.

I also do a certain small amount of counselling/therapy with the boys as I have done some two years of training in that field, successfully passed all exams therein but have chosen not to complete that professional course option as I have moved into Special Education instead.  Currently I am pursuing an M.A. in Human Development which is exceedingly enjoyable, rewarding and personally fulfilling as well as being helpful in my job.  Anyway, some examples of the issues young adolescent men - outside the ASD unit and in mainstream classes - have come to me with just in the past three or so weeks are: depression as the result of the suicide of a stepbrother; anger over being abandoned by a father early in life; having a baby at the age of seventeen; sexuality issues and problems related to be fostered.  There is also the general issue of anxiety especially among the ASD pupils in my care.  The second group that I have alluded to above is a truly interesting one as I have a group of 6 - the optimal number for working with groups - three ASD pupils, two with ADHD and one with very low self-esteem.  They are a sort of self-help group guided and facilitated by me.  They share how they are feeling about school, reflect on their week, listen to one another - at a deep level, I might add - affirm each other, get issues "off their chest" and, in general try to learn coping skills and more appropriate social skills.

Putting Humpty Dumpty Together Again

There is no easy solution to complex problems and issues.  None of us can do anymore than listen.  Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, the only one with a possible solution to our problems is ourselves, with the help of others of course.  Humpty Dumpty cannot be restored to his original shape.  However, all the wisdom of the great religions and of the literatures and sciences of all cultures teaches us that somehow all is never lost - if Humpty Dumpty cannot be restored to his pristine condition at least he can be reshaped and refashioned to a greater or even lesser extent.  In the hard-nosed, harsh world of fact miracles don't happen and cures are rare, but healing is not alone possible, but entirely assured if we face into our problems with an openness to the care shown us by others, an acceptance of both medical science, the healing power of the imagination and a true cherishing of our own vulnerability.

Approaching the Still Point

I have spoken in my opening paragraph of things falling apart, of the centre which somehow cannot hold in the words of our great Irish national Nobel Laureate poet, W.B. Yeats.  In this final paragraph I wish to talk about the Still Point of our being where I believe the centre does hold - indeed where it holds very well - where we approach an integrated self.  However, please note I did say where we approach integration.  Probably we never get to the fullness of integration, as that is surely a life-long journey or task, possible accomplished solely on or at the time of our death.  All of my favourite authors in the area of psychology/psychiatry and self-help speak about integration (Dr. Anthony Storr) or in terms of individuation (Dr. Carl Gustave Jung), self-actualization (Goldstein, Maslow and Rogers) or self-realisation (Buddhism and Hinduism).  Basically all these terms, and others, mean pretty much the same thing, namely getting one's self together, pulling as it were the fragments of the self into some shape, into a shape of our very own making.  Indeed it is a self-shaping as it were.  Indeed, most therapies are all about that, allowing the client to put a shape or pattern on his or her Self.  Narrative Therapy, initially developed during the 1970s and 1980s, largely by Australian Michael White and his friend and colleague, David Epston, of New Zealand is a therapy based on encouraging the client to fashion their real Self through story, through filling in any painful or ugly gaps with creative but authentic new interpretations.

Using Meditation to Approach the Still Point

It was not by chance that I chose Still Point for the title of my blog.  It is a term with which I have long been enchanted and transfixed.  This is a term that means in a sense the point or hub about which the very wheel of the universe rolls if I may stretch a metaphor to its painful limit here.  I have also said that meditation will at most help us approach that Still Point, nearer and ever nearer, but perhaps without ever fully getting there rather like the asymptotes on an inverse algebraic function.  A wise old Jesuit always used say in his lectures in Milltown many years ago - "we approach this mystery asymptotically, gentleman, asymptotically."  When we sit and meditate we invite the mind to concentrate on or pay attention to the breath of life, to enter into its most inward sanctuary, to sit there in silence and ever so slowly and asymptotically, with regular and sustained practice, enter a space within the self which invites the Still Point in, even momentarily and fleetingly.

The centre will hold and hold well.  The Still Point is an horizon inviting us ever onward in its direction.  When we meditate the universe is alive within us.