Observations on the Art of Acting from a Non-Actor

Occasionally I break my promise not to read the comments on videos.  It wasn't a deliberate act. I was scrolling to find a link at the bottom of the page when I saw this comment under an interview with Jim Parsons of the Big Bang Theory on CBS.com:

"I find it weird when actors separate themselves from their characters."

My first thought was "Someone is very unclear about the concept of acting."  And I could be very correct about that.  But at the same time, not all actors approach the art of acting in the same way.  Jim Parsons couldn't play Sheldon Cooper if he was like Sheldon Cooper, because a personality like Sheldon could never be an actor. Parsons doesn't even have the same interests. In his own words:

I don’t feel like I’m bringing much of anything when it comes to personal experience with him. For one, he doesn’t talk about anything that I have second nature of. Not only do I not have my own language for science, but for comic books, graphic novels, most science fiction, after Star Wars. I think this has been to my benefit and allowed me to connect with him more on a humanistic level because I don’t really get what he’s talking about 90% of the time.

From http://techland.time.com/2010/09/23/big-bang-theory-the-jim-parsons-interview/2/


People like Sheldon aren't emotionally aware enough to portray a realistic and humanistic view of themselves.  You need someone like Jim Parsons, who can portray him in a way that the rest of us can understand and identify with, while still being able to recognize as someone who is quite different from ourselves.  The same thing goes for the Evil Version of Wil Wheaton on The Big Bang Theory:

When he first talked to me about working on the show, Bill Prady told me that I'd be playing a "delightfully evil version" of myself. This sounded like a lot of fun to me, but it was more difficult to find that character than you'd think. When I'm playing Fawkes on The Guild it's easy to slip into his kilt and be a jerk, but wearing my own clothes and essentially playing a stylized version of myself made it a real challenge to hit "delightfully evil" without veering into "not committed to being delightfully evil" or "just plain evil." Keeping that twinkle in my eye, and knowing that Wil Wheaton (The Big Bang Version) is planning to scam Sheldon from the moment he sits down, was essential to this particular characterization working out, and I didn't completely find it until we'd run the episode a couple of times.

During one of the run throughs, when Jim did his Klingon bit, I turned to Kevin and asked him, "Did he just say 'revenge is a dish best served cold' in Klingon?" like I was trying to figure out if that's actually what happened, like maybe I misunderstood him. Chuck Lorre told me that it would be funnier if I was more exasperated. "You're just here to play this game, and now some guy is quoting Klingon at you. This happens everywhere you go," he said.

I sighed dramatically, and said, "Oh, it does." Everyone laughed, hard, and Chuck pointed his finger at me. "Yes. That is exactly the way to play that beat."

When Chuck gave me that note, I grokked how to play Evil Wil Wheaton (The Big Bang Theory version), and I could see the comedy in every beat I played for the rest of the show. I totally grew a level in comedy acting, and learned something about letting go of who I really am, so I could embrace the Delightfully Evil version of myself (who I seriously hope will return in the future, because OMG was it fun to play him.)

From http://wilwheaton.typepad.com/wwdnbackup/2009/10/the-creepy-candy-coating-corollary.html


I think the evil version of Wheaton works because in reality, he's so not that way and is able to play a jerk because he doesn't have to be in denial that what he is doing is obnoxious.  He doesn't have to defend it or minimize it because it's not really him - it's a warped-alternate-reality him.  Of course, this is comedy, so exaggeration in proper amounts is essential for success.  This may also be why people say comedic acting is actually harder than dramatic acting.  You almost have to step outside yourself to be able to deliver these lines without becoming self-conscious about the whole thing.

Now on the other end of things, you have Viggo Mortensen who played Aragon in The Lord of the Rings.  By all accounts, Mortensen practically became Aragon. He carried his sword with him even into town and actually spent his days off riding the horses he used and even bought them because he bonded with them.  Being a dramatic actor, he goes to great lengths to become the character he's playing.  For Everybody Has a Plan, he learned his character's hobby, beekeeping.  He explains how he prepares for a role:

I think part of it is just how you prepare roles. When I prepare, I ask a simple question: “What happened between the character’s birth and page one of the script?” And right there you can find most of the answers, even before you start shooting. I find that process really enjoyable. Just like a kid does when he pretends: It doesn’t matter how little they look like a princess or an Indian or a Viking or a sports star, whatever they’re pretending to be, they really believe it. They enjoy playing, basically. So the goal is always — in a very serious, methodical, detailed, much more layered way, I suppose, intellectually, than kids use for make-believe — to get to the same place where it’s just fun and play. But you have to do your homework first, and that’s what I try to do.

From http://www.vulture.com/2013/03/viggo-mortensen-everybody-has-a-plan-interview.html

He's not kidding about being more layered.  He's not just playing Agustín in the movie, he also plays Agustín's ailing twin brother Pedro, and then plays Agustín pretending to be Pedro.  I haven't seen the movie, but based on the trailers, I don't see much of Aragon in those characters.  And let's face it, outside of cult films, an actor who can only play one character isn't going to be that successful.

Helen Mirren, who does an awesome job in both dramatic and comedic roles, approaches her craft much differently than Mortensen:

A light bulb went on in my brain. I thought, ‘That’s it! Just play what’s on the page.’ I’ve followed that ever since. If it says, ‘Over-the-hill, angry woman with no makeup gets out of bed,’ that’s what I’ll play. I don’t mess it up with, ‘What’s her back story?’

From http://www.simplyhelen.net/category/interviews/

Obviously, there are many different ways to be an actor.  You can be like Robin Williams and ad-lib when the spirit hits you, leaving the director and editors decide what fits with the story content-wise. Or you can be like Ian McDiarmid and memorize the scripts so thoroughly that you can easily change the delivery of said lines to fit the mood of the story, without derailing anything later in the plot.  It all depends on what works for you and the role you're playing.

Back to the young lady who posted the comment that started all of this musing.  While it would be easy to dismiss her as just lacking in knowledge, it's very possible that perhaps she, herself, doesn't have the capacity to separate - to imagine herself as someone much different than she is - to get inside someone else's experience.  So, it would be extremely mystifying that people can do this; she may even think that they really aren't doing what they say the are.

I'm just as guilty about this.  For over 30 years, I could never understand why people would not only eat cilantro, but relish it. To me, cilantro tastes like liquid dish soap.  I had assumed that people must have deliberately cultivated their love for the taste of soap, for reasons I couldn't fathom.  The closest I came to a reasonable explanation was to think that maybe they had their mouths washed out with soap too often as children, but that wouldn't explain the wide-spread acceptance of cilantro as a culinary mainstay. Then one day my best friend took me to a Mexican restaurant for lunch because I needed to get out of the house.  Already in a grumpy mood, I complained about the salsa dish not being rinsed out properly. She was about to ask the waiter to bring me another bowl, but I told her not to worry, I would just take my salsa from the center.  Then I tasted soap again, only this time I paused a moment and detected the taste of leaf behind it.  "Oh, it's cilantro," I said in a disgusted tone.  I then launched into my I-can't-believe-people-like-this-stuff rant, when she interrupted me with "Cilantro tastes like soap to you?" I nodded and she excitedly explained how they were discussing on her foodie mailing list that about one third of the population has a genetic tendency to taste cilantro as soap. She was extremely stoked to find out that she knew someone in real life that had this condition.  And I realized after all those years that the rest of humanity wasn't actually insane when it came to this herb, they just weren't tasting it the same way I was.

So, in answer to the woman who commented - actors separate themselves from their characters because that really is how they experience it.  Even though Jim Parsons "becomes" Sheldon for short periods of time, he's not Sheldon.  He's not a comic book geek.  He's not an arrogant physicist, who looks down on others.  He's no where near as socially clueless as Sheldon.  He's not even heterosexual.  But he can portray a character who is all of those.

And it's okay that you don't have the ability to separate from yourself and an imagined self.  I have several friends like that.  I used to think that they were like that because they were afraid of losing themselves in some way, or of weakening their moral compass.  But as I've grown older and studied more, I've found out that for some people, that's just the way their consciousness works.  Sure it frustrates the hell out of me sometimes when you're not able to understand any view different from your own, because running separate mental simulations is how I explore concepts and achieve empathy to a level that I am not naturally gifted with.  But I realize that I can be just as frustrating to you too.


I'm not sure how to exactly transition in this story into this post, but I really have the impression that it belongs here as part of the discussion of being someone else other than yourself. Many years ago, I created a persona for an online group my kids initially wanted to be a part of.  She was brash, out-spoken, devious, and a born leader.  She was also a Slytherin head of house. Even though my daughter lost interest in the online group, she liked pretending to talk to Prof. Mysteria Ester Paracelsus, and we had fun pretending together.  Then one day she came up to me, looking glum, and asked if she could talk to Mysteria.  I assumed that she just wanted to be cheered up, so I played along.  To my shock, she began to tell me about something that happened at school that upset her.  Staying in character, I gave her Mysteria's solution to such a problem - a solution that I would never advocate as her real mother.  Then I dropped the character and reminded her that I was always there for her; and that I didn't approve of the solution my alter-ego just gave.  She said, "I know, Mom.  You would have suggested (...), but I really needed to talk to someone who has no problem kicking butt."  I realized then that what she needed was a way to stand up for herself, not a way to be diplomatic and civil.

Some days, I think I need to channel Mysteria more often...

Project Implicit®

While writing the previous post on the fly, I touched on the concept of preconceived notions and it reminded me a bit of Harvard's research on hidden biases:

Project Implicit®
Project Implicit blends basic research and educational outreach in a virtual laboratory at which visitors can examine their own hidden biases. Project Implicit is the product of research by three scientists whose work produced a new approach to understanding of attitudes, biases, and stereotypes.

It really is a fascinating site to visit. Several friends and I have compared our results with each other with interesting results. Not to mention insightful conversations on why we got the results we did. It's been a few years since I've done some of these tests. I might have to go back and try them again.

Interested in the research on Happiness?

I'm sure that like me, many people find the research on happiness fascinating. I've done a post or two (three?) related to it in the past. I was about to do another one dealing with the newer research when I realized I was actually recovering territory already covered better by another blogger - Sandy Gauntam, writer of The Mouse Trap. The blog is practically dedicated to the subject of happiness at the moment. She does cover other topics there, though, too.

Here are a few of her posts on happiness research:
Am happy, will be selfish; Am sad, will be fair. Oh Really?!?
Happiness opposed to despair/ennui; sadness to anger/irritability
Am Happy, will talk more and deep; am Sad, will make small talk
Am happy, will seek novelty; am sad, will stick with familiar
Why, Mr. Anderson, why, why do you persist?

Do I agree with all her conclusions? Of course not. I rarely, if ever, competely agree with someone's conclusions. I'm genetically onery and have a family tradition of being slightly rebellious to uphold. However, she does an excellent job presenting the research and to be honest, I haven't really made my mind up on the subject yet.

And for your additional perusal, more articles on the subject from other sites:

Happy, Enthusiastic People Less Likely To Develop Heart Disease
Emotions Interfere in Theory of Mind
The Proof’s in the Positive Thinking

Humor research

Very interesting article: The comedy circuit: When your brain gets the joke.

So what is a joke, exactly? Most theories agree that one condition is essential: there must be some kind of incongruity between two elements within the joke, which can be resolved in a playful or unexpected way.

It was interesting to find out that it is the way the brain solves the joke that predicts preferences. Especially to find out that resolvable jokes actually create more brain activity than the nonsense jokes many people try to pull off as being more sophisticated:

. . . When comparing MRI scans of people as they viewed both straight and nonsense humour, [Samson] found that straight humour evoked significantly more brain activity than a surreal joke in most volunteers. "Making sense out of opposed scripts and integrating this information seems to be a more complex process than simply laughing about nonsense," she says.

So much for sophistication in general. However, there was a subset of people whose brains did react more strongly to the surreal stuff - experience seekers "defined by a desire to pursue novel sensations, stimulation and experiences, whether it's through art, travel, music or an unconventional living style." It is this subset that probably gave rise to the idea that surreal humour is sophisticated humor. However, like most things, the generalization fails when applied rigorously. It's like saying "puns are the lowest form of humor". Some puns really are lame, but there are some very clever ones, which required a good degree of intellect to pick up on. In a way, punsters are like fighters: the crude ones are the least skilled, most obvious, and often miss their intended mark, while a great punster is like a ninja whose attack hits the victim's awareness moments after it has been delivered.

Another thing that dictates humor preferences is our degree to emphathize with others. Many jokes rely on the "Theory of Mind" - the ability to see something from another's point of view. These are the type of jokes that people with autism don't get. On the other hand, autistics love visual puns, which are more abstract.

Sidenote: While it takes longer for women to decide whether a joke's funny or not, they get a greater sense of reward from the limbic system.


What humor style do you have? is blog post about a study on types of humor. To summarize the summary, here is the stripped down list from Dr. Shock's blog:

Affiliative, use of humor to amuse others and facilitate relationships

Self enhancing, use of humor to cope with stress and maintain a humorous outlook during times of difficulty

Aggressive, use of sarcastic, manipulative, put-down, or disparaging humor

Self-defeating, use of humor for excessive self-disparagement, ingratiation, or defensive denial


Personally, I think most of us use all the types, but there is no denying that we tend to favor one over the other. Based on the feedback I get from people I interact with regularly, my preferred type is probably "self-enhancing". Or at least those are the jokes I am best at delivering. I often fall flat while delivering affiliative jokes and my memory suggests that I'm mediocre at delivering the aggressive or self-destructive jokes.

Mirror neurons

The greatest thing I think/feel that comes from mirror neuron research is the scientific proof of empathy as an actual human quality, based in neurological structure, versus the idea that it's just something we try to tell ourselves we can have. The second greatest thing of this research is that it also gives us a better idea why we have empathy and how we benefit from it.

This talk covers all of that AND gives us more to consider, based on the research of the phantom limb phenomenon.



In a way, humans benefit from the ability to have a "hive" mind, based on mirror neurons, and also individuality, based on sensory feedback. This dual modality is the basis of our ability to create complex and highly varied civilizations. With it, we can grasp organization and chaos. The trick is managing both.

being a fully functional person

Being a Fully Functional Person

Here is where the two books I am reading intersect in purpose. In Rituals of Healing: Using Imagery for Health and Wellness, the idea is to increase one's physical functionality. In On Becoming a Person, the idea is to increase one's mental and emotional functionality. So far, with the help of the first book, I have created a breathing routine, or ritual, which has helped me a lot with lower my stress and tension, as well as with my asthma problems (though it doesn't completely rid me of them). I still have yet to work on something for the chronic pain, which is a revelation in itself, since I had the underlying belief that taking care of the stress and lessening the fatigue would reduce the pain. So sometime this week, I will have to rethink my chronic pain.

Ever since my late twenties, I had often expressed the desire to be a fully function human being. But looking back, I'm not sure I really knew what I meant by that, outside of the wish to feel compentent and secure--and the ability to keep up on housework. And yet nothing I did seemed to be enough. Instead of feeling more human, I found myself feeling less and less human. Carl Rogers, based on his observation of his clients, defined being fully functional as "being the self one truly is". This means to accept that there are some things I am good at and some things that I am not good at. I have always understood to a point that I had to play with my strengths, and have even had some success with it.

However, looking over my past efforts, I approached them more as a problem in engineering, than a progression towards personhood. Instead of being more efficient, I might have been more successful if I questioned the "shoulds" more, fought the facades being placed on me in an effort to please and meeting the expectations of others. That might to make it easier to follow my own direction, with all the complexity that is me. That doesn't mean that I can ignore the expectation of others completely, but I can certainly be more picky as to which expectations I accept and those I don't.

Life is not a steady state. Years ago, I wrote the following mission statement for myself: "Everything deserves respect and an opportunity to develop itself to its fullest potential, including me. This can be achieved most effectively when the forces of our lives are in balance. Imbalance causes stress and a system in stress must compensate for that stress. This is the way of nature, whether it occurs in an ecosystem or a test tube or someone's life. My body and mind are ecosystems in themselves and need to be kept in balance. This balance is not a steady state, but a fluid, living thing that requires adjustments from time to time."

Becoming a Person

Becoming a Person

A summary by A. Doerr over Chapters 5, 6 & 7

 

[Yes, I am a few weeks late with this.  I have been reading the material, but not writing on it.  I will hopefully correct this oversight during the next few weeks.]

 

What does it mean to become a person?  Aren't we already a person because of our humanity?  While this makes sense logically, intuitively, most of us know that this isn't true.  For what every reason, many of us have experienced blocks to feeling that we are actually people and deserve to be considered as such.  The idea of taking "quiet pleasure in being" ourselves is a foreign and almost blasphemous concept, one often confused with pride and boastfulness.  Yet, there is a difference between the loudness of boasting and the quietness of acceptance--to accept that we have just as much right to exist as anything else in this universe.

 

According to Carl Rogers, the inner most core of a person is basically socialized, forward moving, rational and realistic.  But to get there, people must accept that they are human organisms, with the realistic ability to control themselves and socialize.  To quote Rogers, "There is no beast in man.  There is only man in man."  And when humans are less than fully human--when they deny various aspects of their experience--then there is reason to fear their behavior.  Such people cannot make adequate judgments because they have contorted their own data.

 

So, what are the traits of a fully emerged person, according to Carl Rogers?  First, an openness to experience.  This doesn't necessarily means to seek out new experiences, as it does to actually be open to what we are currently experiencing and seeing it without preconceived notions.  To take the situation as it is, without distorting it.  Second, trust in one's self.  To believe that we are capable to make correct choices and behave in a satisfying manner in a situation.  Third, to evaluate ourselves using an internal standard than to constantly compare ourselves to others.  This includes accepting responsibility for our actions.  Finally, to be willing to accept that we are always a work in progress and never a finished product.  We constantly flow with life and its events.  We don't jump from plateau to plateau.

 

To be able to achieve these traits, we have to move from being remote to our feelings to being able to accept them, even in ambiguity, as we feel them. We accept new experiences within their own existence, without imposing the structure of the past onto them.  We reconsider our mental constructs.  We are not threatened by other possibilities.

 

I personally believe that by lessening our frustrations created by incompatible self-perceptions, we lessen the stress that needs to be released and are more able to release it in a controlled manner that have it corrosively seep out our seams or blows up in our faces.

The Helping Environment

A Helping Relationship

 

For those who haven't heard of Carl Rogers, here's a summary of what research has found to be of the most help in counseling: That the client feels that his/her therapist is trustworthy, that the therapist tries to understand them, and that the therapist is being genuine with them.

Techniques and teaching methods alone do not bring about improvement. It's hard to trust the process, if you don't have faith in the person putting you through it. This is true for most relationships, even those that you may not consider personal. Take calling up customer service for help, for instance. If the representative doesn't seem to care about your problem or doesn't seem to understand, you're not likely to have much faith in what they tell you--especially, if like me, you normally find that this type of customer service representative is far more likely to tell you something that causes more harm than good. Not getting enough data will give diagnoses that may be very wrong and don't fit in with the other things the client is experiencing. It's hard to give sensitive information to someone whom you don't trust, even if you know intellectually you should. It's a matter of self-preservation.

But if one has the knowledge, they can tell you what's wrong. And knowing what's wrong is half the battle, right? To such a question, I answer, "Only if the diagnosis makes sense to the one it's being applied to." Though to be honest, I still believe that a diagnostician who doesn't have the client's trust is working under a handicap. Anyway, no diagnosis will help a client to make any significant change to their lifestyle if they don't comprehend it. I can't find my book right now, but I believe it is in John Bradshaw's Healing the Shame that Binds You where the author gives the example of a preschooler being reprimanded for riding their tricycle beyond the corner, after being told several times not to. While the parent was engage in rage, the terrified child looked up and asked, "What is a corner?" No one can follow instructions they can't understand.

Another situation that many people are probably more familiar with: someone is in a very abusive relationship, who really should leave, but doesn't--or if they do leave, they return to it after a while. Most people who have been on the outside looking in, often give up on the person, saying things like, "They want the abuse." "They're idiots." "They're just hopeless." However, what often happens is these people don't leave because they really cannot comprehend how to live differently. Sometimes financial or cultural issues keep them there. Sometimes they don't understand the help they can receive. However, some of them stay because of beliefs that the relationship will change if they just work hard enough at it, or love the person more, or that they are the ones at fault. These people can be pressured into leaving their abusive significant other, but they do it to please those pressuring them, not because they themselves believe the abuser is horrible. In fact, being insulting about the abuser is more than likely to bring out the protective response in them. As long as they see some hope in the relationship, they won't give it up easily. Only they can make that decision and make it stick. After all, if you are demanding them to get out of the relationship, you might appear just as bad as the abuser they are dealing with. That's not to say that you shouldn't tell them that there is something wrong, if they appear open to it. Nor am I saying that you shouldn't interfere if it becomes a matter of life and death. However, when all is said and done, only the person can finally cut those ties.

What has worked the best for me when in such a situation is to emotionally support the person in their decisions and let them know that I am there for them, even though I don't agree with them. Usually when they no longer feel pressured to defend the abuser or the relationship, they are able to make the decisions necessary for their own happiness and there are no "What if I had tried this or that?" regrets to contend with. When all is said and done, they need the support more than they need the problem labelled, though the label can help them to address the problem.

Grossly simplified: diagnosis is not the same as therapy. This is a particularly sore spot for me because as someone who intends to become certified as an art therapist, one of the greatest frustrations I have is getting people to understand that when I speak of doing art therapy, I am not talking about using the client's art to see what's wrong with them--I'm talking about the client using their art, especially the process of making it, as a means towards self-understanding and growth. Yes, it is possible to diagnose certain conditions through artwork. Studies have shown that schizophrenics often draw in a certain manner and that sexually abused children will often exaggerate certain body parts when drawing people. However, studies have also shown that it is what an individual personally attaches to an image that matters when it comes to a therapuetic art process. And non-directive therapuetic artmaking works better in most cases than telling the client what to draw, even though directive artmaking is not without some benefit.

The research on Carl Rogers' person-center therapy has been so convincing and thorough that almost all schools of therapy promote using it in addition to their methods and philosophies. But how does one foster this trusting and safe environment with a client? Not without a lot of soul searching on the part of therapist. To be able to provide a safe environment to allow the client to explore the dark and scary parts of their own psyche, the therapist has to be able to not only deal calmly with the client's fears and anger, but their own. We are never truly as good about hiding things as we often belief we are. Things slip out at times and if we do not handle those feelings with genuiness, then we give our clients very good reasons to feel at least a little unsafe around us. They will hold back telling us about certain feelings and thoughts to keep the therapist from reacting badly. However, if the therapist also has shown that they believe in the client's abilities to grow and be stronger, then the relationship has another mooring to keep it in place. Likewise, an understanding of the problem as the client experiences it creates yet another mooring.

In a way, the therapuetic relationship is like scaling a cliff with the therapist as a guide and safety line. Both therapist and client has some treacherous terrain and loose rocks to look out for, but a skilled therapist, like a mountain guide, makes sure the safety lines are in place and knows not only how to handle the situation when the client slips, but what to do in the hopefully uncommon situations when both do.

 

Carl Rogers

A brief background summary by A. Doerr


[Sources used: On Becoming a Person by Carl Rogers (Preface, Introduction, and Chapter 1); Wikipedia Entry on Carl Rogers; and "WE OVERCAME THEIR TRADITIONS, WE OVERCAME THEIR FAITH" by Dr. William Coulson.]


Carl Rogers was the fourth of six children from a relatively well-to-do and affectionate family. His parents were very protective and created a very rigid religious environment to raise their children in to keep them uncorrupted by worldly things. To this extent, the family moved to a farm when he was twelve. There his father, a prosperous business man, farmed as a hobby and the children were encouraged to do the same. On the upside, this installed Rogers with a strong conscience and gave him a strong animal science background. On the downside, this upbringing convinced Rogers that people were inherently good and that strict religious systems were harmful to an individual's personal development.

This last belief was further strengthened after he changed from a degree in agriculture to history and joining the ministry. He felt that he was being indoctrinated more than taught. In 1922, Rogers went with a Christian student group to France and Germany after World War I. It was then that he was exposed to the concept that very honest and good people can believe very different things. After further religious study, he became convinced that it was "a horrible thing to have to profess a set of beliefs, in order to remain in one's profession." (Rogers, 1961, p 8) This eventually lead him to becoming a children's counselor and then a very successful psychologist when it came to dealing with neurotic patients.


If we to inject the generation cycle theory put forth in the book Generations by William Strauss and Neil Howe, we can easily place Rogers in the G.I. Generation due to his birth. The quote from Wikipedia that states: "[a]ll of them entering midlife were aggressive advocates of technological progress, economic prosperity, social harmony, and public optimism" does fit Rogers a great deal. He was very optimist about human nature and social harmony. However, perhaps due to his very protective upbringing, Rogers also shares many traits of those in the Silent Generation, advocating "fairness and the politics of inclusion, irrepressible in the wake of failure."


I've included this sociological information to help explain Rogers' fame and infamy. Peter Kramer's posthumous introduction to Roger's book On Becoming a Person mentions that in some ways, Rogers was what Isaiah Berlin would call a "hedgehog"--he knew one thing, but he knew it so well that it became his world. Most of Rogers ideas were good and are still in use today, especially his push to get the field of psychology to rely more on scientific methods and studies, but his own work was mostly for neurotics. His success there was worthy of the fame he received. It was when he tried to apply his theories to people who weren't neurotic that things fell apart.

To quote Neils Bohr: "An expert is a person who avoids small error as he sweeps on to the grand fallacy." Rogers' grand fallacy was the IHM Nuns controversy. Dr. William Coulson, an assistant of Carl Rogers who was personally involved in this experiement, has spoken on the subject with much honesty and clarity. Though, like Rogers, the "all or nothing" thought distortion sometimes raises its head. Though I'm not really sure if it is them actually, or the people who are presenting their work to prove their own agenda. It is my impression that the cause of this disaster in the field of psychology was based on the following factors:


1) Rogers did not stop to consider how his own issues were being triggered. After all, the Catholic school acted much in the way his own mother did towards him and his siblings. Of course, the feedback from the progressive faction of the IHM only helped to feed his biases by suggesting that things did need to be changed. However, even though a lot of something can be bad, that doesn't mean that any bit of it of all is also bad. In fact, some of it may actually be necessary.


2) Rogers believed that all people were good. As Maslow said, there was great danger in his assumption that there weren't paranoids, psychopaths or other destructive people that would mess things up for him.


3) Rogers' own belief that people should ultimately be their own authority backfired on him. In his assumption that all people were inherently good, it had never occurred to him that not everyone had a conscience as well-defined as his, even though Abraham Maslow warned him of the evil that can exist and the failure of his methods when Maslow tried to use it with his own students. So, while the encounter groups ran by Rogers and those who were afraid of Rogers no one wandered into sexual misconduct, other facilitators were not as restrained. In fact, Rogers and Coulson were unaware that of "the reports of seductions in psychotherapy, which became virtually routine in California."

Coulson summarizes this backfiring better than I could: Rogers didn't get people involved in sex games, but he couldn't prevent his followers from doing it, because all he could say was, "Well, I don't do that." Then his followers would say, "Well, of course you don't do that, because you grew up in an earlier era; but we do, and it's marvelous: you have set us free to be ourselves and not carbon copies of you."

4) There was several older nuns and priests looking into feminism and other social reforms who neglected to provide any real guidance to their students, who were lead to believe that they would receive sound guidance. So instead of being liberated, the students were actually abandoned. Granted the studies about the human brain not being fully developed until age 26 probably weren't available at that time and the leaders didn't quite comprehend that their charges were still developing judgment skills.

5) The popularity of humanism was at its height and coupled with drug use in many cases. While Rogers had troubles with even putting soda pop in his body as a young adult, I wouldn't be at all surprised if some of his followers considered drug use as a means to overcome obstacles to being one's self.

6) California is not really a place to find "normal people" in large numbers. (I was borned there and live only a few years there and even I can't claim to be a "normal" person.) Rogers probably should have been suspicious when he couldn't get the same study to work in Wisconsin because the participants kept dropping out when they realized what was going on. Instead, he found a group willing to invite him in to do this. That in itself should have been a red flag. However, I will not judge him on that matter, considering the fact that humans have a wonderful tendency to ignore red flags and I have done it a time or time myself.

Even though this became a total failure as an attempt to improve the lives of the nun, it did eventually improve and support the ethical guidelines for psychologists. Counselling students are now taught that it is unethical to try to change a client's religious beliefs, to have sexual interactions with the client, and to be aware of one's own issues enough to know when they should refer a client to a professional without the same issues. Rogers did realize his own folly. So, while he did fall into Bohr's definition as an "expert", he and the field of psychology did learn from his mistakes.

From now on, I will be focusing more on what Rogers got right. Having accepting his human fraility, I will start on his brilliance.

Six Core Elements of Character

What do you know? Someone figured this out a long time ago and the following are considered to be universal:

1. Trustworthiness
   
2. Respect
   
3. Responsibility (self-discipline)
   
4. Fairness
   
5. Caring (compassion)
   
6. Citizenship (obeying the law, staying informed of current affairs, voting, etc.)
   

Aristotle's Four Classic Values

1. Fortitude (perserverance)
   
2. Temperance (controlling human passions)
   
3. Prudence (practical wisdom)
   
4. Justice (fairness, lawfulness)
   

The Catholic Church later added Faith, Hope, and Charity.

A pioneer in health care

Gesundheit! Institute
The official website of Patch Adams, MD.

You might remember Robin Williams playing him in the movie Patch Adams.

Hunter ‘Patch’ Adams was criticized in his official medical school record for "excessive happiness" and was once told by a faculty advisor, "If you want to be a clown, join the circus."

Patch did, in fact, want to be a clown. But he also wanted to be a physician. Combining vastly different sides of his personality, he became both. Patch’s remarkable story, which includes having been a patient and a doctor at a mental institute, celebrates the triumph of spirited individualism and the unending pursuit of idealism.

Rude software causes emotional trauma

Interesting, but not surprising.


Rude software causes emotional trauma

The fact that this pain was caused by computers ignoring the user suggests interface designers and software vendors must work especially hard to keep their customers happy, and it's not surprising that failing and buggy software is so frustrating. If software can cause the same emotional disturbance as physical pain, it won't be long before law suits are flying through the courts for abuse sustained at the hands of shoddy programming.

Kohlberg and Gilligan

Even though I find the results of their theories interesting, after reading some of their base assumptions, I think both of them were/are guided by some prejudices I can't agree with. Both of them seemed to want to see themselves as very moral people.

That's not to say that they don't have some truths in their levels - I just think that they may have blinded themselves to certain things for their own sense of security.

Carol Gilligan's Levels of Moral Development in Women

Gilligan felt that Kolhberg's levels were flawed. "This was based on two things. First, he only studied privileged, white men and boys. She felt that this caused a biased opinion against women. Secondly, in his stage theory of moral development, the male view of individual rights and rules was considered a higher stage than women's point of view of development in terms of its caring effect on human relationships." (from http://www.webster.edu/~woolflm/gilligan.html)

The main difference between herself and Kolhberg:

Gilligan argues that for most women, progress toward moral maturity is marked by changes in the focus of caring, not by the development of the abstract, impersonal principles that Kohlberg proposes. . .

Gilligan admits, however, that both perspectives are valid, in fact complementary. She argues that "a shift in the focus of attention from concerns about justice to concerns about care changes the definition of what constitutes a moral problem, and leads the same situation to be seen in different ways.

(from http://www.scu.edu/ethics/publications/iie/v3n1/men.html)

Ironically, her own work receives critism to what she said of Kolhberg's research - "the most criticized element to her theory is that it follows the stereotype of women as nurturing, men as logical. The participants of Gilligan’s research are limited to mostly white, middle class children and adults..." (from http://www.psychology.sbc.edu/Gilligan.htm

Her levels for women:

Level 1 - Orientation of individual survival. The only obligation is to one's own survival.

Transition 1 - Going from selfishness to responsibility. Realizes one is part of a group and makes decisions based on how these actions affect others.

Level 2 - Goodness as self-sacrifice. Morality is defined by meeting the expectations of others and being submissive to the norms of society. Guilt is a powerful tool here.

Transition 2 - From goodness to truth. Truth and honesty are more important than the reactions of others. She starts considering her own needs again.

Level 3 - Morality of nonviolence. The emphasis is on not hurting people, including oneself.

Kolhberg's Levels of Morality

Level 1 - Preconventional morality: Brought into place by external controls. People obey the rules to get rewards or escape punishment or act out of self-interest. This level is typical of children ages 4 to 10. This level has the following stages of reasoning:
Stage 1 - Orientation toward punishment and obedience - "What will happen to me?"
Stage 2 - Instrumental purpose and exchange - "You scratch my back and I'll scratch yours."

Level 2 - Conventional morality: People have internalized the standards of authority figures. They are concerned with being good, pleasing others and keeping the social order. Many do not grow out of this even in adulthood. This level has the following stages of reasoning:
Stage 3 - The Golden Rule - or maintaining mutual relationships
Stage 4 - Social concern and conscience - "What if everybody did it?"

Level 3 - Postconventional morality: People now recognize conflicts between moral standards and make their own judgments on the basis of principles of right fairness and justice. If reached at all, it will usually come in early adulthood. This level has the following stages of reasoning:
Stage 5 - Morality of contract, of individual rights and of democratically accepted law - valuing the will of the majority and the welfare of society.
Stage 6 - Morality of universal ethical principles - they act in accordance with internal standards, knowing that they would condemn themselves if they did not.

Kolhberg later added a seventh stage of “Why be moral?" where the person questions the existance of morals in the first place. The person starts to see morality from a meta-perspective.

tears are sacred 

Meeting Spiritual/Emotional needs Iroquois style

Each nation is also divided into two halves, or moieties. Moieties provide ceremonial services for each other. In particular, they bury the other side's dead and console them during their grief.
(from Carnegie Museums)