Cultural Awareness in the Real World of Work

Prior to entering the doctoral program at Rutgers and, after I had earned a Masters Degree in Clinical Psychology at Purdue University, I decided to take a year off from academia and see what the “real world” was like. It was here that I learned one of the most valuable lessons in my professional life. I was working for the Narcotics Addiction Control Commission (NACC), known also as the Rockefeller Drug Program, in the early ‘70’s in Yonkers, New York. This was a residential program that housed young male drug addicts. Although many were guilty of crimes, the law had allowed them to “cop” out to–what was at the time referred to–as The Rehab or glorified incarceration. Such amenities as pool tables and a large swimming pool were available for use by the residents.

During my first few weeks at the rehab center, I agreed to sit in on some of the groups run by counselors who were having difficulty controlling the behavior of the residents. I remember one group session lead by a female counselor with a background in social work. The addicts ate her up alive spewing all sorts of four letter expletives in her direction. At the end of the group she was in tears and, she besieged me for advice of which, at the time, I could offer very little. When I sat in on a group run by a black male therapist, I noticed how he had control of the group and, how he would immediately set limits when the residents asked him to do them favors. He treated the addicts with a firm hand, in contrast to the female social worker, who sucked up to their demands and manipulative requests.  I likened her lack of control over the addicts’ behavior to that of a substitute teacher in a classroom where the kids are going wild. Addicts, like adolescents out of control, I learned, needed the structure provided by setting firm limits on their behaviors.

When I first started working with the addicts as a group leader, I was like a fish out of water. I had never socialized with anyone like them and, their language and culture were totally alien to me. Fortune came my way when I befriended a black correction officer who came from the same environment as many of the residents, some of whom he knew.  He introduced me to the work of two black psychiatrists named, William H. Grier and Price M. Cobbs, authors of Black Rage and The Jesus Bag. From these two books and my friend’s own life experience, I came to understand the derivation of the “dozens,” and how it can be a harmless game of casual, good-natured jibes or an exchange of malicious insults that can be a prelude to physical violence. Later, the 1981 independent movie, The Dozens, depicted this culture most appropriately.

I suggested to my supervisor that this correction officer work with me as a co-leader when I first began to run my own groups. After watching him continuously cut through the manipulative tactics of the residents, within 6 months, I started to engage the residents in what I considered an effective therapeutic style as a group leader. In the beginning of each new group of residents I worked with, they would test me or my colleague with statements like “you don’t care about us, all you want to do is make money,” etc. Because statements like these became so predictable, I developed a standard reply that sounded something like the following: “You’re right I don’t care and in fact, tonight I’m going to eat the biggest rarest steak at the expense of you guys. Thanks guys.” I would say this with a straight face. I recall receiving the ultimate compliment from one of my group members: “He must be an ex dope fiend.”

Ironically, after my colleague and I would make statements implying we did not care about the residents in our groups, the old timers on the unit would convince the newcomers that, in fact, we really wanted to help them overcome their problems. One may label this approach paradoxical therapy but, in actuality, I was doing what Watzlawick et al. have called “speaking the patient’s language” by virtue of the fact that I had begun to use the idiom of the street known as the “dozens.”

To reiterate, I did not learn this approach in a day or a week.  It took about six months and, in the beginning, I was verbally pounded by the addicts in my groups, much like the female social worker I had earlier observed. But I had two things working in my favor: 1) The desire to help these young men and 2) The willingness to adapt to a therapeutic style, at first foreign to me that was much more efficacious than what I had learned in my clinical training. This was my first real understanding of how important it was to think in a flexible manner in tailoring one’s therapeutic stance to the language and culture of a given clinical population.

Divorce Mediation

Divorce mediation provides a unique way of bringing both marital partners to the negotiating table in front of a neutral mediator. Mediation perhaps can be accomplished best by of having both a therapist and an attorney present. This approach fits well with what Fisher et al. (1991) pointed out as the two major ingredients of a negotiation: substance and the relationship. During the mediation, the lawyer handles the substantive issues pertaining to economic matters while the therapist deals with the relationship issues, especially, if children are involved (Mercer and Pruett, 2001). This approach avoids the flaw of not dealing with emotions, and specifically, the potential anger that may occur during the mediation.

Because the negotiation process begins by establishing guidelines to be followed by both parties, prior to any mediation, phone contact by one of the mediators or an intake worker should be made to the parties involved. The purpose of this phone contact is to screen out inappropriate cases such as marriages where domestic violence or drug use might be occurring. The intake worker or mediator avoids the use of legal terms, such as custody or child support, but rather reframes these issues as “parenting plan” and “general finances.” In substituting a more neutral non-threatening use of language rather than legalistic terminology, the stage is being set for a successful mediation between the two partners.

After the phone contact is made, both parties are seen, either separately or conjointly, for a mediation orientation that lasts about one half hour. Insofar as this meeting will set the tone for the coming mediation, it is an essential part of the negotiation process. During this meeting, the intake worker or mediator will ask questions to see whether or not the parties are intent in following through with the divorce and going through the proceedings entailed in divorce mediation. The advantages of mediation over alternative means of divorce, such as litigation, are pointed out by illustrating that a successful mediation is far less costly than the adversarial alternative. Here the parties are shown figures that compare the cost and time of litigation as opposed to a successful mediation to help them better understand what their Best Alternative to a Negotiated Agreement (BATNA) would be if they hired separate attorneys (Fisher et al., 1991)

When both the wife and husband come in for the first time, the mediators set the rules and guidelines, one of which is that the couple bargain in good faith. Intentional misrepresentation, the pitfall often seen in litigation, is not permissible in mediation. An example of this particular pitfall would be when one of the parties hides his/her assets.

Finally, as the mediation progresses, mediators tend to work on the least complicated issues first, thereby building trust and confidence with the parties, and making it easier for them to subsequently tackle the more thorny issues. Accordingly, mediators will address personal property, such as cars, first, avoiding the more complex issue of child custody until later on in the process. In this sense, early agreements will increase the likelihood of later agreements between the parties.

References:

Fisher, R. and Ury, William (1991). Getting to yes. New York: Penguin Books

Mercer, D. and Pruett, M.K. (2001). Your divorce advisor. New York: Simon and Schuster

Categories
Psychology

The Fight

Arthur Kovacs, a long time mentor in my private practice as a psychologist, once told me that “your problem Bernard is not commission but omission of behavior.” I have fought this particular character weakness of mine all my life. I use the word “character,” in this context, intentionally, because it implies a trait that has been with me since childhood, thereby, occupying a more than transient part of my being.

Dr. Kovacs’ comment brought back a vivid memory that very much substantiated what he had to say. I had just graduated high school and, I had procured a light construction job with Union County in New Jersey the summer before I was to start college. Although this was a summer job, the other summer employees had started earlier because they had returned from college about a month earlier than my high school graduation. I remember being assigned to Snuffy’s crew in which we were to do light repair work on bridges. Some of the bigger guys on the crew actually handled jack hammers, but only for short periods of time due to liability issues.  Everyone in the group was cordial and quite helpful to me, the youngest of all of them, treating me almost as if I were their kid brother. However, as luck would have it, after a week of working with that bunch of guys, I was transferred to another unit because I had begun later than the rest and someone, who had started working before me, had requested a transfer to Snuffy’s crew.

I was reassigned to Joe’s crew of three college juniors with myself being the fourth, a group much smaller than Snuffy’s gang of 15. I remember my first day overhearing one of them, Jim, tell his friend Billy that I was a faster and more efficient worker than the fellow I had replaced. It felt good hearing that and, I figured that it would not be so bad working with these guys despite the fact that I had developed a really good rapport with Snuffy’s crew members. The job consisted mostly of sweeping and cleaning the residue left on County bridges in addition to minor chipping and painting. It was toilsome but really not hard work and, I didn’t mind it at all as it paid pretty well for someone, like me, who had just turned 18.

Unfortunately, my honeymoon with those guys ended quickly. Two of them, Jimmy and Billy, were friends and hung out together all of the time. The third, Steve, was a big husky guy who hung out on his own, sort of away from it all, who I made an attempt to befriend.   Jimmy and Billy were both inseparable and impenetrable and, it soon became apparent, that in no way were they going to allow me to enter into their very private circle.

Although I went to an all boys’ public high school in Elizabeth, an urban area, I was very popular with all types of guys and rarely, if ever, had been bullied. In fact, I remember befriending a black football player two years older than I, who was said to be the toughest guy in the school. I’m not sure what he saw in me but I sort of idolized him and, when he responded in a positive way, I felt a boyish sense of pride. Needless to say, my experience in high school did not prepare me for what was about to happen with Jimmy and Billy.

Early on they began to tease me with words that soon after escalated to throwing water at me when I would sit in the truck with Joe, the crew leader. Although Joe was there in body, he was oblivious to Jimmy and Billy’s antics. The two of them had an interesting but very predictable relationship in the manner by which they went about taunting me: Jimmy would perform all of the offensive acts whereas Billy would instigate his friend by applauding and reinforcing Jimmy’s obnoxious behaviors. Why didn’t I react? This is where Dr. Kovacs’ observation hit a vital chord inasmuch as I almost felt paralyzed in not being able to answer back to them in some way. Steve, the other college junior, who was not part of their clique, would tell me “why don’t you give them the finger or do something back like I do?”   Easy for Steve to say that, I thought, he being much bigger than I was as Jimmy and Billy were bigger than I. Although I did not think so at the time, I later came to understand that size or physical build was not really the issue. Rather, it had more to do with an insatiable desire to be liked by all those around me: Having friends, being the popular one, had always meant an awful lot to me. I believed that if I fought back, neither of them would talk to me nor like me: It was this deep fear of rejection that prevented me from acting. Ah, but the mind plays funny tricks on us, does it not? I was afraid that they would not like me but by not fighting back their behavior toward me, in fact, worsened. And yet, somehow I could only imagine that they would like me if I remained passive.

How wrong I was! Each day the frequency of the bullying behaviors increased, and soon, I came to dread going to work. I found myself trapped in a hostile environment that felt foreign to me and, I hoped, with each night, that the bullying tactics of Jimmy and Billy would go away. But things only got worse until at the end of one day my black lunch pail appeared to have a leak. When I opened it up, it was full of water. I remember seeing a group of co-workers that I did not know well, because they worked on different teams, before spotting Jimmy, standing about 30 or 40 feet away from me, staring at me. I felt a pulsating heat under my collar, an anger I had rarely experienced in my life, taking control of my body. I did not fight to restrain it: My boiling point had been reached. I took the lunch pail and running toward Jimmy hurled the water at him. One of the guys standing there in complete awe asked me why I had done that. I did not reply.

We all cheer for the underdog: One of the guys, who had been friendly with Jimmy and Billy, decided to take my side. He beckoned to me: “You can soak him good with the hose. He’s in the group meeting room where the hose is.” As he said this, he led me over to the room where Jimmy was standing, started uncoiling the hose and quickly gave it to me. As soon as he gave it to me, he turned the water on and I aimed the unfurled hose at Jimmy. He ran at me as I doused him with water. For a moment all eyes were on us and, I felt an eerie sensation tickling my spine because I understood that my current behavior had no antecedents. Hell, if I knew how to fight. No, it was not a skill I had developed as I was too popular for that. As our bodies met, a couple of brawny foremen came out and stood between us stopping the fight and, when I was able to gather my wits some, I was quite thankful that they had intervened. As the rational side of my brain began to take over my being, I breathed a sigh of relief.

The next day Jimmy was transferred to another unit. His friend Billy, perhaps both amused and shocked by my gall, told me to be aware of Jimmy because he had said he would seek revenge when I may not be ready for it.   How strange that Billy was suddenly an ally of mine. I do not know if the smile I felt surfaced, but within me, I certainly felt that my actions had caused a chain reaction of people backing me: I was no longer seen as a submissive weakling, but rather now, I was viewed as someone who was willing to risk the consequences of a brave action. No, Jimmy never did seek revenge and yes, I had won the respect of those around me.

 

Categories
Psychology

Stress Management

When I lived in New York City back in the ‘70’s, from time to time, I would attend events led by a group called Operation on a Shoestring that involved learning about the unique characteristics of the City. Without a doubt, the best turnout of all the events I ever went to featured a talk on Stress Management. In my private practice, stress has been a key issue with many of my clients.

The prevalence of stress with so many of my clients led me to the question: Why more stress now than in the past? Woolfolk and Lehrer (1984) provided some answers to this question that remain relevant today. In their article, they identified four points of modern living that have increased the amount of stress, we human beings, encounter on a regular basis.

The first point is that modernization is the ordering of life by the clock, a fact that increases time-pressured work. The second point is that inasmuch as modern society is undergoing continuous change, the rate of that change is ever increasing (see Alvin Toffler, 1970) and, even more so, today. An example of this rapidity of change is how the women’s liberation movement changed the way men and women perceived their respective roles in society. A third point made by these authors was that industrialization and modernization in enhancing freedom and material well-being of the individual, certainly a positive outcome, created a situation where numerous choices were available. However, too much choice also can be the root of immobilization. With the expansion of our personal freedoms, the extended family disappeared resulting in individual social isolation. Thus, whereas the premodern world was communal and spiritual, contemporary times have brought a greater individualistic and materialistic consciousness.

To deal with the stress of modern life, the following are some of the techniques I have used in my private practice: 1) Cognitive restructuring 2) Assertive training 3) Conflict resolution and 4) Progressive relaxation. I will briefly discuss how I employ these techniques in assisting clients in overcoming their stressors.

Cognitive restructuring is often the treatment of choice when a client is not handling his/her life situation in the best of all ways. The principal intervention with these clients is to help them better cope with the negative aspects of life, such as job or marital difficulties. For example, acknowledging and increasing their tolerance and forgiveness toward others such as spouses, coworkers and/or bosses or supervisors can very much relieve stress.

In an earlier article I wrote, labeled The Four Point Rule of Assertive Behavior, I defined the characteristics of assertive behavior. I have found in my private practice that clients with a variety of presenting problems improve when they become more assertive in their daily lives. Furthermore, this increase in assertiveness assists them in combating the stress they may face at home or in the workplace. Assertiveness means being the primary and ultimate judge of your own behavior, feelings and actions such as being able to say “No” even under pressure. This ability allows one to reduce the stress of the ever increasing burdens brought on by modernization.

The third technique I may employ is conflict resolution in which I find the most important ingredient to be active listening. Active listening can be extremely helpful in alleviating the stress between partners in a relationship by having each member defer his/her own needs and desires by paying better attention to those of one’s partner. The shift from what I want from you, to how can I give you what you want, reduces the antagonistic behavior of each member by allowing the partners to feel more empathy toward one other.

Finally, techniques such as relaxation training and meditation help to induce a relaxed state. Many are unaware of how the ways we breathe can impact our ability to move from a stress response to a more relaxed one. The importance of facilitating relaxation is that this state is incompatible with other emotional states such as anxiety, one of the principal underlying emotions of stress.

After explaining the process, I often tape the session in my office; this allows the client to return home and play the tape at his/her convenience in both a quiet and comfortable setting at home. I encourage clients to play the tape at least daily, and if they have time, to play it two times per day as a means of reducing the impact of the stressful events of their lives. Finally, I encourage an exercise program that I will assist clients in monitoring when they decide to commit to such a program. The value of exercise has been consistently reported, in both medical and psychological journals, to have a beneficial effect on both the physical and psychological health of individuals.

References:

Woolfolk, Robert and Lehrer, Paul. Clinical Applications. In Robert Woolfolk & Paul Lehrer (Eds.), Principles and practice of stress management. New York: Guilford Press, 1984

Toffler, A. Future shock. New York: Random House, 1970

Categories
Psychology

The Four Point Rule of Assertive Behavior

Although the act of behaving in an assertive manner always carried with it a positive connotation, its exact meaning varied from one speaker to another. However, as a graduate student, studying under Arnold Lazarus at Rutgers University, I learned how to view assertive behavior in a very specific and operational context. The definition comprised four explicit behaviors that could be communicated to other people quite clearly. I refer to this definition as the Four Point Rule; I have helped a great number of my clients in private practice in increasing their assertive behavior resulting in their very much improved self-image.

(1) The first of these behaviors is simply the ability to say No. There have been several books that one can find related to self-improvement that emphasize the importance of an individual being able to say No. People that can’t say No often find that they are promising people things or actions that they really have no intention of delivering. Some reasons why a person will not say “no” are: 1) She/He does not want to hurt the other person’s feelings; 2) He/She is afraid of losing the other person’s friendship and/or 3) She/He may feel indebted to the other person for one reason or another. Of course, the person who responds positively to a request by another but makes a habit of not following through, more than likely, will lose the respect or trust of the other. On the other hand, the person who says “yes” but; deep down really does not want to do what she/he commits to, probably will feel some resentment toward the one requesting the favor.

(2) The flip side of being able to say “no” to someone is the ability to ask a favor from a friend or acquaintance. The implicit risk one takes in asking another for a favor is that the other person may say “no.” A person may not ask for a favor from someone he/she knows well because she/he may not feel worthy of a positive response from that friend. One type of client I have worked with is the shy male who is so afraid of rejection that he will not take the risk of asking a woman with whom he may be attracted out on a date.

(3) This neatly ties in with the third feature of assertive behavior: The ability to initiate and/or terminate a conversation with a stranger. I have helped several single shy males by role playing and, subsequently, giving them the assignment to talk to any two women they may meet during the week. Their goal for the week is to be rejected by these women. This may sound counterproductive, at first, but the paradoxical nature of the assignment makes it impossible for them to fail. Simply stated the client cannot perceive himself being a loser whether he is rejected or not and, this realization in and of itself, has therapeutic value.

(4) The fourth characteristic of assertive behavior is the ability to make positive or negative comments to a stranger or someone you know well. An example of the latter would be a non-assertive spouse who will be always apologetic to his/her partner never being able to express anything negative to that person for fear perhaps that the partner may leave him/her. That person’s mate will probably have little respect for such a partner. Examples of asserting oneself in less familiar situations would be the ability to return a steak not cooked the way it was ordered, at a restaurant, or the ability to tell people talking in a movie theater to quiet down.

Part of this last feature of assertive behavior is the ability to accept positive comments made to you.  I have had several clients that refuse to accept a compliment from friends or family members by claiming that they didn’t deserve it.  Often such behavior stems from the fact that they may have a poor sense of self, thus questioning the truth or validity of anything positive directed toward them.  Being assertive is simply not congruent with a poor self-image or self-concept.

To conclude, when an individual asserts oneself in any of the above situations defining assertive behavior, that person takes the risk of being rejected. An assertive person recognizes this risk and is willing to accept the consequences if, he/she, truly believes in oneself.

Categories
Sports

The Most Amazing Game of Stickball

As a child growing up in Elizabeth, New Jersey, I very much enjoyed playing baseball.  Stickball was a great pastime for many of us in the 50’s and 60’s when I did my playing.  To play baseball you needed organized teams; stickball, on the other hand, could be played spontaneously with just two to four people.  It became widely popular in urban areas in the Northeast where, in fact, baseball had its origins.

I had the good fortune of attending elementary school at Victor Mravlag School 21.  Good fortune because the school provided a natural place to play with all the boundaries needed for an artificial playing field.  Two brick walls were sandwiched by the school itself allowing for two playing fields.  The pitcher would pitch to a box outlined with chalk on the red brick surface of the back of the school.  The front half of the stickball court was concrete cement surface behind which was a black tar surface, the back half of the stickball court. At the back of the playing area was a fence dividing the school playground from privately owned home owners (poor souls).   When I started playing stickball, seriously, probably around the age of 9 or 10, all the rules were in place.

The rules of the game that very much followed from baseball were both simple and clear, points that very much facilitated the play.  A single was a ground ball that the pitcher could not field or a pop fly that landed on the concrete part of the field (usually caught).  A double was a fly ball, not caught, that landed on the black school yard surface a distance behind the pitcher.  A triple was a fly ball that hit the fence and, most naturally, a home run was a fly ball over the fence (a pretty good distance for any of us to hit).  An out occurred when the pitcher caught a fly ball, fielded a ground ball, clean, without bobbling it, struck out a batter or if a batter hit the ball over the side part of the fence (the school was fenced in on all sides) in what was considered foul territory.

Equipment was simple:  I had the handle of an old broomstick and, at that time, a pink spalding ball that cost all of 29 cents, a fair amount when you were not yet working.  A tennis ball was not a good substitute because it simply did not have the bounce and movement that the spalding rubber ball had.  Like a contemporary player’s baseball bat, the stick was fashioned around the build and taste of whoever employed it.  Certainly, a precious item for a boy aged 9 or 10.

I remember it well: I had finished elementary school and was entering into a new school, Hamilton Junior High School so it was the summer of 1957.  It was midsummer perhaps a month before we would have to return to the school boy grind.  In those days, stickball was the thing to do: Skateboards did not exist and neither did i Pod, i Pads or i Phones.  I suppose life was much simpler in those days.

I had just finished playing stickball with a friend that I had beaten badly, and without a doubt, I was feeling pretty cocky.  I wanted to play more but my friend had had enough.  Low and behold, Billy Richmond was alone and, apparently, had no one to trounce.  I say this because Billy was known as the stickball player to beat or to put it differently, like the fastest draw in the West, he was one of the best, if not the best, at stickball.  A natural athlete, he excelled, in most sports.

As he was there alone and given my elevated mood, I challenged him to a game.  He let out a laugh and said: “Buzzy do you really want to play me: How many runs can I let you have when we start?”   I boldly replied: “I don’t need any runs.”  With a big smile of confidence, and, I suppose, having no one better to play at that moment, he agreed to play.  Sometimes, when you are the underdog, in a competition, you feel less tension, less pressure to perform with the consequence being more grace and more skill as you throw all caution to the wind.

Perhaps it was one of those days when Billy was off, and I was on enough, to make that very significant difference in the outcome of an event.  After all, I was a Red Sox fan, and spent many a painfully long Sunday at Yankee Stadium, seeing the Red Sox lose.  But then again, every once in a while, the Red Sox did win at Yankee Stadium.  I wondered if this might happen on this day.

I took an early lead in the first inning.  There was no pitch that he threw that I could not hit.  Soon it was 3 to 0.  Billy, may have felt, perhaps it was just luck.  But if it was luck, it didn’t stop.  I continued to hit on the offense but on the defense, he being a lefty like me, was having trouble hitting my pitching.  In addition, I made some very good fielding plays on balls he did hit.

By the bottom of the 7th inning (we played 9 innings in Jersey), Billy was up and I was leading by the impressive score of 8 to 3.  Suddenly, it started drizzling, some thunder came and it appeared like it would turn into a downpour in a matter of moments.  We agreed to stop the game but would continue it at some later date.  In a strange way, I was happy that the rain was coming because in the back of mind, I wondered whether my luck or, his “bad day” might change.

Well, when Billy and I resumed play a few weeks later in the heat of summer, things went differently.  It was almost like we were two different players than when we had met last.  Needless to say, things changed very quickly:  Everything I threw, he managed to hit:  Some of those hits were home runs.  Through all of this, I managed to get one run, and suddenly in the 9th inning, the score had become 9 to 9.

At that point, I remember telling myself, “this had to stop: I refuse to give up any more runs to him.”  It was grit determination that kept me in there.  The score remained tied through twelve innings when pretty much everyone had left the playground and the twilight began to fade.  Although we agreed to finish the game at some later time, we never did.  Summer suddenly ended and my daily stickball routine was coming to an abrupt end.

Really the game had three acts:  The first act I was in charge of right up to the rain delay; the second act through the 9th inning Billy had taken the reins; the third act was the extra innings where the two of us went scoreless.  Because I knew that it had not been a fluke, I felt most proud of that last act in which I had managed to tie one of the best stickball players ever to come out of School #21.

 

How Derek Jeter Helped the Red Sox Win in 2004

 

As we all know, because he is retiring this year, it is the year of Derek Jeter.  It has been hard for me to be won over by him inasmuch as I have been a diehard Red Sox fan forever.  But his decency as a human being has a much greater value in my eyes than the fact that he is a despised Yankee.

In 2004, however, I think that Derek Jeter inadvertently did the Red Sox a great favor.  It was on July 1st of that year that the Red Sox were trailing in the American League East pennant race by 9.5 games and, as a further insult, were in danger of being swept by the Yankees in New York.

The game proceeded to be a typical cliffhanger, full of exciting plays, with the score seesawing back and forth between the two teams.  It was the top of the 12th inning with the score 3 to 3, two out, and two men in scoring position when Trot Nixon came up to bat.  He hit a ball to short left field that, at first, looked like it might drop in as a base hit.  Then the ball began to tail off into foul territory and, suddenly, almost from nowhere, Jeter was seen madly dashing for the ball.   He was rapidly running sideways toward the stands, and as he appeared to make the catch, the impact of his run threw him head first into the stands in foul territory.  Some fans, awestruck, saw Jeter’s face, all bloodied, as he was escorted off the field at the end of the inning.  Jeter went to the hospital, received some stitches due to his injury, and the Yankees went on to win the game in the bottom of the 13th inning.

Meanwhile, throughout the game, the camera zoomed in on Nomar Garciaparra, who was sitting in the Red Sox dugout, with an injury some people were questioning.  Even if he was not 100% to play, we all wondered why Terry Francona did not use him, at least, as a pinch hitter in such a tight game.  Garciaparra had already missed 57 games that year due to an injury to his right achilles.  As a Red Sox fan, I remember it being painful to continuously see Jeter playing and making a brilliant catch, in contrast to Garciaparra, sitting in the dugout, resting, with an almost helpless look on his face.

Later on, just before the trade deadline on July 31st,  Theo Epstein, then the General Manager of the Red Sox, did the unspeakable: He traded Garciaparra to the Chicago Cubs for what appeared to be two much less known and much less regarded players: Orlando Cabrera and Doug Mientkiewicz.  Epstein explained the trade because he hoped to strengthen the team’s defense that had been faltering.  He also stated that he made these trades with the hope of helping the Red Sox stay in contention for the pennant race and the World Series.  Epstein, in a separate deal, was able to acquire Davey Roberts from the Los Angeles Dodgers.

Insofar as Garciaparra had been always a favorite of Red Sox fans, they were horrified by what Epstein had done.  Many of them thought Epstein completely had lost his mind giving up such a great player as Garciaparra.

In the end, we all know what happened:  The Red Sox defense was bolstered throughout the rest of the year, and they went on to win the American League pennant after trailing the Yankees 0 to 3.  In the 4th game of that series, Davey Roberts stole second base, a steal that resulted in the Red Sox winning that game.  If he had not been successful at stealing second base, it is likely the Red Sox may have lost that game and the series with the Yankees.

Finally, when the Red Sox won the World Series against the St. Louis Cardinals, 4 to 0, Theo Epstein had been totally vindicated.  For the first time in 86 years, the Red Sox had won a World Series.  Thanks need to go to Derek Jeter for making that spectacular play in the 12th inning.  I am pretty sure, if any event sealed the fate of the Red Sox and Garciaparra in 2004, it was, indeed, that catch.

 

Categories
Life Lessons Science Fiction

Listening: A Lost Art

In a recent video on leadership, Marshall Goldsmith, the renowned executive coach, pointed out that 80% of our success in learning from other people is based on our ability to listen.  What he called the art of listening, I believe can be more properly referred to as a lost art.

Years ago I was sitting in Heathrow Airport, in the wee hours of the morning, waiting for a connecting flight out of London.   Not having much to do, I asked a fellow traveler if I could borrow one of his books.  He tossed me a very used paperback anthology of science fiction stories and, he told me I could keep it as he already had read the entire book.  I thanked him and began reading some of the stories.

One story in that anthology I still remember to this day insofar as it made a lasting impression on me.   Because he was having difficulty adapting to his society, the protagonist of the story was considered a freak by those around him.  He seemed out of place when he tried to communicate with others as they all possessed an extrasensory mode of interacting.  The story ended by showing how this individual, regarded by everyone as an alien, was different:  He possessed the ability to hear, a sense that had been lost years earlier to modern man.

The above story came to mind when I heard John Lithgow, the actor, recite by heart, two stories, one from P.G. Woodhouse, and the other from Ring Lardner.  In reciting these stories, he role played the personal mannerisms and expressions displayed by each character within the context of each of these stories. This allowed the contents of the story to be more immediate to the audience.

I have to say it was quite an experience listening to Mr. Lithgow perform on stage the two stories he chose, one of which, Haircut by Ring Lardner, I had read long ago.  I wondered whether those people who attended this wonderful event were there to listen to the stories or simply to see a famous actor perform.

For many years, I have noticed that the art of listening has been on the decline.  Sound bytes, from digital information in computing and telecommunications, have begun to change the way in which we had communicated, to one another, centuries earlier.  These changes have reduced our auditory abilities, and so, I often find myself repeating to people what I just had said a moment earlier.

When I was in my teens 50 years ago, many of us would say you can’t trust anyone over 35.   Given how younger people have been raised on this new technology, an integral part of the information age, I would choose now to say:  You can’t trust anyone under 35.  Young people, who are involved with customers, are constantly making mistakes.  Instead of improving customer relations, the information age, I would maintain, has brought with it people, working for companies, that are more prone to mistakes than those who held similar jobs in the past.

As I am writing this article, my wife and I are presently experiencing, at this very moment, another error made: In this case, listening, in fact, was not a part of the equation.   About 6 months ago, I booked a trip online with Jet Blue as the carrier.  Upon printing our boarding passes the day before our departure, to both of our surprise, my wife did not have a seat assigned.  This, in contradistinction, to the fact that when I originally made the reservations, we both had seats assigned. This mistake made it necessary for my wife to wait 30 to 40 minutes to speak to someone that would only begin to rectify the problem.

The above mistake was not due to the inability of an airline representative to listen.  Rather, there simply was no listening involved.  Here is a case where a tool of technology is replacing the need for the representatives of companies to have to listen.  As computers have begun to replace the human ear, I would assert that people are gradually losing the ability to pay attention to the needs of others.  Are we then approaching a world where only a freak of nature will still have the capacity to both hear and listen?  O Brave New World!

The Hub Bids Youk Farewell

It was with a certain amount of sadness that I saw Kevin Youkilis play his last game at Fenway Park this past Sunday, June 26.   Although I only met him one time on a Red Sox Cruise in January of 2004, I have felt an emotional bond with him.  In particular, he is Jewish, and there simply are not a great number of Jewish players that have made it to the big leagues.  He also was a modest guy who was just beginning to make his presence on the Red Sox team.  I found it quite easy to talk to him as he was not at all distant.  We talked about his desire to play third base for the Sox though, at that time, Bill Mueller was starting.  I wondered, but more to myself, than to Kevin, whether he could play any other position in the infield.  Little did either of us know that he would shift to accommodate Mike Lowe, who was obtained with Josh Beckett from the Florida Marlins, from third base to first base.

 I remember the sports’ announcers saying that Youk had not committed an error in so many games it was nearing a record when he played first base.  Furthermore, it was evident that he had proven his versatility and value to the Red Sox in his ability to play two positions, first and third base, with equal poise.  And yes, I remember that first at bat by Kevin when he hit the home run in Toronto and his parents beamed with pride at him back in May of 2004.  I also remember his teammates, led by Pedro Martinez, giving him, a rookie with his first hit, a home run, the customary initial silent treatment in the dugout and then, with a sudden burst of humor and enthusiasm congratulating him. 

 Kevin, himself, would admit that he did not have the natural talent of some of the greats such as Alex Rodriguez or Derek Jeter, but his determination to work extra hard at his craft would make him comparable to the best of ball players.  His determination was inspiring and it showed in his efforts to make some great fielding plays, typically having him wind up with a outfit covered brown with the dirt of the infield.

Kevin was the lone Sox with David Ortiz left that had been on the two World Series winning teams of 2004 (the greatest of years) and 2007 when he played first base with Mike Lowe at third base.   In 2011, he and Dustin Pedroia and other players were stymied with injuries.  We all hoped that both the bodily and mental health of the team would improve with a new manager, Bobby Valentine.  Rumors had it that under Terry Francona the attitude of the players had slacked off inasmuch as they were said to be drinking beer and joking around in the clubhouse on the day of baseball games played in the evening.  There had appeared to be a disunity of the players and, of course, we all know what happened:  They blew a huge lead in the wild card and lost to Baltimore in the final game eliminating them completely from competing in the playoffs.

Unfortunately, things did not go well for Kevin or the team as the 2012 season began.  Bobby Valentine criticized Kevin publicly saying he didn’t appear to being motivated to play his best or give it his all.  For a guy that gives it 150% this was hurtful and, although, Valentine did apologize, things just never appeared to be quite the same for Kevin.   Kevin was striking out a lot, a sign that he was simply not seeing the ball the way he had in the past.  There was a glimmer of hope when, in an away game, Kevin hit a grand slam but the next day he struck out a few times.  Soon enough he was out with another injury.  Initially, Nick Punto had taken his position but Valentine knew he needed  more firepower than Punto could offer so he brought up Will Middlebrooks from Pawtucket, a player thought to be a potential starter in a few years to come.

I have been a diehard Red Sox fan all my life, with the misfortune of coming from New Jersey and seeing them so often lose at Yankee Stadium in the ‘50’s.  Despite this fact, I found myself hoping that Middlebrooks would make outs and not look all that good.  I really wanted Youkilis to keep his job and shine.  But Youk had had a very slow start and was having difficulty at the plate.  He also looked just a shade slower in the field whether he played third or first base and he was making errors that he had rarely made in past years.

Meanwhile, while Youk was having difficulty at the plate, Middlebrooks’ starf was shining.  When the Red Sox played the Marlins at home, and they were losing 5 to 3, appearing that they would lose, once more, to a very mediocre team, Middlebrooks hit a two run homer to tie the score.  The Red Sox wound up winning the game by a score of 6 to 5 with Middlebrooks driving in 4 of the 6 runs scored.  It was at this point that I realized perhaps it is best that the Sox keep him insofar as it was quite obvious that he could hit major league pitching quite well.  Moreover, he appeared to be quite comfortable in the field and in the presence of his teammates.

It was pretty evident that there was now no place for Youk; the rumors began to circulate that he would be traded at some point.  And so, we all saw that last at bat by him, a shot to right centerfield against the Atlanta Braves.  It looked to everyone present including Youk that it would be caught but as it would happen the two Braves’ fielders got their signals crossed and the ball bounced in between them, at which point Youk took off and made a triple out of it.

We will all remember what came next: Bobby Valentine then pulled Youk for Nick Punto (the game was 9 to 4 Red Sox) and the two of them embraced, as Youk left third base.  On his way to the dugout, he received a huge standing ovation and, upon entering the dugout, Dustin Pedroia and David Ortiz, with his other teammates, hugged him.  The crowed continued to cheer until he finally came out and took his hat off and waved, in acknowledgement to the fans, who continued to cheer.  At the end of the game, it was announced that Youk had been traded to the Chicago White Sox.

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The Psychopathology of Every Day Life by Sigmund Freud

I recently led a discussion with the Beverly Hills Great Books Group on the above work by Sigmund Freud. The leader of the group had invited a college class from Los Angeles to attend the group.   After reading what Freud had to say, in conjunction with my own training as a clinical psychologist, I realized that most of what I had prepared to offer to the group was not going to be positive.  My hope, however, was that I would stimulate some interesting discussion, especially with the students attending, by the Socratic method of questioning.  Unfortunately, only one student made it to the discussion.  Indeed, this probably changed the dynamic of the meeting because those who attended were for the most part, devotees of Freud, a factor I had not considered:  That is, people that attend a lecture about a past famous figure will probably be followers of that person.

Prior to formally discussing the work, I told the group that this particular monograph was difficult to discuss from a psychological or philosophical framework because in essence Freud was writing it to state his case for how the unconscious and repression operate within a normal population.

I began the talk by stating that Freud was really the first one to establish what we may consider a school of psychotherapy.   I then proceeded to ask the group what they believed to be the most important factor that influences the treatment process during psychotherapy.   Some people responded but no one quite had the answer I was in search of: The quality of the patient/therapist alliance and not the school or theory of psychotherapy.  In this sense, the psychoanalytic school that Freud founded was the first practicing school of what we now would call psychotherapy.  I had hoped that by establishing this fact it would make it easier to point out the many shortcomings in Freud’s view of looking at the human mind. However, I was badly mistaken.

I then proceeded to talk about repression and the unconscious pointing out that the main issues Freud was addressing in his monograph were really these two points, and how they affected forgetting and verbal errors that subsequently came to be knows as Freudian slips.  I made the observation that Freud’s idea of the unconscious was not novel and gave the example of Robert Louis Stevenson’s famous novella: The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde that was written in 1886 before the Psychopathology of Everyday Life and Freud’s major work on dreams and the importance of the unconscious had been published.   A participant responded that Freud was the first to treat the unconscious as a means of treating people, a comment of which I agreed.  

Other Freudian believers argued that he was a great scientist.  But was he?  Although most of his works may be considered literary masterpieces, I countered that I did not believe his theories would meet the standards imposed by scientific criteria.  After all, the steps of the scientific method are the following:

 

Ask a Question

Do Background Research

Construct a Hypothesis

Test Your Hypothesis by Doing an Experiment

Analyze Your Data and Draw a Conclusion

Communicate Your Results

 

 

 

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Although Freud may have made observations of human behavior, he really did not go through the procedure of testing his observations, that he wove into theories, by doing experiments.  This criticism is not a new one and has been often made vis-à-vis the social sciences, among which psychology is included.

I then proceeded to discuss the fact that modern linguists see verbal mishaps much like a banana peel in the path of a sentence or accidental shifts of linguistic units.  I pointed out to the group that linguists have shown that language is connected by three networks of the brain: semantic, lexical and phonological.  When Ted Kennedy said the “breast and the brightest” this could simply be a slip known as an anticipation or forward error and not a Freudian slip.  According to Daniel Wegner, a psychologist at Harvard, two conditions that increase the risk of making a Freudian slip are: 1) The thought you’d rather suppress and 2) A stressor, a distraction, time pressure or a competing mental agenda.  I further pointed out to the group that people who are sleep deprived, under the influence of alcohol or some other drug and/or are aging are more likely to make verbal slips than others.

When challenged by some of the audience members to define unconscious, I defined it the way Fischer and Pipp did: “The unconscious is a type of process or way of constructing perception, memories and other kinds of cognition that changes systematically with development.  It is not a portion of the mind.”  This is a much less static view of the mind that Freud had postulated.  One participant contested what I had said because she asserted that Freud had changed his views later on.  But did he alter his view of the id, ego and superego the determinants of human behavior with the ego being the only part of our mind that is within our consciousness?  I don’t think he abandoned these concepts that he believed shared portions of the mind.  These ideas are very much heuristic but by no means can be taken to be empirical.

I concluded my comments by citing the work of Daniel Siegel, who has written two important works:  1) The Developing Mind and 2) Pocket Guide to Interpersonal Neurobiology.  Siegel states that the “mind is both embodied and embedded in our relational worlds.  It is created in both the body and interactions with others and our environment.  This emergent process arises from energy and information flow across time.  Mental life is an emergent, self-organizing process of this embodied and relational flow of energy and information.”  One of the Freudian devotees in the audience then asked me what you call a psychologist that studies the brain.  I replied a neuropsychologist.  He did not challenge me on my response.  However, I met with much resistance (and not the type that Freud spoke of) to the examples I provided in how present day thinking has disputed many of Freud’s theories.

At the end of the talk, the student that attended the discussion group (who had never come before) walked up to me and thanked me for the information that I had presented.  She was perhaps not so stuck in her thinking like some of the regular participants who have been out of school for some time.  Great damage to our clients can be done if you fit each and every one of them into a Procrustean bed.  When therapists  apply psychoanalytic methods to every client they see, they may lose both a flexible and personalistic appproach, two ingredients that contribute to the quality of the therapeutic relationship.