Psychiatry, Science or Business Model?

Post author By Dr. Jeffrey Rubin
Post date April 12, 2023
6 Comments on Psychiatry, Science or Business Model?

Welcome to From Insults to Respect.

Last week, I presented a post titled, “Mental Illness as Distress, Abnormality, and Dysfunction.” There, I explained that it is actually normal in our society to have periods during which we become concerned that we are too distressed, or too dissatisfied with our level of functioning. The pharmaceutical companies, I noted, promote that these concerns are mental disorders and can be safely addressed by going to a psychiatrist.

Psychiatrists, using the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders-5th Edition (DSM-5), label expressed concerns as mental disorders, and then write prescriptions for drugs they call medications. This is financially rewarding for psychiatrists and makes billions for the drug companies. Unfortunately, this model is promoted as a sound science supported enterprise, although science paints a dramatically more complicated picture.

The question of whether psychiatry is even properly viewed as a science was taken up in an article titled, “Is Psychiatry Scientific? A Letter to a 21st Century Psychiatry Resident.” Published in 2013 by the National Library of Medicine, its conclusion section states in part, “The DSM-5 is a dead end, and even the NIMH scientists acknowledge that DSM-5 does not describe valid entities supported by valid scientific research.” Nevertheless, on the basis of this approach, the average psychiatrist makes $220,000 per year.

Here’s a narrative illustrating what they do to earn this.

Good afternoon, Mrs. Doe. I hope your trip here went smoothly.

Yes. I’ve come for an appointment, Dr. Smith, because I’ve been very depressed. I’ve been seeing on TV commercials that there are some pills that can help.

Yes, Mrs. Doe, there are. But first, please tell me how long these depressed feelings have been going on.

Well, my husband and I have begun the process of having a divorce, and, well even before that, we were having marital problems, and, well, maybe for a few months now its been pretty bad.

Has it been affecting your sleep?

Oh, yes. I often have trouble falling to sleep for hours.

How about eating?

Sometimes I end up drinking too much, and I have a bad stomach reaction….

After this type of conversation goes on for about an hour, the doctor prescribes a pill, informing the patient of what kinds of side effects to watch out for.

Psychiatrists, like other medical doctors, seek to validate their treatment with studies that are carried out using acceptable scientific methodologies. Let’s take a critical look at the outcomes of these studies.

The Science

Short term studies indicate the use of “antidepressants” can cause irritability, anxiety and panic, emotional ﬂattening, involuntary muscle movements, sexual impairment, suicidality, weight gain and aggression. Additionally, serious withdrawal effects are well-documented and can last for months, and can be mistaken for a return of depressive symptoms.

In these short term studies, some subjects taking these drugs do report some improvement after a few weeks, but so too do those who take a placebo, or begin a physical exercise program, or begin seeing a counselor or psychotherapist, or begin to meditate. The difference between the improvement experienced between the active drug and placebo groups tends to be slight.

Even this slight improvement has been questioned because of serious flaws in the research design. These flaws have to do with the drug studies being funded by pharmaceutical companies and because most of the subjects in the studies were taking a different “antidepressant” prior to the study.

Why would taking a different “antidepressant” prior to taking the new drug in these studies lead to making the new drug look more effective than a placebo? To qualify to be in the study, those who had been taking a different “antidepressant” had to agree to stop taking it for a couple of weeks prior to taking the new “antidepressant.” It often takes more than two weeks to wean off of these types of drugs. Therefore, many of these subjects in the placebo group were experiencing withdrawal reactions from no longer taking any “antidepressant.” This then creates the illusion that the new drug is more effective than a placebo because those taking the placebo mistake their withdrawal reaction that is continuing after they begin to take the placebo to a worsening of depression. Meanwhile, those in these studies who were taking the actual new drug are less likely to experience withdrawal reactions because new “antidepressants” are similar to the older ones.

As for the long term effects of these drugs, there are some studies that looked at this and found that those who took “antidepressants” had worse outcomes than those who did not receive the drug despite having the same symptoms.

I focus above on the science regarding depression because it is the most common reason people go to a psychiatrist, but all of the drugs psychiatrists tend to prescribe are unhealthy. The so called “antianxiety” drugs, colloquially called “benzos,” are addictive, and side effects include drowsiness, dizziness, and decreased alertness and concentration. Lack of coordination may result in falls and injuries. Another result is impairment of driving skills and increased likelihood of traffic accidents. Decreased libido and erection problems are also common side effects. Depression and disinhibition may emerge.

The so called “antipsychotic” drugs are even more dangerous. Here’s a list of them, and I provided a link for each one so people can learn more about what they are.

Some estimates suggest the “antipsychotics” shorten a person’s life by around 10 to 20 years. That’s a lot of damage to cause.

My Conclusions

For several years, I moderated a series of debates on this topic. The panel members included several leading psychiatrists who supported what they did in their practice. I came away fairly convinced that they genuinely believed they were providing an enormously helpful set of treatments. They also struck me as intelligent, caring individuals, and I respected them for their willingness to debate the issues.

Their efforts at rationalizing what they do consists of describing their experience with their patients in glowing terms, minimizing the negative side effects while exaggerating the benefits of the drugs they prescribe, and admitting that much of the scientific support for their treatments are indeed flawed but set this quickly aside with comments like, “Hey, all research studies have flaws.” Even in the face of other debate panel members that included one psychiatrist, a noted scientist, and patients who disagreed with them, they steadfastly remained convinced that their approach was consistent with the best science available.

These debates also included patients who fervently believed the psychiatric/mental disorder way of looking at their concerns has been enormously helpful. Their two chief arguments were,

1. Mental illnesses are real illnesses, and therefore, this eliminates blame for what they were going through,

2. The psychiatric drugs have “saved their lives,” or significantly improved their lives.

To this, I want to make it clear that neither I, nor most of the people I know, blame patients/clients for experiencing psychological concerns regardless of their views on this issue. At the same time, I have met people who do blame people for any and all behaviors they don’t like about them regardless of their views on mental illness. Since the notion of mental illness as real illness has been the dominant position by psychiatrists, stigma has not been eliminated. Moreover, I know smart, intelligent people who choose to take psychiatric drugs that I genially like and respect. With those words of clarification, I nevertheless have, after hearing both sides of these issues, concluded psychiatry causes far more harm than good, while being a heck of a financially rewarding business model.

It’s hard to come to this conclusion because making a good living is a fine thing to be doing. I don’t want to be seeming to be putting down the value of this, and I fear that people might think I have unkind feelings toward psychiatrists in general. I recognize and accept good people see these issues so very differently than do I.

Well, enough for now on this so very challenging topic. Let’s depart with a shift to something more pleasant.

Spring has arrived, along with its beautiful, colorful flowers fluttering in fragrant breezes. And so, may we all find some time to get outside, breath deeply, and find within us a wonderful appreciation of the many fine aspects of being alive.

My Best,
Jeff

—————————————–

Some people will enjoy reading this blog by beginning with the first post and then moving forward to the next more recent one; then to the next one; and so on. This permits readers to catch up on some ideas that were presented earlier and to move through all of the ideas in a systematic fashion to develop their emotional intelligence. To begin at the very first post you can click HERE.

Tags conflict resolution, mental disorders, mental illness, psychiatry, psychopathology

distress Dysfunction mental disorders Mental Illness

Mental Illness As Distress, Abnormality, and Dysfunction

Post author By Dr. Jeffrey Rubin
Post date April 3, 2023
5 Comments on Mental Illness As Distress, Abnormality, and Dysfunction

Welcome to From Insults To Respect.

In our society, many assume psychiatrist can accurately diagnose mental illness, also referred to as mental disorder or psychopathology. Why do they?

Sometimes we respect what a group of people do because of their association with something we highly value. Thus, in a commercial, we might see people purchasing a particular brand of car with a highly respected athlete, such as Derek Jeter, sitting in the driver’s seat.

Similarly, in our society many people respect the ability of psychiatrists to make a diagnosis of mental illness because psychiatrists have highly valued medical degrees. Those with this degree often save lives, a pretty amazing accomplishment certainly worthy of respect. However, the association between saving lives in situations that involve broken bones, tissue tears, heart disease, and cancer, might be irrelevant when it comes to their involvement in offering, for a fee, help for people who present with psychological concerns. In fact many view the psychiatrists’ approach to diagnosing and treating psychological concerns with drugs as causing far more harm than good (see, for example, HERE). Moreover, the type of “diagnoses” psychiatrists make is stigmatizing while lacking reliability and validity (see HERE).

Most publications on this topic present the relevant research. This leads many untrained folks to feel this type of information is way over their head, so they leave the necessary mental processing that can lead to a more thorough rational understanding of the issues to the experts. But when people cut short their reasoning in this way, it leaves them at the mercy of people who have an enormous financial interest in misleading patients and themselves. Consider the chemical imbalance theory that didn’t pan out, and yet I still hear it being promoted. Therefore, today I want to try my hand at providing readers a more accessible, common sense understanding of the type of labels psychiatrists use when describing the various concerns people present to them.

Mental Illness and Common Sense

To begin to understand, in a common sense manner, this notion of mental illness, we first have to come to understand that it is chiefly made up of three ideas–distress, abnormality, and dysfunction. By looking at these three ideas seperately we arrive at a place where our common sense can better understand why a psychiatrist’s “diagnosis” makes no sense for patients while being enormously valuable to the profession and the pharmaceutical industry.

Distress

The latest version of what is viewed by psychiatrists as the most authoritative American text on mental illness is the DSM-5. It tells us that mental disorders “are usually associated with significant distress in social, occupational, or other important activities.” Internationally, the most authoritative text according to psychiatrists is the International Classification of Diseases (ICD). It tells us that mental disorder “is not an exact term, but it is used here to imply the existence of a clinically recognizable set of symptoms or behaviour associated in most cases with distress…”

The phrase “significant distress,” as you can see, appears in both definitions. But notice that although this distress component in the definition is “usually” associated with mental disorder, it is not really a requirement.

In case this vague definition does not provide enough wiggle room for clinicians to label all people seeking their services as having a mental disorder and to prescribe a drug for it, the ICD tells the clinician, “When the requirements are only partially fulfilled, it is nevertheless useful to record a diagnosis for most purposes.” This type of double talk is one of the reasons why many people view the mental illness construct as super useful for a financially rewarding business model, but too vague and misleading for scientific purposes.

Let’s consider a patient who comes to a psychiatrist and asks for help because each day he becomes a mass of quivering fear. This patient sure sounds like he is experiencing distress. But so too do many woman who are giving birth, and yet it makes more sense to classify this experience as a natural part of creating new life rather than a pathological condition.

When writers receive rejections from publishers, or a loved one dies, distress often accompanies these experiences. Yet, we do not typically describe them with pathological terms, but if you went to a psychiatrist expressing any such concerns there’s a pretty good chance you will leave the office labelled as having a mental disorder and a prescription for pills.

As mentioned, not all psychological concerns need to have the “symptom” of distress to be labeled a mental disorder by psychiatrists, e.g., attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder, conduct disorder, intellectual disability, and schizophrenia. Thus, by using the psychiatrists’ classification system, we find that people who are experiencing distress may or may not be classified as having a mental disorder, and people who are not experiencing distress may or may not be classified as having a mental disorder.

Meanwhile, according to a variety of wisdom traditions, distress is viewed as useful. According to many Christian philosophers, distress is something to make us think. It is a tool to get our attention and to accomplish a valued purpose in a way that would never occur without the trial. In Judaism, the Talmud teaches that the righteous suffer in this world in order to increase their reward in the Eternal World. Rabbi Eliezer, in the Talmud, welcomed his suffering, calling his emotional distresses ”my friends.”

Add to all of this the problems one encounters when one tries to decide objectively how much distress, beyond the “normal” amount that one experiences during life’s parade of disappointments, is required for a diagnosis, and the reader begins to get a sense of how problematic it is to decide from the descriptor distress if a disorder is or is not present. But, in less than an hour, often as little as fifteen minutes, a doctor can transform your distress experience into a mental illness diagnosis, prescribe drugs with many significant side effects, and consequently have a financially rewarding relationship with you for years.

Abnormality

Now, sometimes people come to believe that it is not merely distress that leads to a mental illness diagnosis; it has to be an abnormal amount of distress for that to occur. Abnormal means deviating from average. So, let’s think about this.

According to Buddhist philosophy, the first Noble Truth is that suffering is a normal part of life. The average soldier in Ukraine is currently experiencing significant distress. Are all of these soldiers mentally ill? At what point does it become abnormal. Is someone with a medical degree who has a financial interest in diagnosing as many people as he or she can get away with best suited to make this decision?

Perhaps you are thinking that under conditions of war it is normal to be distressed, and therefore these soldiers are not mentally ill. But people find themselves in various situations that they experience as significantly distressful. Deciding on what situations are legitimately worthy to experience significant distress is really a value judgment and psychiatric terminology is masquerading as a scientific decision.

Dysfunction

Having indicated some of the problems of unambiguously applying the descriptors of distress and abnormality to the concept of mental disorder, we now turn our attention to the descriptor, dysfunction.

There are reliable, valid assessments for determining a person’s level of functioning. If instead of a classification system that labels people as having mental disorders, we had one that classifies a person’s expressed concerns regarding their areas of functioning this would be clearer and easier to understand than the vague notion of mental illness (see HERE). Various domains of functioning are sleep, eating, exercise, interpersonal relationships, work/school, and household responsibilities.

Although functioning is mentioned as part of the diagnosis process used by psychiatrists, the mental disorder label fails to clearly indicate what specific function has fallen below average. The psychiatrists’ determination of a mental disorder seldom use any of the reliable and valid ways to assess a person’s level of functioning. Moreover, there is an assumption in the mental disorder classification system that a person having a below average level of functioning is bad.

What do I I mean by this? Consider the case of William James, the eminent psychologist and philosopher. He described his experience of dropping out of medical school as a symptom of a mental disorder. I suppose if we believe that one function of the body is to learn and be educated, James’s medical school interruption might be viewed as a dysfunction. Yet, from another perspective, this interruption might be viewed as part of the normal search for understanding.

When an individual’s functioning diminishes in one domain, functioning in another domain oftentimes increases. By going to Europe, James, instead of continuing on with his studies, had more time during this period for contemplation and was exposed to fresh new experiences that he later used productively. This may seem a pathological waste of time to some, but to others it is greatly valued.

Philosopher Aldous Huxley, for example, stated that “there is no form of contemplation, even the most quietistic, which is without its ethical values.” Those who practice it, Huxley goes on to say, “may bring back enlightening reports of another, a transcendent country of the mind.” And sometimes “they will become conduits through which some beneficent influence can flow out of that other country into a world of darkened selves, chronically dying for lack of it.”

Thus, from one perspective, it is possible to view James’s interruption of his medical education as one criterion for diagnosing a mental disorder, and from another perspective, to view it as a potentially beneficial response to some difficult problems that had chronically darkened his soul. Can a person, simply because he has a medical degree, be trusted to have the wisdom to make this determination? Does the fact that such medical professionals have a great financial interest in saying people who come to them have an abnormal, pathological amount of dysfunction be relevant when thinking about this?

A few years after James dropped out of medical school, he returned to his studies, graduated, and became a Harvard professor. During his tenure there, he came to view the mental disorder language of doctors as “superficial medical talk,” and he wrote,

The trouble is that such writers . . . use the descriptive names of symptoms merely as an artifice for giving objective authority to their personal dislikes. The medical terms become mere appreciative clubs to knock a man down with. . . . The only sort of being, in fact, who can remain as the typical normal man after all the individuals with degenerative symptoms have been rejected, must be a perfect nullity . . . Who shall absolutely say that the morbid has no revelations about the meaning of life? That the healthy minded view so-called is all? A certain tolerance, a certain sympathy, a certain respect, and above all a certain lack of fear, seem to be the best attitude we can carry in our dealing with these regions of human nature.

Regular readers of this blog know that from time to time I discussed some famous person’s experience with periods of severe distress. In each example, they found it clearly interfered with their functioning. Each one of them would likely have been “diagnosed” as having a mental illness if they went to a psychiatrist. The experiences of Abraham Lincoln (see HERE), Joni Mitchell (see HERE), U.S. Grant (see HERE), and Leo Tolstoy (see HERE) are some examples. All of them, despite their mighty struggles, still managed to earn the respect of millions.

As Joni Mitchell beautifully expresses this,

Depression can be the sand that makes the pearl…. Most of my best work came out of it. If you get rid of the demons and the disturbing things, then the angels fly off, too. There is the possibility, in the mire, of an epiphany.

Alternatives for Getting Professional Help During Distressful Periods

Today, the pharmaceutical companies have an impressive well funded program of convincing people that they have to go to a psychiatrist for treatment. Psychiatrists have a financial interest in supporting this promotional business model. That said, I don’t mean to suggest that all psychiatrists are purely in their profession for the money. I have moderated several debates on this subject and on the panel were several leading psychiatrists. I came away fairly convinced each of them genuinely convinced themselves their approach leads to more help than harm.

What alternative to the psychiatric pathologizing pill prescribing approach exists for people dealing with deeply challenging concerns? If someone can not find sufficient support from a family member or friend, counseling is often helpful. However, some counselors are just as pathologizing as psychiatrists, and encourage their clients confer with a psychiatrist in addition to receiving counseling services.

One example of a non-pathologizing, non stigmatizing way of providing counseling is the humanistic Power Threat Meaning Framework (PTMF). Dr Lucy Johnstone, one of its lead authors explains:

The Power Threat Meaning Framework can be used as a way of helping people to create more hopeful narratives or stories about their lives and the difficulties they have faced or are still facing, instead of seeing themselves as blameworthy, weak, deficient or ‘mentally ill’.

It highlights and clarifies the links between wider social factors such as poverty, discrimination and inequality, along with traumas such as abuse and violence, and the resulting emotional distress or troubled behaviour, whether it is confusion, fear, despair or troubled or troubling behaviour.

It also shows why those of us who do not have an obvious history of trauma or adversity can still struggle to find a sense of self-worth, meaning and identity.

Threat responses are not called “symptoms.” Instead, it looks at how we make sense of these experiences. It recognizes messages from wider society can increase our feelings of shame, self-blame, isolation, fear and guilt.

At the top of each of my posts is a heading that says, “Counseling Services.” By clicking on it, you might find some help identifying humanistic, non-pathologizing counseling through Zoom. I get no kickback if you choose to work with them.

Okay, then, those are some thoughts to ponder for this week. Thanks for stopping by, and I hope you’ll soon join us again right back here at From Insults to Respect.

My Best,
Jeff

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Some people will enjoy reading this blog by beginning with the first post and then moving forward to the next more recent one; then to the next one; and so on. This permits readers to catch up on some ideas that were presented earlier and to move through all of the ideas in a systematic fashion to develop their emotional and social intelligence. To begin at the very first post you can click HERE.

Tags conflict resolution, distress, dysfunction, mental disorder, mental illness, psychopathology

conflict resolution Free Speech Massachusetts Supreme Court Uncategorized

On Civility During Community Meetings

Post author By Dr. Jeffrey Rubin
Post date March 20, 2023
2 Comments on On Civility During Community Meetings

Welcome to From Insults to Respect.

Today, I came upon a NewYorkTimes article titled “Residents’ Rights to Be Rude Upheld by Massachusetts Supreme Court.” The ruling settled a conflict between the town of Southborough’s “civility code” for public comment at meetings and Ms Louise Barron who had said to a town board member, “Look, you need to stop being a Hitler. You’re a Hitler. I can say what I want.”

The Southborough’s civility code required “respectful and courteous” discourse “free of rude, personal or slanderous remarks.” Leading up to the high point of the conflict, Ms Barron had accused the town board members of “…spending like drunken sailors,” and breaking the law by limiting her speech. A board member expressed that she was starting to “slander” the town officials and indicated that if she continued with such words he would move to end the open comment section of the meeting. It was at this point that Ms Barron made the Hitler comments, and then the committee members agreed to end this part of the meeting.

It’s awfully expensive settling these issues in court. Therefore, it might be worthwhile for us to take a few minutes to look at the court’s reasoning, and then consider what preventative path we might wish to wisely choose to avoid getting embroiled in such conflicts.

The Court’s Reasoning

According to the New York Times:

John and Samuel Adams

Decorum, the new decision concluded, was not a top priority for the cousins John and Samuel Adams when they drafted Article 19 in the Massachusetts Constitution, ratified in 1780. By laying out the right to request “redress of the wrongs done them, and of the grievances they suffer,” the justices noted, they aimed to protect the colonists’ freedom to rail against King George III, disparaged at the time as “the Royal Brute,” in a profane and ungracious manner.

The Southborough Town House, where the town’s board of selectmen meets. Credit…Sophie Park for The New York Times

“There was nothing respectful or courteous about the public assemblies of the revolutionary period,” the court wrote in its opinion. “There was also much that was rude and personal, especially when it was directed at the representatives of the king and the king himself.”

“…..The court found that her reference to Hitler was “certainly rude and insulting,” but was protected speech nonetheless. The town’s insistence on civility “appears to cross the line into viewpoint discrimination: allowing lavish praise but disallowing harsh criticism of government officials,” the ruling said.

“Although civility can and should be encouraged in political discourse,” the justices wrote, “it cannot be required.”

As I read the court’s decision, I found myself frustrated that it relies so much on the reasoning of people who thought about this issue over two hundred years ago. At the same time, I do have a great deal of respect for the principle of freedom speech. I also realize that if enough people object to this court ruling, there is a democratic process that allows for changing the constitution. Making such a change would be a lengthy process. In the meantime, how might those who lead periods of public open comments prepare for the likelihood of being insulted?

Suggestions For Dealing With Insults

Given this ruling, a license for disrespectful language is now on the books. Public figures, therefore, are going to have to figure out ways to skillfully handle this. The Times article offered a suggestion on how to go about doing so.

To encourage civil behavior, “treat people civilly in the first place, and in a way that they perceive to be fair.” For example, imagine the difference if a board member, instead of getting defensive, said, “This person is not feeling heard,” and then said, “Tell us more.” This suggestion is a good start for thinking about how to wisely move forward in a positive manner, but in my opinion needs elaboration.

Although the justices wrote that “civility can and should be encouraged in political discourse,” the Times article is not as clear as I would like. How precisely this might be done without violating their ruling that this cannot be required? Here’s my suggestion.

Immediately prior to each meeting’s public comment period, the chairperson would make the following statement–“We now invite public comments. We would greatly appreciate it if all of your comments are phrased civilly and respectfully.” Although not all will comply, I think encouraging this is worth the effort.

The Times article seems to suggest a specific type of response from a board member to an insult–“The person is not feeling heard. Tell us more.” From my experience, just making this type of suggestion to board members, sound as it is, may work to some degree, but to really increase the likelihood of this occurring when board members are in the midst of a heated personal attack, I recommend three practice sessions lasting half an hour each. Each session would begin with someone reading Rudyard Kipling’s poem, “If.”

Rudyard Kipling

If you can keep your head when all about you

    Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,

    But make allowance for their doubting too;

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,

    Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,

Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,

    And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise,

….

Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,

And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!

Then I would provide this little story about Abe Lincoln:

On one occasion, Secretary Stanton was particularly angry with one of the generals.

“I would like to tell him what I think of him!” he stormed.

“Why don’t you?” Mr. Lincoln agreed. “Write it all down – do.”

Mr. Stanton wrote his letter. When it was finished he took it to the President. The President listened to it all.

Secretary Stanton

“All right. Capital!’ Lincoln nodded. “And now, Stanton, what are you going to do with it?”

“Do with it? Why, send it, of course!”

“I wouldn’t,” said the President. “Throw it in the waste-paper basket.”

“But it took me two days to write —”

“Yes, yes, and it did you ever so much good. You feel better now. That is all that is necessary. Just throw it in the basket.”

After a little more expostulation, into the basket it went.

After these two readings at each of the three practice sessions a board member, while being video recorded, would pretend to insult another board member, and the person receiving the insult would try to respond civilly and fairly. Then the whole board would critique the response. By going through this process a few times at each of the three sessions, it would enormously increase the likelihood of each board member skillfully handling these challenging situations.

I hope you find these suggestions helpful.

My Best,
Jeff

Tags conflict resolution, Dealing with insults, emotional intelligence, Free Speech, Massachusetts Supreme Court decision, public comments rules, Rude

Alex Murdaugh Bob Dylan Chimes of Freedom

On Bob Dylan’s “Chimes Of Freedom”

Post author By Dr. Jeffrey Rubin
Post date March 12, 2023
2 Comments on On Bob Dylan’s “Chimes Of Freedom”

Welcome to From Insults to Respect.

Today, while listening to some songs, Bob Dylan’s emotional pleas as he sang “Chimes of Freedom” cried out to my conscience. Its first stanza…

We ducked inside the doorway, thunder crashingAs majestic bells of boltsStruck shadows in the soundSeeming to be the chimes of freedom flashingFlashing for the warriors whose strength is not to fightFlashing for the refugees on the unarmed road of flightAn’ for each an’ every underdog soldier in the nightAn’ we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing

Bob’s song, it occurred to me, suggested that people vary in the following three ways. You have the type of person who appears to care only for him or her self, and when making connections with others, it is only for self benefits. Moving from that end of the spectrum to someone who we will call Jill, her family and close friends are dear to her, but beyond that, her feelings toward others can be summed up as an emphatic cry of, “Hey, I got my own problems to deal with!” At the other end of the spectrum, we find feelings expressed in words such as those inscribed on a plaque and placed on the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty–

Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!

In thinking of all of this, it came to me that Dylan’s “Chimes of Freedom” is the musical version of the Statue of Liberty. As Dylan cries out in the song, we hear his pleas for…

empathy toward the luckless, the abandoned and forsaked, for the outcast, burning constantly at stake, for the kind, for the guardians and protectors of the mind, and the poet and the painter far behind his rightful time, for the disrobed faceless forms of no position, for the tongues with no place to bring their thoughts, for the deaf and blind, for the mute, for the mistreated, mateless mother, the mistitled prostitute, for the misdemeanor outlaw, chased and cheated by pursuit, for the ones condemned to drift or else be kept from drifting, for the searching ones, on their speechless, seeking trail, for the lonesome-hearted lovers with too personal a tale, for each unharmful, gentle soul misplaced inside a jail, for the aching whose wounds cannot be nursed, for the countless confused, accused, misused, strung-out ones an’ worse, and for every hung-up person in the whole wide universe.

Such outpouring of empathy for such a wide range of folks.

When Bob wrote this song, he lived in New York’s Greenwich Village. It is in just that part of the city where heading west down a few side streets you end up facing the grand New York Harbor, with its awe inspiring view of the Statue of Liberty standing guard against a diminishment of what many, but not all, Americans admire.

After jotting down the above ideas and then showing them to my wife and son, they encouraged me to see if I could deepen my thoughts on this theme. I thereby found myself envisioning a circle around each of the three general types of people who have various bands of empathy.

For those persons who have just self-empathy, I envisioned having a circle just around themselves. For those who have empathy for themselves, as well as close family members and friends, I envisioned having a wider circle that encompasses not only themselves, but also all of these other folks. And those whose empathy extends even beyond not only themselves, close family members and friends, but also all of those other folks we hear about in Dylan’s song, I found myself envisioning each of them wrapped around an even larger circle of people.

With this image in mind, I asked myself whether or not I find myself having an increasing amount of respect for people whose circle encompasses more people, compared to those whose circle encompasses fewer people. It turns out that if the type of person who has empathy just for him or herself has done some awful acts this would significantly lower my level of respect. But what about a person who despite having this very narrow encompassing empathy circle who has not harmed anyone? Now the question about my degree of respect becomes harder for me. Similarly, for those who just have empathy for themselves and close relatives and friends, but don’t hurt others, I find myself having some difficulty answering the level of respect question. Curiously, I do seem to have some additional respect for people who have empathy for all people who don’t go around harming anyone. How about each of you who are reading today’s post?

Now, let’s consider a related question. Regardless of how much respect you feel for each of these three general types of people, when you interact with them, do you think it wise to treat them all with equal respect?

As I personally thought about this, I imagined working in the prison. In such prisons, the convicts are typically informed that to the degree that they treat all the other convicts and prison staff members respectfully, and follow the various other prison rules, they will receive additional privileges, and for those who someday will be released, this will increase their chances of an early release. Convicts having the lowest level of privileges might be provided only a single type of very bland food, have the worse work assignments, and just one hour each day to socialize with other prison convicts. At the next level, convicts might be given a modest choice at meal times, a limited choice of work assignments, etc.

Under these conditions, is it wise for us to treat respectfully even those who have committed the most horrendous crime by avoiding mean, insulting name calling, expressions of disgust, asking, rather than demanding, and saying please and thank you at appropriate times? It seems to me that by doing so, you decrease the chances of resentments that can blow up into violence, while also increase the probability of making life in prison a more healthy, supportive place for all. Moreover, by creating a more consistent environment in which respectful behavior is practiced, those who are released after serving their time might end up having picked up the habit of treating people respectfully. In fact, it might even, as some psychological theories suggest, increase the likelihood that respect for others will become internalized for ex-cons thereby leading them to expanding their circle of empathy for others.

As a general rule, treating everyone respectfully, in a prison, or out, serves to model this type of behavior, and research suggests this can increase the chances that others will follow suit. And, finally, I think the golden rule applies well when thinking about these types of issues. If you want others to treat you respectfully, treat others respectfully.

So, there you have it, some thoughts that all spilled out of me after listening to Dylan’s “Chimes of Freedom.” I hope you find value in them, and until next time, may you find ways to be kind to yourself and to others.

My Best,
Jeff

Tags Bob Dylan, Chimes of Freedom, conflict resolution

jails and prisons

Bob Dylan On Jails, Prisons, and Respect

Post author By Dr. Jeffrey Rubin
Post date February 11, 2023
2 Comments on Bob Dylan On Jails, Prisons, and Respect

Los Angeles - CIRCA 1986: (L-R) Musical icon Bob Dylan poses for a portrait circa 1986 in Los Angeles, California (Photo by Aaron Rapoport/Corbis/Getty Images)

Welcome to From Insults To Respect.

On an episode of Bob Dylan’s Theme Time Radio Hour, the Nobel Prize winner discusses, as he puts it:

“The Big House, the brig, the clink, the coop, the gray bar hotel, the hoosegow, the joint, the jug, the pen, the pokie, the slammer, the stir–we’re talking about jail, a real hush hush subject where everyone is hurting for someone or something. We’re going to learn about cons, jailbirds, stoolies, lifers, and politicians. Prisons, a house of many doors.”

After Bob’s introduction, we hear the disturbing sounds of prison doors slamming shut.

People who get sent to lockup facilities are typically seen as worthy of being treated with disrespect. Is this the wisest mindset? And what about those who are actually innocent and yet are condemned to the slammer due to some grievous mistakes?

The vast majority of convicts, after serving their sentences, will be released back into our communities. How best to structure the time convicts spend incarcerated so it will be more likely to lead to their earning respect once they are released?

There are a great deal of strong emotions running through this topic, so I’m thinking that by intermingling it with the poetic lyrics and humor presentations from Bob’s radio show, it will at times lighten the discussion and deepen it as well. So, let’s see how this works out.

Respect As It Relates To Those Serving Time In Prison

It is hard to imagine showing any respect for the type of person who is the topic of the first song Bob plays for us, Johnny Cash’s “Folsom Prison Blues.” Some of the lyrics are,

I hear the train a-comin’, it’s rolling ’round the bend
And I ain’t seen the sunshine since I don’t know when
I’m stuck in Folsom prison, and time keeps draggin’ on
But that train keeps a-rollin’ on down to San Antone

When I was just a baby, my mama told me, “Son
Always be a good boy, don’t ever play with guns”
But I shot a man in Reno just to watch him die
When I hear that whistle blowin’, I hang my head and cry

The song is told from the point of view of a guy who shot a man to watch him die, a mighty awful thing to do. The guy seems to be sad, but perhaps not about the life he cut short, but because he’s stuck in prison instead of on that train taking him to a better place.

Cash, during his lifetime landed in jail seven times, mostly for illegal possession of drugs. His ability to hire skillful lawyers probably saved him from serving any time in prison because people with so many repeated offenses don’t usually get off so easily. Cash’s awareness that he could have easily served some hard time probably led him to write sympathetic songs about convicts, and to perform them on a few occasions directly to convicts within their prison walls.

Cash’s songs about convicts were, and are still mighty popular. Given the hateful things that they have done, why do so many people find themselves relating to them? Perhaps the feeling expressed in the following saying offers an explanation–“There, but for the grace of God, go I.”

These words capture the angst that many of us experience as we realize how outside factors play a role in who ends up in the slammer. If we had been raised in a terribly violent home or neighborhood, experienced crushing poverty, been in the wrong place at the wrong time, might we have landed behind steel bars? Such questions have led some to suggest a new approach to handling prisoners. I’ll return to this issue soon, but let’s get back to Bob’s show.

The Next Part Of Bob’s Show

After playing for us Cash’s song, and then moving on to Magic Sam’s “21 Days In Jail,” Bessie Smith’s “Send Me To The ‘lectric Chair”, and Warren Storm’s “Prisoner’s Song,” Bob tells us,

We’re about half way through our sentence right here on Theme Time Radio Hour, and there will be no time off for good behavior. Here’s the smooth voice of Joe Simon singing a song by Dan Penn. Joe was able to mix R and B [Rhythm and Blues] and country in a uniquely southern style and had a number of hits in the process, including this one, a song about stealing, knowing he done wrong, but his woman’s needs make him ashamed. He steals for love and now he has to say good morning to swinging that nine pound steel hammer.

Here are a few of the song’s lyrics:

Through these wallsI see the sunI’m here becauseThe wrong I’ve done…

Made me ashamedI stole from herOh, when I should’ve stood up like a manYou see, I’ve got to say good morning To that nine pounds of steel.

Then Bob provides us a few humorous thoughtful quotes:

Will Rogers, “There is no more independence in politics than there is in jail.” Harry Truman, “The White House is the finest prison in the world.” Nelson Mandela, “In my country we go to prison first and then become president.” Charles Bukowski, “I don’t like jail, they got the wrong kind of bars in there.”

Getting Back To The Issue Of Respect And Prisons

The old approach, and still the main approach in America, is to make life in prison miserable so people, hearing how awful it is, will be discouraged from doing anything that might land them there. There is also hope that such treatment will discourage those who had been imprisoned from ever doing anything that will lead to being imprisoned again. How successful has this approach been? America has the highest (and most expensive–despite questionable results) rate of incarceration in the world with a concomitantly high rate of recidivism. In contrast, Germany and the Netherlands, according to a Bloomberg report. prefer a more humane system. Some of the facts it provides are:

Incarceration rates per capita are nearly 90 percent lower than in the U.S.: 79 per 100,000 residents in Germany and 82 per 100,000 residents in the Netherlands, compared to 716 per 100,000 residents in the United States.

Resocialization and rehabilitation are central to the Dutch and German models. Life in prison there aims to inculcate fundamental skills that offenders will need when returning to their community. For example, prisoners are allowed individual expression and a fair amount of control over their daily lives, including the opportunity to wear their own clothes and prepare their own meals; and, in order to instill selfworth, both work and education are required and remunerated. In addition, respect for prisoners’ privacy is practiced as a matter of human dignity.

Contributing to engendering positive self-esteem is the fact that prisoners are trusted. They each have a private dormitory-like room with their own keys. Guards knock before entering. The rooms are spacious with natural sunlight (many inmates grow plants) and have a bathroom apart from the sleeping quarters. They dress with a sense of pride in the styles and fashions which they prefer.

Training for occupations and professions (with degrees) is provided and encouraged. Inmates are urged to pursue vocational jobs while in prison and must save a percentage of their earnings to help them make the post-incarceration transition.

Those inmates who have proven their trustworthiness and reliability are allowed to work outside the prison on a daily basis (all of whom voluntarily return after work). They have a phone to make calls to anyone (including family, friends, attorneys, media, etc.) and a television, radio, and computer (Internet access is not permitted).

Such respectful treatment creates a positive mind-set for those incarcerated. Not only that, but as a direct result of such positive treatment and interactions, violence within the prison is virtually non-existent among prisoners and between staff and prisoners.

The Conclusion Of Bob’s Show

“Well,” says Bob, “we couldn’t do a show about jail without talking about Merle Haggard, a man who turned his life around, walked out of the jail cell and into public acclaim. Here’s a quotation from chairman Merle:”

“‘Sing Me Back Home’ is a popular song because there are a lot of ex-convicts in America that form a troop of fans that want to hear that song and it’s funny that all ex-convicts have something in common, they got their time in and the rest of you still got yours to do.”

Here are a few of “Sing Me Back Home” lyrics:

The warden led a prisoner down the hallway to his doomI stood up to say goodbye like all the restAnd I heard him tell the warden just before he reached my cellLet my guitar playing friend, do my request

Let him sing me back home with a song I used to hearMake my old memories come aliveTake me away and turn back the yearsSing me back home before I die

From the soulful way Merle sings this song, you kinda feel some sympathy for the condemned man.

Well, those are a few thoughts I wanted to share with all of you folks today. Until next time, may you come to fully appreciate your life beyond any real or imaginary prison walls.

My Best,

Jeff

Some people will enjoy reading this blog by beginning with the first post and then moving forward to the next more recent one; then to the next one; and so on. This permits readers to catch up on some ideas that were presented earlier and to move through all of the ideas in a systematic fashion to develop their emotional and social intelligence. To begin at the very first post you can click HERE.

Tags Bob Dylan, Jails and prisons, prison reforms

"Bully" the Movie bullying conflict resolution Donald Trump

Trump, Bullying, And Disrespect

Post author By Dr. Jeffrey Rubin
Post date October 29, 2022
4 Comments on Trump, Bullying, And Disrespect

Welcome to From Insults To Respect.

This week, I received a letter from a wonderful pal of mine, Mike Gilmartin, a retired English professor who dabbles in the fine art of poetry. His letter included his most recent effort, which he titled, “The Art Of Trumping The Deal.” To me, it powerfully expresses Mike’s emotion that comes with his disrespect for Donald Trump’s bullying behavior.

Mike views Trump as a bully, as he puts it, “Because a bully blusters and lies and then chickens out when truth is on the line.”

Mike, certainly, is not alone in viewing Trump as a bully. For example, in an article in the The Observer, Arlie Hochschild writes:

To bully someone is to seek to harm, intimidate or coerce another who’s perceived as vulnerable. As the National Center Against Bullying elaborates, there are many types of bullying. Reviewing them, we… can recall times when Trump has exemplified nearly all of them. There is physical bullying – tripping, kicking, hitting; remember his calls in 2016 to oust Black Lives Matter demonstrators in the “old-fashioned way” (with a show of fist in palm). There is verbal bullying – name-calling (Sleepy Joe, Crooked Hillary, Little Mario). There is mockery by imitation. Recall his laughing imitation of a disabled reporter, palsied arms and hands shaking. Then there is social bullying – showing contempt for someone’s social reputation (think of the Gold Star parents, Khizr and Ghazala Khan, ridiculed for the silence of the grieving mother).

These Trump bullying behaviors, according to a Washington Post article,

“has seeped into schools across America. Many bullies now target other children differently than they used to, with kids as young as 6 mimicking the president’s insults and the cruel way he delivers them.

“Trump’s words, those chanted by his followers at campaign rallies and even his last name have been wielded by students and school staff members to harass children more than 300 times since the start of 2016 [to the end of 2019], a Washington Post review of 28,000 news stories found. At least three-quarters of the attacks were directed at kids who are Hispanic, black or Muslim, according to the analysis.”

When I first read Mike’s poem, I liked its poetic expression of the emotional reactions of disrespect that is often experienced when we see someone acting like a bully. An image of giving the bully a good sock in the kisser, understandably, might come to mind, as well as images of other violent acts.

Because of this being a common reaction, I thought it would be worthwhile to share the poem with my readers to aid the uprooting of weeds in one’s mind regarding the nature of bullying. At the same time, I wouldn’t want readers to think that I am recommending that such thoughts should be the automatic proper way to actually respond to bullies. Such violent responses can lead to an assault charge and land one in prison. There are also various other very serious negative consequences when responding violently. A wise response requires considering who is doing the bullying, and the situation in which it occurs. In past posts, I discuss some specific ideas about this (see HERE, HERE, and HERE for a few examples). So, with these prefatory comments out of the way, let’s move on to take a look at Mike’s poem.

The Art Of Trumping The Deal

We were both born in New York City

Less than a year apart.

Thus ends the similarity.

My Dad, a WWII combat Marine

Taught me many things.

And he taught me this about bullies:

“Son, if it’s going down in the schoolyard,

Punch them in the mouth with all you’ve got

And they’ll run home crying for their mamas.

“If it’s going down when you’re young men,

Kick them in the nuts with all you got

And they’ll squeal like little girls.

“If it’s going down when you’re grown men,

Watch if their lips are moving and tell them you know they are lying

And they’ll turn red and orange in whimpering rage.

“If it’s going down when you’re old men,

Listen for their painful moaning at the urinal

Then piss on their shoes

And they’ll try to rub it off on the back of their pants leg.”

My Impressions

The poem leads me to vividly sense the anger and hate many people experience when encountering bullies. Although the body of the poem applies to bullies in general, the title of the poem, “The Art Of Trumping The Deal,” points me in the direction of considering Trump’s particular style of bullying.

Trump’s style has him not actually physically attacking the person he is seeking to bully, but rather, to incite others to do the attacking for him. Thus we hear of numerous articles indicating an increase in violence toward the very individuals Trump verbally attacks in his speeches.

And then we have the incident in which Trump summoned like-minded bullies to come to D.C. on January 6, his incendiary rhetoric provoking a violent attack on the nation’s capitalAlthough he recently pardon them, those carried out the violence were left to suffer for four years its consequences. Hundreds lost their jobs, others had to bear the cost and time of acquiring lawyers to defend themselves against criminal charges, many of them paying large fines, and some served time in prison. Meanwhile, Trump was bathing in the sun at his Mar-a-Lago country club.

But, somehow, I kinda think that all is not so perfectly rosy in Trump’s mind these days. It is just possible that images of numerous criminal investigations just may by provoking anxiety at the consequences of his recent actions.

Well, that’s my post for today. I’ve written it with the hope that it might encourage any of you who might be tempted to try to achieve some goal by bullying your way through various obstacles to pause and consider the value of employing less anger and hate promoting alternatives

My Best,
Jeff.

Tags bullying, conflict resolution, Donald Trump

anxiety conflict resolution Depression melancholy William James

William James’s Advice To A Melancholy Friend

Post author By Dr. Jeffrey Rubin
Post date October 10, 2022
No Comments on William James’s Advice To A Melancholy Friend

Welcome to From Insults to Respect.

In a recent post, I shared some advice the highly respected psychologist and philosopher William James gave to his depressed 13-year-old daughter. It was so well received, I decided to describe another example of James giving advice to another person feeling so very blue.

Unlike my previous example, which occurred when James was a mature professor and father, today’s example occurred in 1866 when James was a mere 24-year-old. But before we get to that example, we shall go back a little further, when James was 19. By doing so, we get to see an intriguing shift in his way of thinking about mental health concerns.

James’s View of the Nature of Mental Health Concerns When He Was Nineteen

James’s cousin, Minnie, two years younger than he, lost both of her parents when she was very young. She somehow appeared to recover from the severe blow, turning herself into the James family’s most enchanting and adored relative. In fact, James’s brother, the famous author, Henry James, drew two of his most appealing heroines from her image,–Minnie Theale in Wings of the Dove, and Isabel Archer in The Portrait of a Lady. Sadly, at the age of seventeen, Minnie began to display emotional patterns that raised serious concerns. James, in a letter to Minnie’s sister, explains his understanding of the cause. “…it is but an organic lesion of the gray cortical substance which forms the pia mater [innermost membrane enveloping the brain and spinal chord], which is very consoling to us all.”

On what basis does James have for this explanation of the cause of Minnie’s mental health concern? And why would viewing Minnie as having a brain lesion be consoling? The letter doesn’t answer either of these questions, but blaming the brain for mental health concerns and the belief that such blaming is consoling survives up to the present day.

In recent years, after failing to prove a brain lesion is the cause of mental health concerns, a chemical imbalance in the brain has been promoted and eagerly accepted by many as true.

For example, the most recent relevant survey I could find on the internet suggests that 67% of the general public believe it has been scientifically established that depression is caused by a serotonin chemical imbalance in the brain (see HERE). Despite this belief, a 2022 research article published in Molecular Psychiatry concludes:

…the huge research effort based on the serotonin hypothesis has not produced convincing evidence of a biochemical basis to depression. This is consistent with research on many other biological markers [21]. We suggest it is time to acknowledge that the serotonin theory of depression is not empirically substantiated.

Many believe the reason why this idea has been so promoted is that it legitimizes the lucrative marketing of psychiatric drugs. Although I think there is considerable truth to this, the eager acceptance of this notion by many members of the general public has to do with it being a consoling notion to family members who might otherwise be blamed for their offspring’s concerning behavior. With this way of thinking, it is not anything any family might have done to cause the concerning behavior; it’s some problem in the brain that is the cause.

Now, don’t misunderstand me here. I’m not at all suggesting that family members should be blamed for all such concerns. There are, undoubtedly, many possible reasons why someone begins to act in a way that raises concerns.

When James is called upon to offer some advice to a friend several years after his comment to Minnie’s sister, his notion about the cause of mental health concerns has clearly changed.

James’s Advice to His Friend

In a letter dated, June 8, 1866, James wrote to his friend, Tom W. Ward:

I have just read your letter over again, and am grieved afresh at your melancholy tone about yourself. You ask why I am quiet, while you are so restless. Partly from the original constitution of things, I suppose; partly because I am less quiet than you suppose; only I once heard a proverb about a man consuming his own smoke, and I do so particularly in your presence because you, being so much more turbid, produce a reaction in me; partly because I am a few years older than you, and have not solved, but grown callous (I hear your sneer) to, many of the problems that now torture you. The chief reason is the original constitution of things, which generated me with fewer sympathies and wants than you, and also perhaps with a certain tranquil confidence in the right order of the Whole, which makes me indifferent in some circumstances where you fret. Yours the nobler, mine the happier part! I think, too, that much of your uneasiness comes from that to which you allude in your letter–your oscillatoriness, and your regarding each oscillation as something final as long as it lasts. There is nothing more certain than that every man’s life is a line that continuously oscillates on every side of its direction; and if you would be more confident that any state of tension you may at any time find yourself in will inevitably relieve itself, sooner or later, you would spare yourself much anxiety. I myself have felt in the last six months more certain that each man’s constitution limits him to a certain amount of emotion and action, and that if he insists on going under a higher pressure than normal for three months, for instance, he will pay for it by passing the next three months below par. So the best way is to keep moving steadily and regularly, as your mind becomes thus deliciously appeased (as you imagine mine to be; ah! Tom, what damn fools we are!). If you feel below par now, don’t think your life is deserting you forever. You are just as sure to be up again as you are, when elated, sure to be down again. Six months, or any cycle of time, is sure to see you produce a certain amount, and your fretful anxiety when in a stagnant mood is frivolous. The good time will come again, as it has come; and go too. I think we ought to be independent of our moods, look on them as external, for they come to us unbidden, and feel if possible neither elated nor depressed, but keep our eyes upon our work and, if we have done the best we could in that given condition, be satisfied.

James goes on a bit more in his letter to encourage Tom to seek to harmonize his life to nature’s will and to develop patience, equanimity, humbleness, and kindness. These attributes, he says “would do your heart good.”

As the letter draws to a close, James writes,

I will now, my dear old Tom, stop my crudities. Although these notions and others have of late led me to a pretty practical contentment, I cannot help feeling as if I were insulting Heaven by offering them about as if they had an absolute worth. Still, as I am willing to take them all back whenever it seems right, you will excuse my apparent conceit. Besides, they may suggest some practical point of view to you…..

I am anxiously waiting your arrival on Class Day when we shall, I trust, patch up the Kosmos satisfactorily and rescue it from its present fragmentary condition.

My Take On James’s Letter

At age 19, James appeared to accept that his cousin Minnie’s troubling emotional behavior pattern is caused by a brain lesion and this notion is somehow consoling. There is no thoughts expressed that perhaps the trauma of losing both of her parents might be playing a part. No wondering if some new disturbing event might have occurred that family members are unaware. A brain lesion theory does provide a simple explanation.

At age 26, when James tries to come up with an explanation for Tom’s emotional concern, the brain lesion notion doesn’t come up at all. Instead, James begins by expressing some empathy for his friend by writing to Tom,”I have just read your letter over again, and am grieved afresh at your melancholy tone about yourself.” I like this. If someone you care about is going through some hard experience, expressing some empathy is a wonderful, humane, and kind thing to do.

Then, James responds to Tom’s question about why he is so “restless” in contrast to James. Perhaps it has to do with a difference in their constitution, James theorizes. But then James suggests that he actually might not really be less restless, he just doesn’t share this with others, preferring to consume his own smoke. In actuality, anyone familiar with James’s biography well knows he suffered greatly from periods of depression. (See HERE for a discussion of James’s bouts with depression and how he came to overcome them).

James goes on in his letter to point to the possibility that Tom might have gone through a period of great pressure and, if so, naturally he would need some time to recover. The recovery process could be experienced as melancholy. He also suggests that certain thought patterns of Tom’s, if changed, might be beneficial.

James concludes by suggesting to Tom that all of what he had written could be wrong, but nevertheless, they may suggest some practical point of view. In providing this post to my readers, I, too, suggest that perhaps James’s advice might be worth considering if either you or someone you care about is struggling with melancholy experiences.

My Best,
Jeff

Tags conflict resolution, Dealing with depression, Dealing with melancholy, treatment for depression, William James

respect social skills William James

Why Was William James Respected?

Post author By Dr. Jeffrey Rubin
Post date September 28, 2022
No Comments on Why Was William James Respected?

Welcome to From Insults To Respect.

Here on this blog, I aim to shed light upon how folks might improve their self-respect and the respect others have for them. With this end in mind, from time to time I describe someone who has handled a difficult situation in a respect enhancing manner. For example, in one post I describe how Abraham Lincoln skillfully handled insults (see HERE). In another, I describe how Joni Mitchell wisely dealt with her experiences with depression (see HERE). Utilizing the same educational technique, today, I provide a brief look at how the astonishingly well respected psychologist and philosopher William James deftly dealt with his interpersonal relationships.

James’s Interpersonal Relationship Skills

In 1920, ten years after William James passed away, his son, Henry, published many of his father’s letters in a two volume set titled, The Letters of William James.

This Henry James was not the famous author, Henry James, who was William’s brother. He, nevertheless, reveals an accomplished talent for writing as he provides in the volumes’s beautifully written context for the letters.

The two volumes were very well received as we see in this excerpt of a review published in the New Republic.

The very tones of his [William James’s] voice are audible in them, his wit is here, his fine considerateness, his friendships, naturalness, variety, sincerity. Nobody’s humor draws closer likenesses of persons and ideas and point of view. Nobody’s seriousness is more informal. Is there a better book of letters in English?

William James’s sons, Willie on the left, and Henry on the right.

Henry begins his two volumes with a brief biography of his dad. As this draws to a close, he summarizes his dad’s interpersonal style:

He enjoyed being generous and hated to spoil a gift of praise by “stingy” qualifications. He might have said that the great point was not to let any unique virtue in a man evaporate or be wasted. At any rate, he said, that should be seen to in a university. He was quite unconventional in recognizing originality, and preferred all risks in hailing potentialities that might never come to fruition, to a policy of playing safe in his estimates. Yet on the whole he seldom “fooled himself.” Few men who have possessed a comparable gift of discovering special virtues in different individuals have combined with it so just a sense of what could not be expected of those same individuals in the way of other virtues.

But there would be danger of misunderstanding if this trait were mentioned without an important qualification. The reader will do well, in interpreting any judgment of James’s to consider whether the book, or theory, or man under consideration was new and unrecognized, or was already established and secure of a place in men’s esteem. In the former case, especially if there were anything in the situation to appeal to James’s natural “inclination to succor the under-dog,” his praise was likely to be extravagantly expressed and his reservations were apt to be withheld. In the latter case he was no less certain to give free rein to his critical discernment. Men who knew him as a teacher are likely to remember how he encouraged them in their efforts on the one hand, and on the other how stimulating to them and enlarging to their mental horizons were his free and often destructive comments upon famous books and illustrious men.

With regards to this trait of James to provide “free and often destructive comments upon famous books and illustrious men,” it is important to add that critical comments were not directed at the person, but at the ideas of the person. In fact, James often communicated to the person advocating an idea with which he had very much disagreed, some kind words about the author of the idea.

For example, in a letter to the eminent Professor Shadworth H. Hodgson in which James severely criticizes his ideas that had been put forth in a philosophy article, James concludes his letter, with the following friendly words:

Farewell! Heaven bless you all the same — and enable you to forgive me. We are well and I hope you are the same. Let me add a wish for a happy New Year and the expression of my undying regard. You are tenfold more precious to me now that I have braved you thus! Adieu!

James’s son, Henry, concludes this point thusly:

If more critics, and more of the criticized, were to cultivate the manliness, and generosity with which James always entered discussions, there would be less reviewers “never forgiven,” and less feuds in the world of science.

Henry ends his description of his dad’s interpersonal style with these words:

…he helped many a troubled soul to face the problems of the universe in an independent and gallant spirit. He helped them by example as well as by precept, for it was plain to everyone who knew him or read him that his genius was ardently adventurous and humane.

Discussion

Today, William James is largely respected because of his insightful ideas that he shared in his writings. In past posts, I discuss some of those ideas such as his highly practical suggestions about child discipline (see HERE), and his fatherly advice to his depressed daughter (see HERE). To get some sense of why James was respected for his interpersonal interactions, it makes sense to go beyond his writings and turn to someone who knew him well. James’s loving son, Henry is a good fit for this task for there is hardly anyone who knew him better. And yet, in doing so, it makes sense to surmise it is, to a certain extent, biased.

Recognizing this, we need not assume Henry’s description is absolutely accurate in every respect to obtain from it something of value. Taken solely as a narrative of someone who just might have acted thusly, it provides us an opportunity to reflect upon our own conduct to see if we can glean from it some skills we just might usefully seek to incorporate into our own conduct.

Wishing all of my readers a colorful autumn,
Jeff

Tags enhancing respect, interpersonal relationships, respect, social skills, William James

Dealing with insults Gone with the Wind

A Gone With The Wind Insult

Post author By Dr. Jeffrey Rubin
Post date September 6, 2022
5 Comments on A Gone With The Wind Insult

Welcome to From insults To Respect.

In several previous post we discussed suggestions for responding to insults in a positive manner. For example, we discussed Abe Lincoln’s wise approach (see HERE) and Jackie Robinson’s challenging approach (see HERE). To deepen our thinking about this issue, I am always on the lookout for these types of examples.

Last night, I happened to be watching the epic 1939 film, Gone With The Wind, winner of 10 Academy Awards. The plot begins just as the American Civil War is about to commence. It was a time when challenging someone to a duel was viewed as required to save face whenever a man felt he was insulted. Such an approach has largely gone with the wind, but there is a scene early in the film in which Rhett Butler, richly played by Clark Gable, handles an insult in a way that I think is worth considering even in our modern world.

The Scene

The setting is the library of a wealthy plantation owner, Ashley Wilkes. A group of men have gathered there to discuss the likelihood of a Civil War. Ashley had invited Rhett Butler, a man with considerable military training having attended West Point, to come to his plantation as one of his guests. Here’s the dialogue I would like you to consider:

Wilkes, Hamilton, & O’Hara

Mr. O’Hara: It’s time we let them [the northerners] know we keep our slaves! We’re the sovereign state of Georgia and we’ll keep it by force of arms! We Got to fight, there is no other way! The matter is simple. The Yankees can’t fight and we can! Don’t you agree with us, Mr. Butler?!

Clark Gable as Mr. Butler

Mr. Butler: I think it’s hard to win a fight with words, gentlemen.

Mr. Charles Hamilton: What do you mean?!

Mr. Butler: I mean, there is not a cannon factory in the whole south.

Mr. Hamilton

Mr. Hamilton: What does that mean to a gentleman?! [said with rage]

Mr. Butler: I’m afraid it will mean a great deal to a lot of gentlemen.

Mr. Hamilton: Are you hinting that the yankees can lick us?!

Mr. Butler: No, I’m not hinting. I’m saying very plainly the yankees are better equipped than us. They have factories, coal mines, a fleet that can bottle up our harbors and starve us to death. All we got is cotton, slaves, and arrogance.

Mr. Hamilton: I refuse to listen to any of this renegade talk!

Mr. Butler: I’m sorry if the truth offends you [said humbly and with a respectful bow].

Mr. Hamilton: Your apology is not enough! [At which point the insults from Hamilton are furiously launched at Butler] I hear you were turned out of West Point, and you are not welcome in any family in Charleston, not even your own family!!!

Mr. Butler: I apologize again for all of my shortcomings. [He provides a respectful bow] Mr. Ashely, perhaps you won’t mind if I take a walk around your place. [Before leaving, he looks toward the rest of the men and says] I’m sorry gentlemen, I seem to be spoiling everyone’s cigars and dreams of victory. [He again respectfully bows and exits]

Mr. Hamilton attempts to chase after Mr. Butler to furiously challenge him to a duel, but the other men physically restrain him while explaining that a duel would be foolhardy because Butler has proven to be one of the best marksmen in the country. Mr. Ashely Wilkes, owner of the plantation at which the meeting is being held, informs all that Mr. Butler is his guest, and with that, he joins Butler on his walk.

Discussion

Here we see a scenario in which Mr. O’Hara asks Mr. Butler if he agrees with him regarding war with the yankees. Mr Butler, disagrees and provides his reasons. Mr. Hamilton angrily refers to Mr. Butler’s comment as renegade talk, yells in a disrespectful tone of voice, and flings negative rumors in Mr. Butler’s face in front of many men looking on, while being overheard by women in nearby rooms.

To this, Mr. Butler doesn’t slug Mr. Hamilton, nor does he demand either an apology or face him in a duel, which would be typical for Hollywood movies. Instead, he first says, “I’m sorry if the truth offends you,” while respectfully bowing.

When the insulting continues, he offers another apology to Mr. Hamilton, this time, for all of his shortcomings, and again he bows. He then offers an apology to the others in the room and leaves. Violence is avoided, and everyone has some time to cool down.

It seems to me, there are aspects of the approach displayed by Mr. Butler that readers might wish to avoid, and other aspects they would be wise to put in their “handling insults toolbox.”

When Mr. Butler refers to those who are promoting war with the north as being “arrogant,” this suggests he views them as having an exaggerated sense of their ability. For me, I, personally, would leave this type of adjective out of any defense, for some might view it as an insult. I prefer to let my reasoned arguments suffice.
I also have an issue with Mr. Butler when he says, “I’m sorry if the truth offends you.” This can easily come off as being too certain that he is absolutely right, and those who disagree with him are absolutely wrong. Although I am sometimes pretty sure that I am right, I prefer to present myself as being open to learning from opposing views.

Other than these two issues, I think Butler’s approach probably has considerable merit in handling some challenging situations in which insults are flying at my being. I like that he presents his reasons for his disagreement, his tone strikes me as respectful, and his apology for his shortcomings in the face of insults I think has the potential of reducing the chance of an escalation into violence.

I would love to hear from those of you who would like to share your views about Butler’s approach, and my take on it.

As this post drifts to an end, I leave you with my hope that all of you always find ways to convert your insulting experiences into moments that enhance how much respect others have for you, and how much respect you have for yourself.

My Best,
Jeff

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Some people will enjoy reading this blog by beginning with the first post and then moving forward to the next more recent one; then to the next one; and so on. This permits readers to catch up on some ideas that were presented earlier and to move through all of the ideas in a systematic fashion to develop their emotional and social intelligence. To begin at the very first post you can click HERE.

Tags conflict resolution, Dealing with insults, Gone With The Wind

Dealing with hurtful experiences pain management

Turning Away From Hurt: Wise Or Foolish?

Post author By Dr. Jeffrey Rubin
Post date August 15, 2022
No Comments on Turning Away From Hurt: Wise Or Foolish?

Welcome to From Insults To Respect. Today, we discuss that challenging experience known as hurting.

Sometimes, we are hurting because of a physical injury, like when I banged my shin as I walked by the corner of my bed. At other times, it is due to an emotional event, like when I’m insulted for being a New York Yankees fan.

Growing up in Brooklyn, my no-nonsense grandfather disdained my complaining whenever I was hurting, insisting that the best approach to such experiences is to toughen up and just put it out of my mind. Other people encouraged me to turn my mind away from the hurt and focus instead on a pleasant experience. Meanwhile, I learned that psychiatrists and medical doctors frequently prescribe drugs to hide the pain.

Throughout my early years, I tried my best to live according to these types of advice, and for minor hurts, it seemed to work well enough. However, for more serious, longer lasting ones, there seemed to be a brief period during which there might have been some relief, but very soon afterwards, the hurt came raging back. And then, when I was in my mid-thirties, I came upon some research articles that had me trying out a very different approach.

A Different Approach

An article published in 1985, by J. Suls and B. Fletcher, titled “The relative efficacy of avoidant and nonavoidant coping strategies: A meta-analysis” (Health Psychology, vol 4 (3) 249-288.) summarized its findings as follows:

“Overall, avoidance was associated with more positive adaptation in the short-run. However, attention was superior to avoidance if the former involved a focus on sensory schemata rather than emotional processing.”

Emotional processing (also referred to in the research literature as “emotion focus”) has individuals attending to a thought such as, “This experience is a big time hurt.” Notice that the emotion focus approach has one observing a set of words describing the feeling, whereas a focus on sensory schemata has one observing its bodily sensations. If the sensations bring forth words such as, “this is so painful,” or “wow, this is awful agony,” you accept this without judgment. You very gently, when you feel ready, return your focus to the physical sensations as if you are tasting, for the first time, some fresh mountain water from a tropical island. Just let the sensations wash over and through you for a couple of minutes. Do this each time you begin to experience the sensations.

In 1989, a study came out by M. R. Frone and D. B. McFarlin, titled “Chronic occupational stressors, self-focused attention, and well-being: Testing a cybernetic model of stress” (Journal of Applied Psychology, 74(6), 876–883). The study looked at stress reactions of some blue collar workers, some of whom were experiencing a great deal of stress from work overload. The results indicated that a tendency of subjects to focus on their bodily sensations from high stress decreased the chances that these subjects developed subsequent illnesses.

The article makes mention of a cybernetic model of stress.

This model posits that individuals who attend to their psychological and body reactions to stressful life events are more aware of deviations from their desired state. Given such mismatched information, these folks are thus more likely to take corrective action, thereby reducing the likelihood of illness.

This article introduced me to the idea that focusing on the bodily sensations when you are hurting might prevent illness. Then other articles came out further supporting this notion.

Meditation

It can be helpful for particularly difficult hurtful experiences to practice a type of meditation. For a review of the research on the effectiveness of this type of approach for reducing illness see here.

Although there are a variety of meditation techniques that slightly differ from one another, basically you sit for about twenty minutes twice a day in the morning and before supper. During this meditation, you observe each breath, though it is natural that your mind will wander from this task. When your mind does wander, you are not doing anything wrong; it is just part of an effortless process. When you recognize that your mind has wandered from observing your breath, if you can effortlessly return to observing it, do so; if not, that’s fine as well. From time to time during this meditation, hurtful experiences will emerge into consciousness. When this happens, you take a few seconds to nonjudgmentally observe their associated bodily sensations.

Expressive Writing

Expressive writing has demonstrated in several research studies to improve health outcomes (see here and here). Rather than avoiding thinking about the harmful feelings, those practicing this technique do the following:

Over the course of four days, they write for a minimum of 15-minutes at each sitting about something that has led to having a challenging emotional experience. As they do so, they make sure they include not only what happened, but also what they felt when it happened, and how they now feel about what happened. They include their deepest emotions and thoughts about what occurred. They are encouraged to really let go and explore their feelings and thoughts about it. As they do so, there will be moments when waves of bodily sensory experiences associated with the described emotional experience will arise. At such times, for a few moments they observe these bodily feelings. While writing, they might tie this experience to their childhood, relationships with parents, people they have loved or love now, or their career.

Those who go through this experience, sometimes report that after writing, they sometimes feel somewhat sad or depressed. Like seeing a sad movie, this typically goes away in a couple of hours, and in the long run, the research suggests this is beneficial.

If you try this and find that you are getting extremely upset about a writing topic and come to feel it is unwise to continue, trust your judgment and stop writing or change topics. You might try to return to the extremely unsettling topic again in a week or two. If you again begin to have feelings that are so extremely upsetting that you feel it is unwise to continue, trust your judgment and stop. Try one more time to write about this topic in a month or so. If you end up striking out, you might want to seek out a professional humanistic counselor to help you to process this sensitive material (see HERE for some suggestions for obtaining this type of counseling services).

Additional evidence that suggests there is positive value to take time to focus on one’s hurts comes from research on the effects of “exposure therapy.”

Exposure Therapy

Exposure therapy was developed to help people dealing with trauma. When people are fearful of something, they tend to avoid the feared objects, activities, situations, and associated emotional bodily feelings. Although this avoidance might help reduce feelings of harm in the short term, over the long term it can prolong and worsen the experience. In this form of therapy, psychologists create a safe environment in which to “expose” individuals to the things they experience as hurtful and thus try to avoid. This exposure, in time, helps reduce the harmful consequences of traumatic experiences.

Exposure therapy has been scientifically demonstrated to be a helpful treatment (see here and here).

Conclusion

So, “Is it wise or foolish to turn away from hurt?” In answering this question, it seems to me that if your style of dealing with the hurts you experience is best described as maneuvers to avoid thinking about them, this does not indicate you are foolish. People pick up certain habits when they are young and making changes to them can be hard. Although I found I was able to change my old avoidance habit, if you are satisfied with your avoidance approach or just don’t want to bother to go through a process of change, you are entitled to continue as you have always done.

Rather than joining a chorus of name callers to encourage learning a different approach, I have laid out some of the research backed arguments for spending some time to marshal the courage to make friends with the bodily sensations that come when you are hurting. In line with that old saying, “The best things in life are free,” two of the three approaches I’ve described are completely free. Going forward, it is up to you to freely choose how to deal with hurtful challenging experiences.

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Some people will enjoy reading this blog by beginning with the first post and then moving forward to the next more recent one; then to the next one; and so on. This permits readers to catch up on some ideas that were presented earlier and to move through all of the ideas in a systematic fashion to develop their emotional and social intelligence. To begin at the very first post you can click HERE.

Tags exposure therapy, expressive writing, Handling hurtful experiences, illness prevention, meditation, mental illness prevention, Pain management