Ms. Susan Baur is a psychotherapist at the Hillsdale Clinic in California. The hardest job she has is showing her patients that they are giving a tremendous gift. They give the gift of understanding by the "stories" they tell. Her second hardest task is to help the community also become more understanding. Fortunately, modern thinking is moving away from scientific thought, which considers the mentally ill to be useless. Instead, we are becoming more like historians. Our culture had created a rule of thought which holds that only employed, goal-oriented, logical and stable people are to be respected. This rule reflected societal preferences. However, now there is a shift toward the studying of meaning. Many sociologists, psychologists, historians and authors are studying how individuals and groups are making sense of themselves and how this making sense helps them to function in the world. The stories people tell about themselves and the world are the channels by which we learn and achieve "knowing." The "monomyth" is, according to Joseph Campbell, the basic plot for all of our stories. This is a story about an individual hero who achieves his or her goal and overcomes adversity single-handedly. However, this is not viable for the mentally ill, as well as many oppressed groups including women, blacks, gays and the handicapped. Clients use to desire love, a cure or guidance from their therapists. Now they want a plot to live by. The therapist is sought after as a professional biographer, historian, poet and connection to the dominant culture. In order to help create a clearer, richer story, the therapist must practice "dangerous listening." This means listening so hard that you actually participate in the client’s fears, dreams, confusion and perversions. It is dangerous because you expose yourself to qualities of the mentally ill. This includes the inability to conform to traditional norms or even to think logically. However, you do not buy into what the client believes to be unchangeable facts. (In example, one client may believe they have no choice but to live with an alcoholic spouse or one may believe they are constantly under surveillance by the CIA.) Both client and therapist share the same emotions and thoughts, as the stories are told. This allows the mentally ill to keep their individualities as well as have common ground with the dominant culture. Also, the mentally ill recover much more easily in societies where various modes of thinking are respected.< A person’s story needs to be 1) Coherent- effects are related back to their original cause, 2) Comprehensive- including many different viewpoints and 3) Convincing- understandable, flowing. Mostly, feelings and themes help make the story since they are more easily retrieved from memory than facts and details. In Hillsdale, the mentally retarded, homeless women and children and the addicted are neatly tucked away out of sight down a side street. There are special homes for the criminal, the old, the poorest of the poor, and others. The care of these people has been given to the state by their families. We have "unlearned" something here. When a family is devoted to the weakest of its members, they gain selflessness, courage, dignity, nobility and learn allegiance. There is a security in knowing a community will "cherish all of its children all of the time." We have lost that security. The following is a collection of stories of various clients. Even though some may deal with bizarre topics, they contain common everyday themes such as guilt, denial and self-condemnation. These stories need to be listened to so that the tellers can know how beautiful, alive and honest they are. These people also are very powerful in the way they educate us of the human condition. Listening to these stories can sadden us, yet heal us at the same time.

Chuck Willet is an 18 year old, conniving, jiving and extremely good-looking young man who also burns scars into his arms in the design of flames. He explains how it helps to let the pain out. A celestial spirit visits him nightly for sexual purposes. He is also very angry at Jesus for not taking away the worst of the pain. Chuck’s record shows that he 1) scares people, 2) is suicidal and 3) is undiagnosed as to the nature of his illness. Chuck had an intense childhood. He had scars from childhood accidents where he had hit his head severely. He and his younger brother lived in fear as kids. Their house had been broken into many times. As a freshman in high school, he was perceived as a charismatic, promising student. He was extremely good in sports, wore nice clothes and rarely lost fights with the roughest kids. Beautiful girls were attracted to him, especially a wealthy sophomore named Barbara Bailey. In his sophomore year, he was forced to move in with a verbally abusive father due to his mother’s illness. Every day, he raged violently at his father who then kicked him out. At the same time he was striving to be the school star on the sports fields and keep up the image of the "perfect guy" for Barbara. This is when things got worse for Chuck. He started to have seizure-like episodes and heard voices that wanted to "get him." He barely graduated from high school and his mother moved him to New England from the West Coast. Barbara paid his way for him to visit, but then didn’t want to see him. Afterwards, he cut his wrists. Now, at 18, Chuck wants to talk about pain. The thing he fears most is going to bed. Disembodied eyes glow in front of him. A spirit, Kasheen, forces him to have sex with her every night and wants him to commit suicide so she can be with him. She also explains to him the marvelous, magical mystery of Zanadu. One time she guided his hands to take an overdose of sleeping pills. But then when he fell asleep, Kasheen told him in a dream to go into his mother’s room. He did, and his mother saved his life. One time Kasheen had risen up into heaven where she had no power, and Lord Jesus resumed his rightful reign. Chuck is very close to God and talks to the Holy Spirit all the time. It speaks to him of the Rapture. Chuck is very disappointed that his mother can’t see that there are spirits all around and that dreams are constantly with us. He is also disappointed in his younger brother, Steven, whom he cherishes. Steven refuses to empathetically burn himself to get a glimpse of Chuck’s hellish pain. After months of meeting with Chuck, Dr. Baur (of whom he became very fond) left for a 10 day business trip. During this time she devised a plan for his treatment. This plan was to be accelerated due to his threats of suicide on his 19th birthday, which was less than 2 months away. The plan included helping him and his family not to try to go on with the old life, but adjust to the new. This meant grieving the loss of past opportunities and hopes, tempering his violent fantasies, getting employment at McDonald’s and attending a group for the mentally ill. Two days before Dr. Bauer’s return, Chuck Willet hung himself in his family’s garage. The common reaction to unexpected loss is irrational and simple. You think it just can not be! Everyone had been preparing to protect him on his 19th birthday, not before that time. There was great guilt. Such a vibrant, intense, big, good-looking boy! Other therapists offer comfort,, reminding you that suicide is the third leading cause of death at his age, or that death was the only therapy that could stop the pain for Chuck. His family threw away all of Chuck’s psychotic writings in order to remember the old Chuck. A picture of Chuck in the third grade - vulnerable, anxious and sweet now sits on their mantel piece. It is a hard task for people to convince themselves or others that they will never be the same again, after an accident or an illness. Chuck and his family had not achieved much success in accepting the changes he had gone through. They also did not realize the forms of bravery that Chuck and other mentally ill people exhibit This bravery can be remembered and added to one’s life story with pride and not shame. The deletion of Chuck’s last few years from his life story (by his family) narrows the story of a vibrant and exceptional life. For the Willets, putting aside the confusing years of Chuck’s life means that his story now fits in with their own, sharing the same long term goal. Otherwise, it would be hard for them to bear the thought of eternal separation from Chuck.

Chuck described himself as an intensely tough individual. His mother said Chuck was sweet and sensitive. How do we find out the real truth about him? There are two types of truth. To start with, there is historical truth, which is verified and supported by evidence and scientific fact. Narrative truth gives an inclusive story that explains feelings, events and the links between them. For example, "The king died and then the queen died," is historical truth. "The king died, and then the queen died of a broken heart," is narrative truth.

The job in therapy is to find the narrative truth (story) that would best entail and link together the historical truth (facts). The patient is guided toward creating a new narrative by focusing within rather from without. For example, Chuck was led away from asking questions regarding why people are treating him badly. Instead, he was encouraged to question what he was doing to initiate this behavior in others. This continual revising of one’s story is important. Research has shown that revealing who you are and how you feel is a remarkable and powerful stabilizer. It convinces and confirms much more than feedback from a listener.

Chuck and his mother agreed on the historical truth of his life, but not on the narrative truth. She felt that he was so sensitive that he had to retreat to a fantasy world in order to deal with life’s hardships. Chuck simply felt that he was a fighter and his primary goal was to endure pain and take hard punishment because nobody could do it like he could. She depicted mental illness as a roadblock and he depicted it as an alien countryside.b

These two narratives are not very helpful because they do not entail and explain all of the facts and events. Chuck’s story of being a fighter does not explain his financial dependency or months of lethargic depression. His mother’s story of retreating from reality does not explain why he had such intense feelings toward violence and sex.

It is hard for people to converse when they have different narratives, especially when each is inconclusive. Individuals become defensive and distrustful of each other. More than anything else, Chuck Willet needed conversation or confiding. He needed to expand his life story so that it included all the aspects of his life, and had room for change. In time, stories are reshaped through the patient exchange of words and listening. The handsome Chuck Willet did not have this luxury.

For sixty years, Charlie Isabella has unsuccessfully tried to get somebody to take care of him. He tried his parents, teachers, employers, lovers, wife, his children and even charitable organizations. Charlie has tried to kill himself twice. Various therapists have given him labels such as bipolar (manic depressive), depressed, schizophrenic and psychotic. He is considered incurably sad and frustrated, and remains silent for days at a time.s

Charlie was raised by wealthy Italian parents who decided very early on that their son would some day join his uncle in jewelry making. When he was older, Charlie enrolled in the Rhode Island School of Design and was doing well. He dropped out of school in his senior year and ran off with an African-American dancer. They lived in the slums and had two children. He recalls having to literally crawl into the kids’ bedrooms to get them ready for school because the emotional pain he felt inside immobilized him. Charlie was hardly working, moved to a shelter due to illness and became separated from his family.

Ten years later, he married a health and environmentally conscious woman. They lived free of all modern day toxins like meats, pesticides, processed foods, town water and practiced American Indian religious rituals. He had several mystical experiences. He now was immersed in happiness after years of sadness. Yet his all-encompassing involvement in retreats, powwows and political Indian affairs left no room for his relationship with his wife. He didn’t mind though, because he was becoming increasingly closer to the Great Spirit, listening to His guidance and learning to read shadows which told of truths of the earth. Mr. Isabella is now despondent because he has long lost this attunement and is just waiting to die. Antidepressants have not helped.B

A recurring pattern in Charlie’s life involves first succeeding marvelously at an endeavor initially, but walking away from it shortly thereafter. This may stem from the desire to please his parents (who expected him to be a superior child), and then walking away out of fear that he wouldn’t live up to their expectations. His earliest memory is hiding a jigsaw puzzle because he wasn’t able to finish it. The main benefit from quitting a project after initially showing immense talent is that you avoid being rejected for having something wrong with your ability.

The plan of therapy for Mr. Isabella included helping him to feel the original hurt that stems from his neglectful yet demanding parents and accurately directing the anger fostered during those years. In the beginning of therapy, Charlie spoke of his memories and of his "last happy time" of associating with the Indians, especially one wise old woman with whom he was in love. His cousin said even that time wasn’t so happy, because he was going through a divorce, was estranged from his sons and the emotional love affair with the Indian woman was mostly in his head. However, Charlie was determined to remain despondent until he died. In almost two years of therapy, he would remain silent or refuse to answer questions directly. His hygiene became worse as if he was showing defiance against the world. He said he remained quiet in order to avoid misunderstanding and confrontation.M

Charlie announced that he was moving and would no longer continue therapy after the following week. Dr. Baur was upset. Charlie said the reason she wasn’t able to reach him in therapy was because he had never learned to love and there was nothing to connect to. They concluded that she had led him on a detour from his original plan to end his life, which he had stated in the first session. He said it now feels harder for him to leave this life. Dr. Baur admits she is very disappointed when a story ends before its time. Charlie Isabella had only just begun to tell his.

Mr. Isabella may not only have been altering his outlook on the events he described in his life, but may have staved off his chronic bronchitis by doing so. James Pennebaker, a psychologist at Southern Methodist University, has been studying the physiological effects of confiding for more than ten years. He found nonconfiders to have higher rates of disease, higher mortality rates from particular illnesses, and more intense reactions to stress than people who express their feelings, especially regarding traumatic events. In one study, one set of participants wrote down the facts of stressful events for four consecutive days. The other group wrote down their feelings and a third group wrote facts and feelings. The students who wrote of feelings of events, including deaths of loved ones, rape and accidents, had higher blood pressure levels while they were writing. A few days later, these same students had better levels and health than when they started the experiment. The non-emotionally free writers had more muscle tension, higher blood pressure and more psychosomatic problems probably because of the energy needed to inhibit those emotions and internalize them. The tests concluded that expressing feelings as well as facts about traumatic events fosters health and well being.

How does confiding help our mental health as well as our physical health? There are two parts to examine when answering this question: 1) What happens when a person ruminates or expresses worries, and 2) What happens when two people talk about themselves to each other?

Worrying is the least controlled way of organizing our thoughts. Worries flow easily and abundantly through the minds of anxious people. Research on negative thought reveals that worries resemble fear reactions, stemming from ideas rather than facts. Chronic worrying seemingly protects the worrier from greater danger. They believe the worrying prepares them or prevents bad things from happening. Worrying disrupts decision-making, the ability to concentrate, and puts you in a bad mood. It is private, self-perpetuating and remains unresolved because a thorough examination of the feared situation is not made and no action is taken.

Telling one’s story rather than just ruminating over worries is much more organized and comprehensible. Talking enables people to get in touch with their feelings and narrative truths because it gives them a chance to listen to themselves. An exchange of stories between two people enables each to learn more and modify their own stories by hearing similar stories of another. For Charlie, expressing his sufferings and modifying his story helped him to act upon his new story. One year after his counseling with Dr. Baur ended, he was working part time at the Indian reservation and bought a house where his grandchildren visit each summer.

Angie Savalonis is forty-six years old and has been hospitalized off and on since the age of twenty-one. At a treatment center in Hillsdale called Reliance House, Angie typically disturbs other residents by picking lint off furniture they are sitting in and dropping it in their laps or the fish tank. She will hum or murmur louder than the television they are watching. She makes scowling faces as if she is rolling around sour balls in her mouth.

Angie was raised in a very close family and was a good student until her sophomore year in college. She began to have imaginary love fantasies involving her political science professor. This made her feel guilty to the point of desperation.}

Her files do not explain fully how this college experience led to her institutionalization. At the time, she was diagnosed as suffering from psychotic depression She refused to eat or speak. She was also diagnosed as neurasthenic, which in the 1960’s meant that underlying conflicts were interfering with digestion, sleep and other physical functions. Plenty of rest and antidepressants made her worse. She was then labeled schizophrenic and catatonic. Antipsychotic medication helped. Later, she began mouthing off at people lewdly, nonsensically and for no apparent reason. She was then labeled paranoid schizophrenic.

There is no evidence in Angie’s file history of a therapist who had a hypothesis, puzzlement or interest as to why she behaved in this way. However, Dr. Baur has another client who describes a woman at Hillsdale as a cleaning-comb witch. (Angie cleans her fingers with a comb frequently.) He says he feels the witch hisses and growls in order to send electric spells into people’s bodies. She paints herself black with paint you can’t see, but "they" give her spells for the blackness. She is angry because she wants the whole hospital to be full of witches like her. Dr. Baur feels her patient’s story of Angie was a good one.

Angie would call Dr. Baur weekly, but storm out abruptly from their meetings. Their first meeting consisted of Angie telling a story about how she asked the President to take away sex,, and whispering softly of panties and other presidents. While Angie would whisper and murmur to herself, Dr. Baur would start to hum. The louder she would hum, the louder Angie would become until she wasn’t whispering anymore. She had a desire to be heard.

Two years later, Angie was yelling at Dr. Baur to fix her, to get her out of this prison hell and give her an easy life. She began screaming repeatedly about how a Jimmy Barber was the one she wanted. Jimmy was her high school boyfriend who died in a motorcycle accident. Soon thereafter, Angie had to be moved from Hillsdale to the state hospital due to her disrupting and bothering other patients. Minutes before she had to leave, Angie was shouting about how it was her right to have hugs and kisses. She wanted to know when she would be intimate with a man. She said she was hurting. Then, to her astonishment, Angie hugged her.

CHAPTER SIX: THE TYRANNICAL NATURE OF EXPLANATIONS

In Jerome Bruner’s Acts of Meaning, the question of how stories are generated is explored. One kindergarten teacher read two different versions of a birthday story. One was typical, complete with a happy girl, cake with candles, and presents. The students in the class murmured contentedly, but did not comment much. The other story was full of surprises. The girl was not happy, and she even poured water on the candles. There was much comment from the students on this version, all in the form of stories explaining how the atypical behavior occurred. One student said the girl probably didn’t know what day it was and was angry because she didn’t have the right dress on. Another volunteered that she was angry with her mother. One explained a lizard had jumped on the cake and had to be washed off. This experiment showed that the process of creating stories in order to make sense out of the unexplained is already learned by the age of five.

Why do people create explanations or stories when they don’t have all the facts? Ideas and thoughts that we create ourselves are more easily remembered than what we have read or heard. We remember much more easily what is associated with ourselves than others. We remember and actively seek information that confirms our already established beliefs. The pictures we have of ourselves and others are intensely influenced by our own storehouse of thoughts. This is not a problem if our thoughts are accurate.

In one experiment by William Swann, subjects wrote down adjectives to describe themselves. They were then given positive and negative descriptions of themselves from supposed strangers. The subjects that described themselves positively spent more time looking over the positive descriptions from strangers. The subjects who gave negative self descriptions paid more attention to the negative descriptions from strangers. Later, most subjects could only remember the strangers descriptions that matched their own. The lesson here is that we stick to our own biases and do not easily change our perceptions. We only take heed of evidence that validates our views.

In David Rosenham’s study "On Being Sane in Insane Places," eight "normal" people posed as patients. They were admitted to psychiatric wards by claiming to hear voices saying the words, "hollow," "empty," and "thud." After admittance, they acted and talked as they regularly did. For weeks, they were treated as schizophrenics and discharged temporarily for being in remission from insanity. This is similar to Angie Savalonis’ case, where therapists had pretty much ignored any behavior that didn’t fit into their explanation of schizophrenia. People tend to stick to initial explanations. When we do change our minds, we then tend to think that we had believed this new perception all along. We must pay attention to the facts that don’t fit.

Dr. Baur helped create an experiment which involved giving a monologue based on Angie Savalonis’ journaling to a varied group of people, including clinicians, mental patients and outsiders. The subjects wrote down what they thought silently to themselves and what they would say to Ms. Savalonis. The monologue included topics referring to Fidel Castro pumping emotions into her head, blaming herself for Jimmy Barber’s death, and why she has a hard life.y

Each therapist responded with "doctor talk," referring to what they thought was her diagnosis. They also wanted to ask her questions that would expand her own story, rather than talking about their own personally related experiences. Each mental patient responded with sympathy and personally related stories. They expressed how sorry they were that she was feeling bad, how CIA agents scared them instead of Fidel Castro, and that she might just be psychically picking up other people’s feelings. They gave advice they derived from their own experiences. They told her to get mad and fight back instead of crying, and that she was mixing herself up with Jimmy and that she had nothing to do with his death. Most of the people outside the clinic admitted they were uncomfortable and didn’t know what to say. Some said to get help and two responded with their own stories. One of the two was a musician who had no trouble relating personally to even the most bizarre aspects of Ms. Savalonis’ monologue. He agreed that life is crazy and talked about his own fantasies and asked her what she thought about hi s imbalances.

Unfortunately, this study showed the clinicians as not sympathetically listening in order to understand the patient better than anyone else. They were digging into their "doctor stories" and "other patient" stories for reference instead of their own personal stories. A patient’s story which is not understood on a personal level will not be taken seriously or recorded accurately. To avoid this from happening, certain conditions must be present. The listener must listen with uncertainty, have a large myriad of stories to match parts of almost any experience, and clarity is needed in the story in order to convey beliefs and feelings.

Silence leaves disturbing secrets undisturbed, whereas sharing one’s story with a good listener produces change. Lloyd Bartlett had embarked on a new journey of sharing his long withheld secrets when he began therapy with Dr. Baur. At first, he would steer the weekly conversations away from himself as best he could. One week, he enthusiastically elaborated on an article he had read about dreams. Dr. Baur, as usual, had to steer him back to his own life story, which then made him uncomfortable and sullen. This time, however, he revealed how his father had tried to kill him by cutting the steering cables in his car. He said he usually doesn’t share information like this because everyone, including clinicians, had told him they were only delusions. e

Mr. Bartlett was born in New England to a dominating, unhappy mother and manly, alcoholic father. He has one older sister who was also dominating. He broke free of their control when he went away to study anthropology in college. After college, he relocated to Michigan to work on an archaeological research project. It was there that he had his first psychotic episode. Through the years he had other episodes including frantically running long distances to get away from invisible antagonists, and being arrested for taking other people’s things while saying they were items that belonged to him.

In Mr. Bartlett’s own words, all of his troubles stem from being born with abnormally high mental abilities. He claimed to have talked and read at around seven months of age, dragging books around on his baby blanket. His father thought that little Lloyd could not be his child and wanted to kill him. His mother, to save his life, gave him away to a very large Indian called Bobby Two-Ton Eagle. The Indian protected him from many evil people who had superhuman powers. Dr. Baur felt Mr. Bartlett learned to make himself feel safe by telling himself stories of protection. She noticed that when Mr. Bartlett told clearly delusional stories, they were without specific detail and consequences. This is how she tried to tell the difference between historical and narrative truth. However, sometimes historical truths were also embellished upon with delusions. Like many schizophrenics, Lloyd blamed his inconsistent remembrances of his past on people who had forced him to take chemicals and drugs. After many sessions, Lloyd gradually began to admit that he had delusions and would embellish stories, sometimes explaining that he had confused his own life with a book he was reading at the time. Ironically, as his consciousness of his delusions increased, so did the delusions themselves. Dr. Baur observed that in therapy, he was able to express himself more often to an accepting person, and therefore could feel free to share many more delusions. As a result, Mr. Bartlett became increasingly happier and vibrant.

In the book Madness and Modernism, Louis Sars proposes that schizophrenics do not actually identify with their delusions. They are simultaneously the author and victim of their fantasies. In one experiment, rats were forced to only watch other rats in their normal daily activities. These rats did not develop the brain cells or abilities to perform these normal activities. This supports Descarte’s idea that our thoughts or observations do not equal our existence. The major obstacle in Lloyd’s life was that his stories rendered him incapable of taking action. Most of his stories involved characters that hindered him in some way and prevented him from achieving desired goals such as love, happiness and various relationships.

One time, Dr. Baur had not seen Lloyd in three weeks. Later she learned he had locked himself in his apartment without leaving or making a sound for one week. When his landlady had the door broken in to see if he was alive, Lloyd jumped out the second floor window and hitchhiked out of state with a broken foot and no money. He stole candy for food and was picked up by the police.(

Dr. Baur faces a challenge. Shall she keep Lloyd off medication and watch him become active and exuberant, yet delusional? Should she continue to keep him heavily sedated which protects him from danger yet leads him into depression? Eventually, she will learn to do a little of each.

So far, emphasis has been given to the negotiating of meaning that goes on between two people when one is sharing their stories. What about the meaning of conversations that go on in the mind which are not told aloud? The anthropologist, John Caughey, says that most Americans have three general categories of secret imaginary relationships. These are with famous people, imagined characters, and real people (including themselves). Freud said only unhappy people fantasize, but Caughey feels important psychological growth occurs with most fantasy. He says usually the figure fantasized about has qualities the dreamer would like for himself but are not yet realized. In the fantasy, the dreamer is accepted by the idealized figure, thus allowing the dreamer to accept desirable qualities in himself. This may indicate the influence of the American ideal of personal achievement rather than the natural way of thinking in all humans.?

Children with imaginary friends are more cooperative, articulate, and attentive than other children. Delusional schizophrenic patients are also more friendly and less defensive than other patients. Also, people who converse with deceased loved ones enjoy a sense of emotional support, comfort, and guidance.

The imagined characters with whom we converse are sometimes parts of ourselves that we have projected onto other images. An example of the benefits of conversing with parts of ourselves is the peaceful social system of the Senoi on the Malay peninsula. The Senoi have hardly any cases of mental disorder or physical conflict. It is believed that there has been no violent crime in the community in over 200 years. They attribute this to their practice of teaching children at a very young age to guide and interpret their own dreams. They believe that conflict begins within dreams and that conscious interaction is needed with dream characters to attain desirable results. No matter what the circumstances are in a dream, the dreamer is to be happy, realizing that all situations will lead to the discovery of something important. Once the dreamer confronts the main character, a message, chant or poem is requested by the dreamer to share with the community when he is awake. Possibly, it is just the process of talking to oneself that is important, whether one is communicating with parts of themselves in dreams or with imaginary conversational partners when awake.

The imaginary characters that people talk to in daydreams have many forms of response including praise, criticism, love, rationalization, complaints, and seduction. However, the mentally ill tend to interact with more vindictive, controlling, and erratic imaginary characters. Dr. Baur encouraged Floyd Bartlett to confront his imagined perpetrators, getting angry at them or asking questions as to why they were chasing him. Eventually, Mr. Bartlett learned to question the characters’ natures, feelings, and thoughts. He was no longer only a passive victim of their wishes, but instead he utilized powers of resistance. Dr. Baur’s primary goal was not for Lloyd to tell the difference between real and imaginary worlds, but to take ownership of his own script. Slowly, she was helping him to change from a character to the author in his own play, from the listener to the storyteller.

At one time, Dr Baur worked at a clinic in Rhode Island which specialized in helping the rural poor. It was there that she enjoyed a five year friendship with a remarkable man, Ned Bennet. Ned was one of the four senior therapists there and was well liked and respected. , Having studied with the famous therapist Eric Semrod, he became a much appreciated mentor for Susan. He taught her how to stop condemning herself for losing focus during a session, that it may be the patients are showing her how they drift away from connectedness with her. Every interaction has potential therapeutic value. Above all, he gave her a lot of positive feedback. His job in life was to discover people’s secret dreams and encourage or guide them in that direction. His favorite words were "champion" and "empower." Ned Bennett was the embodiment of the ideal at the Maple Street Clinic to keep the patients’ best interest as the goal of each transaction.|

Susan discovered from another clinician that Ned had diabetes, which explained the red marks on his hands and the many sick days he took. After five years of their first meeting, his health dramatically deteriorated. Their weekly meetings dropped to biweekly and then monthly. The closer their friendship became, the more sick he seemed to get. He passed out frequently. His kidneys failed. Each time Susan would talk to Ned, he would tell her of the latest transfusion, or seizure. Susan, who admits to being a hypochondriac and afraid of having a fatal illness herself, was terrified for Ned. Realizing he might die soon, Ned finally revealed his own secret life story of being orphaned at eleven years of age, being sexually abused by his brother-in-law as well as other hardships. Susan realized even more that Ned is truly a champion to have overcome these hardships..

One day Susan and her boyfriend drove to Providence to visit Ned. Ned looked terrible. He was sweating protusively and could barely move because of the pain. Susan wanted to rush him to the emergency room. He explained between clenched teeth that he had already been there and that there was nothing they could do except try to numb the pain. Since he had been experiencing much mental confusion and memory loss, he asked Susan and her friend to search his spine for the needle mark to make sure they had given him the painkiller they had promised. Later that night, a friend of Ned’s came to watch over him. She was to relieve him in the morning. When she returned to Ned’s, he was insistent on going to work even though he could barely walk. He ignored Susan’s protests.

Susan decided to call Ned’s doctor. Much to her amazement, the doctor said Ned had not been to the hospital in ten months and that his kidneys were fine. To be sure, the doctor checked all the hospital computer records and could find nothing on Ned Bennet. There were no dialysis tests, emergency room check-ins or any of the other visits Ned had described. She decided to investigate the truth behind other stories Ned had told her by calling a former therapist at the clinic. No, he did not speak Portuguese. No, he did not break his back six years ago. No, he never owned a health food store. Susan had heard enough. Her next call was to Ned. Ned responded defensively, accusing her of being hysterical. He explained how it was obvious that his doctor would not reveal private health information to a stranger. It was obvious to Susan that Ned was trying to destroy any ties between them as friends from now on. He alluded to how he was tired of making other people feel supported and happy, and that she was really not his champion even though he told her that many times before. In fact, he said that her weakness was a burden to him. Susan felt all the uplifting inspiration that Ned had given her for the past five years slowly melt away.+

A few weeks later, Ned Bennett took an extended leave of absence from the Maple Street Clinic due to health reasons. Susan discovered more inconsistencies with the stories Ned had told her, questioning whether he really won so many awards, graduated college at nineteen, traveled around the world, had such a traumatic childhood or studied with Eric Semrad. The valuable lessons she learned from him regarding therapy now seemed tainted with the ill feelings of disappointment and shame which were associated with the rest of her experience with him. Through the years, she tried to ignore the experience as best she could. Only when an occasional patient who felt angry and betrayed would ask himself why he believed so many lies, would Susan remember those days in Rhode Island with Ned Bennett.

Several years after Susan and Ned ended their friendship, Susan began to piece together an explanation of their relationship. In order to understand the confusion that betrayal sometimes brings to her clients, she needed to figure out why Ned lied and why she believed him. Sometimes lies are like striking bargains with the listener. Ned’s bargain may have been that he would provide excellent support and encouragement despite unbearable pain in return for admiration and care for him. This deal making process seems to have developed in early childhood, providing the childhood memories he shared were not fabricated. He had said he had to chop wood every day after school, sick or not, or he would not be allowed to eat supper. Some of his clients and friends struck a second deal. They would eventually overcome their troubles, as long as Ned continued to succeed in spite of terrible odds. Surely they could do it if he could.

Some liars believe their own lies. A therapist named Scott Snyder once had a patient who would lie about many things including paying two to three times for her clothes than the real price. She remained convinced of this story until shown the sales slips. She would then enter into a rageful, dissociated state or become withdrawn and depressed. She not only convinced others, but also convinced herself of the lie. A lie can also be repeated so often that the true version of what happened is forgotten.

Psychologist Donald Keane feels that lying is an important developmental stage in the life of a child. Preschoolers are not completely clear about the difference between falsehood and truth. They usually think their parents know everything and are mind readers. At around age four or five, the child learns that he can purposefully misinform and have what he said accepted as truth. This brings an exciting sense of power and a feeling of being more of a separate being from his parents. Both realizations are important steps toward individuality. Children who are severely punished for lying will still lie but learn to not admit it. Parents who lie to their children teach them that it is not important to tell the truth. Parents who lie in outright deception, saying to their children that they are "only going for a drive" and take them to the dentist, are teaching their children that it is not safe to say what you really mean. They become inclined to lie whenever they feel uncomfortable.

Liars focus so much attention on what other people are thinking, that they lose a sense of themselves. They concentrate so much on their appearance that the real self stops developing. Only their roles mature. The longer the liar does not look at the original cause of the lying process, (usually shame or guilt), the more difficulty he has in releasing the true self and experiencing the pain. As a result, liars hardly ever seek treatment.

Bella DePaulo spent her academic career studying the act of lying. She discovered that those who were good at detecting lies were not very good at identifying with the feelings of those who spoke the truth, and vice versa. Males were best at lie detecting and women were better at tuning into the emotions conveyed. Females tend to respond with empathy out of politeness. Also, DePaulo’s studies showed that people who were not good at detecting lies were happier, more social and had better relationships. Those that were good at lie detection were less popular and not as happy in relationships, probably due to a continual uncertainty and mistrusting of people, keeping them at a distance. When Dr. Baur deals with patients who have been deceived, she knows their world has been turned upside down. Nevertheless,, she will tell them it is much better to be a believer.

The DeMello family have developed a system for protecting their youngest member, Baby Fish-Eye, from employment, sadness or growing up. His mother has labeled him as a problem child and five or six times a year she tries to have him taken away by the police or by psychiatric hospitals. One time the police were called because he was trying to burn the house down. Upon arrival, they found him sitting quietly on the couch watching television, smoking a cigarette. He had accidentally started a fire in the waste paper basket due to a lit cigarette.

After a few days of battling a virus, complete with chills and headaches, Dr. Baur dreamt of Baby Fish-Eye as a flying arsonist trying to burn down the Hillsdale Clinic in which she worked. Baby Fish-Eye, who was twenty years old, was considered the reason for all the family’s problems, and called an arsonist. He is basically a couch potato and exhibits some strange behavior such as pinching women and hanging out with thirteen year-old girls. His mother, Lila, his aunt Lorna, and her husband are frustrated, forlorn and angry that no one will take him away.

In one session Lila, said her family life was like a dream in which she had no control, that repeated itself over and over. That was the first time Dr. Baur actually agreed with Lila. Lila, doesn’t like dreams which make her a passive victim, whereas Baby loves dreams. In the same session he described a dream in which he could fly to wherever he wanted. He flew to Disney World and he took his beloved family with him.

Looking at the genogram of Baby Fish-Eye’s family, we see that it was also very difficult for his mother and her four siblings to leave home. Her brothers had been in and out of jail a few times before getting married and moving away. Her sister ran away repeatedly before getting married. Lila, was pregnant at fifteen and stayed home for five years until moving out, also due to marriage. She and her youngest brother both returned home frequently for long periods of time. Eventually, her brother returned home for good, as his uncle did before him. In at least three generations, this family had perpetuated the belief that growing up and becoming independent was rebellious and bad. When asked where Baby will be in ten years, Lila says he’ll be with her, that when all the others are gone, she’ll be with Baby.

Dr. Baur wishes she had mapped Baby’s family history three years ago when they first came to her. Now Baby is back in the Newtondale State Hospital. She remembers the first time he was sent there. He was happily engaged to a nice, organized girl, was working out, and taking pride in his appearance. When he moved in with her, he became violently ill for several weeks. A few weeks before the wedding, he rang every fire alarm in town, ignited his wastebasket and admitted himself to the hospital. He remained there for nine months, incontinent, immobile and mute - just like a baby. Afterwards, his mother exclaimed how happy she was to have him home where he belonged. The cycle continues.

Generational cycles appear frequently. They are like plays that are repeated over and over. Originally, the actors would read the script and see what the problem or loss was that caused trauma. Through the years, the script is forgotten but the new actors have a strong sense of what the correct and incorrect lines and actions are. When these appropriate actions are taken, feelings of familiarity, acceptance, and belonging are experienced. If the incorrect lines are spoken, the sense of the cohesiveness of the play falls apart, creating chaos and confusion. Ironically, the problem in which the original play was created to deal with, no longer exists. The current players’ actions do not make sense in the reality of the present circumstances.

The end of the DeMellos’ problem may take place in "family time" and not "therapy time." It took a number of generations to form this cycle, therefore it may take a generation or two to break it. It is best to help one family member at a time learn to refuse to be a part of the family play.

A powerful example of generational healing is Dr. Alan Flashman’s story of the Kibbutz. Young people who had survived the Holocaust in Europe came to Jerusalem for refuge. They had no parents or grandparents, only memories. These people, who were around the same age, joined together to form their own family-like group called a kibbutz. Their children also joined together and were also without grandparents. In the early 1970’s, these children, living in groups, gave birth to the first grandchildren in at least a whole generation. At the same time, the concept of grandparents was reborn. The memories that these new grandparents had of their own grandparents came to the surface. This new generation of children was able to hear and feel a part of the richness of their own family and not only that of the kibbutz. As a result, these children no longer felt a need to live in groups, feeling secure in families of their own.

Dr. Baur has encountered many kinds of writing of the mentally ill. They include diaries, letters, poems, autobiographies, notes and lists. Perhaps this last category, the lists, are the most curious of all. There were two list makers at Mountain Valley Hospital. Yolanda kept a list of signatures and forgeries. She also interpreted what many words actually meant, to see what people were really trying to say. For example, "William" really means "Will-I-Am." She liked to type the letters of her own name in different combinations in order to "record" herself.

Willie Otis would hide dozens of lists of kings within balls of strings. Many of these were written backwards, with his own age and name added as well as the ages of the kings listed. Others collected pieces of printed material of all types. One man named Peter collected clippings of newspaper articles with his name in them. He would write letters to the editors, urging them to stop terrorizing him. Another patient collected picture advertisements of female models, which to him suggested women’s cannibalistic desires toward men. He also sent drawings of vicious women with pointy teeth to U.S. presidents, warning them of this epidemic.

Hypergraphia is defined as having a tendency to write extensively and compulsively. Sometimes this behavior is marked by repetition. One patient wrote almost the exact same single sentence in his diary for five years. Julio Cortazar, an Argentine writer, stated that he would periodically become possessed by unseen beings. He started to write as a means of remaining stable during those periods. Some cases of hypergraphia are described as automatic writing, since the patient feels his writing is being done by someone else.

One of Dr. Baur’s patients, T.M., was sent to prison because voices in his head had forced him to attack people. Nine years later, he was released as a mute, drooling idiot who wrote messages as a means of communication. No one paid much attention to his seemingly nonsensical writings of torture, being a girl, and other gibberish. When Dr. Baur visited the prison T.M. had stayed in, she began to understand the purpose of his writings. For example, she recognized a guard that T.M. had called a "robot" as well as other people he had been rambling about. She realized that he was symbolically writing about his experiences of being put in a cell with seven mentally retarded murderers who raped, tortured and terrorized him in various ways. T.M. journeyed far within his own imagination in order to escape the horror he was experiencing. He took to writing to release some of his intense emotions. Like many patients who write journals, T.M. wrote in hope that someone some day would read and understand. Dr. Baur understood. She wrote back to him regarding his fears and need for safety. In three years, he moved to a halfway house, where he felt much safer than in the hospital which reminded him of the prison. In another several months he was speaking instead of writing. When asked why he didn’t write anymore, he would explain with a smile that it was too much trouble.

When T.M. was transferred to Mountain Valley Hospital from Newtondale Hospital, he was interviewed by a clinician. The clinician compiled a report which described him as nonsensical, incoherent, and without reason. Sadly, most reports are like this. Without knowing the patient, clinicians often make judgements that are inaccurate and potentially harmful in the way it affects subsequent treatment. Clinicians are generally trained to perceive the mentally ill as having broken brains, therefore their stories are not taken seriously. Clinicians are also frequently told not to get close to their patients, and that knowledge and technique is more powerful than caring or affection.

Dr. Baur prefers to try to understand what it feels like to be the patient. She is fond of an exercise one psychiatrist, Dr. H., tried in order to understand his patient. The patient wore huge galoshes, a long trench coat and a big hat. He also complained that nobody liked him. Dr. H switched clothing with the patient for one week. Dr. H. was amazed at the unpredictable way he was treated and talked to. Dr. H. literally laughs at the concept of having strict boundaries between patient and therapist.

Many therapists feel that their time is more valuable than their patients’. When doctors keep their patients waiting, it shows how important they are. When patients keep doctors waiting, they are showing unwillingness or rebelliousness. When Dr. Baur was in training to be a therapist, she began leaving meetings when they were scheduled to finish, in order to meet her patients on time. As a result, she was reprimanded for getting too involved with the patient and for being too openly eager to help. She was also warned against getting a reputation for being soft rather than smart. Sometimes therapists and physicians will cover up their own callousness by coercing other practitioners into thinking that getting involved or fascinated with patients is wrong or dumb.

There are also financial reasons for quick, cold and distant diagnosis and treatment of patients. Many directors of mental health institutions are actually budget directors who hire lesser skilled employees, such as counselors and interns instead of psychologists, in order to pay lower wages. Another way to save money is to require clinicians to come up with a diagnosis and treatment plan after the first session in order to start the billing procedure. Also, many facilities cut down on therapy in order to save money. Short term therapy with quick solutions, such as administering drugs, is encouraged by these facilities. In short, the financial winners are the ones who substitute their own consciences for regulations.

Nobody calls the Newtondale Hospital for the Criminally Insane a hospital. It’s either called a prison or just "Newtondale." Johnny Paradise has many stories of his life at the "prison" before coming to the Hillsdale Clinic. Johnny is forty-eight years old, short, energetic and has long, gray hair. He has printed the words "KILL" and "DIE" on his arms with cigarette burns. He is especially agitated because he misses prison where he had a best friend and felt accepted. Johnny would begin his sessions in such an angry mood that Dr. Baur would feel pangs of nervousness in her stomach before he arrived.

Upon his arrival, Johnny would drink an entire pot of coffee to counteract the sedative effects of the many medications he was required to take. He would also drink a quart of water to try to purge his body of these drugs. This combining of coffee and drugs was a daily morning procedure for the residents of Newtondale. It made them feel high, energetic and wound up. At two in the afternoon, however, the entire prison would come down off this high and feel listless and depressed. This was when the prisoners would sell and exchange things such as coffee and cigarettes. Evereyone was a "store" according to Johnny. Johnny was an abundant store of stories. At the prison, people appreciated his stories of his life, imaginary adventures and hallucinations. Outside the prison, no one listened to Johnny’s stories. He was neither appreciated nor understood. He is a storyteller without an audience.

Johnny turned Newtondale into an arena of brave men through his stories. For example, he saw the barren, seven-men cells as stalls housing wild stallions. His friend Cherubino was a brave Aztec king who stood up to the others despite his 5’4" stature. Johnny told his last and most painful story to Dr. Baur before his transfer to another hospital. He shared his experience of witnessing Cherubino being raped in the bathroom. Cherubino was fearless as three ruthless murderers, high on medication, jumped him and beat him. Crying, Johnny told of the screams and sounds he heard on that dark, rainy night. After telling this story, Dr. Baur gently asked what happened to (Johnny). Regaining his composure, Mr. Paradise nonchalantly explained how it always happened to him.

Mr. Paradise told stories to prisoners which gave a deeper understanding of who they really were. Johnny gave them an escape from daily humiliations and hardships. He saw in Cherubino the hidden hero within himself that could stand up to any aggressor. Dr. Baur saw the great courage within the visionary Johnny Paradise, the story teller.

It is hard for humans to make sense of themselves without being understood by other people. How is it that stories help us to feel more understood? Bennet Simon, the author of Mind and Madness in Ancient Greece elaborates on the answer to this question. He feels stories clarify, awaken and intensify some of the listener’s own feelings in ways that are not always easily comprehended. Simon theorizes that stories, both strange and familiar, produce a feeling of sadness for some reason. Also, tales that express a group’s ideals brings that group closer together. All tales connect the listener to a larger community.

Therapists need to help patients feel that someone can relate to their experiences. The best way to disintegrate the wall between therapist and client is responsiveness and respectfullness. Fortunately, many counselors put formulas and methods aside and became personally involved with their clients on an inner, deeper level. Dr. William Carlos Williams said he would actually become his patients at moments, taking on their situations as his own. Leston Havens described the bond with his clients as a "liking" to the extent of "loving." Bruno Bettelheim spoke of how he would see the world through the eyes of his clients, thus having an intense and personal relationship with them. Robert Coles suggests writing biographies of patients instead of recording their symptoms. Good therapists are very much like good biographers. The best biographers are the ones that become completely enthralled with their subjects. They are missionaries, who save souls and personalities through their stories for the education of future generations.

The authors of The Art of the Obvious, Bruno Bettelheim and Alvin Rosenfield, sought to pull new, young therapists away from impersonal fact finding, charting and treatment plans. They urged interns to treat patients like beloved, honored guests visiting their homes. Let curiosity drive you to view the world through the patients’ eyes. Allow yourself to fluctuate from feeling close to distant, anxious to safe, and angry to sad. Let the patient be your guide. Do not try to discover a disease and develop a treatment plan. According to James Hillman and Michael Ventura, one must try to discover and invent a new language in which to communicate with each specific patient. The goal is not to help the patient become normal, heal or end his suffering. The goal is to help the patient come into his own, have integrity and be true to himself.

Dr. Baur’s friend Dr. H. described a therapeutic relationship as being on a mountain trail with a friend. Sometimes you may want to go off the trail to explore what is around you. You may get lost and have to start a new trail. Sometimes you climb up the mountain, walk down or get separated from each other.

Dr. Baur once had a patient who had visions of her deceased lover. These visions were beckoning her to kill herself and join him. Dr. Baur related the experience of Eurydice and Orpheus. Orpheus risked passing through the threshold of life and death to visit his beloved Eurydice who had died. The rulers of the underworld were so touched by his love for her, they allowed him to bring her back with him as long as he didn’t look at her. He could feel her presence, but when he turned to look at her, she was taken away. The patient completely understood how Orpheus felt. She also felt completely understood by Dr. Baur who knew enough to choose to tell this story. The patient has a better sense of identity and validation now that she can substitute herself for the hero’s role in someone else’s story as well as her own.

Maggie Bishop is fifty-four years old, loves to walk, and experiences an intense, manic episode every one or two years. She tries to prevent these episodes by not getting too emotional about anything for too long. She explained to Dr. Baur that it is due to chemical imbalances in her brain. Miss Bishop has never had a long-term romance or close relationship with anyone because she is afraid no one would want to love her or stay involved with her after witnessing one of her episodes. Dr. Baur likes Miss Bishop very much, intends to stay involved with her, and delights in her poetic, intelligent way of perceiving the world. Maggie especially depicts all the men she encounters - the postman, the grocer and the librarian - in a romanticized way. Maggie can only briefly fantasize about these men before her emotions take control of her. An actual passionate encounter with one of them would literally send her into a state of psychosis. This illness, as Maggie puts it, has prevented her from becoming a nun, professor or wife despite her considerable abilities.

One night Susan received an emergency phone call. Maggie had taken off her clothes, stolen a rowboat and was currently in the middle of Silver Pond. Susan left immediately. Many ideas came to Susan as she tried to find the right words to keep Maggie from jumping overboard, possibly to her death. Susan remembered how Maggie had said she was a volcano. Shoulde Maggie be encouraged to release anger? No, that would be too dangerous in the middle of a pond in a rowboat. Maggie had said she felt defeated just like her father always did. Susan thought maybe sympathy would work. Maggie had also previously explained that thoughts spin wildly in her head during manic episodes. Susan decided to sing her a lullaby. No, it wasn’t private enough out on the pond.

Once Susan was rowed out to Maggie by the boathouse owner’s son, she could see that Maggie was "gone." She had that familiar, uncomprehending look of psychosis interspersed with turmoil and terror. Talking would not help right now. All she could do was stall her until Maggie’s boat floated to shore where the police could grab her. Susan tried to bring Maggie’s awareness back to the here and now by asking her about the librarian in her life. Maggie then involved Martin (the librarian) into a hallucination she was having about playing basketball. At times like these, Susan did not completely join as one with her patient.

Days later, Maggie opened up about things she had felt too uncomfortable about to discuss previously. As a child, she was asthmatic. She made a deal with God that she would be a good girl in return for air. Being a good girl meant not showing emotion - not getting angry, sad or lustful. Maggie was like a woman dying of thirst next to a dam. The very thing she needed would explode and overwhelm her if allowed to escape. Maggie’s remembrance of her deal with God was the beginning of a lengthy road to recovery.

Susan discovered there were two types of conversation while working with Maggie. One involved the angry, sad and true things that people need to share with each other. The other type occurs without words but with an illuminating, transforming energy. You can feel it occur with each honest revelation and naked description of what it is like to be human. It makes you feel alive. It is this second type of conversation that makes Dr. Baur fall in love with being human again and again.