Ellen Wilkie

In writing last week’s blog, I looked up my copy of 'The Art of Loving'. Folded within it was the obituary of Ellen Wilkie. Ellen had been a presenter on Channel 4’s current affairs programme for the disabled community ‘Same Difference’, as well as an actor, singer and poet. She was thirty two when she died on the 7th August 1989.

I met Ellen a few weeks before this, when we were both staying at the MacLeod Centre on Iona. She was there as a practising Christian, I was there trying to make sense of a Christian upbringing, which I was leaving behind and endeavouring to understand, as I did so. We met at meal time, it was natural to do so, the other inhabitants were a party, we and I include Ellen’s friend, and carer Judith Gunn, were solo independent travellers. In meeting, I took Ellen for who she was, the fact of her disability was obvious, as was her failing, it was clear she had not long to live. It seemed right to neither ask, what was wrong or to ask about her disability. I trusted her to tell me, if the time came and the moment was right. The moment did come one evening, after I helped Ellen to get to the abbey, to read some of her poems, as part of the evening service. She read well, with the skill of an accomplished performer. Afterwards two older women came to thank Ellen, as I stood behind her. They told her how good the poems were and silently, unsaid in the thanking, in the intonation, was the addition, ‘for a cripple.’ I was upset, angry on Ellen’s behalf but worse was to come. The next person came up and asked her straight out, what was wrong with her, adding, as if it gave her the right to know, that she was second year medical student at Aberdeen. Afterwards, when we talked about what had happened, Ellen told me her story, of how she had an extremely rare muscle wasting disease, Duchenne muscular dystrophy. She had outlived the doctors predictions for her life expectancy by over a decade, successfully fighting the view and prejudices we had seen displayed that evening, to live a rich and full life. One in which she had packed more in and been more alive to her possibilities than many people manage in a life time. That she lived so long, Ellen put down to an experimental treatment she had, that she live so well, she put down to the love of her family and her Christian faith. I think everyone who knew her would have added her spirit and her determination. Looking back over twenty years later, I realise we became friends because I took her as she wanted to be taken, I looked past the obvious to find the person and for that I am thankful. It was a rare meeting, remaining a precious memory, a reminder of the possible in the most difficult of circumstances, as well as the wonders of friendship, in unfamiliar circumstances.

Which is where I will be next week, on a course with new people, sharing, trusting to find connection and possibility. Which means no blog for two weeks.

The Art of Loving and Sociality

There is a dimension that is common to most, if not all psychological theories, which spans the need to be ourselves, individual and free, to being one with the other, or others in a moment of fusion. A friend of mine refers to this desire for fusion, in its unhealthy form, as the 'urge to merge'. It is something, that is with us from birth, and requires re-construal throughout the life span, as we learn to be ourselves with, and amongst others. Before we reconstrue, the desire for fusion, often manifests itself, as a quest to be loved, to find someone, who will love us. Eric Fromm the German psychoanalyst and social psychologist suggested that the solution to this quest lies, not in finding someone but in giving it up and learning to love somebody else. This is not an easy task according to Fromm, in his classic book 'The Art of Loving," as it requires us to develop, not just an objective love of the other, but an objective love of oneself, and through these come to an attitude of love for others in general.

To do this we have to know the other person, we have to know ourselves and to know is a task which involves prediction, anticipation of what we ourselves will do and how others themselves will react. It involves an idea of of what human flourishing and growth consists in, which involves an awareness of ourselves and others. Practically speaking we need to be able to direct our attention from ourselves to others. To shift attention to the other, is to start to make sense of not just them, but of ourselves in relation, as someone who attends, tends to others. To tend others, to care, to actively love in a Frommian sense, requires sociality, not in a superficial sense, as when we drive and we mostly successfully, anticipate and predict other drivers, but in a deep sense. A deep sense requiring not just an ability to be with another but with ourselves, in a unity where each is separate, individual, yet joined together, in a moment of being, a unity of purpose. In that moment of being and unity of purpose, an attitude starts to take hold, which extends beyond that single relationship, into our other relations, allowing a depth of maturity and wisdom to develop, so that in our becoming, we become fully human.

How to Stand In Someones Else's Shoes

Following from last week’s suggestion that the ability to stand in another's shoes is a great achievement, today begins to look at the practical 'how' of how this be approached. The first thing to note is that, we almost all possess the ability. As young children we effortlessly move in and out of others' perspectives, adopting them for our future benefit and gain, internalising them for our future loss and pain. Getting older things can harden, we assume more, thought sediments itself, remaining undisturbed, it becomes viscous, a colloid, gluing us to one perspective, our own, asserted over others. We lose the ability to take the other's view into account, to see where they are, to meet them on the edge of their world, to greet them on the edge of our own. Exploration ceases and we can find ourselves alone with the likeminded, unable to reach out, across the barriers of human thought, to mutual understanding.

Proceeding directly at this point is often to project, to assume, when what is needed is the ability to stop and be, in the face of the other, to get the feel of them, not as we normally feel but as they feel. What marks this 'stop' out is the conscious choice that marks it, it is an arrest in thought, willed, where we stop heading down familiar tracks, where we cease making habitual movements in favour of a free balance and a conscious choice to focus on the other, while being aware of our own tightening into premature movement, which pre-empts a full consideration of the other, in their predicament,in their position, in their being.

Consideration here is a practical matter, it is not just words, although many words have been used to describe it 'bracketing' in phenomenology, 'suspension' by Kelly, 'inhibition' by Alexander and it is Alexander who perhaps gives the most practical instructions for learning here. For inhibition in its most radical form, involves a complete suspension of what has gone before, in favour of a seeing, feeling, controlled mirroring of the other, where sympathy, empathy, appreciation are established in fellow feeling. Fellow feeling, feelings for our fellows, fellowship with others, friendships with others, these are important goods to us and to others. They come with learning to 'stop', to see and to feel with others, if Alexander gives most help here in stopping then Kelly give most help with the understanding that can develop from here. More next time.....

The Need for Understanding

The UK has been somewhat awash this last fortnight with varying reactions to the recent riots in England, much of which has seen people in the press validating pre-existing positions rather than stopping and making genuine enquiry into what has happened. I somewhat wish they would follow the following advice of Konrad Lorenz that ‘it is a good morning exercise for a research scientist to discard a pet hypothesis every day before breakfast. It keeps him young.’ This, as a habit, has much to recommend it, to everybody, not just research scientists or members of the commentariat. Perhaps, if we all followed it, we might begin not just to know ourselves a bit better but begin to know and understand other people better. Without such understanding from others it is difficult to know our own character; we need others to provide a ‘mirror’, and for this we need ‘society’. It is in the company of others in their ‘countenance’ and ‘behaviour’, that we begin to see the ‘propriety’ and ‘impropriety’ of our own ‘passions’ and the ‘beauty’ and ‘deformity’ of our own ‘minds’ to paraphrase Adam Smith. Face-to-face understanding is necessary if we are to succeed in relationships and building, not so much a better society but, society. We need each other to understand ourselves more fully. With sometimes the deepest, fullest understanding of ourselves coming from accepting that others hold views of us that are painful and difficult for us accept. While difficult to do, the rewards from this can be great, opening an opportunity for dialogue and giving us the freedom to more fully ‘stand in the other’s shoes.’ The ability to ‘stand in the other’s shoes’ is one of the great achievements we can make, particularly face-to-face with those with whom we disagree, who are not of our tribe. Yet without it conflict, violence, rage, fury, whether in looting or arson or the desire to use live ammunition or ruin lives with vengeful sentencing.We need to understand each other, starting with those we love and extending outwards through our neighbours, colleagues to a wider society. This starts with ‘standing in other’s shoes’. This is a good basis for sociality, which is what Kelly called the ability to understand how others makes sense of us and the world. With it, for him, we are able to play a role with the other, lover, partner, friend, neighbour, colleague, citizen....... Without it we are condemned not only to not know the other but to not fully know ourselves and it is only through more fully knowing ourselves, that we can put aside our own anger and rage, find ways of connecting with others, proceed with relationships and build communities that support human flourishing.

Cutting the Bungee Cord

Despondency tends to descend on people who, in trying to change, repeatedly experience failure, finding themselves jerked back to where they started, just at that point when success seemed to be within reach or even accomplished. It is like trying to change with a bungee rope tied to your back which becomes taut at the last moment, pulling yourself back to where you started - change becomes a Sisyphean task. Each day a person seems condemned to start again, only to be frustrated. It is a familiar experience for many and is often evidence of failure to really stop and find a way forward.

Both Alexander and Kelly wrote about this phenomena and using different language both suggested solutions that were similar and pertinent to whoever finds themselves experiencing this sort of difficulty. As is often the case, it is helpful to approach such difficulties not just from one standpoint but two or more and that is what I hope to do today.

For Alexander, the failure lies in what he called 'end-gaining', in not identifying the real cause of our difficulties, which lay for him in relying on what he called 'subconscious guidance and control.' Rather, we identify a specific fault and tend to try and correct it directly, so a problem with a limb is seen as just that, and not a problem stemming from the overall use of ourselves that is best corrected by aiming for a better co-ordination of the whole. For Alexander, the need to stop and think, to reconstrue is an embodied matter, best done through releasing one's breathing, freeing oneself for a wide range of possible actions, actions that in themselves depend on new conceptions of what is possible, conceptions that recognise situations for what they are, which break our dependence on old habits and cut the cord that binds us to our past. What Kelly adds to this comes with the formal idea of a construct being based on a dichotomy, a contrast, where we like to experience ourselves on one side of the distinction being made. Constructs as contrasts, are highly personal, borrowed and evolved by each person for their individual ends. Meanings are seen as personal, rather than dictionary definitions formally imposed. So, that for one person the choice at work might be to pull down and be a 'kindly' person rather than a 'efficient’ one, where attempts at ‘efficiency’ are always in the end trumped by the need to be ‘kind’. This might happen because being 'kind' or 'nice' is ultimately a way of attempting to control the person’s anxiety in the face of the unknown demands of ‘efficiency’. Kelly called this kind of attempt at change ‘slot rattling’ and like Alexander saw it is an ineffective sort of change, that is better replaced by controlled elaboration and experimentation. In this case the link between being ‘kindly’ and ‘efficient’ might usefully be broken and seen not as an ‘either/or’ but possibly as an ‘and’, subsumed underneath a new construct for change – that of ‘confidence in the face of the unknown’. This involves the ability to stand and face the future, to see what possibilities hope offers us. It is the pre-requisite for change that Alexander always brings us back to and Kelly invites us to adventurously elaborate by cutting the cord to our past failures and seeking the future.

On Being Wrong

Every so often a theme emerges and is repeated in conversations with pupils and clients. Of late it has been around the question of being wrong. It is something that happens to everybody and not just once either. What is important is not so much the fact of being wrong, but our attitude and the attitude of those around us. That is not say that the consequences of any particular act are not important, they are - affecting our attitude and the attitudes of those around us. Our attitude here, as in so much of life, tends to be habitual, the result of choices, sometimes long forgotten, that reach far into the future, helping or condemning us, depending on, how we feel about, how we react to, how we see ourselves, when we get it wrong.
Two basic attitudes to being wrong have emerged during these conversations. There are those who do not want to be wrong, who do not want to fail, who always want to be right and those that accept that they will get it wrong, at least some of the time and use that as an opportunity for learning, for getting better at what they want to do, or for reconstruing their path and finding a new way. The former attitude if held to, always seems to lead to stagnation, to a failure to learn, stifling creativity and new growth, in the search of a vanishing certainty, that has become a mirage, leading not to water but to a desert.
Changing such attitudes is sometimes easy, sometimes not, sometimes requiring a great deal of insight and reconstruction for experimentation to become a way of life. Intelligent experimentation is what marked Alexander's discovery, after he realised that he must be doing something wrong in using his voice and therefore be causing the vocal problems that were effecting his career. You can read about this in the first chapter of his third book 'The Use of The Self.' This account fits perfectly with how George Kelly saw people as 'personal scientists', and is a paradigmatic example of how to work on problems. It is a great way to look at teaching and learning the Alexander Technique. It is also a great way to look at therapy and relationships. What makes it a great way here, is that it treats people as equals, with lives to live, seeing difficulties and challenges as natural parts of life, to be faced, overcome, in a world of uncertainties. Facing the unknown, as I blogged last week, is a stance cultivated in Alexander Lessons. It is a necessity for the personal scientist, wishing to chart a course to the future. It requires an ability to look at oneself calmly and accept where necessary that 'I was wrong,' before finding and committing again to a future hope. The alternative is a future, that is ever constricting, reliant on a past failures, with hope becoming more elusive. It is only by acceptance, that hope might reveal itself as an ever present possibility of the future.

Psychotherapy, Psycho-therapy and Alexander Technique

Etymology is a favourite pastime, the root of words giving clues not just to forgotten meanings but often to a vital world hidden behind a veil of socialisation and habit. So it is with psychotherapy, a word increasingly professionalised, medicalised and placed at the service of the government and the market economy. I got to thinking about the roots of psychotherapy and all the work I do as an Alexander Technique teacher and professional psychotherapist, thanks to an recent, excellent article by Guy Dargert in the The Psychotherapist. The two root words psyche and therapy point to a specific domain and the act of ministering to it. Dargert locates the domain of ‘psyche’ in the myth of Psyche and the necessity of her journey from a ‘charmed but ultimately unsatisfying life’, where ‘all her wishes were effortlessly fulfilled’, to one where she has faced the contingency of life, the limits of human endeavour and the inevitability of death. Such a journey marks our way to maturity, a therapist is simply one who attends to the possibilities afforded in such a journey, who perhaps may play the role of mentor. To play the role of mentor is, as Dargert points out, to enter the world of ‘menos’, a word with which the Greeks combined for ‘mind’ and ‘spirit’ – a ‘mentor’ being a person who brings an ‘overview’, ‘a higher perspective’ and ‘clear thinking’ to troubled minds. For Dargert such a person might be a ‘true ‘mental health practitioner’’.
To talk of ‘spirit’ is to talk of what is vital, what is animating, and this is usually associated with breathing, which is another meaning of ‘psyche’ that Dargert notes. A psychotherapist would be a person who minsters both to the journey of Psyche and would attend to the process of breathing. In doing so they might adopt the role of mentor providing oversight and clarity, inviting a person onwards to where they can stand calmly in the face of the unknown – which is an aim of the Alexander Technique. It is often forgot that Alexander thought of his work as ‘psycho-therapy’, but it is not surprising when you think of his emphasis on breathing. Breathing not just for its own sake but as a necessity for forming ‘satisfactory conceptions of new or unfamiliar ideas or experiences.’ In this Alexander Technique is a practical way of learning to face ones difficulties, to follow the journey of Psyche, to become one’s own mentor, to become whole in the face of uncertainty and the unknown, to dream, to live a life, and to feel alive. To feel alive is as, good a measure of outcome, as any in psychotherapy. George Kelly recognised this and while his Personal Construct Psychology might focus more on ‘menos’, deep within it is a recognition of Psyche, the need for transition, the need to reconstrue, the need to dream - through what he called loosening, the need to live by what he called tightening, into experiment and action.