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| Photo of Dr. William Glasser: Brother Bulldog |
The Times ran the
obit of William Glasser (
“William Glasser, 88, Doctor Who Said One Could Choose Happiness, Is Dead,” NYT, 9/4/13). Syntactically it’s an odd headline when
you think of it, placing the words “choose” and “dead” so oxymoronically close.
One of Glasser’s books
Reality Therapy: A New Appraoch to Psychiatry,
“sold 1.5 million copies” according to
the
Times. He also wrote a book called
Choice Theory: A New Psychology of Personal Freedom. The obit went on to elaborate
on some of Glasser’s ideas. One of them is “That to meet the most profound
human need—‘to love and be loved,’ as Dr. Glasser put it—people must repair
strained relations with their family, friends and co-workers by adjusting the
one variable within their control: their own behavior.” Where Glasser went
wrong was in the choice idea alluded to in the obit’s headline. He seemed to
believe in the notion of free will, ie that someone can desire to have better
relationships and simply achieve such goals by realizing say
another of the precepts iterated in the obit: “That the only person one controls
in the world is oneself.” What Glasser was proposing was actually a watered down
existentialism based on the premise that existence precedes essence, with the ancillary notion that the importance of unconscious drives could be discounted. But what
if a person profoundly doesn’t wish to repair their relationships? What if his
or her objective is to act in such a way that they push those around them
away? What if the objective of the patient is to be a perpetual victim who can
blame the world for all his or her problems? And what if he or she doesn’t even
realize that this is what they are trying to do when they complain bitterly
about the deck of cards they’ve been dealt? Freud used the term
Fehlliestung or "faulty achievement” to refer to slips of tongue and other mistakes that reveal intent. Freud’s notion would seem to explain a good deal of the maladaptive behavior that characterizes human endeavor on both an individual and mass scale.
Few people would say "I don't wish to repair my relationships." or "I want to be a perpetual victim." If one attributes these sorts of desires to a person in the face of verbal denials, it must be based on their behavior. Perhaps the best explanation of their behavior requires the postulation of these self-descrutive desires. However, such explanations must overcome a strong presumption that the person has the desires they say they have.
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ReplyDeleteIt’s true few people would say I don’t wish to repair...and there’s the rub. Many people think they are trying “cognitively” to change or repair this or that, but they get defeated by subliminal impulses which may undermine their conscious desires. If you’re disinclined to psychoanalytic voodoo, then look up something called the Iowa Gambling Test.
ReplyDeleteAbout Glasser and choice: isn't Glasser part of a long tradition that goes back to the stoic conception of ataraxia, or imperturbability? This tradition suggests that we should give up trying to change what we cannot change (other people, what is external to us) and wisely manage what is in our control, our own desires and preferences. Exposure to the stoic tradition can help one form meta-desires about one's desires. It can lead to more sensible desire management.
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ReplyDeleteThis impulse to change what one can change may go back to the Stoics, but it’s one of the primary mantras of the Recovery movement today. The Serenity Prayer which is intoned at all 12 step meetings states “God grant me the serenity to accept the things i cannot change, to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference.” I think Glasser’s mindset is very similar to this and indeed it’s an admirable sentiment--provided one is able to effectively attend to it. Also it demands a good deal of insight that is not impeded by self-justifying or self congratulatory mythology (the life lies that populate a play like The Iceman Cometh). No one is discountenancing the value of ethically valuable, cognitive insights. The problem for me could be stated another way. We hold these truths to be self-evident i.e. what made the person come to the distorted and irrational conclusion that he or she could change others in the first place and my answer might be: some form of
ReplyDeleteemotional disturbance which is not within his or her ability to grasp.