Healed by the Real

April 9, 1967
Plainfield

Healed by the Real

What can persons learn from the findings of a psychiatrist whose work with juvenile delinquent girls led him to discard many of the approved methods of his profession and develop what he calls, "Reality Therapy?" Considerable [insights] can be learned from the book, REALITY THERAPY, by Dr. William Glasser. This sermon is not to be a comparison of one method of psycho-therapy vis-a-vis another – that is for the professionals in the psyciatric field and certainly Glasser's theories are controversial. But quite apart from the fact that I hope and trust that none of us will be in detention in Ventura School and thus experience this method directly, there is considerable human wisdom available for the day-to-day encounters with what life is and how we should deal with experience.

Did you see the cartoon (Christian Science Monitor) where the little boy, depressed, enters the house, saying to mother, "I don’t have any adjustment problems, so the teacher ignores me." Now while if our adjustment problems are seemingly trivial enough so that we feel no need for professional attention, it may also be true that some of the attitudes discovered to be helpful for the ill may provide direction for persons who are well.

The foundation on which Dr. Glasser constructs his method is both simply stated and profoundly religious: (There are) "two basic psychological needs: the need to love and be loved and the need to feel we are worthwhile to ourselves and others. Helping patients fulfill these two needs is the basis of Reality Therapy." (p. 9) We all have these needs. But to fulfill these needs, one must go beyond verbalizations – theological verbalizations, pious verbalizations, poetic verbalizations, exhortative verbalizations. One must deal with reality, one must be responsible, one must recognize that human situations usually demand choice between right and wrong and that each must be responsible for his decisions.

As his theories were evolving, Dr. Glasser was deeply impressed that all his patients had a common characteristic: "They all (denied) the reality of the world around them." To a degree, we are all Walter Mitty playing a variety of fantasy roles in a world peopled by caricatures created by day-dream. But it makes all the difference in how we come to terms with life whether our day-dreams are brief interludes of comic relief or prolonged unhealthy retreats from reality. Apart from certain philosophies and metaphysical systems about the basic nature of the universe and our perception of it, there is a real world which demands our participation. There are such realities represented by tasks to be done in this world, there are situations constantly demanding decisions, there are other persons to meet and see as persons, not phantoms in our private dream world. This responsibility to relate to a real world requires another "r", respect for others and respect for onesself.

Respect for others and oneself can begin at an early age. Dr. Glasser writes of his own home as an illustration. When, after inconsistent behavior, his five-year-old son tossed a tantrum, father insisted on the particular rule of behavior in spite of the thrashing and wailing. When the little boy finally quieted without getting his way, father said to him, "Let me give you some good advice. Do you know what advice is?" The [boy] did, so he was told, "Never say no when you mean, Yes." Basic respect for others and onesself requires this honesty. More than a characteristic of good child-rearing, it is necessary for the process of having and granting respect for all persons. A few weeks ago, about the time I was reading this book, I clipped an item from the paper, which after chuckling over it, I discovered that the story registered as basic to this matter of respect for others and respect for self: “Walkout at the Mission: – ‘We’re sick of singing’”

[READ NEWSPAPER ARTICLE, 3/24/67. Excerpt:

“MARYSVILLE, Calif (AP) Transients who don’t want to since hymns for their meals boycotted a small-town gospel mission for the eighth straight day yesterday. ...”]

Now one can assume a variety of viewpoints, depending on many factors. But I am not impressed with charitable enterprises which with insufferable condescension refer to humans in need as being of "gutter level," and then in order to make the point offensively clear, assert that, "the primary purpose of the mission is not to feed, bathe, clothe or sleep the men, but to save souls."

Human need in a real world requires respect for the person, no matter how convincingly a gospel may be preached. The world of real respect requires more than assertions about love. Now and again I think how easy it is to speak glibly of human love and how difficult to practice. Verbalizations are so easy. Wouldn't the world be a better place, if there were no such word as love? If the only way to convey the meaning of love was by acting with living purpose?

In ancient times, the great playright, Euripedes (in "The Trojan Women") has Hecuba say when Menelaus is angry with Helen,

"Thou deep base of the World, and thou high throne
Above the world, who’er thou art, unknown
And hard of surmise, Chain of Things that be
or Reason of our Reason; God to thee
I lift my praise, seeing the silent road
That bringeth justice ere the end be trod
To all that lives and breathes and dies."

"seeing the silent road
That bringeth justice," etc.

It seems to me that wise Euripedes of old was getting at the difference between respect and alleged respect. The silent road – what we do.

In 1967, an educator was seizing on the same reality – that is, love is a way of behaving, not a theological abstraction. Speaking of educational techniques and methods (Douglas O. Pederson wrote, "a methodology is a compassionate human being in action. A curriculum is the interaction of student and teacher strengths." (quoted, TC Record, Feb. 1967, p. 372)

Suppose everyone of us considered the ways of business, the professions, public schools and Sunday church schools, our church functionings, our ways of dealing with community life as "compassionate human beings in action." Then there would come about authtentic ministries of business, ministries of the professions, ministries of teachers, ministries of churchmanship. Luther’s great phrase "the priesthood of all believers" would have power. And as there was interacting of strengths rather than the search for ths vulnerable, then we might know more of the great experience of dispelling the ghosts of irrational fears, of casting away the phantasms of guilt. For respect for others, WHEN REAL and created by action, heals the wounds of self and self-with-others.

Another pivotal hinge in Dr. Glasser’s reality therapy is involvement. We are healed by involvement with others in situations that will require choices that if made will increase accomplishments. Although the involvements of the therapist with the patient is not particularly pertinent to this talk, interestingly enough, Dr. Glasser illustrates the interweaving of involvement and responsibility by reference to Robert Bolt's famous play, [and] famous movie, A MAN FOR ALL SEASONS. Thomas More, Chancellor of Bngland, refused to grant legal approval of Henry VIII divorce from Catherine. Thomas More, devout Catholic, was responsible, lived and acted in integrity with his beliefs. He had become Chancellor because Henry VIII prized the responsible character of this man of State and of the Church. The King sought Thomas More’s approval of the divorce, not because such approval was necessary, but because in the King's words to More, "You are honest." More was executed because the king could not tolerate the refusal to state that the king was right. More's courageous stand was both a public and private rebuke against the powerful monarch who had power over everything in his land except a brave man's character.

Not all responsible involvements end in such disaster, yet the point of involvement with integrity is that behavior measures beliefs. When the chips are down – what happens? We are healed by the real when our behavior makes explicit that our values count for more than embarrassment, more than fear, more than retaliation.

There is some confirmation that "changing behavior leads to change in attitude." We gain experience through experience. We learn to drive by driving as well as instruction. We learn to cook by cooking as well as reading recipes. We learn to swim by swimming, not by exercies on the dock.

The same process follows for raising the quality of our integrity – by performance. The second speaking date goes better than the first; and by the thirtieth there is additional assurance, although possibilities for improvement never end.

Reality, Respect, Responsibility – whether or not the theory ever receives wide acceptance among therapists for the cure of ill personalities may be somewhat academic for most of us. But reality, respect, responsibility seem to characterize those who have accomlished much to lift the levels of human achievment. Think about your heroes and do not these possess at least these three qualities?

A theologian (Robert MacAfee Brown, 0.527 theology today, Jan. 67) calls attention to the interesting origin of the that worship word, "liturgy," which we avoid because it smacks of orthodoxy and overdone ritual. The roots of the word are in two greek verbs, laos and ergos – this means "the peoples work. Liturgy is what people do wherever they are, and it is a linguistic catastrophe that it has come to be associated with what people do in Church." The letter of James in the Christian literature, in its time, reflected these insights, "faith it if have not works is dead in itself."

Do you know the story of Thomas Garrett, a Delaware Quaker who was active in the underground railroad in the tense years before the Civil War? I was reminded of the story in the Parish Hall as the goods were being prepared for the auction, for this story concerns an auction. Thomas Garrett began his career of assisting slaves to reach freedom, when, at the age of 24, he rescued a Negro woman of his own household. Thereafter he devoted himself to the underground railroad and no one knows how many slaves he helped to freedom. In 1848, when Thomas Garrett was sixty years old, he faced his fifth prosecution for conspiring to aid slaves to freedom. He was found guilty, all his property was confiscated for the alleged abduction of two slave children. As the auctioneer disposed of the last item of his property, he turned to Garrett with a scornful jibe that maybe he’d think twice about aiding the underground railroad. Garrett replied, "Friend, I haven't a dollar in the world; but if thee knows a fugitive who needs breakfast, send him to me."

Thomas Garrett was one of those little known men who were impoverished but well, healed to high human stature by his facing the reality of his times on the basis of the value of the human person and willingly involved himself in the difficulties and costs that responsibilities sometimes requires. Whether called therapy, idealism, service or religion in action, the result is the same.