I wouldn’t trust any of them because they didn’t fit the
psychology that fits the C-P system. They were not benevolent
autocrats. They believed in too much freedom. They believed, for
instance, that if you were honest with other people, the other
people would be honest with you. There is nothing so stupid if
you’re working with someone at the C-P level. Because. . .if you
are honest with him, Oh Brother! - he’ll take you for everything
he can get. They didn’t believe that autocracy should be used in
working with another human being. Well, if you’re working with C-P
to D-Q, as I said earlier, you put this person in a box
psychologically and you don’t let him out of it. So, you’ve got
to know those rules.
Now, if you’re going to work with someone from D-Q to E-R,
my data says there is only one man in this world who ever really
knew the business and that was Freud. Freud really knew the business
of this transition. My data also says that Freud didn’t know much
about these other kinds of transitions. Again, you want to see who
you are working with - depending upon your particular theoretical
orientation. If your theoretical orientation and background happen
to be Freudian and you want to work with C-Ps . . . then throw out
anything Freud had to say about therapy. Don’t pay any attention
to him whatsoever. To get everything August Icorn {sp?} and Ruth
Isler {sp?} and those people are saying. Then you know the basic
principles because the principles of August Icorn developed out of
psychoanalytic theory for the treatment of delinquents are the same
principles that Skinner got out of the rats in the Skinner box.
This really amazes me that Skinner will argue about
psychoanalysis and he never knew Icorn existed. You could never
argue against psychoanalysis if you knew what Icorn’s position
was.
So those are the principles. In other words, if you’re
working with a person moving from the D-Q to the E-R level, this
person has to have a one to one therapeutic relationship. Your first
task is to get the individual to overcome fear, breakdown his
position or whatever you want to call it. You must get him trusting
you. You can use the more complex term of transference, but I
don’t want to get into those terms. Then you lead him gently along
the way. Get him to understand that in the protection of this room,
(he’s got to have this protected environment), you’re not going
to do anything to him if he says anything about his mother. Lead him
on in little bitty steps to move out and express that which is
buried within. But notice that the data that we referred to earlier
says that the key thing here is that he accepts this therapist as an
authority. The particular therapist is using the basic Freudian
neurotic therapeutic techniques because he feels that they are most
important in helping the person make the transition according to my
data here.
Now, when you get to the E-R to F-S transition remember the
data says that my subjects changed under fear influence. My data
says that if a threaten element was in the picture they defended
their previous behavior namely that the conceptions that they
produced more strongly. And they wouldn’t let any new information
in. So, in the transition from the E-R to the F-S system then it is
particularly important to know the various group therapeutic
techniques that are carried on. Sensitivity training, things of that
sort are all very nice techniques. My experience is that sensitivity
training, for example, just tears the guts out of somebody from the
D-Q system and they more often end up with psychosis than
improvement. I’m inclined to think that if sensitivity training is
used on someone centralized in the E-R system that this person
simply goes through the experience, figures out every weakness of
the persons in the group and then goes out and uses these to his own
advantage.
Question:
Dr. Graves, what is the time factor or time element in this
transition between one system and another?
Dr.
Graves:
It is psychological time. It is the time you see of the
resolution of existential problems. It is the time of getting the
insight as to how to operate at the higher level and it is the time
of the removal of the barriers to moving forward. So, it is the sort
of thing that sometimes there isn’t anything you can do. You’ve
got a barrier. You will not be able to progress as long as that
barrier is there and you don’t have the power to get rid of it.
The therapist doesn’t have the power to get rid of it. The manager
in industry doesn’t have the power to get rid of it. So, if you
can’t solve it then maybe no one knows how to solve it. So you
can’t move forward. The time is the time of the resolution of the
existential problem that you are involved in – in development.
That’s what I see.