Question:
You can see the implications of this in those who have to
treat sick therapists.
Dr.
Graves:
Well, I think that once we get sufficiently along in the
study of this . . . that the past training for . . . the
psychotherapist is no different from what I have when I’m working
with business or government service organization and trying to train
the managers. I want to find out what level he is at and then follow
the procedures for managing these people. If I find that a person is
at the D-Q level then I sit down and teach him Skinner.
Question:
We can say the same thing about community mental health. We
don’t have very many people trained to work in communities. The
current psychiatric model seems to be a failure. Has anyone done
anything with this using this model of yours?
Dr.
Graves:
In community mental health? In so far as I know, we are
beginning to move in this direction in
Virginia
. I am working
with the Department of Institutions and we are moving along that
line but we don’t have it set up yet.
Question:
You may remember what used to be the old DC training school.
They are choosing their workers on this basis and have been for some
time.
Dr.
Graves:
Let me illustrate it to you in this way. After going over
with my students for two days about the psychology of the C-P
system, as to what another person is like who has become centralized
in this system, I said to the students; “Now the important thing
here for you to learn is not what you should do to aid a person in
the C-P system to grow. The important thing is to learn whether or
not you ought to even try. I have a series of statements here -
Please don’t play any games with me – Be honest as you can in
responding to these statements.”
There answers to these statements will tell whether or not a
person is congruent with the C-P state of mind.
I gave the statements to them and I showed them . . .”Look
you are not going to be successful as a human being managing the C-P
state of affairs. Now we have to go no further on in this class to
find out that where you are successful, where can you be successful,
what kind of psychological state of affairs can you manage and have
a reasonable chance at success.” So we went on as I tried to find
out if they could handle a D-Q or E-R state of affairs. As I said
before, I didn’t have a single one I would recommend to hire for
the
Virginia
Commission of Welfare and Institutions and I have this
responsibility. “If I put you in that situation I’m dead . . .
and you’re going to ruin those kids.” So this is the problem of
therapy. It’s to try to get across to a person that you’ve got
to find out what kind of therapy you can use, who you can help. For
God’s sake, quit trying to help everyone.
Question:
I didn’t understand why the therapist must be higher or at
the same level as the patient?
Dr.
Graves:
If a person cannot grow beyond a certain level of thinking
it’s a pretty inhuman thing to have a person with him who wants to
get him to think in another way. If a person cannot grow beyond the
level of magical thinking that you see at the B-O level, the most
cruel thing in the world is putting him in a world where people
don’t think in that magical way.
Question:
Then this applies to our foreign policy as well?
Dr.
Graves:
Oh, yes. This is the Vietnamese story. If you study the
history and culture of
Vietnam
and this
system, you know that the road from tribalism to democracy is autocracy.
You don’t try to put democracy in there . . . you try to develop
autocracy.