Speaker 1: Welcome to the Psychology Podcast, where we give you insights
Speaker 1: into the mind, brained behavior and creativity. I'm doctor Scott
Speaker 1: Barry Kaufman, and in each episode I have a conversation
Speaker 1: with a guest. He will stimulate your mind and give
Speaker 1: you a greater understanding of yourself, others, and the world
Speaker 1: to live in. Hopefully we'll also provide a glimpse into
Speaker 1: human possibility. Thanks for listening and enjoy the podcast today.
Speaker 1: It's an honor to have Richard Katz on the podcast.
Speaker 1: Doctor Katz received his PhD from Harvard University and taught
Speaker 1: there for twenty years. The author of several books, he
Speaker 1: has spent time over the past fifty years living and
Speaker 1: working with indigenous pupils in Africa, India, the Pacific, and
Speaker 1: the Americas. He's Professor Emeritus at the First Nation's University
Speaker 1: of Canada and an adjunct Professor of Psychology at the
Speaker 1: University of Scotsklan. Oh my god, how you pronounce that?
Speaker 1: He lives in Saskatoon, sask a lot one? Okay, Now
Speaker 1: tell me how to pronounce it Skatchewan Saskatchewan satan and
Speaker 1: it means gently flowing river. Well, look, you're going to
Speaker 1: teach me and our listeners a lot today about indigenous
Speaker 1: populations and lots of nuggets just like that. You know
Speaker 1: how to properly pronounce lots of things, because as I'm
Speaker 1: reading your book, I come across a lot of things.
Speaker 1: I noted to myself, there's no way in the world
Speaker 1: I'm going to be able to pronounce that correctly. So, yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, it's an interesting point, a Scott because part
Speaker 1: of what I've discovered in the various years that I've
Speaker 1: worked in indigenous cultures. It's very helpful to make the effort, eh,
Speaker 1: just as you are to pronounce the word, and people
Speaker 1: are very generous in terms of mispronunciations if you try.
Speaker 1: It's when you assume that the word is not worth
Speaker 1: even learning that they kind of feel, hey, what's this guy?
Speaker 1: You know? If he hasn't if he can't respect the
Speaker 1: fact that we have certain words, why talk to them.
Speaker 1: So it's good that you try. And when you make mistakes.
Speaker 1: I've made mistakes in different parts of the world, people
Speaker 1: have fun laughing at your mistakes. It's part of the
Speaker 1: idea of how to work with people who are different
Speaker 1: from ourselves. That's the key. I love that and that's
Speaker 1: very clear that that theme runs through your whole book,
Speaker 1: that general spirit. Now, let's go all the way back.
Speaker 1: Let's go in one fifty years back in time for
Speaker 1: second two even you know, we're going to get to
Speaker 1: your Harvard years because they're fascinating and the people that
Speaker 1: you ran into and I mean it's a legendary story,
Speaker 1: you know. But before that, you know what really got
Speaker 1: you interested in this topic, Like when you were in
Speaker 1: high school, for instance, did you have like a disposition
Speaker 1: toward acceptance and sort of understanding people who are different
Speaker 1: than you. Well, this fascinating question. See the book started
Speaker 1: out Scott was going to start with the years even
Speaker 1: before high school, and I decided, well, I got to
Speaker 1: cut something out, so I cut off that material. But
Speaker 1: it's a very important question because how do we start
Speaker 1: to connect to a world that's so different from the
Speaker 1: one that we were raised in. And for me, as
Speaker 1: I look back when I was a little guy, you know,
Speaker 1: I can't say how old, but when I was a
Speaker 1: little guy, I experienced what I think a lot of
Speaker 1: young kids experience was is flying. And I used to
Speaker 1: fly around the house and going through the doorways and
Speaker 1: banking my arms and so forth. I think a lot
Speaker 1: of kids have that experience, but they don't talk about it,
Speaker 1: and I, of course didn't talk about it because who
Speaker 1: was I going to talk to about So that was
Speaker 1: something that I can't say that I built on that experience,
Speaker 1: But when I look back on it, I realized that
Speaker 1: that was part of what it meant for me in
Speaker 1: growing up. And then the other part, Scott, was I
Speaker 1: always felt a little bit on the outside, or maybe
Speaker 1: even a lot of on the outside, and having that
Speaker 1: experience of being on the outside, you look at things
Speaker 1: and you see the limitations of the world that you're
Speaker 1: living in now as a four and five and six
Speaker 1: and seven year old and so forth, And it's not
Speaker 1: very sophisticated, but it's a notion that there is another
Speaker 1: way of being. And you know, Scott, that's the key,
Speaker 1: another way of being. Now. See we're talking and your
Speaker 1: people will not realize, but I'm looking into your apartment. Now.
Speaker 1: Your apartment is so different from mine. It's a very
Speaker 1: good way of living, and so's mind. But I see,
Speaker 1: and you can see you know if you were here
Speaker 1: that were in different worlds, and the whole point of
Speaker 1: knowing that there are different ways of being is so
Speaker 1: importan but only known through experience. See when I first
Speaker 1: went to the Kalahari in nineteen sixty eight, I had
Speaker 1: never been to another part of the world in the
Speaker 1: same way. And when I went there in nineteen sixty
Speaker 1: eight to the Kalahari and saw the healing dance, Scott,
Speaker 1: I tell you I had never seen anything like that before.
Speaker 1: As you know from the book, I had experience with
Speaker 1: psychedelics Leary and Albert, that's part of my own training.
Speaker 1: But it was different. And the difference was we weren't
Speaker 1: taking drugs in the Kalahari. People were just experiencing through
Speaker 1: the healing dance. A different world. And I used to
Speaker 1: think that, gee, maybe it wasn't fair that I had
Speaker 1: that psychedelic experience before I went there, because was it
Speaker 1: coloring what I was looking for? And I realized, no,
Speaker 1: it wasn't coloring what I was seeing. It allowed me
Speaker 1: to see what was happening. That's the difference, you know. Again,
Speaker 1: I said, was I kind of prejudging things? Oh, it's
Speaker 1: all psychedelic, all that kind of stuff. No, my psychedelic
Speaker 1: experience allowed me to see that what was happening with
Speaker 1: changes and consciousness and spirituality was real, and so it
Speaker 1: was a gift. The psychedelics was a gift, even though
Speaker 1: I didn't pursue that as a life's work. Yeah. Absolutely.
Speaker 1: I mean, let's go back to nineteen sixty eight. Were
Speaker 1: you at Harvard during that period? Yeah, See, I got
Speaker 1: my doctorate in sixty five, and that's when I had
Speaker 1: worked I'd worked with Ericson, and I'd worked with Murray
Speaker 1: and to some extent with Skinner was around in that time,
Speaker 1: and that was a revolution, that Skinner stuff. And you know,
Speaker 1: we were talking, you and I about Maslow. Maslow was
Speaker 1: also very fascinated in his early years with behaviorism. So
Speaker 1: in nineteen sixty five I got my degree, and in
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty six or so or sixty seven, I was
Speaker 1: doing a postdoc and this guy, Richard Lee, was a
Speaker 1: friend of mine, walked up to me in the hall
Speaker 1: way literally and said, you know, I interested, You're interested
Speaker 1: in the psychedelic stuff, these states of consciences. Would you
Speaker 1: be interested in working with us, with a group of
Speaker 1: people that do this without drugs. You can imagine how
Speaker 1: exciting that possiblity was. And then it turned out that
Speaker 1: there was some a need you see, we have to
Speaker 1: be very clear that we're not going to a place
Speaker 1: to satisfy our excitement, the wet our enthusiasm. There has
Speaker 1: to be a reason why you go to these other places.
Speaker 1: And it turned out that bushman people or Junpot people
Speaker 1: were being overrun by other forces of capitalism and trying
Speaker 1: to kind of take away their lands. So my going
Speaker 1: there and talking about their healing dance enables them to
Speaker 1: speak with power to the people who are trying to
Speaker 1: see them as primitive. See in the sixties, that's where
Speaker 1: it was indigenous people are primitive. Can you define indigenous well?
Speaker 1: To me, yeah, it's a very important term because indigenous
Speaker 1: can mean like, for example, palm trees would be indigenous
Speaker 1: to let's say warm climates. Indigenous to me means the
Speaker 1: first people to settle in their various parts of the world.
Speaker 1: Not see for example, Western psychology is indigenous to North America.
Speaker 1: That's not how I'm using the term. It's the first
Speaker 1: people to settle in different parts of the world, and
Speaker 1: all over the world they are indigenous people, all of them.
Speaker 1: Like for example, in India, we think of that in
Speaker 1: the hills and in India they're indigenous people we hardly
Speaker 1: hear about them in Japan. They're indigenous people, particularly up north.
Speaker 1: So all over the world there are people who settled
Speaker 1: the land and the first settlers of the land. Yeah,
Speaker 1: thank you for defining that. So were you a postdoc
Speaker 1: at Harvard as well? I also did a postdoc, you know. Yeah, So,
Speaker 1: you know, your connection to Abraham Asol is very very interesting.
Speaker 1: You know, you came back from this visiting that community
Speaker 1: and the healing dance, and you showed him a video
Speaker 1: or he showed him slides. Sorry, this is the sixties.
Speaker 1: Thea show him slides of the healing dance and what
Speaker 1: was his reaction? Yeah, it's a very wonderful lace. We'll
Speaker 1: talk a little bit about Abe right as well. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think that was because he used to have Abe
Speaker 1: used to have these like Suarez, intellectual Suarez and the
Speaker 1: one that I wanted to talk about, which I do
Speaker 1: talk about in the book. Stan Groff was there as well.
Speaker 1: Stan had just come over and was working down a
Speaker 1: spring growth and Stan made a little presentation of his work,
Speaker 1: and then I started to make a presentation of some
Speaker 1: of the things I had discovered and found in the
Speaker 1: Kalahari and the healing dance, and the healing dance which
Speaker 1: is described of the book is very powerful but also
Speaker 1: intensely physical experience. And many parts of the world, the
Speaker 1: spiritual trips or the spiritual journeys are physical. There's fasting,
Speaker 1: there's sweating, there's working hard and so forth. And among
Speaker 1: the kalahar Asian Kosi, there's very it's a hard, hard dancing,
Speaker 1: hard breathing and sweating, and it's hard work. And I
Speaker 1: remember Abe, you know, he was kind of impressed. But
Speaker 1: the first comment he met is ge, they sweat a lot,
Speaker 1: and by that he meant it was a lower form
Speaker 1: for Abe, it was a lower form of consciousness transformation
Speaker 1: than he was used to, and he was writing about
Speaker 1: it was very significant to me that that was his response.
Speaker 1: It was not dismissive, but it was placing that particular
Speaker 1: indigenous way at a lower level. And you know, in
Speaker 1: his hierarchy of needs at the bottom, our needs like
Speaker 1: survival needs, you know, food, shelter, and so that's where
Speaker 1: many indigenous people start in their journey to the spiritual things.
Speaker 1: If you're fasting, you're thinking about survival needs, you're hung
Speaker 1: you're tired, and oftentimes that's just the time, the sweat
Speaker 1: lodge the same thing. You're hot, you're sweating. It's like
Speaker 1: demanding physically, and that's what releases the spiritual because from
Speaker 1: an indigenous point it's all connected. For Abe, you had
Speaker 1: to go through the physical to get to the real stuff.
Speaker 1: And from an Indigenous point of view, the physical is
Speaker 1: as real as the mental and the spiritual. Abe never
Speaker 1: understood that. Yeah, well he did in the latter part
Speaker 1: of his life, you know, his revision that many people
Speaker 1: aren't aware of by putting transcendence at the top of
Speaker 1: a hierarchy. You know, it's kind of returned to the
Speaker 1: experiential aspect of human nature. He was very much into
Speaker 1: that peak experiences are very experiential, and he spent time.
Speaker 1: We really should should mention this because I know some
Speaker 1: indigenous populations are not so happy that he didn't talk
Speaker 1: more about his own experience visiting the Blackfeet Nation. Is
Speaker 1: that correct? Blackfoot to nation? It's the Blackfeet peoples, I guess. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So in the thirties and he spent some time there.
Speaker 1: He was very interested in anthropology, and he looked up
Speaker 1: to Margaret Meade and Benedict Ruth. Benedict you know, very much,
Speaker 1: very much. So he had some influence there, and I
Speaker 1: was wondering, how much do you think that influence, you know,
Speaker 1: came back around again, so to speak, in the last
Speaker 1: couple of years of the life, once he got more
Speaker 1: into Eastern philosophy and Buddhism and Taoism, things like that. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Let me just say in the book, I write quite
Speaker 1: a bit about Abe, and I think I mentioned in
Speaker 1: incidentally to all the people who are listening. When you
Speaker 1: pick up a book, always read the footnotes. You a
Speaker 1: lot of footnotes. By the way, every page of a
Speaker 1: foot the four footnotes is the personal things that you
Speaker 1: really care about, but you're not sure a lot of
Speaker 1: people will care, but you care about I find your footnote.
Speaker 1: It's very juicy. Yeah, exactly. That's kind of recommend that people.
Speaker 1: So the thing is that with Abe is that he
Speaker 1: had a great disadvantage. He grew up in an urban
Speaker 1: environment disconnected from land. And one of the things about
Speaker 1: indigenous peoples is it's a land based spirituality. Nature is
Speaker 1: the teacher. So Abe had kind of like already a
Speaker 1: kind of a block. And then during the times that
Speaker 1: he went he went to the success a nation Indigenous
Speaker 1: people were looked upon even by people like Ruth Benedict
Speaker 1: and Margaret Meade as somewhat primitive, others very primitive. So
Speaker 1: Abe kind of like he took a risk to go there,
Speaker 1: but very influenced by Benedict and saw some very powerful
Speaker 1: things which he writes about. Remember I mentioned this to you,
Speaker 1: I Scott in this He's got a couple of papers
Speaker 1: that I've seen in his journals as well. Yes, good, Yes,
Speaker 1: And he's written a couple of papers on that. You know,
Speaker 1: his idea of humans as more of a blank as
Speaker 1: not a blank slate, but as having an innate human nature.
Speaker 1: He said, was influenced to buy that visit. He actually
Speaker 1: went into it more into a sociological perspective on things,
Speaker 1: and came out of it saying, you know what, we
Speaker 1: are all kind of similar deep down. Yeah. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean they had that whole thing of you know, human
Speaker 1: beings are you know, share these kind of similarities. But
Speaker 1: I think we have to understand what he went there.
Speaker 1: It was during the period when indigenous people were not
Speaker 1: highly respected. They were kind of seen as a curiosity
Speaker 1: and so forth, and Abe had to kind of work
Speaker 1: under that general zeitgeist that was going on at the time,
Speaker 1: so it was very good that he went there. Actually
Speaker 1: there were not many people. Now contrast that with Erickson,
Speaker 1: who also went to the Yurrok people and to Pine
Speaker 1: Ridge Lacota people. But Ericson, remember in Childhood and Society
Speaker 1: wrote about it, and that was between Abe and Ericson.
Speaker 1: Abe never wrote about it in a central way, but
Speaker 1: he carried that with him. But what I'm saying is
Speaker 1: like Abe also as a person, and this is very important,
Speaker 1: who are we as people? Abe was an intellectual. He
Speaker 1: was a man of the mind. He was not physical
Speaker 1: in any way. I'm kind of a physical guy. I
Speaker 1: love athletics, I love to run, you know. Abe was
Speaker 1: just the opposite. He was a book person. His body
Speaker 1: he didn't know his body, and when working with Indigenous people,
Speaker 1: the body is very important. So Abe had the disadvantage
Speaker 1: of living in a time when Indigenous people were thought
Speaker 1: of as primitive. Abe had the disadvantage and living in
Speaker 1: a land based environment where the elements are well, yeah
Speaker 1: they you are in New York, right, And he had
Speaker 1: the disadvantage of being a mind person living in his mind.
Speaker 1: In spite of that, he saw things in spite of that,
Speaker 1: you see, he was very perceptive and it sounded like
Speaker 1: he was a friend of yours. I mean, he was
Speaker 1: very encouraging him. So he was a dear friend who
Speaker 1: was very generous. I'll mention this though, and again I
Speaker 1: want people to know I had a lot of respect
Speaker 1: for him and I loved him, and so when I
Speaker 1: say things that sound critical, it's not to put him down.
Speaker 1: It's to give some reality based. Abe was very much
Speaker 1: a guy who said the world was good guys and
Speaker 1: bad guys, and the good guys were the ones that
Speaker 1: were more humanistically. And he saw the people who were
Speaker 1: narrow minded and who were talking about humans as genes
Speaker 1: as the bad guys, and he was willing to fight
Speaker 1: them like Skinner. Yeah, yeah, he was to fight them.
Speaker 1: And I can say this. When he was there at Brandeis,
Speaker 1: he got the I think three or four job office
Speaker 1: just by picking up the phone that you should hire
Speaker 1: this guy. That was the influence he had. Very generous.
Speaker 1: But also he was a guy that was a fighter,
Speaker 1: and if you didn't agree with him, he would fight you.
Speaker 1: There story that I could tell you see a believed
Speaker 1: in the goodness of human nature. And I write about
Speaker 1: this in the book. He said, bring together good minded,
Speaker 1: well minded, you know, like minded people who wanted to
Speaker 1: work together, and whatever their disciplinary background was, you could
Speaker 1: come up with something beautiful. So you had a behaviorist,
Speaker 1: you had an animal psychologist, you had a humanistic psychologist,
Speaker 1: a cognitive bring them together and will have this beautiful department.
Speaker 1: You know what happened. He brought them together, Yes, and
Speaker 1: you know you're there, and they took over the department.
Speaker 1: They did. Yes, And this is how I met you
Speaker 1: through Jim Fatimin you know, who was there as well,
Speaker 1: and said that you and Jim were kind of the
Speaker 1: troublemakers of the department. Yeah. Abe, see we were there.
Speaker 1: We overlapped Abe and I overlapped a year. And then
Speaker 1: when Abe left, Jim took over Abe's position, you see, Yes, yes,
Speaker 1: in California. Yes. So the thing is that Abe's idea
Speaker 1: of good people even though they come from different backgrounds
Speaker 1: didn't work because what happened was the behaviorists and the
Speaker 1: people they were the ones that came to the meetings
Speaker 1: and took over the department and forced out the humanistic element.
Speaker 1: So there was some kind of disappointing experiences for Abe.
Speaker 1: You know, when he met the reality. But his connection
Speaker 1: with indigenous people I think is a fascinating part of
Speaker 1: his work. And you see, like for example, Abe was
Speaker 1: you could say, was imbalanced the mind. And one of
Speaker 1: the teachings that I talk about in the book is
Speaker 1: the importance of the circle and the medicine wheel, in
Speaker 1: which all parts mental, physical, emotional, spiritual have to be balanced.
Speaker 1: And that was something that Abe was not really aware
Speaker 1: of because he was an intellectual. He was aware of
Speaker 1: that in theory, in theory and in practice. Like I say,
Speaker 1: you know, I love him dearly, but like I say,
Speaker 1: he didn't connect to his body. That was not part
Speaker 1: of the deal. The deal was in his mind and
Speaker 1: his philosophy and his his reaching out. And for example,
Speaker 1: you know that you know that as well. He really
Speaker 1: wanted to talk to Aristotle and Plato, I know, and
Speaker 1: what a beautiful idea. But you see, that's skipping over
Speaker 1: Blackout and Lamed, you know, all those other people's cultures.
Speaker 1: He would have had a wonderful time if he could
Speaker 1: or relaxed, you see, and been with him. That's what
Speaker 1: I was doing, you know, Scott. I spent hours and
Speaker 1: days and months in different cultural settings, having very little
Speaker 1: idea what people were saying because they were speaking in
Speaker 1: a language just patiently waiting and waiting and waiting, and
Speaker 1: the experiences of indigenous teachings are hardly ever verbal. Yes, no,
Speaker 1: I know, and I think that that comes through a
Speaker 1: lot in your book about how the modern day psychology
Speaker 1: has an oppression of this verbal sort of experimental paradigm,
Speaker 1: and you make that very clear in your book. I
Speaker 1: don't mean to, and we're going to get to that
Speaker 1: in this podcast. I want to kind of close the
Speaker 1: chapter on this Maso thread because I think it is
Speaker 1: so important, and you're one of the very rare individuals
Speaker 1: on this planet who can still speak to this, so
Speaker 1: I hope you don't mind if I belabor it just
Speaker 1: a little bit more. I want to give some credit
Speaker 1: here to Ryan Heavyhead and Marquise Blood heavy Hand and
Speaker 1: Narquise Blood who have done this analysis of Blackfoot culture
Speaker 1: and point out the difference between their conception of actualization
Speaker 1: and Maslow's notion of self actualation, which in my reading
Speaker 1: was not taken. It was adapted from his advisor Kurt
Speaker 1: Goldstein or his mentor Kurt Goldstein. He adopted it, and
Speaker 1: Kurt Goldstein had the phrase self actualization, which was about
Speaker 1: his patients from that brain trauma and the amazing ability
Speaker 1: for people with brain trauma to reorganize and still have capacities.
Speaker 1: But I thought you could talk a little about what
Speaker 1: is the Blackfoot culture's notion of actualization? How does it differ? Yeah,
Speaker 1: this is a very important and I was just looking
Speaker 1: over my book. You know you had this experience, Hey Scott.
Speaker 1: Once you write a book, it's almost like you forget
Speaker 1: what you wrote. It's out. So I had to kind
Speaker 1: of go back this morning and read what did I
Speaker 1: write about this? And the thing is that those two
Speaker 1: guys that you mentioned, I'm glad you did, Ryan Heavyhead
Speaker 1: and Narcisa. Also it is Head is okay. Trying to
Speaker 1: do is to sort of say, yeah, Maslow is great,
Speaker 1: but he didn't quite get it right. And what they're
Speaker 1: trying to say is that their notion of self actualization
Speaker 1: from a Blackfoot point of view, is self actualization in
Speaker 1: community the whole. Like, for example, you go up on
Speaker 1: a vision quest, You're going up on the vision quest
Speaker 1: as an individual. You come back and tell your story,
Speaker 1: but the story is then interpreted. How do you fit
Speaker 1: into your community? And how can you serve your community,
Speaker 1: you see. So self actualization is serving a community in
Speaker 1: the way that's best. And what Abe I think was
Speaker 1: doing was self actualistion was a little more individualistic. So
Speaker 1: I think that's one of the ways in which they
Speaker 1: were feeling that his notion of self actualization had to
Speaker 1: be sort of more community based. Another thing I think
Speaker 1: that they point out, and I think was differences that
Speaker 1: and certainly in his early work, Abe had this notion,
Speaker 1: you know, just that that one percent, you know that
Speaker 1: gets the growing tip, the growing tip exactly, And from
Speaker 1: an Indigenous point of view, the teaching is that each
Speaker 1: of us is open to the spark of the creator,
Speaker 1: each of us. There's not like a kind of a
Speaker 1: winnowing out and a kind of as you say, that's
Speaker 1: a nice way and some the growing tip. I like that.
Speaker 1: Did he ever talk about that? Yes, yes, he used
Speaker 1: that phrase. Beautiful. I'm glad you brought that. Yes, because
Speaker 1: that changes from me elite to being explorers. Yes, yes, okay,
Speaker 1: But from an Indigenous point of view, we all are
Speaker 1: part of that transcendence. And when you go into a
Speaker 1: sweat lodge, for example, everybody is open to the creator,
Speaker 1: to the spirits that come in. So I think that's
Speaker 1: the second part that and then a third thing is
Speaker 1: and I'm not sure how much Abe understood this about highierarchy, Okay,
Speaker 1: because you remember he did work with Harlow on dominance.
Speaker 1: And I just want to mention one thing about Abe
Speaker 1: that's very important. Abe saw himself always as a research,
Speaker 1: experimental guy. Data. He was data driven, and a lot
Speaker 1: of people think he was just coming up with these things,
Speaker 1: you know, through his own musings. No, he was committed
Speaker 1: to research. And people don't appreciate They may disagree with
Speaker 1: the way he did research, but they don't give him
Speaker 1: enough credit for being very committed to an empirical approach.
Speaker 1: And he got that, I think from his work with Harlow,
Speaker 1: you know, and his work with the dominance. So I
Speaker 1: think that, you know, he's a very kind of complicated,
Speaker 1: very complicated guy, and he was a trailblazer. I think
Speaker 1: I mentioned to you a Scott that when he was
Speaker 1: elected president of APA, which is a great honored what
Speaker 1: he said to me was he was nervous. You know
Speaker 1: why he was nervous. He was nervous because he was
Speaker 1: not sure they would consider him a psychologist. Yes, do
Speaker 1: you know what I was told dismissively. Yes, he was
Speaker 1: very insecure, And I was told by Michael Murphy of
Speaker 1: Esselyn Institute. He told me that they told him that
Speaker 1: when he was elected president, the prior president came up
Speaker 1: to him and said, congratulations on being the first philosopher
Speaker 1: elected president of APA. That must have hurt, that must
Speaker 1: have stunned it heard him. You see, like I say,
Speaker 1: you have to be nervous when you give your presidential address.
Speaker 1: He was very like, as I say, deeply anxious, not
Speaker 1: just nervous about giving a talk, but existentially because you know,
Speaker 1: you spend your whole life trying to be a psychologist
Speaker 1: and change the field and so what, and then to
Speaker 1: stand up in front of all these psychologists fearing that
Speaker 1: they will think you're basically a fraud. That's what he felt.
Speaker 1: And that was very troubling. And you know something, some
Speaker 1: people did think he was a fraud. Yeah, And calling
Speaker 1: him a philosopher was a kind way of saying some
Speaker 1: of them thought he was just a bs N. Seriously
Speaker 1: just coming up with a lot of really great He
Speaker 1: had a lot of great insights that hold up today.
Speaker 1: I've been I have a paper coming out tomorrow. Actually
Speaker 1: internal humanistic psychology, where I test the characteristics of self
Speaker 1: actualizing people, and I found ten of his characteristics I'm
Speaker 1: really hold up quite well can be measured reliably and solidly.
Speaker 1: So you know, he had a lot of He was
Speaker 1: ahead of his time in a lot of ways. You
Speaker 1: know what I'm saying, Scott is his commitment to empiricism
Speaker 1: is always overlooked. The reason is, for example, in his articles,
Speaker 1: he'll have let's say fifteen characteristics of self actualize and
Speaker 1: people say, well, wait a minute. You see mainstream western
Speaker 1: psychology wants to have three, yes, maybe four twenty Noe
Speaker 1: was saying, is these are things that exist. You see.
Speaker 1: The whole point of my book is like, let's get
Speaker 1: away from this notion that mainstream psychology has given us
Speaker 1: that we have to have the fewer the better, we
Speaker 1: have to have discrete, dichotomous variables. Life is not that way.
Speaker 1: And indigenous perspective, what they talk about is the flow
Speaker 1: and the process and how boundaries evaporate. Hey, Scott bound
Speaker 1: the boundaries and the most important thing is the mystery remains.
Speaker 1: And Abe knew that. Yes, the mystery is a great
Speaker 1: point you make in your book and Abe really was
Speaker 1: interested in all that and the mysterious towards the end
Speaker 1: of his life. It really does seem like it came
Speaker 1: full circle there at the end. You know, this might
Speaker 1: be considered one of the definitive podcasts in kind of
Speaker 1: tackling this controversy. So I wanted to just really get
Speaker 1: the core of this. Some people think that it's possible
Speaker 1: that he maybe stole from the reserve. My own personal opinion,
Speaker 1: and then I would like to get your opinion, because
Speaker 1: I've really thought of this through very carefully and read
Speaker 1: all of his work, is that he's not the type
Speaker 1: of person who would steal or take credit. He was
Speaker 1: very generous in giving out his many mentors that he
Speaker 1: had and crediting them, you know, such as Ruth Benedict
Speaker 1: and Harry Harlowe as you say, and Alfred Adler, et cetera.
Speaker 1: He was very generous in giving credit. And that in
Speaker 1: my reading is that, you know, if anything he's at
Speaker 1: fault is not maybe mentioning that visit more or bringing
Speaker 1: in more indigenous psychology into his work, especially when he
Speaker 1: was coming up with a self transcendence. But my reading
Speaker 1: is that it's probably unfair. I would say strongly it
Speaker 1: is unfair to say that his whole theory was somehow
Speaker 1: stolen from that population, because I can see the seeds
Speaker 1: of many aspects of this theory from his other mentors.
Speaker 1: So that's my own reading, and I'd love to hear
Speaker 1: what you think. I think you're right on, Scott. Let
Speaker 1: me let me see if I can your providers. M
Speaker 1: Aslo is dead and he can't speak to this. So
Speaker 1: I think we should be as honest and as i
Speaker 1: as possible in if people, you know, I would hate
Speaker 1: you know, to die some days and someone say I
Speaker 1: stole something you know that I didn't do right. So yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: let me just see if I can, because this is
Speaker 1: really important, and you're actually right if you talk to
Speaker 1: the people out there. My impression is, hey, let's get
Speaker 1: rid of that guy who stole our ideas. No. No,
Speaker 1: my impression is, how come he didn't acknowledge more what
Speaker 1: he learned and he didn't get the full story. That's
Speaker 1: totally different and steal that's a different thing. Steal the ideas.
Speaker 1: If he stole the ideas, No, the ideas came actually
Speaker 1: from other people, whether Goldstein or you know or the Gestalt. No,
Speaker 1: I totally agree with an Abe. You know, that's not
Speaker 1: who he was. He was not someone who tried to
Speaker 1: rip people off, and you know something he had been
Speaker 1: ripped off himself enough, Yeah, especially as a child. Yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: So I think what it was was so much that
Speaker 1: again the historical period, I think Abe and I didn't
Speaker 1: talk to Abe about this, but I knew him well.
Speaker 1: I think what he must have felt was that talking
Speaker 1: about that as a source of knowledge was really at
Speaker 1: that time so far from people's understanding that he felt
Speaker 1: it might lessen the impact of what he was talking about,
Speaker 1: you understand, yes, and so he held it in reserve.
Speaker 1: But no, I don't think he stole that, and he wasn't.
Speaker 1: You know, he may have been naive, he may have
Speaker 1: been arrogant, right, say that he was, but he's not
Speaker 1: a guy that steals people's ideas. No, that's my impression.
Speaker 1: And it's great to get confirmation from someone who actually
Speaker 1: intersected his existence with Meso's existence. But you see, from
Speaker 1: an indigenous point of view, yes, we have to be
Speaker 1: very clear. Some people there will feel that that it
Speaker 1: was stolen, and that a very I have to honor that. Yes,
Speaker 1: that's a feeling that they have and as has to
Speaker 1: be honored. I'm just talking about Abe, yes, you see, yes,
Speaker 1: And well I'm also interested in the truth, you know,
Speaker 1: and I think, yeah, that's a hard one. No, not
Speaker 1: not that it doesn't exist, but you see, we have
Speaker 1: to acknowledge that there could be multiple points of view.
Speaker 1: And now I'm not doing a whole Trump thing, you know,
Speaker 1: but from the point of view of some of the
Speaker 1: people who are living there or maybe whose relatives or
Speaker 1: you know, grandparents talk to Abe, they might have a
Speaker 1: different view. But I'm talking about I'm going from Abe
Speaker 1: into the Blackfoot territory, not from the Blackfoot territory towards Aid, understand.
Speaker 1: So it's very clear that other people might differ. And
Speaker 1: I think if you read the material from Heavyhead and
Speaker 1: so forth, I don't think it's an angry reading, you know,
Speaker 1: I don't there's this other aspectatic Twitter exchange that I
Speaker 1: sent you or it seemed angry, and oh yeah, I
Speaker 1: think that was unfortunate. I can very very much sympathize
Speaker 1: with the point that he could have brought it. But
Speaker 1: the same point could be made to anyone any living
Speaker 1: psychologists today. Right, It's not I mean, to point the
Speaker 1: finger at Abe seems unfair, considering you could point it
Speaker 1: out a whole field of psychology. I mean, it's not
Speaker 1: like anyone else, any of the other mainstream psychologists at
Speaker 1: the time we're bringing in that. Do you see what
Speaker 1: I'm saying? Absolutely? And there are some people who've documented
Speaker 1: the incredible amount of influence Indigenous thinking has had on
Speaker 1: psychology that has been unacknowledged. So let's talk about that
Speaker 1: for the rest of this podcast. I think yes, I mean,
Speaker 1: like there are teachings that occur in terms of whether
Speaker 1: we balance questions of balance, questions of spirituality. A lot
Speaker 1: of people don't acknowledge their sources. A lot of people,
Speaker 1: And you're right about Abe. He was careful, Like take,
Speaker 1: for example, the notion of synergy. Well, I've written about synergy,
Speaker 1: and the book talks about synergy. Abe was very careful
Speaker 1: to talk about Ruth benardet. Yes, yes, And I'm very
Speaker 1: careful to talk about Ruth Benedict and Abe, and of
Speaker 1: course buck Minster Fuller, who started the whole thing, and
Speaker 1: who knows before buckmans you know, no ideas are our own, yes,
Speaker 1: And any psychologists you see like positive psychology, what do
Speaker 1: you think of positive psychology. I noticed that you didn't
Speaker 1: mention positive psychology at all in your book. I mentioned it,
Speaker 1: but in a fairly negative way. No, I didn't. I
Speaker 1: must have missed it. That what positive psychology has done,
Speaker 1: Scott is to ignore ABE. I couldn't agree with that more.
Speaker 1: But I wouldn't say positive psychology has ignored ABE. I
Speaker 1: would say Martin Seligman, who is the founder of the field,
Speaker 1: has dismissed ABE. You know the founding of the field.
Speaker 1: But I know a lot of positive psychologists who may
Speaker 1: be in part due to the fact I can't stop
Speaker 1: talking about ABE to them, has acknowledged in their work
Speaker 1: the huge debt. I'll give a specific example. Ken Sheldon
Speaker 1: has done really good work on trying to test some
Speaker 1: humanistic theories from Carl Rodgers and others, and has said
Speaker 1: how he's deeply influenced by maso self determination theory. Individuals
Speaker 1: DC and Ryan talk about their debt to the humanistic theories.
Speaker 1: But I do share your frustration for certain aspects, is
Speaker 1: particularly the founding of the field and how it was
Speaker 1: founded as in a way that was pitted against a
Speaker 1: humanistic psychology or just dismissive of oh that was just
Speaker 1: the spiritual, you know, like non scientific field. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: do share that frustration nowadays with narrative research and narrative
Speaker 1: psychology is right smack in the middle of that whole
Speaker 1: again empirical yeah wave. And to think of to dismiss
Speaker 1: abe as non scientific, that's the worst because that's what
Speaker 1: he faced when he wasracticing you're not a scientist, So
Speaker 1: to bring that up again, that's not right. But the
Speaker 1: whole notion, for example, from an indigenous point of view,
Speaker 1: and talking again about the book, one of the teachings
Speaker 1: is that we don't own knowledge. We share it. And
Speaker 1: one of the teachings is unless you share knowledge, it dies,
Speaker 1: you see, So none of it's original, Scott, what could
Speaker 1: be original? It's already been said. We repackaged, we restate,
Speaker 1: we try to bring more relevance, but we don't create.
Speaker 1: We don't invent ideas, and from an indigenous point of view,
Speaker 1: we don't invent them because part of the task is
Speaker 1: to listen to the teachings that have come over the generations.
Speaker 1: The good elder will say, I'm only telling you what
Speaker 1: I was told. They won't say to you, I'm telling
Speaker 1: you what I discovered. You understand now when they say
Speaker 1: I'm only telling you what I was told, they have
Speaker 1: proven it in their own lives, Like an elder will
Speaker 1: say to you, and this is what I mentioned in
Speaker 1: the book. Here's the story. If it makes sense to you, good.
Speaker 1: If it doesn't, don't take it. Test it out. You see,
Speaker 1: But it's not original knowledge. It's a story. Where does
Speaker 1: the story come from? The old people? You see, the
Speaker 1: old people? There is nothing new, Like when indigenous people talk,
Speaker 1: did the sun ever rise in the west? No, So
Speaker 1: when you say look at the sun rising, yeah, people
Speaker 1: have done that for thousands and thousands of years. So
Speaker 1: Western psychology is very much into kind of like I've
Speaker 1: got a new theory. I've got a new thing, and
Speaker 1: you look at it. It's the same old stuff with
Speaker 1: a different label, and that's good. You also criticize measurement
Speaker 1: in a sense like the measurement of intelligence. Can you
Speaker 1: tell me a little bit about that criticism? Well, look
Speaker 1: at that stems back to your Harvard days, and yeah,
Speaker 1: look at it this way I was with, I'll tell
Speaker 1: you a story about you know Howard Gardner? I do, yes, yes,
Speaker 1: seven intelligences. Okay, So Howard comes up to me before
Speaker 1: he really hit it big. You know, I've got this
Speaker 1: theory of intelligences. What do you think of it? So
Speaker 1: I showed me his draft. Oh looks good, I said,
Speaker 1: but what about I think you've left something out? I
Speaker 1: think is how I said it. What do you mean
Speaker 1: what about spiritual intelligence? Oh? Yeah, yeah, but no, no,
Speaker 1: I can't do that because we can't measure it. And
Speaker 1: what I said to him is the fact that you
Speaker 1: can't measure it doesn't mean you don't mention it. But
Speaker 1: the preoccupation Like Carol Gilligan, she was another colleague of mine,
Speaker 1: wonderful I love her right and wonderful person. Her theory
Speaker 1: took off when she developed some scales to measure the
Speaker 1: attitudes and the perceptions that she was studying and in stories.
Speaker 1: When she had a scale, it took off all of
Speaker 1: a sudden, so mainstream in psychology. Basically, you know, if
Speaker 1: you can't measure it doesn't exist. And the thing that's
Speaker 1: really most perverse is if we can't measure it, it's
Speaker 1: only because we haven't developed the measures that are sophisticated enough,
Speaker 1: and eventually we will, right, So the notion of the
Speaker 1: mystery remains, which is a key part of the indigenous
Speaker 1: approach for the mainstream Western psychologists primarily, not all, but
Speaker 1: primarily is the mystery remains because we're not yet there
Speaker 1: with a sophisticated method to find out what it is. Yes,
Speaker 1: that point is very well taken, but you do admit
Speaker 1: that measurement is a cornerstone of the scientific method. I
Speaker 1: mean to stay by measurement as Scott you see, Like,
Speaker 1: for example, if I tell you a story, a life
Speaker 1: story or a story from an Indigenous point of view,
Speaker 1: that's ultimate data. It doesn't need to be analyzed, it
Speaker 1: doesn't need to be questioned data. Now, I'm not suggesting
Speaker 1: that that's how science and psychology should proceed, but it
Speaker 1: has to be respected. That's one form. See, I see
Speaker 1: multiple forms of research in science. Yeah, I know, I
Speaker 1: see what you're saying that there's certainly a tension there
Speaker 1: between that sort of narrative approach and you know, measurement
Speaker 1: needs to be generalizable, replicable, right, it has to have validity. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and you're saying those criteria do not apply to the
Speaker 1: indigenous population. And there are certain aspects of it, Okay,
Speaker 1: certain aspects. I think it would be a mistake to
Speaker 1: say from an indigenous point of view, all we care
Speaker 1: about is stories. But what I'm trying to say is
Speaker 1: that different modes of scientific work and scientific process, one
Speaker 1: of which is stories that tell the truth about a
Speaker 1: person's life. And there's another part of doing science, which
Speaker 1: is an experimental paradigm, control groups, experimental groups and so
Speaker 1: and why not have multiple paths towards as you mentioned before,
Speaker 1: the truth? Yeah, yeah, but respecting that there are multiple paths,
Speaker 1: and from an indigenous point of view, one of the
Speaker 1: paths that people really value is the story that one tells.
Speaker 1: You see, Yeah, I could see a skeptic saying that
Speaker 1: one can recognize the value of it without calling it science,
Speaker 1: Like science is a very specific meaning. How would you
Speaker 1: respond to someone and saying I mean, you see, but Scott,
Speaker 1: this is I mean, this is a great interview. Where
Speaker 1: where have you been all these years? But you see,
Speaker 1: that's exactly the point. The word science has been co
Speaker 1: opted to refer to a particular set of you know,
Speaker 1: aparticular methodology in a particular set of and it's a
Speaker 1: power word. Validity, objectivity, reliability, These are power words. And
Speaker 1: what I'm saying is that if we keep science in
Speaker 1: that more narrowly I would call Western positivistic paradigm. We
Speaker 1: are taking all those power words and when we think
Speaker 1: of other ways of knowing, other ways of knowing. And
Speaker 1: one of the chapters in the book that's on the
Speaker 1: research is called ways of knowing. And when I think
Speaker 1: of ways of knowing, then I don't think of science.
Speaker 1: I think of ways of knowing, one of which is
Speaker 1: the Western scientific method. Another is the narrative storytelling method.
Speaker 1: Another is the purely experiential method, in which you don't
Speaker 1: even you can't even say what happened. You see ways
Speaker 1: of knowing, and do you put them all within the
Speaker 1: rubric of the scientific method. Absolutely absolutely, Scott. That's where
Speaker 1: you have an understanding of multiple worlds. Remember we started
Speaker 1: out when you were little what happened? Well, when I
Speaker 1: was little, I saw that the world I was in
Speaker 1: was not the only world. Now here's the hard part, Scott. Okay,
Speaker 1: do you believe who's doing the inner you? Right? But
Speaker 1: you believe, as some people do, that if we get
Speaker 1: more and more understanding, eventually we'll see. There's only one
Speaker 1: way I have to say to you. I'm not sure. Yes,
Speaker 1: I mean, you say something that really stuck with me.
Speaker 1: You say there is no one way, only right ways.
Speaker 1: That's right, and I mean that stuck with me that phrase.
Speaker 1: And maybe it's also a guide for how to live
Speaker 1: your life. You know, you know what empathy means. I'm
Speaker 1: not good. See I've lived a lot of years and
Speaker 1: I still you look so young. Still, it's amazing. Listen,
Speaker 1: he met Maslho and Eric Erickson and you look like
Speaker 1: you're ready to go party. I have no party. I'm
Speaker 1: ready to go running. Yeah, I mean, it's incredible. Okay, listen, Scott.
Speaker 1: The thing is that if you are willing to see
Speaker 1: the validity you see. The other thing is I respect
Speaker 1: what others are doing. Like, for example, guys like Richie Davidson.
Speaker 1: You know, yes, he's like right into that heavy duty
Speaker 1: scientific method. You know, great, because he's doing it with
Speaker 1: some sensitivity, you know, So why not different? And let
Speaker 1: me tell you something else. Okay. So Danny Muskler, the
Speaker 1: guy I work with, I'd write about this in the book.
Speaker 1: When he was growing up, his grandma said to him,
Speaker 1: sit on this stump here and observe the gophers. We
Speaker 1: have gophers up here, you know, little things or and
Speaker 1: their gopher colonies and he would spend hours observing the
Speaker 1: key to any scientific method observation. See, so there are
Speaker 1: ways in which there are shared processes. I'm going to
Speaker 1: have to push back against that a second and see
Speaker 1: what you think about this, because can't observe individual observations
Speaker 1: be wrong? Like so you know, let's say, giving a
Speaker 1: specific example, like there are people that say they experience
Speaker 1: God or that experience certain aspects of the universe that
Speaker 1: physicists then say, well, we've tested that and there's no
Speaker 1: evidence that that's true. Are you saying you would put
Speaker 1: both in the same level of certainty of probability of truth.
Speaker 1: I'd like to have I'd like to have them both
Speaker 1: in the room together and we'll all connect. Hey, different
Speaker 1: ways of knowing, different ways of knowing. I'm not into
Speaker 1: I'm not into giving. Hey, I guess I would say, Scott,
Speaker 1: I'm not into a hierarchy of value. It's like pain.
Speaker 1: You know, some people say, hey, how could that person
Speaker 1: feel pain? They've got all the money in the world
Speaker 1: they need, They've got, you know, a great job. You
Speaker 1: know something pain hurts, Scott, you lose a child, you're
Speaker 1: a millionaire. You don't think it hurts you. See so
Speaker 1: I'm not into kind of saying one is better than
Speaker 1: the other. Bring him in the room together, you see,
Speaker 1: Bring him in the room together, and that just enriches things.
Speaker 1: The notion of synergy I talk about is multiple ways
Speaker 1: of looking at things coming together in unexp afected ways
Speaker 1: to create a whole that's greater than some of the parts.
Speaker 1: That's beautiful. It's beautiful. And you know the other thing,
Speaker 1: Scott is you see the whole context of what we're
Speaker 1: talking about has to be seen within historical power structure.
Speaker 1: At this point in time, May Scott, Indigenous people are
Speaker 1: being overturned, overrun, overpowered, and like even for example, and
Speaker 1: the whole genome thing, the genetic material is being robbed
Speaker 1: and they call biopiracy for them drug companies. I thought
Speaker 1: you're going to mention the Democrat Elizabeth Lauren. Oh, I
Speaker 1: don't want to get into that. Ya so ridiculous thing.
Speaker 1: But you see what's happening is they want to get isolate.
Speaker 1: They want to get genetic material that has not been contaminated. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that mean isolated? What does that mean Indigenous? You see,
Speaker 1: so the whole political context and the scientific IQ testing, Scott,
Speaker 1: Indigenous people systematically score lower. Getting back to the IQ
Speaker 1: why IQ test is totally culturally biased, and getting back
Speaker 1: to the Howard Gardener thing. We don't measure spirituality because
Speaker 1: we don't talk about because we can't measure it with
Speaker 1: the measurements that are in Western psychology, you see. But
Speaker 1: if you don't use those, why not talk about spirituality?
Speaker 1: It's what would I say? I would say to that
Speaker 1: that the test itself is not biased, but well, in
Speaker 1: one sense it is. In one sense it is, and
Speaker 1: I'm with you in the sense that it is culturally
Speaker 1: like we are the ones that decided what kind of content,
Speaker 1: what kind of vocabulary items, what kind of you know,
Speaker 1: even like the Ravens matrices Jim Flynn has shown, it
Speaker 1: does have a cultural bias in a sense like if
Speaker 1: you never grew up looking at these kind of abstract structures,
Speaker 1: you're not going to know what to do with them
Speaker 1: as much as if you have a scientific, literate culture.
Speaker 1: So I think in that sense you're absolutely correct. But
Speaker 1: it doesn't mean that that test is meaningless or not
Speaker 1: measuring some set of skills that are important, and one
Speaker 1: of the skills it measures is doing well, Yeah, doing
Speaker 1: well at university and certain like you say, spatial abstract
Speaker 1: things like when I went to the Carl Harry. You know,
Speaker 1: I'm a psychologist. I wanted to do a show some pictures,
Speaker 1: you know, because Murray was one of my mentors and
Speaker 1: he came up gat So I had some pictures. Now,
Speaker 1: Charles Murray, let's be clear, Henry Murray, Henry Murray. A
Speaker 1: lot of people might know who Henry Murray is. Who's
Speaker 1: a legend at Harry. Yeah, so I had these pictures, hey, Scott,
Speaker 1: I showed them. What's the first thing they did. The
Speaker 1: first thing they did was to turn the picture around
Speaker 1: to see what was in back, to see the backside
Speaker 1: of the image. So the whole notion of a picture
Speaker 1: was not in their world experience. It was if it
Speaker 1: was a picture of a face, there's got to be
Speaker 1: a back to the to the face, you understand. So
Speaker 1: in a very in a very kind of powerful way,
Speaker 1: giving a paper and pencil test itself, like I'll give
Speaker 1: you an example, okay. From an indigenous point of view,
Speaker 1: the way people are taught often is if you know
Speaker 1: the answer to something, you don't ask a person a question,
Speaker 1: or if the person knows the answer, like I wouldn't
Speaker 1: ask you a Scott, well, what is two plus two?
Speaker 1: That's an insult right now, from an indigenous point of view,
Speaker 1: if you find that someone asks you obvious questions or
Speaker 1: questions with obvious answers, what happens You become suspicious. So
Speaker 1: they interviewed people who took the IQ test, and you know,
Speaker 1: it starts out very easy, and some of the kids,
Speaker 1: because the questions were so easy, turn off and become suspicious.
Speaker 1: What's this? Why trying to do trick me up? I
Speaker 1: know that we all know the answer to that one.
Speaker 1: That's how I felt on the SAT. That's why I
Speaker 1: did so bad on my SAT. Yeah, we're going to go.
Speaker 1: We're going to go with that reason. Oh gosh, who
Speaker 1: are having a conversation? Oh for sure. So you're also
Speaker 1: a psychologist by training, right, Oh that's right. Yeah, that's wonderful.
Speaker 1: Yeah we don't yell though not Harvard. Yeah. I went
Speaker 1: to yell too. Oh you did undergraduate. You know I
Speaker 1: had the best compliment for this book, I wrote. You
Speaker 1: know what the best compliment was? There was a psychologist.
Speaker 1: I've done some work just recently with a thing called
Speaker 1: RBC where we have people who have mental problems, but
Speaker 1: are incarcerated. Right. And one of the psychologists over there
Speaker 1: read the book, and you know, he said, he said,
Speaker 1: I love the book and particularly the fact that as
Speaker 1: a psychologist I felt respected. Yeah, that was to me,
Speaker 1: that was a wonderful compliment, because you see, when you're
Speaker 1: writing a book like this for men, it's so easy
Speaker 1: to make the bad guys. All psychologists are you know,
Speaker 1: they've done all what they're doing, they're they're worth you know,
Speaker 1: so forth. And I was trying because one of the
Speaker 1: teachings I got in the book was respect. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: that means respect for always right and as you said,
Speaker 1: always are good, not one way. That means we have
Speaker 1: to respect multiple ways of going about it, you see.
Speaker 1: And what you're doing is beautiful because you're pushing back,
Speaker 1: but you're also joining, Oh sure, which is which is
Speaker 1: how we have to do. You know, we don't have
Speaker 1: to agree, but we have to respect. Yeah. I really
Speaker 1: like that a lot. You know, Just to wrap up
Speaker 1: here a second, you know, you talk about what psychologists
Speaker 1: you know, the way I visit there's actually a very
Speaker 1: hopeful message here, right. You're actually saying that there's so
Speaker 1: much untaped potential among mainstream psychologists, that we could do
Speaker 1: so much more to increase interconnection, honoring the interconnections that
Speaker 1: define us, renewing synergies of multiple psychologies, multiple psychologies, right,
Speaker 1: things of that nature. You're saying that, you're not saying like,
Speaker 1: it's not just a critique of horrible, bad psychologists, but
Speaker 1: it's the way the way I read it is, you're saying,
Speaker 1: there's so much more the field could be. Yeah, one
Speaker 1: little story, And because I think that's such an important point.
Speaker 1: So I was teaching some clinical psychology doctoral students and
Speaker 1: we had an elder come in, Mary Lee, wonderful woman,
Speaker 1: and I write about that in the book, and she
Speaker 1: talks about her traditional counseling and what she does is
Speaker 1: she emphasizes listening. She says, the kids I work with,
Speaker 1: they want to have their story heard. So one of
Speaker 1: my students, after she left, one of my clinical psychology
Speaker 1: students said, isn't this kind of like Rogers? I mean,
Speaker 1: what's the difference, And I said, yeah, it's like Rogers,
Speaker 1: but there's a big difference. Rogers said listening is one
Speaker 1: of the components of effective counseling. Mary Lee said, listening
Speaker 1: is counseling Now now, hey, listen, Scott, you've been trained,
Speaker 1: let's say for five years. I don't know what your
Speaker 1: orientation was, but the students I work with a lot
Speaker 1: of it, usually CBT or dialectical, you know whatever, big
Speaker 1: investment in that. And then to be told that the
Speaker 1: essence of counseling is listening, this is very hard and
Speaker 1: a little bit threugh. So I said to him, no, no no,
Speaker 1: don't misunderstand. The essence is listening. But still bring your
Speaker 1: skill set. That's the enhancement, right, Bring your CBT training,
Speaker 1: bring your analytic training, but don't forget the foundation upon
Speaker 1: which you're all. Your whole work is listening. And that's
Speaker 1: an Indigenous perspective. Indigenous perspective is never give up what
Speaker 1: you know. It's to add to it. And I'm so
Speaker 1: glad you brought that up. Let me one more thing,
Speaker 1: which is I want people to know that in this
Speaker 1: book that the royalties author royalties are going back to
Speaker 1: the people. So the way of encouraging, I'm trying to
Speaker 1: encourage people to get to the book because not only
Speaker 1: I think it's important teachings, but it can help to
Speaker 1: raise a little money. Because when I give back, let's say,
Speaker 1: five six hundred dollars to an elder who's living in
Speaker 1: the Kalahari. You have no idea how much that means.
Speaker 1: It's an incredible infusion that can help with basic survival
Speaker 1: kind of tasks. So I just want to what if
Speaker 1: people want to help even more? Like, let's say I
Speaker 1: want to donate. I have this urge after listening to
Speaker 1: your you talk about your life's work, and I want
Speaker 1: to donate more money to that. Are there certain websites
Speaker 1: I can go to, like what can you do? The
Speaker 1: one thing I would mention a Scott because there's a
Speaker 1: lot of options, but the one I liked is the
Speaker 1: Kalahari People's Fund. Okay, I'll put a link to all
Speaker 1: this in the show notes. Yeah, Kalahari People's Fund and
Speaker 1: started in the seventies focusing mainly on the Shuntwasi, but
Speaker 1: it's basic community development projects like for example, protection of
Speaker 1: land resources. It's a beautiful thing, Kalahari People's Fund. And
Speaker 1: from there a Scott one could go in many different directions. Yes,
Speaker 1: if you could send me a link to that, I'll
Speaker 1: put in the show notes. Yeah. Yeah, Look, Dick, I
Speaker 1: just want to say thank can I call you, Dick. Absolutely, okay,
Speaker 1: thank you so much. I mean, I usually I just
Speaker 1: thank my guests, you know, thank you for being the show.
Speaker 1: But I feel like for you, just thank you for
Speaker 1: like your your existence, you know, you know, fifty years
Speaker 1: and showing and shining a spotlight on a very under
Speaker 1: well what would you say they're under? What population? Underappreciated, underappreciated, misunderstood,
Speaker 1: underappreciated under And yeah, so listen, I'll tell you too.
Speaker 1: It's a real pleasure on this. This is fantastic and
Speaker 1: I wish can I get a podcast of this too?
Speaker 1: How do I do that? I want to I want
Speaker 1: to hear absolutely when I published this, I'll send you
Speaker 1: the link. Conversation we're having is great. Yeah, it's ready.
Speaker 1: I will absolutely send you the links out. Thanks again, Dick. Okay,
Speaker 1: take good care you too. Yeah, see you. Thanks for
Speaker 1: listening to the Psychology Podcast. I hope you enjoyed this episode.
Speaker 1: If you'd like to react in some way to something
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