Testing and Competition

In the New York Times Magazine article Why Can Some Kids Handle Pressure While Others Fall Apart, Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman tout the benefits of stress and competition for developing young minds.  They argue that brain science and genetics can help us better understand how stress impacts the “Worriers” and the “Warriors”, and why some perform better than others in high stress situations, ultimately concluding that academic competition is beneficial for both.

View fullsize

Although it is certainly the well-researched case that people respond to stress differently, I’m not sure the authors have applied their ample findings to answering the right question. In fact, using stress management findings to help kids better tolerate academic testing flies in the face of every wise and humane thing that has ever been learned from the Emotional Intelligence and the Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction movements.  We did not come to be a “Prozac Nation,” in a globally warming world, because unbridled competition was a positive thing.

We are at a moment in history where the future of the planet, and us as a species, is dependent upon mutuality, coexistence, and the creativity and compassion to think about old challenges in new ways. As a clinician and narratologist having led Emotional Intelligence trainings in schools for many decades, I can say without hesitation that the effort to prepare students to score highly on tests runs counter to everything good that might come from having them spend the first twenty years of their lives in classrooms. Dr. Daniel Siegel in The Mindful Brain asserts that: asking students to simply memorize and repeat material is actually teaching them how not to learn. When students are led to make discoveries with passion and compassion, and given experiential opportunities to put these discoveries into practice, there is simply no need for testing. They are eager to implement, and even further explore, what they’ve noticed. When they can share this excitement with their peers, as colleagues and fellow travelers, they care not who might achieve the highest scores because they have all “scored.” 

Whatever brain science has come to show about those of us with largely ‘warrior’ minds and those of us with largely ‘worrier’ minds – and I’m sure there is ample evidence toward these genetically and environmentally driven propensities – the goal should not be to become a species that can embrace its own stress in some race toward “testable and comparative achievement,” but to become a species bent on envisioning and then creating a world community in which we learn and share together, and are more likely to innovate social good corporations than test-prep machines; and far more likely to enjoy the process. If there is anything to the theory of evolution, and I for one believe there is, let’s hope that we have evolved beyond a series of exams indicate that a mind has been well-shaped for good citizenship because of it’s ability to decipher factors and spell arcane words.  My own two creative and curious children stopped enjoying school after “standardized testing” entered their lives, just as many of their friends – now sporting migraines and ulcers – did. The body does not lie. This is not a way to educate, no matter how adept we may become at “managing” the stress of this wrong-minded thinking.

Write Brain

It’s poetic! On January 31st I gave a talk on Healing Trauma through Narrative Reconstruction at the National Institute for the Psychotherapies, where analysts are deeply engaged in learning new ways of effectively healing trauma. In my talk, I outlined 30 years of my field data on the power of healing and transforming lives through writing exercises that I developed for an emotional literacy intervention, and later integrated into clinical practice. The key thesis of the talk was that when we write, we enter an altered state. This state is akin to that which was once achieved through hypnosis, and now through EMDR. And that in this state, and from this writing brain, we can also retrieve memories long forgotten or repressed and, with proper guidance, make coherent sense of them andweave them into a newly strengthened and more coherent self-narrative. Two days later the Education section of the Sunday’s Times featured an article on a new initiative that works to heal Veteran trauma through writing! In it, Veteran testimonials attest to the findings that I shared. The Editor of The Journal of Military Experience stated that: “Traumatic memories are fragmented...not always in order...if you can put those emotions and the traumatic events in a narrative that makes sense to you...it makes the trauma tangible. If it’s tangible, it’s malleable. And if it is malleable, you can do something with it.” How uncannily it echoes the closing quote of my talk from psychologist and linguist, Ken Wilbur: 

We need to give careful attention to the text we call the self, before it can become transparent. In therapy, or any work that engages closely with text, we need to work toward the knowing that our personal history…is mutable.

Martin goes on to say: “We write to bear witness.” This mirrors a quote with which I opened my talk: “We write to discover what we know.” This was a quote from a playwriting teacher I’d had years ago, as I was beginning to develop ‘healing dialogues’ with people across the lifespan, inviting them to view a photographic trigger and then do a free-write in response. This writing was then shaped into an outline for a two character play, through which the writer could work out unresolved conflicts and discover forgotten meanings and events.

One member of the Veteran’s Project highlights the benefits of this approach, asserting that it was indeed healing to: “Step away from the war experiences and observe the details in new ways. To talk about character development, narrative structure and point of view.” Another said he’d had trouble ‘talking about his experience, but had no trouble writing about it’. This is not news to me! I have been helping people of all ages reconstruct their narratives for decades, through my non-profit, Find Your Voice. The results were so powerful, and so consistently transformative, that I now use writing in every individual therapy session that I conduct as well. The pen is indeed mightier than the sword! And, like all potent tools, it needs to be handled with care. People with particularly traumatic narratives need accompaniment and guidance and containment in their voicing, well beyond that which a writing teacher alone could offer. Once they have articulated, reframed and shared their core trauma story, they can continue the writing practice safely on their own. Also, untrained workshop leaders can become traumatized by upsetting material themselves, and may not be able to endure or contain the transmission of content and feelings involved in the sharing. For these very reasons, in my own new project...The Voicing Project, I plan to bring my combined dramaturgical and clinical training to the enterprise of helping people voice toward healing, while also training other clinicians and coaches to do so as well. It seems to be the write time to launch it!

The Fourth "R": Reflections on Sandy Hook

What occurred inside that devastated school building in Newtown, Connecticut on December 14, 2012 is a direct result of what does not often enough occur inside of school buildings: the study of emotional intelligence. Although this boy was apparently somewhere on the autism spectrum — which is itself a social skill deficit — and ended up being pulled out as a child and schooled all alone at home for a time, all children need intense social skill training. As one later classmate said of him about his experience during high school, “No one took the time to find out why he was the way he was.”

While schools can’t know what goes on in a child’s home, they certainly can endeavor to get to know what goes on inside the child’s head…and heart. They may not be privy to the reasons for a family to feature the collection of guns and rifles, and value shooting as a sport, but they can be privy to what comes into their building. As Dr. Dan Siegel says in The Mindful Brain, along with reading, writing, and arithmetic, reflection needs to be cultivated as the fourth ‘R’ — reflection on self, others and the world around us; in other words, the cultivation of attuned and pro-social behavior. Students must be taught to do it, and teachers must be taught to guide them; social skills are as vital to the survival of our society as the decoding of letters and numbers…maybe more so. How tragically ironic that a relationship-oriented principal and a dedicated psychologist went down with all the other beautiful and innocent lives on the ship of disaster that was sunk by an emotionally illiterate high school graduate, one who had quietly morphed into a sociopath due to something that was neglected decades ago and continues to be neglected in many schools all across this country. We need to be training all educators to inculcate emotional literacy in their students; that is, the ability to read and communicate with one another, which in turn enhances empathy for one another. Daniel Goleman echoes this in his book, Emotional Intelligence:

Educators, long disturbed by school children’s lagging scores in math and reading, are realizing there is a different and more alarming deficiency: emotional illiteracy.  And while laudable efforts are being made to raise academic standards, this new and troubling deficiency is not being addressed in the standard school curriculum.

This can’t be a special assembly held twice a year. It needs to be part of a daily curriculum; that students are led through an exploration of their inner lives, written and orally, and are helped to respect and understand that of their classmates. We owe that to the precious children who lost their futures, to the families whose lives have been shattered by this senseless event, and to the young witnesses who will struggle to find meaning in this for the rest of their days.

Tag Cloud Block

This is an example. Double-click here and select a page to create a cloud of its tags or categories. Learn more

• Art
• Day Trip
• Handmade
• Inspired
• Playlist
• Portrait
• Pro Tip
• Road Trip
• Studio
• Things to Do
• Yummy

Tag Cloud Block

This is an example. Double-click here and select a page to create a cloud of its tags or categories. Learn more

• Art
• Cats
• Day Trip
• Handmade
• Love
• Playlist
• Studio
• Theories
• Things to Do
• Yummy

Learning From Ourselves

The Find Your Voice method has long been employing the integrated studies of acting and playwriting, as a way of transforming lives. One of the benefits of leading people through the telling and sharing of their stories in dialogue form, is that — as Buddhist psychologist Jack Kornfield says,

‘We are loyal to our stories…they become our identities’.

Creating dramatic characters who must reckon with one another — in response to feedback, and in accordance with the principles of good playmaking, (no all- good or all-bad characters, both must have valid wants, and communication is essential), invites them to consider different ways of approaching and resolving conflicts, in the guise of other identities.

And, through the study of acting, participants also experience ‘acting on’ a strong want, and ‘behaving as’ someone else, while their own bodies absorb (and remember!) this empowering experience. As Beck and Ellis, the founders of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy say, “when behavior changes, all else follows”. Through these twin studies, and as our participant’s newly balanced voices are heard, they begin to value themselves, and their lived experience, in more respectful ways. When the audience at the final sharings say, “I was moved by what you wrote”, or “that was my story, too”, they come to further honor the power of their own authenticity…their core selves.

When we write, we learn things that are hidden from our ordinary awareness because writing — especially when safely guided — is itself an act of reflection. Everything we need to know about ourselves, can be learned from ourselves, and in relation to listening others we can share these universal truths to everyone’s benefit.

Making Every Word Count

What a gift it would be if every person had someone in their lives who said: “Tell me what I should know about you”…and then really listened to the answer; be it a doctor, a teacher, a parent, a friend, or a therapist. Mostly we are too busy to listen to one another’s stories…we read one another’s ‘spin’ on Facebook, we text each other ‘the bottom line’ …it is the difference between hearing about a sunset, and actually witnessing it.

When someone comes to see me for Narrative work, I begin by asking: “Tell me the story of you.” And then I listen. And not unlike encountering a piece of music, I listen equally to the words they use to language the experience of their own lives, and to the silences between the words. They weave together in a subtle interplay of summersaults…one illuminating the other.

If it is true that there ‘has never been a people without a narrative’, there has also never been a narrative without a listener. Make time to sit with someone you love this week; ask them what you should know about their week, andreally listen to the answer. To the words, and the feelings behind the words. And then sit and reflect in silence, together, for even a moment, upon how it felt to be fully engaged. It’s a practice, and it will take some!

Giving Pain A Narrative

In an article entitled Post-Prozac Nation, in the magazine section of the Sunday New York Times yesterday, Helen Mayberg, a neuroscientist at Emory University referred to depression as, ‘Emotional pain without a context.’

It is this very predicament that speaks to the power of Narrative Therapy, which seeks to frame, and then re-frame, the story – or context – of what people are feeling. In the article, Mayberg connects this loss of context with malfunctions in the hippocampus, a part of the brain involved in memory. It is interesting to note that research in other quarters on ‘Reminiscence Therapy’, (Brooker and Duce, 200), has demonstrated that seniors who reminisce, display greater well-being than their non-reminiscing counterparts. Thus the power and importance of (re)connecting people to their own narratives.

As a Narrative Constructivist clinician, with a background in playwriting, I like to collaborate with my clients in a meaning-making exercise that uses deep dramaturgical questioning.  This evokes a narrative arc, based on key phrases that the clients use, right from the first meeting. In fact, I begin every initial session by asking each client to tell me ‘the story of them’;  beginning with the most important thing they feel I should know. Usually this first thing that they tell me, or the way they tell it, provides a window into the most wounded part of their souls.

I like to think that as clinicians we serve as dramaturges (or midwives) to the sacred texts our clients bring. That we not only need to listen with three ears, but to ask the right questions…those that will help them to unravel the riddles that may be dividing them, from themselves. Once the context is recovered and reorganized, the meaning of the depressed life force becomes evident, and begins to unfreeze.

Why Talk Therapy is on the Wane and Writing Workshops Are on the Rise

Why Talk Therapy is on the Wane and Writing Workshops Are on the Rise: This question was posed in an article by Steve Almond, in the New York Times Magazine last Sunday. Being both a therapist who takes a Narrative approach, and a writing Coach who has spent decades helping people to find the words and the courage to give language to their experience — to weave a coherent portrayal of their dreams, and their nightmares — I might be in a unique position to ponder this!

As a clinician, I am a firm believer that the ability to make meaning of our experience is crucial to our mental health. Equally important, is the ability to share and revise our self-story — to have it witnessed and affirmed by others. For the past few decades I have run Find Your Voice (FYV) Workshops that led participants through the process of writing short plays, as a means of giving voice to their stories, and learning to do so in an authentic and coherent manner.

Initially developed at NYU as a way to lead reluctant freshmen toward a love of writing, my goal with this FYV method was always meaning and voice-making, rather than art-making — thought the results were almost always artful. We began the process with a picture, a sort of Rorschach inkblot stimulus intended to open the imagination and override the editors that had been installed by years of training to spit back the answer that the teacher sought. Students were asked to write freely, briefly, about what had happened — or was about to happen — in this image. I always chose pictures that were free of figures, inviting the viewer to populate this pictorial stage with their own. Almost universally, respondents wrote about whatever was most pressing in their hearts and on their minds: if someone in their family had recently been mugged, an image of a park bench would elicit a moment of violence. If someone had recently been diagnosed with cancer, the same bench was the scene where this news would be divulged. In other words, they picture was merely a can-opener, they wrote about that which they most needed to make sense of. These free writes were then shaped into treatments for plays, as we co-constructed scenarios in which their two characters would grapple with one conflict, and then resolve it…not necessarily happily. And these characters were given fictional names, and they enacted dramas and spoke truths that their creators had never dared to. And across many rewrites, as we in the room asked hard questions about: the logic of the plot; the redeeming motivations of the characters; and the back-story that preceded the moment of crisis around which the play revolved; the writer made sense of their own experience, safely, under the (dis)guise of their artistic creation. And along the way Workshop members learned to love one another’s stories; to empathize with one another’s struggles in articulating them; and to celebrate one another’s [literary] breakthroughs. And when the plays were ultimately presented to an invited audience, the participants saw in the faces of both the strangers and the familiars in the room — the glowing light of recognition. And in the Q&A that followed, they spoke not about their autobiographies, but their process of creation. And they were healed as much by the affirmation that others had identified with the story they’d heard, as the applause for their craft.

Since leaving academia, I have worked with hundreds of people of all ages in this manner, and have used elements of it in private practice. While FYV Workshop members would not have deemed their experience as ‘therapy’, they would certainly credit it as therapeutic — as transformative. Without ever discussing a symptom, or verifying a ‘truth’, members of these groups were relieved of blockages far greater than the inability to write or share their writing. They were relieved of their silence, their frozen positions, and their isolation. The writing cure is indeed and underutilized resource.

Find Your Voice Goes to Therapy

As I have presented my work to clinicians in many different settings over the last few years, I have discovered that I bring a unique perspective on client ‘material’, having been a playwright and a dramaturge.

Clinicians are all looking for creative ways to reduce people’s suffering and I have, perhaps, something creative to offer. I agree with Dan Siegel, [the cutting edge psychiatrist who has brought the science of brain development into clinical practice], In the most recent issue of the Psychotherapy Networker, when he says that, “the most important thing about a person’s history, is how they’ve made sense of that history” — in other words, the story they tell — or have been told. A dramaturge helps a playwright find a coherent narrative; a therapist does the same, and within a safe relationship.

Clinicians are often trained to ‘ignore the words’ and focus on the affect. While client’s tell their story in many ways (body language, symptoms, facial expressions, feelings, etc.), their words are an essential part of the story…especially if the right questions are asked, and if the material is handled with respect, flexibility and transparency.

The Find Your Voice approach to clinical work grows out of the approach we’ve taken to Narrative Coaching for the past twenty-five years. This approach begins from the first critical question asked at the first client meeting, to paradoxical sentence completions, to transcript sharing, to in and out of session writing assignments, to the creation of dramatic dialogues that bring chair work to life and offer clients the opportunity to balance their view of the characters in their lives; resolve conflicts; speak the unspoken; effect revision; and safely activate that which has been frozen.

The Importance of Re-writing Our Narratives

Those of us at Find Your Voice have long understood and cultivated the power of writing our stories, and then revising them. In the Narrative Therapy tradition, our clients are encouraged to give voice to, and make sense of their life experiences through the creation of plays. These become ‘healing dialogues’ in which they are able to speak to, negotiate with, and seek resolution with key figures in their lives…past and present. And these resolutions can offer new possibilities; possibilities they may never have imagined if they had not made the ‘write choice’ to stand in the shoes of both characters, and to consider anew their own words once on the page, and then enacted.

At the Imagination Summit held at the Lincoln Center Institute this past July, Deepak Chopra speaks to the importance of re-writing our narratives. Chopra said, “If you want to change something, change the story.” Teachers, clinicians and participants of all ages who take our workshops are being taught how to do just that.