Frank Weil lectures; #6 (Reel 1)

From Cincinnati AWG UC the University of Cincinnati station presents the last in the series of Frank L. Wild institute like cheers by Dr. Murray's Levine professor and director of the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine. Dr. Levine is the author of psychotherapy and medical practice a book which has gone through 18 editions and has been translated into three foreign languages. He was also president of the American delegation to the First International Congress of psychiatry and Paris these wyl Institute lectures were given at the Hebrew Union College Jewish Institute of Religion in Cincinnati under the title psychiatry and ethics. The topic of this final lecture in the series is toward a technology of ethics. Here now is Dr. Marty slove. I say could a fantastic degree the world has been transformed by the new developments in the various sciences and by the new techniques the methods and processes which result from the

practical application of the new discoveries in science. In fact. The link gauges of science and technology is active in both directions. In the one direction. A new tool or technique such as a new kind of microscope or a radio isotope methods. The need to new developments in science. In the other direction. The new discoveries in science are applied to the methods and techniques of daily living as well as in other ways daily living for example to develop new kinds of medicine. This very close relationship between science and technology has been true for the past hundred years or more. But it was not always so far. Through most of man's history the techniques of planting and harvesting of domesticating animals and caring for them of making pottery baskets and tools were not based on the kind of systematic study or verse

which is basic for the development of the sciences. The techniques of living of daily activity of hunting of farming of building and of the arts and crafts were the product of direct experience of learning each art for each process. But even with out a science of the animal biology a shepherd provided good care for his flop but several centuries ago scientific work began to influence the techniques of everyday living. In the past century the impact of science and practical affairs has been extraordinary. Edmund Leach the British anthropologist in the Reid lectures just published says that with present science and technology we are like gods. But afraid to use our power to plan the future of mankind. This thesis of the book the runaway world order and similar ideas proposed by others

needs thorough discussion at some other time and place at the moment. I want only to say that the techniques of raising food both plant and animal now are based on genetics and biochemistry and on the scientific discoveries which had led to the development of agricultural machinery. Scientific research produced great changes in industrial processes. Totally new industries have appeared as one example research in chemistry led to the technology of the use of plastics of synthetic fibers and a host of new medicines enormous changes in communication and transportation are based on techniques derived from various sciences. The list is almost endless. But that story is well known and need not be a lab rated burger. But the link gage or the parallel with ethics is the point that I want to make

and the crucial point first is that in the Science Technology link gauge we are talking of a sequence which works is enormously productive. Sometimes the endpoint is explained to be dangerous such as the techniques of nuclear warfare. But that must not be clouded to our recognition of the fact. That the combination of science plus technology is one of the most effective combinations ever known. In fact. It has worked so well in so many fields that we now must try it in the field of acting. X one goal would be the development of better techniques of ethics for the control and for the productive use of the techniques derived from the physical sciences.

I'd like to try the experiment of putting this in terms of the super ego and the ego about the heart. Several seconds ago to help us make an essential point. We can say that the technological advances so far developed have enriched the potential. For the productive realisation of some of the forces and of some of the super ego and ego forces. Techniques are available which may provide good food health shelter productive work pleasure gratification and leaves are for everyone. If only the world population increase slows down. And if only human interactions become shall we say more sensible. But the new technology also a has the potential of being used destructive lay by the primitive portions of man's ear and his ego and of the corruptible

parts of his super ego. In work there in the pollution of the air and water and many other way. A new technology of ethics and of human relations is needed urgently to counter to counterbalance the dangers of the destructive use of the other new technology. Now I hear now reading your minds perhaps some echoes of the old dogma that human nature can't. Be Changed. But it can be. In fact. One danger lies in the proposal. To change human nature by or by manipulating the calmest songs and also by electric and other stimulation of the brain. This printed may be one of our enemies in the future. My proposal is a different one. It is that human nature should be changed. But by using role liable techniques

which will foster the ethical combination of the individual freedom. And the values of the culture. During the change and after one example in which that process already is underway is the monist group studied by Margaret Mead over the past 35 years who have moved from being stone age men and women. To men and women of the 20th century. In that short a period of time. But we must be profoundly critical of our own attempts to develop a technology of ethics. The science of man is different in some ways from the physical sciences and from many of the other sciences and certainly our scientific knowledge of man as man in biology anthropology and psychodynamics is well developed in some ways but not in others.

But attempts must be made now to develop new techniques of ethics. From what we know now all concurrent. They are studies of man our scientific knowledge of man. From which we must derive our technology of ethics to go further must be increased as well. The question we ask tonight is whether the scientific study of man gives any indication at this point. Of the emergence of techniques for the further development of ethical principles in ethical behavior. Tonight I would give it some tentative answers and try to stimulate further work in this field. I divide my material tonight into nine or 10 sections and give as much as I can get as many as I can depending on how fast the time. Passes. Each section will present a separate type of a new technology of ethics and dividing it into segments. This way helps us to avoid the boredom of a long

or elaborate discussion in which inevitably you become drowsy and sleepy. And please note that this time since the divisions into sections what keep you awake. I won't use the word sax to do that job. I only shun FAQ. And instead start a new section. Thank you. That was a double high. That was a double pint you must groan and if you don't I'll use my quadruple time. Whatever and however let me take the opportunity to tell you that my pungent jingoes have a serious purpose in addition to the frothy purpose of having fun. And the lighthearted purpose of having a moment of relaxation in the serious hour or day. The serious purpose has to do with the fact that intensive thinking working on

the interpretation of facts logical critical thinking is of central importance. But that. Path. Has a great danger of becoming that rigid or too focused and compulsive. There are moments when this logical thinking becomes a dead end street. The same thing may happen generally in a science in which one route at first is very productive and then becomes repetitious and the same may happen in one of the arcs in which a productive new turn is followed by good development and then repetition. An example of the way out of what works at that point. Is the story you have kept your les locked in he's thinking in chemistry falls asleep and has a dream of a snake with its tail in its mouth which gives him calculate the idea which turns into a new start for a new

kind of chemistry of the benzene ring not a carbon the. Alcohol has been used and LSD has been used for comparable purposes by some misguided souls and is regarded as the Ents. But Jonas met gosh one of the best of the oven guard the underground of movie producers said here two years ago that the use of drugs no longer is on guard since it has been in the newspapers for years now and so is paseo. His method of being he said this to the students not dead. If he really wanted to have an impact on them when they did his method of being creative and having good and producing the kind of movies that he did which they thought was based on LSD but which was not his method of being creative and to being up to date he said is to open his eyes and

ears open them again and again. And to broaden his consciousness that way with out any drug. And then to work all day or all night if necessary. That being a magnet to ven self critical as all artists he says are always have work put in terms of r now give psychodynamic we can say that the use of logic and intellect of what he is called by Freud the secondary mental processes. At times becomes rigid compulsory have been respected. Then somehow the individual must find a way of getting out of the intellectual rut. Of becoming imaginative of getting in touch with the part of the human mind which Freud called the primary process the process which is more primitive more symbolic than more free flowing and which produces

unexpected link pages of ideas or of emotion. When I personally find that my thinking is blocked I take off a few minutes and try to write again. The nonsense the playing with words the unexpected linkages is for me the quickest way to get out of a rut of thinking of being blocked in finding a solution. But the way this is similar to what has been called lateral thinking by De Bono in several recent books. I do not suggest that you become hamsters or Rheims unless that is your best way as well as mine to get through the primary process. I suggest only that you know that logical straight thinking has its limits and that you develop techniques for yourselves to get beyond it for a few moments of that time. Of course logic and reason remained our most reliable

method. Ninety nine percent. Of the time. Or more so this is the first technique I suggest oddly enough for the further development of tactics ongoing attempts must be made to work out several new methods of thinking to work out new ways of applying our knowledge of the psychic apparatus. So that we can come up with original or a new or creative ideas in the field of ethics as well as in other fields. Now some years ago. This is a sort of example. And they are something else. Some years ago I was involved in research on gastro intestinal just disorder in this research it became evident that certain patients had Karaka sured the ideas of their parent s. This finding suggested a new way wala a new technique in the development

of ethics. I knew that I should include this in this lecture but each time I tried it got to be a 10 page essay much too long. One out of ten point so I turned to my and much too rigid much too for my kid to whatever. So I turned to my old reliable friend my pattern of trying to jingle him to play with words and I read that jingle to you in a moment but first I want to underline the fact that this word play. This word play technique works again. It helped me to find a way of phrasing that brief from a a new point in the technology of ethics which is this. When you use an ethical principle remember that it can be cherry picked pure or exaggerated by the child or by the other person. Even to the point of making a sorry you ever said it. And if

anything a child can do you can do better. So if a child can caricature pure a principle you mention to him You yourself can caricature your own principal even more clever. So take a look. Act your principal So take a look at your principals occasionally to see if one of them is overstated is overblown. Might be a caricature of a principle that is important and if so don't get on the ball and say I'm a big boy or a big girl now I'm 20 or 30 or 50 or 60 and it's time to rephrase some of my own principles. So I'll read the Django which represents then two points in connection. With the technology of ethics this proves that this jingle is my

substitute for whiskey GNN LSD. It's a sample of the technique of finding a workable non-damaging way of getting in touch with the wellsprings of human imagination and creative gnosis which must be available for the further development of ethics. Second the content of the jingle. The idea is an expression of another technique which is important in the growth of a technology of ethics namely the need to watch out for the camera could cure our ethical principles by others and by one's self. The jungle is that it is more blessed to give than it is to receive it. Most of us learn that's a good way to live it's an idea that we learn to believe it's a maxim that is APIC helps a child to get beyond the unethical over gun grabbing which is omnipresent in which a life can be happy and pleasant. Only if the child

can expect another present. In that stage the idea of being giving which is a spontaneous part of loving and living gets covered and smothered in. Them. Him me by the persistent drive to say Gimme that when you didn't go. Gets covered in smothered in them or her him me by the possessed drive to say Give me a ticket to slow day my car self-pity scrutinies my father to a better president derived this a gimmick so to help. We say that it's more Black said so to the help now we say that it is more blessed to give than a deal to receive help. Now some However some seem to take this very very serious today. What they say. And later they say to the world imperiously I'm a giver I'm always a giver. If I were to receive I

get a feeling that I'm only a child that would make me while I'm very big and strong please don't get me wrong. Everyone can see I'm strong since I get that's the only way one should live. Now most of us know that. Only a half way to live. When one never receives and always must give. It's a pity to carry your life to deceive one's self really to come to believe it. But it's bad to receive so we must devise another max. I almost said another axiom. That it's blasted to receive about as well as to get even a body must receive it so light is for living or life is not merely for giving. In fact life is for the liver. Life is not only for the giver.

So now. The first suggestion. Had to do with the primary process jingoes rather than LSD or alcohol The second suggestion is to search a caricature to bring ethics back. On the track. The third approach the third approach for a new technology of ethics is this. The growth of the field of psycho dynamics which in good part can be regarded as scientific. Has led to the development of an application of its knowledge in the techniques of psychotherapy which is a process of preparing the next step is to ask. Whether psychic dynamics as a science might lead also to a second application to a second set of techniques. This time two techniques in the field of ethics. Further. If fact goes seem feasible. If two sets of techniques can be developed from the

one science of psycho dynamics. There is a shark attack we might try out. With all due caution and self criticism. If two sets of techniques are developed from the same science they may resemble each other be similar in some way. We might hope for a correlation between the two sets of techniques. Even hope that some of the specific techniques of psychotherapy which now exist might be modified slightly and then be found to be useful also as techniques in the field of ethics to try this out. I'll start with a rather small point in second therapy. It is clear that only rarely can things go rocket. Psychotherapy is the many sided set of techniques which are used in the attempt to cure or alleviate signs or symptoms of certain kinds of its own nose. To lessen the amount of adjustment to lessen the problems in human relations and more

positively phrased to increase the individual strengths and help with affective in working psychotherapy it is only rarely that the psycho therapist and the patient in their own minds can effect a change quickly or rapidly innumerable efforts have been and are being made to sharking the process of psychotherapy. But none of them makes it really short. Only twice in almost 40 years of work in psychiatry have I been successful in curing a serious and presumed symptom. In two hours I'll talk about one of the two times I did it. And again I can say that this story as I give it preserves confidentiality. This happening occurred during one of the several periods of time in which after my training I did further grade work and research in another part of the world. That part's true. But as part of a research program I saw some patients in a project with

criss cross checking some areas of the Kinsey Report on the sexual life of the human male. One married man of 65 was referred to me who had been totally impotent for about 35 years in the first hour. We discussed his history and planned a number of studies of his physical an hour. Or so in a pretty intensive interview I learned something of his emotional life in general. Then in the second hour he began. By saying. This is marvelous. I was seen by Roy. Did he fail. I was seen by your mum. And from there they both failed. I was seen by Ernest Jones Adolf Meyer and Franz Alexander. All of them great man. They all say oh that now I'm seen by you. I'm sure that you won't fail.

I laughed. But it did not offend him. And I said You sure put me in very good company. But maybe maybe beneath the nice things you just said about me. You really might expect me to feign a loss so as they did. You know that some of them were my teachers and you might think that most of what I know I learned from them from these men who were failures with you. I have a hunch. That you feel that when I fail you would have another scalp but you're another man. You have beaten at his own game. This was followed by a petty discussion. The next day his wife called me. To say. To say that they blew it. What had me didn't know it was that I performed America. I agreed that I had help.

But I knew the facts about their lives and I knew that their Think of me thinking of me as doing Merrick or was almost as unproductive over the long run. As was his thinking of me and Freud and the others as a psychiatrist whom we could defeat. In fact these two attitudes are two sides of the same coin. Two halves of the same turning the wheel which turns from the fantasy that the Authority has express power or pro can see doing miracles to the anticipation that the authority will fail or be impotent. So I insisted with full conviction and strong emphasis that it was true that I was an important person at that point in their lives but that more than 90 percent of the credit in reality in absolute truth was there. Several years later the group sponsoring the research wrote me that the follow up showed that the change had persisted. Now I wish I could say that the

sort of response is a frequent occurrence in a brief treatment but it is not. It's very rare psychotherapy takes time. Now as to ethics perhaps you can recall in past conversations how often people talk about how quickly they have helped others with ethical problems or how they have set someone on the right ethical path by a brief talking to by a few words of wisdom by giving him some advice. Or by laying down bone law by setting him straight on something. I have my go. My suggestion is that if helping someone about epics like helping someone in psychotherapy almost never can be done. Quickly. In fact I put down as the first principle of the everyday practice of ethics of the technology of Epix that it takes time. It takes time to help improve the ethical principles or the ethical standards of

another person. And it takes time to improve in a lasting way. One only ethical principles and ethical behavior and I'm not talking about frightening or overwhelming someone into ethical behavior for a moment or an hour a day that's easy. I'm talking about a real shame and that is not easy or quick. This could be elaborated extensively but say seriously at all sirens in all of my own temptations to give a whole book in one lecture. Begone. We too must go on. If some day we have a seminar on psychiatry and ethics we missed home in the field of psychotherapy to see which techniques general or specific have direct relevance to the techniques for the improvement of ethical principles or standards. Some of them will not apply but some may some will. And I'll merely mention

one other in two sentences. Most of the specific techniques of psychotherapy seem to depend. On having good workable therapeutic alliance which has been discussed at various points in this area. It is possible that the process of one person helping another in the further development of his acting can best be done when there has developed the kind of working alliance between them that would be comparable to that of a therapeutic alliance. Yes so technique Number three let's search the techniques of psychic aid to see which can be used in some ways as techniques in the field of that thing.