Part 1, A World Gone Mad

I recently heard that a good way to tell a story is to arrive late and leave early. With that in mind, I’m starting with notes I took yesterday about an article written in 2006, one that I just discovered (maybe around the time I heard the chestnut about approaching writing as if you are going to a party). I now wish I’d seen the article in 2009. “The Wisdom of the Elders: Psychotherapy’s Elders Throw Down the Gauntlet” by Michael Ventura is a commentary on a psychological conference that is held every few years. If I had read it before volunteering at the 2009 conference, I would have walked in with different expectations. At the time, I was completing my coursework for a master’s degree in professional counseling. My practicum supervisor suggested I attend the conference as a volunteer, not only for the experience but to get a significant discount on admission.

Ventura’s article starts with a description of the conference site. It brought back my memories of staying in a hotel within walking distance. Both hotel and convention center are located directly across the street from Disneyland. While walking to and fro between hotel and conference, the sound of people screaming on the rides was constant. So, imagine my surprise while reading the opening paragraph:

"The Anaheim Convention Center, site of last December's ‘Evolution of Psychotherapy’ conference [2005], is a monument to the impersonal: antiseptic cavernous halls; inhumanly and impractically high ceilings; enormous, featureless rooms; and escalators almost the length of a city block. Its decor consists of hard and soft grays and whites, relentlessly neutral and acoustically dead. Without a microphone, no one can hear you, even if you scream.”

The screams coming from Disneyland were inaudible inside that “monument to the impersonal,” too.

I need to take a step back here. This is not a report on the conference, and it’s not just a review of the article. It’s my attempt to step back in time to remember a significant event, that conference. There is so much to tell and I don’t know where to begin. I learned in the article that “Patch Adams” himself was a guest at the 2005 conference. Last night, I watched a video of him speaking in 2010. He says this country, the United States, rewards fame rather than intelligence. His clowning has made him famous and on his tours he spreads an impassioned and intelligent message. Perhaps this comment by one of the viewers of the video sums it up: “No price should be placed on well-being, ever.”

Hunter Doherty “Patch” Adams gave the keynote speech at the 2005 conference. The speech was, according to plan, supposed to address mental illness as a normal response to disaster that requires not medication but a call for action to create healthy contexts. Ventura mused upon why a keynote clown was an appropriate tone-setter for a gathering whose stated theme was a call to social action.

Thinking about this today, I wonder whether sending in the clowns might be just the thing. Burn the place down and dance on the ashes with Bozo and his compadres. Why not? We’re never going to “all get along,” so let’s just laugh our way through what’s left. Of course, I’m joking! We need a lot more than laughter, and yet maybe we also need more laughter.

I’m grateful to Ventura for documenting his experience at that conference. I intend to write more about it idays to come. The article, after all, is eight pages long and what I’m covering today doesn’t even include the first two pages. He uses the word “wag” to describe someone he met who characterized the elders as Sinatras. (Frank liked clowns, didn’t he?) Business as usual, the status quo, occupied “much of what was presented,” Ventura writes.

We are now twenty years into the 21st century, which ends at the strike of midnight on the eve ushering in New Year’s Day 2101. In other words, the century is both 20% over and 80% unlived, yet to be experienced. The conference sessions dealing with the historical impact of therapy during these 100 years were mostly led by “radical visionaries... over 80.” The swan song of the Sinatras seemed to be, “What larger role can psychotherapy play in a world gone mad?”

Thus ends Part 1.

(Photo taken December 2009 in the Anabella Hotel lobby)