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Jun. 19, 2007
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ASKING HUMAN MATTERS: Teaching human wholeness outside the institution

STEVEN KALAS
Human Matters
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Q: You have mentioned in previous columns being a former member of the ordained clergy. Why former? Are you still involved in church work today? -- T.O., Little Rock, Ark.

A: In the nine months since we added Tuesday's Asking Human Matters to my regular Sunday column, yours is the sixth time I've been asked this question. I didn't respond the first five times. Not sure why I'm responding now.

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    • Am I still involved in church work? In the broader sense, the work I'm doing today is virtually identical to my previous life as a parish priest. I provide people a context of meaning, safety and encouragement in which to confront themselves, learn, suffer, celebrate, grow. I teach. I communicate a vision of human wholeness and authenticity.

    Same vocation. Different location. Different audience. And so much more room to breathe.

    But if you're asking specifically if I'm any longer serving institutional religion in a professional capacity, the answer is no. I've returned to civilian life, as it were.

    Why?

    Ever read Ken Kesey's 1962 novel "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest"? Or seen the film adaptation starring Jack Nicholson? The setting is among the patients and workers at a mental institution.

    In Kesey's story, you meet our hero, R.P. McMurphy, a con man who pretends to be a mental health case to avoid a prison work farm. He challenges authority. He teaches the mental patients to be sane.

    You also meet Nurse Ratched, the ward superintendent. You don't like her. Kesey describes her as "enormous, capable of swelling up bigger and bigger to monstrous proportions." As you keep reading, you wonder if she's a very good psych nurse. Pages later, you wonder if she's helping the patients. Still later, you wonder if she's hurting the patients.

    But it is worse still than all that. In the end you discover that Nurse Ratched needs the patients to be sick. She conscripts the patients to maintain the polished persona necessary to avoid confronting her own injured and insecure self.

    Billy is a 31-year-old stuttering neurotic. McMurphy sneaks two prostitutes onto the ward late at night, one of whom spends the night with Billy. When Nurse Ratched arrives on the scene the next morning, she is outraged. Billy comes hopping out of his room, pulling on his pants, to the applause of the other patients.

    "Aren't you ashamed of yourself," says Nurse Ratched, voice dripping with the very shame she so desperately needs Billy to wear. And, for the first time in his life, in the company of a powerful woman, Billy, utterly sane, sets his gaze and says, without stuttering, "No, ma'am."

    I'm not advocating sex workers as part of the regular treatment plan for psych patients, but who cannot see this tawdry romp has been a healing intervention for Billy? He is in this moment wholly himself.

    Off balance for but a few seconds, you can see the feral intelligence of a new idea bloom behind the nurse's eyes. "Well," she says smugly. "We'll see what your mother has to say about this."

    Billy begins to stutter again. He begs Nurse Ratched not to tell his mother. They take him back to his room, screaming. Billy breaks a glass and cuts his own throat. Kills himself.

    Only McMurphy sees the evil as evil. He jumps on Nurse Ratched. Attempts to choke her to death. For his trouble, he gets a lobotomy.

    But I think McMurphy's real crisis happens earlier in the book. Nurse Ratched leads group therapy. McMurphy is dumbfounded, incredulous to learn that he is the only patient in this hospital who is remanded there. Every one else is free -- totally free -- to leave the hospital at any time. But they don't leave. They remain passive. In effect, they agree to both obedience and unwellness because they are, in the end, just as invested in Nurse Ratched's persona as she is.

    No one cares. This is McMurphy's real horror. His unspeakable pain.

    Thus endeth my little allegory.

    I didn't leave because of Nurse Ratched. I left because it finally occurred to me that, collectively speaking, everyone was just fine with Nurse Ratched.

    I left before they gave me a lobotomy.

    Steven Kalas is a behavioral health consultant and counselor at Clear View Counseling and Wellness Center in Las Vegas. Write to him in care of the Review-Journal at P.O. Box 70, Las Vegas, NV 89125.

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    debra wrote on September 19, 2008 06:10 PM: Steve, I didn't ask the question, heck I didn't even know there was a question to be asked, but either way thank you for answering and thanks for the answer. The truth in your statement is the truth in the movie...and why it is so fightning.

    I wasn't a priest, just a sunday school teacher...but I get it. I recieve a lobotomy either...nor did I try to strangle anyone. What I did do for more months than I care to remember is stand up and say "what is wrong with you people? This is the Lord's house...we have an Almighty God who loves us and cares for us and yet you just sit here day after day week after week with no joy, no passion, no plans, no out-reach....just sitting there with grim faces and grim outlooks, doing things they way they've always been done".
    It was killing me. It was pulling me down with them and their negativity and judgement...not of the sin but of the sinners...all of them, accept of course themselves.

    I knew there was God in your answers. I knew you spoke truth, undeniable, for-your-own-good truth. By answering this question that you understandably did really want to, you answered the questions i really wanted to ask.
    And for that I thank you.

    From one truth sayer to another.


    Lou wrote on June 24, 2007 04:14 PM: Oh yes! Absolutely! This was a great metaphor!
    Thanks


    Jon Hamel wrote on June 21, 2007 11:39 AM: In response to P. Harvey . . . Like yourself I also enjoy Steven Kalas's work, but unlike yourself, I think this is one of his better columns. One needs to be able to adjust ones world view at times to understand another persons thoughts. If one always attempts to gain understanding only though a narrow myopic view of the world, much understanding will be lost. I suggest we once again consider Steven's final words, in the context of the changing world view he must of experienced.

    "I didn't leave because of Nurse Ratched. I left because it finally occurred to me that, collectively speaking, everyone was just fine with Nurse Ratched. I left before they gave me a lobotomy."

    So much said . . . so much to learn . . . profound.


    P. Harvey wrote on June 21, 2007 07:08 AM: Lets not forget that McMurphy was guilty of sexual relations with a minor. Perhaps Melvile's Ahab would be better. His obsession leads him to destroy the ship's compass dooming the crew. Normally Steven, I love all your work. I have for over twenty years. Unfortuneately this piece is not your best. Where is "the rest of the story?"


    MARGARET HARRIS wrote on June 19, 2007 08:50 PM: Cheers and congratulations for working outside "the box." I read your columns eagerly for your great sense of humor, outstanding common sense, and,yes, because I too am a Christian, wanting to do my best.


    a big fan wrote on June 19, 2007 07:11 AM: Wow! Outstanding! As a budding therapist and one that struggles with organized religion but sees the value of spirituality (plain and simple)in the therapeutic realm, you just answered rather succintly, what I struggle with where organized religion is concerned...thank you thank you thank you...for anyone else who doesn't get this or for some god awful reason you are offended by this b/c many will be, (it took a lot of courage for this man to admit this)...perhaps you need to stay sick...or get a lobotomy :-)