The eyes tell us who we are. Joseph Campbell, the guru of mythology, tells us that in evolution, the eyes were the last sense to develop. It’s the infancy of human development. Therefore, we are curious animals and we love to see ourselves. This is why we have a fascination with film and television. Each sitcom in a decade reflects back on who we are and we love to watch ourselves in action; it’s hypnotic.
When teaching classes at the university to graduate students, I help them to finally understand that there are laws of human behavior that govern our actions and reactions and how we interact is not chaos but we can manage and control and direct. Like government propaganda reprogramming the human being. Once they have this understanding, I ask them: “what do you appear to be to the people that see you? You stand in front of your students on a daily basis. Do you know what you project to them? Do you control what you project? If you do not, then you are out of control and you are allowing the environment and other people to determine what you teach and how you direct.” Continue Reading…
Looking for the reinforcer – that’s what we do as parents, teachers, caregivers and leaders of industry: CEO’s and CFO’s. We look for the reinforcer. It was interesting sitting at a meeting with individuals that all earn over six figures a year, a group of them. The management was discussing a higher performance and a higher success and I asked them: “what do you think would motivate you to want to do something different, to do more, to produce more?” Two of them stood up: “we like the envelope board!”
The envelope board is a cork board, that everybody has in their house somewhere, where they post messages or pin a picture. In this case, they pin sealed envelopes, and each sealed envelope has a different amount of money. As each salesperson produces something extra, however we define it, they’re able to go to the cork board and choose any envelope of mystery that they want. They strive to achieve their next goal in order to participate in the mystery of chance. As they produce something ‘extra’, their behavior is reinforced. Continue Reading…
The Backlash
In human culture, when a wrong has been righted, we usually have a group that retaliates even greater. In psychology, we call it ‘the backlash’. I had some high schoolers come into the clinic and the mother was very upset and had wrote on the back of their weekly contract that she wanted the child charged for telling her to shut up. The male teenager, who was 17, couldn’t understand why his mother was so upset. I told him that it indicates an incredible amount of disrespect. His was reply was the when i’m talking to my father and say “ah, come on pops, shut up” he doesn’t seem to mind as much and he seems to banter with me.
I asked an older American to please explain this phenomenon; is it merely a difference in the sexes or a difference in the culture. The older man replied “no, the female has been abused within the social structures of our societies for so many centuries, that finally when equity has arrived within our civilization, that they seem to have a great retaliation for hearing that word that seems to have kept them in their place for so many centuries.” The backlash is a cultural phenomenon that is not to be explained but just to be understood and accepted and to be aware. Continue Reading…
I want to talk to you for a moment about some of the elderly tribal members that sometimes we forget about. I was in a nursing home a few hours ago and the staff were concerned about an elderly gentleman who was probably in his 90′s and was paralyzed and he had problems being courteous. When he wanted something, he would yell and when he would be reprimanded by the staff, he would get angry and they said he was verbally abusive. After listening to their concerns, I went in and talked to the gentleman.
As I entered his room, he was watching the TV and it was extremely loud. I asked him if I could talk to him or if he would rather watch the TV. He said “no, you can turn the TV off” and of course he was yelling at the time. I accidentally turned down the sound instead of turning the TV off and he immediately yelled at me “don’t turn the sound down!” I looked at him and said “are you angry? Why are you yelling at me?” and he replied with “I’m sorry, just turn the power off.” I turned the power off and went and sat down. Continue Reading…