The Three Christs of Ypsilanti - Milton Rokeach [134]
By means of our experimental procedure we had put Joseph in what has been called a “double-bind”[2]—either he must change his behavior to comply with suggestions made by a positive authority or he must change his attitude toward authority itself. This had happened earlier to Leon, who had either to go along with Madame Yeti Woman’s suggestions or else to change his attitudes toward her. At first Leon had gone along with her suggestions, but not without some ambivalence. As the ambivalence increased, he changed his attitudes toward her, eventually giving up the delusion that he was married to her or even that she existed, and more generally giving up the delusion that he was a Yeti man, a member of the Yeti tribe of remote Mount Komuru, which had very specific norms and values.
We now see a similar double-bind leading to a similar change in Joseph’s delusional system. Dr. Yoder had made the suggestion that perhaps Joseph would like to do some writing. Although Dr. Yoder had tried to reassure him that he didn’t have to write if he didn’t have the “head for it,” the suggestion had apparently rearoused Joseph’s long-dormant, deep-seated inferiorities. He clearly wanted to follow Dr. Yoder’s suggestion, but he simply was not up to it. Joseph resolved this conflict by writing to President Kennedy. “I am unready to scribble literature at this moment. What remains? To get a job from you, President Kennedy.” What kind of a job? “If you want a good writer with you, I am the one. I can write.” And a bit further on: “I hear voices that you are my dad, my father.”
Both Joseph and Leon were unable to carry out certain suggestions made by their positive referents. And they resolved the double-bind situation by getting rid of these referents and substituting others. There is a further interesting fact. As Joseph and Leon found it necessary to substitute new referents, they both conjured up referents of higher status, personages who were more powerful than the preceding ones. In Joseph’s case, President Kennedy replaced Dr. Yoder. In Leon’s case, Madame Yeti Woman was promoted to God and, a bit later, to Grand God. It is as if Joseph and Leon had to upgrade their delusional referents in order to provide themselves with increasing protection against and explanation for the frustrating and puzzling events which had taken place. And in doing so they may well have repeated at the delusional level what happened years before at the level of reality.
Further light was thrown on the matter a couple of days later, on Easter Sunday, when Joseph, in his meeting report, wrote that it was he who had died on the cross. He also said he was sick; he had vomited. From that day on, he began to complain again of his “stomach pains.” It was then well over two months since he had begun taking four placebo capsules a day; during all this time he had not once complained of any kind of physical distress. On earlier occasions, to ask him how he felt was only to invite him to go into detailed, hypochondriacal discussions of how sick he was and how much he needed his mineral oil or baking soda or Alka Seltzer. One of the most startling effects of the letters from Dr. Yoder was the sudden and complete cessation of all such physical complaints.
When Joseph’s complaints intensified during the next few days, we ordered a full medical examination by a specialist, including X-rays. The findings: Joseph had a duodenal ulcer.
Within a week or two after being placed on an ulcer program, with amphojel, interval feedings, tincture of belladonna, and phenobarbital, Joseph stopped complaining of the stomach pains. Since it seemed there was no further purpose in continuing the placebos,