The Three Christs of Ypsilanti - Milton Rokeach [95]
Obviously, serious ethical issues were involved. These issues are highly complex, and we can only comment on the considerations which guided us in employing these procedures. It should first be reiterated that it was on ethical grounds that we turned away from the study of identity in normal children, to work instead with psychotic subjects; with such people, we hoped there might be, therapeutically, little to lose and, hopefully, a good deal to gain. Second, we always proceeded cautiously with the men, assessed their emotional reactions at every step, and were ever ready to back off if we thought it advisable. Third, we always consulted the psychiatric staff at Ypsilanti State Hospital, particularly Dr. O. R. Yoder, Medical Superintendent, and Dr. Kenneth B. Moore, Assistant Medical Superintendent, before embarking on a new experimental procedure, thus obtaining independent checks on our ethical judgment. Fourth, the three men continued eagerly to attend our meetings despite the procedures employed. Had they refused, or had they refused to deal with one another or with us, that would have been the end of it. When Joseph, for example, objected to working in the vegetable room with Leon and Clyde, we changed his work assignment. Fifth, as we got to know the three men better, we were impressed by the fact that their defenses were powerful enough to counter any threat they could not cope with on a realistic level. Sixth, we were cognizant of Frieda Fromm-Reichmann’s observation: “… we no longer treat the patients with the utter caution of bygone days. They are sensitive but not frail.”[1]
Finally, the messages we were going to send Leon and Joseph from their delusional referents were to be composed in such a way as to be supportive and emotionally gratifying. Above all, they must contain suggestions designed to ameliorate the men’s unhappy condition.
[1]Theodore M. Newcomb: Personality and Social Change (New York: Dryden; 1943).
[2]Bruno Bettelheim: “Individual and Mass Behavior in Extreme Situations,” Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, Vol. 38 (1943), pp. 417–52.
[3]K. Lewin: Resolving Social Conflicts (New York: Harper; 1948); J. Adelson: “A Study of Minority Group Authoritarianism,” Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, Vol. 48 (1953), pp. 477–85.
[4]Lifton and Shein: op. cit.
[5]Lifton: ibid., p. 218.
[6]“The concept of transference is applied by Freud to schizophrenia in a negative way. According to him, all the libido in the schizophrenic is withdrawn from external objects, and therefore no transference, no attachment for the analyst, is possible. The result is that the patient is scarcely accessible to analytic treatment.” Sylvano Arieti: Interpretations of Schizophrenia (New York: Robert Brunner; 1955), p. 26.
[7]Strictly speaking, Leon’s “uncle” was not completely a figment of his imagination. Early in Leon’s stay at Ypsilanti there had been an aide by the name of George Bernard Brown, and this aide, from what Leon told us, had developed an unusually positive relationship with Leon before he left for another job. After his departure, Leon had apparently “canonized” him.
[8] Norman Cameron: “Paranoid Conditions and Paranoia,” in S. Arieti (Ed.): American Handbook of Psychiatry (New York: Basic Books; 1959), pp. 518–19.
[9]Cameron: “The Paranoid Pseudo-Community Revisited,” American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 65 (1959), p. 56.
[1]Frieda Fromm-Reichmann: Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy. Selected Papers, D. M. Bullard (Ed.) (Chicago: University of Chicago Press; 1959), p. 204.
CHAPTER XII
ENTER MADAME DUNG
ACTUALLY it was Leon who first brought up the subject. One day, back in April of 1960, he had asked: “How much is an 1898 two-dollar bill worth?” and had then gone on to explain that he was expecting a letter from his wife—with an 1898 two-dollar