Dr. Michael Hurd is a psychologist in private practice in Chevy Chase, MD. He offers in-person therapy, phone consultation, and e-mail consultation. Dr. Hurd is the author of "Effective Therapy" (New York: Dunhill, 1997). He also publishes "The Living Resources Newsletter," which covers psychology, education, and politics. This interview was conducted by Joseph Kellard, a freelance writer living in New York.


Objective Science:  Why do you believe one of the hardest tasks that an individual will ever undertake is to let go of irrational feelings and have new, rational ideas become part of their automatic response system?

Dr. Hurd: Imagine that you are in love with somebody, but you know for objective reasons that a relationship with this person would be harmful to you. Perhaps you are happily married, and are simply unavailable to start a new relationship with this other person you love. Or perhaps you are single, but this person -- while wonderful in many respects -- has a severe drinking problem. Or a character problem, such as lying. You know, objectively, that you should not become involved. But a tidal wave of sexual and romantic emotions makes it hard for you to stay true to this judgment.

Moving from the tidal wave of emotions to a sense of serenity that you did the right thing is the process of making the rational ideas part of the automatic response system. It means putting your knowledge of objective reality first, no matter what the emotions. Introspection is necessary to help you accomplish this task.

The same principle is at work in countless other life examples. You know that you need education to accomplish a goal important to you, but sometimes you don't *feel* like studying. You verify that nobody is breaking into your house, but you still *feel* uneasy at the sound of creaking in the attic. Feelings can be slow to catch up to your intellectual knowledge of objective facts. This is why life is sometimes hard. This is why many people conclude, erroneously, that we are powerless against the force of our feelings, that even reason cannot withstand most of them. This is also why many people seek psychological counseling.


Objective Science:  What values must be most important to a person who wants to discover and adhere to objective reality as he abandons his influential, unexamined feelings that cause him to make irrational, destructive choices?

Dr. Hurd: He must value his mind, in the deepest sense of the term. He ought to strive for positive, realistic thinking -- realistic romanticism, or realistic idealism. Individuals, especially those prone to depression or other mental maladies, should stay away from negative, gloomy thinkers. They should try to find people who exercise self-initiative and strive for excellence in some context -- whether it's career, raising children, or simply working to be content and happy. They need to seek out accomplishers, not whiners. They require heroes to emulate, rather than underachievers to make them feel better about their own lack of development.

This is very hard, especially today. Our culture -- at least as measured by what we see in the media -- is fixated on negativity, cynicism, and anti-hero worship. Many daytime talk shows, for instance, are nothing more than freak parades, intentionally designed to show human nature at its very worst. Look at The Jerry Springer Show, for example, which deliberately incites people to violence as a means of "resolving" emotional or interpersonal conflicts. In watching these shows, one attains a sense of what the final days of the Roman Empire must have been like.

Why are these shows so popular? Because there are millions of people out there who don't want to look up to somebody, but instead want to see people who are so depraved that they can feel better about themselves. Instead of feeling, "There are people I want to be like," they feel more comfortable with the contrary notion of, "At least I'm not THAT bad!" It's really very sad, and there are exceptions to this trend, but far too few.

As an alternative, people need to believe in their potential as thinking, conceptual animals. They need to see the heroic possibilities in human nature, and not just the depravity -- the skyscrapers and the brain surgeons, not just the liars, cheaters, and the dictators. Such a viewpoint makes it easier to face reality instead of feeling that you must run away from it.


Objective Science:  What are the most fundamentally rational and irrational ideas of the Twelve Steps of Alcoholic Anonymous (AA) program that you believe make it an ultimately contradictory, unhealthy form of psychological help?

Dr. Hurd: The problem with AA and other Twelve Steps programs is that they teach their members fundamentally contradictory ideas. They teach them both that (1) they are powerless over their addictions and, (2) they need to willfully and responsibly stop the addictive behaviors. As a man I know who's participating in AA recently told me, "I need to accept that I'm powerless over my addiction. I need to stop drinking."

Think about what this man is saying. He's saying that he's powerless to stop, but that he must stop anyway! This makes no sense. And it's also psychologically devastating. If a doctor told a crippled, paralyzed patient: "You are incapable of ever walking again. But you must start walking, now" we would accuse him of cruelty and irrationality. Yet AA somehow escapes this -- or virtually any other -- form of criticism. The politicians, government grant writers and movie stars all adore AA and the programs which rely upon it. But as a mental health clinician with fifteen years of experience, I know that many, many people out in the real world beg to differ on AA's supposed effectiveness.

One AA member objected to my view that man has free will and needs to take responsibility for his choice to drink or not drink, even if he cannot directly or easily control the urge. "I don't like all your talk of free will," he told me disdainfully. "It was my free will that got me into trouble in the first place. It was my free will that led me to drive drunk, get arrested, and mess up my life in other ways. It's my Higher Power that made me stop drinking."

"I'm confused," I replied. "If you have free will to do harmful, bad things, then how is it you don't have free will to do good things such as quit drinking? How can you hold yourself responsible for driving drunk, as you should, but *not* hold yourself responsible when you finally choose to stop drinking? Why do you get all the blame while your Higher Power gets all the credit?" Of course this man had no answer, because AA does not teach him to use reason and logic as consistent absolutes. Evidently he only uses reason and logic when it's convenient.


Objective Science:  Do you believe that many people attracted to certain mystical therapies (e.g., Psychic "healing", "channeling," reincarnation "regression") are often individuals who properly reject the teachings of traditional religions and other schools of psychology, such as Freudian and Behaviorist, as ultimately futile, yet with rational, cognitive therapy unbeknownst to them, they choose this other form of mysticism as their only alternative?

Dr. Hurd: In some cases people do reject traditional therapies or traditional religion in favor of New Age mysticism. They fail to understand that the fundamental errors in all of these schools of thought is the same. The error common to Freudian psychology, Catholicism, and psychic channeling is that something other than reason and facts can be utilized to know reality and to cope with life.

The only "benefit" individuals can gain from such approaches is a sense that they don't have to cope with reality. The Freudian therapy client hands his free will over to his unconscious and to the analyst. The Catholic hands his free will over to the Pope and to God. The psychic channeler hands his free power over to who-knows-what. They all seek (in varying degrees) the same "benefit" a drug addict seeks from his own attempts: escape from the responsibility of using their minds consistently and absolutely. Though the comparison will horrify them, they all seek an escape hatch from reality.

I certainly have nothing against vacations or relaxation time, which some people label as escapes from reality. But these sorts of activities do not force the individual to suspend rational consciousness in order to do them. Recreational activities such as sports do not involve a suspension of consciousness. Sex with your lover or spouse does not involve a suspension of consciousness. Watching a good movie or reading a good story does not involve a suspension of consciousness. Using drugs, or surrendering one's reason to an imagined mystical authority, most certainly does.


Objective Science:  You hold that an individual who enters mystical therapy (where the goal can be anything from reaching Heaven, Nirvana, a previous lifetime, the Transcendent Self) is akin to a patient with a sprained ankle who sees a physician that breaks his ankle rather than mend it. If the psychological harm of such therapy is that blatant, why then does it go largely unrecognized as such?

Dr. Hurd: A huge double standard exists in our culture. In the realm of physical or material things, most people in our society think of reason, facts, and objectivity as more or less absolutes. In the realm of emotions, psychology and "spirituality" people make exceptions. Consider the accomplished scientist who says, "Well, there may be reincarnated lives. Granted, there's no evidence for this assertion. But who knows for sure?"

In the realm of his research on material objects, the same scientist would never for a moment entertain an arbitrary claim completely divorced from empirical evidence. If he did, his reputation and career would be rightfully harmed if not ruined. Yet in the realm of emotions, psychology, and spirituality, he takes it as a self-evident given that reincarnation (or God, or any other mystical claim) may or may not be true.

American culture today is horrendously hypocritical in this regard. Many of us want to have our cake and eat it too -- that is to say, many of us want to have our objective reality and eat it too. If a brain surgeon is to cure our cancer, or if a car mechanic is to fix our brakes, or if an airline pilot is to fly us across the country, we certainly want and even demand objectivity, fact-orientation, and rationality. We want no compromises or breaches with rationality in these areas.

But somehow this whole context is dropped when it comes to the mind, mental health, and philosophy. If the unarticulated premise behind this contradiction could talk it would say: "Your body is important. Don't mess around in that area. Use science and objectivity and rationality. But when it comes to your mind, let your guard down. Whatever feels good, do it. Your mind is not as important, so what's the problem?"

Edited by www.ObjectiveScience.com Copyright Joseph Kellard/Objective Science. All rights reserved. Permission granted to link to this article only; but, permission is not granted to republish it.
 

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