This delighted me. These people in the main do not volunteer their age or their history this readily, and he seemed entirely trusting when he came so easily to the point. His mind was entirely in accord with his words, and these words particularly fascinated me. I do not think I had ever encountered a person with quite this background. And there was a great deal I wanted to tell him. Is modern life driving many people insane? If humankind could return to a simpler life, would insanity diminish or disappear? Mental disorders are rare among technologically primitive peoples. For instance, recent cursory studies of the people on Okinawa and the natives of Kenya have suggested these groups are virtually free of some psychoses. Contrasted with this picture is the civilized United States of America, where some authorities have estimated that one person in 10 suffers an incapacitating mental illness at one time or another during one’s life. In America at present, however, systems of honor seem to be in decline. The stigmatized individual tends to hold the same beliefs about identity that we do; this is a pivotal fact. One’s deepest feelings about what one is may be one’s sense of being a “normal person,” a human being like anyone else, a person, therefore, who deserves a fair chance and a fair break. #RandolphHarris 1 of 19

The notion of a normal human being may have its source in the medical approach to humanity or in the tendency of large-scale bureaucratic organizations, such as the nation state, to treat all members in some respects as equal. Whatever its origins, it seems to provide the basic imagery through which laymen currently conceive of themselves. Interestingly, a convention seems to have emerged in popular life-story writing where a questionable person proves one’s claim to normalcy by citing one’s acquisition of a spouse and children, and, oddly, by attesting to one’s spending Christmas and Thanksgiving with them.  (Actually, however, phrased, one bases one’s claims not on what one thinks is due everyone, but only everyone of a selected social category into which one unquestionably fits, for example, anyone of one’s age, gender, profession, and so forth.) Yet one may perceive, usually quite correctly, that whatever others profess, they do not really “accept” one and ae not ready to make contact with one on “equal grounds.” Further, the standards one has incorporated from the wider society equip one to be intimately alive to what others see as one’s failing, inevitably causing one, if only for moments, to agree that one does indeed fall short of what one really ought to be. #RandolphHarris 2 of 19

 Shame becomes a central possibility, arising from the individual’s perception of one of one’s own attributes as being a defiling thing to possess, and one the individual can readily see oneself as not possessing. The immediate presence of normal is likely to reinforce this split between self-demands and self, but in fact self-hate and self-derogation can also occur when only one and a mirror are about: “When I got up at last…and had to learn to walk again, one day I took a hand glass and went to a long mirror to look at myself, and I went alone. I did not want anyone to know how I felt when I saw myself for the first time. However, there was no noise, no outcry; I did not scream with rage when I saw myself. I just felt numb. That person in the mirror could not be me. I felt inside like a healthy, ordinary, lucky person—oh, not like the one in the mirror! Yet when I turned my face to the mirror there were my own eyes looking back, hot with shame when I did not cry or make any sound, it became impossible that I should speak of it to anyone, and the confusion and the panic of my discovery were locked inside me then and there, to be faces alone, for a very long time to come. Over and over I forgot what I had seen in the mirror. It could not penetrate into the interior of my mind and become an integral part of me. #RandolphHarris 3 of 19

“I felt as if it had nothing to do with me; it was only a disguise. But it was not the kind of disguise which is put on voluntarily by the person who wears it, and which is intended to confuse other people as to one’s identity. My disguise had been put on me without my consent or knowledge like the ones in fairy tales, and it was I myself who was confused by it, as to my own identity. I looked in the mirror, and was horror-struck because I did not recognize myself. In the place where I was standing, with that persistent romantic elation in me, as if I were a favored fortunate person to whom everything was possible, I saw a stranger, a little, pitiable, hideous figure, and a face that became, as I started at it, painful and blushing with shame. It was only a disguise, but it was on me, for life. It was there, it was there, it was real. Every one of those encounters was like a blow on the head. They left me dazed and dumb and senseless every time, until slowly and stubbornly my robust persistent illusion of well-being and of personal beauty spread all through me again, and I forgot the irrelevant reality and was all unprepared and vulnerable again.” The central feature of the stigmatized individual’s situation in life can now be stated. It is a question of what is often, if vaguely, called “acceptance.” Those who have dealings with one fail to accord one the respect and regard which the contaminated aspects of one’s social identity have led them to anticipate extending, and have led one to anticipate receiving; one echoes this denial by finding that some of one’s own attributes warrant it. #RandolphHarris 4 of 19

How does the stigmatized person respond to one’s situation? In some cases it will be possible for one to make a direct attempt to correct what one sees as the objective basis of one’s failing, as when a physically deformed person undergoes plastic surgery, a blind person eye treatment, an illiterate remedial education, a homosexual psychotherapy. (Where such repair is possible, wat often results is not the acquisition of fully normal status, but a transformation of self from someone with a particular blemish into someone wit a record of having corrected a particular blemish.) Jere proneness to “victimization” is to be cited, a result of the stigmatized person’s exposure to fraudulent servers selling speech correction, skin lighteners, body stretchers, youth restorers (as in rejuvenation through fertilized egg yolk treatment), cures through faith, and poise in conversation. Whether a practical technique or fraud is involved, the quest, often secret, that results provides a special indication of the extremes to which the stigmatized can be willing to go, and hence the painfulness of the situation that leads them to these extremes. The sense of identity and self-esteem of the average member of the middle class bases their social position, prestige, power to command as the props on which one’s self-esteem rests. If these props are taken away, one collapses morally like a deflated balloon. #RandolphHarris 5 of 19

 Miss Peck [a pioneer New York social worker for the hard of hearing] said that “in the early days the quacks and get-rich-quick medicine men who abounded saw the League [for the hard of hearing] as their happy hunting ground, ideal for the promotion of magnetic head caps, miraculous vibrating machines, artificial eardrums, blowers, inhalers, massagers, magic oils, balsams, and other guaranteed, sure-fire, absolute, and permanent cure-alls for incurable deafness. Advertisements for such hokum (until the 1920’s when the American Medical Association moved in with an investigation campaign) beset the hard of hearing in the pages of the daily press, even in reputable magazines.” The stigmatized individual can also attempt to correct one’s condition indirectly by devoting much private effort to the mastery of areas of activity ordinarily felt to be closed on incidental and physical grounds to one with one’s shortcoming. This is illustrated by the lame person who learns or re-learns to swim, ride, play tennis, or fly an airplane, or the blind person who becomes expert at skiing and mountain climbing. They resented their fate, but somehow accepted it as something that fit their understanding of the course of events. #RandolphHarris 6 of 19

Tortured learning may be associated, of course, with the tortured performance of what is learned, as when an individual, confined to a wheelchair, manages to take to the dance floor with a girl a shameful differentness can break with what is called reality, and obstinately attempt to employ an unconventional interpretation of the character of one’s social identity. I have attempted to describe the relationship which is basic to constructive personality change. I have tried to put into words the type of capacity which the individual brings to such a relationship. The third phrase of my general statement is that change and personal develop can occur. It is my hypothesis that in such a relationship the individual will reorganize oneself at both the conscious and deeper levels of one’s personality in such a manner as to cope with life more constructively, more intelligently, and in a more socialized as well as a more satisfying way. Here I can depart from speculation and bring in the steadily increasing body of solid research knowledge which is accumulating. We know now that individuals who live in such a relationship even for a relatively limited number of hours show profound and significant changes in personality, attitudes, and behavior, changes that do not occur in matched groups. #RandolphHarris 7 of 19

In such a relationship the individual becomes more integrated, more integrated, more effective. One shows fewer of the characteristics which are usually termed neurotic of psychotic, and more of the characteristics of the health, well-functioning person. One changes one’s perception of oneself, becoming more realistic in one’s views of self. One becomes more like the person one wished to be. One values oneself more highly. One is more self-confident and self-directing. One has a better understanding of oneself, becomes more open to one’s experience, denies or represses less of one’s experience. One becomes more accepting in one’s attitudes toward others, seeing others as more similar to oneself. In one’s behavior one shows similar changes. One is less frustrated by stress, and recovers from stress more quickly. One becomes more mature in one’s everyday behavior as this is observed by friends. One is less defensive, more adaptive, more able to meet situations creatively. These are some of the changes which we now know come about in individuals who have completed a series of counseling interviews in which the psychological atmosphere approximates the relationship. Each of the statements made is based upon objective evidence. #RandolphHarris 8 of 19

Much more research needs to be done, but there can no longer be any doubt as to the effectiveness of such a relationship in producing personality change. To me, the exciting thing about these researching findings is not simply the fact that they give evidence of the efficacy of one form of psychotherapy, though that is by no means unimportant. The excitement comes from the fact that these findings justify an even broader hypothesis regarding all human relationships. There seems every reason to suppose that the therapeutic relationship is only one instance of interpersonal relations, and that the same lawfulness governs all such relationships. Thus it seems reasonable to hypothesize that if the parent creates with one’s child a psychological climate such as we have described, then the child will become more self-directing, socialized, and mature. To the extent that the teacher creates such a relationship with one’s class, the student will become a self-initiated leaner, more original, more self-disciplined, less anxious and other-directed. If the administrator, or military or industrial leader, creates such a climate within one’s organization, the one’s staff will become more self-responsible, more creative, better able to adapt to new problems, more basically cooperative. #RandolphHarris 9 of 19

It appears possible to me that we are seeing the emergence of a new field of human relationships, in which we may specify that is certain attitudinal conditions exist, then certain definable changes will occur. If I can create a relationship characterized on my part: by genuineness and transparency, in which I am my real feelings; by a warm acceptance of and prizing of the other persons as a separate individual; by a separate individual; by a sensitive ability to see one’s World and oneself as one sees them; then the other individual in the relationship: will experience and understand aspects of oneself which previously one has repressed; will find oneself becoming better integrated, more able to function effectively; will become more similar to the person one would like to be; will be more self-directing and self-confident; will become more of a person, ore unique and more self-expressive; will be more understanding, more acceptant of others; will be able to cope with the problems of life more adequately and more comfortably. I believe that this statement holds whether I am speaking of my relationship with a client, with a group of students or staff members, with my family or children. It seems to me that we have here a general hypothesis which offers exciting possibilities for the development of creative, adaptive, autonomous persons. #RandolphHarris 10 of 19

The chief aim of existential-integrative therapy is to set people free—physically, cognitively, and emotionally. For our purposes, freedom is the perceived capacity for choice within the natural and self-imposed limitations of living. These limitations include (but are not exhausted by) culture, genes, biology, and cosmic density, such as Earthquakes. Human experience (or consciousness) can be understood in terms of six (intertwining and overlapping) levels of freedom: the physiological, the environmental, the cognitive, the psychosexual, the interpersonal, and the experiential (being). These levels (or spheres) of consciousness reflect increasing degrees of freedom within an ever-deepening domain. The outermost (physiological) level, for example, is a simpler and more restrictive manifestation of the environmental level; the environmental level is a simpler and more restrictive manifestation of the cognitive level; and so on. The range of freedom at any given level is a function of the domain that delineates that level. One’s experience of physiological (or organic) freedom, for example, is delimited by one’s ancestry, physical disposition, diet, exercise quota, substance use (for instance, drugs or alcohol), and other genetic and biochemical equivalents. #RandolphHarris 11 of 19

One’s experience of environmental freedom is similarly delineated by classical and operant conditioning phenomena. To the degree that one can manipulate conditioned and unconditioned stimuli (as in desensitization and graded-exposure procedures) or positive and negative reinforcement contingencies (as in reward and avoidance stratagems), one can attain measurable, observable environmental mastery. An example might be rewarding oneself with a vacation for keeping up a high-grade average. Cognitive freedom is demarcated by the principles of logic and rational thought. One experiences freedom here to the extent that one can identify maladaptive schemas (for instances, beliefs, assumptions, and self-statements); change those schemas through practice; and adopt new schemas based on rational and objective evidence. Some of the strategies one might use to bring about this level of liberation are rational restructuring, positive reframing, social modeling, thought stopping, thought rehearsal, and guided visualization. Using one of these strategies might bring about the recognition that one is not worthless or hopeless person just because of an unsuccessful conversation with a potential romantic partner, for example. #RandolphHarris 12 of 19

Until now, we have considered relatively conscious, measurable, observable forms of psychophysiological liberations. We have considered choice at the level of bio-chemistry, environmental manipulation, and specifiable thought processes. Now, we will shift our emphasis to comparatively subconscious, nonquantifiable psychophysiological experiences. These experiences are posited to underlie and sometimes subvert the above physiological, environmental, and cognitive levels of freedom. Freedom at the level of psychosexuality, for example, entails clarification and integration of one’s sexual-aggressive past; to the degree that this is not accomplished, one is considered pathogenically vulnerable. Liberation at this level means the strengthening of the ego—the capacity to maximize instinct gratification (sexual-aggressive expressiveness) while minimizing a sense of punishment and guilt (super-ego repressiveness). Imbalances either toward over gratification or repression are considered compulsive and therefore unfree. Psychosexual liberation is facilitated by the psychoanalytic techniques of free association, interpretation of the resistances and transference, intellectual insight, and dream interpretation. The emphasis here is on a cognitive understanding of the relationship between present relationships and past psychosexual conflicts. #RandolphHarris 13 of 19

The therapist serves as a surrogate parent here, clarifying and correcting the client’s distorted psychosexual reminiscences. For example, the therapist would help the client understand how the childhood dread of castration might manifest itself as an adult fear of assertiveness. Freedom at the level of interpersonal relationships (such as that illustrated by self psychology) both acknowledges and transcends freedom at the level of psychosexual relations. The operative dimensions here are interpersonal attachment and separation, not merely drives and social prohibitions. Freedom at the interpersonal level balances individual striving and uniqueness with interpersonal dependence and connectedness. Although interpersonal liberation also stresses the understanding of early childhood dynamics, the specific components of those dynamics differ from the components of psychosexual liberation. They include (but are not limited to) desires for and frustrations with affection, nurturance, validation, encouragement, and social/moral direction. Interpersonal liberation is facilitated not only by intellectual insight but by re-experiencing the past in the present. The therapist-client relationship is the vehicle for this reexperiencing, and current separation-attachment issues are focused upon. #RandolphHarris 14 of 19

With time and an appropriately corrective therapeutic experience, the client comes to value one’s capacity both for separateness and for relatedness, and is markedly less coerced by either position. For example, one might reexperience early nurturance deficits and work through the resultant fears, frustrations, and overcompensations associated with this damage. Forming the core of our spectrum, finally, is what I term experiential freedom, which might also be called being level or ontological freedom. Experiential liberation embraces not only physiology, environmental conditioning, cognition, psychosexuality, and interpersonal relations, but also cosmic or intersituational relations—the whole human being as far as possible. Experiential liberation is intersituatinal in that it pertains, not merely to this or that content or period of one’s life, but to the preverbal/kinesthetic awareness that underlie contents or periods of one’s life. Experiential liberation is affect-centered and best described by metaphors, works of art, and literary allusions. (Consider, for example, the expressionistic style of Vincent van Gogh, the descriptive richness of Anne Rice, or the symbolic profundity of a Hitchcock film.) Experiential liberation compares favorable to Merleau-Ponty’s (1962) “body-subject,” Wilhelm Reich’s (1949) “bioenergy,” and Morris Berman’s (1989) “kinesthetic awareness.” Each is centered in the body, and each attends to the relatively nonmediated consciousness that radiates through the body. #RandolphHarris 15 of 19

Although expansions is often associated with freedom and constriction with limits, they are not always synonymous terms. Restraint, focus, and discipline, for example, can be freeing in some contexts; conversely, activism, assertion, and audacity can be limiting (for instance, when compulsively engaged). In the balance of this essay, therefore, freedom and limitation are viewed primarily as contest for constriction and expansion, and not their conceptual equivalents. Experiential liberation, finally, is also client-centered—derivative of and pertinent to the client’s own particular struggles. This is not to say that the therapist’s and society’s concerns are dismissed in experiential liberation. Unquestionably, they cannot be dismissed and should be raised responsibly in the course of therapy. However, the ultimate criteria for experiential liberation reside in clients’ awarenesses, and it is they who must live with the consequences of those criteria. To elaborate, experiential liberation is distinguished by four intertwining and overlapping dimensions: the immediate, the kinesthetic, the affective, and the profound, or cosmic. These dimensions form the ground, or horizon, within which each of the aforementioned liberation strategies operate, and they are the context for at least one more clinically significant set of structures. These are, according to phenomenological research, the capacities to constrict, expand, and center one’s energies and experiences. #RandolphHarris 16 of 19

Expansion is the perception of bursting forth and extending psychophysiologically; constriction is the perception of drawing back and confining psychophysiolocially. Expansion is associated with the sense of gaining, enlarging, dispersing, ascending, filling, accelerating, or, in short, increasing psychophysiological options. Constriction, on the other hand, is signified by the perception or retreating, diminishing, isolating, falling, emptying, slowing, or, in short, reducing psychophysiological options. Centering, finally, is the capacity to be aware of and to direct one’s constrictive or expansive possibilities. Constriction and expansion lie along a potentially infinite continuum, only degrees of which are conscious. Constrictive or expansive dream fantasies (for example, ones in which humiliation or vengeance play a role) may be subconscious. The further one purses constriction, the closer one gets to a sense of being “wiped away,” obliterated. The further one pursues expansion, the closer one gets to an equally excessive perception of “exploding,” entering chaotic nonentity. (I use the prefix hyper- wit constriction or expansion to designate the dysfunctional or unmanageable engagement of either polarity). Dread of constriction or expansion (due mainly to past trauma) fosters extreme or dysfunctional counterreactions to those polarities. #RandolphHarris 17 of 19

This sets up a situation where, for example, expansive grandiosity becomes an escape from, or a counterreaction to, the constrictive belittlement one experienced as a child; or constrictive rigidity becomes an avoidance of the expansive disarray and confusion one experienced in a natural disaster. Confrontation with the constrictive or expansive dreads, on the other hand, can promote renewed capacities to experience the World (for instance, from a standpoint of humility for the grandiose client or from the standpoint of spontaneity for the rigid client). These two polar eventualities—chaos and obliteration, greatness and smallness—haunt the entire spectrum of freedoms. There is an intimate connection, I seems, between our most gripping anxieties) (for instance, greatness, smallness) and the primordial forces of the Universe (for instance, the “Big Bang”)—and the reports of clients confirm it. They constitute both the dreads and the possibilities underlying physiological elation (arousal) and inhibition (tranquility), conditioned recklessness (conduct disorders) and withdrawal (phobias), cognitive exaggeration (overgeneralization) and rigidity (dichotomous thinking), gluttony (promiscuity) and psychosexual austerity (abstinence), and separation (estrangement) and interpersonal attachment (dependency). #RandolphHarris 18 of 19

Experiential liberation is facilitated by careful and sensitive therapeutic invitations to stay present to (explore) denied constrictive or expansive parts of oneself. The more these parts manifest anxiety (as opposed to intellectual or detached content), the closer they are purported to be to core constrictive or expansive injuries. The gradual integration of this (preverbal/kinesthetic) material and the sense that one can survive its chaotic or obliterating implications promotes health, vitality, and an enhanced appreciation for spiritual dimension (for instance, awe, wonder, and connectedness with the cosmos). Although experiential liberation can help to open up extraordinary ranges of possibility, it is not purported to dissolve all conflict or puzzlements. To the contrary, it accepts the dialectical condition between self and not-self, freedom and limits, and helps clients to find optimal rather than consummate meanings. The implication here is that although there are always more possibilities for constrictive or expansive encounters, we cannot always reach or bear them. It is enough, at this level, to emancipate key blocks and anxieties, to, for example, overcome one’s timid, reticent disposition by confronting one’s deepest revulsions to brazenness. “Thus, the Lord did begin to pour out his Spirit upon them; and we see that his arm is extended to all people who will repent and believe on his name,” reports Alma 19.36. #RandolphHarris 19 of 19

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