Founder of The Galen Green School of History Therapy

The Galen Green School of History Therapy

Galen Green
mythoklast@mailstation.com
msmith2210@aol.com
Kansas City, Missouri

Wednesday
October 31, 2007
(the late poet John
Keats' 212th birthday)




The Galen Green School of History Therapy



Dear Shannon (& Co.),

Unlike most of my other salvageable ideas, that of History Therapy was born directly out of subjective experience. That is to say: I conceived of History Therapy only after I had personally experienced it.

I've intended for some time now to jot down a few of my preliminary thoughts concerning History Therapy, but have finally been moved to follow through only after reading your recent letter in which you mentioned your drawing upon certain historical realities you'd documented, while composing your doctoral dissertation, for the purpose of enhancing the psychotherapeutic care you've subsequently been providing to Iraq War veterans. (Please forgive me if I didn't get that exactly right; I did my best.)

I'm eager to have you tell me more about how this process has worked out for you and your clients. I understand, however, that your busy schedule seems likely to make any immediate response prohibitive. In the meantime, therefore, I thought I'd perhaps be so bold as to share at least the rudiments of my own perspective, fully recognizing that any comparison between the process I have in mind and the process you've been formulating in your work as a psychotherapist may, in fact, be light-years apart. Even if that turns out to be the case, I'm operating here in the faith that this present sharing of my perspective might have some small bit of value for you in your work, or at least somewhere in your future writing.

As I said at the outset: History Therapy was something which happened to me prior to my having conceived of it as a useful process or to my having a name for it. I can, however, recall the first time I brought it up in a conversation. It was with my friend Betty, a semi-retired (M.D.) psychiatrist, probably sometime in 2004. We were both on duty one afternoon at one the many Kansas City area hospitals then owned by Health Midwest and later purchased by Hospital Corporation of America (HCA). Seated across a hospital cafeteria table from Dr. Betty (with whom, I supposed it's worth noting, I'd never been other than a personal friend -- never a client), I was relating to her how certain of my recent readings of "popular histories" had had on me an amazingly healing effect not unlike that of psychotherapy -- and I was asking her whether or not she was aware of, within the broad and multifarious field of 21st century psychotherapy, any such animal as "History Therapy." Although (as nearly as I can recall) she had not heard of anything in her field yet referred to as such, we ended up having a stimulating chat about my personal experiencing of History Therapy and about what potential History Therapy, as a discipline, might or might not have
as a process to help future clients and psychotherapist in their work together.

So, for what it's worth, that was first time I can recall ever having used the term "History Therapy" or even having spoken aloud to another human being so much as a hint of how it had touched my life.

In your letter of about three weeks ago to me, you spoke of "perspective" with a reverence to which I can easily relate. I mention it at this juncture because, as I see it, perspective is the empowering healing elixir which History Therapy has the potential to infuse us with. It pleases me beyond words to hear you speak about it the way you do. Perspective is so shamefully undervalued by Early 21st century American Society ("The Roaring Zeros," as I've dubbed the present decade) a fact which strikes me as all the more chilling because of my fervent conviction that perspective is precisely what Americans -- of every age, race, class, etc. -- are nowadays thirsting for most pitiably.

Without whining to you any more than you need to hear for the purpose of propelling this discourse apace, I'm going to reveal here only that (to parody an old Methodist hymn) "Since History Therapy Came Into My Heart," I've been empowered as only the luckiest of psychotherapy clients have been.


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Another way of turning the thing in an effort to make my (thus far admittedly half-baked) theories concerning what I keep calling "History Therapy" intelligible might be to begin by pointing out what I perceive to be one of several parallels between the positive reinforcement you derived from the process of researching and compiling your doctoral dissertation and that which I continue to derive from the process of inviting History to teach me what I need to know in order to be strengthened and liberated from the toxic bonds of post-industrial civilization.

In both your case and mine, it would seem that one profound question which demands to be asked, over and over, is this: "Precisely to what extent can the inspiration you and I each have drawn from and the life lessons we each have learned from our interfacing with History (to continue here with my annoying anthropomorphizing) be made transferable?" For, although I'm not involved in psychotherapeutic work with Iraq War veterans whose lives and/or psyches have been shattered, I find myself in daily interaction with a significant number of folks who could certainly benefit from a few years of History Therapy.

The title of your dissertation fascinates me more, the longer I think about it: Resilience Revisited, A Portrait of Resilience as Expressed Through the Experiences of Kansas Territorial Settlers, 1854 -- 1864. It is amazing, isn't it, how closely the theme conveyed in that title (bearing mind that I have yet to read any of the document itself) coincides with the thread of theme that runs through so many of the books on my informal reading list I posted on my blog. Amazing, and yet a commonality probably shared by literally millions of American's with prairie ancestors. I have no doubt whatsoever that I'm alive and relatively well today largely because of the sense of resilience I osmosized from my own prairie ancestors; and I'm guessing that you feel similarly. In my case, any such inheritance is mostly by adoption -- i.e., by cultural/behavioral osmosis -- though recently revealed documentation indicates that my biological ancestors also had Midwestern roots. What about your people? I'm eager to learn more about those 19th century Kansas settlers who passed along their resilience to you.

To be perfectly honest: when I was growing up amongst the aging Victorians and Edwardians who bequeathed to me their culture and their own grandparents' resilience, I had little more appreciation of that priceless legacy than do the young folks surrounding us nowadays. That just seems to be the way life is, the way the world works. Right? While it's true that I did take a somewhat keener interest in a few of the more exotic elements of my adoptive ancestors' daily lives than did most of the other members of my generation, it's only been within the past few decades that I've gradually come to appreciate their legacy and to begin, through it and through them, to connect my own orphaned soul, self, psyche . . . to an ever-broadening understanding of humanity -- and of my own little niche within it.

The helpful nature of this dynamic notwithstanding, it seems worthwhile to emphasize here that this therapeutic understanding of one's place in the world and in history is the happy product of History Therapy and not the therapy process itself. To illustrate this distinction, let me share David McCullough's wonderful biography of Harry S. Truman simply entitled Truman. This past summer, I read (with the help of the audio book reading) the entire 1,100 pages of Truman for the third time in ten years. The reason I chose to impose this task on myself was that, for me, Truman delivers an especially epiphanal dose of History Therapy; though the epiphany it delivers is by no means limited to an enhanced self-knowledge; it brings along with it an enhanced appreciation for the resilient personalities in my own history, even though the bloody Kansas-Missouri border is painted right down the middle of both Truman's and my life stories.


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Of course, one of the most widely agreed upon reasons why anyone should even bother to study History is to help them avoid the mistakes of the past. But learning from other people’s mistakes is a functional feasibility only if (to speak like Aesop) the wise monkey who’s watching the less fortunate monkey get his fist caught in the hunter’s monkey trap possesses the smarts and the perspective to comprehend the causal relationship involved. Or, as Jesus might put it: “Let those with eyes see.”

Our generation, which lazy pop historians often label the “Woodstock Generation,” is, of course, the “Vietnam Generation,” the Woodstock phenomenon being but a mere bi-product which provided a photogenic pop culture fetish. (Incidentally, I just happened to be right there in the neighborhood of Woodstock, NY at the very moment the legendary music festival was occurring, hitchhiking my way from New York City to Montreal, Quebec. Believe me: I was having a better time of it that week, in the summer of 1969, than were those folks one sees in the Woodstock documentary dancing naked in the mud. Remind me to tell you guys about it sometime.)

The point I want to make vis-à-vis ours having been (and evidently being condemned to continue to be) “The Vietnam Generation” is that, had we Americans as a nation internalized a sufficient dosage of the tragic lessons of the Vietnam War (that bitter, jagged little pill), then we as a people would likely have made several significantly different choices back in 2002 and 2003 concerning the type of response that would have proven most effective and most appropriate (and less suicidal for our international credibility, as well as for your youngest crop clients and their families) to terrorist threats originating in various parts of the Middle East.

The Galen Green “School” (i.e. Theory) of History Therapy has as its central premise the scientifically verifiable hypothesis that our problem is informational. As much as I do not wish or intend for my little treatise here to veer off into the muddy corn field of political polemic, it’s worth mentioning that we’ve all seen, by now, that bumper sticker which reads: “Bush Lied. People Died.” -- worth mentioning here if only because it encapsulates in the abstract the causal relationship between tainted information and tragic behavior.

Or to reiterate my core premise: our problem is informational. That’s why, to celebrate my 50th birthday in 1999, I founded The Mythoklastic Therapy Institute (MTI), to diminish tragic behavior by “klastling” tainted information, particularly that which is most widely believed (i.e. myth). And that’s also why, just last month, The Mythoklastic Therapy Institute established The Baruch Spinoza School of Realistic Expectations.

History teaches. If we listen carefully, it teaches us not only what’s been going with our species for the past five or six millennia, but even more importantly, History reveals to us the patterns woven across the oceanic loom of our imaginations where History continues to replay and replay like some epic cautionary tale throughout our lives. A few years ago, I set myself the task of wading through the entirety of the late Will & Ariel Durant’s The Story of Civilization - all 10,000 or so pages of it. (See: aforementioned informal “reading list.”) Just as we were all embarking upon our various college careers and just before the Durants died (only a few hours apart), they published their slender coda, The Lessons of History. Ironically, however, one the five (5) most important lessons of history for us all (but especially for your clients) to internalize comes across much more vividly in the very first installment of their vast epic survey that in their late-1960’s swan song of “lessons.” And this truly all-important lesson of history, this grotesquely illuminating pattern woven in invisible thread, is that (to paraphrase): modernity is merely medieval feudalism spruced up with a fresh coat of paint. A profoundly mythoklastic lesson, yet grotesquely illuminating - an inconvenient truth, at least for those whose portfolios depend on the rest of us believing otherwise.

More than you or I, Iraq War veterans possess at least a potential for making this wicked old world a better place. And, paradoxically, that’s because, more than you or I, they’ve been “played” by the powers that be. Having been bamboozled into believing that slavery in America ended in 1863, they’ve been enslaved to the unworthy purposes of the same folks who brought us the Vietnam War and institutionalized American chattel slavery (unvarnished feudalism: 1492 - 1863). History teaches us this, but we lack the “street cred” to articulate it for the edification of future generations like they can - if they can.

Best of luck in all your worthy endeavors. More soon - God willing.

Until Next Time, Stay Well,

Galen
November 5, 2007


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P.S.

Here’s a song lyric I composed back in the late 1980’s. Decided to include it here, more or less as an afterthought. Never did compose a melody, so always performed it as an ordinary “talkin’ blues” with simple guitar accompaniment. If anyone there has any ideas for a tune to sing it to, please let me know at your earliest convenience. Thanks! And enjoy:



MR. DRACULA


Mr. Dracula runs this town with fang and fist.
He bleeds us dry and lays our dreams to waste.
When choosing his victims, he tends to be democratic:
He doesn’t suck only on those who sleep in an attic,
The idiotic or the otherwise pathetic.
Mr. Dracula drained my father down to his last
Drop, then came to turn my flesh to paste.
But I alone have escaped through this dreary mist,
Your screaming Cassandra, bleeding my prophetic
Warning to you, which I can’t make too emphatic.

Mr. Dracula’s thirst won’t be quenched until he’s kissed
Every girl and boy in this town and made a feast
Of their dreams and their blood, in his melodramatic,
Satanic lust for empire. And any critic
Who stands in his way can expect no sympathetic
Ear, for all have had their blood replaced
With his poison. Mr. Dracula has passed
His lies on to his victims as though he’d pissed
In their veins and brains and made them idiotic
With Draculaism --each victim his fanatic.

His fangs are more sharper than those of that
serpent who hissed
Its way and will through Eden and taught us to taste
The knowledge of our disease whose only tonic
Is either death or else daring to become analytic.
In his cape, he might be mistaken for a peripatetic,
But underneath, lies the heart of a fiend beating fast
Toward undermining our dreams, slicker
than can be guessed.
For Mr. Dracula’s thirst has caused him to twist
Even our tongues and brains from their empathetic
Health into cancerous meat, sad, manic.

Mr. Dracula’s our father, our mother, our Zeitgeist,
Our demon lover, sucking us into a tryst,
Sure to drive us each batty and to make thick
Our sacred blood - yours, mine - and to hasten black
Poverty, failure, loss, this burning lake,
This hell, this jam-packed planet, this heist,
This town with its mill for which we are the grist.
And don’t let’s leave out our children, whose blissed
Innocence ends in bleak damnations which leak
Their blood and their dreams into his fangs, sad, sick.

Mr. Dracula runs this town and he keeps a list
Of naughty boys and girls who’d become their own Christ.
So, take my advice and avoid any lunatic
Who tells you otherwise. The mentally weak
Are bound to go on ignoring my little critique.
But you... you whose wisdom has not been erased
By Mr. Dracula’s fangs, you can outwit that beast,
If only you’ll let my words take you by the wrist
To subvert his evil will. Wear this garlic. Don’t panic.
And let the stake you drive at your crossroads be politic.


Words and Music by Galen Green c 1989










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from: Notes on History Therapy by Galen Green