How do you cure writer’s block? And fear of approaching women? And an inability to ask for a raise? Ask the thousands of Hollywood “patients” who’ve successfully used the technique. And it’s not Scientology.
The story in The New Yorker, Hollywood Shadows, describes a therapist and psychiatrist who use a Jungian framework to prescribe techniques that get results. The article is full of name dropping. Apparently, this works for a lot of people.
As is common, the psychiatrist got the idea for the techniques through personal experience.
Stutz had no patients, and so he cold-called established therapists to ask for referrals. Every day, he’d force himself to approach the scariest person on his list, an undertaking that he described as eating “a death cookie.” Most rejected him, but he found the process generative. “The risk you take has a feedback effect on the unconscious,” he says. “The unconscious will give you ideas and it wants you to act on them. The more courage you have when you act, the more ideas it will give you.”
and
By far the most common problem afflicting the writers in Michels’s practice is procrastination, which he understands in terms of Jung’s Father archetype. “They procrastinate because they have no external authority figure demanding that they write,” he says. “Often I explain to the patient that there is an authority figure he’s answerable to, but it’s not human. It’s Time itself that’s passing inexorably.
and
[A screenwriter] blamed the screenwriting software Final Draft for the tedium of crafting a script. “You press this button to get to Character and then the margin changes. It’s all in Courier. It’s all sanitized and the same and that aspect of it is antithetical—”
“That’s your enemy,” Michels said.
“What is my enemy?”
“That attitude,” Michels said. “You understand why? Because it’s a given. It’s like a lawyer who says, ‘I love the law, I love the research and the writing and the documents—it’s just that fuckin’ judge, I mean what the fuck, why’s he there.’ … It’s really your ego that resists the form that is the accepted form.”
None of this is brand new stuff, but the wrapping is, and in a world where packaging and wrapping are sometimes more important than the underlying product you have to ask what is it about the packaging that draws you.
He’s talking about Hollywood writers, producers, actors, creators, people who have to engage in the unknown and make it pay off. People who have to hear “NO” a thousand times, and even when it’s a yes it’s a qualified with revisions and punch ups. You’re never good enough, according to them, but you have to get paid anyway. “Hey, that sounds like me!” Slow down.
However, this article isn’t trying to recruit patients for Stutz. So what is it? It is validation of these techniques, popularized everywhere from the Secret to your personal therapist, which form the primary coping strategies of middlemind intellectuals. “If it works for so many Hollywood types, then it can help me in my relationships.” Visualize. The reader is drawn to these techniques because they’re used by Hollywood types, not because they are effective.
The trick is that the techniques are colossal failures, all of them. The theory is sound enough, of course, but what separates the efficacy for the Hollywood types and the efficacy for the New Yorker types is the execution. Jung and Stutz basically told you, in quote #1, you had to practice failing. His patients will try this. Everyone else reading about it will just nod their head knowingly, and go for a sandwich.
No related posts.
Although I’m not crazy about his products, I respect the hell out of a guy who says this:
For the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: “If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?” And whenever the answer has been “No” for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something…almost everything – all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure – these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose.
This is a specific practice all of us can do. I’ve implemented this practice before at times when I was working on projects that I maybe didn’t believe could happen. You are living with death when you stop making excuses and put everything on the line on a daily basis. There is no such thing as “the luxury of time.”
Meditating on death and impermanence is perhaps the most powerful practice not just to achieve material success but also to have a happier life. It sounds counter-intuitive, but it absolutely works. Any fear or hatred that emerge during such a meditation (e.g., “this is ridiculous,” “what a buzz kill,” “this is too morbid for me”) is that part of you that denies reality, that denies death. Because that part of you denies death, and death comes to all of us, the sooner you obliterate that part of you the happier you will be. You are dying with every breath, and realizing this allows you to use each moment to shift towards the ideal.
Hear, hear. Though I think it might be more effective for more people if they did that exercise with a friend or family member (as opposed to doing it by themselves), ideas really only affect change when they can be translated into actions. If people can be moved to that kind of action, these ideas could be a real positive force in the world.
“Ever tried. Ever. failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.”
- Samuel Beckett
Think inside the box?
Are readers really drawn to the techniques because they’re used by Hollywood execs? Or is that why the New Yorker is drawn to writing this story? “Look at what those Hollywood cranks are doing.” It’s interesting how they framed the story to make it something their readers would be interested in. What hooks have they used to make it relevant for their readership? Is it really a coincidence that the story uses a quote that refers to a lawyer? “Look, he’s talking about people like you.”
“Overcome the fear, can do attitude, be the best” self help literature isn’t new. There’s tons of the stuff on the internet in the form of popular blogs for those of us who can’t afford a therapist. So what makes this something the New Yorker wants to write about now, in this way?
Ok – if I have to ask, “what’s a middlemind intellectual,” does that mean I am one?
And claudius, read Yalom’s latest: “Staring Into The Sun” and all will be made clear. :-)
Ever any follow up?
Just read this.. first post on Partial Objects I’ve ever read.. I found it in the comments of the Abusive boyfriend post….
Curious – what kind of follow-up would you find acceptable?
Any that doesn’t simply state “you are dying, make the most of it every breath”