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January 10, 2019 55 mins

Today it’s an honor to have Richard Katz on the podcast. Dr. Katz received his Ph.D. from Harvard University and taught there for twenty years. The author of several books, he has spent time over the past 50 years living and working with Indigenous peoples in Africa, India, the Pacific, and the Americas. He is professor emeritus at the First Nations University of Canada and an adjunct professor of psychology at the University of Saskatchewan. He lives in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. His latest book is Indigenous Healing Psychology: Honoring the Wisdom of the First Peoples. Author royalties will be given back to the Indigenous elders whose teachings made the book possible.

In this episode we discuss:

  • How being an outsider allows you to see the limitations of the world you are living in
  • Richard’s friendship with Abraham Maslow
  • Setting the record straight: The real influence of the Blackfeet Nation on Maslow’s theory of self-actualization
  • How modern day psychology has oppressed the verbal-experimental paradigm
  • The limitations of modern measurement
  • The tension between the scientific method and the narrative approach to psychology
  • Are all modes of the scientific process valid?
  • How indigenous people are misunderstood, under-respected, and under-appreciated
  • What the field of psychology could be if it incorporated indigenous ways of being

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Kalahari People’s Fund


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Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
Welcome to the Psychology Podcast, where we give you insights
into the mind, brained behavior and creativity. I'm doctor Scott
Barry Kaufman, and in each episode I have a conversation
with a guest. He will stimulate your mind and give
you a greater understanding of yourself, others, and the world
to live in. Hopefully we'll also provide a glimpse into
human possibility. Thanks for listening and enjoy the podcast today.

(00:34):
It's an honor to have Richard Katz on the podcast.
Doctor Katz received his PhD from Harvard University and taught
there for twenty years. The author of several books, he
has spent time over the past fifty years living and
working with indigenous pupils in Africa, India, the Pacific, and
the Americas. He's Professor Emeritus at the First Nation's University

(00:55):
of Canada and an adjunct Professor of Psychology at the
University of Scotsklan. Oh my god, how you pronounce that?
He lives in Saskatoon, sask a lot one? Okay, Now
tell me how to pronounce it Skatchewan Saskatchewan satan and
it means gently flowing river. Well, look, you're going to

(01:19):
teach me and our listeners a lot today about indigenous
populations and lots of nuggets just like that. You know
how to properly pronounce lots of things, because as I'm
reading your book, I come across a lot of things.
I noted to myself, there's no way in the world
I'm going to be able to pronounce that correctly. So, yeah,
you know, it's an interesting point, a Scott because part

(01:41):
of what I've discovered in the various years that I've
worked in indigenous cultures. It's very helpful to make the effort, eh,
just as you are to pronounce the word, and people
are very generous in terms of mispronunciations if you try.
It's when you assume that the word is not worth

(02:02):
even learning that they kind of feel, hey, what's this guy?
You know? If he hasn't if he can't respect the
fact that we have certain words, why talk to them.
So it's good that you try. And when you make mistakes.
I've made mistakes in different parts of the world, people
have fun laughing at your mistakes. It's part of the
idea of how to work with people who are different

(02:24):
from ourselves. That's the key. I love that and that's
very clear that that theme runs through your whole book,
that general spirit. Now, let's go all the way back.
Let's go in one fifty years back in time for
second two even you know, we're going to get to
your Harvard years because they're fascinating and the people that
you ran into and I mean it's a legendary story,

(02:45):
you know. But before that, you know what really got
you interested in this topic, Like when you were in
high school, for instance, did you have like a disposition
toward acceptance and sort of understanding people who are different
than you. Well, this fascinating question. See the book started
out Scott was going to start with the years even

(03:07):
before high school, and I decided, well, I got to
cut something out, so I cut off that material. But
it's a very important question because how do we start
to connect to a world that's so different from the
one that we were raised in. And for me, as
I look back when I was a little guy, you know,
I can't say how old, but when I was a

(03:28):
little guy, I experienced what I think a lot of
young kids experience was is flying. And I used to
fly around the house and going through the doorways and
banking my arms and so forth. I think a lot
of kids have that experience, but they don't talk about it,

(03:48):
and I, of course didn't talk about it because who
was I going to talk to about So that was
something that I can't say that I built on that experience,
But when I look back on it, I realized that
that was part of what it meant for me in
growing up. And then the other part, Scott, was I
always felt a little bit on the outside, or maybe

(04:09):
even a lot of on the outside, and having that
experience of being on the outside, you look at things
and you see the limitations of the world that you're
living in now as a four and five and six
and seven year old and so forth, And it's not
very sophisticated, but it's a notion that there is another

(04:29):
way of being. And you know, Scott, that's the key,
another way of being. Now. See we're talking and your
people will not realize, but I'm looking into your apartment. Now.
Your apartment is so different from mine. It's a very
good way of living, and so's mind. But I see,
and you can see you know if you were here

(04:51):
that were in different worlds, and the whole point of
knowing that there are different ways of being is so
importan but only known through experience. See when I first
went to the Kalahari in nineteen sixty eight, I had
never been to another part of the world in the

(05:11):
same way. And when I went there in nineteen sixty
eight to the Kalahari and saw the healing dance, Scott,
I tell you I had never seen anything like that before.
As you know from the book, I had experience with
psychedelics Leary and Albert, that's part of my own training.
But it was different. And the difference was we weren't

(05:34):
taking drugs in the Kalahari. People were just experiencing through
the healing dance. A different world. And I used to
think that, gee, maybe it wasn't fair that I had
that psychedelic experience before I went there, because was it
coloring what I was looking for? And I realized, no,

(05:55):
it wasn't coloring what I was seeing. It allowed me
to see what was happening. That's the difference, you know. Again,
I said, was I kind of prejudging things? Oh, it's
all psychedelic, all that kind of stuff. No, my psychedelic
experience allowed me to see that what was happening with
changes and consciousness and spirituality was real, and so it

(06:19):
was a gift. The psychedelics was a gift, even though
I didn't pursue that as a life's work. Yeah. Absolutely.
I mean, let's go back to nineteen sixty eight. Were
you at Harvard during that period? Yeah, See, I got
my doctorate in sixty five, and that's when I had
worked I'd worked with Ericson, and I'd worked with Murray

(06:40):
and to some extent with Skinner was around in that time,
and that was a revolution, that Skinner stuff. And you know,
we were talking, you and I about Maslow. Maslow was
also very fascinated in his early years with behaviorism. So
in nineteen sixty five I got my degree, and in
nineteen sixty six or so or sixty seven, I was

(07:03):
doing a postdoc and this guy, Richard Lee, was a
friend of mine, walked up to me in the hall
way literally and said, you know, I interested, You're interested
in the psychedelic stuff, these states of consciences. Would you
be interested in working with us, with a group of
people that do this without drugs. You can imagine how
exciting that possiblity was. And then it turned out that

(07:26):
there was some a need you see, we have to
be very clear that we're not going to a place
to satisfy our excitement, the wet our enthusiasm. There has
to be a reason why you go to these other places.
And it turned out that bushman people or Junpot people
were being overrun by other forces of capitalism and trying

(07:51):
to kind of take away their lands. So my going
there and talking about their healing dance enables them to
speak with power to the people who are trying to
see them as primitive. See in the sixties, that's where
it was indigenous people are primitive. Can you define indigenous well?
To me, yeah, it's a very important term because indigenous

(08:13):
can mean like, for example, palm trees would be indigenous
to let's say warm climates. Indigenous to me means the
first people to settle in their various parts of the world.
Not see for example, Western psychology is indigenous to North America.

(08:33):
That's not how I'm using the term. It's the first
people to settle in different parts of the world, and
all over the world they are indigenous people, all of them.
Like for example, in India, we think of that in
the hills and in India they're indigenous people we hardly
hear about them in Japan. They're indigenous people, particularly up north.

(08:55):
So all over the world there are people who settled
the land and the first settlers of the land. Yeah,
thank you for defining that. So were you a postdoc
at Harvard as well? I also did a postdoc, you know. Yeah, So,
you know, your connection to Abraham Asol is very very interesting.
You know, you came back from this visiting that community

(09:16):
and the healing dance, and you showed him a video
or he showed him slides. Sorry, this is the sixties.
Thea show him slides of the healing dance and what
was his reaction? Yeah, it's a very wonderful lace. We'll
talk a little bit about Abe right as well. Yeah.
I think that was because he used to have Abe
used to have these like Suarez, intellectual Suarez and the

(09:36):
one that I wanted to talk about, which I do
talk about in the book. Stan Groff was there as well.
Stan had just come over and was working down a
spring growth and Stan made a little presentation of his work,
and then I started to make a presentation of some
of the things I had discovered and found in the
Kalahari and the healing dance, and the healing dance which

(09:59):
is described of the book is very powerful but also
intensely physical experience. And many parts of the world, the
spiritual trips or the spiritual journeys are physical. There's fasting,
there's sweating, there's working hard and so forth. And among
the kalahar Asian Kosi, there's very it's a hard, hard dancing,

(10:24):
hard breathing and sweating, and it's hard work. And I
remember Abe, you know, he was kind of impressed. But
the first comment he met is ge, they sweat a lot,
and by that he meant it was a lower form
for Abe, it was a lower form of consciousness transformation
than he was used to, and he was writing about

(10:45):
it was very significant to me that that was his response.
It was not dismissive, but it was placing that particular
indigenous way at a lower level. And you know, in
his hierarchy of needs at the bottom, our needs like
survival needs, you know, food, shelter, and so that's where

(11:08):
many indigenous people start in their journey to the spiritual things.
If you're fasting, you're thinking about survival needs, you're hung
you're tired, and oftentimes that's just the time, the sweat
lodge the same thing. You're hot, you're sweating. It's like
demanding physically, and that's what releases the spiritual because from

(11:32):
an indigenous point it's all connected. For Abe, you had
to go through the physical to get to the real stuff.
And from an Indigenous point of view, the physical is
as real as the mental and the spiritual. Abe never
understood that. Yeah, well he did in the latter part
of his life, you know, his revision that many people
aren't aware of by putting transcendence at the top of

(11:55):
a hierarchy. You know, it's kind of returned to the
experiential aspect of human nature. He was very much into
that peak experiences are very experiential, and he spent time.
We really should should mention this because I know some
indigenous populations are not so happy that he didn't talk
more about his own experience visiting the Blackfeet Nation. Is

(12:16):
that correct? Blackfoot to nation? It's the Blackfeet peoples, I guess. Yeah. Yeah,
So in the thirties and he spent some time there.
He was very interested in anthropology, and he looked up
to Margaret Meade and Benedict Ruth. Benedict you know, very much,
very much. So he had some influence there, and I
was wondering, how much do you think that influence, you know,

(12:37):
came back around again, so to speak, in the last
couple of years of the life, once he got more
into Eastern philosophy and Buddhism and Taoism, things like that. Yeah.
Let me just say in the book, I write quite
a bit about Abe, and I think I mentioned in
incidentally to all the people who are listening. When you
pick up a book, always read the footnotes. You a

(12:57):
lot of footnotes. By the way, every page of a
foot the four footnotes is the personal things that you
really care about, but you're not sure a lot of
people will care, but you care about I find your footnote.
It's very juicy. Yeah, exactly. That's kind of recommend that people.
So the thing is that with Abe is that he
had a great disadvantage. He grew up in an urban

(13:20):
environment disconnected from land. And one of the things about
indigenous peoples is it's a land based spirituality. Nature is
the teacher. So Abe had kind of like already a
kind of a block. And then during the times that
he went he went to the success a nation Indigenous

(13:42):
people were looked upon even by people like Ruth Benedict
and Margaret Meade as somewhat primitive, others very primitive. So
Abe kind of like he took a risk to go there,
but very influenced by Benedict and saw some very powerful
things which he writes about. Remember I mentioned this to you,
I Scott in this He's got a couple of papers

(14:04):
that I've seen in his journals as well. Yes, good, Yes,
And he's written a couple of papers on that. You know,
his idea of humans as more of a blank as
not a blank slate, but as having an innate human nature.
He said, was influenced to buy that visit. He actually
went into it more into a sociological perspective on things,

(14:25):
and came out of it saying, you know what, we
are all kind of similar deep down. Yeah. Yeah, I
mean they had that whole thing of you know, human
beings are you know, share these kind of similarities. But
I think we have to understand what he went there.
It was during the period when indigenous people were not
highly respected. They were kind of seen as a curiosity

(14:47):
and so forth, and Abe had to kind of work
under that general zeitgeist that was going on at the time,
so it was very good that he went there. Actually
there were not many people. Now contrast that with Erickson,
who also went to the Yurrok people and to Pine
Ridge Lacota people. But Ericson, remember in Childhood and Society

(15:10):
wrote about it, and that was between Abe and Ericson.
Abe never wrote about it in a central way, but
he carried that with him. But what I'm saying is
like Abe also as a person, and this is very important,
who are we as people? Abe was an intellectual. He
was a man of the mind. He was not physical

(15:33):
in any way. I'm kind of a physical guy. I
love athletics, I love to run, you know. Abe was
just the opposite. He was a book person. His body
he didn't know his body, and when working with Indigenous people,
the body is very important. So Abe had the disadvantage

(15:54):
of living in a time when Indigenous people were thought
of as primitive. Abe had the disadvantage and living in
a land based environment where the elements are well, yeah
they you are in New York, right, And he had
the disadvantage of being a mind person living in his mind.
In spite of that, he saw things in spite of that,

(16:15):
you see, he was very perceptive and it sounded like
he was a friend of yours. I mean, he was
very encouraging him. So he was a dear friend who
was very generous. I'll mention this though, and again I
want people to know I had a lot of respect
for him and I loved him, and so when I
say things that sound critical, it's not to put him down.

(16:36):
It's to give some reality based. Abe was very much
a guy who said the world was good guys and
bad guys, and the good guys were the ones that
were more humanistically. And he saw the people who were
narrow minded and who were talking about humans as genes
as the bad guys, and he was willing to fight

(16:58):
them like Skinner. Yeah, yeah, he was to fight them.
And I can say this. When he was there at Brandeis,
he got the I think three or four job office
just by picking up the phone that you should hire
this guy. That was the influence he had. Very generous.
But also he was a guy that was a fighter,

(17:20):
and if you didn't agree with him, he would fight you.
There story that I could tell you see a believed
in the goodness of human nature. And I write about
this in the book. He said, bring together good minded,
well minded, you know, like minded people who wanted to
work together, and whatever their disciplinary background was, you could

(17:46):
come up with something beautiful. So you had a behaviorist,
you had an animal psychologist, you had a humanistic psychologist,
a cognitive bring them together and will have this beautiful department.
You know what happened. He brought them together, Yes, and
you know you're there, and they took over the department.
They did. Yes, And this is how I met you

(18:08):
through Jim Fatimin you know, who was there as well,
and said that you and Jim were kind of the
troublemakers of the department. Yeah. Abe, see we were there.
We overlapped Abe and I overlapped a year. And then
when Abe left, Jim took over Abe's position, you see, Yes, yes,
in California. Yes. So the thing is that Abe's idea

(18:31):
of good people even though they come from different backgrounds
didn't work because what happened was the behaviorists and the
people they were the ones that came to the meetings
and took over the department and forced out the humanistic element.
So there was some kind of disappointing experiences for Abe.
You know, when he met the reality. But his connection

(18:54):
with indigenous people I think is a fascinating part of
his work. And you see, like for example, Abe was
you could say, was imbalanced the mind. And one of
the teachings that I talk about in the book is
the importance of the circle and the medicine wheel, in
which all parts mental, physical, emotional, spiritual have to be balanced.

(19:19):
And that was something that Abe was not really aware
of because he was an intellectual. He was aware of
that in theory, in theory and in practice. Like I say,
you know, I love him dearly, but like I say,
he didn't connect to his body. That was not part
of the deal. The deal was in his mind and
his philosophy and his his reaching out. And for example,

(19:42):
you know that you know that as well. He really
wanted to talk to Aristotle and Plato, I know, and
what a beautiful idea. But you see, that's skipping over
Blackout and Lamed, you know, all those other people's cultures.
He would have had a wonderful time if he could
or relaxed, you see, and been with him. That's what

(20:03):
I was doing, you know, Scott. I spent hours and
days and months in different cultural settings, having very little
idea what people were saying because they were speaking in
a language just patiently waiting and waiting and waiting, and
the experiences of indigenous teachings are hardly ever verbal. Yes, no,

(20:25):
I know, and I think that that comes through a
lot in your book about how the modern day psychology
has an oppression of this verbal sort of experimental paradigm,
and you make that very clear in your book. I
don't mean to, and we're going to get to that
in this podcast. I want to kind of close the
chapter on this Maso thread because I think it is

(20:46):
so important, and you're one of the very rare individuals
on this planet who can still speak to this, so
I hope you don't mind if I belabor it just
a little bit more. I want to give some credit
here to Ryan Heavyhead and Marquise Blood heavy Hand and
Narquise Blood who have done this analysis of Blackfoot culture
and point out the difference between their conception of actualization

(21:10):
and Maslow's notion of self actualation, which in my reading
was not taken. It was adapted from his advisor Kurt
Goldstein or his mentor Kurt Goldstein. He adopted it, and
Kurt Goldstein had the phrase self actualization, which was about
his patients from that brain trauma and the amazing ability
for people with brain trauma to reorganize and still have capacities.

(21:30):
But I thought you could talk a little about what
is the Blackfoot culture's notion of actualization? How does it differ? Yeah,
this is a very important and I was just looking
over my book. You know you had this experience, Hey Scott.
Once you write a book, it's almost like you forget
what you wrote. It's out. So I had to kind
of go back this morning and read what did I
write about this? And the thing is that those two

(21:53):
guys that you mentioned, I'm glad you did, Ryan Heavyhead
and Narcisa. Also it is Head is okay. Trying to
do is to sort of say, yeah, Maslow is great,
but he didn't quite get it right. And what they're
trying to say is that their notion of self actualization
from a Blackfoot point of view, is self actualization in

(22:15):
community the whole. Like, for example, you go up on
a vision quest, You're going up on the vision quest
as an individual. You come back and tell your story,
but the story is then interpreted. How do you fit
into your community? And how can you serve your community,
you see. So self actualization is serving a community in

(22:40):
the way that's best. And what Abe I think was
doing was self actualistion was a little more individualistic. So
I think that's one of the ways in which they
were feeling that his notion of self actualization had to
be sort of more community based. Another thing I think
that they point out, and I think was differences that

(23:01):
and certainly in his early work, Abe had this notion,
you know, just that that one percent, you know that
gets the growing tip, the growing tip exactly, And from
an Indigenous point of view, the teaching is that each
of us is open to the spark of the creator,
each of us. There's not like a kind of a
winnowing out and a kind of as you say, that's

(23:24):
a nice way and some the growing tip. I like that.
Did he ever talk about that? Yes, yes, he used
that phrase. Beautiful. I'm glad you brought that. Yes, because
that changes from me elite to being explorers. Yes, yes, okay,
But from an Indigenous point of view, we all are
part of that transcendence. And when you go into a

(23:46):
sweat lodge, for example, everybody is open to the creator,
to the spirits that come in. So I think that's
the second part that and then a third thing is
and I'm not sure how much Abe understood this about highierarchy, Okay,
because you remember he did work with Harlow on dominance.
And I just want to mention one thing about Abe

(24:07):
that's very important. Abe saw himself always as a research,
experimental guy. Data. He was data driven, and a lot
of people think he was just coming up with these things,
you know, through his own musings. No, he was committed
to research. And people don't appreciate They may disagree with

(24:28):
the way he did research, but they don't give him
enough credit for being very committed to an empirical approach.
And he got that, I think from his work with Harlow,
you know, and his work with the dominance. So I
think that, you know, he's a very kind of complicated,

(24:49):
very complicated guy, and he was a trailblazer. I think
I mentioned to you a Scott that when he was
elected president of APA, which is a great honored what
he said to me was he was nervous. You know
why he was nervous. He was nervous because he was
not sure they would consider him a psychologist. Yes, do

(25:10):
you know what I was told dismissively. Yes, he was
very insecure, And I was told by Michael Murphy of
Esselyn Institute. He told me that they told him that
when he was elected president, the prior president came up
to him and said, congratulations on being the first philosopher
elected president of APA. That must have hurt, that must

(25:30):
have stunned it heard him. You see, like I say,
you have to be nervous when you give your presidential address.
He was very like, as I say, deeply anxious, not
just nervous about giving a talk, but existentially because you know,
you spend your whole life trying to be a psychologist
and change the field and so what, and then to

(25:52):
stand up in front of all these psychologists fearing that
they will think you're basically a fraud. That's what he felt.
And that was very troubling. And you know something, some
people did think he was a fraud. Yeah, And calling
him a philosopher was a kind way of saying some
of them thought he was just a bs N. Seriously

(26:14):
just coming up with a lot of really great He
had a lot of great insights that hold up today.
I've been I have a paper coming out tomorrow. Actually
internal humanistic psychology, where I test the characteristics of self
actualizing people, and I found ten of his characteristics I'm
really hold up quite well can be measured reliably and solidly.
So you know, he had a lot of He was

(26:36):
ahead of his time in a lot of ways. You
know what I'm saying, Scott is his commitment to empiricism
is always overlooked. The reason is, for example, in his articles,
he'll have let's say fifteen characteristics of self actualize and
people say, well, wait a minute. You see mainstream western
psychology wants to have three, yes, maybe four twenty Noe

(26:59):
was saying, is these are things that exist. You see.
The whole point of my book is like, let's get
away from this notion that mainstream psychology has given us
that we have to have the fewer the better, we
have to have discrete, dichotomous variables. Life is not that way.
And indigenous perspective, what they talk about is the flow

(27:23):
and the process and how boundaries evaporate. Hey, Scott bound
the boundaries and the most important thing is the mystery remains.
And Abe knew that. Yes, the mystery is a great
point you make in your book and Abe really was
interested in all that and the mysterious towards the end
of his life. It really does seem like it came

(27:44):
full circle there at the end. You know, this might
be considered one of the definitive podcasts in kind of
tackling this controversy. So I wanted to just really get
the core of this. Some people think that it's possible
that he maybe stole from the reserve. My own personal opinion,
and then I would like to get your opinion, because
I've really thought of this through very carefully and read

(28:05):
all of his work, is that he's not the type
of person who would steal or take credit. He was
very generous in giving out his many mentors that he
had and crediting them, you know, such as Ruth Benedict
and Harry Harlowe as you say, and Alfred Adler, et cetera.
He was very generous in giving credit. And that in
my reading is that, you know, if anything he's at

(28:25):
fault is not maybe mentioning that visit more or bringing
in more indigenous psychology into his work, especially when he
was coming up with a self transcendence. But my reading
is that it's probably unfair. I would say strongly it
is unfair to say that his whole theory was somehow
stolen from that population, because I can see the seeds
of many aspects of this theory from his other mentors.

(28:47):
So that's my own reading, and I'd love to hear
what you think. I think you're right on, Scott. Let
me let me see if I can your providers. M
Aslo is dead and he can't speak to this. So
I think we should be as honest and as i
as possible in if people, you know, I would hate
you know, to die some days and someone say I
stole something you know that I didn't do right. So yeah, yeah,

(29:08):
let me just see if I can, because this is
really important, and you're actually right if you talk to
the people out there. My impression is, hey, let's get
rid of that guy who stole our ideas. No. No,
my impression is, how come he didn't acknowledge more what
he learned and he didn't get the full story. That's

(29:29):
totally different and steal that's a different thing. Steal the ideas.
If he stole the ideas, No, the ideas came actually
from other people, whether Goldstein or you know or the Gestalt. No,
I totally agree with an Abe. You know, that's not
who he was. He was not someone who tried to

(29:52):
rip people off, and you know something he had been
ripped off himself enough, Yeah, especially as a child. Yeah, okay,
So I think what it was was so much that
again the historical period, I think Abe and I didn't
talk to Abe about this, but I knew him well.
I think what he must have felt was that talking

(30:12):
about that as a source of knowledge was really at
that time so far from people's understanding that he felt
it might lessen the impact of what he was talking about,
you understand, yes, and so he held it in reserve.
But no, I don't think he stole that, and he wasn't.

(30:32):
You know, he may have been naive, he may have
been arrogant, right, say that he was, but he's not
a guy that steals people's ideas. No, that's my impression.
And it's great to get confirmation from someone who actually
intersected his existence with Meso's existence. But you see, from
an indigenous point of view, yes, we have to be

(30:54):
very clear. Some people there will feel that that it
was stolen, and that a very I have to honor that. Yes,
that's a feeling that they have and as has to
be honored. I'm just talking about Abe, yes, you see, yes,
And well I'm also interested in the truth, you know,
and I think, yeah, that's a hard one. No, not

(31:18):
not that it doesn't exist, but you see, we have
to acknowledge that there could be multiple points of view.
And now I'm not doing a whole Trump thing, you know,
but from the point of view of some of the
people who are living there or maybe whose relatives or
you know, grandparents talk to Abe, they might have a
different view. But I'm talking about I'm going from Abe

(31:38):
into the Blackfoot territory, not from the Blackfoot territory towards Aid, understand.
So it's very clear that other people might differ. And
I think if you read the material from Heavyhead and
so forth, I don't think it's an angry reading, you know,
I don't there's this other aspectatic Twitter exchange that I

(32:01):
sent you or it seemed angry, and oh yeah, I
think that was unfortunate. I can very very much sympathize
with the point that he could have brought it. But
the same point could be made to anyone any living
psychologists today. Right, It's not I mean, to point the
finger at Abe seems unfair, considering you could point it
out a whole field of psychology. I mean, it's not

(32:22):
like anyone else, any of the other mainstream psychologists at
the time we're bringing in that. Do you see what
I'm saying? Absolutely? And there are some people who've documented
the incredible amount of influence Indigenous thinking has had on
psychology that has been unacknowledged. So let's talk about that
for the rest of this podcast. I think yes, I mean,
like there are teachings that occur in terms of whether

(32:47):
we balance questions of balance, questions of spirituality. A lot
of people don't acknowledge their sources. A lot of people,
And you're right about Abe. He was careful, Like take,
for example, the notion of synergy. Well, I've written about synergy,
and the book talks about synergy. Abe was very careful
to talk about Ruth benardet. Yes, yes, And I'm very

(33:10):
careful to talk about Ruth Benedict and Abe, and of
course buck Minster Fuller, who started the whole thing, and
who knows before buckmans you know, no ideas are our own, yes,
And any psychologists you see like positive psychology, what do
you think of positive psychology. I noticed that you didn't
mention positive psychology at all in your book. I mentioned it,

(33:32):
but in a fairly negative way. No, I didn't. I
must have missed it. That what positive psychology has done,
Scott is to ignore ABE. I couldn't agree with that more.
But I wouldn't say positive psychology has ignored ABE. I
would say Martin Seligman, who is the founder of the field,
has dismissed ABE. You know the founding of the field.

(33:54):
But I know a lot of positive psychologists who may
be in part due to the fact I can't stop
talking about ABE to them, has acknowledged in their work
the huge debt. I'll give a specific example. Ken Sheldon
has done really good work on trying to test some
humanistic theories from Carl Rodgers and others, and has said
how he's deeply influenced by maso self determination theory. Individuals

(34:18):
DC and Ryan talk about their debt to the humanistic theories.
But I do share your frustration for certain aspects, is
particularly the founding of the field and how it was
founded as in a way that was pitted against a
humanistic psychology or just dismissive of oh that was just
the spiritual, you know, like non scientific field. Yeah, I

(34:40):
do share that frustration nowadays with narrative research and narrative
psychology is right smack in the middle of that whole
again empirical yeah wave. And to think of to dismiss
abe as non scientific, that's the worst because that's what
he faced when he wasracticing you're not a scientist, So

(35:02):
to bring that up again, that's not right. But the
whole notion, for example, from an indigenous point of view,
and talking again about the book, one of the teachings
is that we don't own knowledge. We share it. And
one of the teachings is unless you share knowledge, it dies,
you see, So none of it's original, Scott, what could

(35:25):
be original? It's already been said. We repackaged, we restate,
we try to bring more relevance, but we don't create.
We don't invent ideas, and from an indigenous point of view,
we don't invent them because part of the task is
to listen to the teachings that have come over the generations.

(35:47):
The good elder will say, I'm only telling you what
I was told. They won't say to you, I'm telling
you what I discovered. You understand now when they say
I'm only telling you what I was told, they have
proven it in their own lives, Like an elder will
say to you, and this is what I mentioned in
the book. Here's the story. If it makes sense to you, good.

(36:09):
If it doesn't, don't take it. Test it out. You see,
But it's not original knowledge. It's a story. Where does
the story come from? The old people? You see, the
old people? There is nothing new, Like when indigenous people talk,
did the sun ever rise in the west? No, So

(36:30):
when you say look at the sun rising, yeah, people
have done that for thousands and thousands of years. So
Western psychology is very much into kind of like I've
got a new theory. I've got a new thing, and
you look at it. It's the same old stuff with
a different label, and that's good. You also criticize measurement

(36:53):
in a sense like the measurement of intelligence. Can you
tell me a little bit about that criticism? Well, look
at that stems back to your Harvard days, and yeah,
look at it this way I was with, I'll tell
you a story about you know Howard Gardner? I do, yes, yes,
seven intelligences. Okay, So Howard comes up to me before
he really hit it big. You know, I've got this

(37:13):
theory of intelligences. What do you think of it? So
I showed me his draft. Oh looks good, I said,
but what about I think you've left something out? I
think is how I said it. What do you mean
what about spiritual intelligence? Oh? Yeah, yeah, but no, no,
I can't do that because we can't measure it. And
what I said to him is the fact that you

(37:34):
can't measure it doesn't mean you don't mention it. But
the preoccupation Like Carol Gilligan, she was another colleague of mine,
wonderful I love her right and wonderful person. Her theory
took off when she developed some scales to measure the
attitudes and the perceptions that she was studying and in stories.

(37:54):
When she had a scale, it took off all of
a sudden, so mainstream in psychology. Basically, you know, if
you can't measure it doesn't exist. And the thing that's
really most perverse is if we can't measure it, it's
only because we haven't developed the measures that are sophisticated enough,
and eventually we will, right, So the notion of the

(38:17):
mystery remains, which is a key part of the indigenous
approach for the mainstream Western psychologists primarily, not all, but
primarily is the mystery remains because we're not yet there
with a sophisticated method to find out what it is. Yes,
that point is very well taken, but you do admit

(38:39):
that measurement is a cornerstone of the scientific method. I
mean to stay by measurement as Scott you see, Like,
for example, if I tell you a story, a life
story or a story from an Indigenous point of view,
that's ultimate data. It doesn't need to be analyzed, it
doesn't need to be questioned data. Now, I'm not suggesting

(39:02):
that that's how science and psychology should proceed, but it
has to be respected. That's one form. See, I see
multiple forms of research in science. Yeah, I know, I
see what you're saying that there's certainly a tension there
between that sort of narrative approach and you know, measurement
needs to be generalizable, replicable, right, it has to have validity. Yeah,

(39:24):
and you're saying those criteria do not apply to the
indigenous population. And there are certain aspects of it, Okay,
certain aspects. I think it would be a mistake to
say from an indigenous point of view, all we care
about is stories. But what I'm trying to say is
that different modes of scientific work and scientific process, one

(39:46):
of which is stories that tell the truth about a
person's life. And there's another part of doing science, which
is an experimental paradigm, control groups, experimental groups and so
and why not have multiple paths towards as you mentioned before,
the truth? Yeah, yeah, but respecting that there are multiple paths,

(40:10):
and from an indigenous point of view, one of the
paths that people really value is the story that one tells.
You see, Yeah, I could see a skeptic saying that
one can recognize the value of it without calling it science,
Like science is a very specific meaning. How would you
respond to someone and saying I mean, you see, but Scott,
this is I mean, this is a great interview. Where

(40:32):
where have you been all these years? But you see,
that's exactly the point. The word science has been co
opted to refer to a particular set of you know,
aparticular methodology in a particular set of and it's a
power word. Validity, objectivity, reliability, These are power words. And

(40:55):
what I'm saying is that if we keep science in
that more narrowly I would call Western positivistic paradigm. We
are taking all those power words and when we think
of other ways of knowing, other ways of knowing. And
one of the chapters in the book that's on the
research is called ways of knowing. And when I think

(41:17):
of ways of knowing, then I don't think of science.
I think of ways of knowing, one of which is
the Western scientific method. Another is the narrative storytelling method.
Another is the purely experiential method, in which you don't
even you can't even say what happened. You see ways
of knowing, and do you put them all within the
rubric of the scientific method. Absolutely absolutely, Scott. That's where

(41:42):
you have an understanding of multiple worlds. Remember we started
out when you were little what happened? Well, when I
was little, I saw that the world I was in
was not the only world. Now here's the hard part, Scott. Okay,
do you believe who's doing the inner you? Right? But
you believe, as some people do, that if we get

(42:05):
more and more understanding, eventually we'll see. There's only one
way I have to say to you. I'm not sure. Yes,
I mean, you say something that really stuck with me.
You say there is no one way, only right ways.
That's right, and I mean that stuck with me that phrase.
And maybe it's also a guide for how to live
your life. You know, you know what empathy means. I'm

(42:27):
not good. See I've lived a lot of years and
I still you look so young. Still, it's amazing. Listen,
he met Maslho and Eric Erickson and you look like
you're ready to go party. I have no party. I'm
ready to go running. Yeah, I mean, it's incredible. Okay, listen, Scott.
The thing is that if you are willing to see

(42:51):
the validity you see. The other thing is I respect
what others are doing. Like, for example, guys like Richie Davidson.
You know, yes, he's like right into that heavy duty
scientific method. You know, great, because he's doing it with
some sensitivity, you know, So why not different? And let
me tell you something else. Okay. So Danny Muskler, the

(43:14):
guy I work with, I'd write about this in the book.
When he was growing up, his grandma said to him,
sit on this stump here and observe the gophers. We
have gophers up here, you know, little things or and
their gopher colonies and he would spend hours observing the
key to any scientific method observation. See, so there are

(43:37):
ways in which there are shared processes. I'm going to
have to push back against that a second and see
what you think about this, because can't observe individual observations
be wrong? Like so you know, let's say, giving a
specific example, like there are people that say they experience
God or that experience certain aspects of the universe that

(43:57):
physicists then say, well, we've tested that and there's no
evidence that that's true. Are you saying you would put
both in the same level of certainty of probability of truth.
I'd like to have I'd like to have them both
in the room together and we'll all connect. Hey, different
ways of knowing, different ways of knowing. I'm not into

(44:18):
I'm not into giving. Hey, I guess I would say, Scott,
I'm not into a hierarchy of value. It's like pain.
You know, some people say, hey, how could that person
feel pain? They've got all the money in the world
they need, They've got, you know, a great job. You
know something pain hurts, Scott, you lose a child, you're

(44:38):
a millionaire. You don't think it hurts you. See so
I'm not into kind of saying one is better than
the other. Bring him in the room together, you see,
Bring him in the room together, and that just enriches things.
The notion of synergy I talk about is multiple ways
of looking at things coming together in unexp afected ways

(45:00):
to create a whole that's greater than some of the parts.
That's beautiful. It's beautiful. And you know the other thing,
Scott is you see the whole context of what we're
talking about has to be seen within historical power structure.
At this point in time, May Scott, Indigenous people are
being overturned, overrun, overpowered, and like even for example, and

(45:24):
the whole genome thing, the genetic material is being robbed
and they call biopiracy for them drug companies. I thought
you're going to mention the Democrat Elizabeth Lauren. Oh, I
don't want to get into that. Ya so ridiculous thing.
But you see what's happening is they want to get isolate.
They want to get genetic material that has not been contaminated. Yeah,

(45:48):
that mean isolated? What does that mean Indigenous? You see,
so the whole political context and the scientific IQ testing, Scott,
Indigenous people systematically score lower. Getting back to the IQ
why IQ test is totally culturally biased, and getting back

(46:10):
to the Howard Gardener thing. We don't measure spirituality because
we don't talk about because we can't measure it with
the measurements that are in Western psychology, you see. But
if you don't use those, why not talk about spirituality?
It's what would I say? I would say to that
that the test itself is not biased, but well, in

(46:31):
one sense it is. In one sense it is, and
I'm with you in the sense that it is culturally
like we are the ones that decided what kind of content,
what kind of vocabulary items, what kind of you know,
even like the Ravens matrices Jim Flynn has shown, it
does have a cultural bias in a sense like if
you never grew up looking at these kind of abstract structures,
you're not going to know what to do with them

(46:52):
as much as if you have a scientific, literate culture.
So I think in that sense you're absolutely correct. But
it doesn't mean that that test is meaningless or not
measuring some set of skills that are important, and one
of the skills it measures is doing well, Yeah, doing
well at university and certain like you say, spatial abstract
things like when I went to the Carl Harry. You know,

(47:14):
I'm a psychologist. I wanted to do a show some pictures,
you know, because Murray was one of my mentors and
he came up gat So I had some pictures. Now,
Charles Murray, let's be clear, Henry Murray, Henry Murray. A
lot of people might know who Henry Murray is. Who's
a legend at Harry. Yeah, so I had these pictures, hey, Scott,
I showed them. What's the first thing they did. The

(47:37):
first thing they did was to turn the picture around
to see what was in back, to see the backside
of the image. So the whole notion of a picture
was not in their world experience. It was if it
was a picture of a face, there's got to be
a back to the to the face, you understand. So

(47:57):
in a very in a very kind of powerful way,
giving a paper and pencil test itself, like I'll give
you an example, okay. From an indigenous point of view,
the way people are taught often is if you know
the answer to something, you don't ask a person a question,
or if the person knows the answer, like I wouldn't

(48:18):
ask you a Scott, well, what is two plus two?
That's an insult right now, from an indigenous point of view,
if you find that someone asks you obvious questions or
questions with obvious answers, what happens You become suspicious. So
they interviewed people who took the IQ test, and you know,
it starts out very easy, and some of the kids,

(48:41):
because the questions were so easy, turn off and become suspicious.
What's this? Why trying to do trick me up? I
know that we all know the answer to that one.
That's how I felt on the SAT. That's why I
did so bad on my SAT. Yeah, we're going to go.
We're going to go with that reason. Oh gosh, who
are having a conversation? Oh for sure. So you're also

(49:05):
a psychologist by training, right, Oh that's right. Yeah, that's wonderful.
Yeah we don't yell though not Harvard. Yeah. I went
to yell too. Oh you did undergraduate. You know I
had the best compliment for this book, I wrote. You
know what the best compliment was? There was a psychologist.
I've done some work just recently with a thing called
RBC where we have people who have mental problems, but

(49:27):
are incarcerated. Right. And one of the psychologists over there
read the book, and you know, he said, he said,
I love the book and particularly the fact that as
a psychologist I felt respected. Yeah, that was to me,
that was a wonderful compliment, because you see, when you're
writing a book like this for men, it's so easy
to make the bad guys. All psychologists are you know,

(49:51):
they've done all what they're doing, they're they're worth you know,
so forth. And I was trying because one of the
teachings I got in the book was respect. Yeah, and
that means respect for always right and as you said,
always are good, not one way. That means we have
to respect multiple ways of going about it, you see.
And what you're doing is beautiful because you're pushing back,

(50:13):
but you're also joining, Oh sure, which is which is
how we have to do. You know, we don't have
to agree, but we have to respect. Yeah. I really
like that a lot. You know, Just to wrap up
here a second, you know, you talk about what psychologists
you know, the way I visit there's actually a very
hopeful message here, right. You're actually saying that there's so
much untaped potential among mainstream psychologists, that we could do

(50:37):
so much more to increase interconnection, honoring the interconnections that
define us, renewing synergies of multiple psychologies, multiple psychologies, right,
things of that nature. You're saying that, you're not saying like,
it's not just a critique of horrible, bad psychologists, but
it's the way the way I read it is, you're saying,
there's so much more the field could be. Yeah, one

(51:00):
little story, And because I think that's such an important point.
So I was teaching some clinical psychology doctoral students and
we had an elder come in, Mary Lee, wonderful woman,
and I write about that in the book, and she
talks about her traditional counseling and what she does is
she emphasizes listening. She says, the kids I work with,

(51:20):
they want to have their story heard. So one of
my students, after she left, one of my clinical psychology
students said, isn't this kind of like Rogers? I mean,
what's the difference, And I said, yeah, it's like Rogers,
but there's a big difference. Rogers said listening is one
of the components of effective counseling. Mary Lee said, listening

(51:44):
is counseling Now now, hey, listen, Scott, you've been trained,
let's say for five years. I don't know what your
orientation was, but the students I work with a lot
of it, usually CBT or dialectical, you know whatever, big
investment in that. And then to be told that the
essence of counseling is listening, this is very hard and

(52:06):
a little bit threugh. So I said to him, no, no no,
don't misunderstand. The essence is listening. But still bring your
skill set. That's the enhancement, right, Bring your CBT training,
bring your analytic training, but don't forget the foundation upon
which you're all. Your whole work is listening. And that's
an Indigenous perspective. Indigenous perspective is never give up what

(52:30):
you know. It's to add to it. And I'm so
glad you brought that up. Let me one more thing,
which is I want people to know that in this
book that the royalties author royalties are going back to
the people. So the way of encouraging, I'm trying to
encourage people to get to the book because not only
I think it's important teachings, but it can help to

(52:50):
raise a little money. Because when I give back, let's say,
five six hundred dollars to an elder who's living in
the Kalahari. You have no idea how much that means.
It's an incredible infusion that can help with basic survival
kind of tasks. So I just want to what if
people want to help even more? Like, let's say I

(53:11):
want to donate. I have this urge after listening to
your you talk about your life's work, and I want
to donate more money to that. Are there certain websites
I can go to, like what can you do? The
one thing I would mention a Scott because there's a
lot of options, but the one I liked is the
Kalahari People's Fund. Okay, I'll put a link to all
this in the show notes. Yeah, Kalahari People's Fund and

(53:32):
started in the seventies focusing mainly on the Shuntwasi, but
it's basic community development projects like for example, protection of
land resources. It's a beautiful thing, Kalahari People's Fund. And
from there a Scott one could go in many different directions. Yes,
if you could send me a link to that, I'll
put in the show notes. Yeah. Yeah, Look, Dick, I

(53:53):
just want to say thank can I call you, Dick. Absolutely, okay,
thank you so much. I mean, I usually I just
thank my guests, you know, thank you for being the show.
But I feel like for you, just thank you for
like your your existence, you know, you know, fifty years
and showing and shining a spotlight on a very under
well what would you say they're under? What population? Underappreciated, underappreciated, misunderstood,

(54:19):
underappreciated under And yeah, so listen, I'll tell you too.
It's a real pleasure on this. This is fantastic and
I wish can I get a podcast of this too?
How do I do that? I want to I want
to hear absolutely when I published this, I'll send you
the link. Conversation we're having is great. Yeah, it's ready.
I will absolutely send you the links out. Thanks again, Dick. Okay,

(54:43):
take good care you too. Yeah, see you. Thanks for
listening to the Psychology Podcast. I hope you enjoyed this episode.
If you'd like to react in some way to something
you heard, I encourage you to join in the discuss
at the Psychology Podcast dot com. That's the Psychology Podcast

(55:05):
dot com. Also, please add a rating and review of
the Psychology Podcast on iTunes. Thanks for being such a
great supporter of the podcast and tune in next time
or more on the mind, brain behavior and creativity
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