Interview:
Jack Childs
Jack Childs
Quality of Life
Jack Childs: Holistic Perspectives
on Quality of Life
Dr. Jack Childs is a full professor and Holistic Counselor who founded and headed the Holistic Counseling Master’s Degree Program at Salve Regina University for the last seventeen years. He recently turned over the directorship to Dr. Peter Mullen who also has extensive training and experience as an educator and as a licensed psychologist and has been with the Program since 1991. Jack, who was also director of the Human Development Department at Salve Regina, continues his full academic schedule as professor and remains very involved with the Program and with the New England Holistic Counselors Association. He received his Bachelor of Science from Manhattan College, a Master’s in Fine Arts from Catholic University in New York and in Science from Brooklyn College where his focus was guidance and counseling. Jack completed his Doctorate of Education at the University of Tennessee where his dissertation research focused on transcendental meditation as therapy for juvenile delinquents. He received postdoctoral training from the Arica and Gestalt Training Institutes in Florida and trained in Tai Chi, Yoga, Psychosynthesis, Native American Desert Vision Quest, and in massage therapy. Jack was a guidance counselor and elementary and high school teacher in New York City for nineteen years as a member of the Religious Teaching Order of the De La Salle Christian Brothers. He has sat on several boards including the Women’s Resource Center, Young Parents, Visiting Nurses, and Star of the Sea, a spiritual retirement center for the elderly. He also serves as an advisor to Shake-A-Leg, a holistic program which he co-founded for post rehabilitation of people who suffer from spinal cord injuries. He has attended and participated in several international conferences on science and spirituality. Jack lives in Portsmouth, Rhode Island with his two cats, Teddy and Fiona.
Q: What does quality of life mean to you?
A: Quality of life is the felt sense that I am fully experiencing life, and that moment to moment I am fully aware of being alive with all of my senses, inner and outer. It also involves feeling that I am in the place in which I ought to be. Joseph Campbell has called this "following your bliss." Life is seen as having meaning. Quality of life is what Thomas Moore calls "soul."
Q: What do you think people are searching for?
A: Once people’s basic needs are met, it seems to me that human beings are searching for purpose. What am I doing here? It may be phrased differently: What kind of job do I want? Do I want children? What kind of mate do I want? But the bottom line is that we are searching out who we are and how this relates to the world around us. Joseph Campbell said that what people are looking for is the inexpressible. This is the realm of myth. This realm reveals a wider worldview than does our contemporary science. What is exciting is that the new physics has afforded us a larger view of matter. It has become clearer now, how matter matters. At its essence, matter is made up of waves or particles that exist only in response to the observer’s intent. In its wave dimension, sub-atomic elements are more like events or units of intelligence. In its macro-level, it extends into galaxies beyond galaxies; and equally into infinitesimal spaces at its micro-level. I think people are looking for meaning and purpose in life, for a sense that who they are and what they do matters.
Q: When does this search for meaning begin? Is this developmentally normative?
A: Once people are responsible for creating a life for themselves they begin to explore what gives them purpose and meaning. This needs to be nurtured. However it is part of our essence when we are born and is established early on in childhood as we have seen with young survivors of childhood trauma. They try to make sense of what has happened to them. Some have shown how young survivors of the Holocaust had to create meaning out of their circumstances in order to survive. What Aaron Antonovsky, a medical sociologist in 1979 termed "a sense of coherence."
Q: You mentioned the observer’s intent? What is this and why is this important?
A: We as observers have the ability to affect and be affected by the world around us, by how we choose to see things in life. This is immensely important. Joyful thoughts can create joyful emotions, which in turn can create a healthy spirit that affects one’s physical being.
Q: As in the past, many politically radical groups, religious cults, or street gangs strive for things that are vitally important to all of us. These include seeming ideals like equality, the eradication of racism, the reduction of pollution. They strive for a better quality of life and live lives that they believe in. Yet their choices can also involve massive destruction and the death of others. How do we reconcile that?
A: Many groups at the center of politically radical regimes, street gangs, or religious cults are looking to improve the lives of other human beings; yet they can sometimes perpetrate great crimes against humanity. Often they are so obsessed by their goals that they lose sight of the process; the end justifies the means. Stalinists believed that many would need to die in the name of the eventual good that a socialist state would bring. This discrepancy can be viewed usefully from the vantage place of developmental psychology. There are different levels of individual evolution in cognitive and moral development. For example, Robert Kegan infers that only fifty percent of the population ever reach the level of Piaget’s formal operations. This is the stage where a person is capable of thinking about thinking. The corollary here is that this level of formal operations also allows one to intuit what the experience of other people is like--in other words, the capacity to be empathetic. This means possessing the ability to be both compassionate and deeply understanding of another’s situation. In their development, many people stay stuck at lower levels of morality; ones that center a rigid adherence to rules and dogma. If the prevailing worldview of our times is truncated by the boundaries of a mechanical world, if there is nothing beyond inert matter in life, then it doesn’t make much difference ultimately, if one kills or does harm to other human beings, to non-human animals, or to the environment.
Q: Why do you think people are willing to lead such turbulent lives?
A: People are willing to lead dedicated and difficult existences that inflict harm on others because they can separate one aspect of themselves from another. They are not integrated within. People are sometimes not willing or do not understand how to make things better for themselves. All of our inner qualities co-exist in polar dimensions. For example, love and anger are polarities--opposite ends of the same quality, according to Everett Shostrom. Polarities within us are often in conflict; such as people who haven’t integrated the love with the anger--and live out love without being informed by the energy of anger (a fire-like energy); or they live a life of anger unmitigated by caring. Often they are passionate people who get caught up in an ideology; such as the IRA in Ireland. Extreme ideologies bind perception of reality to a narrow worldview. Everyone is unique and therefore each individual is motivated according to his or her own temperament. Some may be followers; some may not conceptualize any other way of "making a living." Many are incapable of forgiveness. In our culture, forgiving is seen as caving in. Certainly a passion drives them--good in itself--but because it is driven by their limited perception of reality (perception is affected by past experience and present needs), their vision is truncated or cut off from the living whole. Many are also incapable of tolerating ambiguity, a quality Maslow ascribes to self-actualized persons.
Q: Does quality of life mean leading a life that you are willing to sacrifice?
A: Quality of life means that you would be able to give up your life for a belief. But if we believe that we are part of something bigger than ourselves we cannot ethically inflict harm on others or ourselves and justify it by our ideals. Martyrdom is something that needs to be discerned with care and with consultation. To court martyrdom can result in egotistical self-expression unrelated to the needs of the larger community. It, like suicide, can be a mode of manipulation. Individuals can kill others because they perceive their beliefs and lifestyle to be a threat to their way of life. The innocent can be called "collateral damage" because the capacity for compassion for others outside the group is absent.
Q: People have tremendous access to information, are more aware of their rights, question medical decisions, and demand to have choices. We see and hear about complementary and alternative solutions to health everywhere. Can you talk a little about this? Will this lead to our having more substantive lives?
A: People are more informed in our times. Education has proliferated in formal and informal situations--schools, television, computers, advertising, social institutions such as the law. The medical profession has a scientific basis. Still, there is a great deal of conflicting evidence produced, leaving people wondering whether they can trust authority. They are forced to be their own authorities -- which is really a natural extension of the spirit of democracy. Complementary therapies often place the choice in the hands of the individual. David Eisenberg’s survey ten years ago at Harvard surprised the medical profession with the enormous number of persons utilizing "alternative" therapies. There are now a number of responsible journals such as Alternative Therapies available for their use. Has this made our lives better? I think so, from the vantage point of people who value taking responsibility for their own health/wholeness. As people seek out preventive therapies, they feel better in their body-minds. As this happens, there is a tendency to make wiser choices that, in turn, lead to living well. They have a sense of control or coherence.
Q: Why did you begin the holistic counseling program? What does a holistic perspective bring to the work of the counselor?
A: Holistic counselors do not ascribe to any one particular modality. "Holistic" derives from the Anglo Saxon word "hal" from which we get "whole, heal, health etc". These counselors seek to live effectively so that they may counsel effectively in order that they can help people to achieve and experience the balance and quality of life they are looking for. Holistic counselors are able to engage the various levels of consciousness of different stages in human development. They can address the mental health issues involved in working with people struggling with questions of identity and personal development. They are available to guide others in actualizing their potential through the body-mind connection. And they are prepared to be present to an individual’s spiritual development. Essentially, therefore, we are preparing a new profession for a new time in human evolution because we believe a critical aspect of thinking "differently" is found in chaos theory, which suggests that there is order in chaos but that we must be patient to process and understand its relevance. These counselors are trained in processing chaos as part of the creative management of crisis.
Q: What would you want parents, caretakers, teachers, and those developing public health policies to know about raising healthy children?
A: Parents, caretakers, teachers, and everyone else who is entrusted with raising healthy children needs to respect them and know that they, like us, develop at their own speed. The potential for developing skills is present in them, but will develop in a healthy way in an environment characterized by joyous relationships with nurturing and patient people.
It is also important for parents and those working with and for children that they too be emotionally and spiritually healthy so that they can be good role models for children and provide them with healthy experiences relevant to their stage of development. This is some of the work of preventing unhealthy outcomes for children.
Q: How do we or can we prevent pathology from happening, developmentally speaking?
A: Pathology is a deviation from the normal when normal means functioning according to one’s design. Pathology happens in early childhood when bonding or the attachment to a main caregiver does not occur. The child’s needs must be met at each stage of development, beginning with the needs of safety, love, and stimulation.
Over time and with a continued nurturing environment, adolescents eventually become more secure, responsible and accountable for creating what they need in life. In the process of healthy development, they explore ways to uncover and share their uniqueness. They build their own richness and quality of experience.
If the foundation is not strong, pathology can also develop later in life, typically in the late adolescent years as the young adult begins to express who he or she is. For some it appears to be genetically preconditioned.
Q: You have seen how an enriched quality of life could develop in those who were physically impaired. Can you talk a little about your work in this area, in particular with Shake-A-Leg.
A: Shake-A-Leg began in 1982, when I shared some research by a Feldenkrais practitioner with a recently paralyzed young man. This motivated him to work with complementary therapies. Pleased with his progress, he suggested putting together a residential physical therapy program with complementary therapies, sports and sailing. We began in the Boys Club in 1982 and continued the summer programs at Salve with arrivals from all over the country and abroad in a healing community. Jean Ackterberg, the psychologist, says, "All healing happens in community." We work on making sense out of what life presents us; and utilize a body-mind approach. We do not promise anything but we look for what is possible. Shake-A-Leg has had unique and significant success in expanding the range of movement, hope, and independence of hundreds of physically impaired persons. Healing can happen without a complete cure and can greatly enhance the life experience of those challenged by significant physical disabilities.
Q: What can people do to make a difference in creating a better life for themselves?
A: We realize that the mind is an aspect of the body and that it is not the exclusive function of the brain. We know from the research of people like Dr. Candace Pert that the immune system is in constant dialogue, and in constant interaction with our thoughts and emotions. The images and thoughts that we give to ourselves can greatly affect our level of health and sense of wholeness. In essence, creating healthy images for ourselves, surrounding ourselves with uplifting people, and focusing on what we want more of in our lives can be very healthy for us, physically, emotionally, and spiritually.
Q: In summary, is there anything else that you feel is important to share with regards to your work?
A: In creating a new profession in counseling that includes, but goes beyond pathology, we have come to see that being content with our lives greatly impacts our general well-being. Creating this contentment can and does take time. Happiness comes from an inner peace and balance that can be achieved mostly by looking at how we live, why we live this way, what we believe, what it is that we want in life, and what we want to give or contribute to the world. Therapy, as Polster says, is not the exclusive privilege of the sick.
To guide individuals in their cognitive, moral, emotional, and spiritual development up the ladder of self-actualization and toward transcendence means helping them to follow their unique path, or "individuation" process described by Jung, or what James Hillman alludes to as the "vocation" or blueprint we come into life with. Hillman encourages us to look to the future.
From here will emerge the new paradigm required for the civilization that is still to come. We humans as conscious creatures have a hand in the direction of what Laszlo terms "bifurcations" - paths of evolution.