I attempted to explain to Tom and Peter that it had become clearer and clearer to me during the past year just how much my thoughts controlled my own personal life.
Peter became very serious. "Eric, it's very obvious that you are seeing something I'm not. Correct me if I'm wrong, but what I am hearing you say is that you are starting to believe that thoughts are one of the main sources of everyone's behavior and that thoughts are also the basis of all our personal realities."
"When you think about it Peter, how could we possibly function as human beings without thought?" I asked.
"That may be true," Peter responded. "Maybe we couldn't function without thoughts. But what good will that knowledge do me?"
Janet interrupted before I could answer Peter's question. "You know, all my life, as far as I can remember, I've always wondered to what extent our thoughts affected our lives," she said.
"That's why I've always figured it is cruel to take clients back into past traumatic experiences and watch them needlessly reliving their hellish ordeals. When you think about it, all we are doing is asking them to keep dwelling on things that are painful to them. As a therapist, I've honestly never seen it do much good. This new approach of yours, Eric, sounds much gentler and friendlier—and if it works, it would be incredible."
"Do you think that some of your clients honestly believe they are actually starting to free themselves from their traumatic experiences and memories of their childhood?" Tom demanded skeptically. "We all know that our personal and mental structure is learned at an early age and can't be changed. As far as I'm concerned, the most you can teach people is how to cope."
"You know, Tom, I once asked Andy about that very thing," I replied. "Do you know what he said? 'Merely coping with your memories is like putting a bucket under a leaky roof. It would be only a temporary solution and, in the long run, of very little value. It might even allow the original problem to get worse.'"
Janet suggested to Tom that his negative outlook in life wouldn't give himself or his clients much hope. "What was it Andy said today?" she mused. "Oh yes, he said,
"All you have to do is realize that the past is now only a ghostly memory kept alive by digging into the archives of your own stagnated memories."
Tears began to run down Janet's cheeks as she said, "I have to admit these are very powerful words. I don't know why, but they mean a lot to me. I feel them right here," she said, pointing to her heart.
This was the first time I'd ever seen this kind of reaction from Janet, and I'd certainly never before heard such interesting and profound philosophical discussions between Janet, Tom and Peter. Whatever the gardener was saying, he was certainly having quite an effect on the four of us.
Peter said, "I just remembered a professor in college, Professor Allan, who told me that all the research he had done on mental health indicated that it was always the patients' thoughts which dictated the final course of their actions. I don't think he felt people could control the contents of their thoughts. But he had a strong suspicion that thoughts are somehow connected to an inevitable outcome. That professor didn't have the answer to how it all worked, but he was certainly trying his best. He was a really nice guy and a damn good teacher." Then, with a chuckle, he said, "I wonder what Professor Allan would think of this conversation?"
Chapter 8
Thought and Change
Both Peter and Tom continued to be disturbed by some of the gardener's statements. After reflecting on some of his philosophical views, they decided that they wanted to challenge him. So the following day, after our scheduled meeting, we decided to gather once again at the fountain where Andy had been working. When we arrived, there was no sign of the gardener, but we were sure he couldn't be far off. We spent a blissful few minutes lounging on the lawn, enjoying the summer weather.
"I can't believe it," Peter said. "Here we are, four qualified practitioners at a serious, professional convention, asking some old gardener for information that might assist us in our practice. Do you have the feeling there is something amiss?"
With a large grin on her face, Janet said, "Why not seek information where we find it? Who knows? Maybe the old guy does have something worthwhile to say. I know one thing—whatever he said yesterday sure got to me. After all, even though Freud was a highly educated man, he had absolutely no psychological training. He created his theories from his own personal observations of life with the best scientific methodology available at the time."
"That's true," I said. "Freud had no more training in the psychological field than Andy does. What if, by mere chance, Andy does know something that we don't?"
"And maybe pigs can fly!" Tom snapped.
Janet completely ignored Tom's sarcastic remark, saying, "When you think of it, many major discoveries throughout history were initially refuted, even deliberately suppressed by various professions and universities. For example, when Dr. Lister suggested that germs were the cause of infection, recommending that surgeons should scrub up before an operation and that surgical instruments should be sterilized, he was ridiculed and scorned by his colleagues in the Royal College of Surgeons."
"Even obvious solutions to pressing problems," I added, "are sometimes buried by the prevailing views. I learned recently that it took more than 100 years of persistence for a simple clockmaker's solution to the problem of determining longitude to gain acceptance. The astronomers in those days were so sure that the answer was complex and difficult that they scoffed at an uneducated clockmaker's simple answer to their difficulty. According to history, they continued to delay trials and impose special conditions on the clockmakers idea for years, even though ships and lives were being lost regularly because of the lack of a reliable means of calculating longitude."
"Yes," Janet agreed. "I recall that story. The astronomers thought the clockmaker was just too ignorant about navigational calculations. They constantly blocked efforts to test his specially designed clocks aboard ships because he was not an astronomer and therefore, in their view, couldn't begin to understand the problem. They couldn't see that something as simple as keeping accurate time aboard ships could have anything to do with something so difficult as reckoning their location on the high seas."
"And yet," I said, "it seems incredible to us now— absolutely ludicrous—that they would not even take the time for an honest look at the solution the clockmaker was suggesting."
"Their egos probably got in the way and they didn't want the world to know that a clockmaker discovered the solution to a navigator's problem," Peter responded. "I imagine some people would find such a situation embarrassing."
Janet shot Peter a meaningful look. "I think one of the failures of many people is to reject that which they know little about!"
At that moment, a pretty young woman approached us and introduced herself as Helen, the assistant manager of the hotel. She graciously asked if everything was going well with our conference and if our accommodations were to our satisfaction. We assured her that everything was more than we had expected and thanked her for her concern, commenting on the attractiveness of the hotel and the grounds.
"Wonderful!" she responded. "And please, if you want anything, just let us know and we will do our best to accommodate you."
On a whim, I asked Helen if she had seen the gardener today.
"You mean Andy? Yes, I saw him heading towards the garden shed. Is anything wrong?"
"No, no," I assured her. "We just wanted to have a little talk with him. Have you known Andy very long?"
"I've known Andy approximately five years now," she said with a smile, "and I can honestly say he is a good friend who helped save my life."