Mind Matters:What matters most

Posted by Dr. Kayta Gajdos on June 15, 2011

Several summer moons ago, at People’s Light and
Theatre, Kathryn Petersen, one of my favorite actors there, performed in a
short play, “July 7, 1994.” She portrayed a physician in an inner city clinic
hearing stories of suffering and offering what healing she could. Meanwhile,
the whole world was transfixed on O.J. Simpson’s SUV lumbering along a freeway
somewhere in Southern California.

I thought of this play as the American culture
again gets transfixed: this time, not by a story of violence enacted by a
celebrity, but by sexually aberrant behavior played out by a semi-powerful
politician. At least one could say in the former case, there was a crime
unfolding. In the latter case, I would say, it’s more a matter of our prurient
interest in another’s fall from fame if not from grace.

Why do public figures do such dumb private things?
First of all, we the public aren’t the ones meant to be privy to their
privates. Nevertheless, their immature antics might be interpreted as a little
too much power having gotten to one’s head (pardon the pun). Power (and wealth,
mind you) can corrupt and it corrupts by the person getting inflated with a
grandiosity, that rules don’t apply to them—they are entitled. That might be
one psychological spin on inappropriate sexual behavior of high profile people.
Another psychological spin may be that their sexuality is an outlet for their
own anxiety. No, this is not the healthy way to handle stress; but stress may
precipitate an acting out of some ego inflation.

Okay, done with my psychology of public figures. My
concern is less about what they do
and more about what the rest of us do in response to their foibles. We
can’t get enough of the jokes and the news about someone taking a dive off the
proverbial pedestal. A bit of schadenfreude
here to be sure. Schadenfreude is the
term given to our delight in another’s demise. We project our unlived hopes for
wealth and power on those who’ve “made it” and then take demonic pleasure when
they’ve succumbed to their frail humanity.

But more important than our schadenfreude, or their awakening to their fallibility, is the fact
of the play “July 7, 1994.” There is a huge world out there that is suffering,
there are really momentous and important life and death decisions to be made,
there are crucial issues to be faced; and, instead, we wrap our brains around
the shallow matters we can, if not understand, laugh at. To my mind, it is
another bread and circus moment in America.

The Roman emperors used to keep the peons mindless
by occupying them with circuses and casting bread to them. Our media does the
same to us. Don’t consider climate change, or how to handle numerous natural
disasters (which might, in fact, be aggravated by unnatural events, such as
man-made climate change).

We all need levity, but not to the point where
we’re not attending to the literal (as well as figurative) levees that are
breaking. Recently, “The American Psychologist,” the journal of the American
Psychological Association, dedicated its entire May-June issue to the
psychology of global climate change.

Many of the articles addressed the disconnect
between scientific evidence and U.S. public opinion. I’ll put their research
simply: Because climate change is a complex issue with many different ways of
dealing with it, because climate change means we have to change attitudes and
behaviors, denial has become our modus
operandi. And the corollary? Much easier to laugh at a public figure’s
disgrace than attend to complex matters that will affect the planet and future
generations to come.

Our children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren
have little interest in photos on a cell phone. They will care whether birds
will fly and whether there will be water to drink and air to breath.

* Kayta Curzie Gajdos holds a doctorate in counseling psychology and is
in private practice in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania. She welcomes comments atMindMatters@DrGajdos.com or (610)388-2888. Past columns are posted
towww.drgajdos.com.

About Kayta Gajdos

Dr. Kathleen Curzie Gajdos ("Kayta") is a licensed psychologist (Pennsylvania and Delaware) who has worked with individuals, couples, and families with a spectrum of problems. She has experience and training in the fields of alcohol and drug addictions, hypnosis, family therapy, Jungian theory, Gestalt therapy, EMDR, and bereavement. Dr. Gajdos developed a private practice in the Pittsburgh area, and was affiliated with the Family Therapy Institute of Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic, having written numerous articles for the Family Therapy Newsletter there. She has published in the American Psychological Association Bulletin, the Family Psychologist, and in the Swedenborgian publications, Chrysalis and The Messenger. Dr. Gajdos has taught at the college level, most recently for West Chester University and Wilmington College, and has served as field faculty for Vermont College of Norwich University the Union Institute's Center for Distance Learning, Cincinnati, Ohio. She has also served as consulting psychologist to the Irene Stacy Community MH/MR Center in Western Pennsylvania where she supervised psychologists in training. Currently active in disaster relief, Dr. Gajdos serves with the American Red Cross and participated in Hurricane Katrina relief efforts as a member of teams from the Department of Health and Human Services' Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.Now living in Chadds Ford, in the Brandywine Valley of eastern Pennsylvania, Dr. Gajdos combines her private practice working with individuals, couples and families, with leading workshops on such topics as grief and healing, the impact of multigenerational grief and trauma shame, the shadow and self, Women Who Run with the Wolves, motherless daughters, and mediation and relaxation. Each year at Temenos Retreat Center in West Chester, PA she leads a griefs of birthing ritual for those who have suffered losses of procreation (abortions, miscarriages, infertility, etc.); she also holds yearly A Day of Re-Collection at Temenos.Dr. Gajdos holds Master's degrees in both philosophy and clinical psychology and received her Ph.D. in counseling at the University of Pittsburgh. Among her professional affiliations, she includes having been a founding member and board member of the C.G. Jung Educational Center of Pittsburgh, as well as being listed in Who's Who of American Women. Currently, she is a member of the American Psychological Association, The Pennsylvania Psychological Association, the Delaware Psychological Association, the American Family Therapy Academy, The Association for Death Education and Counseling, and the Delaware County Mental Health and Mental Retardation Board. Woven into her professional career are Dr. Gajdos' pursuits of dancing, singing, and writing poetry.