M. Scott Peck

M. Scott Peck
Born Morgan Scott Peck
(1936-05-22)May 22, 1936
New York City, New York
Died September 25, 2005(2005-09-25) (aged 69)
Connecticut
Occupation Psychiatrist, writer
Nationality American
Notable works The Road Less Traveled, People of the Lie

Morgan Scott Peck (May 22, 1936 – September 25, 2005) was an American psychiatrist and best-selling author, best known for his first book, The Road Less Traveled, published in 1978.

Early life

Peck was born in New York City, the son of Elizabeth (née Saville) and David Warner Peck, an attorney and judge.[1] Peck was raised a Protestant (his paternal grandmother was from a Jewish family, but Peck's father did not identify himself as a Jew).[2][3][4]

His parents sent him to the prestigious boarding school Phillips Exeter Academy in Exeter, New Hampshire, when he was 13.[5] In his book, The Road Less Traveled,[6] he confides the story of his brief stay at Exeter, and admits that it was a most miserable time. Finally, at age 15, during the spring holiday of his third year, he came home and refused to return to the school, whereupon his parents sought psychiatric help for him and he was (much to his amusement in later life) diagnosed with depression and recommended for a month's stay in a psychiatric hospital (unless he chose to return to school). He then transferred to Friends Seminary (a private K-12 school) in late 1952, and graduated in 1954, after which he received a BA from Harvard in 1958, and an MD degree from Case Western Reserve University in 1963.[5]

Career

Peck served in administrative posts in the government during his career as a psychiatrist. He also served in the U.S. Army and rose to the rank of lieutenant colonel. His Army assignments included stints as chief of psychology at the Army Medical Center in Okinawa, Japan, and assistant chief of psychiatry and neurology in the office of the surgeon general in Washington, D.C.[5] He was the Medical Director of the New Milford Hospital Mental Health Clinic and a psychiatrist in private practice in New Milford, Connecticut.[5] His first and best-known book, The Road Less Traveled, sold more than ten million copies.

Peck's works combined his experiences from his private psychiatric practice with a distinctly religious point of view. In his second book, People of the Lie, he wrote, "After many years of vague identification with Buddhist and Islamic mysticism, I ultimately made a firm Christian commitment – signified by my non-denominational baptism on the ninth of March 1980..." (Peck, 1983/1988,[7] p11). One of his views was that people who are evil attack others rather than face their own failures.[6]

In December 1984, Peck co-founded the Foundation for Community Encouragement (FCE), a tax-exempt, nonprofit, public educational foundation, whose stated mission is "to teach the principles of community to individuals and organizations." FCE ceased day-to-day operations from 2002 to 2009. In late 2009, almost 25 years after FCE was first founded, the organization resumed functioning, and began offering community building and training events in 2010.[5]

Personal life

Peck married Lily Ho in 1959, and they had three children. In 1994, they jointly received the Community of Christ International Peace Award. In 2004, they were separated and later divorced. Peck then married Kathleen Kline Yates.[5]

While Peck's writings emphasized the virtues of a disciplined life and delayed gratification, his personal life was far more turbulent.[5] For example, in his book In Search of Stones,[8] Peck acknowledged having extramarital affairs and being estranged from two of his children.

Death

Peck died at his home in Connecticut on September 25, 2005, after suffering from Parkinson's disease, pancreatic[5] and liver duct cancer. Fuller Theological Seminary houses the archives of his publications, awards, and correspondence.

The Road Less Traveled

The Road Less Traveled,[6] published in 1978, is Peck's best-known work, and the one that made his reputation. It is, in short, a description of the attributes that make for a fulfilled human being, based largely on his experiences as a psychiatrist and a person.

The book consists of four parts. In the first part Peck examines the notion of discipline, which he considers essential for emotional, spiritual, and psychological health, and which he describes as "the means of spiritual evolution". The elements of discipline that make for such health include the ability to delay gratification, accepting responsibility for oneself and one's actions, a dedication to truth, and "balancing". "Balancing" refers to the problem of reconciling multiple, complex, possibly conflicting factors that impact on an important decision—on one's own behalf or on behalf of another.

In the second part, Peck addresses the nature of love, which he considers the driving force behind spiritual growth. He contrasts his own views on the nature of love against a number of common misconceptions about love, including:

Peck argues that "true" love is rather an action that one undertakes consciously in order to extend one's ego boundaries by including others or humanity, and is therefore the spiritual nurturing—which can be directed toward oneself, as well as toward one's beloved.

In the third part Peck deals with religion, and the commonly accepted views and misconceptions concerning religion. He recounts experiences from several patient case histories, and the evolution of the patients' notion of God, religion, atheism—especially of their own "religiosity" or atheism—as their therapy with Peck progressed.

The fourth and final part concerns "grace", the powerful force originating outside human consciousness that nurtures spiritual growth in human beings. In order to focus on the topic, he describes the miracles of health, the unconscious, and serendipity—phenomena which Peck says:

He concludes that "the miracles described indicate that our growth as human beings is being assisted by a force other than our conscious will" (Peck, 1978/1992,[6] p281).

Random House, where the then little-known psychiatrist first tried to publish his original manuscript, turned him down, saying the final section was "too Christ-y." Thereafter, Simon & Schuster published the work for $7,500 and printed a modest hardback run of 5,000 copies. The book took off only after Peck hit the lecture circuit and personally sought reviews in key publications. Later reprinted in paperback in 1980, The Road first made best-seller lists in 1984 – six years after its initial publication.[5]

Theories

Discipline

In The Road Less Traveled,[6] Peck wrote of the importance of discipline. He described four aspects of discipline:

Peck’s book begins with the statement "Life is difficult" (Peck, 1978/1992,[6] p13). Peck argues that life was never meant to be easy, and is essentially a series of problems which can either be solved or ignored.

Peck defines discipline as the basic set of tools required to solve life’s problems. He considers these tools to include delaying gratification, assuming responsibility, dedication to the truth, and balancing. Peck argues that these are techniques of suffering, that enable the pain of problems to be worked through and systematically solved, producing growth. He argues that most people avoid the pain of dealing with their problems and suggests that it is through facing the pain of problem solving that life becomes more meaningful.

Delaying gratification is the process by which pain is chosen to be experienced before pleasure. Most learn this activity by the age of five. For example, a six-year-old child will prefer eating the cake first and the frosting last. Children will rather finish their homework first, so that they can play later on. However, a sizable number of adolescents seem to lack this capacity. These problematic students are totally controlled by their impulses. Such youngsters indulge in drugs, get into frequent fights, and often find themselves in confrontation with authority.

Peck states that it is only through taking responsibility and accepting the fact that life has problems, that these problems can then be solved. He argues that Neurosis and character-disorder people represent two opposite disorders of responsibility. Neurotics assume too much responsibility and feel responsible for everything that goes wrong in their life, while character disordered people deny responsibility, blaming others for their problems. Peck writes in the Road Less Traveled that "It is said ‘neurotics make themselves miserable; those with character disorders make everyone else miserable’" (Peck, 1978/1992,[6] p38). Peck argues that everyone is neurotic or character-disordered at some time in their life, and the balance is to avoid both extremes

Dedication to the truth represents the capacity of an individual to modify and update their worldview when exposed to new information discordant with the old view. For example, a bitter childhood can leave a person with the false idea that the world is a hostile and inhuman place. However, with continued exposure to more positive aspects of the world, this existing worldview is challenged and needs to be modified to integrate the new experiences. Peck also argues that dedication to truth implies a life of genuine self-examination, a willingness to be personally challenged by others, and honesty to oneself and others.

Peck considers the use of these interrelated techniques of discipline as paramount, if the difficulties and conflicting requirements of life are to be dealt with and balanced successfully.

Neurotic and legitimate suffering

Peck believes that it is only through suffering and agonizing using the four aspects of discipline (delaying gratification, acceptance of responsibility, dedication to truth, and balancing) that we can resolve the many puzzles and conflicts that we face.[6] This is what he calls undertaking legitimate suffering. Peck argues that by trying to avoid legitimate suffering, people actually ultimately end up suffering more. This extra unnecessary suffering is what Scott Peck terms neurotic suffering. He references Carl Jung 'Neurosis is always a substitute for legitimate suffering'.[9] Peck says that our aim must be to eliminate neurotic suffering and to work through our legitimate suffering in order to achieve our individual goals.[6]

People of the Lie

First published in 1983, People of the Lie: The Hope For Healing Human Evil (ISBN 0 7126 1857 0) followed on from Peck's first book. Peck describes the stories of several people who came to him whom he found particularly resistant to any form of help. He came to think of them as evil and goes on to describe the characteristics of evil in psychological terms, proposing that it could become a psychiatric diagnosis.

Evil

Peck discusses evil in his book People of the Lie: The Hope for Healing Human Evil,[7] and also in a chapter of The Road Less Traveled.[6] Peck characterizes evil as a malignant type of self-righteousness in which there is an active rather than passive refusal to tolerate imperfection (sin) and its consequent guilt.[6][7] This syndrome results in a projection of evil onto selected specific innocent victims (often children), which is the paradoxical mechanism by which the People of the Lie commit their evil.[7] Peck argues that these people are the most difficult of all to deal with, and extremely hard to identify.[7] He describes in some detail several individual cases involving his patients. In one case which Peck considers as the most typical because of its subtlety, he describes Roger, a depressed teenage son of respected, well off parents.[7] In a series of parental decisions justified by often subtle distortions of the truth, they exhibit a consistent disregard for their son's feelings, and a consistent willingness to destroy his growth. With false rationality and normality, they aggressively refuse to consider that they are in any way responsible for his resultant depression, eventually suggesting his condition must be incurable and genetic.

Some of his conclusions about the psychiatric condition that he designates as "evil" are derived from his close study of one patient he names Charlene.[7] Although Charlene is not dangerous, she is ultimately unable to have empathy for others in any way. According to Peck, people like her see others as play things or tools to be manipulated for their own uses or entertainment. Peck states that these people are rarely seen by psychiatrists, and have never been treated successfully.

Evil is described by Peck as "militant ignorance". The original Judeo-Christian concept of "sin" is as a process that leads us to "miss the mark" and fall short of perfection.[7] Peck argues that while most people are conscious of this, at least on some level, those that are evil actively and militantly refuse this consciousness. Peck considers those he calls evil to be attempting to escape and hide from their own conscience (through self-deception), and views this as being quite distinct from the apparent absence of conscience evident in sociopathy.[7]

According to Peck an evil person:[6][7]

Most evil people realize the evil deep within themselves but are unable to tolerate the pain of introspection, or admit to themselves that they are evil. Thus, they constantly run away from their evil by putting themselves in a position of moral superiority and putting the focus of evil on others. Evil is an extreme form of what Scott Peck, in The Road Less Traveled, calls a character and personality disorder.[6][7]

Using the My Lai Massacre as a case study Peck also examines group evil, discussing how human group morality is strikingly less than individual morality.[7] Partly, he considers this to be a result of specialization, which allows people to avoid individual responsibility and pass the buck, resulting in a reduction of group conscience.

Though the topic of evil has historically been the domain of religion,[7] Peck makes great efforts to keep much of his discussion on a scientific basis, explaining the specific psychological mechanisms by which evil operates. He was also particularly conscious of the danger of a psychology of evil being misused for personal or political ends.[7] Peck considered that such a psychology should be used with great care, as falsely labeling people as evil is one of the very characteristics of evil. He argued that a diagnosis of evil should come from the standpoint of healing and safety for its victims, but also with the possibility even if remote, that the evil themselves may be cured.

Ultimately Peck says that evil arises out of free choice. He describes it thus: Every person stands at a crossroads, with one path leading to God, and the other path leading to the devil. The path of God is the right path, and accepting this path is akin to submission to a higher power. However, if a person wants to convince himself and others that he has free choice, he would rather take a path which cannot be attributed to its being the right path. Thus, he chooses the path of evil.

Peck also discussed the question of the devil.[7] Initially he believed, as with ‘99% of psychiatrists and the majority of clergy’ (Peck, 1983/1988,[7] p182), that the devil did not exist; but, after starting to believe in the reality of human evil, he then began to contemplate the reality of spiritual evil. Eventually, after having been referred several possible cases of possession and being involved in two exorcisms, he was converted to a belief in the existence of Satan. Peck considered people who are possessed as being victims of evil, but of not being evil themselves. Peck however considered possession to be rare, and human evil common. He did believe there was some relationship between Satan and human evil, but was unsure of its exact nature. Peck's writings and views on possession and exorcism are to some extent influenced and based on specific accounts by Malachi Martin, however the veracity of these accounts and Peck's own diagnostic approach to possession have both since been questioned.[10] It has been argued that it is not possible to find formal records to establish the veracity of Father Malachi Martin's described cases of possession, as all exorcism files are sealed by the Archdiocese of New York, where all but one of the cases took place.[11]

Love

His perspective on love (in The Road Less Traveled) is that love is not a feeling, it is an activity and an investment. He defines love as, "The will to extend one's self for the purpose of nurturing one's own or another's spiritual growth" (Peck, 1978/1992,[6] p85). Love is primarily actions towards nurturing the spiritual growth of another.

Peck seeks to differentiate between love and cathexis. Cathexis is what explains sexual attraction, the instinct for cuddling pets and pinching babies cheeks. However, cathexis is not love. All the same, true love cannot begin in isolation, a certain amount of cathexis is necessary to get sufficiently close to be able to truly love.

Once through the cathexis stage, the work of love begins. It is not a feeling. It consists of what you do for another person. As Peck says in The Road Less Traveled, "Love is as love does." It is about giving yourself and the other person what they need to grow. It is about truly knowing and understanding them.

The four stages of spiritual development

Peck postulates that there are four stages of human spiritual development:[12][13]

Peck argues that while transitions from Stage I to Stage II are sharp, transitions from Stage III to Stage IV are gradual. Nonetheless, these changes are very noticeable and mark a significant difference in the personality of the individual.

Community building

In his book The Different Drum: Community Making and Peace[12], Peck says that community has three essential ingredients:

Based on his experience with community building workshops, Peck says that community building typically goes through four stages:

The four stages of community formation are somewhat related to a model in organization theory for the five stages that a team goes through during development. These five stages are:

It is in this third stage that Peck's community-building methods differ in principle from team development. While teams in business organizations need to develop explicit rules, guidelines and protocols during the norming stage, the emptiness stage of community building is characterized, not by laying down the rules explicitly, but by shedding the resistance within the minds of the individuals.

Peck started the Foundation for Community Encouragement (FCE) to promote the formation of communities, which, he argues, are a first step towards uniting humanity and saving us from self-destruction.

The Blue Heron Farm is an intentional community in central North Carolina, whose founders stated that they were inspired by Peck's writings on community. Peck himself had no involvement with this project.

Characteristics of true community

Peck describes what he considers to be the most salient characteristics of a true community:[12]

Bibliography

References

  1. ↑ Cook, Joan (August 24, 1990). "David W. Peck, 87, Former Justice And Court Reformer in New York". The New York Times.
  2. ↑ "Can a guru heal himself?". The Guardian (London). July 5, 2003.
  3. ↑ Bernstein, Adam; Post, Washington (September 28, 2005). "Scott Peck, 69; 'Road Less Traveled' inspired readers, influenced market". The Boston Globe.
  4. ↑ Jones, Arthur (November 7, 2003). "The road last traveled: M. Scott Peck's journey with Parkinson's disease". Health Beat. National Catholic Reporter. Retrieved January 2, 2013.
  5. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Jones, Arthur. (2007). The Road He Traveled: The Revealing Biography of M. Scott Peck. Rider.
  6. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 Peck, M. Scott. (1978;1992). The Road Less Traveled. Arrow Books.
  7. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 Peck, M. Scott. (1983, 1988). People of the Lie: The hope for healing human evil. Century Hutchinson.
  8. ↑ Peck, M. Scott. (1996). In Search of Stones: A Pilgrimage of Faith, Reason and Discovery . Simon & Schuster.
  9. ↑ Jung, C.G Collected Works of C.G Jung. Princeton University Press, 1973
  10. ↑ Woods, Richard (April 29, 2005). "The devil you know". National Catholic Reporter (Open Publishing). Retrieved 2009-05-22.
  11. ↑ Kennedy, William H. (July 1, 2002). "In Defense of Father Malachi Martin". Seattle Catholic July 2002 (updated March 2003). Archived from the original on October 26, 2009. Retrieved 2009-06-20.
  12. 1 2 3 Peck, M. Scott. (1987). The Different Drum: Community Making and Peace . Simon & Schuster.
  13. ↑ Peck, M. Scott. (1993). Further Along the Road Less Traveled: The Unending Journey Toward Spiritual Growth. Simon & Schuster.

Further reading

External links

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