Introduction

In ancient and wiser days the human psyche had the respect of wise men who appreciated its complexity and the ease with which its delicate balance can be disturbed. They were very careful with their intervention. But populism and the ‘first create a need’ marketing ethic has encouraged a boom in the low-quality psychotherapy industry. Its victims have no place in the air, and those who create victims, even unwittingly, should not be allowed to practise their craft in responsible society.

Cockpit 2000 and Breakthrough: Should These Have Stayed at Home?

This essay was written in 1996 for the British Airline Pilots’ Union magazine and its ‘A SIdeways Look’ item.

[The following letter was submitted with the essay to the Editorial manager:-

Dear Ms Alexander,

I wonder if the enclosed is interesting. The subject is one with which we Brits are unfamiliar; we therefore have little defence against the unhelpful effects of improving lessons. More significantly, most of the blokes, whatever they feel, are unlikely to put pen to paper, or even discuss such esoteric stuff – not our style. Americans, on the other hand, are brought up with it, and are keen to find imperfect features to emote about.

I have not mentioned it in this article, but what encouraged me to write about what I think is out of order (unsuitable for us) is the recent number of flight crew suicides. Once again this seems to have gone by without comment – what is there to say? – just one (several) of those things? I’m not so sure. A colleague with an office job said “You’re quite right – the rate has gone up.” He also told me that flight crew suicides now equal the national average. They shouldn’t be anything like the national average and a few historical statistics would be interesting – would you have any figures going back? Although it is not possible to prove that across-the-board encouragement for us to get in touch with our inner selves has precipitated the odd case of one-way depression I would put money on it if I were a betting man.

I wonder if anyone else has the same uneasy thoughts – I suspect yes.

(She phoned me to say yes they had.)]

DIY Psychotherapy for Sane People at Work? - Definitely Not!

I am concerned about the potential for unhelpful change (damage if you prefer) that may lurk within some aspects of New Age politically correct philosophy that have filtered their way down (over about thirty years) to the shop floor. Offering the initial pitch of life-changing strategy to a willing, receptive but essentially unspecified workforce is, in my opinion, naïve and reckless (even if the majority emerges unscathed).

I enjoyed my CRM (Cockpit Resource Management i.e. getting on with others) course. There can be no doubt that the concept is a good and timely one, and there can be few who have not been changed, even a tiny bit, by the experience. That’s the objective of course.

I looked forward to receiving my Cockpit 2000 feedback with a sense of eager anticipation tinged with mild apprehension, and wondered what it could really see. Would it describe the real me, or would we read about an alien (a mix-up in the paperwork perhaps)? When it came I was impressed. I’d given the giveaway forms to the first people I’d met, and as they were a delayed crew with time on their hands wondered whether they would get together and stitch me up. They thought about it but didn’t.

My own write-up was me exactly, warts and all. Theirs was similar, but detuned, kinder; but it was me alright. Later I showed it to one or two of them. The astonishing thing was the reaction: “That wasn’t what I meant at all – this is much too critical.” Yet their answers to the trivial questions had come up with a revealing picture, good and bad, balanced as the system provides (and flatteringly long). As a serial neurotic, and one who both needs reasons for everything and struggles constantly with a dismal self-image, I was surprised at how perceptive was the Californian computer.

The text that laid bare my very soul was presented with a patronising breeziness, so as not to disconcert the simple worker with anything that smacked of clinical jargon. ‘Lawks-a-mercy, crewman Michael. A. Riley, what have we here!!? . . . never mind, here’s a wonderful base on which to build.’ (I’m in my fifties. I discovered I’ve been in the wrong job all these years; but what’s a job anyway?)

The reaction of some of my classmates surprised me. For example, one nice middle-aged mild-mannered kind father, dutiful husband and ideal training captain type showed me his write-up with deep consternation. “I feel I’ve been kicked in the balls,” he said. “Let’s have a look,” I replied. I read a few paragraphs of warm, comfortably affirming prose, and maybe one sentence about ‘a slight tendency to irritability when under pressure.’ “That’s nothing,” I said, “have a look at mine;” but he was too preoccupied with these official revelations to hear me. And many of us will have had a bit of a smirk at the earnest high profile suit who retired to a corner, red-faced and sweaty, to privately re-read his for-ever-secret pages – found out despite a careful choice of friendly box tickers.

Our presenters (caring and non-judgmental, but amateurs like ourselves) attempted to prepare our random sample by suggesting that we shouldn’t take what we were about to read too seriously because it was only 35% accurate (will Sir Bob, our chairman, continue to pay for such quality?), and we were reassured in advance that counselling would be provided for those who might need it (conducted by the same amateur enthusiasts). Although the value of these two propositions was under and overestimated respectively the typical responses of the workforce demonstrates my first thesis point:

The unsuspecting citizen’s attention will be grabbed only by what he interprets as negative evaluation at the expense of anything more optimistic. He will be dismayed to discover that he is a flawed human being. In the workplace this information (education) will come as an unwelcome (and inappropriate) surprise.

A friend who’s not long retired from a household name oil company after a career in management training told me that this kind of questionnaire-generated profiling formula went into and out of fashion a good few years ago. Significantly, he explained that it was a part of courses for those who aspired to greater things, by definition therefore keen types who put themselves forward for such self-revealing experiences, i.e. self-selectors. This brings me to thesis point two:

You only offer self-awareness [self-actualisation: USA version] revelation to those who have proved to you, beyond reasonable doubt, that they want it.

This has been well understood by those with wisdom since Solomon planned the temple; but enlightening organisations and the great teachers throughout history have had this problem:

“I have some information that may help you.”

“What is it?”

“I won’t tell you (yet).” Sounds suspicious, doesn’t it.

Sanity Today (Common Sense)

We are all different. Nobody is perfect. Nobody is all good or all bad. I will stop using the words good and bad straightaway, they are not useful here. Who we are and how we function is a result of what we start with, and how we have learned to respond to total life experience. It works, obviously; otherwise you wouldn’t, at this moment, be reading Captain Mike’s rambling discourse. We also, to an extent that depends on the individual, have a picture of ourselves. The strengths and weaknesses, skills and ineptitudes that define us are complementary – we have to have both; in fact we develop the strengths because of the weaknesses – adapt and survive.

There are two quite distinct ways of responding to this balanced picture:

1. Accept it as an entity. Put it away, and get on with the job in hand, be it work, play or anything else. (By all means get it out now and then to do a bit of retouching – or bore your friends).

Or (a recipe for problems):

2. Choose the half you like, and decide that there is something wrong with the rest of it.

This brings me to thesis point three:

Option 1. Represents sanity;

Option 2. Represents a distraction: at best a pain-in-the-arse; at worst, personal destruction.

In a nutshell, the problem with inappropriate (even if well-intentioned) psychological help, whether it’s called religion, education, healing, counselling, therapy, training and so on is that an attempt to sell 1. stands a good chance of being received as 2., or a combination of the two. (1. + 2. = Catch 22).

Vulnerability

Some people handle problems better than others. There are few, however, who won’t, at some time or other, have to confront long-term circumstances where there is no clear choice of resolution. This creates anxiety, and is likely to be accompanied by much soul-searching, a casting around for a solution, and something wrong that’s been overlooked (in a different arena this is good CRM). This person is suggestible, vulnerable to ideas that appear to make sense under the difficult circumstances, but which would otherwise not appeal. “Not me,” you might be saying. There’s still time

How the Official Picture-in-Words Might Be Received.

Thanks to Henry VIII’s version of the Reformation and the rational thought that got rid of the Puritans (they went to America) we are not given (on this side of the English-speaking Atlantic) to introspective self-analysis. This freedom from Option 2. as policy (something wrong with you – which must be exposed and worked on) is a valuable aspect of our national heritage (the French share it, though it cost them a revolution. We have much in common apart from the language – and would they spend their money on someone else’s cast-off psychobabble? Pas de chance). Many of us function quite satisfactorily with no picture that we’re aware of, and many will have binned their write-ups instantly. I salute them. Their motto is ‘If it ain’t broke don’t fix it,’ and my 200,000 mile Golf has prospered similarly.

There are those who already have their own detailed picture, frequently taken out, dusted off and studied. They will read the new printed version with fascination and agreement or otherwise, but this is a scholarly interest; a bit obsessive maybe, but they are used to the melodramatic, and know who they are already.

Then there are those who are at risk from this quackery. They are the ones who currently face the future with private misapprehension and seek reasons and answers (unconsciously perhaps). Suitable candidates for help, of course; but the right help. The chances are that time and their friends (we are fortunate in most airlines) will enable answers to be found. The authentic-looking write-up with its balance of good and BAD (that’s all they see, and it doesn’t matter if it’s accurate or not) has the same effect as inexpert counselling or reckless therapy. Our unsuspecting and currently vulnerable victim discovers, for the first time (routine ear-bashing from the trouble-and-strife doesn’t have the same impact) the arresting news that he is a flawed human being. It’s official; and it’s in print. This suggests a permanence that takes away his escape route – optimism; the eternal possibility of change. The root of his problems is given a convincing logic – it’s part of who he is. There’s no escape.

By now you may be thinking ‘We don’t have wimps or nutcases like that working for us.’ Really? It’s not so easy to be sure, and everyone has limits.

Ill-judged, inappropriate (correct or not, it doesn’t matter) identification and discussion of what is perceived as personality problems will both create and reinforce such problems.

This my concluding thesis point and I can’t put it more simply than that. Basically, if you give a potential depressive (all of us except total idiots) a credible reason for their distress (when they are distressed) based on their own operating system you can encourage them into a depressive spiral from which they may be unable to extricate themselves. This may be great for business but it’s not nice, even if you didn’t mean to do it. This is why enlightening personal information should be treated with respect. Maybe the time has come for a bit of old-fashioned in-your-face cynicism. ‘Stuff your stupid questionnaire, I don’t need it.’ This could be true.

75 guineas please, see you next week? Not necessarily.