In my new memoir, Home Boys, I look back on my early career days, counseling Probation youth. Luckily, I kept copious notes at that time and was able to recreate scenes and dialogue for the book with a fair amount of accuracy.
I had many learnings during my years working with Probation boys, and later, Probation girls, not least the fact that boys were different than girls. It sounds obvious and downright silly, I know, but nonetheless true in a myriad of ways.
Let me give you a couple of instances.
Hierarchy behavior
It was a Friday at the California Home for Boys (the setting for Home Boys) and we were short-staffed. My co-therapist and members of the support team were absent, leaving me responsible for marching seventeen boys to the dining hall, 150 yards away.
There was a bit of whispering and rustling as I lined them up in a single file outside the cottage door, but the boys quickly hushed as I gave them my best stern “dad” look. Leading the way, I brought them to the dining hall, like little ducklings trailing their papa duck.
Why did these teens, many of them immature and impulsive, follow my lead? Looking back, I believe it had to do with their sense of hierarchy, their habituation to a pecking order. The boys were used to hierarchy on the playing field and in other groups and activities, both formal and informal.
Now, you may argue that this type of behavior isn’t innate to males but rather a matter of socialization and that may be so. But be that as it may, I saw boys who had been unruly at school and in the home, who had broken rules and laws, comfortable with, and even welcoming of, order and discipline.
Onto the Probation girls
The girls were housed in a small, reconverted hospital complete with dining hall, rec room, dorm rooms, and offices for therapists and staff. Pacific Shores (not its real name) was home to 50 girls: five caseloads of 10 girls each, led by a therapist and support staff.
As part of the program, each caseload therapist, along with a social worker and teen counselor, ran a closing group at day’s end, allowing the girls to check in, process thoughts and feelings, and give feedback to one another, all crammed into a pocket-sized therapist’s office.
Many of the girls were dysregulated and, at times, volatile, emotional and reactive. They could also be funny, chatty and warm, in contrast to the boys who tended to be withdrawn and less emotionally expressive.
It was not unusual – in fact, it was fairly common – for a caseload to riot during closing group, to spill out into the hallway in a frenzy of punches, hair-pulling, and clawing with some of the girls egging on the combatants or piling on top of one another.
‘I’ language
One of my girls, Charmaine, was a vivacious inner city kid who liked clowning around, sometimes acting the teacher’s pet, and at other times, caseload provocateur. She was, in short, a real live wire.
Charmaine and the girls had been learning “I” language as a means of appropriate self-expression. Instead of attacking or demeaning others, they were instructed to share how the other’s actions affected them using such statements as:
“I felt hurt when you turned away from me.”
“I felt sad when you said you didn’t want to be friends anymore.”
“I felt angry when you said nasty words about my mother.”
Convinced that she understood “I” language, Charmaine was determined to try it out on fellow caseload member Denise. The two girls had had an argument earlier in the day when Charmaine saw Denise flirting with a boy she liked at the group home school.
“Are you sure, Charmaine?”
“Yeah, Seth. I got this.”
“’I’ language, right?”
“I know.”
“Start with an ‘I feel’ statement.”
“I know!” she replied, impatiently.
In closing group, Charmaine informed the group that she had something to say to Denise. The girls were quiet and expectant, waiting for Charmaine to speak.
She faced the other girl and in her most sincere and mature voice said, “Denise, I feel … (pause) … that you are a f**king idiot.”
So much for ‘I’ language.
Lessons learned
I learned lesson upon lesson from the teens: how to ask open-ended questions, how to allow the course of therapy to unfold, when to advise my client and when to simply listen and let the other feel heard. The lessons, which came fast and furious, stood me in good stead throughout the following years.
And there were still more lessons to come in my next job: counseling maximum security inmates at a high desert prison north of Los Angeles.
Working with adult inmates
Unlike the therapy with the girls, I rarely saw blood flow during my time working with inmates. However, when violence did erupt, it was brutal and occasionally deadly.
Many of the men on my caseload were serving lengthy sentences, or life without the possibility of parole, for murder or attempted murder. In the course of my five years employed by the State of California, I counseled arsonists, armed robbers, gangbangers, and the occasional hitman.
Simultaneous with the prison work, I was doing a good deal of public speaking for a variety of civic and service organizations.
Speaking at a Saturday morning Rotary breakfast, Margaret, a nicely dressed, middle-aged chiropractor from the Los Angeles suburbs, raised her hand.
“Dr. Kadish, may I ask you a question?”
“Yes, of course. Please.”
“How can you work with such men? I mean, I understand that it’s your profession and that they need help. But how do you personally work with them?”
The meaning of her question was clear to me – how can you not judge and despise these violent offenders?
Just like them
I paused and studied the floor, feeling the eyes of the group on me as they waited for an answer.
After a moment, I replied, “The thing is, Margaret, I’m just like them.”
She gave me a half-smile, not sure if I was kidding. “Really?”
“Absolutely. The only difference between us is that I haven’t acted on my bad thoughts and they have.”
I glanced around the room at the sincere and well-meaning faces.
“Look, which one of us doesn’t have the occasional taboo impulse? Some sexual or violent desire?”
There was a collective murmur and a nodding of heads at this truth.
I told them about the shadow, psychiatrist Carl Jung’s term for the dark, vital and often hidden part of our psyches. Most of us suppress our shadow side, though there are those who indulge in its wishes, sometimes ending up incarcerated or worse.
I pointed out that I was not advocating the release of violent offenders into the community but rather encouraging our understanding of them. Instead of condemning them outright, without pause or reflection, I suggested the attendees look at what created or drove felonious behavior: fear, lust, greed, rage, and control, issues and emotions familiar to all of us.
In that moment of explanation, I realized that I had stumbled on a key learning from the dreary and horrific world of maximum security prison: that I was more like the men behind the bars than I supposed … that with a different upbringing, mindset or life experience, it might have been one of them counseling me as I sat on the dayroom floor of a cellblock, dressed in state blue.
About Dr. Seth C. Kadish
Seth C. Kadish, Psy.D., Director of Group Therapy at PCH in Mar Vista and former Clinical Director of Milestones Ranch Malibu, was a Staff Psychologist at California State Prison, Los Angeles County, counseling maximum-security inmates. Prior to that, Dr. Kadish worked with Probation youth at Penny Lane in North Hills, CA where he was named Clinician of the Year 2001. He is the creator of Pattern Identification and Reduction Therapy™, a clinical approach based on his work in prison, group home, private practice and treatment center and is the author of Pop Your Patterns: The No-Nonsense Way to Change Your Life. In addition, Dr. Kadish has been featured in a variety of radio broadcasts, documentaries and television series including Ryan and Tatum: The O’Neals (Oprah Winfrey Network) and th award-winning documentary, Iceberg Slim.
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